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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."
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here
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
FreeBSD always was one of the more favorite OS's for me to play with. Always strong, never unresponsive, even back in the day it always stood up for being an honest and robust system. Thanks to it's ports system, it was a breeze to keep going. I guess that's why I still keep my old FreeBSD 3.0 CD around here, for memories.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
FreeBSD: Are you guys coming or what?
Best Slashdot comment ever
sweet jesus, couldn't they get a decent screenshot or post a warning. Now I need to wash my eyes. With chlorine.
I really like FreeBSD. I seem to be spoiled though using such *bleeding edge* apps (read: firebird/latest gaim/gnome2.4 etc) like i do with linux. Last time i checked out 5.0-CURRENT (Apr, iirc) it had older Apps than even the Stable release. I CVSupped my ports and found some of them broken, and also had some troubles installing things just from source code (bleeding edge problem, not Fbsd problem admittedly).
:)
In the last few days, looking at the packages in the 5.1 Release it looks like things have been updated some, so maybe i'll check it out this weekend.
However, i will say that aside from X apps and "non-essential" package version availability and things that the actual FreeBSD system is a pure joy to use. From documentation, to straight-forwardness to the beautiful console font and non-blinking cursor, i love FreeBSD!
do() || do_not();
The screen shots must have been carried off on a candle truck. I don't see them.
- EASY:Capable of being accomplished or acquired with ease; posing no difficulty
- SIMPLE:Having or composed of only one thing, element, or part
Not exactly alike, but they are synonyms. Maybe it is saying that keeping FreeBSD up to date is not simple, but FreeBSD is efficient? Or maybe understanding how to keep FreeBSD up to date is difficult, but actually doing it is easy?Not only does he persist in calling Linux "GNU/Linux" (Stallman's attempt to hijack Linus' bandwagon) and use the term "Free Software" (with caps, indicating a bias), but he knocks FreeBSD for what is one of its greatest strengths: its truly free and ethical licensing. It'd be nice to see a review that lacks this strong bias.
http://saveie6.com/
Torrents for the two CDs and mini-install.
...is they ALL look like default crap! Man this one looks like it was taken from a 1999 default installation of Storm Linux!
Pretty it up, make it look nice, put some makeup on it, THEN and ONLY then send it off on it's first official date to properly get banged in the back seat of a make believe car by a FreeBSD geek.
What do you want a screenshot of? KDE? Gnome? There's nothing special about a screenshot of any graphical environment of FreeBSD. It's the same as Linux.
Nice review. Non-FreeBSD users can get a feel for where FreeBSD is in the FreeBSD 5.1 i386 Release Notes
Ciaran O'Riordan
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I don't get this statement. Linux is not for newbies either.
.....
And one might argue that FreeBSD is easier to use because documentation is more focused.
Finding documentation on linux is a nightmare: Is it Debian or Suse maybe Rad Hat. Well, which version of Redhat do you have? 7? 8? 9? Or well RPM is broke on 8 you need to upgrade your RPMs. You can't because RPMs are broke. Well, download the source and compile up your RPM
I won't disagree that Linux is more suited for the Desktop than freebsd, but that is because linux has wider variety of support and apps, not because it is any easier.
People go Linux, get some experience, wake up, and go to BSD.
Linux is there simply as a transition phase from Windows.
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
Who's the crack-head that modded this 'Insightful'?
I mod all 'Offtopic' 'Redundant' 'Flamebait' and 'Troll' as unfair. Read the goddamn guidelines.
And one might argue that FreeBSD is easier to use because documentation is more focused.
As both a Linux and FreeBSD user i will say that I actually find FreeBSD to be easier to use. Even to a n00b. A lot of it is that the documentation is beautiful, but a lot of it also is that FreeBSD is "simpler" and "cleaner". Linux seems a little more crufty and complicated.
I still like them both though, and i abhor Windows and MacOS (yes even X).
do() || do_not();
Does it include Java? I see the lack of Java on FreeBSD has been a major oversight by the core FreeBSD team. The primary focus of FreeBSD has been the server-side and these days Java is a big part of what makes a server useful. Recently a binary distribution of Java 1.3.1 was released for FreeBSD, but I see no mention of it with the 5.1 distribution.
What is the status of Java on FreeBSD? Should I just switch over to MacOS X or Linux if I want a current Java runtime? Questions about Java have come up for the last several releases and so far I have not it addressed by the FreeBSD team.
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
Updating is "not simple, but it is easy"
In addition FreeBSD is not convoluted, but it is complicated. It is not slow, but it is lethargic. Lastly, it is not painful, but it is agonizing.
--- What?
I look at the difference this way. Let's say you're being punished in school, and you have to write out, "I will not play God." 1,000 times on the chalkboard.
:)
This is not easy, but is IS simple. As in, not complex.
Or, you could be writing some bit of RegEx code to do some pattern-matching. Some would say this is complex, though easy. (miss a character, you're farked)
That's why I see the two words as quite different.
Apparently some moderators have yet to upgrade to 'Sarcasm 0.94a'.
swaret --upgrade Sarcasm
Screenshots for FreeBSD:
/]#
/]# lynx slashdot.org
/]# rm -rf /
1)
[root@localhost
2)
[root@localhost
3)
[root@localhost
4)
Invent your own screenshot for *nix!!!
I got no sig, deal with it!!!
Those frisky BSD users, always giving linux a hard time. Maybe they should just remove linux compatibility if the GPL is so evil. :P
funny link
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
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.
If anything, I'd say he's biased the other way, with his continuous digs at "that other OS", where all the package systems are crap and the developers are a bunch of wild hooligans who spew untested and broken code into the kernel.
Who cares if no-ine else uses the operating system you choose? This is freakin' slashdot. If we all just chose the most popular os all the freakin time, no one would ever have chosen Linux, and Windows will always be #1. Everyone who debates the *BSD linux by saying that BSD is dying is avoiding the issue. Why not come up with a better argument?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I find it interesting how the so-called "experts" on Slashdot judge an entire Operating System by a screenshot of a window manager that incidentally is not part of said Operating System.
You could turn that around and say Linux is crap, because GNOME and KDE look too much like Windows...
Sheesh, people, get your facts straight.
WTF? They don't support strongARM?!!! Crap, I might as well run winders!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Linux is still the ultimate free software desktop OS though. FreeBSD is good for hackers of all ages and servers, but definately not a desktop OS for newbies...
Well, Mac OS-X has done an admirable job of making FreeBSD a desktop OS for newbies. Either a *BSD or Linux can be vastly preferable to Windows from my perspective - I'm usually the informal friends-and-family "help me" call recipient. I now have two problem users' boxes converted over to Linux. They use the system for email and "tha interweb'. I have root, they don't...so, they are very limited in how they can screw up their systems, and I can admin it from home.
Either way, I'm glad to see 5.1 is out, and may try it out at some point. Need to build a firewall box, seems like the logical choice.
Slightly off topic, but...does anybody know off hand if any of the BSD's support parallel port CD-RWs? I have an older laptop that doesn't have a CD-I managed to shoehorn a small Linux distro on but I'd like to look at using a BSD. Older desktops always seemed to be a bit snappier under BSD than Linux, and the only thing holding me back is whether or not my Microsolutions parallel port CD-RW would be supported.
Introduction
There are several players in the Unix world, but few are as complete and refined as FreeBSD. It installs easily, scales well, updates without a hassle and holds Netcraft records for uptime. It's also set and beaten several bandwidth records in its ten-year history. I say ten years, but really BSD dates back to 1978 when some programmers at UC Berkeley began making their own custom Unix distributions based on the original AT&T UNIX code. That makes FreeBSD and other BSD variants the oldest non-proprietary Unix operating systems still in use (GNU started in 1983 and Linux started in 1991). FreeBSD shed all of its proprietary UNIX code back in the 80s, so it is neither a trademarked UNIX nor is it directly related to System V or any other true UNIX. Age has given it a certain maturity and quality that few other operating systems possess. Read on to see what advantages FreeBSD offers.
The License
You'd be hard pressed to find a license less restrictive than the BSD License. Basically it says two things: that anyone redistributing the software must include all copyright notices and the appropriate license agreements, and that the FreeBSD Project and all contributors to the project may not be held liable for the software if problems should arise with it. It places no limitations on what you can do with the code; that means that it's Free Software. You can make unlimited copies of it, install it on any number of machines, give it to all of your friends and family, modify it in any way that you see fit, and even sell it if you want.
Purchase a TextAd
The Hero, by Jem Matzan
Critically acclaimed adventure fantasy novel.
Overview
There are two main editions of FreeBSD: the development version (which includes STABLE and CURRENT), and the more stable version with more mature code, called RELEASE. There are two parts to RELEASE: the new technology release (which is, as of this writing, at version 5.1) and the production release (which is, as of this writing, at 4.8). If you have newer hardware (made within the past 18 months) and you're interested in using FreeBSD for leisure or for regular desktop use, 5.1-RELEASE is likely to be your best choice because of its expanded hardware support. The development team strongly cautions 5.1 users that there could be possibly damaging bugs in the 5.1-CURRENT code, but I've found that this statement is more or less an exaggeration meant to indemnify the programmers in case something bad happens.
So just how risky is the CURRENT branch? Not very, but it is possible to have some problems from time to time if you're always using the latest CVS code. If you're well-versed in Unix you won't have to worry about it much; I have run into a few problems with 5.1-CURRENT that were caused by bugs in the kernel code, but there were none that I was unable to fix (or work around until a fix was released) on my own. I did not test any version prior to 5.1-RELEASE for this review, so I can't comment on the quality of 4.8-RELEASE or compare it to 5.1-RELEASE in any respect other than hardware compatibility.
Entwined with the ports tree (which is used to download and install programs from source) is the package system: a collection of precompiled programs for FreeBSD and other binary-compatible OSes. There is nothing stopping you from installing non-ported programs from source code, or from installing programs via a CDROM or other media, but for the most part you'll be using the ports or package systems to install new programs in FreeBSD. Both the package system and the ports tree can be updated easily by using the cvsup program to retrieve the latest modifications, patches and versions. Some applications cannot be installed as precompiled packages, binaries don't allow you to include special compile-time options, and some packages can be a little out of date, so in addition to the package system there is also the ports tree. Each port in the tree is stored in its own separate directory, categorized by type and listed in
I try to be fu
RMS is going to shit a brick when he catches wind of this article's author repeatedly referring to FreeBSD as "Free Software". And even has a hyperlink, in one of these instances, pointing to GNU.org.
Purposeful trolling by the author?
I've never had the honour (pain?) of being directly slashdotted, but I seem to be getting an indirect slashdotting. From the link in the middle of the article (to a very handy utility in development for performing binary security updates) I'm seeing a couple visitors per second.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
OK, so I'm new to all this BSD stuff. Skimming the page for the promised screenies I saw this image that says "WARNING: kernel contains GPL contaminated ext2fs filesystem." Am I missing something? Is this that "BSD is free-er than thou" I've heard about?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Not surprisingly, those are the same reasons Windows is more suitable for "the desktop" than Linux is.
(Although my particular desktop is Linux...*shrug!*)
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
WINDOWS has a text based install...at least the first half of it...
Do you think a Windows XPer or Mac OS 9er would know what the hell a man page is? BSD by default has a command line interface. That's enough to scare away 90% of windows users. Mandrake is a much better newbie OS than BSD.
I love BSD, but I wouldn't put it on my grans computer if she asked for a free software operating system (I doubt she would)
Why the author thinks web fora are better than mailing list is a mistery to me. None of the reasons he gave sticks, and I actually find them a pain. With a mailing list I can always use Gmane to get a nice news interface!
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
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>
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
Exactly. GNU/Linux is about politics. *BSD is about software. I prefer to have my computer running software than politics.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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
The problem with not calling it GNU/Linux is that it's more GNU than Linux. Want to copy a file with cp? That's a GNU program. Like bash? It's GNU. Text editing with emacs? GNU.
:)
Of course, you couldn't do any of that without a kernel, which is what Linux is. So both parts are equally important. Without GNU, Linux would be behind... without Linux, GNU wouldn't be useful to anyone
My other car is first.
a "few all-powerful decision-makers" in linux are Linus himself and a dozen or so others... how is this different? i'm not trying to start a flame, just wondering how this is different.
Did I mention that all of these Linux apps are in the ports collection, so installing them was as simple as typing portinstall linux-opera, or whatever?
My FreeBSD workstation has a cron job which runs each evening, syncs the ports tree with the latest version and updates everything that's out of date, so when I go in to work in the mornings I always have the latest versions of software.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
so many Linux users getting bent out of shape that "FreeBSD users are insulting Linux" or some shit.
I didn't read any "insulting Linux" comments in the article.. maybe some things addressing shortcomings of Linux, but nothing that would really be "insulting".
Just let us use our OS in peace. Everyone seems to hate it when Windows users say things like "Linux? Why would you use THAT?", but it's somehow okay to say the same thing to *BSD users?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Except that GNU also runs on the Hurd and NetBSD kernels. In theory it could run on almost any other UNIX-like kernel with a C compiler (for example any of the gcc target platforms).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
The last time I compiled 5.1-CURRENT (a couple of days ago) the system paniced on boot. Maybe we should wait until 5.2...
I'm running 4/8 after a similar experience with 5.1.
Remember, if you run 5.1, they warned you might have problems. That's why 4.8 is still recommended for production use.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
That's only if you start the install from the bootable CD. Most people I've worked with (as a home/small-business computing consultant) start their installs from Windows.
No one knows what a man page is until someone tells them, even a Unix guru.
Meanwhile, Linux defaults to the command line, too. Xfree86 is identical on both systems.
But, in any case, FreeBSD is blessedly free of the politics that inflict Linux and doesn't care if a Windows user knows what a man page is.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Dunno about some of us, but it seems quite odd that there's smp support, but some of the machines that support it (ultra2's - yes, some people run these amazingly) sure could use builtin scsi support. It's nice to have smp, but netbooting isnt an option for some of us just for that benefit.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
So, how would one compile politics???
/tmp/ccDVSvBk.o: In function `provide_leadership' /tmp/ccDVSvBk.o(.text+0xb3): undefined reference to `brain_stem'
Washington@politics]$ gcc -Wall -o president dubya.c
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
The only thing you're doing by not offering code to BSD is depriving BSD users, assuming your code was accepted. (Now, there's a big distinction from Linux: Code isn't accepted into FreeBSD unless it's reviewed and approved. Thanks to the GPL, any yahoo can write something and foist it off on users.)
If someone's GPL's code evers does something really innovative, then it's time to worry about Microsoft copying it.
If nothing else, remember that you have BSD to thank for tcp/ip and, hence, the Internet.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
With a linux distro like mandrake everything is already done and I just download a new set of iso's to upgrade.
But woe to anyone who wanted to setup a server with it. I like the config files of FreeBSD much better then Linux. They are simple RC os sh scripts that are well commented and designed to be edited. FreeBSD is a real Unix because of it. Where its expected that everything is a file.
In redhat linux
So its a trade off.
http://saveie6.com/
Chances are for his XFree86 problems, XFree86 4.3.0 as far as I know has a driver for Xfree86, and if it doesn't, it's not that hard to get at least accelerated 2d working. It involves compiling Xfree86 from CVS, which isn't hard at all. His kernel config file has several options in it which WILL slow down his system significantly. His problems with the mailing list are expected, mainly because the questions he's asked have been answered several times in several places.
This quote is true though "The initial learning curve can be discouraging, but once you learn and get used to FreeBSD, all other operating systems seem slow, weak and brittle."
Definitely true.
It isn't too much of a leap to assume you don't know what you are talking about. Where's your evidence?
I've switched from Linux to FreeBSD. Here's why:
1) It's a community populated by adults, not rabid cheerleading adolescents who get turned on by a fight between OS just like their fathers got turned on by a fight between Camaros and Mustangs.
2) The entire OS is under someone's review and control. In Linux, a few people people worry about the kernel, but, after than, it's up for grabs.
3). No, repeat, no support and configuration nightmares due to arbitrary differences between distributions.
4) A great ports collection that is kept current. (Its imitator, in Gentoo, always broke within the first week or so after I installed the base system.)
5. See the first item about adults.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Was fairly decent overall. He seems to hit most of the high points and picks up on some of the problems FreeBSD has (like the third-party, end-user hardware support not being stellar). However, I disagree with his railing on other packaging systems...Ok, granted, RPM has been the bane of my existence a few times, but I've never really had any major problems with apt or portage.
The author didn't really mention how "modular" FreeBSD is. Almost anything that's in the base system (sendmail, bind8, OpenSSH, etc.) can be "turned off" (in /etc/rc.conf) in the base system (or not built at all with options in /etc/make.conf) and alternatives from the ports system can be used. Don't like sendmail? I don't see why not, but fine, you can run qmail, postfix or whatever MTA you want.
I also disagree with most of the "Developer Recommendations" at the end of the article. Mailing lists are good; don't bog down the hardware with forums when anyone with half a brain can Google for information on the lists. Hardware support? Contact your vendors! Kernel options? Once you learn where they are, you're set. Don't put everything under the Sun in the GENERIC kernel config; you're just going to obfuscate the options most everyday users will want. As far as putting a commented-out IPFW line in the kernel, why IPFW? Personally I prefer IPF; limiting the choices by "endorsing" IPFW is not a good thing.
I do agree with the author on his last two recommendations. X configuration should be done outside /stand/sysinstall and send-pr is rather obtuse for most people to use.
I'm still not sure why people are so hot to review 5.x releases without a -STABLE branch being around. Once there's a -STABLE, then and only then can you really get a true picture of how 5.x is going to be due to stabilization of features, etc.
FreeBSD 4.8 is more stable than 4.7. And 4.9 will likely be more stable than 4.8.
I'm sure 5.1 is more stable than 5.0 but 5.1 is not intended to be more stable than the 4.x series (yet), and nobody working on it claims that it is. That's why it's called a "new technology" release. And 4.8 is called the "production" release. That's also why I run 4.8 on my servers at work, but will consider putting 5.1 on my home PC.
FreeBSD 5.x will eventually be better and more stable than the 4.x series, maybe at 5.2, maybe later. Until then, I'm sure the FreeBSD project will continue to recommend all over the place the 4.x series to anyone who needs an absolutely rock-solid release:
FreeBSD 5.X marks the first new major version of FreeBSD in over two years. Besides a number of new features, it also contains a number of major developments in the underlying system architecture. Along with these advances, however, comes a system that incorporates a tremendous amount of new and not-widely-tested code. Compared to the existing line of 4.X releases, the first few 5.X releases may have regressions in areas of stability, performance, and occasionally functionality.
For these reasons, the Release Engineering Team specifically discourages users from updating from older FreeBSD releases to 5.1-RELEASE unless they are aware of (and prepared to deal with) possible regressions in the newer releases. Specifically, for more conservative users, we recommend running 4.X releases (such as 4.8-RELEASE) for the near-term future. We feel that such users are probably best served by upgrading to 5.X only after a 5-STABLE development branch has been created; this may be around the time of 5.2-RELEASE.
That's from the Early Adopter's Guide if you would like to learn what the actual release cycle for FreeBSD is, and which versions are recommended for whom.
It would be nice to read some interesting comments about a FreeBSD article occassionally, rather than the endless "FreeBSD is dying" and "I installed FreeBSD 5.0 and it crashed a lot" drivel. Those are literally about the only comments posted under every FreeBSD article on Slashdot.
FreeBSD isn't Linux. Some things about FreeBSD are different than Linux. FreeBSD doesn't use Linux version numbers and schemes; it uses FreeBSD version numbers and schemes. Some releases of FreeBSD are extremely stable. Some are development versions and have bugs and crash. Figure out which one you need and use it. Or don't. I don't care. I think it's a great, well organized, rock-solid OS and I use it on my servers because I think those characteristics are important. I could care less if Linux is more popular than FreeBSD. My servers aren't in high school, for gods sake, trying to get a prom date.
I think Linux is also a great OS, although not as good as FreeBSD in my humble opinion. If you think Linux meets your needs beter, use it. But don't download the latest CVS version of the latest experimental version of FreeBSD, expect it to be crash proof, and then go rip on BSD on Slashdot. For that, I stick my tongue out at you, sir. Phtttttt.
FreeBSD still has a text based install that would scare away any normal user and anybody with an MSCE.
X based install blow. I dont need a pretty 32bit 1024x768 logo and graphics to install an os. I want to do it quickly. I would also prefer that the installer work with older hardware and not require 32 or 64mb of ram. FreeBSD runs just fine as a httpd/router/firewall/dhcpd on my P75 box w/ 16mb ram.
I'm trying to grab the iso on dialup (no broadband around these parts)and I ^C'ed it so I could load slashdot.
At any rate, I should have it, and my review, sometime around thanksgiving.
The operating system is Linux. Nothing from the shell on up is part of the OS. Sure, a Linux distro is going to have scads of GNU software on it, but very little, if any, GNU software is at the OS level.
Thanks to Bill Gates, people now think that the browser is part of the OS. Thanks to RMS, people who would otherwise know better think that text editors and compilers are as well.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
You didn't read very carefully, The DRI driver will NOT work for anything over lower 9000's radeons. It won't work for 9500 or above. That means no 3d if you have a modern card.
I find that Windows XP supports a wider range of applications
Like Blaster, Nimda and Code Red? Despite numerous posts to freebsd-questions I still can't get that shit to run correctly on my BSD box.
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...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Do you think a Windows XPer or Mac OS 9er would know what the hell a man page is? BSD by default has a command line interface. That's enough to scare away 90% of windows users. Mandrake is a much better newbie OS than BSD.
/. posting comments about UNIX-like OSes.
/etc or a dotfile in the user directory as opposed to stepping through some GUI Wizard or configuration utility.
I guess they (WinXP/Macos9 users)probably wouldn't. Now that you mention it, the OS X users that keep rubbing it into my face that they are "Hardcore UNIX users with a High-End UNIX Server on the desktop" really don't either. But i guess we could also (to their credit?) say that they're playing in a different market segment than we are. As far as Mandrake, i haven't messed with it in a long, long time, so i don't know if it's 100% "Defanged" (read: CLI-Free) yet. I think you still have to open a terminal emulator and start typing to do some things. It's not like OS X or WinXP where the user *never* has to see a CLI. But then, Linux and the *BSDs can do a bunch of tricks that WinXP and even OS X can't.
Or maybe i'm just not the typical n00b. I was horrified by win95 (specifically the GUI) when i first encountered it (my prev. computing experience was 1980's with the C= +/4).
Thenagain, i imagine i'm not completely alone in this. CLIs scare away everyone's grandma and girlfriend, but there's always that 10% of the population that eventually gravitate towards a linux or a *bsd type OS. Our brains are just wired this way, whether we like it or not. Lo and Behold! Here we find ourselves on
It's not really an epiphany, but these days it seems so much easier and more efficient to go do a simple edit to a text file in
I'm not saying this to sound all condenscendingly elitist, either. Not only do wizards use up lots of resources (and have dependencies that add cruft) i think we eventually reach a point where oversimplification of a user interface will overcomplicate the program being interfaced.
Really, doing stuff from the command line 'just works'.
do() || do_not();
...I'm running Gnome 2.4 (bloated as it is)...
Ummm, so how do you know it's bloated? And, compared to what? Have you measured the code size and memory use and determined what other software can provide the same functionality with fewer bytes?
Or, are you just mouthing something cool you heard some other dweeb say?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Be interesting if anyone ever starts a project to create fully BSD-licensed versions of the standard unix utilities and shells.
Not that it would happen, but at least Stallman would have less to gripe about.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
2 It cannot be used by my grandma
If your grandma can't use an iMac, then chances are Windows isn't going to be any better
It lacks a GUI of any note
GUI Installer, yes, but with X, you can choose KDE, Gnome, Windowmaker, a couple others. Or if you purchase a Mac you get Aqua, which is about a GUI as they come.
It is an assortment of fragmented OSes
Everytime I hear this I always ask, "And how many features has Linux stol...I mean borrowed from FreeBSD to make Linux more stable?"
It cannot be run on the x86 Platform
Well it seems to running on my 1.2Ghz Althon machine quite happly. Hell I even have it running on an ALPHA box here.
You have to compile everything and know C
Helps, but 99.9% of the programs you need are already in the ports tree. Typeing 'Make && make install' isn't that hard.
Support for the latest hardware is always poor
For Macintoshs, not so much of a problem. For those running Free, Open, Net, I would have to say hardware support is lacking for things like sound cards and vidcards. But consider that the main use of BSD is as a Server OS, you don't need the lattest ATI card with 1GB of vid ram to run terminal.
It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux
Well, FreeBSD has a great Linux emulator. I really havn't had much problems running Linux apps in FreeBSD
It is dying
Aren't we all...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
and FreeBSD is not "GNU/FreeBSD"? Don't they each supply a kernel with a bunch of GNU software piled on to make up a complete OS? Or does FreeBSD not use basically the same system software as Linux?
Guns don't kill people -- people kill people.
But the guns seem to help a bit. (apologies to Eddie Izzard)
The first thing I noticed was that when they describe the license, they talk about how Free it is, but don't mention the crucial difference between the GPL and BSD licenses: your option to not release the source when you include the code in another programs.
The next comment that caught my eye was "The installer is fairly intuitive and informative, and everything works perfectly as far as I can tell -- I've installed FreeBSD about a dozen times." If you've installed FreeBSD that many times, of course it will seem intuitive and informative. I've heard the install process is much more Debian-like than say RedHat like. More information on that would really have been helpful.
When he talked about the boot process he said: "The FreeBSD bootloader, while simple and unable to be manually configured, is one of the best I've seen." He makes a good point that this means that no reconfiguration is needed when a new bootable partition is added... but "unable to be manually configured"? 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.
The potshots at Debian, Gentoo and RedHat's respective package management systems are not backed up at all, and don't match my experience in the slightest.
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. (I'm an emacs guy myself but I happily fall back to vi when appropriate). He also says a lot of other FreeBSD tools are better than their Linux equivalents, but without so much as a single reason why.
I'd love to hear an article on a BSD saying what the differences really are, why the author prefers one version to another, etc. This one seems, at times, to be a review, but it isn't a review from someone who seems to have given both Linux and FreeBSD a chance.
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. I prefer a one-step package management command to a multi-step one. Sure, I'm familliar with CVS, and it's nice to know that's what you're doing with the BSDs, but I install and remove packages often enough that if I can save a few keystrokes every time, that will add up. FreeBSD sounds like it might make a better choice for an ultra-stable server which only ever has to be upgraded. If you're doing the maintenance over SSH anyway, configuring by editing files rather than a GUI is the way to go. But for a desktop system, Linux seems to be the better choice for me.
\u@\h(\w)$ Thats innovation for ya!
Believe me, if I started murdering people, there would be none of you left.
What is wrong with someone else using your code, and giving you credit?? How is that evil??
The more people who use a given piece of software, the better support and inter-operability there is.
Which is better, IYO: 35 different from-scratch implementations of the same thing, or 35 different packages that all use the same software behind the scenes?? Which scenario do think will work better?
Would you rather see 35 different TCP/IP stacks, all that interpret the RFCs just a little bit differently, or 35 stacks all based off the same bit of code??
Would you rather see 35 different word processors, each with their own file format, or 35 different word processors that all use the same basic text engine and file format??
The GPL *forces* fragmentation by forcing businesses to redesign, redevelop, and reimplement everything.
Personally, I'd rather see fundamental bits of software passed around for everyone to use, whether it be for commercial purposes or not. If they can make money off it, then it just means I'm not trying hard enough to make money off it.
You can build A Unix-like OS without XFree86, Mozilla, GNOME, etc.
You can't build a Unix-like OS without a shell, a C library, a compiler, etc.
A Unix-like OS can be useful with a GUI, a web browser, a file manager, etc.
A Unix-like OS isn't all that useful without cp, mv, sed, awk, touch, rm, etc.
See the difference??
I was struck by two things. First, he had a really bad recommendation:
It goes without saying, of course, that anyone running mission-critical systems should use the RELEASE branch rather than the CURRENT or STABLE branches.
This is exactly mixed up, RELEASE is a TAG not a BRANCH. Or am I mis-understanding how FreeBSD CVS works? And further, you _don't_ want to use 5.1-RELEASE on something mission criticial; instead you want to track bug-fixes in the current STABLE branch. This is the first thing that they try to get across on their web page, they call 5.1 new technology (CURRENT), while 4.8 (STABLE) is called production. There is a reason for this.
Second, he suggested, as his first recommendation to the FreeBSD group that they drop mailing lists and move to a web forum! Am I that old? If you've done any serious open source work you will see why this is a problem, or have times changed? I would hate to have to go to N forums on N sites (requiring that I actually be on the network) without the advantage of using procmail and other filtering/notify triggers! I cannot stand careless use of web interfaces, where most of them need a mouse instead of a keyboard (as most web forums suck when viewed via w3m or lynx).
Exactly. The Jabber Software Foundation has recently indicated that they are less likely to consider anything for incorporation into the standard if it doesn't come with an open source reference implementation. I would like to see nothing considered a standard unless it comes with a BSD or MIT licensed, or public domain implementation.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I noticed the migration of utilities going from native to GNU and back to native. Is there any reason they're going back? I was finally happy that the BSD stuff (like df) were supporting some of the nicer GNU flags (like -h), but I wonder if they're going to end up diverging again. I'm still waiting for the native FreeBSD ls to support color for that matter (not that I mind using gnuls, but it's sort of odd using a replacement for something as fundamental as 'ls' IMHO).
What's more, the use of the GNU utilities in the BSDs is contrary to the BSD philosophy and defeates the very purpose of BSD. Remember how BSD got started: its goal was to give -- to any and all comers -- technology that could be used for any purpose, including as part of a product that made money. Including the GNU utilities in the BSDs poisons the well, as it were. It has a doubly negative effect: it keeps the BSD implementation from being wholly commercially reusable (thus creating licensing hassles), and it provides no source of code that can be used in that way.
If the BSDs don't provide truly free, reusable-by-anyone code for those functions, who will? Not the FSF, and certainly not Microsoft. So, the BSDs would be abandoning their mission if they did not provide BSD-licensed utilities of a caliber at least equal to that of the GNU-ish ones.
And something is a part of the OS if you can't remove it without breaking the system.
I can remove emacs without breaking the system, yet emacs was the first "component" of the GNU operating system. Likewise, I can deal without 99% of the GNU utilities on a Linux system. Does that remaining 1% sufficient to call the whole thing by the name "GNU"?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Sure, Linus did some cool stuff and all, but is he *really* qualified to be making such large directional moves in the kernel?
I don't know about that... I like committees elected by contributors...
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
Reminds me of the diminutive, smarter, nerdy kid who's forced to do the larger, lazy, bully's homework or else! I love them flabby-licenses! Thanks BSD; Apple and others appreciate the extra helping.
= 9J =
Why is BSD more or less a failure when it is supposed offer this stuff up for commercial use?
Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
Your question presupposes that BSD is not being used in commercial software. That's wrong. There's BSD code in every modern operating system (in fact, not a single one of the Linux distros would run if the BSD code was removed from it). BSD code is also pervasive in the libraries of all the popular C compilers (yes, including GCC), and the BSD TCP/IP code is ubiquitous. So, BSD is, in fact, a smashing success. It's everywhere.
Well I think "poisoned" is a bit strong, but I agree that the core should be written by the BSD team (stuff in /bin /sbin etc). But in the end I just want to use the best programs for the job. I may be incorrect in my knowlege of the GPL, but I don't think it covers usage of programs. For instance if I do something like:
bash$ gnuls | proprietary-prog | gnutar
And I charge for this entire "system" being on BSD, there's nothing they can do about it as it is permissible under the GPL. I like BSD as a personal preference, not neccesarily because of political reasons. BSD and GNU are both free enough for me. But I agree that having a truly free OS is important. I think that as Linux gains acceptance, many vendors will realize that they could just as well use BSD and not worry about licencing issues (like Linksys). On the other hand I'm firmly against certain programs using the BSD licence - such as apache and samba. Each of them has their place, but it starts to get awkward when gnu programs are strewn all over the BSD userland.
As I indicated elsewhere, money is an issue.
Apparently, you're not familiar with the licensing of these products. Apache's license is essentially the BSD license, which is good. Code to serve and manipulate HTML should be available to anyone on a completely free basis.
Samba, unfortunately, is GPLed. Which is a terrible shame, since it prevents Microsoft's competitors from incorporating code that would let their systems network easily with Windows systems. If they were able to incorporate code from Samba, they'd be able to make greater inroads into Microsoft's installed base.
Are screenshots really all that applicable when dicussing BSD/Linux? You're just showing window managers that run on all of them anyway.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
Ash, TCSH, (maybe even pdksh) are not gpl, afaik.
NO OS is useful without a gui, web browser/internet connectivity or a file manager. You can get X windows and a web browser without resorting to GNU, though afaik there are no non-gnu/non-commercial filemanagers (ie -none that are BSD compatiable in licencsing).
If you have a file manager, you have no need for cp, mv or rm and as far as sed and awk go--I've been using *N?x since 1996 and I have to ask... wtf??!?!
[side note, don't *BSD provide their own cp, mv, touch, echo and rm?]
Shhh....everyone, stop saying bad things about FreeBSD before they hear us. Where else are we gonna run to after SCO owns linux?
-Steve
(For those who couldn't tell, this was sarcastic)
Oh yes, I have thought the same thing many times,
and irony of the situation just makes me chuckle.
See that the thing, most grans would do just as well on X as they would Windows. My mom is so lost it wouldn't matter. All she needs is to get e-mail look at pictures, get online. Linux/FreeBSD could do that just as well as windows, maybe better as support over the phone may be easier.
Hear, hear. Infrastructure type programs should be BSD licensed so that more businesses can use them in their products. Things like networking stacks, DNS resolvers, protocol implementations, and the like. Things that enable interoperation between systems.
If they are BSD licensed (or similar), than more companies, projects, people can use them, and more companies, projects, apps would be able to inter-commuicate. And nobody would have to worry about "giving up the crown jewels". They would be able to give back of their own free will, or keep it all to themselves. Either way, we all win, as everything works together.
Sounds like a better world than a world run by GPL'd products. To me, anyway. I'd rather see people giving back because they WANT to, not because they HAVE to.
Individual apps can be GPL'd. Just the infrastructure behind it should be truly free (in ALL senses of the word).
NO OS is useful without a GUI??? Obviously you never used DOS. That was (is?) a very useful little OS, and there's no GUI for it. Many many people found that to be useful, even though it didn't have a GUI. And yes, it does come with a file manager (dosshell) and a webbrowser (Spider, I think it was called).
Just because Apple, MS, and so on have popularised the GUI does not mean you must use it to be productive.
Other than Apple and MS server products, how many have you used that require the use of a GUI?? There are plenty of server OS (most based on some form of Unix) out there that don't have GUIs, and yet many many people use them. How could that be??
Back to the main point, which you have totally missed: a kernel alone does not an OS make.
Actually, I believe it is the other way around.
Both CURRENT and STABLE are tags for the system under development. CURRENT is the latest bleeding edge version. STABLE includes those elements of CURRENT that have proven to be pretty much reliable. Once the STABLE branch is solidified, it gets promoted to RELEASE. Typically the process goes CURRENT->STABLE->RELEASE.
"So just how risky is the CURRENT branch? Not very, but it is possible to have some problems"
... "This model differs greatly from that of GNU/Linux" ... "ultimately headed by only a few all-powerful decision-makers."
Yeah sure! its been seriously broken in numerous aspects on and off just in the past couple of weeks alone. Leave FreeBSD CURRENT alone for true developers. The last thing needed is more whiny asses on dev mailing lists complaining that it broke their system without a clue how to diagnose, debug, revert/fix/patch.
'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. I've seen APT and Portage choke on dependancies with no obvious way to fix them'
Huh? Have you *looked* or *asked* for a way to fix Gentoo or Debian issues?
The author is comes across as somebody who's a FreeBSD zealot that occasionally tries other systems only to give up and whine when it "doesn't do things the same way as FreeBSD" without being open to finding the answer. Both gentoo and debian provide ways to deal with the rare dependancy issues. (don't even get me started if the guy complain about debian unstable, see my freebsd current comments above. or if he tries to compare the software available in ports to that in portage...)
I run a couple Gentoo, one Debian and one FreeBSD box at home. They all have different strengths and weaknesses but none of their packaging systems should be scoffed at due to ignorance. Is the author trying to sell something
"a Core Team of nine people to make all the important decisions."
Since when is nine people to make all important decisions any different than a few all powerful decision makers? FreeBSD is not democratic. Only those who currently hold power can vote and decide who can play in their club. if it were democratic all of the idiots reading this on slashdot could vote and the OS would suck goatse.cx.
too many stupid things wrong. why am i bothering to even write and post this? nobody cares.
I knew I wasn't experienced enough to. I run FreeBSD on my desktop (5.1 to boot!) and have for a couple months now. I love it. But I'm not so sure of myself that I put myself on a pedestal and write a review before being fully versed.
This review got several things screwy, and I don't agree with several of his statements (for instance, mailing lists are useless? They got me to where I am now).
I think he'd have done better to have the review privately checked for technical errors before publishing it. I think that it actually would turn some people off to FreeBSD to read it, who would actually enjoy using it if they tried.
"it's only after disaster that you can be born resurected" - My friend Dave
Last printer I bought came packaged with OS X drivers, no Linux drivers packaged with them.
./mnt/cdrom/install.sh - Then File->Print in OpenOffice and out came a printed document.
And I bought a Samsung a month ago that shipped with Linux drivers that were easier to install than their Windows drivers. USB plug-in then
On the other hand, it also came with OS/X drivers. OTOH, you got trolled by an old troll. So I guess you being a zealot calls for your erratic behaviour.
I find that Windows XP supports a wider range of applications, operations and hardware than DOS 5. Well, and way more stuff than FBSD.
Could it be? Is it possible? -that the reason that Windows is such a hunk of flakey shit is that it panders to, nay, supports such cheap shitty hardware that something has to give? I give you Winmodems as my primary exhibit and rest my case.
Face it, if you want reliability, stability and known quantities, you have to get rid of the chaff. That means webcams using cheapo Korean chipsets, scanners with the same, winmodems and printers and anything that needs the processor to emulate some part of hardware with closed-source drivers. Anything less is going to crash. Worse, the hiding of this flakeyness leads users to believe that they are to blame, or even worse, their sysadmin.
I need not mention worms and trojans. Some enlightened person already did
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
Though I must admit I did a "linux text" install, because I didn't have a mouse hooked up to this box, and red hat would not let me run the GUI without a mouse.
I've only had Red Hat installed for a few days here, and already i've been beating my head against the absolutely excruciating RPM dependancy hell I've heard so much about. I suppose Red Hat works better when you stick to the bundled software... but that is... for me... painful. I'd compile stuff myself, but then uninstalling is a mess.
Gentoo I've attempted to install once and failed. Debian I had installed for a few months, and found its package management to be pretty much hell as well---if you fall from the beaten ultra-conservative "stable" path.
I've Never encountered any issues like these with FreeBSD after years of running it as my desktop system. And I tend to churn through a lot of software installs, uninstalls, and updates.
That's my experience anyhow.
> Back to the main point, which you have totally missed: a kernel alone does not an OS make.
On the contrary - he answered that point perfectly, and in this way:
IT IS POSSIBLE TO USE LINUX AS YOUR PRIMARY OS WITHOUT USING A SINGLE GNU TOOL ON A REGULAR BASIS.
Please excuse the shouting, I just wanted to make sure you didn't miss the point this time round.
The GNU portion of GNU/Linux, with the major exception of glibc, is useful only to command-line power users. If you're running KDE, and using it like most people use Windows, then the chances are you're NOT USING MUCH GNU SOFTWARE. Therefore, the logical name for it - based on RMS' arguments - would be "KDE/Linux", since Linux is after all only the kernel, and you wouldn't have much of an operating system without KDE.
So why is it that "GNU/Linux" advocates always claim that it's logical to call it GNU/Linux (even if you're not using the GNU tools much if at all), but ridiculous to call it KDE/Linux (even if you're using KDE on a daily basis for all your basic OS functionality)? Don't ask me. I think I'll just carry on calling it Linux, since the Linux kernel is what distinguishes it from similar operating systems like, well, GNU/Hurd for example. Or (to bring this back on topic) BSD.
> Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
/. users: "I'm not married, you insensitive clod!")
To which the correct answer is simple: "I have never beaten my wife." So much for the trick question.
(Alternative answer for
How on earth can you state that "a kernel alone does not an OS make" after having argued for DOS?
Btw, while MS provided doss-hell, most people I knew used the Norton Commander if they wanted to get anything done...and the browser you are thinking of is arachne, though -again- no-one used pure DOS networking tools, instead preferring to use teh winsock TCP/IP stack.
And yes, if you are doing any kind of word processing, spreadsheets or anything else that involves modern computing--you do, in fact, need a modern OS that is both multitasking and GUI based. That involves either windows, mac or Unix...DOS died for a reason.
With regards to servers...who says I've used any? Dispite being a desktop user, I am well aware that EVERY UNIX[tm] vendor moved to some sort of GUI configuration well before MS "popularised" teh GUI...CDE came out in roughly 91 (I may be wrong by a year or two either way...even so, well before win95 came along). Do I need to remind you that most true UNIX installs are used for servers?
"there are plenty of server OS...out there that don't have GUIs, and yet many many people use them. How could that be??" Simple, because "many many" people have bought into the myth of CLI superority peddled by your traditional Unix Geeks and choose to work in sub-optimal computing enviroments, while convincing themselves and anyone who will listen that it is the best of all worlds.
Denial ain't just a river in egypt.
To be truly productive in any computing enviroment, you require two things: A)mulitasking B)A GUI. It is possible to work with less, but it's far, far less efficent to do so.
The original point was not "a kernel alone does not an OS make", but rather that you could not run an OS without some sort of GNU toolchain. I maintain that you can. But I've already covered that so go back and re-read my previous post for my posistion there.
You know, the conclusion is what us FreeBSD fans have been saying for years. In fact, the best part was reading the conclusion. It just STATED WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW. "The initial learning curve can be discouraging, but once you learn and get used to FreeBSD, all other operating systems seem slow, weak and brittle. It's hard to even go back to GNU/Linux now that I've gotten accustomed to FreeBSD; FreeBSD is faster than any other OS I've used. All of the programs that I used on Linux are available for FreeBSD or will work just as well (sometimes faster) through the Linux binary compatibility layer. 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."
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
The idea behind Linux and BSD is free software for whoever wants it. RMS is a little weird and I gree the BSD is less restrictive but the only effect is on the gnu utilities. I use FreeBSD and the first thing I do is install gnuls and gnufile utilities for a color console and the dir command, and use the gnu gnome desktop.
http://saveie6.com/
I've been using Gentoo for over a year with a minimal number of problems. I'm not going to say that there were none, but there was nothing some docs and an occasional trip to the forums didn't solve.
Ignore that article. The guy that wrote it was a jackoff in most regards. Not because he likes FreeBSD but because of his constant, unqualfied statements. (Like his attacks on Linux, nVidia, etc.)
I'm sorry... but that was fucking hilarious.
= 9J =