FreeBSD 5.2 Released

James writes "Freebsd 5.2 is released. FTP mirrors. Release notes This is another step towards 5-STABLE. Many improvements in this release, including ATA and networking enhancements." Patrick Jensen also points out that this is the first stable release with AMD64 support. You can also see the official announcement if you so desire.

Comments

FreeBSD on Opterons

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD was the only *nix distribution that installed cleanly on my dual Opteron with AIC7902W dual SCSI.

Gentoo, Mandrake and RedHat crashed. Couldn't test SuSE because you can't download their 64-bit Linux.

Re:FreeBSD on Opterons

[Anonymous Coward]

RedHat 8.0 on the Dual Opteron in 32 bit.

Of course it works - I tried it too - but what is the point running a 32-bit OS?

I've heard good things about SuSE's 64-bit enterprise server-distro as well as the RedHat Enterprise Linux, but you can't download them for a testdrive. Sorry. I won't buy something that I can't try first.

AMD64 is a Tier 1 FreeBSD platform - not Beta like the Linux distros and it just worked.

Re:FreeBSD on Opterons

[DA-MAN]

try this link

Finding a 64 bit SuSE is easy. This is not the Enterprise Edition, but if you want Enteprise, you will have to pay first.

Re:FreeBSD on Opterons

[Anonymous Coward]

SuSE download

I wouldn't call it easy to find if it's not even listed on their website...

Re:FreeBSD on Opterons

[DA-MAN]

I stand corrected re: Fedora/64 Bit.

I am not anti FreeBSD, in fact I use FreeBSD as my desktop. I have nothing but respect for FreeBSD. I just don't like people spreading bullshit about Linux neither.

Your post, if true, is not a very typical experience. I installed over a hundred of these machines, and never once had an issue, using the same scsi card.

Re:FreeBSD on Opterons

[Anonymous Coward]

I've actually had a slightly similar situation although with a different outcome.

I recently built a dual opteron workstation using the MSI K8T800-based dual board. I am using a serial ATA hard drive connected to the onboard Via 8237 controller. I was able to intall Gentoo Linux and FreeBSD 5.2-RC2 (both i386 and amd64 'modes') cleanly.

At this time, the 'best' experience I had was with i386 FreeBSD. Except for a problem with the onboard broadcom 5705 not being initialized correctly and a weird issue with my logitech cordless mx duo setup (the mouse is detected but does not seem to operate when used as a usb device), I found that everything worked as if the machine was a normal SMP workstation.

In AMD64 'mode,' I experienced the same issues with the mx duo and the broadcom chip and otherwise did not have as much success. The system did install correctly and I was able to boot multi-user and 'do things.' Kernel modules were not capable of being used at the time (I don't know if this is still the case) so all devices had to be built into the kernel. After initial install there was a problem with the compiled-in ACPI support that caused a system panic. I was able to load the system without the ACPI support and after updating source and compiling a new kernel the ACPI problem did not occur again.

As far as I know, FreeBSD cannot run anything but amd64 binaries in and64 'mode.' If it could compile/run i386 binaries and use i386 linux binaries in my mind there would be no competition between it and linux for the amd64 platform. As it seemed (early last week, things may have changed) limited to amd64-only it is not as useful as it could be. It is still under considerable development though, so it would not really be fair to condemn it for deficiencies right now.

I then tried to install a few Linux distributions, primarily because I wanted to see if the broadcom and mx duo stuff worked fine. I found that after trying Slackware 9.1 ISO, A current Mandrake Cooker ISO and a Gentoo AMD64 LiveCD, Gentoo was the only distribution that would install to the hard drive. Mandrake and Slackware did not seem to have support for the Serial ATA controller, so I was unable to install anything with those two. I did try creating custom boot disks for Slackware but I did not have success doing so, primarily because Gentoo installed correctly and without issue (other than it takes about 5x longer to install Gentoo than it does to install any other system I have ever used, even a stage3 install).

I am currently using Gentoo on this workstation because the Broadcom controller is initialized correctly and the kb/mouse (mx duo) is working correctly. Also, despite numerous ports/ebuilds/whatever not wanting to compile for amd64 I am able to get enough things to work that I can use the system for light browsing and some daily tasks.

Despite being available for several months IMO the AMD64 platform is still very, very new. I think the availability of 'cheap' 64 bit x86 hardware is not something that a lot of developers considered when writing some of their software, and as a result there is and will continue to be some teething pains, so to speak, while projects gradually begin to support this platform.

FreeBSD 5 works fine in production, here

[linuxbaby]

Although they advise against using the FreeBSD 5 line in production servers, our company went ahead & did it anyway because we needed a gigabit ethernet driver that was only in FreeBSD 5 not 4.

Our site gets a million hits a day on a completely db-driven website. Both the Apache webserver and the two replicated MySQL servers on the backend are all running FreeBSD 5, and have been for months now.

No problems at all. Rock-solid. Good ol' FreeBSD.

Re:FreeBSD 5 works fine in production, here

[zulux]

our company went ahead & did it anyway because we needed a gigabit ethernet driver that was only in FreeBSD 5 not 4.

The Broadcom Gigabit ethernet drivers that were needed were merged back into 4.8 and 4.9 - but 5.1 is so stable that we're not going to change anything.

(Did you buy some IBM eServer's too?)

Re:FreeBSD 5 works fine in production, here

[Anonymous Coward]

If 5.x is suitable for production or not depends a lot on your environment really. For running some web based services, esp. when building that based on standard tools (mysql, apache etc) will work very well, and in some cases works better then on 4.x

I run all my machines on 5.x now, but am strongly considering to move one machien back to 4.x, why?

Because I need stuff like mjpegtools, mplayer and the like to compile and work without trouble. Currently they give waaay too much trouble on 5.x to be usable for me.

Stability? 4.x has crashed on me a few times in the last couple of months, 5.x hasn't so far (at least not without there being obvious reasons like cpu/memory failure due to overclocking)

In a server setup, neither has crashed on me ever, and I run quite a variety of servers on 5.x now, and used to run those on 4.x (and 3.x before that)

Matter of fact is that 4.x simply gives me fewer surprises, and as such is more usable in a production environment, 5.x provides interesting new technology and as such is more interestign as logn as I have the time to deal with the startup issues.

Re:FreeBSD 5 works fine in production, here

[scalis]

Well, I have had problems installing FreeBSD 5.1 on a few Fujitsu Laptops. I get kernel panics every time I try to use the function button to switch to an external display for instance.
That made me go back to FreeBSD 5.0 that ran without any problems since day one. It seems, however, that the source tree for 5.0 has been removed from the FTP mirrors so unless 5.2 works better than 5.1 there is no way for me to update the applications on any of the 5.0 machines. I am keeping my fingers crossed for 5.2.....

Re:FreeBSD 5 works fine in production, here

[grahamlee]

Indeederoony, FreeBSD 5 is perfectly stable for production systems here, too. We use versions based on the Mach Microkernel, for Intel and for PPC. They're available here :-).

Seriously, as far as FreeBSD-derivatives go, Darwin is very nice, if only for the Mach task scheduling, IOKit, SystemStarter, NetInfo, Apple/NeXT dynamic loader, fat binary support.... Show me another system on which you can build a single version of XFree86 that works with both PowerPC and Intel systems and doesn't even need an XF86Config file :-D

Re:FreeBSD 5 works fine in production, here

[Eraser_]

"Me, too"

I use FreeBSD on my workstation, and now 2 production servers here in this school district. They function rock solid as dns servers, and recently, a small DHCP server for roaming laptops. It took a complete failure of a motherboard to bring it down. Sure they only have 100 zones loaded, but they also are the recursive servers for the district.

Swapped out the hard drive into another computer, loaded kernel.GENERIC, and the computer boot up. Reinstalled world because I switched from Cyrix to Pentium, and I was up and running. 1 hour total downtime, most spent finding a suitable replacement and physical labor.

If FreeBSD can run stable for a year on old failing Cyrix hardware, I dont know what other kudos it needs. Oh yeah it runs fast on those dual opterons as well ;-)

Question

[Imperator]

I'm happy with my Linux system right now. It supports all my hardware and gives me a nice desktop. Why, beyond standard geek curiosity, should I switch to *BSD? I've used OpenBSD a bit and the ports system seemed kinda cool, though not as simple or powerful as my distribution's package manager. Where's the big advantage for me? Performance? Philosophy? In my very limited and anecdotal experience, Linux has seemed much faster than OpenBSD. I'd ideally like to try one of the free BSDs, but I'm having trouble convincing myself that there's really a point. (This is not intended as a troll. Really, I just want to know.)

Re:Question

[Bluesman]

One of the biggest selling points for me is the ease of administration with ports. The ports system is kept up to date VERY well, so it's rare to come across a port that's broken or that won't build. Also, it's really nice to be able to set compilation options so you never are searching for the "right" binary. Ports does it all for you.

Also, the documentation is fantastic. The FreeBSD handbook has everything you could possibly want to know about system administration, and all the man pages are well maintained and actually there.

As far as performance goes, I'm sure there's not much of a difference. The reason you'd want to switch is that you'd want a mature, complete system, rather than a hodgepodge of libraries and binaries. It makes it a lot easier and more enjoyable to get stuff done.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Well ... don't. If you are happy with what you have, stay where you are.

I'm happily running FreeBSD on all my boxen. You are happily running Linux. Heck, there are even people happily running Windows.

Re:Question

[karot]

I used all 3 of these OS'es a while back in a datacentre. In those days (about 3 years ago) there was a concensus among many people that I worked with that:

OpenBSD (2.7) = More secure due to better code reviews - Good for firewalls and gateways
FreeBSD (4.8) = Better more efficient network stack - Good for webservers etc.
Linux (RH 6.2) = Good alrounder - Good choice for desktop and for a much wider choice of prebuilt applications. Also OS du jour at the time.

I would be very interested to see a good modern comparison of these OS'es, perhaps even with commercial *nix thrown into the analysis - HP/UX, AIX, Solaris and SCO for example.

I bet they still all have their strengths and weaknesses now, just like they did then.

Re:Question

[kaiwainz]

Well, since you asked nicely, I will reply nicely.

Well, I like it from the point of the view that is is developed in the tradional way. There is good QA process, good community atmosphere which concerntrates on support users rather than giving a lecter on why their particular operating system "rocks their box".

I also like the ports system and the fact that you can sync things so easily and compile everything in a nice clean mannor. Depencies are resolved via ports, updating the core is really easy and the speed, it is great. There aren't 100s of services running when using Linux and 90% of the time I am as confused as a baby in a topless bar over which to disable, enable or what ever.

Also, the cool thing is, it isn't a cool thing. You don't have Red Hat screaming, 4 month using *NIX wantabees asking stupid questions. Sure, I used Linux for 5 years but now unfortunately, with the rise and perceived ease of use, we now have a whole new group of zealots and half witts.

Oh well, back to my quiet yet stable life of MacOS 10.3.2 and FreeBSD.

Re:Question

[linuxbaby]

You're right that OpenBSD can be a little pokey and not the greatest Desktop. I went with OpenBSD first and was not thrilled - then I tried FreeBSD.

On FreeBSD the ports are kept up-to-date faster. There are SO many more ports ready-to-go. Really a surprising amount. Like anything you ever needed, just go to /usr/ports and there it is, ready to install.

No RPM hell. Just cd /usr/ports/multimedia/xmms ; make install clean. It downloads and compiles any dependencies from source. And a simple command can automatically upgrade ALL of your installs ports every night!

I find FreeBSD faster and simpler than any Linux distro I tried.

I still think OpenBSD is wonderful for making a bulletproof network-connected server or firewall, but if you haven't tried FreeBSD yet, I think it'll make a much better desktop.

Re:Question

[bluGill]

It "feels" right. I grew up on BSD systems (okay, sunOS 4 wasn't exactly BSD, but it was closer to that than system V), so BSD feels right. I like the way it works.

The differences are subtile though. I can use either linux or BSD systems without problem, and if I don't do anything to find out which I'm using it can take a long time before I find a difference.

Traditionaly linux has supported more hardware, but sometimes that hardware wasn't so good. FreeBSD traditionally has better (faster) networking, and better support for server class hardware. (Years ago this ment if you went with SCSI you used FreeBSD, IDE you used Linux, but that was years ago) In these modern times both have good support for most hardware you are likely to find in the real world, or neither has support.

OpenBSD and NetBSD are not the same as FreeBSD. FreeBSD is faster and better suited to the desktop, though if the desktop is your goal, a lot of what you want on the desktop gets into linux first. OpenBSD is more secure, at least in their (extreemly limited) default install, I wouldn't run a firewall with anything else. Otherwise I'm not sure I'd bother with openBSD. NetBSD runs everything you are likely to care about, and it is supported. Linux may have had prots to more systems, but half those ports are broken is seems. So if you want to run that Vax in the corner, or some other strange macine netBSD is your only reasonable option. Once you run it one place it may be easier to run it everywhere. (Yes there are good reasons to run old hardware even though a typical desktop today is faster. Those who have good reason know who they are)

In summery: FreeBSD and Linux are mostly an issue of Ford vs Chevy. Some people prefer one over the other, but in reality the differences are not significant. NetBSD and OpenBSD are for specialized uses, but still worth useing for a lot of people.

Re:Question

[Florian]

> I'm happy with my Linux system right now. It supports all my hardware
> and gives me a nice desktop.

Then there's no reason for you to switch. If you would instead not be
happy with your system and find that FreeBSD runs better on your
hardware, than this would be a reason to go through the hassle of
switching your OS.

After all, the differences between a GNU/Linux and a *BSD system are
practically user-invisible on the level of the desktop interface. Both
are, as a matter of fact, state-of-the-art Unix, but may not be called
so because of trademarks and expensive certifications (which, contrary
to popular make-belief, are not owned by SCO, but by the Open Group,
formerly X/Open).

The differences mainly concern the kernel (partitioning schemes and
filesystems, hardware drivers, module handling, packet filters, sound
and multimedia subsystems). Userspace differences in the init system,
package management and base OS/distribution tools are not bigger than
those between two GNU/Linux distributions. Slackware or Gentoo users
might even find Free/Net/OpenBSD more familiar than RedHat or SuSE.
There are subtle, but sometimes crucial differences in the commandline
userland between GNU/Linux and *BSD though, unless one installs the GNU
file and text utilities on *BSD and uses them as default (which is easy
and supported by the package management of all three free BSDs). The
KDE/Gnome/XFCE desktops act in a completely transparent manner, with no
visible differences, on top of GNU/Linux and *BSD.

Generally, the Linux kernel is best suited for a desktop system because
of its more advanced sound (ALSA) and video (video4linux) subsystems,
support for a wide range of desktop hardware gadgets (Webcams, graphic
tablets and the like), filesystems (including everything from Amiga to
Acorn...) and hardware-accelerated video card drivers (DRI/DRM, although
I read similar features are on the roadmap of FreeBSD and NetBSD), and,
since kernel 2.6, kernel preemption and low-latency functions. However,
FreeBSD should come close to Linux as it is optimized for the x86-PC
architecture and is a very good performer. NetBSD is, from my own
experience of running it as a secondary OS, not as fast, but still
surprisingly good for an OS that is developed with portability (and
hence abstraction/clean interfaces vs. optimization) as its prime
objective. IMHO, it is (very) roughly comparable with Linux kernel v2.0
in terms of performance and desktop computing friendliness. Installation
of NetBSD is a bit difficult (more so than even Debian), and the
necessity of creating classical BSD disklabels for every storage media
to be mounted can be highly annoying on a desktop system (for example,
if one wants to quickly mount someone else's USB stick). OpenBSD is,
IMHO, a bad choice for a desktop system unless security and crypto
features are the main requirements. It is not a good performer at all
(and not being developed with performance as a main goal).

Kernel-wise, FreeBSD's chief advantage over Linux used to be better
responsiveness under high system load and better virtual memory
management (which both gave/give FreeBSD an edge over Linux on servers
rather than on desktops). This advantage has gradually decreased through
substantial low-level improvements in Linux 2.0, 2.4 and now 2.6, which
AFAIK has lifted quite a bit from FreeBSD's advanced VM management.
Maybe Linux 2.6 is now on par, but still I wouldn't be surprised if
FreeBSD (and also NetBSD) would be more mature in this field. (For
example, I never succeeded in bringing down my two NetBSD boxes with a
fork bomb.)

-F

Re:Question

[Eil]

You don't have Red Hat screaming, 4 month using *NIX wantabees asking stupid questions.

I can tell you've never subscribed to questions@freebsd.org.

Sorry, but the only reason you don't see at much n00bieism around FreeBSD is only because it's not nearly as much in the public eye as Linux is.

Sure, I used Linux for 5 years but now unfortunately, with the rise and perceived ease of use, we now have a whole new group of zealots and half witts.

I can remember the days when a person who owned a modem and dialed around to various bulletin boards was considered cool, mature, and intellectually superior to your garden variety computer geeks. But of course when the Internet started becoming more prevalent, bulletin boards started getting cast as low-tech and amateurish. Mid-90's: anything Linux was in, everything specifically non-Unix was out. Now it's the early 2000's and FreeBSD is the new geek fashion statement. Those who are just now jumping on the FreeBSD bandwagon are thumbing their noses down at Linux users and calling them names such as "zealots" and "half witts." (While we're here, I want the gentle reader to take a moment to ask who here is the real zealot?) New FreeBSD users are citing mostly the exact same reasons for using FreeBSD over Linux that Linux users cited for choosing Linux over Windows years ago, although they are now more subtle:

• More reliable
  
• More consistent
  
• Better performance
  
• Better development process
  
• Freer license
  
• Smarter developers
  
• Smarter users
  
• etc

Trust me, it will take only a few years before the Next Big Geek Trend comes along and FreeBSD will not be the playground of the elite-wannabes. Instead, it will be relegated as a hunk of code that showed definite signs of promise but was ultimately hampered by too many "n00bs" joining the FreeBSD community thereby spoiling it for everyone. Or perhaps by an archaic, inflexible, development system or crochety old too-conservative developers. The particular excuse doesn't matter, only the fact that it will have gone out of style. The next new thing will be there to take FreeBSD's place.

Don't think for a second that I don't love FreeBSD. I use it on my computers at home and have several patches on my todo list that I'd like to work on and submit to the FreeBSD developers when time permits. But I also use Linux and Windows on a regular basis as well. And I'm not going to sit here and lie to myself and others by saying that I wasn't totally infatuated with Linux and other geek trends in the past. That, I think, is the primary difference between an advocate and a zealot.

Re:Question

[JDizzy]

Actually, your incorrect in your assertion about the most secure one of the *BSD's. It is easy to belive what you read regarding what each of the BSD's does, and is. In reality NetBSD is by fare the *most* secure of all the BSD's, bar none. FreeBSD is the Linux of the BSD, with aqll its packages/ports, and support for peripherial hardware. OpenBSD is is secure, and has code audits, and produces other nice things that find their way into everything else, but is not the most secure by default BSD.

I like to ask people like yourself, no offence intended, why OpenBSd is the most secure? Is it something you have read some place, or something you were told, or discovered yourself?

In NetBSD, the default is nothing but a small bare minimal system, with nothing turned on. Nothing is more secure than this. OpenBSD on the other hand, has lots of things turned on by default, and has turned out to be the cause of most of their problems. Contrairy to what the OpenBSD website says, they have had about 7 or 8 default bugs in their installs in the past 3 years. They like to claim *one* root eplain since inception, or whatever... they are not all that!

In reality it goes like this:
FreeBSD is the most powerfull, and linux like of the BSD's.
NetBSD is the most portable, and most secure by default.
OpenBSD wrote OpenSSH, and has the best t-shirts, and posters.
OSx is the prettiest, and the most widely deployed desktop unix.

Re:Question

[sremick]

Disclaimer: I am not anti-Linux. However, here is why I like FreeBSD..

1) PORTS. FreeBSD could win on this point alone. The ports system is AWESOME. I have never used Linux, but I hear a lot of people bitch about RPMs and "dependency hell". FreeBSD has dependencies but the ports system tracks all that. Every file, every version, every port is noted. I can just go to a directory and type "make clean install" and everything will be downloaded, built to my tastes, along with all dependencies and their dependencies and built in the proper order, then registered in the database. Daily I sync my ports tree and see what's new. If I want it, I can upgrade it (along with dependencies) safely with one command. It just doesn't get better than this. Recently, FreeBSD pass the 10,000 ports mark. There's also a nice overview of the ports system at Arstechnica.

2) Stability. FreeBSD is notoriously stable. You can pick any Netcraft report (such as here, here, here, here, or here. ) for evidence of this.

3) Consolidation. There is only one "FreeBSD". If I have 5.2 and you have 5.2, we have the same OS. There is no one "Linux". In reality, Linux is a kernel, and when you add a userland then you have a distribution. FreeBSD is kernel + userland.

4) File organization. Linux seems to lay out its file hierarchy somewhat randomly, with no consistancy of where an installed executable binary might be placed or separation of base/user. FreeBSD has polished this and adheres rigidly to a formal structure. For example, I know my base system is under /usr/bin. When I install an app, I know it'll be beneath /usr/local/bin for console apps or /usr/X11R6/bin for X apps. Base config files are in /etc, while config files for stuff installed via ports is in /usr/local/etc.

5) Community. I find the FreeBSD community to be less fanatical and instead more disciplined and polite. I feel like I'm getting help from someone wearing a suit & tie (though I doubt they really are..:) ) instead of a "LINUX RULEZ!!!" kid.

6) Documentation. FreeBSD has EXTENSIVE DOCUMENTATION, which is helped by Reason #3. There are also a number of excellent books on FreeBSD, all of which in this list I own. Sure, there are a bazillion books on Linux, but FreeBSD doesn't need so many because there's just one FreeBSD, and once you get beyond the OS, the rest is specific to the application/server and is not OS-specific.

7) Performance. FreeBSD is notorious for performing well. In fact, sometimes applications under Linux-emulation (see #8) run better than on a native Linux box. FreeBSD's TCP/IP implementation is also well-known for being very fast.

8) Linux-emulation. Most stuff for Linux is available as open-source and can be compiled natively for FreeBSD (and is probably in the ports tree), but for the few binary-only things that aren't, FreeBSD can still run them. Some of the Linux stuff I run myself include RealPlayer, Acrobat Reader (although gpdf works well too), the Flash plugin (running in a native Firebird, btw), and maybe some other things I ca

Re:Question

[toggaM]

The most noticeable difference between Linux (Slackware/Mandrake) and FreeBSD for me was speed. Booting/Shutdown and application running was visually noticeable. I was so impressed I bought the company! oh wait, sorry wrong product. I didn't buy the company, I just upgraded my 3 computers to FreeBSD ;-) I just bought a Mandrake Membership prior to switching over but I have no issue contributing to any *nix company for their efforts.

Re:Question

[ivoras]

It's about the same thing nowdays, only FreeBSD 5.x has got a lot of support for fancy-ish new-ish hardware, and FreeBSD (which was way younger than 4.8 at the time you specified) has gotten much X11/KDE/GNOME support, so it is on par with linux and every other similar system.

(There's no such thing as 'Unix GUI', if you rule MacOS X and other commercial systems out - if you install KDE, it will look and behave exactly the same on every single platform that's supported).

As for the server side, I noticed major improvement (in ATA code, mostly) when I went from FreeBSD 5.1 to 5.2BETA on a really old machine (P133), so I guess the system actually *is* getting more mature. (That same P133 machine has not had a single crash since it started running FreeBSD (5.0 at the time was the hot thing.) - it is a heavily used file server with a new ATA133 controller). There are a few maybes and insecurities around the new threading and scheduler systems, but it seems they are getting more polished by the day (notice that, despite the witnessed stability, it is still not "STABLE" by the high standards :)) ).

Re:Question

[Brandybuck]

Several reasons. First, FreeBSD is a unified system. Linux, on the other hand, is a kernel, distro supplied scripts, shells, libraries, and utilities. Not everything in the core FreeBSD is native (gcc, tar, etc), but most of it is. This has a few disadvantages, but overall it's a benefit. It even feels unified.

Second, the documentation is superb. Linux is notorious for having imcomplete documentation. Part of this is the fault of GNU, which actively discourages the writing of man pages. A while ago I was trying to get a USB thumb drive working under Linux and I couldn't find instructions anywhere. Heading online, most of the stuff I found was outdated. But under FreeBSD there is a man page for everything, down to and including individual drivers. The Handbook is comprehensive and well written. There is install documentation for everything from writing and updating ports to dual booting with Linux and Windows.

Performance. This is highly subjective, and I have not done any benchmarks. I am sure that there is stuff that Linux does better than FreeBSD, and vice versa. But from my experience, FreeBSD just seems snappier and more responsive. It boots faster. Shutdown is faster.

Finally, believe it or not, hardware support. In my experience FreeBSD supports more hardware than Linux. This didn't use to be the case, but I think the situation has reversed. Other posts in this article talk about SATA. Linux supports it, but it's a separate driver that isn't default on many current distros. Under FreeBSD SATA support is built into the ATA driver, and it's been there for a while. I've found through experience that USB support is much better on FreeBSD than on Linux. I recently purchased a new laptop, and FreeBSD supported everything on it (sans winmodem) out-of-the-box. Linux did not.

But hey! FreeBSD is Free! You can try it for yourself. Find a spare partition and try it for a week to get the feel of it. Even if you decide to stick with Linux, you'll at least get the benefit of exposure to another system.

Re:Question

[rsidd]

What? I know the port system uses make, but I thought the packages were binary.

No, the ports tree is source based. To fetch and install a binary package (with dependencies automatically fetched too), simply type "pkg_add -r xmms" but binary packages may not be as up-to-date as ports.

Re:too bad

[The Irish Jew]

Nothing is stopping you from installing 5.8 and making all other applcaitions use it with a simple "use.perl port". That wasn't too hard now was it?

Wow

[Bluesman]

This news hasn't even hit the freebsd site or bsdforums yet. I checked this morning.

I'm overdue for an upgrade, I've got 5.0 running on my main desktop machine. I just love how easy it is to administer and how well documented everything is compared to Linux.

I haven't tried the Linux 2.6 kernel yet, mostly because there's no reason for me to not use FreeBSD. X, Fvwm, and Gnome apps run flawlessly, and the ports system is fantastic.

Re:too bad

[archen]

Ever hear of the ports collection? The reason perl was moved out of the base install (aside from the fact that it's pretty big nowdays) and into ports is because some people didn't like having an older version of perl around. Now you can keep perl up to date as you want it

cd /usr/ports/lang/perl5.8

make install clean

tada, you now have perl 5.8

Not quite.

[dinivin]

As of 8:53 AM EST, the annoucement page does not have it listed and the
freebsd-announce mailing list has not mentioned it.

This means that it is not yet released.

Dinivin

Re:Not quite.

[dinivin]

Yeah right. And the FreeBSD release team reserves the right to change anything under that directory at any point prior to the official announcement. They done it in the past. And thanks to Slashdot jumping the gun back then, too, some people ended up downloading bad code.

IT IS NOT OFFICIAL TILL THE RELEASE TEAM SAYS IT IS.

Excuse my yelling, but the release team has been over this with Slashdot time and time again.

Dinivin

Re:Not on Thinkpad X40

[cravey]

Well, according to this, they didn't start BUILDING RC2 until 2003/12/21. Two months ago, you probably would have built some seriously unstable code. This isn't -STABLE, it's -CURRENT. And if you'd done a upgrade from 4.x to 5.x without an intervening format, you'd have been in for some fun as well. If you'll look at the release notes, you'll also see that statfs(2) got a tweak that probably caused all sorts of problems for you if you weren't paying attention to the freeber-current list. Perhaps next time, you'll have better luck with something that's not in the MIDDLE of a development cycle?

recommend using FreeBSD as a desktop

[linuxbaby]

A little FreeBSD evangelism FWIW:

My company uses FreeBSD 5 on half of our desktop machines in the office. All the PCs for customer service and general-purpose use are all running:

• KDE 3.14 and its included apps
• the FreeBSD-native version of Opera
• the FreeBSD-native TextMaker word-processor
• Mozilla Firebird
• Everything like XMMS, Acrobat, and mplayer you know from Linux-land work just fine in FreeBSD

The fonts are anti-aliased and beautiful. I find it easier on the eyes than Windows or OS X.

It only takes us about an hour to set up a whole new ready-to-go office desktop PC for the office, using FreeBSD ports. And we LOVE that all boxes' apps are kept automatically updated every night using the portupgrade scripts.

If you're thinking of dabbling with FreeBSD as a desktop I can highly recommend it.

In fact I'm typing this on my Gateway laptop with FreeBSD 4.9 right now. Here are some FreeBSD laptop compatibility lists if you want to see if yours will work.

Re:recommend using FreeBSD as a desktop

[inode_buddha]

I've been considering trying BSD but I have to wonder how well does it support *older* SMP machines? I have a dual Pentium Pro box just sitting here with ISA slots. BTW the ports system looks cool, from the examples in the comments.

Re:recommend using FreeBSD as a desktop

[Cthefuture]

If you're thinking of dabbling with FreeBSD as a desktop I can highly recommend it .. yeah but it depends on what you need. I mean, I use Linux as my primary OS so you would think it might be easy for me to go FreeBSD.

Overall I really like FreeBSD's simple install and the ports system is pretty good although I'm not a believer in compiling everything. And the system feels very stable and nice.

However, can I run VMware 4.x (I absolutely must have this)? How are the nVidia drivers? Does the nvidia-settings program work on FreeBSD? No V4L applications will work on FreeBSD. And so on...

Those are the types of things that keep me from using FreeBSD. Unfortunately FreeBSD is to Linux as Linux is to Windows. There are some nice aspects to the underdog but there's just more support for more stuff in the other one. By that reasoning you'll probably say I should be using Windows. Fact is, I probably would be using Windows as my primary OS if I thought Microsoft was a company worth supporting in that way not to mention my security concerns.

Re:recommend using FreeBSD as a desktop

[tssm0n0]

I've been considering trying BSD but I have to wonder how well does it support *older* SMP machines? I have a dual Pentium Pro box just sitting here with ISA slots.

It supports them quite well. I got a dual pentium pro, installed FreeBSD 5.1 and it's been running like a beast ever since.

Curious

[CaptainAlbert]

I just had a sudden realisation that although I consider myself a free software enthusiast, I am ashamed to say that I know *nothing* about FreeBSD at all! Well, I remember reading about where the codebase came from, once upon a time, but that's about it. Perhaps someone could give me an executive summary to stem this clueless feeling...

Who uses it? How exactly is it licensed? How is it maintained and managed? Are there different distros as for Linux? Do any companies provide FreeBSD-based solutions, or is it just for hobbyists? What can it run on? Should *I* consider running it, and why?

I appreciate that I *could* go looking for all this information and piece the story together myself, but hell, it's easier this way. :) Zealots, do your worst!

Re:Curious

[Dave2 Wickham]

I'm not a *BSD expert (I use Linux), but anyway...

1) People who want to use it I guess; I've seen quite a few Web servers running it.
2) BSD licence. Basically do what you want with it, sell it in binary form, whatever, as long as you don't try and misrepresent the original author(s).
3) Not sure...
4) There are different BSDs, yes, e.g. FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD etc.
5) Not sure, again. Although Hotmail used to run on *BSD, FWIW
6) With NetBSD, most platforms.
7) No idea what your circumstances are...

Re:Curious

[doon]

Who uses it? Lots of People (Like Yahoo!).

How exactly is it licensed It is licensed under a BSD license.

Should I consider Running it? Short answer: Yes (but I am biased)

Long Answer: It depends on your applications. FreeBSD is a rock solid Operating System, also it is distributed as an entire operating system, as opposed to GNU/Linux where you have the Linux Kernel and then what ever utils/programs $VENDOR has built around it. We run it on 20+ servers here and have been really happy with it. I run it on Multiple boxes at home also. Then again the 2 of us here are kinda FreeBSD bigots. Here is my leg to prove it so my opinion might be biased.

Depending on your application, you really should run the best Operating System for the Job. I haven't found the one perfect OS yet. For instance if you are running Java app servers you might want to look at Linux for that as it's java implementation seems to be better( but FreeBSD's is getting there quickly). The nice part is it free and you can just grab The ISO's and try it out on a spare machine.

Re:Curious

[mccalli]

Then again the 2 of us here are kinda FreeBSD bigots. Here is my leg to prove it

Now there's a sentence you don't read every day.

Cheers,
Ian

Re: Mandrake

[Quantum-Sci]

Agree.

Time is an important factor. I think the BSDs are great for internet servers, though I don't see how they're any more secure than a properly set up Mandrake system. Yes, I use Mandrake, not because I'm a n00b, but because Suse cost me at least a month of downtime over the past year. I need my systems, to get actual work done.

Though I'm glad the BSDs are there, for my purposes Linux just works.

BSD packaging systems

[Debian Troll's Best]

In a recent consulting gig, I've been tasked with looking after a few offices full of Mac OS X systems at a design company. As many of you would know, Mac OS X is based upon a FreeBSD Unix foundation, so it's capable of being useful to 'hard core' users such as ourselves, as well as presenting a typically user friendly MacOS face to designers and the like.

One thing I really like about Mac OS X is the increasing number of Unix-derived packages that are available through projects such as fink. Fink uses the venerable apt-get system, derived from Debian, to manage the installation, maintenance and upgrading of traditional Unix packages into the MacOS environment. A neat tool, no doubt.

I'm no BSD expert, but I believed that the *BSD systems came with their own packaging system, namely the 'ports' system. But therein lies the question: if Mac OS X is derived from a FreeBSD kernel, why is the premier system for managing open source software packages derived from Debian's apt-get? Would any regular BSD users care to comment? apt-get sure is convenient, but can these 'ports' make things even easier? Should BSD user mount a campaign on Apple's discussion boards to get these 'ports' included with the Developer's Package of the next release of Mac OS X? Apple is quite the innovator in ports after all, being a pioneer of both USB and FireWire. BSD ports could be another feather in their technical cap.

I look forward to the responses of the BSD community. Mac OS X, powered by FreeBSD, is a really rockin' platform!!

Re:BSD packaging systems

[dubstop]

As a developer, I use FreeBSD at work, and OSX at home. On OSX I now use darwinports, rather than Fink, after having a kernel panic caused by Fink. I don't particularly blame Fink, as it's still in beta, but as that was my first (and last so far) kernel panic in OSX, I thought that I'd give something else a try until it was more stable.

Personally, I think that darwinports is slightly easier to use than Fink, but there's not a lot of difference. The downside is that there are a lot more packages available in Fink, although the number for darwinports is increasing steadily.

My only real gripe with darwinports is that, by default, it installs packages into /opt, which is a bit too Solaris-like for me. That's easy enough to change, though.

In comparison to the ports system on FreeBSD, darwinports is easier to use. With darwinports, installing a package is as easy as 'ports install package', whereas in FreeBSD ports, you need to cd to the appropriate directory and then do a 'make install'. As a developer, I've got no problems using makefiles, but I can see how they might put off some non-developers.

Re:BSD packaging systems

[diamondsw]

It should also be noted that early betas of Panther bundled DarwinPorts. That faded away in later builds, but most things that Apple has hinted at shows up eventually.

Personally, I find fink (and the wonderful FinkCommander) to be extremely easy to use, but the inclusion of any simple access to ports/apt-get/etc would be a boon to OS X users.

Re:BSD packaging systems

[overbom]

a different ports system is on the way -- darwinports, fink, and metapackages(?) are working together to make the one true ports/packaging system. I think the end result will someday show up at www.openpackages.org.

And darwinports was included in earlier developer previews of macosx 10.3, but later removed.

The basic reason that they used apt-get instead of FreeBSD's ports is basically this: the ports system rules for users, but sucks for developers, to paraphrase the ports system creator Jordan Hubbard, known here in the BSD section as "God."

Darwinports is his rewrite of said FreeBSD ports system.

FreeBSD 5 is not yet officially out

[agshekeloh]

Folks,

The mirrors are still updating. While 5.X is imminent, /. has once again jumped the gun.

In the past, we of the FreeBSD Project have started distributing an image to our mirrors and then recalled it when a last-minute bug is discovered. IIRC, at least once /. has pre-announced the release and people got bad code.

Please do not grab this image thinking that it's FreeBSD 5.2! It won't be out until Scott Long says that it ready and available, and he has the right to nix this image up until the time he makes that announcement.

mwlucas at the obvious domain name

Re:Suggestion

[thogard]

The world doesn't need two sets of free *nix clones. The world needs ONE great *nix clone.

No, the world needs many *nix clones. It helps move things and sometimes things move in the wrong direction (i.e. IBM/DEC's answer to SysV). OpenBSD pushes the security in ways that the bloatware distros can't but the bloatware helps get more people comfortable with the *nix systems.

I would like to see a distory using the Linux kernel and most of the BSD tools just to see how it would evlolve.

PowerPC

[smeeze]

anyone know how well PowerPC is supported?

PCMCIA support

[Kazymyr]

Does anyone know if they have fixed PCMCIA support during the install? It used to work fine in the 4.x series, then it got broken in the 5.x series. I have tried it a month ago, and it was still broken.

Basically, if you need PCMCIA support during the install, you're SOL. For instance if you want to do a network install over a PCMCIA NIC. Like I said, since 5.x the installer doesn't even try to detect PCMCIA devices anymore.

FTP2 traffic

[gtrubetskoy]

As always, it's fun to watch the traffic on the server when a new release comes out:

here

Re:10 things which we know about FreeBSD

[BSDstef]

1. You can not play games on it.
You can play Linux games on it (ok, no games)

2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
If your grandma is able to use Gnome or KDE, she can use FreeBSD.

3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
see above.

4. There is no support available for it.
There are a lot of places on the net were you can get help from the community. And some companies provide commercial support for FreeBSD.

5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
FreeBSD is a complete OS by itself, it's an evolution of 4.4BSD.

6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
Of course it runs on x86.

7. You have to compile everything and know C.
Thanks to the ports collection, you just have to type "make" to get something compiled for you.

8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
Support for the latest hardware is sometimes poor indeed.

9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
FreeBSD has a complete Linux compatibility layer which allows to run Linux binaries.

10. It is dying.
Well, some people like to repeat that every month since 1993!

Stephane
------
Life isn't fair, but the root password helps.

Re: Mandrake

[Bluesman]

>I think the BSDs are great for internet servers, though I don't see how they're any more secure than a properly set up Mandrake system.

You couldn't be more right. The difference, at least to me, is that FreeBSD is much easier to configure properly because the documentation and ports system are so good.

With regard to OpenBSD however, there are many security enhancements that put its security far ahead of the rest. But it is rather paranoid for simple applications, and probably not worth the performance/ease of use hit.

Live CD

[Trejus]

Since I haven't seen this mentioned yet...

What's the possibilty of having a FreeBSD LiveCD? As far as I can tell, there is no technical restriction, since if I remember correctly, a lot of floppy-based routers use netBSD.

FreeBSD gets lots of praise from it's users, but my only real experience with it is that a couple of my friends tried it (about 3 years ago) and found it impossible to install. However, it seems like an it would be worth a try, but I don't really want to sacrifice my Linux partition. Plus, I'm not all that interested in going through another lengthy install process since I'm pretty happy with Slackware.

Of course, since supporters mostly seem to admire the ports system, there maybe little difference for the end-user between Linux and FreeBSD LiveCD's.

And please, no jokes about a "dead" operating system being distributed on a live CD.

Re:Live CD

[phoenix_rizzen]

CD2 as distributed by the FreeBSD project is a bootable, live filesystem CD-ROM. Granted, it only gets you to a shell prompt, but it includes everything that comes with a standard install of FreeBSD, and makes a great rescue tool.

There are a couple of third-party LiveCD projects underway, although the only one I can recall the name of is Freesbie.

Great But Disk Is Slow

[idfubar]

As a UCB EECS graduate, I can truly appreciate FreeBSD.

As a hardware nerd, though, I was a little disappointed at the empirical results the OS turned in for my disk array (RAID5, 4x200GB, 16kB block size, 8:16:32:256K stripe size) - burst and sustained transfer is much faster under Windows. Have a look at the results: IDE Hardware Raid On FreeBSD

sparc64 and local sun console install

[Prinz Madde]

I actually just recently tried out FreeBSD (5.1-RELEASE, to be exact), because I wanted to do something with my Sun ultrasparc 5 besides having it sit there and look sexy. OpenBSD was not an option, as I cannot boot the ultra5 from floppy (even says so in the README somewhere), and I was way too lazy to build a boot CD ala NetBSD's instructions, so FreeBSD it was - I wanted to use the box and see something new besides Linux and Win2k (and OS X in my dreams on the 12" PB).

In hindsight, I have to say it's great, it simply *works*. I am running apache2 on it and soon will switch my internal IMAP server (just for home, two users, collecting from various accounts via fetchmail and providing the results to internal IMAP clients) to that box. Maybe nfs/samba file server will be next so I can retire the Mandrake 7.2 installation on my current file server. :/
Of course, the machine is slow, a cd /usr/ports ; make distro clean takes about three days, but who is counting. :)

However, to finally get to the point (yes, I am bored today), installation was a bitch, to say the least, none of the terminal emulations the installer suggests is usable on the sun console. Usenet searches suggested a serial terminal (yeah, didn't have that under the kitchen sink), or a nullmodem to another box. I decided to do a "blind" install, took a couple of attemots, but somehow it worked and the rest is history - did everything through ssh from my desktop linux box.

I skimmed the release notes on 5.2, but could not find any mentioning of the sun console finally being a usuable install option, even though in my (previously mentioned) usenet archive search I came across mentionings of someone wanting to fix this. Does anyone know where it stands?

Why *NOT* to use FreeBSD:

[scosol]

I've used and liked FreeBSD since back in the 2.1.5 days. (~1994 IIRC)

Of all the reasons listed, it is the simplicity and order and coherency of everything that works for me. It's very standardized, and things just seem to be done in a way that "makes sense".

So- why not use it?
There really is only one reason: bleeding-edge hardware support.

For server systems this is not an issue, but for desktops (particularly laptops) it raises its ugly head.

I will say that the 5.x series makes a lot of improvements in the "general laptop functionality" area, but even still- hardware support *does* lag behind Linux.

It is for that reason (and *only* that reason) that for my FOB P2040, FreeBSD (4.x at the time) just was not an option. Stuff like sound/tvout/suspend/spindown and IIRC even the particular USB controller wasn't supported. It's been a long time now but I remember installing it and just finding it unworkable at all on a machine that new at the time.

Anyway- food for thought.

Re:FreeBSD as a Desktop?

[molnarcs]

You definitely should. I was a RedHa (7.3) then mandrake (9.0, 9.1) then Debian (woody, updated to testing) guy until tried freebsd 5.1. Stayed with it since then, and I will. I use it as a desktop OS, and it works perfectly. Since sremick answered most of your questions, some notes on digital cameras:

Check out this thread: http://www.freebsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php ?s=&threadid=12015 - and join that forum :) It is one of the friendliest forums I ever been to. Join it if you wish to try freebsd :)

Another advice: freebsd folks spend a great deal of effort (money, resources, time) in writing the best *nix documentation out there. This is true across the entire distribution. The man pages are superb and cleaner than those I find in linux, and there are more of them (almost every .conf file has a man page, as well as general things - try man ports). Also, you will find sample configuration files for almost every package (base system + ports) in /usr/share/examples. For instance, /etc/make.conf will have a sample in /usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf. And finally, their handbook is comprehensive and easy to follow. Although installing and running freebsd is no more difficult than debian/slack/gentoo, the best advice I can give is to read the handbook before starting installation.

I've been in love with FreeBSD since the moment I tried it (I installed it because when I pulled shorewall from sarge, it erased my /etc/network in debian. I friend recommended bsd. Before putting it on a server, I decided to try out on my desktop/test machine. A week later I removed my linux partition, and been using it as my desktop since then :) And now about some quirk (it is only fair to mention some disadvantages compared to linux):
1) Java - it works, but it is 'difficult' to install. By difficult I mean: you have to download some files manually, portinstall jdk14 won't work out of the box). When you get used to freebsd's package management/ports (yes, you have both, with automatic dependency resolution) you consider this as annoying :)
2) Flash - no native flash for freebsd, and again, you have to install linux-flash manually. It works in mozilla/firebird (both native and linux version) but not in konqi. A better solution is on the way though.

If you can live with these, you will love freebsd, especially if you want to get the latest and greatest progs. I find (I know, since my roommate uses it) that freebsd ports are slightly more up to date than portage in gentoo (which is no minor accomplishment). For example, gimp 2.0pre was added the day it was released.

Re:too bad

[Brandybuck]

Not to bash Perl or anything, but I think that these incompatibilities between minor version numbers is a Perl weakness. Having to use perl 6.x instead of 5.x I could understand. But having to use perl 5.8 instead of 5.6 is silly. The 5 means it's the same major version.

But in any case, just update your perl through ports and you're done. Easy.

Viva le BSD.

[mrplastik]

Current Uptimes
I see lots of trolls posting NetCraft stats, so here's yet some more to entertain their lonely lives.

Dead you say? It must be so, look how long these machines have been up, it certainly time for something new.
Gander at which OS's dominate the list. This certainly doesn't mean anything, now does it?

For a dead guy, BSD sure has a lot of kick left in them. For those of you that're behind, plans are already being made for the 6.x branch of FreeBSD. That sure sounds like a dying OS, now doesn't it?

I've got no beef with Linux. I run Linux, and multiple BSDs, and have for over a decade. I've got a beef with trolls making false statements and any moderators that bump their post to informative.

*chuckle*

We're far from through.

-mpf