Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FreeBSD 5.2-RC1 Released

Posted by michael on from the try-and-die dept.

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long has uploaded ISO images and FTP install bits for FreeBSD 5.2-RC1. i386, alpha, and pc98 are available now, amd64 will be available shortly, and sparc64 will be available shortly. Please test this as much as possible so that the FreeBSD Team can release a good 5.2-RELEASE next week. Testing focus for 5.2-RELEASE relates to PCM locking and performance issues, ATA driver improvements, GPT support for sysinstall, ATAng disk corruption issues, SMP and random_harvest panic, vinum data corruption, ACPI kernel module and reported NFS failures."

14 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. $699BSD 6.6 Released. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Get the new BSD, sanctioned and cleared by SCO, for just $699, and if you moderate this post up, you get a 66.6% discount and free penguin corpse.

    http://www.699bsd.sco.com/

  2. What does FreeBSD have over Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Why should I use FreeBSD over Linux?

    The reason I'm asking is this: despite having used Linux for many years, I'm constantly being told by FreeBSD fans to switch to their favourite OS. Some make pleasant suggestions, others act with great zealotry and tell me things I know aren't true. The way I see it is as follows:

    Stability - Various BSD fans have told me that it's "more stable" and "crashes less". I can safely say that my Debian and Slackware boxes have _never_ crashed or kernel panicked in five years of use; yes, in comparison to a bleeding edge desktop distro such as Mandrake, FreeBSD is bound to be more solid, but proper, well-designed and thoroughly tested distros like Debian and Slackware are totally rock-solid.

    Performance - I've been told by FreeBSD users that their OS is much faster than Linux. To make this judgement myself, I performed a few benchmarks with FreeBSD 4.8 and Linux 2.4.20, and also FreeBSD 5.1 and Linux 2.6.0-test. The differences were negligible, although on my 2-CPU box Linux was the clear winner. 2.6.0-test also showed more responsive behaviour on the desktop.

    Hardware support - I had troubles getting FreeBSD running on my laptop. Linux supported the hardware much better, and has a significantly broader range of x86 support.

    Software support - It's so much easier to find software that will compile natively on Linux. Yep, Ports are good, but they're nowhere near as tested and integrated as, say, Debian's stable repositories.

    Security - Both OSes are pretty secure by modern standards, but I can't see the value in FreeBSD's updating method. With Debian, one simple "apt-get" command is needed to get the latest security fixes. With FreeBSD, a tiresome chore of CVSuping, compiling and installing is required, which is doubly annoying on lots of boxes.

    Community - Even when I've researched my problem and read up on the docs, I've had BSD fans act incredibly obnoxiously towards me. That's not good at all.

    Long term support - FreeBSD only supports each release for 12 months; this means that users have to upgrade. And although upgrading isn't too difficult, the end result is a slightly different system and difficult to target apps against (new features/bugs/changes is newer Ports releases etc). Meanwhile, Debian has over 2 years support for each release, and Red Hat offer 5 - perfect for corporate adoption.

    So those are the criteria I judge an OS on, and while many BSD fans keep telling me to use FreeBSD, I can't see what it offers in the real-world over Linux (subjective licensing issues aside).

    What concrete benefits does FreeBSD actually offer? Serious question. It appears that Linux wins in the above areas, but any input would be good to hear.

    1. Re:What does FreeBSD have over Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Practical solutions?
      It is things like having had 'accept filters' for a long time, that make it possible to wait for a complete http request before spendign any timeslices on the http server that needs to handle it, and thus preventing many context switches for example.

      This is another fine example of overengineered FreeBSD rubbish given a fancy name, bandied about for the next 4 and a half years, and used to prove their operating system is superior to Linux in a smiley face comparison. Have a look at this page: they are missing out on a lot of the basics. How about their non-existant SMP scalability? Linux is being run right now on systems with FIVE HUNDRED CPUs.

      It is being able to reliably verify which uid is generating an outgoing packet in the standard ip filtering software for example.

      Umm, Linux can do this in case you didn't know.

      I do want them for my webserver and mailserver and such tho, there they improve control, security and performance quite a bit.

      Post some benchmarks. Please refute me.

    2. Re:What does FreeBSD have over Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      > Since it results in some 15-20% less load on
      > my rather smallish http server (486 dx4 with
      > 32mb) it is for me a usefull feature. If it
      > isn't for you, well, don't use it.

      Well its because their context switching, syscalls, networking layer aren't so good that you get these improvements. The correct way is to improve these areas first, _then_ try more fancy stuff.

      >> their non-existant SMP scalability? Linux is
      >> being run right now on systems with FIVE HUNDRED
      >> CPUs.
      >
      >So use Linux for your 500 cpu machine....
      >I deal with dual cpu machines on a daily basis,
      >and there FreeBSD does extremely well..
      >I have seen 500+ cpu machines.. and used one, but
      >they are extremely rare.

      But it proves Linux's has good scalability. FreeBSD can still have bad problems on a 4 way, and can be quite suboptimal on a 2 way.

      >> Umm, Linux can do this in case you didn't know.
      >
      >I am aware of that, but FreeBSD could do this at
      >a time when Linux 2.0.3x was current.
      >

      Whats your point?

      >It is an example of a practical implementation >based on a solid framework (over engineered maybe >in your world)

      I don't know if this one is over engineered or not, I was just pointing out that Linux has the same functionality when you brought it up as a point FreeBSD has over it.

      >Linux' ip filtering took a few incarnations to
      >get beyond it, and by now FreeBSD's ip filtering
      >needs a bit of an overhaul.
      >
      >That doesn't change the fact that it survived and
      >provided usefull solutions based on a single
      >design for as long as by now 3 different designs
      >in the Linux world.

      I don't know the history behind Linux's packet filter, but the latest version is basically a reimplementation because the older version had serious problems. So maybe it was FreeBSD that gave the crappy design ideas.

      >Other (over-engineered in your world probably)
      >examples are the cam subsystem and netgraph.
      >(scsi over ide is simply ugly compared to
      >atapicam for using things like cdrecord with your
      >ide cd/dvd burner) and linux does not have
      >anything that compares to netgraph at all.

      You know, ATAPI is SCSI over an IDE transport. You're just calling it ugly because you've heard others call it ugly.

      >For as far as benchmarks go, again, those are
      >nice theory, and give good indications as to
      >where improvements can be made.

      Or so the BSD crowd say when they can't win any. When they do win a single benchmark though, hark, its like the second coming, with FreeBSD becoming god on earth and devourer of small penguins.

  3. Re:Don't use it by shlong · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I'll take a minor leap of faith and guess that this flaimbait was authored by either Bill Huey or Jeffrey Hsu. And oh my god, this really hurts my feelings!

    --
    Cat, the other, tastier white meat.
  4. Re:Don't use it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    It's spelled flamebait, dumbass.

    Joe

  5. Moderators by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Can't handle the truth

  6. Re:Don't use it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    If you are so great, then why the hell do you post this crap to /.? It's not like any developers have to time to read such bullshit.

  7. YHL FOAD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Idiot.

  8. Re:Wow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    go back to linux 2.6.0 rc11 and shut the fuck up

  9. Re:On Bizarro World by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    fact: parent poster LOVES the cock!

  10. Re:Just the facts, ma'am by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The truth hurts, doesn't it?

  11. ATTENTION TROLLS! PRICELESS *BSD FODDER, USE IT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Oh, you're all going to love this!

    Free Willy died -- now if you trolls don't come up with some VERY clever trolls in the next FreeBSD post, I'll be sorely disappointed.

    Remember: we're all counting on you!!

  12. YOU FAIL IT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    It took you four days to come up with that? Go back to playing with your letter blocks.