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FreeBSD 4.9 Released
Digital Dharma writes "Excellent! FreeBSD 4.9 has been released, and if it's anything like the RC series, this will be a release to remember. You can obtain it from the usual sources, or if you're feeling generous and supportive, you can buy the cd set. Support your local Daemon!" As Jani Laaksonen writes, the new release includes "numerous security advisory fixes, kernel changes and support for the Physical Address Extensions (PAE) capability on Intel Pentium Pro and higher processors (see page(4)). This release also adds support for a few more hardware NIC cards, ipfw network protocol enhancements, userland changes, and more. Check FreeBSD 4.9 Release Notes for more information."
The excitement over this new release hit the beleaguered BSD community like a bombshell.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
I thought FreeBSD was already on 5.x or something like that. Is that the development version? Does FreeBSD use a linux-like version numbering where odd numbers are development releases?
No, 4.9 is the latest release from the -stable branch. The 5.0 and 5.1 releases were made from the -current development branch (actually the main trunk in CVS). Eventually, probably around 5.2 or 5.3, 5.x will be branched off as 5-STABLE and development will begin on 6.x.
4.x series are production releases. 5.x is the new technology releases. There are two development branches to FreeBSD: FreeBSD-CURRENT and FreeBSD-STABLE. This seem confusing but keep this rule in mind if u want to use FreeBSD STABLE branch if you are going use it as a production server else use the current branch more information here.
No it does not use Linux-like versioning. You can read about this on FreeBSD.org.
4.x is -STABLE. The 5.x releases are "Early Adopter" releases, until the 5.x codebase proves stable enough to be tagged -STABLE, probably around 5.3 (I think was the last number I heard).
> 1. You can not play games on it.
Wrong. There are plenty of games, and what is not supported by a native version may be playable under linux emulation and/or wine with a negligible performance impact.
> 2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
Then your grandma is dumb.
> 3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
Wrong. you can use XFree86 and any window manager or desktop environment you choose.
> 4. There is no support available for it.
Wrong. There are plenty of IRC channels, email lists and even commercial support providers.
> 5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
Wrong. Even if it were not wrong this does not compare to the staggering number of Linux distributions.
> 6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
Wrong. FreeBSD was initially crafted directly from the 386BSD patchset in the early 90's. It has supported i386 from the very beginning.
> 7. You have to compile everything and know C.
Wrong. You can install packages just like linux. You can certainly compile everything if you want to, but this does not require even minimal knowledge of C.
> 8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
Wrong. It isn't always poor. Sometimes support lags behind a little, many times IHV's have poor or no FreeBSD drivers, but new hardware is certainly not ignored.
> 9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
Wrong. FreeBSD has an extensive Linux binary compatability system that allows most Linux binaries to run just fine. Word is, sometimes even faster.
> 10.It is dying.
And Wrong. FreeBSD has a large community of active developers and maintainers, along with a significant installed user base.
9 out of 10 ain't bad. Clearly a troll but I was feeling self important so I thought I'd whip it out.
FreeBSD releases have -p updates that are typically for Security Fixes. If you look here you'll see all the same Security Advisories that were fixed in a -p update to 4.8. They put the same information in each new release notes just to cover the fact that they were fixed since the original previous release.
Security fixes for FreeBSD are released as part of the RELENG branch for a particular release version. 4.9 (presumably) includes all the security fixes which were released since the 4.8 release, which were announced on the 4.8 errata page. The 4.9 errata page is here. The security fixes are usually released concurrent with any vulnerability announcement, but it's still up to users to read the handbook and patch their own systems.
4.X, with 4.9 being the latest is the -STABLE train - use this if you want to not mess with stuff.
5.X is the new stuff. Getting quite stable, but still closer to the bleeding edge than 4.9.
Earlier this week someone suggested I move a production box from 4.9-RC to 5.1 for a certain feature's support. 5.1 is *almost* cooked enough for me to put production stuff on it.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
I think that there may be some interest in doing this.
Debian NetBSD/FreeBSD isn't about forking and putting NetBSD/FreeBSD under a new license. It is about putting NetBSD and FreeBSD into the "Debian scheme", with Debian installer and Debian package management. And I have to know it, since I was involved in that work for some time.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
BSD gave a lot to Apple to make a great OS. Isn't it just right that they get some in return?
I doubt it, tho
>> You can not play games on it.
/me has Heroes of Might and Magic on an old laptop, to amuse myself when traveling by train.
>That's true. FreeBSD is not for people who want to >play games. These people need to use a PlayStation, >GameCube, or Xbox.
Most loki games work fine, and installation using original linux CD is supported by ports tree.
> 9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux. Wrong. FreeBSD has an extensive Linux binary compatability system that allows most Linux binaries to run just fine. Word is, sometimes even faster.
Some time ago I had 1GHz Athlon 256MB with ATA100 drive as my workstation. I put linux on it. Everything was ok, up to the time I had to untar some big files 200GB+. Starting single tar -zxf filename nearly made my computer not responding (even mouse cursor moved in jumps). First I thought the reason was that I have 2.2.x kernel so I switched to 2.4.x. It didn't help. Finally I put FreeBSD on this box and from that time unpacking archives with tar was no longer a problem.
There are a few more lines in dmesg talking about SMP support, but I think that snippet gives you everything you need to know.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Actually, Yahoo runs FreeBSD, as does NASA and several other large companies. As far as I can tell, FreeBSD doesn't require the same rabid following that Linux does.
End of Line.
i REALLY wanted out of microsoft.
i have tried switching from win2k to linux and found it confusing,xxx tools for the same job and for me a confusing file layout.
installing Freebsd was/is a breeze even for a mouse clickin fool like me,i downloaded a couple of floppies,set up my nic and pointed it at a ftp site.
the file layout was explained well and seemed logical to me..
The manual is good.the package system with its dependancy checking is lovely.
it has linux binary compatibility
there is ALOT less random noise on freebsd mailing lists and forums in my (limited) view.
to sum up i found it easier to use/install than mandrake or redhat
Like I said before... you are a moron. You think the slashdot crowd knows anything? Most of them are a bunch of Linux Fanboyz who know nothing about how the os works.
With that out of the way, Several production shops use FreeBSD on their servers. Yahoo, Sony japan, Hotmail (yes, they still do, even if they won't admit it). And another thing, I was looking at linux's so-called SMP support the other day, (mainly because netstat was hanging for like 1.6 seconds on my 2.4 kernel 4 way smp machines) and the locking is horrible. Just running a netstat causes the rest of the TCP system to hang while the netstat completes. And it's noticable, The webserver latency goes from 5 ms to 1.9 seconds.
Things like this are why FreeBSD is still used anywhere that needs to support high traffic and high uptime.
Absolutely.
I have had FreeBSD on all my laptops for ages now--both as a workstation, and as a console/sniffer/debugging machine. The only weakness in this regard was the lack of MS Office support (no, I don't find Star/OpenOffice or KOffice or friends acceptable alternatives as of yet.) It's stable, fast, easy to upgrade and maintain, secure, and flexible.
My personal firwealls have also been FreeBSD since I started finding OpenBSD too archaic for quick changes (my last one started deciding that what I told it to do wasn't secure enough. Looking for solutions in newsgroups/mailing lists inevitably came up with "read through the source and quit bugging us you fucking idiot".) I don't want to use an OS maintained primarily by a psychopath.
My home fileserver, and AMD K6-2-400 has also been FreeBSD since about 3 years now--running 24x7 without a glitch.
I've installed it at several client sites as firewalls, web servers, monitoring boxes, groupware and mail servers, and use it with no hitches _whatsoever_ for our company (DNS, mail, PHProjekt, www.)
Prime factors in terms of quality of an OS are
Ease of installation and upgrade
Support (I've always found the BSD mailing lists to be pretty friendly, and people to be fairly clueful
Good package management
Security
Well-thought out and common sense layout of the OS itself (file systems, config files, etc.
Yes, I have a good amount of unix experience, but I often just need something to work without too much knob-dicking around, period. This is the reason I have an XP box lying around at home (games, documents I get from clients, Windows software I sometimes use professionally, etc.). No, I don't think *BSD is ready for the desktop.
However, having worked with Unix variants, including various Linux incarnations, for more than 10 years now (holy shit! I'm old!) I can really recommend this as a reliable, and representative example of a good OS.
This is assuming, of course, that you're not just trolling.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
More recently, out of the top 13 hosting providers in September (as far as failures goes), most (seven) ran FreeBSD (3 Win2K, 2 Linux, 1 Solaris). You can see that Netcraft data here.
Hmmm... "dying" and "lost vigor" indeed. ;)
"This seems to imply that the 4.X branch is no longer -STABLE. I thought the 4.X branch was for conservative users. I don't really see how PAE can be the only reason for this since it is only an option for the kernel. Conservative users can simply choose not to turn it on, right?"
The simple answer is 'yes'.
The more complicated answer is that 5.x is significantly different from 4.x in quite a few ways in that it's a technology 'step-up' and would quite possibly break if overlaid on a pre-existing 4.x system before it gets it's own -stable branch; the word is around 5.3.
Personally my dev server has frozen around 4.8 because it does the job, I loathe patching for the sake of having 'current' version numbers without having the time to familiarise myself with the new features.
This is mildly different behaviour from those that like their 'zero day' sources...
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
There was something on this that was already on /.
You can find that here and also here
Granted it's the 5.x versions of FreeBSD but still got a good comparison.
Evolution or ID?
No. The patches are incorporated at the same time when advisories are released. I'm assuming they list them in the release notes just to imply that since you're using 4.9 you don't have to worry about all the security issues which were discovered in 4.8
Right. The release notes list changes between released versions, and some of those changes come about as the result of security vulnerabilities that have been discovered and fixed. If you look at the release notes for one of the development branches (e.g. 4-STABLE or 5-CURRENT) between releases, you can see items such as security advisories listed in more-or-less real-time (usually one of us tries to get them into the release notes or errata within about a day of being issued).
Actually, it's my experience that the patches are usually in the source tree well before an advisory is issued, depending on what branch you're tracking.
this has been (kinda) answered by others, but I'll try to make mine a bit clearer.
/. community all over them like they are Microsoft?
The above statement is talking relative to release of 4.8, as cut to CD. This doesn't mean it hasn't been fixed, it just means they can't go back in time to fix it on 4.8 as it was on release day (think what was cut to CD).
That said, FreeBSD users don't have to stay on the "as cut to CD version". Once you get a release, a good FreeBSD user can update his system, tracking one of a few cvs branches, such as STABLE (which will get you this whole release), the 4.8-RELENG "security fixes only" branch, or CURRENT, which would put you in 5.x world. All security problems are fixed in all releases.
If this is the case, why isn't the
Because all critical vulnerabilities are on a mailing list, all versions of FreeBSD affected are updated, even old ones (you'll occasionally see updates for 3.x and even 2.x sometimes) instead of forcing people to upgrade off NT 4 so they can sell more XP licenses.
Not really -
Here's the APSL
If a developer takes and uses APSL code in some other project, section 2.2 a, b, and c need to be followed for that section of code, but as long as those are followed I don't see why the code couldn't be distributed with BSD. I really don't see this as much of a big deal, though, unless you want a certain patch for a certain program - if it's an entire app, well, my copy of Linux came with Mozilla and Apache, both which have separate, non BSD, open source licenses (I have FreeBSD, as well, but built it from scratch, so no CD).
If you want a specific patch, ask the original developer to also submit it to BSD - as far as I can tell, any code submitted is still owned by the developer (but you give Apple a free, non-exclusive, everlasting license to use it, or something like that). I guess if the original developer works for Apple you won't get any help, but most other Open Source developers are happy to submit to other Open Source projects.
FreeBSD is alive and well here as well. We use it to run a number of firewalls, a few web server, and a network monitoring station. It is a lot cleaner than linux, and integrates userland better than Linux.
So basically, we have a heavy Windows installation protected by FreeBSD running IPF, snort, etc.
And I am in the process of installing BSD on a diskless PC. I got 4.8 down to 8 megs, which includes kernel, shell, userland commands, network tools, etc. You come to appreciate features as the freebsd jail when you do things like this.
although the source is open, the development team is not.
Uh, how exactly is the development team not open? The FreeBSD project accepts contributions from just about anyone -- I've submitted a few patches myself. The list of people with commit rights to the CVS tree is quite large and growing; contrast to the Linux kernel which is a one-man dictatorship (guess how many people have commit rights to the master repo for that).