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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
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.
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 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
>> 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.
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.
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.
#!/
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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();
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
"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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Free Online Dark Fantasy RPG - http://www.blackmud.com
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.
> > 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.
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.
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.