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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."
Cheers,
Ian
But... How does it compare to Linux 2.6.0-test9 performance wise?
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?
Who said Freedom was Fair?
To rise up yet once again from the dead!
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
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
Wow, Slashdot posting the story of a BSD release AFTER the official release announcement and the web page being updated? Must be a first.
> 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.
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.
Anybody ever hear what happened to the fork. DragonFly or something?...
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
None of the points raised by the post in question are worth wasting any time on. The poster's understanding of what "free" means is simply flawed. Flawed? Broken.
Free doesn't mean "do it my way." Free doesn't mean "do what I say." Free means free, period. Unburdened by restriction or prohibition. Free doesn't mean you get to tell other people what to do.
A lot of people don't like freedom. A lot of people think that other people should just do what they're told and not make their own decisions. The poster in question is evidently one of these people. He thinks that people shouldn't be free to do whatever they want with free software. He thinks that people should only be allowed to do certain things, under certain circumstances.
That doesn't sound right to me.
That's where the discussion begins and ends. The poster in question is wrong in his most basic assumption, so there's no point in getting any deeper into it than that.
If you buy the complete CD Set from BSDMall, you get a collector's box. That's right, a mini-coffin to hold your *BSD CDs!
The average all posts:non-0 rated post ratio on slashdot is around 1.3. On bsd.slashdot.org it's more like 3:1 to 5:1 (there's currently a story with 40:1). What is wrong with these people? Choice is good, mmm-kay.
You can not play games on it.
That's true. FreeBSD is not for people who want to play games. These people need to use a PlayStation, GameCube, or Xbox.
It cannot be used by my grandma.
That's true. FreeBSD is not meant to be used in that sense at all. It's a server operating system, designed to run unattended.
It lacks a GUI of any note.
That's true. The only graphical user interfaces for FreeBSD are those based on X11--including the atrocities KDE and Gnome. These are nothing more than curiosities.
There is no support available for it.
That's true. FreeBSD is not for people who want to buy a support contract. These people need to use Solaris or AIX or IRIX or Mac OS X Server instead.
It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
That's untrue. FreeBSD is just one operating system.
It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
That's untrue. The primary platform of FreeBSD is IA-32, which some silly people insist on calling "x86" for reasons that escape me.
You have to compile everything and know C.
That's half true. You do have to compile everything; that's what the "ports" system is. You do not have to know C, however; that's also part of the "ports" system.
Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
That's true. FreeBSD does not strive to be on the bleeding edge of anything.
It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
That's both true and untrue. FreeBSD can interoperate with Linux. FreeBSD can also run much of the same software as Linux. But unfortunately Linux developers decided to make some decisions in their design that could best be described as dubious, so certain incompatibilities arose over time. These incompatibilities come from the Linux side of things, not the FreeBSD side. Complain to your local Linux developer.
It is dying.
That's untrue. There were more shipments of FreeBSD last year than any other UNIX operating system. That's because Mac OS X is, for all intents and purposes, FreeBSD.
"numerous security advisory fixes"
At first I read that as "humerous". But of course this isnt Windows we are atalking about. eyethangyoo.
<fnord>OBEY</fnord>
You have a naive understanding of how the world works my friend. Can you truly be free when there is no system in place to protect your rights? No! Would you consider yourself free if there were no laws?
Uh, we're talking about software, not human rights and freedoms. Till you manage to get that through your head, there really isn't any point in continuing this discussion.
Dinivin
If you are talking about kernel features in FreeBSD to allow better support for USB peripherals and the like, then comparing Linux against FreeBSD is like comparing apples to oranges. If you want to talk about a server platform, FreeBSD has better kernel throughput than Linux 2.4 while from a desktop standpoint Linux offers better support. Pick the right tool for the job.
Karma: Positive. Mostly effected by cowbell.
Smacktard. Go and look up "daemon" in any dictionary, although I would recommend the Concise Oxford. *Not* dictionary.com, though.
>> 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.
You have a naive understanding of how the world works my friend.
No kidding?
Can you truly be free when there is no system in place to protect your rights?
Yup. You may not be happy, or secure, or safe, or wealthy, but you're free. That's what "free" means.
If you want to talk about stuff other than freedom, be my guest. But don't try to roll a whole trunk-full of ideas up and call the whole package "freedom." It doesn't work that way.
They can do it because they are just as free as you.
Right. That's what "free" means.
True freedom means the ability to be protected from losing your freedom.
No, that's not what "freedom" means. Wilsonian liberalism aside, freedom cannot be satisfactorily expressed as a negative proposition. There is no such thing as "freedom from." That's just a figure of speech. Freedom is a positive proposition: "freedom to."
I agree that unrestricted freedom would be a lousy way to live. I think restrictions on behavior are important, even critical, to a civil society. I'm just not deluding myself and misleading others by engaging in "slavery is freedom" double-speak.
Freedom is the natural state, the state of grace. We voluntarily give up our freedom, to a degree, when we join a society. In doing so, we must never forget that what we are doing is a conscious act. We must never forget that we have voluntarily surrendered our freedom for a greater prosperity. To say that freedom can't be freedom without restrictions is a disservice to the essential nature of freedom itself.
The thing about FreeBSD is that anyone can easily take away the freedom of the software!
Actually, no. Nobody can take away the freedom of FreeBSD. FreeBSD is now and will always be free... as long as it doesn't get "infected" with stolen IP, as Linux recently has been.
What you can do is take FreeBSD and create something new from it, something that is for a limited time protected by copyright. This is called "progress."
But eventually, all things return to the public domain. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. So your high-minded, blowhard rhetoric about "taking away the freedom!" is just silly.
For software to truly be free, it must never ever ever risk losing its freedom, no matter what hands it falls into. Anything else is not free.
Please extract your head from your ass before continuing this discussion.
Yes! You are right. That's the crux of the problem. In fact vendors are DISCOURAGED from contributing to BSD, because they FEAR helping out the competition.
Now, with Linux, even vendors are freer to contribute, because their contributions are GUARANTEED to not be exploited by their competition and used against the vendor that contributed. Everybody wins. This is why GPL is more free than BSD.
FWIW: Consoles suck for some type of games.
I bet that if you asked Mac OS X user "What OS are you running there?", all of them would say "It's Mac OS X" and not "It's FreeBSD". Roots of OS X might be FreeBSD, but that does not make it FreeBSD IMO.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
> 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.
Or, more likely, he's someone who considers `Linux' to be the same as `RedHat Linux', an is simply comparing version numbers in a vain attempt at humour.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
right tool is a very appropriate term. That's about that FreeBSD is. A frikkin' tool. I haven't seen a legitimate commerical operation using FreeBSD for production servers in all my years as in IT. I think I saw more OS/2 and Banyan servers than FreeBSD boxes!
Subject header says it all... I'll just rely on good ol' fashioned ftp then.
I'll have something intelligent to add one of these days...
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
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.
#!/
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
If this is the case, why isn't the /. community all over them like they are Microsoft?
See above.
Read that page again. First of all, it uses FreeBSD 5.1, which is the -CURRENT release, as opposed to 4.9, which is the -STABLE release. Second, and most importantly, it doesn't appear that FreeBSD sucks except to someone who didn't read a single word of that study. Try again, and you'll see that FreeBSD is among the best in most categories. The one that surprised me was OpenBSD's lack of performance in this study. I didn't have that experience at all when I used to run it.
Something else to consider is that, unlike most Linux distributions, FreeBSD isn't riddled with security vulnerabilities. FreeBSD does have it's share of holes, but they are few and far between, and usually patched very quickly.
End of Line.
In the past several years haven't seen any high profile company announcing they are running FreeBSD servers in their production environment. Perhaps I am missing something...
I work for a company that bases many of it's products on FreeBSD -- excellent OS - easy to customize, and we're not constrained by the GPL to give away our work.
The GPL does not constrain you to give away your work. It only mandates that you have to include your source code whenever you distribute the program--that's IF you distribute your program.
Generally we dont package up and sell our software, but rather sell services (accounts on our hardware running our software).
You could do the exact same thing with Linux, or... oh... GNU Hurd. There is nothing in the General Public License saying that you cannot make some software for Linux for internal use, and then sell services using that software.
When I say that the GPL is free, I really mean is that the code itself is protected by a garuantee that it shall remain open and freely available to every recipient of that code. It does not however, garuantee any freedom to the reciepient itself.
The BSD "free" is a different "free" to the GPL and applies to two different things. Hence the confusion and silly statements that "The [GPL|BSD] is [more|less] free than the [GPL|BSD]"
That is exactly what I said:
"The BSD license is free in a different way than GPL software. It is free in a way that actually allows more freedom than the GPL."
I didn't say that the BSD license is more free than the GPL, I said it allows more freedom [to the recipient].
#!/
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
Of course, Apple just released Panther - which is 10.3 so they would still be a little behind.
Good grief - surely I've got something better to do with my time.
you are a moron. Think yahoo, sony japan, hell even hotmail still has bsd boxes. Not to mention just about every hosting service that actually stays up for any amount of time is running on FreeBSD, and netcraft shows that the machines with the highest uptime are all BSD. Go back into the hole you crawled out of.
I'll bite on this one. I guess you've never heard of Yahoo or Hotmail. Both have used FreeBSD for web serving.
Obviously, you've been hiding behind OS/2 boxes all these years. It's a shame that you don't get out more.
No.
Even if somebody takes BSD and makes it into a closed-source product, the original BSD code is still available for free.
Thus, two things will cause customers to ignore the closed-source product based on BSD: more cost and less addition of value. Until the derivative clears this invisible hurdle, people will rather just get the completely free FreeBSD.
Mac OS X works, because it adds sufficiently many features and makes them easy enough to use that people will buy it for what Apple decides they will sell it for.
Jag pratar lite svenska.
Who cares? There's also a significant amount of hardcore agnostics and atheists. It's just a word, and only the most extreme christian cults/sects would even worry about using the word "Daemon".
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.
Yep. I use freeBSD, and I like it. As much as anything I am used to the BSD way of doing things. I have no problems with linux (other than distributions tend to do things just a little different), and am considering a new linux machine for things that linux does better than BSD. BSD is still the best for servers, but for desktops some of the support isn't as good. All IMHO of course, you are free to disagree.
Ahhhhh, sweet revenge.
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
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.
Hey dude, try playing Halo or Tux Racer or whatever on a VT220 when stuck in a server room at 3 a.m. waiting for a system upgrade to finish, with nothing more than a bunch of blinking rackmounts to keep you company.
That's what Angband is for! What do you mean, it's not for people who don't want to play games. If it's a choice between Moria/Rogue and counting floor tiles during a long compile....I'll even take Mud Shell at that point.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
But everyone's free to disagree for sure. The fact that there are satisfied folks using production FreeBSD deployments says a lot and probably does discount most of the trolling resulting from the main article.
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();
I am a have excepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour and see nothing wrong with a play on words The great thing about Open Source, is you don't have to use it.
Accepting this as 'glorifying evil' absolutely incorrect. FreeBSD isn't saying, use it b/c the Devil uses it, or putting other 'evil' messages in the source. It is picture, one manufactured by Man, which has no idea what a demon even looks like. Red tights are fabrication by Man.
Anyone want to read Harry Potter?
Asenchi
You clearly don't get what free software is all about.
On the contrary, it's you and RMS that don't understand the definition of the word "free".
GPL software != free software.
GPL software == software with huge limitations on how it can be used.
Even the BSD license has limitations, but at least they're much "freer".
Dinivin
Does that mean we'll have to abstain from using "icons" as well?
Actually, the word Daemon, like many things in Christianity, has roots in paganism, though it also has connections to Ancient Greek as well. Only in Christianity does the word specifically refer to an evil entity.
What's the difference between Unix borrowing the word to mean Disk And Execution MONitor, and Christianity borrowing the word to mean a sort of evil, supernatural entity?
Oh yeah, I should probably mention that, while I was contracting at one particular client site (large international investment bank) a certain unnamed market data services provider, whose owner is now mayor of a certain unnamed large city, said MDS provider (who, as I found out after about a month of calls with core developers, had no f***ing clue what their application actually did, technically) decided to break our Socks5 proxies (running NEC socks5, which was technically not permissible for commercial usage, but that's another story) through all kinds of protocol tomfoolery.
What happens? The only contractor on the network security team (moi) ends up putting in 3 weeks of 15-20 hour days to fix this, because about 1500 traders in our country (several thousand worldwide) relied on said MDS application for fairly critical data.
Our two Sun Ultra-2 Socks5 boxes running Solaris 2.6 and ipfilter weren't doing much of anything anymore, since said MDS provider's very questionable implementation caused all sorts of fun things to happen (like crashing inetd.) In desperation, at about 3 a.m. one morning, I took my little Thinkpad X20 with FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE on it, installed socks5 from ports, hooked a USB ethernet adapter to it, and proxied 1500 traders (not all at the same time, thank god) connections.
When the MDS guys came and kicked me awake that morning (somehow they must have heard the snores coming from under my desk) to ask my why things were suddenly working again, I had to tell them that yes, you're getting a large percentage of your market info over a little bitty laptop in the cellar, running FreeBSD. And could they please look into alternatives, as I kind of wanted my laptop back, thank you very much. That went over...interestingly. The thing kept this up for several days; it's remarkable how much more effectively you can fix problems without 5 members of senior management barging into your office, sweating bullets all over the floor every couple of minutes.
Our unix & security engineering guys' response? "Deploy laptops!"
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Everyone one of REAL IT-types us are heathen atheists. Sorry to burst your bubble. We likes our BSD naughty.
Mmmm... sacrilicious.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
GPL software == software with huge limitations on how it can be used.
The GPL sets no limitations on the use of the software, only on the (re)distribution of it (as in, any changes you made must be available to people you redistribute the software to).
That makes a whole lot of difference.
If only I could come up with a good sig
"There is a fairly significant amount of Christians in IT. Shouldn't open source be using something less offensive, like "services" instead of glorifying evil?"
Who modded a troll up as 'interesting'?
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
Seriously, though. Wouldn't I be able to google a current reference that they are still using FreeBSD?
Why, yes. Yes it does.
See: /usr/ports/emulators/linux-base
or: FreeBSD Hypertext Man Pages: linux
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?
You got trolled. If the word "daemon" is actually OFFENSIVE to you, you may as well not live, because everything will be offensive to you.
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.
Dammit, and I was just thinking about installing 4.8 on an old machine I have. I got it with the 'latest', to the U.S. at least, issue of LinuxFormat.
Now I feel compelled to download 4.9 instead of 4.8 and try and install it.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
Careful. Free-as-in-speech doesn't mean the same thing to a BSD advocate as it does to a GPL advocate. If a corporation modifies my code and uses it to build a closed source improvement, I may not necessarily care, so long as I can continue work on my project.
Perhaps by companies using my code, companies can become more successful and hire more employees? Develop more software that helps people? So what if it restricts freedom to the users who don't care about those freedoms?
The original copyright applied to publishers and restricted their freedom to copy works published by others. The reader of the work didn't have a printing press, and gave up a freedom (republication) that he didn't care about. Even RMS admits this.
What if end users don't care about the freedom to modify software?
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
You are correct, ZORK would suck on a Gamecube.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
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.
go here: http://craig.afraid.org/site/main.pld=binaries/fre ebsd/4.9&f=1&t=0
UGH. http://craig.afraid.org/site/main.pl?d=binaries/fr eebsd/4.9&f=1&t=0
Thats better.
I'll take your post seriously.
They probably mean it includes security fixes compared to 4.8-RELEASE. However security releases do exist, they are versions with a p# in them. e.g 4.8-p13. These contain 4.8 release plus any security fixes.
Also there are release engineering versions (aka releng) that have the update that have a version number like 4.8-20031010. These contain secuity updates plus system and driver updates.
Ugh.
Mac OS X is based on Mach. The command line userland is FreeBSD. So, yes, they're running Mac OS X. Secondary, they're running NeXT.
- oZ
// i am here.
> > 2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
:)
> Then your grandma is dumb.
Ouch scathing assault on Grandma's everywhere.
I'll break it to Grandma that she's an idiot tomorrow... or whenever the snail mail letter gets there - she can't do Windows or Mac, either
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.
I thought the Linux users at the one show were the socially inept losers since the BSD people had the women in the tight clothing....My how the times changed.
That's not true. While I'm not a heavy gamer, I have a number of games going on my FreeBSD system. I DO know of people playing Unreal Tournament 2003 on FreeBSD systems though. My games include: FlightGear, Abuse, Cube, Falcon's Eye, FooBillard (beautiful!), FrozenBubble, glTron, as well as SNES games through emulation. And that's just a tiny number of the 576 games currently in the ports collection.
>> It cannot be used by my grandma.
> That's true.
Says who? I could set up a FreeBSD box that my grandma could use. She couldn't admin it any better than she could a Windows system though. If something broke with Windows or FreeBSD, she'd still be calling me. So what's the diff? "Hey grandma, to send email click here, type here, then click there." The simplest user is sufficiently abstracted from the OS enough that they are the BEST candidates for alternative OSes. And if you're going to stick a total newbie with something that they're going to call you everytime they have a problem on, why not give them something that doesn't crash all the time?
> That's true. The only graphical user interfaces for FreeBSD are those based on X11--including the atrocities KDE and Gnome. These are nothing more than curiosities.
While I suppose it's true technically, I don't see it as a bad thing. In fact, when it comes to servers, it's a good thing. And when it comes to desktops, choice is a good thing. Does it really matter that one team makes the OS and one team makes the GUI? They work well together, and countless people like myself use them. Do you complain about Windows because it doesn't come with a word processor? No, and if MS tried to bundle Word w/ Windows people would cry foul. So take that to another level. Just because some people can't fathom an OS and the GUI being separate, doesn't mean it's not a good idea. I don't want a GUI on the server, and I like having choices about what window-manager or desktop-environment to run. Yes, KDE and Gnome are pretty resource-intensive. So use xfce then... it's pretty slick. I happen to like Gnome, but I've used KDE too and I'm actually running xfce4 right now just for fun.
> That's true. FreeBSD is not for people who want to buy a support contract.
Wow, that is so not true I begin to wonder if you're a troll. Did you even bother checking the website before making that claim? Or about about here?
> That's half true. You do have to compile everything; that's what the "ports" system is.
That's 100% not true. FreeBSD gives you choice. If you want to compile, you can build ports. If you want to install precompiled binaries, you install packages. Once installed, they are registered in the database (with their dependencies) the same way and are managed in the same manner. A little reading of the FreeBSD ports and packages system would be in order.
I'm hoping you're not a troll as some of your answers were correct. However some are quite wrong.
I think I will just wait for longhorn before I upgrade my OS again.
My advice is, either wait until the disk 1 image appears on your local mirror, or, if you're really impatient, download the floppy images and go from there. (if you've got the bandwidth to download iso images, network install via ftp or http should be just as feasible).
Disk 2 is a live filesystem disk of a base system install, mainly good for rescues etc. This means no extra packages etc, making the image smaller than disk 1, which contains installer, various packages such as kde etc. If the transfers started at the same time, it makes sense that the smaller file would be completely transferred first, appearing to the public before the larger disk 1 image.
-- That grumpy BSD guy - http://bsdly.blogspot.com/
Hi, I'm a BSD user as well (Open is my flavor) but what you said is full of crap. If you run similarly equipped Linux and BSD distributions side by side, you will find that they actually have many of the same security vulnerabilities (because, they run much of the same software in userland). I patched OpenSSH on my BSD box at the same time I was patching the Linux box.
What gives the perceived difference is that the ports have separate security advisories (I know they do for Open and presumably for Free) than the core distribution. If you compare a "core" distribution of Linux you would find similar security issues that are patched quickly. Both the BSD and Linux camps do a good job about their security updates and should be commended.
Ok, I'll admit I shouldn't have called you names, but this kind of kneejerk reaction should be expected when you don't even look on netcraft or anywhere else to verify what you say.
He's a fairly well known blogger who works at Yahoo
Oh, and the 5.x (-CURRENT branch) has removed most of the bits which lock `giant', making the kernel more SMP-friendly.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
> If you look at the big picture, it is _not_ the way to go. FreeBSD discourages the true ideals of Free Software, because it offers no protections to those wishing to contribute, including private companies.
"Free Software"... I think *you* misunderstand the real world...
In the real world people need to eat, and make money to survive.
FreeBSD is FREE SOFTWARE.
It does not get any more free...
The GPL is nothing more than a way to enforce one person's ideals upon another.
The GPL makes it VERY DIFFICULT to make any money whatsoever from any software licensed under it.
Err not "very difficult"- more like IMPOSSIBLE.
The *only* time I would *ever* use the GPL is when I was trying to protect CORPORATE ASSETS!
Let me give you another "real world" lesson-
What does the GPL provide again?
Of that's right- protection against evil people stealing your code and using it in some evil corporate proprietary project!
Ok then-
So you caould say that there are 2 kinds of people in the world:
1) good people, who will respect a licencers terms
2) bad people, who don't care and will do whatever they want
So- the marvelous GPL stops good people from doing anything commercial with code.
And it does nothing to stop bad people from doing commercial things with the code-
Yeah- real good license there buddy...
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
> The thing about FreeBSD is that anyone can easily take away the freedom of the software! And many closed-source vendors do just that.
...
I said it in my other response to you, but the only people who are going to pay attention to the terms of the GPL are people who wouldn't "steal" code in the first place.
And the people who *would* steal GPLed code are people who wouldn't give 2 shits about licensing terms anyway.
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
Pffft... If you rhink that is bad, wait till you hear this: Linux is only on version 2.6! They need 2.5 versions just to catch up to NetBSD -current! And then, they need to go up 8.4 versions to be even close to Apple! Seriously, why do they Linux fanboys bother?
BTW, Windows doesn't count. They cheat. Bad. Going form v3.1 to v95, then from v98 to v2000? WTF!
DISCLAMER: This is what is commonly known as a joke. Laugh. Oh, and I use Linux.
#include "sig.h"
are still using... but m$ tries to hide it bahahaha ... yahoo has been using FreeBSD for years.
Check my site: http://pixel.pagina.nl
spoken like true dead Anonymous Coward... once again sad :(
Check my site: http://pixel.pagina.nl
It's NOT just a word! They also have a picture of the damned thing! It's EVIL, I tell you! EEVIL!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
The GPL imposes no limitations on how the software can be used. Quoth the GPL:
GPL and BSD software are equally free in terms of use.
If you have troubles, try this mirror...
:)
ftp://olaf.spack.nu/pub/mirror/freebsd-iso/
Enjoy
Ender
Nothing to see here
Ugh, sorry about the formatting. That'll teach me about avoiding the "preview" button.
Touche. I'm not actually a warez kid, though. You are probably lacking in a decent sense of humor, that is all.
You are also an asshole.
if it's anything like the RC series, this will be a release to remember. OK, that comment sounds rather omnious. Can anyone clarify that remark?
GPLed code is not free, because it is not reusable in commercial products. This is the highest and best use of code, and because the GPL forbids it, GPLed code is anything but free.
Security updates can be tracked easily without upgrading. But if you compare an unupgraded 4.8 to 4.9 yes 4.9 has more security fixes. But it's your responsibility to keep you system patched.
Sock puppets stole my sig.
NetBSD 1.61...
Sock puppets stole my sig.
Mac OS X is based on Mach.
Mac OS X has about as much in common with Mach as with FreeBSD, if not less. The kernel (check out Darwin) looks very LITTLE like Mach. No single servers, and it's not a true microkernel. What they did was take a BSD single server, hardwire the connections and optimise it. Then add years of hacking...:)
Oh and to add flamebait. If Mac OS X is not FreeBSD based, then why call Linux GNU/Linux? What matters most? The kernel or the userland...:)
BWP
There's a problem with USB support in FreeBSD? That's news to me. Every USB device I have works flawlessly out of the box.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Oopsies... I meant FreeBSD...
#include "sig.h"
One of the points of the license is to allow for others to use it in their closed source software.
Gee, for a while there, you started to sound like one of those GNU people saying GTK+ was better than Qt because it wasn't under the GPL...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
If you look at the big picture, it is _not_ the way to go. FreeBSD discourages the true ideals of Free Software, because it offers no protections to those wishing to contribute, including private companies.
And if you think that if GCC had a BSD license that Apple would simply "give away" their modifications to GCC, you are pretty naive.
And to call the GPL a silly expression of freedom is utterly insulting and completely sophomoric. I won't even respond to that. You clearly don't get what free software is all about.
You insensitive clod. Seriously, I feel that BSD is getting more support and press coverage compared to a year or two back.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Which image? FreeBSD?
8 6/
Suuure.... Here:
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-IMAGES-i3
I felt like calling someone a dumbass today. You're the lucky winner.
Dumbass.
Apparently, the "BSD is dead" trolls also have moderator points. The above was moderated down to zero shortly after it was posted. Hmmm; I wonder if some of the operators of Slashdot are posting the trolls? Certainly, the posters always seem to be lying in wait, 24x7, for any opportunity. A crazy theory, but given their utter devotion to Linux I do wonder.
The plastic disc, which can be sold for money, is a commercial product. The software on that disc, which cannot be licensed for money and which SuSE does not in fact even own, is not. This is one of the FSF's most common deceptions: trying to get gullible users and programmers to confuse the container with the thing contained.
Your argument, although technically correct, is foolish. People buy SuSE for the CD with the software on it and support of said software, not for its value as a plastic disc.
Blatent troll, however: It's false. Look at apache for instance, It's thriving on a BSD license. If I release code, then I want to guaruntee it's usefull to someone, no-point reinventing the wheel so to speak. If someone at a draconian institution can use my code to help him achieve his task, then so be it, I have just made someone's day easier, and at no cost to myself. So what if they can stick a big price tag on it, the original version's still around and availible, and will probably spring competitor's.
-Gwala
#!/bin/csh cat $0
I wouldn't take it as a compliment that Hotmail runs FreeBSD myself...
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
...runs smooth like shit coming from a duck's ass!
Check my site: http://pixel.pagina.nl
Please read the BSD license and learn something about copyright law before spreading this crap further. Nowhere in the license does it say you can relicense BSD code and under common copyright law you cannot do that anyway.
What Stallman said was BSD licensed code (or other code under a free license) distributed with GPL code should be *distributed* under the terms of the GPL, not relicensed (which legally is just wrong).
"not reusable in commercial products. This is the highest and best use of code"
If you see commercial exploitation of free work as the "highest and best use," I'd really hate to see what you consider the lowest and worse use...scary.
Well I'm the doctor and I say you're dead, so shut up and take it like a man!
I love FreeBSD but I still can't use it on my main PC because I can't get printing to work. AHHHHH