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Chock Full o' NetBSD!

jschauma writes "While it's no Indigo Espresso or a VAX Bar (though, of course, there is NetBSD/sgimips and NetBSD/vax), at least you can log in on a Mr. Coffee. And while the JavaStation has been running NetBSD for a while, full support is now completely in-tree: NetBSD's Martin Husemann announced today that he has fixed all outstanding issues with JavaStation support. This means, that you can now run your JavaStation with a stock distribution of NetBSD/sparc. The JavaStation-NC is a network computer class machine built on the microSPARC-IIep processor. More information about the JavaStation can be found in the JavaStation HOWTO, Martin's email to the port-sparc mailing list and Valeriy E. Ushakov's paper 'Porting NetBSD to JavaStation-NC.'"

215 comments

  1. fp by daaan · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    fp mother fucker!

    1. Re:fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      What is wrong with you people? Saddam FUCKING Hussein has been captured in Iraq and all you can talk about are coffee makers running NetBSD? Get some priorities for fuck's sake!

  2. hahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Not very hard on BSD article... hehe

  3. Very good by after · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I use a BSD system for my server, and I find that the ports collection is somthing that is extremely usefull for any system administrator that wants to save time.

    I dont want to downlaod dependencies, I wan the computer to do it, and this is why it is so great.

    thank you!

    1. Re:Very good by after · · Score: -1

      My friend is planning to get a SPARCstation 10 .. but we already have this SPARCstation 4 that we installed NetBSD on it - all without any problems.

      Right now, the hard disks died and we cannot use it.

      It would have ben fun to run phpsysinfo on it just so people knew its a sparc ;)

      someday i will become rich and do all this and more.

    2. Re:Very good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      USE GENTOO DOOD!!!!

      EMERGE!

      (this was the obligatory Gentoo plug)

    3. Re:Very good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Oct. 23 -- BSD resumed receiving life-sustaining care yesterday in a
      Florida hospital room, but many experts said there is virtually no hope
      that it will ever recover, despite it fan boy's desperate hopes.

      "IF IT'S over a year, BSD's not ever going to get up," said Fred Plum, a
      professor emeritus at Weill Cornell College in New York. "You'd just
      don't see it. It just doesn't happen."
      BSD, 39, has been in a persistent vegetative
      state since its heart stopped for unknown reasons in 1990. A feeding
      tube in BSD's stomach was removed this past Wednesday after its husband,
      Theo De Ratt, who said his wife had told him she (BSD) would not want to
      be kept alive under such circumstances, won a long series of court
      battles to have life-sustaining nourishment withdrawn so she (BSD) could
      die.

  4. NetBSD is DYING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    NetBSD is DYING!

    1. Re:NetBSD is DYING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Why sure, all of us know that *BSD is a failure, but why? Why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personas?

      The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

    2. Re:NetBSD is DYING! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Subject says it all. End of story.

  5. but why? by penguin7of9 · · Score: -1, Insightful

    There can't be a lot of those machine around. And a new Mini ITX machine can be ahd for under $200, is more powerful, more featureful, and has far more software available for it.

    1. Re:but why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      It's a good point. Linux is portable to every embedded platform that matters. NetBSD is portable to platforms that are, well, dead.

      Hey, if you're the lucky person who bought one of the 126 JavaStations that were actually sold back in 1996, good for you. A million years ago I had an account on a VAX running BSD as well. However, I can't exactly see why this is worth bragging about in 2003.

    2. Re:but why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      We all can agree that *BSD is a failure. Yet why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personalities?

      The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

    3. Re:but why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Somewhere, in a lonely hospital room,
      *BSD is dying
  6. Hmm... by iamdrscience · · Score: 4, Funny

    NetBSD's got my coffee maker on-lock, but it looks like my dishwasher will be safe for a little while longer. NetBSD should produce a full kitchen appliance set. I would buy it, just as long as I don't have to compile anything (recompiling your kernel on a blender takes surprisingly long).

    1. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      What We Can Learn From NetBSD
      By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

      Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

      Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

      These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

      As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

      Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

      The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

    2. Re:Hmm... by Fulkkari · · Score: 4, Funny
      I would buy it, just as long as I don't have to compile anything (recompiling your kernel on a blender takes surprisingly long).

      Even though compiling a custom kernel on your blender may take a while, you could always cross-compile the kernel on your relatively fast microwave oven.

      --
      I demand the Cone of Silence!
    3. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      What We Can Learn From NetBSD
      By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

      Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

      Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

      These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

      As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

      Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

      The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

    4. Re:Hmm... by minusthink · · Score: 1

      "(recompiling your kernel on a blender takes surprisingly long)"

      I don't know what you're problem is, compiling a kernel on my blender (Blendfast 2k3 HT-compatible) is faster than on my current machine (athlon tbird 700). Note: my blender cost much much more than my computer.
      The blender is much faster (Basically due to the hyperthreading) that I cross compile the kernel for my computer on my blender.

      I'm guessing you either need a new blender or you have way too many optimizations enabled.

      --
      "when life gets complicated, I like to take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner" - Hobbes.
  7. Plaigarizing... OSNews? by xwred1 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Seems kind of odd that someone submitted a news story that is an exact copy of an OSNews one. And it is sad that it made it to the front page.

    Well hey, good way to get free karma.

    1. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by MoonFog · · Score: 3, Interesting

      OSNews: By Eugenia Loli-Queru, submitted by Jan Schaumann
      Slashdot: jschauma writes:

      Not bad having your story submitted on both osnews and slashdot with just a half an hour apart:
      Slashdot: 04:38AM
      OSNews: 04:09:24

    2. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      OSNews: By Eugenia Loli-Queru, submitted by Jan Schaumann

      Even better is having your story posted by one of the hottest geek babes around.

    3. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by adept256 · · Score: 1

      -1 offtopic It's news content, not a work of art. Not everyone reads osnews.

      --

      I ran a benchmark on my quantum computer, now I can't find it anywhere!
    4. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Whoa!

      Gotta go and spank the monkey. I really do have a geek-girl fetish...

      Those run-of-the-mill silicone enhanced bimbos you see in net porn are just boring. I want a chick with brains, lots of booty and ordinary breasts.

    5. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I enjoy osnews and love alot of her writtings, but hot she is /not/. Way too greek looking, take that as you may.

      *ducks*

    6. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait
      Somewhere, in a lonely hospital room,
      NetBSD is dying
    7. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait
      Junior, BSD is dead. This implies NetBSD is dead. What part of dead don't you understand?
      1. Grieve.
      2. Get over it.
      3. Move on.

      You're a big boy now. High time you started acting like one.

    8. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Lights out, pard.

      Somewhere, in a lonely hospital room,

      NetBSD is dying
    9. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by Lord+Omlette · · Score: 2, Informative

      jschauma is an sysadmin at my school... besides being responsible for all 75 NetBSD machines, he's also a NetBSD developer. I'm not surprised that he can submit his stories anywhere he wants to...

      --
      [o]_O
    10. Re:Plaigarizing... OSNews? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hi Amit.

  8. *BSD's corpse is chock full of worms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    _d8b____________________d8b_______d8,
    _?88____________________88P______`8P
    __88b__________________d88
    __888888b__.d888b,_d888888________88b_.d888b,
    __88P_`?8b_?8b,___d8P'_?88________88P_?8b,
    _d88,__d88___`?8b_88b__,88b______d88____`?8b
    d88'`?88P'`?888P'_`?88P'`88b____d88'_`?888P'

    ______d8b________________________d8b
    ______88P________________________88P
    _____d88________________________d88
    _d888888___d8888b_d888b8b___d888888
    d8P'_?88__d8b_,dPd8P'_?88__d8P'_?88
    88b__,88b_88b____88b__,88b_88b__,88b
    `?88P'`88b`?888P'`?88P'`88b`?88P'`88b

  9. a cool hack for sure, but not very useful i think by Indy1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I checked ebay, and i didnt find anything doing a search for the terms "mr coffee sparc". Also, the specs of these java machines is pretty poor, no better then most of the x86 boxes that were running around 95-96.

    --
    Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
  10. Re:netbsd ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    NetBSD is much, much more portable than 'Linux' if you refer to an Operating System, and not just a Kernal. 'NetBSD' represents a kernal and a complete base userland, all under one unified seamless source tree. Linux, on the other hand, is a kernal, and any number of different utilities and packages lumped together. There are dozens of versions of 'Linux' just for the x86, let alone the variations when you move from one architecture to another, whereas there is one NetBSD port for each platform, and all the NetBSD ports consist of base userlands compiled from the same source tree.

    Hope this makes sense. What it means in the final analysis is that I can (almost) tar up the /etc directory from a NetBSD 1.6 Sparc machine and expand it into the /etc directory of any x86 or 68000 or MIPS or PPC NetBSD 1.6 machine and it will just work

    49640+5012614

  11. Nip it at the bud... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    For any wanna-be trolls:
    *BSD is not dying and you are not cute,funny, or clever. Get over it.

    1. Re:Nip it at the bud... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah, way to go, you really headed them off at the pass.

  12. Elegy for *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Elegy For *BSD

    I am a *BSD user
    and I try hard to be brave
    That is a tall order,
    *BSD's foot is in the grave.

    I tap at my toy keyboard
    and whistle a happy tune
    but keeping happy's so hard,
    *BSD died so soon.

    Each day I wake and softly sob
    Nightfall finds me crying
    Not only am I a zit faced slob
    but *BSD is dying.

    1. Re:Elegy for *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Hey, a BSD troll.

      Hand me a gun: it's COLUMBINE TIME!

    2. Re:Elegy for *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Fact: *BSD is dying

  13. Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    I'm sure the 12 people that use NetBSD & Sparc are gonna be super happy!

    1. Re:Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      You don't keed to be Kreskin to look into BSD's future. Even a child knows that BSD is dying. All major marketing surveys show that BSD has steadily declined in market share. BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim.

      Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

      The numbers continue to decline for BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The loss of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral. In truth, for all practical purposes FreeBSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking. It's a fact: BSD is dying.

    2. Re:Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really. I run NetBSD on a Sparcstation 4
      and I'm about the same as I was yesterday, not
      really happy or sad about it. But that's life.

  14. Re:netbsd ... by anthonyrcalgary · · Score: 1

    Don't use NetBSD myself, but I'm curious. What are the differences?

    --
    When someone might yell at me, it has to be OpenBSD.
  15. *BSD IS DEAD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    DEAL

  16. 10 differences off the top of my head... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    1. You can not play games on it.
    2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
    3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
    4. There is no support available for it.
    5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
    6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
    7. You have to compile everything and know C.
    8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
    9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
    10. It is dying.

    1. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by spektr · · Score: 5, Informative

      1. You can not play games on it.

      There are games that are explicitly called BSDgames. Wanna play a game of hangman?

      3. It lacks a GUI of any note.

      Why do you think that XFree86 does not run on netbsd? Hint: it does.

      6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.

      That's just stupid. Hint: it does. And it runs on your kitchen sink, too.

      7. You have to compile everything and know C.

      No. Hint: there are binary packages. Lots of it.

      9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.

      Bullshit. Netbsd has a Linux emulation layer.

      10. It is dying.

      The troll: It is lying.

    2. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      BSD faces a very bleak future. I've seen the same boring cut-n-paste "BSD is dying!" trolls for years now too, so don't dismiss what I have to say as another one of those. I researched many compartive points about all the various flavours of *BSD after my comptroller asked me to deploy an OpenBSD firewall.

      Granted 4.2BSD was a very fine OS, but that was in 1983. 4.4BSD, and its brother 4.4BSBD-Lite, were abymsmal performers at best during their heydey in 1993-4. Both Solaris and HP-UX had networking stacks that supported "long fat pipes," multicasting, and TCP header header prediction years before 4.4BSD did.

      I don't know why 4.4BSD-Lite became so popular. Perhaps because it was released as OpenSource in 1994? But even then there were much better TCP/IP stacks and VM schemes in use (Solaris, AIX) so availability of source code was an insignificant win at best. All OpenSource does is allow poor quality code to be re-circulated and reused again and again in new systems, while high quality and RFC compliant code is relagated to the pay environment.

      Regardless, the codebase of 4.4BSD-Lite became the stepping stone for all the *BSDs that are still around now. The main three *BSDs (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD) all use at least 85% of 4.4BSD-Lite's source code, with the rest being mostly new userland code, TCP/IP updates, and multiprocessor support.

      The commerical offering, BSDI, is even more appaling - a source code diff shows roughly 94% code reuse. Paying for an archaic and outdated OS...that would explain why BSDI has less than 2% of the server market.

      FreeBSD has very close ties with BSDI. I'm not one to preach doom by association, but I'm afraid FreeBSD has doomed itself by the move. If that isn't enough, FreeBSD's C2 security certification is horrible. Even NT can do better than it!

      FreeBSD has a reputation of being the "fastest" BSD on x86 hardware. Actual memory bandwidth performance is a fraction of all of Sun's offerings, and the multiprocessor support is a joke since it has a poorly implemented semaphore locking mechanism. I hear a total re-write is planned, and perhaps even a security audit too, so /maybe/ by 2004 FreeBSD will be a contender in the low-end server market.

      NetBSD, I'm afraid, is dead before it got off the ground. The goal of running on as many platforms at once is a noble and idealistic one, but in the real world its useless. At best NetBSD is a mediocre hobbyist OS that runs on outdated computers. A match made in hell it would seem, since ancient source code has been hacked to run on ancient computer. Its ports to systems such as the Dreamcast are total folly, offering no more real world use than GUI systems on headless servers. And I think the installed user base of less than 10,000 speaks for itself.

      I was hopeful OpenBSD would be better as its reputation for security is interesting. Sadly, its another strikeout. OpenBSD's filesystem is extremely slow, and hardware support is nearly nonexistant. There are also numerous political issues surrouding its development team that are eating away the last bit of hope. Perhaps the reason it is secure is because no one bothers to hack it since the "prize" is mostly worthless.

      *BSD users too are dooming thier own OS. As a group, they are a very vocal and rowdy bunch. No real help is given to new users and such an elitest attitude is suicide.

      I chose to not deploy an OpenBSD based upon these reasons. It is my humble opinion that either NT or Solaris be used for any significant work, and *BSDs be left to the hobbyists.

    3. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No need to read the parent. Another copy and past contributions that is years old. Fucking posting bots with too much time at hand.

    4. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Junior, BSD is dead. This implies FreeBSD is dead. What part of dead don't you understand?
      1. Grieve.
      2. Get over it.
      3. Move on.

      You're a big boy now. High time you started acting like one.

    5. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't you mindless trollbots not even recognize that this article is about NetBSD!

    6. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by DrPepper · · Score: 1

      Some minor points...

      FreeBSD is used on many many servers around the world. Sure it's not as popular as Linux, but it has quite a big share of installed systems.

      BSD is hardly dying - where do you think userland in OS/X comes from? There is money being poured into BSD development, just no where near as much as Linux, and it doesn't get the headlines.

    7. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by kjs3 · · Score: 1
      [lots of historical inaccuracy and performance claims unsupported by fact deleted] If that isn't enough, FreeBSD's C2 security certification is horrible. Even NT can do better than it!

      What are you talking about? FreeBSD has never been certified as C2, and that's all that NT has been certified at (remeber to remove the floppy and network card). Check for yourself at http://www.radium.ncsc.mil/tpep/epl/index.html.

      BSD users too are dooming thier own OS. As a group, they are a very vocal and rowdy bunch. No real help is given to new users and such an elitest attitude is suicide.

      Hasn't slowed down Slashdot, or the anti-BSD trolls that live there.

      It is my humble opinion that either NT or Solaris be used for any significant work

      Oh...I get it. You're retarded. My bad...

    8. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by pHDNgell · · Score: 1

      Just in case someone's reading this crap:

      1. You can not play games on it.

      I don't really play games (well, I do sometimes on my playstation or game cube or whatever), but I don't really see where this is coming from. On my old 1.6 box, there's something like 170 games in /usr/pkgsrc (including stuff I might actually play like quake 3 arena). Any Linux based game should work as well on x86. I wouldn't really know, though.

      2. It cannot be used by my grandma.

      It has, in fact, been used by my in-laws who have no computer experience at all (which would make them my kids' grandma and grandpa). Login, click here for a web browser, go!

      3. It lacks a GUI of any note.

      Said web browser was running in X. You should probably consider looking at something before trying to tell other people about it.

      4. There is no support available for it.

      Yeah, there is. See wasabi systems.

      5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.

      Wait, are we talking about NetBSD, or Linux? NetBSD is a single, solid, clean OS that looks the same on many different hardware platforms. Linux is many different operating systems that have very little to do with each other.

      6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.

      This is supreme ignorance. The laptop used by the in-laws was a thinkpad (which is x86 based).

      7. You have to compile everything and know C.

      I don't believe I compiled Mozilla (I never compiled the Netscapes I used before that, but if I did compile Mozilla, it certainly wasn't significant enough for me to remember it).

      8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.

      This statement is true regardless of platform. The things that are important to people vary by platform. I seem to recall significant hardware support reaching NetBSD before Linux in the past as well.

      9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.

      Well, BSD and other Unixes were here first, so of GNU/Linux has incompatibilities, it isn't the fault of the BSDs.

      This, however, is my #1 reason for not using Linux in general. It doesn't work like any other system I use (on my LAN: MacOS X, Solaris 8, SunOS 4.1.4, NetBSD (various versions), IRIX 6.2, IRIX 6.5, probably some others). There are things I can expect to work a certain way in all of those places (i.e. netstat).

      10. It is dying.

      Wait a second, so is Apple, and this Apple's running a BSD, does that mean it's a double negative?

      --
      -- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
    9. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Goddamn, you're an idiot.

    10. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Why dont you BSD lamers recognize that trolls only exist to piss you off and do not care for inaccuracy?

    11. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting how an offtopic post it not touched, but a reply to the offtopic post IS.

      BSD moderators not biased? Haha!

    12. Re:10 differences off the top of my head... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet another example of biased BSD moderation.

      This post *is* worthy of being modded down, but the grandparent should have been too! Its saying basically the same thing, just targeted towards different people.

      Grow up folks. If this keeps up, I'm going to start emailing this crap to CmdrTaco/et. al.

  17. BSD Rocks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

    You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her! I mean just look at this girl! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox. As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx. I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass?!

    With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat! Don't you wish you could get one of these? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine beauty!

    Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

    1. Re:BSD Rocks! by mattjb0010 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I know this little hottie [madchat.org] puts me in need of a cold shower!

      Yes, a 404 really turns me on! ;)

    2. Re:BSD Rocks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Junior, BSD is dead. This implies NetBSD is dead. What part of dead don't you understand?
      1. Grieve.
      2. Get over it.
      3. Move on.

      You're a big boy now. High time you started acting like one.

      What does "BSD" stand for - is it Butt Sex Department or Boiz Sucking Dick?

    3. Re:BSD Rocks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux is much better than BSD...

    4. Re:BSD Rocks! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Modding this up shows that *BSD users are no better than Linux users that post *BSD is dying trolls. Obviously, the trolls get to you people.

  18. Was I the only one to ... by boris_the_hacker · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... read the topic as "BSD Chock Full o' NetBSD" and assume that, with the recent SCO/Linux issues, that NetBSD was going down the same war path as SCO but with BSD ?

    [cartman] I feel as though SCO has warped my fragile little mind [/cartman]

    --
    chris at darkrock dot co dot uk
    http colon slash slash www dot darkrock dot co dot uk
  19. the Death of *BSD: Lamenting the dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    The End of FreeBSD

    [ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]

    When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.

    Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.

    FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.

    It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.

    So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.

    Discussion

    I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.

    From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.

    There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.

    Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.

    Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?

    Shouts

    To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.

    To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It

  20. Saddam Captured! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Good news world, Saddam Hussein (Or however the fucker spells it) has been captured by U.S. forces from the 4th ID. Score one for the good guys.

    1. Re:Saddam Captured! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant
      So why now? Why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personalities?

      The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

  21. Always nice. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's always nice to see BSD being used in strange new ways. I like knowing that using it allows me to move to any platforms in the future without any difficulty. With uncertainty of the x86 platform and lack of portability of Linux distributions not to mention little drivers outside of the x86 realm, NetBSD makes a perfect platform. I'm not even going to mention the problems of the GPL license.

    This is why BSD is so great. You have actual portability. It's truly open and free. Stable and secure. Much better code base then Linux with a better development group. The only area it's lacking is XFree86, but in time drivers will come around.

    Fortress of Insanity

    1. Re:Always nice. by macshit · · Score: 1

      Whoa, best troll I've seen in a while!

      All you other trolls, pay attention to his technique: say things that are (1) on topic, (2) inflammatory, but stated politely, (3) sound sort vaguely like they might be true, or at least aren't obviously false if you're reading quickly and not really paying attention), (4) put the really inflammatory things near the end -- many readers will stop reading early, especially if the beginning is boring, (5) includes a bit of ego stroking for some group while you're at it -- you might get a few mods up that way.

      To address his `points': * No of course the GPL isn't a `problem', unless you're a big corporation looking to steal yourself some code. * Netbsd is nice and portable, but then, so is linux (those of you who have been snoozing for the past 5 years might be surprised); look to debian for a good example. The rest is just silly flamebait.

      BSD has its good points (if nothing else I spent a few years in an office with a member of the netbsd core team, and he was definitely a smart guy), but please, give the fanboyish trolling a rest...

      --
      We live, as we dream -- alone....
    2. Re:Always nice. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      To address his `points': * No of course the GPL isn't a `problem', unless you're a big corporation looking to steal yourself some code. * Netbsd is nice and portable, but then, so is linux (those of you who have been snoozing for the past 5 years might be surprised); look to debian for a good example. The rest is just silly flamebait.

      Many people, even Linux users, feel the GPL is a bad license because of it's viral nature. Not just a bad license for big business, but for open source developers too. It removes the freedom we all want; choice.

      Debian doesn't support nearly as many platforms as NetBSD. Debian doesn't offer the cross-platform tools NetBSD. Debian also doesn't offer binary emulation support like NetBSD does.

      I'm trolling a troll who's trolling a troll. Nice.
    3. Re:Always nice. by undergn0me · · Score: 1

      Netbsd is nice and portable, but then, so is linux (those of you who have been snoozing for the past 5 years might be surprised); look to debian for a good example.

      Alright, let's look:

      Debian GNU/Linux Ports: 10 editions
      NetBSD: 53 editions

  22. Sheriff posts lookout for fugitive BSD developer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    By STEVE LYSAKER, Bigfork Eagle

    Area horse owners, especially those around Echo Lake, may want to keep a close eye on their equine companions after two recent instances of abuse and theft.

    A naked man was found having intercourse with a horse in a stable on McCaffery Road around 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 17. Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont said the man, still nude, fled on foot when the owner of the horse entered the stable.

    "He left his boots and a bottle of hand lotion behind," Dupont said.

    Also found were a Yoda doll, Crisco, and a ticket marked "FreeBSD anniversary party". Sheriff's deputies concur that the suspect is an unemployed BSD developer.

    The incident came just days after a Flathead County deputy reported his horse missing. The horse had apparently been taken from its stable near Echo Lake early in the weekend. The horse was back in its stable by late in the weekend with traces of lanolin around its rectum, Dupont said.

    "It appears we have a serial horse rapist," Dupont said. The sheriff's office is investigating, and Dupont advised horse owners to be vigilant. "BSD is dying, and there is nothing which these BSD weirdos won't do in an act of desperation," he concluded.

  23. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is now official - Netcraft has confirmed: *BSD is dying

    Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered *BSD community when recently IDC confirmed that *BSD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

    Fact: *BSD is dead

  24. SADDAM HUSSEIN CAPTURED? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
  25. BSD Wailing Song by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    The *BSD Wailing Song

    What's left for me to see
    In my ship I sailed so far
    What can the answer be
    Don't know what the questions are.
    And after all I've done
    Still I cannot feel the sun
    Tell me save me
    In the end our lost souls must repent.
    I must know it is for certain
    Can it be the final curtain
    As long as the wind will blow
    I'll be searching high and low.
    Who knows what's really true
    They say the end is so near
    Why are we all so cruel
    We just fill ourselves with fear.
    And heaven and hell will turn
    All that we love shall burn
    Hear me trust me
    In the end our lost soul must repent.
    I must know it is for certain
    Can it be the final curtain
    As long as the wind will blow
    I'll be searching high and low
    Final curtain
    Final curtain

  26. Re:netbsd ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NetBSD is much, much more portable than 'Linux' if you refer to an Operating System, and not just a Kernal. 'NetBSD' represents a kernal and a complete base userland, all under one unified seamless source tree. Linux, on the other hand, is a kernal, and any number of different utilities and packages lumped together. There are dozens of versions of 'Linux' just for the x86, let alone the variations when you move from one architecture to another, whereas there is one NetBSD port for each platform, and all the NetBSD ports consist of base userlands compiled from the same source tree.

    Its stupid to compare like that. There are lots of versions of BSD just for the x86. NetBSD is a complete operating system package, so lets compare it to another orange. Take Debian for example.

    Debain is a single, complete source tree, with probably as many architectures as NetBSD. And it works with more relevant ones such as Power4 and IA64.

    Hope this makes sense. What it means in the final analysis is that I can (almost) tar up the /etc directory from a NetBSD 1.6 Sparc machine and expand it into the /etc directory of any x86 or 68000 or MIPS or PPC NetBSD 1.6 machine and it will just work

    Yeah this obviously works with Debian as you'd expect. I don't see why you're touting it as anything special...

  27. Re:netbsd ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    NetBSD is *not* free guys! It never was! At least not in the true sense of the word. It is rather an attempt by some programmers to whore themselves out so that their code can be as popular as possible and as widely used as possible, with only an afterthought given to the ideals of truly free software.

    I love BSD. It's so easy for any Evil Corporation to take it, modify it, redistribute it under a draconian closed-source license, charge an arm-and-a-leg for it, and REAP THE REWARDS! Even if 99% of the code is untouched. Muahahaha!

    Guys, wake up. BSD is not free software. It never was. Well it is free, but it's not designed to stay free due to its overly permissive license. Any true supporter of free software would shun it and stick with GNU/Linux these days.

    BSD comes with a lot of GNU utils. Heck, BSD wouldn't exist without GNU gcc. They *owe* the GNU project, and would do well to switch their license to the FSF's GPL.

    (Let me make a piece of software. Call it RedWM, the Red Window Manager, and within it offer only shades of burgundy and not any real Red. That's an analogy for how misnamed NetBSD truly is!)

  28. Something to think about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    *BSD is like a problem child dying of some rare incurable disease.

  29. BREAKING NEWS: SADDAM ARRESTED!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Saddam Hussein has been arrested in Iraq

    So, you bleeding heart anti-liberation wankers. This is the end-game.

    If the Coalition has the guts to turn Saddam over to the Iraqis for some real "interrogation", we'll soon find those missing WMDs. I hope you're not going to start whining about HIS human rights...

    1. Re:BREAKING NEWS: SADDAM ARRESTED!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Too bad that Saddam was never a threat to the USA, and any WMD's he has left were from the 1980's and Reagan's moronic support of a murderous dictator. It is not America's job to liberate the world.

  30. Difference between BSDs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why would one choose a particular one? And what differentiates BSD from Linux, and from Unix?

  31. CNN IS RIGHT-WING BIASED NATIONALISTIC PAP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Use the BBC or Al-Jazeera.

  32. Sorry moderators, NOT INSIGHTFUL by hummassa · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    hmmm. let's see...
    I have one of those lying down, unused... US$ 0.
    ITX etc etc... US$ 200.
    my bank account balance after paying household bills... US$ 0.
    Which one?
    Now THAT's insightful, informative and interesting. :-)

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  33. Hard Times for *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Sure, we all know that *BSD is a failure, but why? Why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personas?

    The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

  34. Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    So he's captured, end of story. What else can you fucking say man? Discuss his fashion, maybe his play?

    1. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      There's a lot to discuss.

      Like the fact how the anti-liberation cowards are soon going to end up with an egg on their face when the WMDs are uncovered.

      Ah, I am so going to savour watching the French and all the other supporters of this tyrant to squirm on the hot seat when their investments and deals with his corrupt government are uncovered.

    2. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      So, you've arrested the legitimate leader of a sovereign nation you've invaded.

      Congratulations.

    3. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Ah, I am so going to savour watching the French and all the other supporters of this tyrant to squirm on the hot seat when their investments and deals with his corrupt government are uncovered.

      Keep an eye on Donald Rumsfield then. It's not like the U.S hasn't invested huge amounts of money and weapons in Iraq over the past few decades. Who'd you think they got their chemical weapons from in the first place, anyway? Saddam didn't brew them up in a bathtub in Tikrit; the Good 'Ol Boys in the United States sold them to him.

      As for France; fuck 'em. They're currently wringing their hands over the EU consitution and couldn't give a fuck. Surprise surprise, France and Germany already have everything they want out of it. Apparently the rest of us can take a running jump. Cunts.

    4. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      Who'd you think they got their chemical weapons from in the first place, anyway?

      That's hardly the issue.

      What I am talking about is France, Germany and Russia selling Iraq weapons during the Gulf War II. Weapons that were used against the good guys.

    5. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Oh yeah, thats a new one. Funny how no one in the U.S administration has ever mentioned this before. Now show us one scrap of possible evidence that it ever happened.

    6. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The first casualty on night 1 of Gulf War II was a Russian technician manning a Russian SAM radar installation for the Iraqis. IIRC, Bush even had a major strop at Putin half way through GWII about the crazy amount of Russian arms with *recent* dates of manufacture they were picking up from the bad guys.

    7. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Here.

      Here.

      and here.

      (Stupid lameness filter
      must type something here
      to get enough characters per line).

    8. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Weapons sold during Gulf War II" You didn't even read the articles you linked too, did you? Read the article here and see that the U.S administration activly denies that the Governments of France, Germany, Russia or anyone else ever supplied weapons to Iraq after 1990.

    9. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Of course we can all agree that *BSD is a failure. Yet why did *BSD fail? Once you get past the fact that *BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. *BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know *BSD keeps losing market share but why? Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players? Or is it larger than their troubled personalities?

      The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.

    10. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Right, and now the Iraqi resistance to the occupation is going to end right? Yeah, right. You ain't seen nothing yet.

    11. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Couple hundred thousand corpses would disagree with 'legitimate' in this context.
      Nothing occured in Iraq that shouldn't have happened in Europe in the 1930s.
      Neville Chamberlain, go home.

    12. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Make sure to ask what BSD stands for - is it Butt Sex Department or Boiz Sucking Dick?

    13. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tell that to Ronald Reagan, who virtually sucked Saddam's cock back in the 80's. Fucking idiot Americans.

    14. Re:Dude, ain't nothing to say. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      You may go to Mitch's site, he regularly invites Nostradamus "authorities" and if you missed last nights interview with Adam Rubel, another surprise was announced. Adam has now stated he has been "told" by Mayan Elders, that Nostradamus was a "student" of one of the tribes from Guatemala. Adam did mention the name of the tribe, but I could not understand the word as he announced it in Maya language.

      Adam stated he was told by three Mayan Elders, one of which was Carlos Barrios, that they "believe" Nostradamus was a student, and this is were he learned his technique of "water and a tripod". It is said using a bowl of water on a tripod is called "scrying". It is a technique used by those trained to "see/view" other places without being "seen" by those they are "viewing" (spying on), or to help them foretell the future.

      Since last night's interview, I have been told this technique was used by man! y cultures long before Nostradamus discovered it and put it to his own use. Nothing about Nostradamus studying with the Mayans can be more erroneous or incorrect.

      One must use common sense when dealing with any form of information, Nostradamus traveled all over Europe carrying his books and belongings on the back of a donkey. Cars, trains and planes were not yet available and a trip by sea to take a study to Guatemala with some Mayan Elders would have been very expensive and time-consuming for the doctor who was very much in demand for his services against the plague affecting Europe during his existence. I know for a fact that Nostradamus spoke a few languages and I do not know about the Mayan dialect.

  35. WMD? Don't they make hard drives? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Caviar or something like that?

  36. Dood, Gentoo doesn't make a BSD. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    You definitely fail it.

    1. Re:Dood, Gentoo doesn't make a BSD. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait
      Did you not get your latest copy of the GENTOY USARS FANKLUB NEWSLETAR? It's very clearly stated in Black & White on page three:

      • Gentoy is the answer to everything, ever.
      • Gentoy invented ports
      • Don't worry about BSD, Redhat, SuSe, Solaris or Windows. Just believe that Gentoy runs on everything you could ever want (You only ever want a cheap Intel machine)
      • Gentoy is TEH BESTAST EVAR! Be sure to tell everyone. Even when they're talking about something else. BESTAST!!!!1!!!one

      You really should make more of an effort.
    2. Re:Dood, Gentoo doesn't make a BSD. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Gentoo is growing.

      NetBSD is dying.

  37. BSD FAQ by Sarojin · · Score: -1

    BSD HELP

    A Beginners Guide

    BSDs are a proud, independent breed of animal. Their breed, their social
    life, their training (or lack therof), and their own developing personality
    are a few of the variables that must be accounted for when attempting to
    understand them individualy. BSDs, like people, all have individual
    personalities so one must really spend a great deal of time with an animal
    to develop a significant relationship. I can say with a great deal of
    confidence however, that anyone that spends a significant amount of time
    observing and interacting with BSDs can do ANYTHING with them.

    Basic reproductive behavior

    BSDs, like most animals, depend on the sense of smell to signify the
    readiness of a female for an encounter. The Windows will approach the
    Linux from behind and make a squealing noise...if the Linux is in heat she
    will "wink" her pussy and squirt a few short squirts of urine. The
    Windows will have to approach her several times (unless shes a real slut)
    before she will acquiesse. The Linux will often prove recalcitrant for some
    time, even threatening to kick the Windows. As he squeals and nips her
    however, with time, she becomes acquiessent and allows him to mount her and
    complete the union.

    The Windows

    A full grown Windows's cock, when fully erect, will measure some two to
    three feet long. It can be three to six inches thick at the base, to about
    two inches thick at the head. BSDs are somewhat different from other
    animals in the way their cock head works. When a BSD is fully erect and
    excited and ready to mount, his cock head is somewhat pointed and not as
    thick as might be normally observed. This is to facillatate an easier
    entry into the Linux. After the BSD has entered and reaches a climax the
    head swells (though it is more spongy then hard) into a fist sized mass as
    he ejacultates. It is thought that this serves as a plug to force the
    semen deep into the Linux rather then allowing it to leak out. A full grown
    Windows can ejaculate about one cup ( 8 ounces ) of semen. It will take
    quite a few spurts to accomplish this. Each time his tail will raise and
    lower in a brief flick. The first few jets are of a thin to average
    consistency of cum. The final few jets are of a thick gelatinous
    substance... it is thought that this serves to "seal" the Linuxs pussy so
    that the semen has time to do it's thing before leaking out. BSD semen
    is extremely viscous, if you touch your finger to a pool of it you can draw
    a thin string of it five to six feet long! BSD cum has a nice flat taste
    to it...not at all bitter like man's cum. You can easily drink cups of it
    with no discomfort.

    The Linux - how to do it.

    Linuxs can be quite satisfactory for the average well endowed male. If you
    are somewhat less developed you might find better pleasure with a pony or
    Miniature BSD. These are also better as they are lower to the ground. A
    pony you can fuck standing up. A miniature BSD on your knees or
    squatting depending on the size. A Linux will require something to stand on
    or "platform shoes"...(IE mini stilts to raise you a foot off the ground)
    so that you can reach her pussy.
    Fucking any BSD will depend on the BSD. Some will be ready right
    away...some will take coaxing. Pet the animal, talk to it softly, spend
    time with it gaining it's trust. If something you are doing upsets it then
    don't force it. Talk to it and calm it. If you work slowly you can make
    an animal accept anything. It is just a question of helping it overcome
    it's fears. All animals fear man if raised in the wild. How any animal
    reacts will depend on it's own experiences. If you haved raised the animal
    yourself in a loving enviroment, then you should have no problem
    associating with it, if it is a strange animal that you have met in the
    wild then you will have to go through an extended "courtship" to learn how
    to respond

    --
    HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
  38. So what? Gentoo already has "ports" functionality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    The article spoke about the ports-systen.

    Gentoo has had a similar system for quite a while already. Get with the times.

  39. OT: Saddam Hussein may have been captured by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Check ya fav news sight NOW

    1. Re:OT: Saddam Hussein may have been captured by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Yep, I expected to find an OT about it here. :)

  40. The ends do no justify the means by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Fuck off.

    You've illegally invaded a sovereign nation. That hardly makes you one of the "good guys", asshat.

    The ends never justifies the means.

    1. Re:The ends do no justify the means by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Illegally invaded a sovereign nation... So. Welcome back. You've missed about 5,500 years of recorded human history, where every war has more or less featured at least one soverign country has invaded another country. That's how you do wars, dip shit. So did we illegally invade Germany in WW2? Did Alexander illegally invaded Persia? Did Rome illegally invade Germany about 4,000 years ago? Welcome to Humanity. You have a lot to learn.

    2. Re:The ends do no justify the means by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      These days we have this thing called UN.

      This war was illegal in the sense that the war did not have the backing of it.

  41. Re:a cool hack for sure, but not very useful i thi by LizardKing · · Score: 2, Informative

    You might want to check Ebay for Javastation rather than Mr Coffee. The latter was just the Sun code name for that particular Javastation (Krups being the other model IIRC).

    The low spec is irrelevant on a machine like this, as it is nothing more than a thin client. I occasionally use a similar NCD ThinStar to login to one of the development servers at work. The client runs nothing more than WinCE and an X server, and all the apps are run on the server.

    Chris

  42. Good for Iraqis, bad for the USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Good for the Iraqis, but but here in the USA this is bad news.

    This will boost the chances of GWB winning the 2004 elections. Four more years of "spend, spend, spend", militarization of the nation, blurring the lines of the church and the state as well as pursuing foreign policy that drives even our allies mad.

  43. FUCK YOU, EUROFAG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You nigger-loving cocksuckers are next!

    1. Re:FUCK YOU, EUROFAG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      Europeans are fags. They are girly-men who sip water and munch on petite-fours.

  44. Turd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Bring it on...

  45. Developer laments death of *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    The End of FreeBSD

    [ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]

    When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.

    Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.

    FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.

    It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.

    So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.

    Discussion

    I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.

    From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.

    There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.

    Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.

    Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?

    Shouts

    To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.

    To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. I

  46. Re:netbsd ... by LizardKing · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't use NetBSD myself, but I'm curious. What are the differences?

    Compared to Linux, there is only one NetBSD distribution. Companies like Wasabi Systems may offer branded copies of a release, but they contain the same software as the ISO images found on the NetBSD ftp servers. Another key difference is that the NetBSD project maintains an entire operating system, rather than Linus Torvalds and his loose knit team, who concern themseles almost exclusively with the Linux kernel itself. The NetBSD approach leads to a greater consistency and closer integration of kernel and userland. The downsides are that third party software which NetBSD relies on (gcc for instance), often takes a while to update to new releases while Linux'isms are worked out.

    The NetBSD project is based around a core team, and peer review is encouraged before any changes are commited by non-core developers. This leads to a very consistent, clear code base that conforms to number of good coding practices. For instance, the NetBSD kernel drivers liberally use #defines for addresses and registers, while Linux doesn't frown on undocumented magic numbers. The Linux style makes supporting someone elses code a nightmare, unless you're very familiar with the hardware the driver is for.

    The NetBSD project has a server farm dedicated to autobuilds, and it is easy for port masters (people concerned with NetBSD on a particular platform) to see when the development version has broken for their platform. In the Linux world, as long as x86 works the other platforms are considered secondary. This is why I run NetBSD on my non-x86 hardware - I got pissed off with Linux claiming fot support a platform when it had clearly been broken for months.

    Finally, there is the pkgsrc collection. This allows me to install all the software I need, confident that it has been tested (and patched if necessary). The dependency tracking of pkgsrc makes the much vaunted Debian Linux look very ho-hum in comparison.

    Chris

  47. Ooh yeah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The cute newsreader with the pink lipstick is on Al-Jazeera right now! I'd give her one anyday!

  48. DON'T CLICK ON THE LAST LINK - booby trapped. by polished+look+2 · · Score: 0, Troll

    the last link is booby trapped with some kind of weird thing.

  49. SADDAM CAPTURED! ! ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Your comment has too few characters per line

    Your comment has too few characters per line

    Your comment has too few characters per line

  50. As opposed to a LEGAL invasion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Has there ever been one? I dare you to name one single invasion that has been "legal".

  51. Old Ike: "I Killed *BSD!" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    When I think of dirty old men, I think of Ike Thomas and when I think about Ike I get a hard-on that won't quit.

    Sixty years ago, I worked in what was once my Grandfather's Greenhouses. Gramps had died a year earlier and Grandma, now in her seventies had been forced to sell to the competition. I got a job with the new owners and mostly worked the range by myself. That summer, they hired a man to help me get the benches ready for the fall planting.

    Ike always looked like he was three days from a shave and his whiskers were dirty white, shaded by the brim of his battered felt fedora.

    He did not chew tobacco but the corners of his mouth turned down in a way that, at any moment, I expected a trickle of thin, brown juice to creep down his chin. His bushy, brown eyebrows shaded pale, gray eyes.

    The old-timer extended his hand, lifted his leg like a dog about to mark a bush and let go the loudest fart I ever heard. The old fellow then winked at me, "Ike Thomas is the name and playing pecker's my game."

    I thought he said, "Checkers." I was nineteen, green as grass. I said, "I was never much good at that game."

    "Now me," said Ike, "I just love jumping men . . ."

    "I'll bet you do."

    ". . . and grabbing on to their peckers," said Ike.

    "I though we were talking about . . ."

    "You like jumping old men's peckers?"

    I shook my head.

    "I reckon we'll have to remedy that." Ike lifted his right leg and let go another tremendous fart. "He said, "We best be getting to work."

    That summer of 1941 was a more innocent time. I learned most of the sex I knew from those little eight pager cartoon booklets of comic-page characters going at it. Young men read them in the privacy of an outside john, played with themselves, by themselves and didn't brag about it. Sometimes, we got off with a trusted friend and helped each other out.

    Under the greenhouse glass, the temperature sometimes climbed over the hundred degree mark. I had worked stripped to the waist since April and was as brown as a berry. On only his second day on the job and in the middle of August, Ike wore old fashioned overalls. Those and socks in his high-top work shoes was every stitch he wore. When he bent forward, the bib front billowed out and I could see the white curly hairs on his chest and belly.

    "Me? I just love to eat pussy!" Ike licked his lips from corner to corner then sticking his tongue out far enough that the tip could touch the end of his nose. He said, A man's not a man till he knows first hand, the flavor of a lady's pussy."

    "People do that?"

    He winked. "Of course the taste of a hard cock ain't to be sneezed at neither. Now you answer me, yes or no. Does a man's cock taste salty or not?"

    "I never . . ."

    "Well, old Ike's willing to let you find out."

    "No way."

    "Just teasing," said Ike. "But don't give me no sass or I'll show you my ass." He winked. "Might show it to you anyway, if you was to ask."

    "Why would I do that?"

    "Curiosity, maybe. I'm guessing you never had a good piece of man ass."

    "I'm no queer."

    "Now don't be getting judgmental. Enjoying what's at hand ain't being queer. It's taking pleasure where you find it with anybody willing." Ike slipped a hand into the side slit of his overalls and I could tell he was fondling and straightening out his cock. "Now I admit I got me a hole that satisfied a few guys."

    I swallowed, hard.

    Ike winked. "Care to be asshole buddies?"

    ***

    We worked steadily until noon. Ike drew a worn pocket watch from the bib pocket of his loose overalls and croaked, "Bean time. But first its time to reel out our limber hoses and make with the golden arches before lunch."

    I followed Ike to the end of the greenhouse where he stopped at the outside wall of the potting shed. He opened his fly, fished inside, and finger-hooked a soft white penis with a pouting foreskin puckered half an inch past the hidden head.

  52. osama is next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    bush is a great president!

    1. Re:osama is next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      They don't get any better. President Bush is a great man, and a great president.

      Vote for Bush and Cheney in 2004 !

  53. Don't use FreeBSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Back in the day, around FreeBSD 2.2.8, it was a very nice operating system. However, when RELENG_5 was branched, a lot of wrong decisions were made, most of them by people with zero clue about how to implement proper SMP (e.g. John Baldwin). Matt Dillon tried to fix the situation, but all he got in response was a commit bit suspension, which later lead to his expulsion.

    You can thank assholes like: Poul-Henning Kamp (POT, KETTLE, BLACK), Greg Lehey, Dag-Erling Smorgrav, Mark Murray and Bill Fumerola for kicking him out and making sure that, thanks to overengineering, RELENG_5 will never work.

    Further proof, FreeBSD recently went 100% dynamic to allow the use of NSS switch system. John Dyson, who did most of the VM work back in the day, pointed out how wrong this decision was. Dillon also jumped in and offered a better solution. What he got as reward was Scott Long telling him to go away. Listen Scott, YOU ARE A FUCKING IDIOT. Not only you don't even know how to quote, but you also managed to fuck the 5.1-R isos twice. I wonder how can you be in re@, that sure has lead to the piss-poor quality of the last 2 or 3 releases.

    Joseph Mallett, an ex-committer.

    10814
  54. That's nice... by ameoba · · Score: 1

    OK, they've got NetBSD up on the JavaStation. This is no real suprise, "Of course it runs NetBSD".

    A friend of mine just recently came into a bunch of Sunrays... Has anyone figured out if they're good for anything unless you've got a Sparc to hang them off of?

    --
    my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    1. Re:That's nice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First off, he'd need to wipe them clean.

    2. Re:That's nice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      paperweights?

    3. Re:That's nice... by pp · · Score: 1

      Next version of the Sun Ray server-side software will supposedly be available for Linux. Wonder if they'll continue the "for peanuts" educational site license with that one.

      They're not bad boxes at all as long as you have a fast sparc around already. Otherwise not much sense unless someone reverse-engineers the protocol (as been partially done by someone AFAIK) or the Linux port materializes and you can get it for a reasonable price.

      The normal price for the server side is like $1500/20 clients, so it really doesn't make much sense unless you think $350 (sun ray)+$75 (software) /box+$500 (decent monitor) is a reasonable price for fast but dumb terminals.

      But they're very easy to maintain, just plug it in, insert a smart card and you're up & running.
      Remove smart card and move it to another box and your session moves there. Great when your office
      has less seats than workers :-)

  55. Don't use FreeBSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Back in the day, around FreeBSD 2.2.8, it was a very nice operating system. However, when RELENG_5 was branched, a lot of wrong decisions were made, most of them by people with zero clue about how to implement proper SMP (e.g. John Baldwin). Matt Dillon tried to fix the situation, but all he got in response was a commit bit suspension, which later lead to his expulsion.

    You can thank assholes like: Poul-Henning Kamp (POT, KETTLE, BLACK), Greg Lehey, Dag-Erling Smorgrav, Mark Murray and Bill Fumerola for kicking him out and making sure that, thanks to overengineering, RELENG_5 will never work.

    Further proof, FreeBSD recently went 100% dynamic to allow the use of NSS switch system. John Dyson, who did most of the VM work back in the day, pointed out how wrong this decision was. Dillon also jumped in and offered a better solution. What he got as reward was Scott Long telling him to go away. Listen Scott, YOU ARE A FUCKING IDIOT. Not only you don't even know how to quote, but you also managed to fuck the 5.1-R isos twice. I wonder how can you be in re@, that sure has lead to the piss-poor quality of the last 2 or 3 releases.

    Joseph Mallett, an ex-committer.

    1492
  56. Problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Are you UNCIRCUMCISED?

    Then you should FEEL dirty and ASHAMED! How can you have that aardvark hanging between your filthy puke inducing crotch when there is a treatment for the UGLY DICK condition? That's right, as a Linux chick I can't count the many times I've encountered this DIGUSTING problem.

    Linux Guys are VERY GROSSLY uncircumcised do to the fact that the leaders of this movement are not. Linus "long foreskin" Torvalds and Alan "uncut" Cox are PRIME examples of ugly SMELLY SMEGMA dick. I suggest that we take up a collection and CIRCUMCISE these guys.

    Until this is done, I'll only use GPL software from properly circumcised and beautiful cocked men like RMS. So NO Linux kernel for this HOT GPL chick..only the HURD until these filthy uncircumcised Linux guys get the operation and become clean.

  57. Don't use FreeBSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Back in the day, around FreeBSD 2.2.8, it was a very nice operating system. However, when RELENG_5 was branched, a lot of wrong decisions were made, most of them by people with zero clue about how to implement proper SMP (e.g. John Baldwin). Matt Dillon tried to fix the situation, but all he got in response was a commit bit suspension, which later lead to his expulsion.

    You can thank assholes like: Poul-Henning Kamp (POT, KETTLE, BLACK), Greg Lehey, Dag-Erling Smorgrav, Mark Murray and Bill Fumerola for kicking him out and making sure that, thanks to overengineering, RELENG_5 will never work.

    Further proof, FreeBSD recently went 100% dynamic to allow the use of NSS switch system. John Dyson, who did most of the VM work back in the day, pointed out how wrong this decision was. Dillon also jumped in and offered a better solution. What he got as reward was Scott Long telling him to go away. Listen Scott, YOU ARE A FUCKING IDIOT. Not only you don't even know how to quote, but you also managed to fuck the 5.1-R isos twice. I wonder how can you be in re@, that sure has lead to the piss-poor quality of the last 2 or 3 releases.

    Joseph Mallett, an ex-committer.

    26617
  58. Re:So what? Gentoo already has "ports" functionali by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Okay, we know that Debian was named after some girl named Debby. Her boyfriend was named Ian
    and they combined their names to call the distribution ``Debian''. Ok so far. But riddle me this:
    • Where is Debby now?
    • Are Debby and Ian still together?
    • What does Debby look like (jpg, if possible).
    • Does Debby do Linux or is she really a Windows gal?
    • Where was Debby from originally (town, high school, etc)?
    I'd sort of like to start a Debby fan club for this unsung heroine of Free Software.

    Hey Debby, wherever you are -- we love ya, baby!

  59. Bloated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    And you guys call Windows bloated....

  60. Re:a cool hack for sure, but not very useful i thi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    What We Can Learn From NetBSD
    By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

    Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

    Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

    These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

    As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

    Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

    The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's final demise.

  61. Saddam Captured by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    woo hooo now there is someone to blame instead of bush!!!

    Solitarysoviet

    1. Re:Saddam Captured by nickos · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      But how are the Americans going to try Hussein without recognising the International Criminal Court in the Hague?

    2. Re:Saddam Captured by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      In other news:

      Car Bomb at Iraq Police Station Kills 17

    3. Re:Saddam Captured by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Get your fucking filthy Baathist propaganda out of here.

  62. lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Rolf!!ROLF!!
    l!ol!ol!ol!ol!LO!LO!LO!LO!LOLOLO!OL!

    BSD is in my pants!!.

    get out!! looooooooooool

  63. trouble, trouble, netbsd trouble by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    I think that the review should also take into consideration the trends in the operating system arena. We really have to admit that NetBSD is in decline. In all likelihood, there may be only one more (or possibly two) release before NetBSD goes away forever.

    I know it is now almost a mantra set in stone that "NetBSD is dying". Unfortunately, the abuse of that fact by trolls has obscured the truth, that truth being that NetBSD really is dying.

    My main reason for moving away from NetBSD has been twofold. First, to avoid the constant political infighting and bickering. And secondly, to investigate more promising and viable entries into the operating systems sweepstakes. NetBSD is no longer a legitimate player, I'm sorry to say.

  64. you're missing the point by penguin7of9 · · Score: 1

    The question is not why you would install it, the question is why anybody would spend time making the port. The hardware has no future, and the only thing that makes it interesting from a geek point of view is that it is running JavaOS.

    1. Re:you're missing the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Good point. Do you think that even as many as a dozen people have any interest in this? And of that dozen, who the hell would use this obsolete kludge for anything other than a hobby project?

      Really, this makes no sense at all. NetBSD has justifiably gained the reputation as the graveyard OS. It reeks of death coming and going.

    2. Re:you're missing the point by akedia · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have an identical pair of SPARCstation IPX's that I picked up on eBay for $10 each about a year ago. From what I can see everything is an original part in these machines, one even still had a copy of SunOS 4.1.1 on it. I installed NetBSD/sparc 1.6 on them and they now run BIND and act as my nameservers. They are plenty powerful for serving DNS and with NetBSD they are very secure. Much faster disc accessing than under Linux/sparc because NetBSD seems to have better support for the SCSI chipsets.

      I've never had one fail due to a hardware problem, they run for months at a time without a reboot. They're geographically and network seperate so, barring some world catastrophe, the DNS for some 40 domains is always available. Sun hardware is very reliable, and the older hardware is almost always faster than its Intel counterpart from the same vintage.

    3. Re:you're missing the point by penguin7of9 · · Score: 1

      How nice for you. But it still doesn't make going through the effort of porting NetBSD to these machines rational.

      (BTW, based on my experience, the notion that Sun hardware is "very reliable" is a myth. Many of the components are shared with PCs anyway, and Sun's quality control is variable.)

    4. Re:you're missing the point by hummassa · · Score: 1

      Porting netbsd is not like porting Linux. It's simpler. It's much less work. Take a look.

      --
      It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
    5. Re:you're missing the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Check out the facts: *BSD is dead

  65. Death in the BSD ghetto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    BSD you grow in the ghetto, living second rate
    And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate.
    The places you play and where you stay
    Looks like one great big alley way.
    You'll admire all the numberbook takers,
    Thugs, BSD pimps and pushers, and the big money makers.
  66. Saddam Captured!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Iraqi resistance expected to diminish provided all the guerrillas receive Paul Bremer's memo. Initial reports of Saddam Hussein's capture indicate that he kept himself busy attempting to backdoor the Linux kernel and install rootkits on several Debian servers.

  67. Re:netbsd ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll


    Elegy For *BSD


    I am a *BSD user
    and I try hard to be brave
    That is a tall order
    *BSD's foot is in the grave.

    I tap at my toy keyboard
    and whistle a happy tune
    but keeping happy's so hard,
    *BSD died so soon.

    Each day I wake and softly sob
    Nightfall finds me crying
    Not only am I a zit faced slob
    but *BSD is dying.

  68. Re:a cool hack for sure, but not very useful i thi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Bones: It's dead, Jim.

  69. FreeBSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    You don't keed to be Kreskin to look into FreeBSD's future. Even a child knows that FreeBSD is dying. All major marketing surveys show that FreeBSD has steadily declined in market share. FreeBSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim.

    Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    The numbers continue to decline for *BSD but FreeBSD may be hurting the most. Look at the numbers. The loss of user base for FreeBSD continues in a head spinning downward spiral. In truth, for all practical purposes FreeBSD is already dead. It is a dead man walking.

    It's a fact: FreeBSD is dying.

  70. Re:a cool hack for sure, but not very useful i thi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    Well, in general, you are right.

    NetBSD also runs on machines like Dreamcast or Playstation -- and I doubt anyone at a serious enterprise would consider running his/hers business using game consoles. Why does NetBSD community does that? Because it is fun, because people do have unused hardware, which becomes great when it has unix installed, because they _can_.

    Porting software to NetBSD's pkgsrc collection brings also a great deal of _learning_ - if you introduce patches, you cannot think just about one platform, you have to think about 52 platforms - your patches must be portable and they cannot break builds on other operating systems.

    I recommend NetBSD. Give it a try, not to mention it is very stable operating system, it has a great Linux emulation layer, which runs - among others - latest VMware, Intel C Compiler or Kylix.

  71. Re:netbsd ... by bruthasj · · Score: 1

    And you can do the same for Redhat Linux 9 to any machine and it will work too. Nice try. Being open source, both BSD and Linux suffer from the too many choices syndrome. Does that /etc work on OpenBSD, FreeBSD and NetBSD? I am ignorantly asking, if you'll forgive me.

    When we look at SuSE vs Redhat vs Debian, etc., we must remind ourselves the myriad of BSDs out on the market as well. I'm still trying to connect exactly what aspects of /etc would be platform specific and would break on other platforms. Maybe if it contained microcode updates for a specific processor; but, hey, you did say "(almost)", so I would assume this still qualifies.

    Anyway, the whole Linux vs BSD thing doesn't work, just like Emacs vs VI. Just wanted to point out a few things... (I like VI BTW)

  72. FreeBSD joins the ranks of Free Willy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
  73. Alright... by starseeker · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who else thought some nut had finally ported NetBSD to a kitchen appliance for real?

    --
    "I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
    1. Re:Alright... by Phil+Ulrich · · Score: 2, Funny

      I did. I was even getting excited. "Oh boy! A BSD-powered coffeemaker?" What the hell? I need to get out more.

      --
      Prepare to be burninated!
    2. Re:Alright... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      In the final analysis, *BSD is dying.

  74. Re:netbsd ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought Red Hat discontinued Red Hat Linux?

  75. Does debby do linux or does she do windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Neither. Debby does dallas. *rimjob*

    1. Re:Does debby do linux or does she do windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      fyi, a "rimjob" involves eating out someone's asshole.

  76. Debian is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Debian is Slow, Worse, Expensive

    Open source may be good, but there is one example that sticks out like a sore thumb as a problem with open source. Debian gnu/Linux. It is offically the Worst Linux Distribution ever made.

    First of all, Debian has the most out of date software packages of any major mainstream distros. Even in the unstable version, is KDE 2.2 and Gnome 2.0, with Xfree86 4.1 (A version that really sucks). There are literally years that pass between each update of Debian.

    Secondly, its a pain in the goatse to set up, first of all, you are forced to use Kernel 2.2, which is horribly hacked with "backports" to get any use on any modern machine (Read, made after 1999). Good luck memorizing all the *.ko files in /lib/modules, as you are going to need it.

    Configuring XFree86 is hell! If you don't have a Thick X11 orilley book, and a list of your horizontal sync values from your monitor's intruction manual (if you even have one), BOOM! There goes your monitor.

    Even then, good luck getting anything over 640x480@16 colours.

    The most common response to help questions on the Debian mailing list is "n00b, READ THE FUCKING MANUAL, you idiot, go back to WINDOWS XP if you can't learn to use dselect", true too, search the archives if you think I'm lying. Other distros give you comprehensive PRINTED MANUALS, PHONE SUPPPORT and/or freindly forums where repling RTFM gets you banned!

    Debians support for any decent hardware, including USB mice, scanners, Sound cards, heck even Serial devices struggle. If you can even get 80x25 text mode with PS/2 input devices you are really lucky.

    Apt-get has many flaws. First of all it uses a non standard package format (the rest of the world uses RPM, deprecate the DEB format!), has broken respetories, and out of date software to install. All this combined with the kludgey dselect user interface make package management a nightmare.

    And if you think I'm joking about this, find out why THOUSANDS of Debian users are switching to REAL distributions Debian is falling to pieces, if it is to survive any market share it will be through its superior forks (Xandros, Lindows, K/G-noppix) and unoffical package respetories.

    Of course, while all this is going on, the only thing the Debian maintainers do is argue about politics on the mailing lists. The distribution decays while its creators argue over inane details like software licensing and the virtues of Marxism. Please! Spare me the political rhetoric and just give me a working distro!

    Don't get me wrong, I love Linux, and I'm happily using distros such as Mandrake, SuSE, Gentoo and Fedora. But I'm sick to death of zealots that push obsolete Distros on me EVERY FREAKING TIME linux is mentioned. I'm speaking from real world experiance here.

    1. Re:Debian is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be a spastic. It works fine for me.

    2. Re:Debian is dying by Graf · · Score: 1

      Did you run apt-get update; apt-get upgrade recently? The version of gnome is definitely 2.4, don't know about kde, but I suspect you're just as misinformed about that too.

      Back on topic, stock debian-sparc installs perfectly on Javastations, and has done since woody came out.

  77. GPL is non-free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The GPL is a non-Free license, because it restricts the freedom of what users can do with the software.

    1. Re:GPL is non-free by raretek · · Score: 1

      I keep hearing this stated, but no one goes into detail about it, so I'm gonna ask.

      What restrictions are you referring to? I'm asking sincerely, no antagonism, I've just never heard this explained and I'd like to. I'd really appreciate an explanation or a link to a website that contains one. Thanks!

      --
      Show me an effect without cause and then I'll believe in chaos.
    2. Re:GPL is non-free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The GPL license states you must release source code for your modifications under the GPL license. Also, you must distribute source code if you distribute the binary.

      The BSD says "Use it however you want, just give me credit and don't sue if you blows up the moon"

  78. SIR! We are not savages! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    We have our own judicial system which should be MORE than sufficent for trying the likes of HIM.

    1. Re:SIR! We are not savages! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      You really think they're going to try him? They're going to toss him in a stockade somewhere and "interrogate" him for ten years until he "reveals" the whereabouts of those mysterious WMDs.

    2. Re:SIR! We are not savages! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      the same WMD's he didn't use on the Kurds and launched against Isreal?

    3. Re:SIR! We are not savages! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you been paying attention at all or did you just sleepwalk through the past year and a half?

    4. Re:SIR! We are not savages! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mr. Al Shaef, people with your talents do not need to sink to the levels of propogating propaganda on Slashdot.

    5. Re:SIR! We are not savages! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Shut up, nigger.

  79. Re:netbsd ... by anthonyrcalgary · · Score: 1

    uhg. Oops. Should have been less ambiguous. I meant what are the differences to /etc between platforms (namely i386 and SPARC)? I don't use NetBSD, but I used to (1.6.1, stopped using it because that box died) and I currently use OpenBSD. I'm considering purchasing some SPARC hardware* for another OpenBSD system.

    I'm assuming OpenBSD will have some more weird differences because of all the security.

    I agree about the pkgsrc/ports thing. I used it on NetBSD and I use it now on OpenBSD. I also use Gentoo and it beats the crap out of Portage.


    * - Before anyone says anything, yes I know I'll get more bang for my buck on x86, AMD64, POWER, PowerPC, and quite possibly Itanium.

    --
    When someone might yell at me, it has to be OpenBSD.
  80. They forgot one link... by t0ny · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    They both forgot to mention this page...

    --

    Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.

    1. Re:They forgot one link... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh? Thats so much better than this?
      http://www.securitytracker.com/archives/und erlying os/463.html

  81. Re:netbsd ... by kjs3 · · Score: 1
    I love BSD. It's so easy for any Evil Corporation to take it, modify it, redistribute it under a draconian closed-source license, charge an arm-and-a-leg for it, and REAP THE REWARDS! Even if 99% of the code is untouched. Muahahaha!

    Who cares. As long as existant and future versions of NetBSD are available, what do I care if there is an SCOBSD or MSBSD that I will never use.

    Case in point: M$ used BSD code in their TCP/IP stack. Oddly enough, the world didn't come to an end, there are still several freely availible BSD releases, and Slashdot users have yet another year of "BSD is dead" and "BSD isn't free" trolls.

  82. Re:netbsd ... by forgotmypassword · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What it means in the final analysis is that I can (almost) tar up the /etc directory from a NetBSD 1.6 Sparc machine and expand it into the /etc directory of any x86 or 68000 or MIPS or PPC NetBSD 1.6 machine and it will just work

    NetBSD doesn't use fstab?

    XF86Config is portable to different videocards/monitors?

    Not being a NetBSD user, I didn't gain any understanding of what I am missing from that statement. Could you please elaborate.

  83. MOD PARENT DOWN! REPOST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The troll posted the cid and sid he stole it from for God's sake!

    http://bsd.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=49640&ci d= 5012614

  84. Re:netbsd ... by rthille · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Original Post did qualify that statement with (almost). NetBSD does use fstab and XF86Config would need to be tuned for different video cards. I run two NetBSD systems without X (qube2's as servers), so that wouldn't be a concern for me. The fstabs between any two boxes depends less on the processor/NetBSD version than on the size of the disk and the partition layout.
    The key with NetBSD is that the configuration differences apply only to the limited area being configured. fstab would need to be changed to deal with differences betwen filesystems on two systems, not CPUs.
    Using the same Linux distro on two different architectures may give the same sort of 'constancy', but typically you can't get one linux distro that runs on all the architectures supported by some linux distro.

    --
    Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
  85. Re:netbsd ... by LizardKing · · Score: 1

    ... what are the differences to /etc between platforms (namely i386 and SPARC)

    Apart from fstab and the network bits in rc.conf, all the files in /etc that I edit after an install are identical on my SPARC, Vax and x86 machines. There might be minor differences in files that describe devices, but all the files I'm likely to actually edit have the same format regardless of the machines architecture.

    Chris

  86. Re:netbsd ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It does use fstab, but the device names may be different.

    / may be on /dev/sda1 on a sparc machine but /dev/wd0a on an x86.

    Network device names are different as well le0 on sparc versus fxp0 on x86.

  87. os news article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a direct copy (plagerism) from an osnews article. Please give credit where credit is due!

    1. Re:os news article by trick-knee · · Score: 1

      > This is a direct copy (plagerism) from an osnews article.

      well, not exactly plagerism. the same guy posted in both forums.

      plus jschauma added a typo for the slashdot crowd in the form of an extra 'w'. tailored it, you might say.

  88. Javastations. by saintlupus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This means, that you can now run your JavaStation with a stock distribution of NetBSD/sparc.

    Hey, that's cool. I was actually looking at Javastations a while ago as a candidate to add to my "what the hell is that?" hardware collection.

    Unfortunately, they seem to be pretty hard to come by on eBay. Anyone know of a surplus house or anything that's selling off the Javastations at a reasonable price?

    --saint

    1. Re:Javastations. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      John Bodo at UNIXsurplus.com has some. http://unixsurplus.zoovy.com/product/SUN_MR_COFFEE

  89. YHBT YHL HAND (and you're offtopic) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously. The BSD trolls only exist because they know that people like you will take time out of your life to "correct" them, as if they will actually be influenced by what you say and go "Golly jeeze, You're Right!".

  90. Lights out, pard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Somewhere, in a lonely hospital room,

    *BSD is dying

  91. huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    huh?

  92. SunRays by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I've read the SunRay ROM and disassembled the begining 1st startup, PCI enumeration, etc. When I got distracted I sent materials to Uwe (the BSD guy), he completed the disassembly of the 1st stage, and, I think, uncompressed the 2nd stage with the actual software. It was too tedious to continue. SunRay has only 8MB or RAM. Also, debugging without a serial port is a bitch. So we gave up on it.

  93. Linux was first on JavaStation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It's funny that not one commenter noticed that Linux ran on JavaStation long before NetBSD did.

    In fact, Zaitcev (Linux @JS guy) and Uwe (NetBSD @JS guy) are friends, Zaitcev helped Uwe with some elements of the port.

    This really makes all "BSD Rulz" zealots look silly. While they whail, real hackers help each other across the Linux/BSD boundary. What is it in OS for a hacker? Linux and BSDs come and go, hackers remain forever.

    1. Re:Linux was first on JavaStation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's because NetBSD takes time to do things like cross-compilling and better drives.

    2. Re:Linux was first on JavaStation by fastenrath · · Score: 0

      test

      --
      THIS ACCOUNT IS NO LONGER IN USE, PLEASE DELETE.
  94. Coping: BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Although it is true that BSD is dying, there are some helpful steps you can take ease your sorrow:
    • deal with the inevitable.
    • grieve for your loss.
    • move on.
      Never let your emotions get mixed up with something as silly as a computer
      operating system. It isn't healthy. So BSD fails. Big whoop. Deal with it and move on.
      Hope this helps.

  95. Ha Ha I love this troll.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I should know too, I created it.

    What it demonstrates is the zealot nature of BSD users. They can't resist replying to such an obvious trolls. They think that it is a serious post.

    Oh God I'm laughing so hard now.

  96. YHBT YHL HAND by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    you fell for an old cut and paste troll.

    1. Re:YHBT YHL HAND by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Offtopic? What about the grandparent? He replied to a damned troll for God's sake!

      You moderators are a disgrace.

      Just to prove this, this very post will be modded down but the grandparent will not!

      Hypocrisy lives.

  97. Re:netbsd ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but, I have NetBSD i386 machines with sd* (scsi isn't rare) and le* (damn old compaq servers).

  98. ha ha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    apt-get remove moron

  99. We Can Learn From BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant
    What We Can Learn From BSD
    By Chinese Karma Whore, Version 1.0

    Everyone knows about BSD's failure and imminent demise. As we pore over the history of BSD, we'll uncover a story of fatal mistakes, poor priorities, and personal rivalry, and we'll learn what mistakes to avoid so as to save Linux from a similarly grisly fate.

    Let's not be overly morbid and give BSD credit for its early successes. In the 1970s, Ken Thompson and Bill Joy both made significant contributions to the computing world on the BSD platform. In the 80s, DARPA saw BSD as the premiere open platform, and, after initial successes with the 4.1BSD product, gave the BSD company a 2 year contract.

    These early triumphs would soon be forgotten in a series of internal conflicts that would mar BSD's progress. In 1992, AT&T filed suit against Berkeley Software, claiming that proprietary code agreements had been haphazardly violated. In the same year, BSD filed countersuit, reciprocating bad intentions and fueling internal rivalry. While AT&T and Berkeley Software lawyers battled in court, lead developers of various BSD distributions quarreled on Usenet. In 1995, Theo de Raadt, one of the founders of the NetBSD project, formed his own rival distribution, OpenBSD, as the result of a quarrel that he documents on his website. Mr. de Raadt's stubborn arrogance was later seen in his clash with Darren Reed, which resulted in the expulsion of IPF from the OpenBSD distribution.

    As personal rivalries took precedence over a quality product, BSD's codebase became worse and worse. As we all know, incompatibilities between each BSD distribution make code sharing an arduous task. Research conducted at MIT found BSD's filesystem implementation to be "very poorly performing." Even BSD's acclaimed TCP/IP stack has lagged behind, according to this study.

    Problems with BSD's codebase were compounded by fundamental flaws in the BSD design approach. As argued by Eric Raymond in his watershed essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, rapid, decentralized development models are inherently superior to slow, centralized ones in software development. BSD developers never heeded Mr. Raymond's lesson and insisted that centralized models lead to 'cleaner code.' Don't believe their hype - BSD's development model has significantly impaired its progress. Any achievements that BSD managed to make were nullified by the BSD license, which allows corporations and coders alike to reap profits without reciprocating the goodwill of open-source. Fortunately, Linux is not prone to this exploitation, as it is licensed under the GPL.

    The failure of BSD culminated in the resignation of Jordan Hubbard and Michael Smith from the FreeBSD core team. They both believed that FreeBSD had long lost its earlier vitality. Like an empire in decline, BSD had become bureaucratic and stagnant. As Linux gains market share and as BSD sinks deeper into the mire of decay, their parting addresses will resound as fitting eulogies to BSD's demise.

  100. Feeding Tube Re-Inserted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Oct. 23 -- BSD resumed receiving life-sustaining care yesterday in a
    Florida hospital room, but many experts said there is virtually no hope
    that it will ever recover, despite it fan boy's desperate hopes.

    "IF IT'S over a year, BSD's not ever going to get up," said Fred Plum, a
    professor emeritus at Weill Cornell College in New York. "You'd just
    don't see it. It just doesn't happen."
    BSD, 39, has been in a persistent vegetative
    state since its heart stopped for unknown reasons in 1990. A feeding
    tube in BSD's stomach was removed this past Wednesday after its husband,
    Theo De Ratt, who said his wife had told him she (BSD) would not want to
    be kept alive under such circumstances, won a long series of court
    battles to have life-sustaining nourishment withdrawn so she (BSD) could
    die.

  101. Only in BSD could this parent be modded a troll.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is because you forgot to include typical BSD zealot phrases such as:

    'Oh it just rocks'
    'I love it'

  102. BSD Joins the B Team by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    It is with a heavy heart that we must report that Bob "I'm still dead" Hope has gone on to join the "B" team. As you all may know, BSD has been part of the "B" team for quite some time.

    The Year of Our Lord 2003 has been a particularly bad year for the "B"s,

    • Bob Hope
    • Buddy Ebsen
    • Buddy Hackett
    • Barry White
    • BSD
    This honored list of dead is but a small token of adieu from the many fans of the deceased.
    These dead were truly some American Icons. They will be missed.
  103. It Sux0rs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll


    In a startling turn of events today, a previously little-known fact came into the public eye: "*BSD Sux0rs". This came as a complete surprise to the BUWLA, or BSD Users With Large Assholes, as they previously thought that *BSD 0wned.
    "You see, even though I have never contributed code to any BSD project, I thought it was my duty to be a big asshole to others which don't use the OS I do, because it just 0wnz.", said one FreeBSD user. "Now that I know it sux0rs, though, I have to go find something else to be an asshole about."

    One notorious OpenBSD fanatic known as WideOpen, told reporters, "I have to kill myself. This isn't how it was supposed to happen. My BSD has always been the best, and shouting that opinion in other people's faces at every chance I got has been my only hobby. It was all I ever did. It was what got me out of bed in the morning. Now I have to die. I will jam my bedpost up my ass until I hit my brain. It is the only way to go: BSD style."

    In the volatile world of operating systems anything can happen. "At least we don't sux0r as much as Windows users", BigAzz, a relatively well-known NetBSD user said. "Screaming things in people's faces is my calling. Now I need to scream that BSD sux0rs. What a sad world. At least I won't kill myself like those uber-asshole OpenBSD guys. They are just way over the top. Or were, at least."

    Nobody knows for sure what the future holds for the state of operating systems, but with Netcraft confirming the sux0r status, *BSD users all over the world will have to stick something else up their asses from now on or risk looking even more gay than they used to.

  104. Linux Bois == GAY???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Perhaps they love their stupid mascots because they don't know what to do with a woman? Maybe they really like their choice of fat penguin or gay goat over a nice pair of tits with a devil tail. The world may never know.

  105. The Failure of *BSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    The Failure of *BSD

    Of course we can all agree that BSD is a failure, but why did BSD fail Once you get past the fact that BSD is fragmented between a myriad of incompatible kernels, there is the historical record of failure and of failed operating systems. BSD experienced moderate success about 15 years ago in academic circles. Since then it has been in steady decline. We all know BSD keeps losing market share but why Is it the problematic personalities of many of the key players Or is it larger than their troubled personalities
    The record is clear on one thing no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for BSD.

  106. MORE BSD MODERATION ABUSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    look at all the anti-BSD trolls that get modded down..

    then some anti-Linux troll (and a old copy-and-paste one at that) comes in and it is summarily modded up +5.

    Hypocrites.

  107. YHBT YHL HAND - to an old copy and paste troll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    how does it feel to be a dumbass?

  108. Lights out, pard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Somewhere, in a lonely hospital room,

    *BSD is dying.

  109. Re:netbsd ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Let's think about it for a moment. NetBSD is going down the tubes. Pretty soon it will be gone. Kaput. Adios amigo. Buh-bye NetBSD.

  110. ITS DEAD YOU NECROPHILIACS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    _d8b____________________d8b_______d8,
    _?88____________________88P______`8P
    __88b__________________d88
    __888888b__.d888b,_d888888________88b_.d888b,
    __88P_`?8b_?8b,___d8P'_?88________88P_?8b,
    _d88,__d88___`?8b_88b__,88b______d88____`?8b
    d88'`?88P'`?888P'_`?88P'`88b____d88'_`?888P'

    ______d8b________________________d8b
    ______88P________________________88P
    _____d88________________________d88
    _d888888___d8888b_d888b8b___d888888
    d8P'_?88__d8b_,dPd8P'_?88__d8P'_?88
    88b__,88b_88b____88b__,88b_88b__,88b
    `?88P'`88b`?888P'`?88P'`88b`?88P'`88b

  111. The BSD Tombstone: Engraved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    "Do not stand at my hard disk and forever weep.
    I am not there; I do not sleep.
    I am a thousand winds that blow.
    I am the diamond glints on snow.
    I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
    I am the gentle autumn's rain.
    When you reboot in the morning's hush
    I am the swift uplifting rush
    Of quiet birds in circled flight.
    I am the soft stars that shine at night.
    Do not stand at my hard disk and forever cry.
    I am not there. "

  112. Re:netbsd ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Hi Chris!

    Thought you'd be interested in this little tidbit:

    *BSD is dying

    Hope this helps!

    - Dave

  113. The Niggers of the *BSD Ghetto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll


    BSD you grow in the ghetto, living second rate
    And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate.
    The places you play and where you stay
    Looks like one great big alley way.
    You'll admire all the numberbook takers,
    Thugs, BSD pimps and pushers, and the big money makers.

  114. Please Die, Please Die, Please Die, Please Die, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You are dead *BSD.
    You have departed this mortal world.
    You are no more.
    You are dead *BSd
    So very dead.

    This troll supported by the letters R, I and P.

  115. BSD = For Niggers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    don't support an operating system that supports niggers

  116. *BSD's last Christmas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Outside the frigid tumble-down shack, dry leaves before the wild winter hurricane fly. And here within, at the corner by the cold hearth rests an empty stool. A crutch without an owner stands perched against the wall. These forlorn and lonely objects serve as mute reminders of their once owner, *BSD.

    This crutch and vacant stool have become orphans, not unlike the now dead *BSD. No longer will *BSD hobble about on its cripple's crutch. Like the empty hearth, and the vacant stool, *BSD lies cold and still. *BSD's corpse, lifeless beneath frozen earth and December snows, will see no more Christmas cheer. No, there will be no Christmas ever again for *BSD, for *BSD is dead.

    Goodbye, *BSD. The pain of life forever stilled, sleep for all eternity in that long winter's nap. Fade gently into Earth's frozen bosom where in dreams even cripples walk and blind men see.