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FreeBSD 5.2 RC2 Now Available
Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long announces the availability of FreeBSD 5.2 RC2 which fixes a number of bugs, specifically the one in which users experienced system panics during install and dynamic library problems in the 'fixit' environment. Scott is asking everyone to test this release over the holidays. You can download it from one of your preferred mirror sites." Update: 12/24 23:01 GMT by T : Dan writes with more info: "Scott Long has also laid out a roadmap for future FreeBSD 5.3 releases now that FreeBSD 5.2-RC2 is getting close to release quality."
And yes, before the Linux hordes flames me to death, yes I know that Linux kernel does have Opteron support and has been more or less 64-bit compatible since the DEC Alpha days.
I'm talking about the distribution. I am considering buying a dual Opteron in January but all the Linux distros seem to be betas. A quick search on Google reveals that the distros have serious problems. In particular, X doesn't work and compilers fail completely.
FreeBSD reports Opteron as tier-1 hardware, so how is it?
"NOW is the time to fix them so that they can be tuned and maintained prior to the 5.3 Release when the code is marked stable..
Shouldn't this read something like:
NOW is the time to fix them so that they can be tuned and maintained so that the 5.3 Release can be marrked stable.
In other words, the code should be marked stable when it IS, rather than at some arbitrary release level.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Indeed, the developers have done alot of hard work making FreeBSD an excellent OS. I've been using 5.x since it came out and have few complaints. Even for a developer release I've found 5.x to be rock solid, with high quality in mind, and quick time to fix any problems that do come up (mostly port maintainers keeping up with 4.x->5.x changes :)
I recently deployed 5.1 on a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4208XDVD and an older IBM Thinkpad 600X. Neither of them correctly probed my Cardbus controllers without specifying the size of allocated memory to the controller. I also had difficulty once the controllers came up, in that none of my wireless cards would work. (Orinoco Gold, MS Wireless Broadband Adapter)
Has anyone else had Newcard difficulties with the FBSD 5 release train? I've read of quite a few workarounds to get Cardbus working correctly. I have yet to recompile a new kernel removing Newcard - is it worth it altogether?
Merry Christmas Slashdot!
-Pat
One of the goals for 5.3 (and indeed something that Sam has been doing some wonderful and hard work on) is cleaning up the IP stack. Getting IPFW pfil(9) ready (if I understood correctly) is also one of these goals and will mean that using any software firewall solution such as pf, IPFW or ipfilter would be a question of loading the module. At which point you wouldn't have to recompile the kernel for this functionality.
Hope this was of help.
I can't tell you how welcome this sort of functionality will be. I know I'll get flamed for this, but some of us out here in the real world just don't have the time to spend a couple of weeks trying to recompile a kernel. [And no, it's obviously not the actual compile time - it's the fiddling: What happens if I set this flag? What happens if I don't set that flag? Oops, that didn't work - maybe if I were to change that to this... Getting the configuration just right can take nigh unto forever.] Loadable modules for filtering, NATing, and SSHing will be MOST appreciated.
Thanks, and keep up the good work.
PS: If I can be a little greedy, the other thing that really benefits a firewall-ish device is rock solid support [i.e. drivers] for hardware-accelerated encryption [SSL, SSH, and the like]. Of course, rock solid drivers are one of FreeBSD's fortes, but if you're redesigning the stack, I'd just say: Redesign it with hardware acceleration very much in mind.
Allowing freedom includes allowing people to do things you don't necessarily agree with. I used to defend the GPL consistently, but I'm starting to feel like "Free as in Speech" should also include unpopular speech, and that's what the BSD license protects that the GPL does not.
I think you're working off the false premise that copyrights are not an inherent restriction of peoples freedom. The GPL solves this problem by "fighting fire with fire" the FreeBSD license doesn't.
The logic is sorta similar to ..."I think people should be free to own slaves".
The FreeBSD license disreguards that copyrights "the right to restrict what other people copy that is at their disposal" is inherently biased as anti freedom to begin with.
I personally feel that ipfw/natd are a terrible combination, and are confusing and frustrating to use, to boot. I have been able to do everything I need to ipfw/natd, however. My major complaints were:
1. Cannot dynamically reload rules of ipfw (your connection can be broken after a flush, and before new rules).
2. Poor (really no) integration of natd/ipfw.
3. Weaker rules/macros than pf.
The FreeBSD pf port is coming along nicely. I am currently using it with a kernel loadable module and a startup script, both of which are installed by the port. You do still have to recompile the kernel:
You need these options:
"device bpf" and "options PFIL_HOOKS"
The port will tell you to do this when you install it. My transition was very easy, and immediately I was happier with pf. I had never used it before, and I prefer it immensely. I use it to do firewalling and NAT, and they are integrated, of course.
So, I'd say the status is...good! I'd prefer not to have to rebuild the kernel, but I'm used to that by now.
-Dan
Well, I have to say, having just installed a FreeBSD (5.1) server in my house, I am blown away at the stability and easy configurability of this thing. I built the computer it is running on for $160.00 with (obviously) cheap parts and it is perfrominig like I had really spent some money on it. This was much easier to install software for and configure than any of the Linux distros I have used in the past, including the vaunted RedHat. Stable and fast. That's what I like, and this isn't even the current fork. :-)
From this non-developer's perspective, proprietary software will always live in conflict with OSS - SCO as another example - and the BSD license gives companies the means to do BSD harm. They take without giving.
This is one of the big flaws I find with GPL logic. Information should be free because it is an endlessly renewable resource. However we can't just let the information be out there without a license because some evil company might do it harm!
I've recently switched from Debian Linux to FreeBSD 5.2. I was running a pair of RAID-1 arrays off a Highpoint HPT372 RocketRAID 133 controller using Highpoint's rather lackluster, "open source" driver. Of course, contacting them about FreeBSD support greater than 5.0 has yielded nothing useful, so now I am on the hunt for other solutions.
I've come across offerings from 3ware, notably the 7006-2. What caught my eye about this card (well, all of them from 3ware) was that it's actually a hardware-based ATA RAID adapter (where as RAID functionality is implemented in software for most ATA controllers out there). Does this mean that I can use this card without any driver hell? Will a RAID-whatever array simply appear as another /dev/a[dr]* device or is it not that simple? (By the way, I care little about CLI tools for rebuilding the array. I am content to use the card's BIOS to do management.)
Of course, if I can solve the problem with my Highpoint, that'd be useful too. Currently, if I create a RAID-1 array, the two real disks appear as /dev/ad4 and /dev/ad5 but I also get a /dev/ar0 device. However, if I simulate a disk failure, none of the devices appear. It appears to me like FreeBSD indeed supports the RAID functionality of this card out of the box, but a bit of minor tweaking is required.
The bottom line however is I wouldn't mind buying a a RAID adapter with functionality implemented in hardware. That'd be better overall. I just want to make sure it'll work with flying colors in whatever OS I choose to use.
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