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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."
I wonder why those idiots with no more to say than "bsd is dying", "pull the plug", "bsd sux, linux rulez" are not simply filtering out BSD related posts and be done with it... they get moderated down to oblivion anyway...
:)
I'm personally very happy with FreeBSD, thank you.
Hope SMP support (and pthreads support) will get better soon now. Can't wait for 5.x becoming -STABLE.
// "If human beings don't keep exercising their lips,
// their brains start working." -- Ford Prefect
This is good for BSD and good for all of us. For those you saying that BSD lost its vigor in 1990 (lawsuit) then i wonder how the current Linux fiasco is going to impact the penguin. We are all in this together really, a strong BSD means more security for all of us. Espescially with the SCO monster running around. Who know in 5 years maybe BSD will be growing at 17%/year and linux will be on life support. Remember fame is fickle.
You are not a slave, since you are not forced to work. You will not get paid and there is no demand that gives their modifications back but they do not own you and make you work for free, if you do not want to continue then you can stop.
Don't confuse slavery with I-want-to-work-for-free-and-might-get-some-back
Apple's contributions are most visible in gcc 3.x.y series powerpc support and optimization, not at kernel level in FreeBSD, since Darwin mainly uses FreeBSD's userland, not kernel.
So Apple is giving back to the community, just not directly to FreeBSD.
that the difference between a *BSD release and a Linux distro release is a night and day difference. When a linux distro is released everyone comes out of the wood-work, says it is the best thing since the 386 was released, praises Allah, and there would be few if any comments to the contrary. Yet, when a *BSD release comes out it becomes a religious war over which is better, and all the trolls come out of the wood-work?
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
I run several FreeBSD servers, and am very happy with them. Install was simpler, and adding software (that is in ports) is a snap. So is keeping up with patches. I am not sure that I would want to run it as a desktop OS (MacOS X), but as a server I am very happy with it.
There is a reason that a lot of the big servers run BSD's...
Hell yes it would! That would make getting people to use free software that much easier!
That was the obvious response to that I was expecting. But I think you're wrong. Microsoft's buggy software doesn't seem to cause joe user to use free software. At least not with the free software we have today. Joe user is used to all the Windows problems, one more buggy implementation isn't going to open his eyes to the world of free software. Not only joe user, but the corporate world seems to not mind using buggy software for their desktop machines. I'd rather Microsoft not have control of the desktop market, but since they do, I'd rather their software be as stable and bugfree as possible. If MS took BSD and wrote a good closed-source OS using it, I'd be ok with that, as long as the end result was a good product.
Would it be better if OS X didn't exist at all? Sure. Why do I care if more closed source proprietary software exists?
You don't, so license your software under the GPL. Other people do care that closed source proprietary software exists. And of course, people who think OS X completely blows away any free OS, care about its existance. I'm not going to argue that, as I haven't used OS X enough to form an opinion. But if it indeed blows away free OSes, I'm glad it exists and don't mind the GUI being closed-source.
In any case, the BSD license gives more freedom than the GPL. However, the GPL restricts freedom in a way that enforces openness. Which is better? I don't know. But this statement is blatantly false:
FreeBSD is *not* free guys! It never was! At least not in the true sense of the word.
#!/
For desktop and servers, yes.
I tried linux, didn't like one distribution, changed, had to relearn EVERYTHING.
Tried Gentoo recently, looks good, but they think portage is go gracing earth when it still has some issues that need to be resolved.
Besides, nothing beats the stability of FreeBSD, even on 5.1 and 5.2 I've never had a crash on my desktop machine.
Be nice to the FreeBSD project. In the remote event SCO wins its lawsuits, FreeBSD, especially the 5.x series, would easily be able to replace Linux.
I think most FreeBSD folks (whether official project members or just us users) don't bother with torrents since the most popular way to upgrade a system is via cvsup (at least that's the perception). It took a long time before ISOs were even offered since it was believed most people wouldn't be using them. It would probably take an analysis of the FTP logs after a release, showing a lot of traffic on the ISOs, before torrents would show up often.
I've used linux for about 4 years, but i have always peeked into the BSD camp now and again.
While i like linux, and it has always done well for me, i think it's time for me to jump the fence to FreeBSD completely.
The BSDs always seem to be more mature and logical, and `cleaner'.
Maybe this isn't the best reason to drive such a decision, but i think a lot of the noise and trolling from the linux camp of late has really put me off. I know *all* linux users aren't like this, but it's really turning into something don't want to be associated with. I have a similar situation with the Apple community, and Windows, well... i just hate the OS enough.
The level of integrity that i've seen in my (albeit limited) interaction on usenet, slashdot and irc with BSD folks is impressive. There aren't any issues of acting juvenile or overly zealous.
Maybe in a while the linux camp will "grow up" some and i'll come back.
Sorry.
do() || do_not();
Why, yes. Yes it does.
See: /usr/ports/emulators/linux-base
or: FreeBSD Hypertext Man Pages: linux
Let's ignore, for the moment, any bikeshedding over the name STABLE and the stability of the code.
The reason for the sentences in question (I had a small part in writing them) was simply this: PAE is a fairly young (in the 4.X series) feature that touches a lot of bits in the kernel (yes, even if it's not enabled). When it was first committed, it caused a number of problems (well-documented on the mailing lists), but they seem to have been fixed. If we thought there were any major problems remaining in this area, we wouldn't have released. However it's an undeniable fact that PAE in 4.X hasn't had a lot of testing time compared to most of the rest of the kernel, and this bears a bit of consideration.
I believe that for the vast majority of users (myself included) 4.9 works just fine. (I run a mix of 4.9-STABLE and 5.1-CURRENT on various laptops, desktops, and non-critical servers.) If you're really one of the most conservative users, you probably wouldn't jump on the new release bandwagon anyways, and would spend some time evaluating 4.9 (regardless of PAE, or what anyone on the release engineering team says) before deploying it in some mission-critical environment.
Actually, our company pays full time wages for at least two FreeBSD developers that I can think of, who's work goes straight to the project. Our products however we dont give away - they are a competetive advantage that we dont want to give up.
The person I originally responded to was claiming that the BSD licensed software frightened away commercial interested MORE than GPL'd software and my posting was to refute that false idea.
Just because YOU like the GPL and you like working on GPL'd products doesn't mean that that is the only valid way to do development.
Our business model works for us, and the FreeBSD community bennefits from our involvment. It really is a win-win situation for both FreeBSD and us.
If I were to release source code of any of my personal software projects, I'd do it under a BSD-style license. Software doesn't have to be business-related or business-useful, but for businesses using various types of 'free' software, BSD is certainly more attractive.
Oh, and you don't have to work on FreeBSD and do 'without-cost' development for corporations - my company PAYS me to develop BSD software. Just because you can't find paying work doesn't mean that the rest of us don't like having jobs.
Don't even get me started about all the BSD work that has found it's way into linux - the BSD license has made this possible, and easy.
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