FreeBSD 5.2-RC1 Released

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."

Comments

Who need Release-Candidates?

[kwench]

Just get 4-LATEST or 5-CURRENT...

Re:Who need Release-Candidates?

[mbadolato]

Um, no DON'T get 5-CURRENT. That will likely have changes in it that will bork your system. That's for development and developers, not for end users

Re:Who need Release-Candidates?

[kace]

> no DON'T get 5-CURRENT. That will likely have changes in it that will bork your system. That's for development and developers, not for end users

A slight exagerration. 5.2-RC1 pretty much is CURRENT. As I understand it, release engineering (or somebody) would say "OK, that looks pretty good" and then take a snapshot of CURRENT and dub it 5.2-RC1. Whatever changes may have happened to CURRENT in the last couple of days would be minor, as CURRENT is still preening for 5.2-RELEASE, and major and/or risky new commits are discouraged in this phase.

On Bizarro World

[AtariAmarok]

On Bizarro World:

SCC makes you pay them $699 if you DON'T use Linux.

The recording industry sells all their material online, in a usable format, at a fair price

We don't, for one, welcome our new overlords.

Windows Security is not an oxymoron

All the trolls can't stop proclaiming how *BSD is so alive.

Just got this last night

[The Irish Jew]

Last night I was grabbing some 5.1 isos and happened to see 5.2 had just been updated to RC1 so I went ahead and grabbed them. As always another quality release from the FreeBSD team.

and use a mirror!

[samhalliday]

here

then go to releases/ARCH/ISO-IMAGES/5.2-RC1

Dead Project release 5.2 RC1

[thefatz]

Going strong, in a mature way! You know, I stay impressed with the quality of FreeBSD. As a longtime UNIX user and Linux user, FreeBSD has the professional "sheen" that I would expect from Solaris or AIX. While I enjoyed using Linux, it was the small things in FreeBSD that made me happy. Complete man pages, vs. halfway done man pages and broken info pages, or ports, or how there was a new kernel of the week (eerie similar to Microsoft). I like the fact that FreeBSD was rather set it up, update it, build your software, and forget about it. It's hard to make the 4.x series die, and the 5.x series is looking close to or already is enterprise ready. Good Luck, God Bless, and keep up the good work FreeBSD Team.

Re:Dead Project release 5.2 RC1

[anthonyrcalgary]

eh-- they say 5.3 will be the first stable release on the 5.x line. I would tend to take their word for it. Given how utterly rock solid previous FreeBSD-stable releases have proven, their opinions count for a lot.

Unfortunately my spare box at the moment is garbage, otherwise I'd jump at this. I haven't been able to get anything other than Windows working on it.

Re:Dead Project release 5.2 RC1

[archen]

they say 5.3 will be the first stable release on the 5.x line.

Depending on your definition of "stable". I didn't use 5.0 much so I can't say anything there, but I've already found 5.1 at least as stable as Linux, or at times more stable considering some problems I've had on Linux. I won't say that 5x doesn't have issues, but I haven't encountered any really.

If my inital tests of 5.2 pan out (which I have no doubt they will) then I will finally begin the migration from Redhat 7.3 to FreeBSD. If I have to reboot every 10 months or so (unlikely) I'll live. It's certainly better than the random 'inode pointers busy self destruct in 5 seconds' messeges I get on Linux every couple weeks.

Re:Dead Project release 5.2 RC1

[Billly Gates]

I have had nothing but problems with the 5.x series.

I use the ports to build everything and not pkg_add. The ports tree is quite broken in alot of area's.

No kernel panics I admit but it was almost as bad as Gentoo.

I switched back to 4.9 and I noticed the ports work and they are also more up to date.

Also I tried using just pkg_add under 5.1 and some of the apps were broken.

Still would not trust it yet.

Re:Dead Project release 5.2 RC1

[sirket]

It wasn't the 3.x series so much as 3.0 and 3.1. Everyone, the FreeBSD folks included, admitted that they just weren't FreeBSD quality.

The result of those releases is that they don't let a release out anymore without even more stringent testing. 4.x is a testament to the improved release scrutiny.

-sirket

Re:What does FreeBSD have over Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is oen better then the other? depends on what you need.

FreeBSD is very good for offering practical solutions to real world problems, based on a solid foundation. Bleedign edge technology only comes second to that.

Linux tries to push the envelope of Unix like development very succesfully, but at times forgoes the practical solution.

In the end, it doesn't matter that much. Sometimes you have to wait a bit longer in Linux before you get a practical solution for a problem, soemtimes you have to wait soem longer for FreeBSD to support a specific feature or piece of hardware.

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.

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

Are those hitech/bleedign edge solutions? no, but they are practical, and provide solutions to real problems that allow you to get a lot more out of your hardware with very little investment of time and efford.

Do you need them? I don't for my workstation (tho it rubns FreeBSD, but that is more due to it being simpler to maintain a few machines with the same OS.

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

Re:What does FreeBSD have over Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Red Hat offer 5

If you repeat a lie long enough do you hope to make it true?

Red Hat's policy for Red Hat Linux distributions is to provide maintenance for at least 12 months. No 5 year offer....just a 1 year offer.

well-designed and thoroughly tested distros like Debian and Slackware are totally rock-solid.

That would be the same 'totally rock-solid' Debian project which was rooted via do_bkr() - a result found in the 'thoroughly tested' Linux kernel?

FreeBSD must be good

[Anonymous Coward]

.... otherwise this mentally retarded deranged individual wouldn't be spending so much time trying to discredit it.

Seems like this nut runs a Windows or Linux business and feels threatened by FreeBSD!

Can't wait for FreeBSD 5.2 next week, this freak will go nuts!