FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE Reviewed

ValourX writes "Here's a full review of FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE complete with screen shots, a short comparison with GNU/Linux, and some notes on migrating to FreeBSD from Windows and GNU/Linux."

Comments

FreeBSD faster than Gentoo?

[AntiOrganic]

FreeBSD handles resources more efficiently than GNU/Linux to the point that I can compile two programs at once, listen to MP3s and work on my website all at the same time without any significant slowdown. On the same computer using Gentoo or RedHat with either the 2.4 or 2.6 kernel, the system slows to a crawl under the same conditions. And comparing the speed and efficiency of FreeBSD to Windows is like comparing a cheetah to an armadillo.

This is a massive fallacy if ever I've heard one. On my Gentoo system, a 1.3 GHz Duron (which far from even mid-end these days), I'm running Gnome 2.4 (bloated as it is), chatting with friends in Gaim, compiling kde-libs/k3b and The Gimp in my F1/F2 terminals, browsing the Web in Firebird, reading email in Evolution, while another xnested Gnome session sits in the background burning a CD image from an NFS mount (too lazy to add my user to the cd-recording group, sue me) in gcombust and a Windows server at work defragments in tsclient. Thanks to the preemptive kernel scheduler patch which Gentoo distributes in their genkernel, this system is still entirely responsive.

Besides, I think Gentoo's ports system is more robust than BSD's.

Re:Not a good release to review.

[TheRaven64]

Well, on FreeBSD, you'd type

portinstall usa-president

It would then automatically download the required dependencies (such as the corporate/oil), compile them, and install them. Actually, you would be more likely to use the government/usa-gov meta-port, which is empty, but depends on government/usa-senate, government/usa-congress, and government/usa-president. Unfortunatelly this would not fail, since government/usa-gov is currently marked as BROKEN, so you'd have to wait until someone released a patch.

Re:The author is a bit too GNU-centric in his acco

[RLiegh]

And you're a known BSD zealout with the credibility of an enron executive. WTF is your point, moron?

Re:They Warned You...

[phoenix_rizzen]

Wow, could there be a bigger troll out there??

Packages may or may not be broken, I never use them.

However, KDE, GNOME, and Mozilla all compile just fine on 5.1-RELEASE. Been using 5.x on this here laptop since 5.0-RELEASE without any problems with apps. Same with Java. Have the native jdk 1.3.1 running here with Konqueror, Firebird, and Opera.

I'd recommend you use something a little simpler, like maybe Windows 3.1. You really don't seem to be able to handle anything more advanced than that.

Re:The author is a bit too GNU-centric in his acco

[phoenix_rizzen]

Are you stupid?? There are BSD versions of all the standard Unix utilities. Have been ever since the release of 4.4BSD-Lite.

Over the years, several of the BSD utilities in Free/Net/OpenBSD were replaced with their GNU counterparts due to increased speed or functionality. Now, most of these are being replaced again with BSD equivalents. NetBSD and OpenBSD have replaced almost everything except GCC in their latest releases. And there are projects underway to do the same in FreeBSD.

Get a clue.

Re:The author is a bit too GNU-centric in his acco

[zangdesign]

Wow, I see the doctor gave you an extra supply of asshole pills. I was sincerely unaware that there were non-GNU system utils out there SINCE NO ONE EVER FREAKIN' MENTIONS THEM! So stuff your snotty attitude back up your ass where you pulled it out from and try some decaf once in a while, shithead.