Slashdot Mirror


FreeBSD 5.2.1 RC Ready For Getting

MobyTurbo writes "FreeBSD 5.2.1 RC is now available, and now can be downloaded from the FreeBSD site and mirrors, or if you are currently running FreeBSD 5.2 (or for that matter some earlier versions) you can simply cvsup to it. The upcoming 5.2.1 release should fix a number of outstanding bugs in the 5.2 release, and this is a chance to make sure those bugs get fixed!"

44 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Portage by Gunfighter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Given Gentoo's similarities to FreeBSD (i.e. provide the 'recipies' and compile from source), I've always wondered why the Gentoo project didn't use a BSD CVSup system (for the unwashed, the tree is updated using rsync). What are the technical advantages/disadvantages/differences between Portage and BSD's Ports?

    --
    -- Stu

    /. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
    1. Re:Portage by Gunfighter · · Score: 1

      I laughed because many a day I end up working from home. On those days I usually end up waking up to a computer screen and a hot cup of coffeee. I work straight through and don't shower until the workday is done.

      --
      -- Stu

      /. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
  2. Re:come on. by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Funny

    I understand how major releases of software is what is termed "news for nerds", but do we need to submit every single update to every single piece of software that is of slight interest? Can I remind everyone this isn't even a release, but a Release Candidate?

    It is News for Nerds : who else would care about a Release Candidates of FreeBSD?

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  3. Honest question by 4lex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I would like to test kernels from time to time, as I test linux distros. Apart from Debian, what is the state of bulding familiar systems (with familiar package management, etc) on different kernels, e.g. FreeBSD?

    Is there any possibility to get a Debian-like (or Mandrake-like, why not?) experience with non-linux kernels? I would certainly give them a try... Or are there FreeBSD live-CDs with a hardware auto-recognition comparable with that of knoppix? That would be a nice way to try, too :)

    --
    My journal. Mainly about freedom.
    1. Re:Honest question by LizardKing · · Score: 1

      You can run Debian userland on the NetBSD kernel:

      http://www.debian.org/ports/netbsd/

      While I applaud the goal of ensuring that the Debian userland is a bit more portable, in the long run it is doubtful that it can be as well integrated as a normal NetBSD system. As someone who uses NetBSD as his preferred platform, I can attest to the growing "Linuxisms" in open source software.

      Chris

    2. Re:Honest question by jjgm · · Score: 1

      You could just install FreeBSD and then the Debian port. You can then chroot into a Debian jail. Looks like Debian, smells like Debian, but the kernel is FreeBSD. Would that do? :)

      I've built Linux kernels inside Debian jails on FreeBSD and they're binary identical (as I would have expected, but it was nice to see it work).

      - J

  4. Re:BSD is ... by The+One+KEA · · Score: 2, Funny

    Indeed - I welcome our undead SCO-immune BSD overlords as well ;)

    --
    SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
  5. Re:come on. by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have some sympathy with your point of view, however, let me offer another nonetheless.

    The software nerd, as opposed to those who view software merely as a means to get their work done, is more inclined to be interested in software "in the rough" than as a finished product. Thus release candidates are of particular interest.

    What's more, since most people are somewhat "embeded" in their favorite enviroment (Windows lock in anyone?) they aren't likely to personally keep track of the development of platforms outside their own, even those that they have some genuine interest in.

    I haven't used FreeBSD, but the posting of stories such as this keeps my interest up in doing so someday in a way that other news venues don't, because I don't see them.

    And I don't really see that posting a few of these in anyway takes away from other Slashdot stories. I don't know that this story was posted instead of some other story as opposed to as well as the other story.

    As with all Slashdot stories I read those that interest me and skip those that don't, just as I ignore the social pages of my local newspaper. I don't write letters to the editor complaining that they exist.

    KFG

  6. Re:Install Howto ($core:-5, Clueless) by rob_macgregor · · Score: 3, Informative

    FreeBSD certainly does support CD writing and has for some time. Maybe you last used it before CD burners were produced :-P

    Even your favourite K3b is available.

    --
    Following the rules doesn't get the job done.
  7. Re:come on. by JanneM · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, I sort of agree with you in general; we have better sites for software announcements.

    That said, release candidates for really major pieces - like a new Linux kernel or this FreeBSD update - deserve a place on /. as much or more than the actual releases. This is _really_ a case of the widest possible testing being beneficial for everybody, and if /. can help to corral more tester it can only be good.

    So yes, agree in general, but not in this particular case.

    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
  8. Re:why so far ahead of linux? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 3, Funny

    So why is BSD at version 5.2.1 already, and LINUX is still stuck at 2.6?

    Pff, FreeBSD is still stuck at version numbers, while some Linux distros have cool movie characters names. I'm still waiting for FreeBSD Potato or FreeBSD Woody. But then again, FreeBSD doesn't exactly gives woodies to anyone does it?

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  9. A Brief synopsis by the+real+darkskye · · Score: 5, Informative

    of what has been reported broken in 5.2 and MFC'd to 5.2.1 can be found here

    I just hope I can use my USB mouse with out needing a PS/2 mouse plugged in and my sound works again!

    --
    Music is everybody's possession.
    It's only publishers who think that people own it.
    Fuck Beta
    ~John Lenno
  10. Re:I was a Linux user considering FreeBSD... by rob_macgregor · · Score: 1

    I've seen the same comments from Linux users about *BSD users (except replace Windows with Linux in your comment).

    Keep in mind that in any group you'll get the loud mouthed ignorant people who just want to bash others. Or people from other groups who want to persuade people not to join that group...

    Go visit the newsgroups some time.

    --
    Following the rules doesn't get the job done.
  11. Re:I was a Linux user considering FreeBSD... by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've seen numerous comments of how Linux users are just "childish clueless newbies who hate Windows"

    This comment coming from someone who calls himself "yer_momma". Amusing...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  12. Re:why so far ahead of linux? by kfg · · Score: 1

    Please forgive me if I now unleash the full power of my razor sharp intellect, perspecacity and ability with confrontational rhetoric and respond thus:

    Huh?

    KFG

  13. I for one am very excited about 5.* by 0xfc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am sure many users of FreeBSD who own computers with multiple processors are eagerly waiting to switch around 5.3. I know I am drooling over better performance but patience is the key. After reading that pdf on the new ULE scheduler, I became even more excited by all the hard work put in by the FreeBSD team. I am still a user of 3.x and mostly 4.x with one 5.x box. I cannot be more pleased with this operating system's stability since 3.4. Two hundred day uptimes are taken for granted with FreeBSD users. Also in 5.x perl was removed! thank you for getting that mess out of the base install. One always had to upgrade it anyway for recent software like spamassassin. Keep putting the FreeBSD stories on slashdot editors, because isp admins run it.

    1. Re:I for one am very excited about 5.* by Eraser_ · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Two hundred day uptimes are taken for granted with FreeBSD users.

      I chuckled when I read that, because when I went to upgrade my workstation to 5.2 I did a quick check of the uptime first, almost 200 days. It made me sit back and think "Gee, I never did have to reboot my computer, did I..."

      Checking my 4.x server whenever I thought it needed an upgrade brought about even higher uptimes, generally regulated by central power failure +90minutes until the UPS gave up and the system shut itself down. The only race my FreeBSD boxes are given for uptime is by the Solaris computer next to it.

      I wouldn't reccomend it for high load server applications though. What with it dying and all.

    2. Re:I for one am very excited about 5.* by JamesTRexx · · Score: 1

      One day I remembered I had a webserver and a mailserver running 4.7... Uptime over 300 days. *lol* I was taking them for granted, serving my mail and my webpages every minute of the day. Then when they got close to 500 days a powercut of a few hours made them go down. *curses*

      --
      home
    3. Re:I for one am very excited about 5.* by PurPaBOO · · Score: 2, Funny

      uptime records? Don't you just hate it when you give "shutdown -h now" on the wrong console?

      "Hello, tech support. I'm a complete numpty. Can you please switch my server back on."

      Did it just the other day.

      --
      If it weren't for the rocks in its bed, the stream would have no songs.
    4. Re:I for one am very excited about 5.* by JamesTRexx · · Score: 1

      Hmmm... Except for my FreeBSD firewall, and all the Windoze servers at work, I can't remember ever doing a shutdown on BSD servers. *lol*

      --
      home
  14. Freesbie by Louis+Guerin · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... is a FreeBSD-based liveCD. You can find it at www.freesbie.org. I downloaded it awhile ago but haven't yet checked it out, must get onto that. So many distros, so little time. L

  15. Re:I was a Linux user considering FreeBSD... by andih8u · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And yes, the my OS is better war is the technological equivalent of standing on the playground screaming "my dad can beat up your dad!" Some OS' do things better than others. Don't see why everyone has to get in a bitching contest about them all the time.

    --


    slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
  16. Re:come on. by R.Caley · · Score: 2, Insightful
    People wanting bugfixes will absorp them via ports/pkg_add anyway,

    Er, it's not an update to a port, it's a call for testers for a new release of the entire OS. Seems pretty significant `news for nerds' to me.

    Certainly more interesting than `Intel is releasing yet another ugly processor no one needs care about'.

    --
    _O_
    .|<
    The named which can be named is not the true named
  17. Re:I was a Linux user considering FreeBSD... by yer_momma · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yes but.. couldn't a lot of Windows users considering Linux also say the same thing about Linux people?

    Linux users just like to bash Windows (the OS), not its users (people). BSD fans tend to act like condescending assholes towards Linux users (people). See, there's the difference.

  18. Not ever fix is in the ports by schnozzy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From the announcement e-mail on the -CURRENT mailing list.

    [...]
    - many improvements and fixes to the ATA driver
    - new kdeadmin3 package to address the 'KUser' problem
    - fixes to several network drivers, IPSec, NFSv4, and NNS.
    - fix for the cd bootloader code to handle USB cdrom drives.
    [...]

    As you see, most of the above fixes do not apply to ports/packages as they are in the base system.

  19. Re:come on. by cerberusss · · Score: 1

    I like it. Others might not, but I do.

    --
    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  20. Re:I was a Linux user considering FreeBSD... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Well stereotypes don't just start by themselves.

    Remember though that just like any stereotype what you actually see from a group doesn't necessarily paint the whole picture. For linux OR FreeBSD.

  21. [PATCH] More time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    So many distros, so little time.

    Try the attached patch.

    ---time.h.orig
    +++time.h

    -typedef time_t unsigned int;
    +typedef time_t unsigned long long int;
    1. Re:[PATCH] More time by quantum+bit · · Score: 1

      ...and watch all your software break.

      (yes, I know the parent post was a joke, but this is something we'll have to face _sometime_ before 2038)

      Seriously, I've been experimenting with using 64-bit time_t's on FreeBSD/ia32 for a while. The base OS seems to be perfectly fine with it, but I've run in to all sorts of problems with software that assumes that sizeof(time_t) <= sizeof(long).

  22. Re:why so far ahead of linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ignoring the fact that the parent post was a joke for a moment, BSD has been around since the 1970s.

    The original Windows (not NT, which is a different OS) was released in 1985 (Windows 1.0), and the last version was released in 2000 (Windows Me).

    Linux and NT are about the same age: Linux 1.0 was released in 1994; Windows NT 3.1, (which was really NT 1.0, but called 3.1 to match the version number of Windows 3.1) was released in 1993.

    Also:

    Windows 2000 = NT 5.0 (really 3.0, since NT started with version 3.x)
    Windows XP = NT 5.1
    Windows 2003 = NT 5.2

  23. Re:CVS must die by yanestra · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Because CVS is bad and must die, so everything that is based on CVS must die too.

    rsync'ing in Portage is not hardcoded to use CVS - it can sync trees originated/exported from any other versioning system too.

    Yes, but the mechanism of rsync treats the data like a black box (i.e. doesn't assume anything), while cvsup knows the structure of cvs file and therefore is faster and more economic.

    Errm, I have a read a lot of messages saying that CVS must die, more or less recently. I have the impression that most of them people writing so are non-programmers or have never used cvs themselves.

    Personally, I see some deficiencies with it, but there is no good reason to abandon cvs. It works, and it works reliably, and that is indeed something you can't say about all existing versioning systems...

  24. 5.x production release date? by bmedwar · · Score: 1

    what will be the first 5.x production release? When will it be out?

    --
    --Brian
    1. Re:5.x production release date? by DES · · Score: 3, Informative

      The 5.x branch is expected to go -STABLE with FreeBSD 5.3, which should be out some time this spring. There is a list of outstanding issues at http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/todo.html.

  25. Oh no by read-only · · Score: 1

    Does this mean we will get another "review" from Eugenia over at osnews.com?

    1. Re:Oh no by davidross · · Score: 1

      Most likely :P but it will be just like the last one becuase some people cannot read

  26. Re:CVS must die by axxackall · · Score: 1
    Yes, but the mechanism of rsync treats the data like a black box (i.e. doesn't assume anything), while cvsup knows the structure of cvs file and therefore is faster and more economic.

    You talk about insignificant differences for the non-interactive rarely-processed data transfer.

    Errm, I have a read a lot of messages saying that CVS must die, more or less recently. I have the impression that most of them people writing so are non-programmers or have never used cvs themselves.

    I've done successfully migration of few teams from "no-versioning" to CVS (mostly in the past), as well as (recently) from CVS to better systems (Subversion and Aegis particularly). I know what I am talking about.

    Personally, I see some deficiencies with it, but there is no good reason to abandon cvs. It works, and it works reliably, and that is indeed something you can't say about all existing versioning systems...

    Aegis is around since 1991. It works, and it works reliably.

    --

    Less is more !
  27. Re:CVS must die by yanestra · · Score: 1
    Would you mind to explain why CVS must die?
    I, e.g., see more reasons why PVCS should die, I understand that PRCS is already dead, and many other have a good idea behind them, but are not usable or a too proprietary to be widely used.

    Uwe Ohse describes why he thinks CVS is not so good - from my point of view, these reasons don't really matter. Have you more and better reasons?

  28. cvsup is i386-only and written in modula-3 by honold · · Score: 1

    this is a big tax for the use of a singular tool (modula-3 is a huge compile), especially considering the fact that gentoo runs on non-i386 architectures.

    http://www.cvsync.org/ is a not-yet-mature portable replacement for cvsup written in c.

    1. Re:cvsup is i386-only and written in modula-3 by blasphemi · · Score: 1
      i386 only?

      thx@tungur ~> uname -a
      FreeBSD tungur.knivur.net 5.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 5.2-RELEASE #0: Thu Jan 15 21:26:21 CET 2004 root@tungur.knivur.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERI C alpha
      thx@tungur ~> which cvsup /usr/local/bin/cvsup
      ...and I'm using cvsup too.
  29. Re:why so far ahead of linux? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

    FreeBSD doesn't exactly gives woodies to anyone does it?

    If you get a woody thinking about Linux, then you have a serious problem...

    --
    Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  30. Re:CVS must die by mypalmike · · Score: 2, Informative
    Why must CVS die? One word: Atomic commits.

    OK, that's actually 2 words. But they're important words describing a feature CVS lacks. Basically it means that when I commit a bunch of files, they either all are committed or none of them are. No partial commits that break the build. No chance of getting latest during what happens to be the midst of someone else's multi-file commit.

    See the Subversion site to try it out.

    In the last 10 years, I've worked on projects with RCS, CVS, Sourcesafe, Perforce, and Subversion. Once you get used to atomic commits in Perforce and Subversion, you'll wonder why any source control software is still used that doesn't do it this way.

    -_-_-

    --
    There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
  31. Re:come on. by esdjco · · Score: 1

    Don't like it? Pretty simple. Get off the site.

  32. Re:CVS must die by jjgm · · Score: 1

    axxackall wrote:

    rsync'ing in Portage is not hardcoded to use CVS - it can sync trees originated/exported from any other versioning system too.

    You can make that statement of CVSUp and it will still be true. CVSUp simply has extra support for CVS repositories to make the deltas smaller. For non-CVS data repositories, CVSUp uses rsync/append/copy algorithms as appropriate.

    In practice, my experience with CVSUp is that it makes an excellent tool for regularly synchronising fixed repositories specific to an application, and rsync more ideal for sync'ing ad-hoc data.

    In particular, I have (at work) a multilevel CVSUp hierarchy distributing large amounts of data internationally and it's been flawless in operation.

    - J

  33. FreeBSD vs. OtherOS by davidross · · Score: 1

    Grow up little children, FreeBSD is another OS out there wether you like it or not. Does the fact that its out there bother you? well.. tough, now stfu. Cry to your mommies =)

    Daemon rocks - the guardian angel