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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."
They found the OS very solid as a server but pretty lacking as a desktop.
So, are they going to refer people to Windows as something with a "good desktop".
Operating systems, to me, are a lot like buildings. The kernel is the foundations, and everything that sits on top of it are floors in the building. Where would you prefer the weak link to be? Near the bottom of the building, where tapping on a support column on the first floor makes everything come crashing down (read, BSOD)? Or would it be better to have parts of the building that are higher up be weak, in which case part of the building is still left in tact?
I realize that this analogy isn't entirely true, as with the WTC the weight of the top part of the building entirely decimated the bottom part. But supposing that the bottom underlying part of an operating system is bulletproof, all the abstracting layers on top of it that come crashing down won't kill the whole thing.
I see this as BSD. They're making sure their foundations are rock solid before building on top of them. It's good practice. The rest of the infrastructure will come with time.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
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
Plus it's not as cool as PayYouFiveBucksBSD.
At least its accurate, but only because they are stating the obvious.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
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.
I was a first time Linux user who had been running Gentoo for around 3 months now.
I found user support to be fantastic, and had lots to go from using Google and accessing varying forums, but there was just stuff that I could never get to work.
Then I tried to upgrade to the 2.6 kernel.... and I gave up.
Popped in FreeBSD, installed, popped on my favorite graphic environment and apps that went with it. Using FreeBSD I had duplicated, in 2 hours, everything that took me a struggling 3 months to build with my linux distro. Going through the handbook was so easy I was shocked, and countless other sites (like freebsd diary) filled any gaps.
I know there are various Linux distros and what not, but I thought FreeBSD was supposed to be the more "advanced" OS of the two? And by advanced I mean "pain in the ass to install for an idiot long time Windows user with no *nix experience."
Now to completely discredit my experience above, why is every damn OSNews review getting posted these days? Why don't we save the reviews for the Gods of Arstechnica who understand it's not all about posting GNOME screenshots and throwing around the phrase "not ready for the desktop!!!" every other article.
-j
We still have a couple print servers around here that are running Pentium Pro's with FreeBSD 3.4 from five years ago. Yeah its probably time we replaced them, but they've been reliable.
I mean for desktop, we use Mac OS X because that what its designed for, at the end of the day its the right tool for the right job.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
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 Eugenia will stop posting stupid OS reviews.
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.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
I believe that the lack of a large, centralized resource for FreeBSD binary packages is one of the biggest things holding back BSD acceptance in the open source community at the moment. I worked a few months ago as a contract system administrator in a university computer science department, and they were evenly split between FreeBSD and Linux usage for their day-to-day work. However, the Linux users (they were running Debian 2.2 mostly...they were fairly conservative and were waiting for the 'stable' branch to reach 'stable-stable' before upgrading...or even the 'stable-stable-stable' stage where not even the /etc files are able to be edited any more...faculty meetings often sounded like discussions between horse trainers with all the talk of 'stable this', 'stable that'. But I digress.) had a big advantage over the FreeBSD users when it came to installing packages. There was an on-campus apt mirror which I'd set up, and it was a simple matter for the Linux users to issue a quick 'apt-get install' command to grab the latest binaries or Justin Timberlake MP3s without compilation holdups
This brings me to my next question. Instead of going down the hard route which has been suggested on a number of FreeBSD discussion forums and trying to write binary translation layers for BSD/Mac OS X .dmg packages to get access to a rich source of binary software (the PowerPC-x86 translator is only in alpha at the moment and it runs quite slowly, although AltiVec acceleration is on the to-do list), what about bundling apt-get with FreeBSD? That way BSD users could switch from the ports system to the tried and true apt-get when binary packages are desired. Only minimal tweaking would be required if my investigations are correct.
The largest problem then would possibly be one of naming. If FreeBSD was bundled with apt-get as a supplementary package system, would the viral nature of the GPL require that the whole system be named GNU/FreeBSD? Or would an exemption be granted in a case like this?
I look forward to hearing the community's feedback.
So what does pkg_add -r packagename do then? I thought it downloaded the pre-compiled binary
Rus
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I had to use nt5 (win2k for those that read the propaganda) for a day to port a library I'd written to ActiveX for some ungrateful VB yuppies. A few reasons keep it from being even a tolerable desktop; I'm ignoring why it sucks as a development platform and server platform.
1. A busy window cannot be moved.
2. Viruses abound, and they are a bitch for an unexperienced user to remove.
3. Spyware apps abound, and they are a bitch for an unexperienced user to remove.
4. Problems are left unfixed. MSIE exploits are unpatchable even after months of MS being informed of them.
I know about spybot, antivirus software, and not trusting the a-holes at MS, but the average desktop user shouldn't have to deal with that crap.
The best desktop OS is Mac OS X. It's easy to use, comes with all needed hardware support, and is easy to configure. (I prefer Solaris and Linux to OSX. I'm not saying OSX is the best operating system, just that it's best for desktop use.)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
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.
I love the install. I've been using FreeBSD for several years now, and I decided to throw RedHat on a machine to check it out. Suffice it to say, I won't be making that mistake again.
In 6+ years as a systems developer, very little approaches the way FreeBSD balances all considerations such as centralized development process, ported software, stability, and feature set.
.. but when it comes to running a server, its hard to argue with an OS that took well over 80 software platform upgrades (our own) without nary an OS crash.
;)
I like FreeBSD. Its never leading edge, its never trailing edge, it never supports the most hardware, it never does desktop best
Uptimes were 2+ years, 40 hits per second avg, and every freakin C bug I could throw at it.
FreeBSD is rock solid. ROCK solid. Oh, plus its dying.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Works For Me (tm)
;-)
Desktop performance is a lot better on 5.x. Things like flash and other (binary linux) plugins actually work. Do use SCHED_ULE. It helps. Mplayer does it all, media plugins largely work. many of these issues are really external from FreeBSD but its nice to see things come together. Yes, you may have to fiddle a bit.
But it can be used on the desktop and it can work very well there. Like I said, things are starting to come together. Sometimes it looks like merely cosmetics from the Linux side I guess but as desktop apps get more mature so does their portability. Or at least easier to fix in ports. More hands and brains also help. There's clearly an influx into the BSD users realm.
So yes, there is a viable *BSD desktop other than Apple's (perhaps even 3 or 4). A true *NIX head or someone willing to read some docs can have a pretty complete desktop on top of a *BSD. I get GL animated snapshots from camera/tv card snapshots in my xscreensaver. Does windows have that?
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.
The reviewer does hit a nail on the head, "If you are after an easy-to-use desktop system that doesn't require you to learn anything new, then you better look elsewhere."
This is the arrogance/beauty of FreeBSD, it is designed/engineered/distributed as an O/S to get the job done like no other. The Bauhaus school of software design. It is an SOB to get a new user going on, but once they see the light, good luck prying it from their hands. Good things are rarely easy.
The best thing ever to happen to FreeBSD was Linux, the best thing ever to happen to Linux was FreeBSD. A good, clean, honest competition which leaves both sides stronger.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I remember a few years ago, I read that FreeBSD was far superior to the Linux kernel for a heavily-loaded server. Supposedly you could run a server at about 100% CPU load, for days, without any problem if you used FreeBSD, while a Linux kernel would have problems.
Now that Linux 2.6 is released, has Linux caught up with FreeBSD, or is FreeBSD still better?
(And play nice, folks, please. I'm not trying to start a flame war here.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
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.
The hardware support available in modern Linux distributions make it a very good candidate for desktop workstations. But the ability to tweak certain kernel settings to suit it to a desktop workstation (like the CK release of patches) make it an even BETTER choice for a desktop.
That said I would rather have a cohesive, well thought out OS for a server. I don't want the server to change ever. I want to have easy to read documentation when I need it in a pinch and actually have documentation that relates to the OS environment I'm in!
BSDs are far more cohesive than any Linux distro I have ever used and don't feel like a bunch of utilities slapped on top of a kernel. Man pages make sense, documentation is everywhere, and the bastard runs really freaking fast too.
On the other hand, my few adventures with *BSD on the desktop always had me banging my head in frustration.
The choice is obvious: If it supports your hardware, *BSD for the server. Linux is still the best choice for the desktop.
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.
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
I think it would be a good idea, so Linux folks could at least try it. Googled for it but didn't succed.
Help fight continental drift.
For me, the advantages of compiling everything from scratch justify the investment in compile time. If I can get a piece of software to build on the same machine that I intend to run it on, I've found that I have far fewer problems overall. Most potential problems get caught at compile time. This is what kept me using FreeBSD/OpenBSD for years.
Now that I've been using Gentoo for about a year, I've come to believe that this is 90% of what made the BSDs better than any linux distro I'd used back in 1999. If you want a program you build it... it's built for your architecture, with your optimization settings, exactly the way you want it. If the program you want isn't in ports/portage, you can usually add it yourself by changing a couple lines in an existing port. If the developer updates the source to a program without changing the build process too much, you can just rebuild. No need to hunt down rpms or debs.
Because you're building your own binaries, you're also afforded some small amount of protection from scripted security exploits that target known builds of programs... but that's another subject.
I've been using FreeBSD as a server since 1999, and as a desktop for only 6 months or so. I would have to agree that FreeBSD is not as good a desktop system as it is a server. But there are a couple reasons for that.
"Linux" Application - KDE, MPlayer, Mozilla, XMMS, etc etc are more geared towards running on Linux. The developers are on Linux as are most of the userbase. When one of the Linux geared projects is ported to FreeBSD, there are usually many patches that need to be applied to make it run better. However, Samba (last I tried it), Apache, MySQL, PHP... all compile without a hitch.
Driver support. I can't use either of my web cams with FreeBSD, because there are just no drivers available. The people developing FreeBSD don't have the time to keep up with the latest wacky devices. If something is standard compliant (like my Nikon 995), it will just WORK. My nVidia (mostly because I use nVidia's binary drivers) crashes once a week, and I can't get out of X without locking my system up. However, I can use just about any RAID card in my server.
I mostly use FreeBSD as a desktop because it's the same system that my servers run. I keep my CVS repository on this machine, and I keep FreeBSD's source tree on this box, NFS from the servers and update when they need it. It makes my life easier from an administrative point of view, but it's definitely not geared towards being a Windows 9?xp? killer.
What about MEEPT?!?!
Sadly, I took one glance at the screenshot in the upper-right hand corner, and knew I would be reading a Eugenia article.
/. posters. FreeBSD 5.2 is rock solid, as any Unix, Linux, box would be. Every port in the ports tree has a pkd_add to go along with it. That's 10,000 precompiles binary ready to download. They all install, deinstall, with near zero user interaction.
She continues to base a useable desktop by how many windows she can open at once. Skip the article, and read the reviews from the
In short, use FreeBSD.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
SELECT CLUE FROM $Slashdot_Comments WHERE (OS_Name IS NOT LIKE '%Linux%';)
Zero rows returned;
SCO.com uses Linux
Put that coffee down. Coffee is for hackers only.
It's weird because I had the opposite impression. I'm using FeeBSD 5.2 release on my laptop. It solid and has everything I need. Getting java will be a hassle because I don't have room to compile it but I think it makes a great desktop.
On the other hand, I couldn't get the 5.2 kernel to boot on my HP Pavilion that I'm re-purposing as a server. OpenBSD proved an excellent solution. Now I think of OpenBSD as my main server OS and FreeBSD as my desktop. Of course I still have a linux box for java and whatnot.
I think FreeBSD is very user friendly. Most stuff just works.
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
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!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
It's called Mac OS X.
Rot-13 my address to e-mail me.
"So I hurry back to little earth / For another life another birth"
Disclaimer: I have only read the first page of the article. What he says about kuser is true, it probably should /not/ have been included if it was a known problem. But also bear in mind that 5.2 is Beta quality code, and is a testing release. Not a production release. All the same, I'm here to chip in my two cents.
/do/ have to take disagreement with the 'not ready for desktop' bit. FreeBSD seems to take this attitude that if you take the time to learn something, it will pay off. If you're going to use ports, check out sysutils/portupgrade. Once you learn how to use it, and how to use pkgtools.conf, you will save yourself *hours* of configuration and twiddling time. Just tonight, I spent two hours swapping versions of OpenSSL on a web server (hosting about 200 sites), and Apache was down for all of about 45 seconds. The ports tree is one of the best things about FreeBSD, and I don't see any binary distribution system even coming *close* to competing with it.
;)
First off, stability. It's true, FreeBSD is *rock* solid. I used Solaris and Linux (Debian/Slackware/Redhat) before coming to BSD. And I am astounded daily by the differences between the three. Our residential web server at work has been slashdotted three times in the past year, and the only reason we noticed was because someone saw the posting on Slashdot. And it's not fancy hardware -- P4, 1.6GHz, 512MB RAM. And while being slashdotted, we were still doing work on it, without really noticing the load increase.
But I
(And yes, I have used apt-get extensively. I have not, however, used Gentoo yet, but I have heard that its packaging system does indeed rival the ports tree.)
I use FreeBSD on my desktop (obviously). And to be quite honest, I could easily port my environment over to a Linux desktop, and not really notice a massive difference in functionality. If an app compiles on FreeBSD, chances are, it compiles on Linux (and vice-versa). I just use FBSD because I'm used to it, and because I know it a bit better -- it's more comfortable for me. Purely from a desktop usability viewpoint, I don't think it's much worse or better than any given Linux distribution, so long as I can keep my current setup. But again, it's that ports tree that sets it apart.
I, as well, moved to FreeBSD from Linux. That was shortly before 2.4 came out, and I still don't trust any kernels beyond 2.2, really. But I run 5.2-R and -CURRENT on my two desktops, and 5.2-R on one of our servers. Yes, it has its gotchas right now, but remember: this is considered Beta quality code right now. If you're looking for something slick, together, and perfect, wait for 5.3.
Not that FreeBSD isn't already that.
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.
Once upon a time, I was a happy FreeBSD user who submitted a trivial port update to gnats. I waited three months. I waited six months. I waited nine months. When it was finally committed, a newer version of the software package then my update had since been released.
Shortly after, I switched to Gentoo, which is usually very prompt in getting the newest software into unstable portage. I can't say I've never looked back, but even hearing the bureaucracy has since improved, I don't feel like giving up my USE flags in favor of "WANT_KITCHEN_SINK=1" again.
I like the BSD design philosophies better and didn't really notice the lack of drivers everyone complains about, so if Gentoo/BSD matures to the point of usability soon, I'll be first in line to try it.
I would have to majorly disagree on your opinion of the learning curve. FreeBSD has a substantually smaller learning curve than Linux, for someone who wants to tinker with the system. It is much easier to figure out how everything works, where everything goes, and how to use all the system commands.
What most Linux distributions tend to do, isn't to ease the learning curve, but to circumvent it. They provide tons of nice and pretty user-friendly utilities (that work a lot of the time, but not all the time) to do anything. But if you want to go in and manually set things up, it is MUCH harder than in FreeBSD. The only Linux distro that comes close to the clean feeling of a FreeBSD install is Slackware. But Slackware is bare-bones and featureless, while FreeBSD is quite the opposite.
FreeBSD aims to make the easist and most useable system for people who know what they're doing. Most Linux distros try to make some user-friendly setup that doesn't cut it for newbies, and gets in the way of more experienced folk.
It really comes down to the average member of their respective user communities. Just listen to round-the-room introductions at a LUG and a BUG if you want to hear. Most BSD users are looking for a UNIX, many being sysadmins by trade (and generally aren't afraid of other 'nixes either). Most Linux users are looking for an "alternative" to something else.
(I know this isn't across the board, as I first installed Linux because I was looking for a PC-based UNIX and didn't know of anything else, though I did discover and move to FreeBSD a few years later)