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FreeBSD 4.9-BETA i386 ISO With Packages Available
Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engg. Team's Murray Stokely has put together a FreeBSD 4.9-BETA ISO image for i386 with the latest package build provided by portmgr@. If you haven't yet given 4.9PRE a try, hopefully this will encourage you to do so!"
My, what a lovely Fresh Pond I have.
It is common knowledge that *BSD is dying, that ever hapless *BSD is mired in an irrecoverable and mortifying tangle of fatal trouble. It is perhaps anybody's guess as to which *BSD is the worst off of an admittedly suffering *BSD community. The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The loss of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of BSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major marketing surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among hobbyist dilettante dabblers. In truth, for all practical purposes *BSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking.
Fact: *BSD is dying
[Ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. I
1. You can not play games on it.
2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
4. There is no support available for it.
5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
7. You have to compile everything and know C.
8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
10.It is dying.
BSD commissars are always spouting some kind of socialist gobbledygook. The free market said "No! we don't want BSD!" "We don't want to give away our work with no recompense!"
Take your BSD socialism and shove it up where the sun don't shine!!!
Cast:
Mr. Praline: John Cleese
Shop Owner: Michael Palin
A customer enters an operating system shop.
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint. (The owner does not respond.)
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss?
Owner: What do you mean "miss"?
Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
Owner: We're closin' for lunch.
Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this operating system what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, *BSD...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?
Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
Owner: No, no, it's uh,...it's resting.
Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead operating system when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Owner: No no it's not dead, it's, it's restin'! Remarkable OS, *BSD, idn'it, ay? Beautiful kernel!
Mr. Praline: The kernel don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
Owner: Nononono, no, no! It's resting!
Mr. Praline: All right then, if it's restin', I'll wake it up! (bashes at the keyboard) 'Ello, Mister *BSD! I've got a lovely fresh kernel update for you if you show...
(owner hits the keys)
Owner: There, it spewed some debug output to the command line!
Mr. Praline: No, it didn't, that was you hitting the keys!
Owner: I never!!
Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Owner: I never, never did anything...
Mr. Praline: (yelling and typing into the console repeatedly) 'ELLO COMMAND PROMPT!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock cron job!
(Rips out hard drive from computer case and thumps it on the counter. Shoves it back inside the case and reboots the system - blank screen.)
Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead operating system.
Owner: No, no.....No, it's stunned!
Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
Owner: Yeah! You stunned it, just as it was finishing an I/O task! *BSD stuns easily, major.
Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That operating system is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of responsiveness was due to it bein' in the process of recompiling itself after a particularly comprehensive code update.
Owner: Well, it's...it's, ah...probably pining for some dilettante dabbling.
Mr. Praline: PININ' for some DILETTANTE DABBLING?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did it fall flat on its back the moment I started Emacs?
Owner: *BSD prefers swapping everything out to the hard drive! Remarkable variant, id'nit, squire? Lovely kernel!
Mr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining the system when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been printing any text at all to the screen was because of all the WORRYING COMPILER WARNINGS encountered while it was being rebuilt.
(pause)
Owner: Well, o'course it was spitting out those warnings! If I hadn't updated the kernel with an unstable development build, you might have had your FTP server compromised [slashdot.org], and VOOM! Bye bye to your business.
Mr. Praline: "Server"?!? Mate, this OS wouldn't "serve" if you put four million volts through it! It's bleedin' demised!
Owner: No no! It's pining!
Mr. Praline: It's not pinin'! It's passed on! This OS is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! [lemis.com] It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. All major marketing surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is extremely sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among hobbyist dilettante dabblers. In truth, for all practical purposes *BSD is already dead. It is a dead man walkin
...going to download and test it right now!!!! FreeBSD rox. 30% of all webservers run FreeBSD and the numbers are going up woooooooooo!!!!!!
Check my site: http://pixel.pagina.nl
A word to the wise . . .
okay this is a little obscure but is anyone having problems with pxeboot and Soekris 4501 boards? I can only get the little guy to boot with 4.8-RELEASE, everything after including 4.9-PRE is not working for me. I've compiled it with the right flags and everything.
I already found & installed this gem last night.
The only problem that I had is that at the beginning of the install, an error was reported that the FireWire driver couldn't load. That was okay with me, since I have no FireWire hardware in the box.
Install, configuration, pkg_add of KDE & Mozilla all went smoothly on a stock Dell PowerEdge 400SC.
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
"You see, even though I have never contributed code to any BSD project, I thought it was my duty to be a big asshole to others which don't use the OS I do, because it just 0wnz.", said one FreeBSD user. "Now that I know it sux0rs, though, I have to go find something else to be an asshole about."
One notorious OpenBSD fanatic known as WideOpen, told reporters, "I have to kill myself. This isn't how it was supposed to happen. My BSD has always been the best, and shouting that opinion in other people's faces at every chance I got has been my only hobby. It was all I ever did. It was what got me out of bed in the morning. Now I have to die. I will jam my bedpost up my ass until I hit my brain. It is the only way to go: BSD style."
In the volatile world of operating systems anything can happen. "At least we don't sux0r as much as Windows users", BigAzz, a relatively well-known NetBSD user said. "Screaming things in people's faces is my calling. Now I need to scream that BSD sux0rs. What a sad world. At least I won't kill myself like those uber-asshole OpenBSD guys. They are just way over the top. Or were, at least."
Nobody knows for sure what the future holds for the state of operating systems, but with Netcraft confirming the sux0r status, *BSD users all over the world will have to stick something else up their asses from now on or risk looking even more gay than they used to.
1. You can't play games on your washing machine, either, but a washing machine is hard to beat when the job at hand is to clean your clothing and bedding.
2. If *BSD had a built in vibrator your grandma couldn't use that, either.
3. The GUI comes with the desktop and with the various applications. Are you down on the engine of your automobile because it has no pretty paint job or a comfortable place to sit?
4. Do you even take enough responsibility in your life to put on your underwear with the tags in the back?
5. Lifesavers also come in various colors; what is your problem with such difficult concepts as that?
6. You're an incredibly proud person for being such a bad liar and idiot.
7. I have to wonder if you know what compiling is.
8. Such as? (Please state only the state of the art hardware that you have, please, assuming that you have any.)
9. What part of binary Linux compatibility do you not understand? Which part of the X Window System is compatible with GNU/Linux but is not compatible with *BSD? Use the space at the end of this line to answer, even if it's way more space than you need.
10. Except for your brain, which you have already largely shut down, your body is already dying at a much faster rate than *BSD is.
John Water / Crypto-advisor.com
I'm running 4.8R here and loving it. I have every intention of putting 4.9 on when it becomes official, though I fear that PAE and ACPI might make it a little buggy. If enough people testify that it rocks like its older counterpart does, then 4.9 here I come!
Very nice
hehehe, reminds me of an old joke:
What do timothy and FreeBSD have in common?
They are both dying (Timothy has AIDS.)
This just in homosexuality among *BSD users has skyrocketed. The cause is yet to be determined, however most sources indicate that it has something to do with *BSD users comforting each other in an strickly unusual way, to be quite a frank about it, gay sex. On Monday *BSD was giving a sad prognosis, it was dying. It probably won't have much longer to live. So when news broke out hell broke loose. Jimmy an avid *BSD user had this to say:
"When I heard this news I was utterly devastated, so I went to my friend Darl, who is also a *BSD user. He didn't yet know of the unfortunate, and he didn't take it well. He broke down in tears, this is the second blow to him in a week, he found out that he contracted AIDS from a Black Prostitute on the street one day. I said to Darl, well you know something *BSD is dying well I'm going with it, I pulled down my pants and bent over, Darl took care of the rest. I don't know if I have yet to get AIDS, but we have gay anal sex everyday, without and lubricant for maximum ripage. The *BSD mailing list I joined reports the samething happening among the other *BSD users. We are all planning on having one massive gay orgy on Saturday, so if you want to go out and be with *BSD up in heaven, come join us."
Well you've heard it folks from a true *BSD user. They have all turned gay because of these unfortuante happenings.
FACT: *BSD users are FAGGOTS!