FreeBSD 5.2 Review

JigSaw writes "OSNews published a review of FreeBSD 5.2. They found the OS very solid as a server but pretty lacking as a desktop. The author finds FreeBSD very fast overall, easy to configure and that it feels integrated and mature. On the other hand, it has limited modern hardware support, small annoyances at places and that not many binary packages are available and so compilations from ports may take long time."

Comments

OSNews.

[saintlupus]

They found the OS very solid as a server but pretty lacking as a desktop.

They must not have liked the default sysinstall color scheme.

OSNews -- because we CAN evaluate an OS in thirty minutes or less!

--saint

Free

[Popageorgio]

Plus it's not as cool as PayYouFiveBucksBSD.

Re:Free

[flewp]

OrPaySCOSixHundredAndNinetyNineBucksLinux

OSNEWS....

[Goalie_Ca]

At least its accurate, but only because they are stating the obvious.

Urgent! Serious problem with FreeBSD 5.2!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, for the love of god, do NOT deploy FreeBSD 5.2 in your corporate enterprise!! From grepping the source tree, it has come to our attention that FreeBSD contains hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lines of SCO's Intellectual Property (IP). For those who do decide to deploy it, expect our lawyers to be in touch.

Darl.

*BSD Outsourced to India

[Anonymous Coward]

NetCraft confirms that all versions of *BSD are under control of our Indian overlords. Domestic fans of the OS can expect a revised curry flavored kernal and Vishnu style dependencies ...

(*** Why yes im been drinking Vodka)

What kind of crack are they smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not usable as a desktop? Over 10,000 apps available now. Not usable as a desktop? Gnome2, Openoffice, Mozilla, Gaim, Linux binary compatability, DVD-R support, over 100 different email apps. Not usable as a desktop?
Because DHCP and USB don't work? Here's an idea: GET A FUCKING CLUE. I just installed 5.2 on a Toshiba Laptop. EVERYTHING WORKS. USB, DHCP, CDRW, NIC, EVERYTHING. if the OP is too much of a moron to figure out FreeBSD 5.2, he'd better stick to Windows.

*shakes head*

FreeBSD is ugly to install...but once done it's a damned fine OS for the money.

This review was typical of the kind of simpleton garbage seen from OSNews. A slashdot-wannabe in a field of 1000s.

*spit*

I hope 2004 is the year...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope 2004 is the year Eugenia will stop posting stupid OS reviews.

Re:Thoughts on infrastructure

[iminplaya]

"The safest desktop for a user is a locked down dummy terminal."

I would think that the safest desktop is pen and paper, but that might be too many sharp objects.

Wrong

[qortra]

The Windows base is hardly rock solid, unless you understand "Rock Solid" to mean "Full of Holes". Consider the RPC worms that came out last year (remember MSBlast?). These problems are win32 API level (something I would consider part of the base). And, this is not an isolated case; all the time, there are new holes being found in code written in the early days of NT that have propagated through today; many of them don't even get publicized because they aren't all neccessarily appropriate for spreading worms, but there are tons.

Even Linux in this department takes a back seat to FreeBSD; FreeBSD release versions have always been truly rock solid.

Re:10,000 not enough?

[jbplou]

What do you mean a base install of Mandrake comes with 5 different instant message programs. Sure FreeBSD offers stablity and a great server. But does a default install come with 5 im programs. I rest my case.

It was...

[Anonymous Coward]

but now it is undead and will live forever sucking the will and lifeforce from all who touch it. What you thought the demon mascot was some sort of coincidence?

Re:OSNews: Judging an OS by its Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Poster: "But... that doesn't even make any sense"

Eugenia: "Did i mention my husband worked on BeOS? I win."

That's the real problem

[Orien]

That just goes to show the REAL problem with FreeBSD is that no one on /. knows anything about it. If that guy had bought a box set and read the book he would have known about pkg_add, but he probably downloaded the ISO, installed it, tried apt-get, tried rpm, tried yast, and finding that none of them were installed said to himself "this OS doesn't have a binary package system!"

SELECT CLUE FROM $Slashdot_Comments WHERE (OS_Name IS NOT LIKE '%Linux%';)

Zero rows returned;

Re:How does FreeBSD compare to Linux 2.6?

[ChristTrekker]

5.2 is twice as good as 2.6!!!

And they say BSD is dying...ha! Guess we showed them.

Eugenia, Eugenia, Eugenia (shaking head)

[morelife]

Put that coffee down. Coffee is for hackers only.

Re:argh

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

I highly doubt Miller, Bud, etc make the highest quality beers out there ;) .
AAAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE now I'm gonna have nightmares!!! The Czech beer called Budweiser in the Czech Republic (called Czechvar elsewhere) is actually pretty good though.

at a beer brewers conference, the representatives for Anheiser Busch, Cerveceria Modelo, and Guinness got together at a bar. They all step up to the bar, and the bartender asks what they wanted.
Bartender: so what do you guys want?
Busch Guy: Give me the king of beers, give me a Budweiser.
Modelo Guy: I want la cerveza mas fina, give me a Corona.
Guinness guy looks at them both..
Guinness Guy: I'll have a water please.
Both of the other guys look at him, wondering...
Busch Guy: Why didn't you get a Guinness?
Guinness Guy: Well, if you guy's weren't having beer, I'm not gonna be the only one.

Re:And this is modded up because?

[Brandybuck]

That's the one thing about BSD users that we Linux users will never be able to tolerate. The snobbish attitude.

You're absolutely right! Debian users are never snobbish towards users of RPM. Gentoo users don't brag about emerge. Redhat users never speak in condescending tones about Slackware's init scripts. Nope, you're all one big happy family!

We *have* a fantastic FreeBSD 5 desktop

[Are We Afraid]

It's called Mac OS X.