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FreeBSD 5.2 Review

Posted by timothy on from the mostly-good dept.

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."

7 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. slightly biased review by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 5, Informative

    I use FreeBSD every day as a desktop, and it works great for me. At least the reviewer appreciated the integrated feel that come from a real Unix, that was planned rather than hobbled together. It's also good that they noticed how solid FreeBSD is as a server. *BSD performance under heavy loads is something that can't always be proved by benchmarks. It has to be seen to be believed.

    My main dissagreement though, is his complaint about the ports system. Debians apt-get system is the only thing that comes close, but with ports I find it much easier to maintain my own changes to the source tree.

    I moved to FreeBSD after bad experiences on Linux, with licensing, the ad-hoc design, and spagetti code. Now I stay with FreeBSD because of it's engineered design, and because it's nice to have a truly free system.

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  2. Binary Packages? by vpscolo · · Score: 4, Informative

    So what does pkg_add -r packagename do then? I thought it downloaded the pre-compiled binary

    Rus

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  3. Somebody should tell this gal... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Somebody should tell this gal that 5.2 is NOT a stable release. Maybe I missed it, but she fails to mention that 5.2 is a "New Technology Release" and is not yet intended for production use.

    Many of the problems that the author experienced will probably (hopefully) be resolved by the time that 5-STABLE is released.

    I don't argue that there are problems in the 5-series (I still stick with 4-STABLE), but if you're going to review it, at least make it obvious that it is not a finished product.

  4. Re:Additional packaging systems for FreeBSD? by bluGill · · Score: 4, Informative

    I haven't used apt-get, but freeBsd has a nice package system. Most people use ports and compile from source, but you can also use pkg_add with some options to fetch the binary package and install it. Portupgrade and source installs rock, unless your system is very limited.

    That said, why didn't you do a apt-get to install your packages on a local network machine, and nfs export it?

  5. 5.1 vs. 5.2 by klocwerk · · Score: 4, Informative

    I had 5.1 installed and running perfectly fine on my box, tried to format and do a fresh install of 5.2 and it won't write to the HD.
    did drive scans, installed various other OSes, all fine. but freeBSD hates me now.
    so i installed 5.1 again and all is good.

    that's my 5.2 experience. while googling for a solution I ran across a bunch of other people with the same problem and no resolution.

    Drive geometry on Seagate barracuda drives doesn't seem to play nice with the 5.2 installer.

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  6. Re:What kind of crack are they smoking? by cbv · · Score: 4, Informative

    10,000 apps, but I'll bet cash the majority are command-line utilities, not desktop applications.

    Wrong, see http://www.freshports.org/categories.php

  7. He would better read the FreeBSD Handbook first by koinu · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can find it here: FreeBSD HandBook

    Instead of doing this:

    using the installer, I typed /bin/bash as the shell

    I could edit the passwd files

    It took me over an hour trying to find on Google clues

    I had to create links for /dev/dvd and /dev/cdrw

    I also had to edit rc.conf to enable Samba

    Further remarks:

    The ports system does come with preconfigured applications, this is what I really like about FreeBSD. I don't need long time to setup things.

    Instead VLC (which is a really buggy thing), better use mplayer.

    ext2fs has an evil license (GPL), that's why it is not default.

    I am happy with my X11-speed on 5.2R, I have 2700fps using glxgears on my P3-500.

    Ports is the best thing about FreeBSD. Talking differently is typical for Linux users.

    I consider FreeBSD as the best desktop ever, but I don't use Gnome2 (does not mean, I don't like it), I rather use Xfce4, which looks good and is lightweight.

    I actually think that you need less experience to install FreeBSD. I recently tried to install Debian, but it failed to find my Intel Ethernet Express Pro 100, because Debian is using ancient kernels. Such things and all networking (including PPPoE) works out-of-the-box on FreeBSD.