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

What the hell is he talking about?

[Mark Bainter]

The reason why this is a three-step process is to make the updating procedure more reliable and easier to fix. Having survived the nightmare of Gentoo Linux's always fatally broken and never easily fixed portage system, I can tell you that "ease of use" means "difficult to fix" because it doesn't allow the user to control the process.

Ok...I can agree with the underlying concept (ease of use can mean difficult to fix). I don't see this in the portage tree however. Hell, it's all just text files. And "always fatally broken"? Huh? I've been using Gentoo since the early releases and I have not experienced the portage system being "always fatally broken". Hell, you wouldn't even be able to install gentoo if that was true.

How about a little less hyperbole and a little more specific and accurate facts? I've only known of a couple of instances where things got really messed up, and that was because of screwups in releases. And unless you were one of those people who felt the need to update everything all the time every time a new release came out you didn't even get bit by it.

I've seen APT and Portage choke on dependancies with no obvious way to fix them,

Again, huh? If you're having troubles with dependancies within portage not working then you need to get a better understanding of how portage works. You can't blame your ignorance on the tool.

and anyone who has ever tried to use a third-party RPM knows what a disaster that can be.

yes. Emphasis on /can/ be. RPM isn't unusable, but it is unusable for some purposes. And the workstation of any linux user who installs something other than what their distro releases is not it. ;-) And even then, a workstation install can be unpleasant. However, if you're running a typical internet server system redhat's setup can serve just fine. Not only do you not need the latest cutting edge releases, you don't really even want them. Works fine then as long as you stay within the lines.

FreeBSD is, if nothing else, a nice respite from the various GNU/Linux package management systems.

You know. I have nothing against BSD. I'm not an avid lover/user of BSD, but I have installed it on several occaisions and played with it. It's a nice OS. I prefer linux cause I like the faster pace and the more ...gritty...(for lack of a better term) feel to it. People are /doing/ things in linux. People from all walks and of all levels of skill. BSD doesn't (imo) seem to lend itself to that. It's always seemed to me that BSD considered itself destined for the elite, while linux was an OS for the great unwashed as well.

My impression could very well be inaccurate, as it's based mostly on things I read in mailing lists and from people I've met who /are/ avid BSD fans/users. (Few, if any, of which actually meet the "Elite" definition, but they sure felt and acted like they did. Which imo is why BSD tends to attract people like that. But I digress.)

Bottom line, both are great OSes. Why is it that this has to be us /or/ them. Why can't it be both? Is there some unwritten rule that one OS has to be cool and vibrant and the other has to be lame and dying?

I think the writer does BSD a disservice. The article makes it look like BSD defines itself by the shortcomings of some linux distributions (ignoring the fact that most of those "shortcomings" are hot air). BSD has enough positive things in and of itself that I highly doubt it needs to poke holes in linux or try to make linux look bad as a means of promoting itself.

Don't rag on linux and tell me linux sucks so I should use BSD. Tell me what's great about BSD. I already know windows and linux's shortcomings. Tell me what's great about BSD and I'll make my own comparisons, thank you very much.

</soap box>

Re:What the hell is he talking about?

[evilviper]

And "always fatally broken"? Huh? I've been using Gentoo since the early releases and I have not experienced the portage system being "always fatally broken". Hell, you wouldn't even be able to install gentoo if that was true.

I have had plenty of problems with Gentoo myself. It has a lot of weirdness to it that I really hate...

For some programs, I try to install them, but the fact that a few of the newest versions are marked as unstable, prevents it from installing any version at all (without user intervention). I've had lots of cases where, after updating the tree, portage want to install newer versions of all the software I had already installed... Not for any valid reason mind you, but just some weirdness that I manually had to repair.

I had several other problems, not specifially with portage... Like the gentoo version of the kernel being seriously broken. When that happens, starting the multi-hour install process, from just about the beginning, is the only option.

If you're having troubles with dependancies within portage not working then you need to get a better understanding of how portage works. You can't blame your ignorance on the tool.

I don't understand your suggestion. I have come to understand the low-level operation of portage, but I don't see why a normal users should ever have to. portage is supposed to take care of everything, there's pactically nothing to know (assuming it works.) The same goes for BSD ports... They just work.

RPM isn't unusable, but it is unusable for some purposes.

NOTHING should be unstable for any reasonable purpose. It's ridiculous that your standards have been lowered so much that you don't consider a non-functional package system to be an issue.

Gee, sure Windows is unstable, but only for some purposes.

It's always seemed to me that BSD considered itself destined for the elite, while linux was an OS for the great unwashed as well.

No, BSD considers itself to be stable, whereas Linux is for those that don't really need stability and functionality, but are willing to screw around with the system for hours upon hours to get something basic, working again. If elite means that the BSDs don't integrate crappy patches from 12year-olds that don't really work, then I'm proud to use elite BSD...

Don't rag on linux and tell me linux sucks so I should use BSD. Tell me what's great about BSD.

Telling you that something sucks in Linux, and that it doesn't suck in BSD, IS exactly what you want, but it's what you are so unhappy that he's doing in the first place.

Person1: Windows Crashes a lot.
Person2: Don't tell me what's wrong with Windows

Re:What the hell is he talking about?

[Mark Bainter]

Gentoo/Portage:

I'm not saying Gentoo doesn't have it's blemishes. It's certainly not perfect. Nor am I saying it's crazy to say you have problems with it. I just take issue with his hyperbole.

When I say learn portage better, I don't mean read the code necessarily. I mean read the man page. My reading of the article leads me to believe the author really didn't take the time to learn what he was doing with Gentoo, and thus had problems with using it.

Off topic a bit, I'm not sure why you think a broken gentoo kernel means you have to re-install from scratch. That seems like pretty drastic overkill to me. Unless you got a REALLY bad kernel that completely hosed your disk partitions or something.

NOTHING should be unstable for any reasonable purpose. It's ridiculous that your standards have been lowered so much that you don't consider a non-functional package system to be an issue.

I didn't say it was unstable. I said it was unusable. If you operate a system where you install stuff all the time you're going to run into problems on RPM. The dependencies get complicated, and if you install things from source they get worse. I just don't think it's a good fit for certain kinds of users.

However, if you're running say...a webserver in a production environment it's not so bad. You can build it, and update it with new rpms as they come out in the base system and just run apache from source. (or from RPM if you don't need to be more current.)

Everything doesn't have to be a perfect fit for everyone. THAT is ridiculous.

No, BSD considers itself to be stable, whereas Linux is for those that don't really need stability and functionality, but are willing to screw around with the system for hours upon hours to get something basic, working again. If elite means that the BSDs don't integrate crappy patches from 12year-olds that don't really work, then I'm proud to use elite BSD

Please don't misinterpret my words. And don't hurt your own argument by throwing around arguments that can't be substantiated. Linux is a stable platform. I run systems on all kinds of different hardware, including really crappy thrown together hardware, that runs w/out problems for years on end.

That's not to say BSD isn't, I just take issue with your assessment of linux. In addition, I think your exaggerating just a tiny bit on the 12-yo broken patch front. What I mean by 'elitist' is not in regards to the quality of work done but in regards to more superficial qualities of who they are and are not willing to accept. BSD seemed more like a clique to me than linux did. Worse, a clique with a lot of clueless hangers-on who want to be part of the fun. Course, now, years later, linux has taken at least its fair share of those itself.

Telling you that something sucks in Linux, and that it doesn't suck in BSD, IS exactly what you want, but it's what you are so unhappy that he's doing in the first place.

Sorry, if the only way you can say you're great is by talking about how bad someone else sucks, then you aren't great. Greatness stands on its own.

FreeBSD vs Linux

[Robert Frazier]

The supposed FreeBSD vs GNU/linux competition is one of the strangest things I've seen.

I use both. And, the reason for using one rather than the other isn't that crucial. I would be perfectly willing to use either for everything. It is just that I don't have to. So, I use FreeBSD for server stuff with standard hardware, and I use linux when I want to support more up-to-date hardware.

Best wishes,
Bob

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

[cperciva]

The problem with not calling it GNU/Linux is that it's more GNU than Linux.

True, but most distributions are also more Mozilla, X, and several other things, than they are GNU.

Should we be referring to RedHat Mozilla/XFree86/GNOME/emacs/BSD/GNU/Linux?

Re:~/.signature

[00_NOP]

This "my OS is better than your OS" crap is soooo boring.

I could understand it if it was an argument about licences, but it's not.

Basic point is, both *BSD and Linux are children of the free software movement and through the GNU tools they are strongly linked. Every company or user that stops using Win 95/98/NT/XP/whatever and switches to either OS is a victory for those of us who think that the ideal of free software will help build a better world.

If you cannot hack that then piss off and leave the rest of us to get on with it.

Re:FreeBSD is dying

[ducomputergeek]

meanwhile this company call Apple Computer seems to maintain a *BSD. Not only have they produced a quality, easy to use, BSD for the masses, they have commerical software & hardware vendors supporting the platform.

I am sorry, but I don't see any Dreamweaver or Photoshop running on Linux. The only major application that I have seen support Linux has been Maya.

Last printer I bought came packaged with OS X drivers, no Linux drivers packaged with them.

The number of apple units shipping is actully increasing, especially their powerbook line. The more developer confences I go to for PHP and PERL, the more iBooks and Powerbooks I see in the crowd.

So to say BSD is dead...

Re:A very defensive article

[sirket]

Does this mean you can't set a default OS to load? You can't set a default timeout? Seems odd to me, and needs more explanation for that comment.

What the poster should have written, is that the bootloader does not _need_ to be manually configured. By editing /etc/loader.conf, you can specify default OS, boot loader timeouts, and anything else your heart desires.

As for the article, the author is clearly inexperienced. He used the deprecated kernel compile process instead of the current system.

Finally, at the end, there's the bit about 'ee' beint better than 'vi', but no discussion about what 'ee' is or why it is better than a very standard editor that's on every Unix in the world.

ee stands for easy editor and it is exactly that. A very simple and straight forward editor for a novice sysadmin not unlike pico, although even easier. It is not modal. The author only meant it would be easier for a novice than jumping into vi and on that I agree. As a long time vi person, however, I could never use ee. It drives me crazy.

At least it was enough for me to decide that FreeBSD isn't for me. I'm lazy, I admit it. I do certain things often enough that I want them to be simple. I prefer 'make xconfig' over manually editing a file to customize my kernel.

This is a silly thing to say. You have never experienced the beauty and simplicity that is the FreeBSD kernel compile. It takes far less time for me to edit the GENERIC kernel config file to my liking than it does to run through make menuconfig. And once I have the file, I never need to re-run make menuconfig. The config file is built and I just build updated kernels with it.

I really hope you do not make all your OS decisions based on the ramblings of an unknown author on the Internet. I have used Linux and FreeBSD extensively for years (as well as Solaris, HP/UX, IRIX, AIX, and SUN/OS when it was still around) and I can honestly say I believe sysadmin to be a LOT easier under FreeBSD. If you are lazy, then you are doing yourself a disservice by not giving FreeBSD a serious chance.

I prefer a one-step package management command to a multi-step one.

FreeBSD has a one-step, a menu-based, and a src based multi-step package install. All of these are tied into the same package system for easy management. You really should give FreeBSD a try before deciding you don't like it.

But for a desktop system, Linux seems to be the better choice for me.

Here I would likely agree simply because there are more AV apps available for Linux.

-sirket