October-December 2003 FreeBSD Status Report

Dan writes "FreeBSD Release Engineering Team's Scott Long has posted the 2003 FreeBSD year-end edition status report. He says many new projects are starting up and gaining momentum, including SGI XFS port, MIPS, PowerPC on PPCBug-based embedded boards, and networking locking and multithreading. The end of 2003 also saw the release of FreeBSD 4.9, the first stable release to have greater than 4GB support for the ia32 platform. Work on FreeBSD 5.2 also finished up and was released early in January of 2004."

Comments

How can BSD have XFS?

[emil]

XFS is GPL. Is SGI changing to a BSD license?

Good heavens, that is a ridiculous quantity of acronyms!

Re:How can BSD have XFS?

[The One KEA]

XFS will probably be relicensed as Dual BSD/GPL - choose your license if you want to work with the code.

Re:How can BSD have XFS?

[VojakSvejk]

NTFS is not GPL, but Linux can have it.... the implementation of XFS in Linux is GPL, but there's really nothing stopping someone from implementing it the spec themselves.

And then I suppose OSX could have it, too...

Re:How can BSD have XFS?

[squiggleslash]

Implementations have copyright, ideas do not. Hence as long as the file system handler code has been written from scratch, it can be any license the author chooses.

As opposed to any license the author cheeses, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Re:How can BSD have XFS?

[rsidd]

There is GPL code in the FreeBSD kernel tree (eg, ext2fs, some pcm code, etc), it's just not compiled into the GENERIC binary kernel that the FreeBSD project actually distributes. You are free to compile it into your own kernel if you like.

There is also a fair bit of GPL code in the userland (starting with gcc), and it is distributed in binary form by the FreeBSD project, but of course the virality clause of the GPL doesn't affect that, because it's "mere aggregation".

Re:How can BSD have XFS?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they don't ship with XFS they won't infringe the licence. Actually if they DO infringe the GPL..it's free software..who will sue them??

OS X?

[monstroyer]

Has OS X, being semi-derived from FreeBSD, been a contributing factor to this growth? As a slashdot user, i see a lot of "FreeBSD is dying" trolls, but with a major computer manufacturer like Apple on the BSD train, this seems more false then ever. However, the only thing i see in the article that could be Apple related is "shared key authentication interoperability with systems like OS X". To me, this doesn't seem like anything major in BSD source code contribution . In fact, Apple seems to give more back to KDE (i.e. Safari) than FreeBSD. Does Apple help or hinder BSD growth?

Re:OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has a lot of local changes that likely will not be incorporated back to FreeBSD, similarly to the local changes they have in GCC.

I think the primary reason there was more contributing back in the KHTML/Safari case was that there is a lot of user-visible improvement to be done there that everyone can agree on. Apple's focus in the lower-level parts of the system is often different enough from other projects that they aren't applicable directly.

Open source projects (especially the BSDs) have a bit more of a perfectionist "find a good solution before doing anything" mentality compared to proprietary software, where it's more often "we want feature X, make it work somehow".

Actually sometimes I think (feel fee to disagree) Linux has a sort of "lets do it somehow right away and then improve it" mentality, i.e. more by evolution than by design, which also gives good functional results but less consistency.

Re:OS X?

[ysagal]

I certainly don't think Apple hinders FreeBSD growth in any way. But I don't think the fact that Darwin was derived from the 4.x FreeBSD branch (and to some extent included 5.x stuff) had much impact on the growth of FreeBSD. What it did do is put the FreeBSD name in the mainstream by including references to it in its advertisements and such.

It would be interesting to hear from Mac OS X developers on their interaction with the FreeBSD developers community. I doubt there is much, if any. It seems to me that Apple chose FreeBSD as a good starting point and ran with it, on occasion checking back to see if there's any good new stuff made. They are not after the hardcore FreeBSD users, but the folks that once in a while would like to have a shell and basic *nix functionality available to them, without sacrificing the pretty windows. Not surprisingly these are rarely the people that actively contribute to fbsd.

(I think I dug a hole for myself. I didn't mean the Apple users don't run fbsd or can't contribute, but that most users that seek *nix in OSX don't need fbsd [otherwise they'd just run fbsd]. As such, there is little user feedback to Apple and no feedback to BSD.)

-s

Re:OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple seems to give more back to KDE (i.e. Safari) than FreeBSD.

You do realise that KDE runs on FreeBSD, don't you? Whilst it may not be a direct contribution, such a large contribution to the quality of a fundamental application is bound to help the FreeBSD desktop quality.

Re:OS X?

[TechnoWeeniePas]

FreeBSD is dying about as much as Linux, Windows, or the MacOS is...they are all viable operating systems and they all have their place in the computer world. They all have good support, a good sized user base, and perform well at their intended tasks. That is my genaric rant/reply to all the "X is dying" people.

Re:OS X?

[ph43thon]

well.. here is the trail of logic for the "BSD is dying" troll: BSD is dying -> major computer manufacturer like Apple uses BSD?? -> Apple is dying Then again, I'm not inclined to refer to Apple as a major computer manufacturer (with about 5% of the world personal computer market). Then again, the world computer market is farly big.. so 5% isn't really that shabby.

Anyway, I use FreeBSD. I figure it will maybe change into something else.. but it won't die. Also, I don't see how Apple could hinder the growth of BSD. Also, scroll to the bottom of this page to see where Apple at least implies that they make most, if not all, of their modifications available to the community. That is a pretty good contribution. Yes, it would be nice if they just ported their windowing system to FreeBSD.. but you can't really expect that from them.


p

Re:OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source projects have a bit more of a perfectionist "find a good solution before doing anything" mentality compared to proprietary software

Which doesn't explain why FreeBSD and Linux (in particular) suck ass compared to OS X for just about everything. OS X has a better GUI, better/more abundant apps, runs the top performing supercomputers in the world, and everything "just works" without the need for command line switches and recompiling. FreeBSD and Linux are total shit by comparison, so you assertion that open source means perfection is obviously flawed. Really what is needed is professional programmers who are inventive and dedicated to what they do. Apple has many of those, Linux and FreeBSD have very very few. The difference: pay. Apple's coders are paid, open source coders are not. For that reason, open source OS's will always be second-best when compared to OS X.

Re:OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that you would say that. I myself used to use FreeBSD exclusively. Our ISP up here in Seattle used BSD for both the servers and the office desktops. Being a small company we could afford to skip the Microsoft crap. Anyway, since late last year we have been migrating everything (and I mean everything) to OS X. The cost savings in setup and configuration time alone over BSD has saved our company hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it seems we are not alone, as some of our competitors have been coming up with more and more OS X as well in our "research" using Netcraft.

Re:OS X?

[kernelistic]

You knock the very process (and projects) that brought you OSX. If it weren't for Mach, you wouldn't have a kernel for Darwin. If it weren't for FreeBSD, you wouldn't have a lot of OSX. After all, a quick look at the binaries in /sbin on an OSX machine (10.3.2 Build 7D24) reveals the following:

$FreeBSD: src/sbin/md5/md5.c,v 1.20.2.5 2001/12/26 09:44:56 phk Exp $
$FreeBSD: src/sbin/mount_msdos/mount_msdos.c,v 1.19 2000/01/08 16:47:55 ache Exp $
$FreeBSD: src/sbin/ping6/ping6.c,v 1.4.2.6 2001/07/06 08:56:47 ume Exp $
$FreeBSD: src/sbin/reboot/reboot.c,v 1.17 2002/10/06 16:24:36 thomas Exp $
$FreeBSD: src/sbin/reboot/reboot.c,v 1.17 2002/10/06 16:24:36 thomas Exp $
$FreeBSD: src/sbin/shutdown/shutdown.c,v 1.23 2002/03/21 13:20:48 imp Exp $

The command run was none other than "strings /sbin/* |grep FreeBSD | sort". Try it on /bin and you'll get 34 more FreeBSD CVS $Id$ strings. Surely FreeBSD doesn't suck so that bad if the almighty OSX incorporates it's code!

Re:OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost savings in setup and configuration time alone over BSD has saved our company hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Then you did it wrong.

Re:OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your point? That Apple shouldn't take free code from naive open source developers and use it to its own advantage? Do that same thing on Windows, and you will see BSD code, and now try to claim that Windows "doesn't suck". The fact is, Apple's programmers have taken an (at best) mediocre set of free programs available on the internet and combined them with far more innovative and revolutionary closed source technologies to create the gold standard operating system for both desktop and server use. The BSD code is, in fact, irrelevant to this, since it contributes almost nothing to the aspects of OS X that make it so much better than FreeBSD. The GUI, the apps, Rendezvous, the list goes on. All proprietary technologies that Apple invented that are used by thousands of corporations today to save millions of dollars in productivity that the amateur programmers of the FreeBSD and Linux communities could never hope to match. Just compare the atrocious state of the "open sores" GUI desktops to OS X. Yeah sure, I'll give you that Apple owes a tiny fraction of its success to the miniscule amount of code it took from BSD, but why would Apple re-invent the wheel for stuff that the BSD community has given away for a decade anyway? Where it really counts is the new stuff and Apple is leading the way while everyone else follows, including your much-vaunted "open sores" created FreeBSD.

Re:OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you haven't used OS X.

Re:OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you haven't used OS X.

You assume I haven't used OS X. You claim setup and configuration times as being the great cost eater on BSD, whereas someone who had a lot of machines to set up would configure one machine, then use shell scripts or a ghost-like utility to copy that configuration over to the other machines.

What the OP really said was that they don't know enough about FreeBSD to be able to beat the cost of paying someone to configure machines for them.

Re:OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

All proprietary technologies that Apple invented that are used by thousands of corporations today to save millions of dollars in productivity that the amateur programmers of the FreeBSD and Linux communities could never hope to match.

And the low-level foundation that this sits atop was modified by Apple from preexisting work, thus freeing them to get their marvellous system out of the door that much quicker.

Oh, and just because you say "open sores" in quotes, doesn't stop you being a dick.

IHBT.

Re:OS X?

[kernelistic]

Don't dump two tons of rubbish on the projects which are the foundation of your operating system. As far as innovation, user applications are more an exercise in UI design than sheer computer science. Consider the following:

OSX's kernel is a PPC port of the Mach microkernel.

OSX's VM is tailored after the likes of FreeBSD 4.

OSX's networking stack implements *BSD* sockets.

OSX's programming documentation prominently features "FreeBSD" at the bottom of nearly every manpage

JKH, one of the main founders (and long-time innovator) of FreeBSD is working at Apple.

Apple's own "revolutionary" UI has borrowed concepts from NeXT.

Apple has felt the need to make their offerings more appealing by supporting the very window system that you're crapping all over. Yes, I'm talking about X11.

If you knew your history, you would know that Apple's System 6, 7, 8 and 9 did not have protected memory hence any process could overwrite any location in memory, including kernel space. Guess what they adopted to fix that problem... :) As you can imagine, the PC UNIX world has had protected memory since the introduction of the Intel 386 in the mid-eighties.

Don't get me wrong, I am the proud owner of Dual 2.0Ghz G5 but please, don't throw garbage out there when you have absolutely no idea of what you're talking about.

Re:OS X?

[overbom]

I can tell you've never really tried to get freebsd working *just right* on a laptop.

That's why I got an apple, anyway -- to get a laptop that behaved like BSD but I didn't have to endlessly tweak. That, and to run NetBSD on PowerPC so I could endlessly tweak.

Re:OS X?

[TheRaven64]

I'm not sure use of FreeBSD and OS X are mutually exclusive. I have a couple of FreeBSD boxes around the place (one hosts my website, and the other drives a few dumb X terminals around my house and is used when I feel the need to tinker with something).

The thing I like about FreeBSD is that I can set it up, and then forget about it. Upgrading is easy, and requires minimal downtime (upgrading from 4.8 to 4.9 produced about a minute of downtime, and the fact the ports are upgraded separately from the base system is a huge bonus).

The thing I like about OS X is that I can set it up, and then forget about it. I use OS X when I need to get any work done, and I never actually think about what OS I'm using. Things just work, and work the way I expect them to. Exactly the same is true of FreeBSD on the server. Gnome and KDE have a long way to go before they come close to OS X on the desktop (they're about on a par with Windows at the moment). I've not tried OS X on a server, because I don't get enough traffic to justify the expense of using Apple hardware, so I go with FreeBSD. I wouldn't use anything other than OS X on the desktop/laptop.

Re:OS X?

[rollthelosindice]

I agree. I'd wager apple has already given back more to KHTML with its work on safari, than it has to FreeBSD

Re:OS X?

[brsmith4]

Actually, I spent just a half hour yesterday doing just that. Its a fairly new dell with wireless and acpi power management. Every problem that plauged me with linux was gone from FreeBSD. My acpi support worked fresh of the install with Suspend and battery monitoring working without any further configuration. acpi on linux often conflicted with my sound card and caused lots of strange noises. Even with windows, the ACPI implementation did not work. FreeBSD is the first OS that actually works correctly on this machine. It found my wifi card all by its lonesome and configured it correctly as well. Maybe you haven't run it in a while but the 5.2 release is killer.

How good is digital camera support?

[James A. E. Joyce]

I'm just curious to know as a digital camera photographer. For instance, I often use a Samsung 800k camera and on Linux the only support is via an obscure little tool you may have heard off, gphoto which is a bit clunky to set up. How is camera support on FreeBSD? I've considered switching.

Re:How good is digital camera support?

[dizzy tunez]

FreeBSD has gphoto too. It`s in /usr/ports/graphics/gphoto2.
Just do a 'make install clean' in that directory, and it will install gphoto and all of the depedencies it requires.

FreeBSD also got some(all of them, maybe?) of the GUI applications that uses gphoto, like gtkam. KDE probably has one too.

Re:How good is digital camera support?

[rsidd]

I can confirm that my digital camera (Canon, PTP protocol) works fine with gphoto2 under FreeBSD. Cameras that use the USB mass storage protocol "should" work, but YMMV.

Re:How good is digital camera support?

[welloy]

My camera, a Kodak DX-3500, works fine with gphoto and FreeBSD. I did have to update libusb because of this bug which may affect other USB cameras.

Re:How good is digital camera support?

[Anonymous Coward]

For me, gtkam worked out of the box.

Re:How good is digital camera support?

[Cronopios]

KDE probably has one too.

Digikam is pretty cool, and I believe it compiles on FreeBSD too (I use it on Debian).

Re:GOD Bless America

[gregarican]

Since we're so fat as Americans shouldn't we add another branch to the *BSD tree and call it OBSD?

That's a lotta stuff!

[bc90021]

I read the report, and it's good to see that so much work is being done on BSD. Having tried it (and gone back to Gentoo), I was unaware that there was so much community support for it. I may just have to give it another look!

Re:That's a lotta stuff!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh for a "KharmaWhore" modifier...

You should see this guy's comments in the past...

I like BSD

[queen of everything]

I run FreeBSD on a webserver and I have been quite satisfied with it. I tried 5.2 and ran into some problems so I currently run 4.8. I think it makes a great server, I had a decent uptime, until the #$@#$ power was tripped, but it recovered perfectly. I'm glad that they are continuing to work to develop it and I will definitely install 5.2 once it is in stable release.

Re:I like BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

You are confusing the terms "release" and "stable" FreeBSD 5.2-release is the first "stable" release of the 5.2 development branch. 5.2-stable is merely a semi-stable version of 5.2-current. You would do well to run 5.2-release, and then just track security updates and a -stable snapshot once a month.

explain this

[Anonymous Coward]

What does a Penguin have to do with Linux? What the hell is the association there?

I run FreeBSD because it has a better mascot.

Re:explain this

[grimiore1]

yes, and i ran Windows XP so i can float around and have an XP experience. Yup, the logo and mascott of a software company determines what i recommend to my boss. Management: What should we use, Windows or this Linux thing? user: Don't use Linux. Their penguin mascot sucks. Use BSD. I have a fetish for devils. Management: Hm...devils are evil, right? Naw, we'll use Microsoft. What's their logo? user: $$$

Re:explain this

[Anonymous Coward]

A penguin once tried to attack Linus Torvalds (the original author of Linux, you may have heard of him) at a zoo.

No, seriously. That's the connection. It's the origin of the following quote:

Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
-- Linus Torvalds

Re:explain this

[Brandybuck]

What does a Penguin have to do with Linux? What the hell is the association there?

Besides the obvious similarities between Linux users and penguins, such as the propensity towards pear-shaped anatomies and strict black-and-white orthodoxies about software licenses, there's also something very fishy about them waddling around talking like Burgess Meredith.

Re:explain this

[Anonymous Coward]

Wile BSD users are all tanned Apollos kicking sand in the faces of the pasty, overweight Linux users snoozing in the sun? ;-)

Merging in OpenBSD PF..

[zulux]

OpenBSD Packet Filter is *really* cool - I can't wait for it's availabiltiy in FreeBSD.

Re:Merging in OpenBSD PF..

[Helevius]

Pf is available via the /usr/ports/security/pf/ port.

Helevius

Re:Merging in OpenBSD PF..

[drdink]

It is available now via ports. See /usr/ports/security/pf/. It requires FreeBSD 5.x, though.

Re:Merging in OpenBSD PF..

[jmartinp]

You don't have to wait, it's already been done. Have a look in /usr/ports/security/pf and see for yourself.

Re:Merging in OpenBSD PF..

[Homology]

OpenBSD Packet Filter is *really* cool - I can't wait for it's availabiltiy in FreeBSD.

As other posters mentions, it's in the FreeBSD ports. But why use the port when you can use the real thing on OpenBSD ;-)

So...

[CrackedButter]

BSD isn't dying then? I thought with Apple onboard it would be dying faster or something like that since they are on the way out as well. Btw mods, i have an Apple mac. ;)

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like they've been on the way out for the past twenty years? How they're dying right now because their share price is over twice what it was in, say, the mid-90s?
You may or may not be a troll, but just because you own a mac doesn't mean that you aren't wrong.

Re:So...

[CrackedButter]

Well I hope I am wrong :)

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm not sure if this counts or not, but FreeBSD is dying because so many BSD users are now switching to OS X that it is actually kind of sad. I used to be hard core FreeBSD user myself, but when OS X came out and I gave it a try it was like God himself came down from the heavens and showed me what real coders and power users should have been using all the time. Most of the people at work at our ISP have also switched from BSD to OS X for our desktops and with the new Xserve's, we are dropping BSD servers faster than Bill Clinton was getting laid in the oval office.

Re:So...

[CrackedButter]

I suppose that is sad, but there will be a die hard group who will carry it on i'm sure.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

True. I guess they can join all those "die hard" Amiga users and Atari XL users in the dustbin of history.

Re:So...

[CrackedButter]

You sir are an optimist to the max! :)

Re:GOD Bless America

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is many like minded individuals do live here. Hence California.

I just off the phone with

[Anonymous Coward]

their development team. They are taking a break between RC versions. They deserve the rest. Good work guys!

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[proj_2501]

getting features hacked in as quickly as possible: linux
ridiculous stability as priority: freebsd

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[geniusj]

As far as platform support, freebsd has never been one to have much outside of x86 and alpha.. This is all new in 5.x.. If you want broad platform support, I'd use NetBSD.

As for your response to networking locking.. It has nothing to do with NFS and everything to do with Giant (the giant mutex that exists in the kernel). FreeBSD 5.x is largely an attempt to break away from this giant lock.

As for multithreading, both linux and freebsd have had it for ages. And it hasn't been that great in either one of them up until KSEs in FreeBSD 5.x and the revamped threading in Linux 2.6. FreeBSD had very good userland threading performance for processes needing to use threads on a single processor, but no native SMP threading support outside of using Linux's threading library (clone()).

As for PAE, correct me if I"m wrong, but it has NOT been several years. PAE, officially AFAIK, is still relatively new to Linux as well.

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

A thing that is not in Linux? A license that will not *steal* your driver source code?

tigerhost.com needs to lay off the styles

[elcid73]

tigerhost.com ranks as one of the worst websites I have ever seen. How could you possibly think it's acceptable to have links appear as normal text? Ok.. that's really all I care to look at, so there may be more things wrong with it, but that in and of itself is pretty darn bad.

Re:tigerhost.com needs to lay off the styles

[bc90021]

- All the links are available in the menus on the left.
- Links that "surprise" people tend to make them more inclined to see what else they can find.
- If you can find them, then I imagine just about anyone can, huh? :P

Re:tigerhost.com needs to lay off the styles

[elcid73]

Given that a link is intended to "navigate", navigation should not "surprise" people... unless of course, you're Colombus. Navigation by definition is a controlled course. To navigate is to plan a course. None of those lend themselves to a "surprise" of any sort.

And in closing, it does not make me more inclined to see what else is there. Unless I'm at "Homestarrunner.com" I don't want to hunt for easter eggs, your site (being a business) should not make me hunt for information. Everything I need should be easily accessible.

And in closing again.. the tigerlink.org link on your main page is not on the left menu (I know.. it's at the bottom of the page w/icon). But my question is: why have links if you don't want people to click on them? If everything is on the left, why not leave it there only? What if I didn't realize all the information is on the left and I wanted to show someone one of your links? "Hmm I think that tiger link was here somewhere! Let me move my mouse over this entire page to find it!"

And not to further nitpick.. but the orange highlighing when you try to enter a domain name to check? That's strange.

Re:tigerhost.com needs to lay off the styles

[elcid73]

If you can find them, then I imagine just about anyone can, huh? :P

Your witty jab at my intelligence aside, I browsed your website with stylesheets turned off in order to find them. I'm sure not too many people browse with their own stylesheets instead of yours.

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[Quill_28]

Insightful?

What idiot modded this up.

Enderly And so

[noerej]

Judging the number of Score=0 posts i thing Rob Enderle is posting at slashdot.

Anyway I only used FreeBSD with bochs and i would say it is ok.

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

stability in a well thought out os.

yes

[Triumph The Insult C]

free software

Re:FACT:Sells ok on Ebay

[poppageek]

I sell CDs of Linux and FreeBSD and NetBSD on Ebay. So far I have done ok on FreeBSD. Not getting rich but I have sales and interest enough to keep listing them. Am getting interest in NetBSD and expanding the sellection there too.

The FreeBSD and NetBSD listings get alot of views. Never know why poeple look and not buy, price? Just curious? I dunno but so far I have sold as many FreeBSD CDs as any Linux Distro. Just listed NetBSD this week and have one sale already.

Linux wise Fredora and Rehat are my top sellers. I do not sell Mandrake anymore. They do not seem to have the same open mindframe of the other distros to sharing. It was demanded I remove the downloadable version from my listings. Ebay was even contacted and told to remove the listings.

I am doing ok enough with the others that I do not need Mandrake. In reading the info on the *BSD and other Linux Distros web sites they have very open and sharing minded policies except for Mandrake, OpenBSD and SUSE. No matter, it's their work they can demand what they want I guess.

But the openess of Fedora, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenOffice.org is so inspiring I have decided to doante a portion of every sell to their respective organizations to help and to share back.

These guys are really cool and what they are doing is really cool. I know you already know that but after the Mandrake acted the point has been further driven home to me.

Blantant self promotion:
http://stores.ebay.com/poppageeks

Are they starting from scratch?

[vxvxvxvx]

I agree that they can have it BSD licensed no problems if they program it from scratch, but somehow referring to it as the "SGI XFS port" sounds like they're taking the existing GPL implementation and porting it. My guess is it'll be like the ext2fs parts, GPL code on BSD.

Re:Are they starting from scratch?

[Anonymous Coward]

>My guess is it'll be like the ext2fs parts, GPL code on BSD.

Correct. The goal is not to make a political statement, but to provide an access to XFS systems to ones who need it.

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf it was an honest question and now it won't get any attention :(

I'd sincerely like a reply

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

multithreading isn't so true.

NPTL (Native POSIX Threading Library) is a new addition in just over the past year.

You did mean POSIX compliant threads right? Not heavyweights? (cough processes cough)

FreeBSD: Project Evil

[metal_priest]

That project certainly deserve the "coolest name" award. Basicly it's the freebsd equivalent of ndiswrapper to get wireless chips to work.
It's remarkable how applicable this name is :)
Here is a more detailed description.

Re:FreeBSD: Project Evil

[TechnoWeeniePas]

Personaly I prefer SATAN (security administartor tool for analysing networks)

http://www.porcupine.org/satan/

Re:FreeBSD: Project Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't SATAN a development of SAINT? :)

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD 4.9 comes with KDE 3.14 and gnome 2.4. 5.2 is still in the release candidate stage, so it's considered slightly less stable than 4.9

Want digital camera support? Use OS X.

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X has perfect digital camera support. FreeBSD: sketchy. Why would you use FreeBSD when OS X is available NOW?

Re:Want digital camera support? Use OS X.

[cepler]

'cause OSX won't install on the 3 spare i386 architecture boxes I have laying around and 'cause it costs money. :)

I prefer OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD is "ok" if all you are interested in is not paying for your operating system. For just a little money, you can pick up OS X and have the best operating system ever developed. It has a way better GUI than anything BSD/Linux has, all the system components on your G4 or G5 are fully and totally supported without hacks and compiling necessary. It's faster, more elegant, and better engineered by professional American programmers, rather than a loose collection of amateur programmers who just barely graduated from the university of india, or whatever.

Re:I prefer OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so disappointed in you. All this time you've spent trolling Slashdot could have been much better spent making out checks to me for "upgrades". Uh oh, I feel another $129 coming on...

Steve Jobs

i pity you

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's mascot for OS X should be a guy in a business suit driving an Audi TT. Why? Because with OS X you can get actual work done, rather than sitting around all day trying to get your kernel to recompile or your port to update. With OS X you make more bling, and it shows.

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

arguing over which is better, Linux or FreeBSD: Linux and FreeBSD

getting things done: Apple OS X

networking locking: got that too

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so you mean removal of Giant.
The Linux term for that is the BKL.
This was removed for the 2.4.xx kernels,
excepting oddball protocols like
DECnet and rare operations like ifconfig.

So, got that too.

For the 2.6.xx kernel of course, the BKL
has been removed from other places. The
ext3 filesystem is free of it now, etc.

Re:not as good as DragonFlyBSD

[sremick]

Whatever, troll. I've been running FreeBSD 5.2 on my desktop for a while now and have not had any problems. Also, 5.2 has not been withdrawn.

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[Anonymous Coward]

For desktop use you are doing yourself a disservice if you use anything except for Apple OS X. Sure, you have to buy a new computer, but so what? BSD is only "free" if your time has no value, and the time that you will save using OS X for your desktop compared to BSD will save you thousands of hours in a single year. With OS X you have apps that JUST WORK, a GUI that completely rocks anything the KDE or GNOME people can imagine, and the whole thing is backed up by a corporation that employs paid, professional, American programmers. Not amateur communists and freeloaders who spend company time writing kernel hacks for those servers noone knows they installed.

why it deserved to be moderated up

[Anonymous Coward]

It beats your post for sure, being far more
interesting, and thus deserving of more points.
(or at least equal -- but the moderators have
shown unkindness toward pointing out the
obvious in a pro-BSD story)

Besides that, it's correct. Never mind the
confusion over locking; Linux was first
either way you interpret things.

So it is reasonable to ask, what is new?
If there is anything, please tell!

Re:why it deserved to be moderated up

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait correctly refers to the manner in which you replied, nothing to do with the facts you are describing.

No, I'm not the previous poster.

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks mate!

I read on the FreeBSD site, the release notes and the comments from the team about why I should use 4.9-stable over 5.2 but I just wanted further insight.

They've taken perl out of the base GAH! ;)

Thanks for letting me know about KDE 3.14 though, I'm not that great at X and would hate to bother mucking around a long time just to get it going.

threads

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole "heavyweights" idea isn't meaningful
when dealing with Linux. It applies to Solaris,
Windows, Mach+BSD (NeXT, Darwin, OSF/1), VMS,
OS/400, and zOS (OS/390). To some extent, it may
apply to any BSD or real UNIX.

No full-featured server or desktop OS can do a
fork() faster than Linux can. (vmware, pSOS,
eCos, and so on are not full-featured OSes)

NPTL speed has nothing to do with lightweight
versions of fork() or clone(). NPTL beats the
old LinuxThreads library because NPTL avoids
having an extra management thread to funnel
lots of library calls through. A non-leader
thread can now directly create another thread,
without needing to register it with the leader.
A non-leader thread can cause the whole group
of threads to exit, instead of needing to pass
messages around asking threads to exit.

More than OSX using BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a number of other specialized applications out there that use a BSD variant. Juniper routers and Nokia firewall appliances come to mind. These are widely deployed and highly trusted systems, which have found BSD to be the best way to run, which I agree with. In a stripped down, no-BS system that is purpose built, it's hard to argue BSD's virtues in this respect.

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[proj_2501]

the best part is that i don't even run bsd

i guess that makes me a karma whore. AWESOME!

BSD: a lively corpse

[puzzled]

Despite the numerous BSD is Dying trolls on here, it seems to be quite a lively corpse.

I have half a dozen 4.9 servers, a couple of 5.2 laptops, and I'm playing with the Motorola 88k RISC port of OpenBSD trying to get it to load on an MVME187 ...

One of these days I'll get all crazy and complete the family by putting NetBSD on my toaster oven ...

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[Dr. Shim]

I really can't help you much because I've never delt with FreeBSD. Try going to JustLinux and asking there. You probably won't find help here.

I'll give my left pinky if you don't find help there.

Re:FACT:Sells ok on Ebay

[RLiegh]

When I browse the Linux/alt-os listings on ebay and see people selling home-burned cds, I tend to wonder why anyone would buy them, instead of simply downlaoding the iso themselves or going to cheapbyts.

On the other hand, I am [overly/highly] suspicous of buying software on ebay and have not bought anything from there for that reason, so I may not be a representative sample. ;-)

The magic 8-Ball never lies

[Anonymous Coward]

>Insightful?

>What idiot modded this up.

Possibly the same one you're appealing to now.

Re:The magic 8-Ball never lies

[Quill_28]

Clever

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[cepler]

> They've taken perl out of the base GAH! ;)

Uhm, thats a GOOD thing.

Good Copy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Never know why poeple look and not buy, price? Just curious? I dunno but so far I have sold as many FreeBSD CDs as any Linux Distro."

I just saw why, it's your ad's tagline:

FreeBSD for sale! Get your hot (gifs of Ceren naked) FreeBSD!

FreeBSD for sale!...

BSD Dead? *CACKLE* NOT!

[cepler]

I think you're confusing death with a workoholic that doesn't have time to talk:

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html

From those uptimes I'd say that BSD is most certainly not dead, it's quite hapily humming along reliably.

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

1) Doing feature comparisons is pointless. Checkbox marketing is not the way to select a server. If I had a server admin that changed machines often to get new features, I'd fire him.

2) PAE has not been in there for years. It was a collection of hacked patches for years, finally getting released into linux 2.6, and backported to the RedHat Advanced Server 3.0 (Linux 2.4) kernel.
Both Linux and FreeBSD had badly designed multi-threaded subsystmes for a while. They both just came up with sane, though different approaches very recently. Linux with NPTL in V 2.6 (also backported to RH AS 3.0) and FreeBSD with KSE in 5.x.

Not sure why I'm feeding a troll, but someone may be able to use this info.

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're getting a LOT done this afternoon, right?

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too retarded to put a linefeed into his HTML: runderwo

Re:FACT:Sells ok on Ebay

[poppageek]

The comment I get is they have a dialup connection.

Re:BSD Dead? *CACKLE* NOT!

[puzzled]

Maybe those uptimes are load balancer => N=1 FreeBSD boxes.

FreeBSD still just rocks for overall uptime - I've gone four years without any trouble except on my much abused R&D boxes - the production stuff just keeps on producing ...

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[doobray]

Thats funny, I own three Macs with OS X and still use FreeBSD/Fluxbox on x86 as my primary desktop. Luckily, I am a communist freeloader as well..

Re:FACT:Sells ok on Ebay

[RLiegh]

So do I, but I still tend to think of cheapbytes before I think of ebay.

Re:Anything NOT in Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent may be a troll for inflamatory remarks, but you're just as bad because you're spreading FUD. At least OP didn't lie.

PAE has been in Linux for years. It was in Linux 2.4 when it was first released.

A Long Way in a Year...

[Coocha]

and by that I'm referring to FreeBSD and myself.

I tested it for the first time about a year ago, and was seduced by the ports tree... it gave me the impression that BSD is a little more sleek in structure than most Linux distros.

I upgraded my home server to 4.9 a few months ago, and the only downtimes were due to power outages... and after finding a little BIOS tweak in my Tyan Tiger, I think those will be minimized too :-)

This weekend, I migrated from XP to 4.9 for my desktop machine after drag-n-drop of all things decided to quit working... wtf? There's a few things that I anticipate will be tricky, like Xinerama support for my Radeon 7000 VE dual display, tweaking Vmware so it'll work correctly, and openoffice is being strangely adamant at not compiling. I'm not much of a coder, so things like this tend to make me run to the 'net for assistance, but that's what a supportive userbase is for.

Kudos to the FreeBSD team for attracting yet another user with a well-structured and well-executed OS.

Re:A Long Way in a Year...

[sirket]

There's a few things that I anticipate will be tricky, like Xinerama support for my Radeon 7000 VE dual display

This is an X-windows/ATI problem. The issue is that most ATI cards are simply ATI branded and don't work exactly the same as another ATI branded card of the same model. I had this same problem both under FreeBSD and Linux. ATI manufactured cards would work fine, but ATI branded cards would not.

openoffice is being strangely adamant at not compiling.

Do _NOT_ attempt to compile OpenOffice. It simply is not worth it. Install the package and get on with your life. OpenOffice is so big and so complex that compiles will inevitably fail on some obscure error that you can't possibly fix.

-sirket

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[Anonymous Coward]

The 4.x series of FreeBSD is production branch, designed to be run in high-reliability environments. The 5.x series is the new technology branch, with many new advancments in the system. I would advise you to run the 5.x series, which in this case is 5.2, soon to be 5.2.1 (mostly amd64 fixes). You'll find the performance to be better, along with a generaly better desktop user experience. I run 4.9-stable on my fileserver, and 5.2-current on my laptop. I don't have problems with either, but I sort of expect things to randomly break on -current. 4.9-stable is rock solid with my mixed IDE and SCSI raid arrays.

Re:GOD Bless America

[0xfc]

As usual FreeBSD is way behind linux. I mean come on, look at this little porky... linux. Tell me you cannot grab roll of that! Reminds me of a recent picture I saw of someone in a dunk tank. :pPpPpPpp

Re:GOD Bless America

[0xfc]

Heh, and I saw this for the first time today. Just look how slim and fit this mascot is! freebsd. OBSD btw, has a mascot contest going on right now! My vote is for a traditional daemon.

Re:BSD Dead? *CACKLE* NOT!

[TheLink]

You want uptimes you might want to try VMS or Tandem Non Stop (both now under HP).

Re:BSD Dead? *CACKLE* NOT!

[puzzled]

VMS uptimes are due to it being cracked and then patched by the 'administrator', who wants no more downtime :-)

type cluster_name::*.*;*

I mean really ... of all the bi-curious insecure methods of passing email - a world readable directory in the cluster? Who'd have thought ...

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[ph43thon]

I'm doing 5.2-Current with Fluxbox for my desktop. I suggest you just make boot floppies for 5.2-Release and do a net install. Otherwise, just download 5.2-Release ISO and do minimal install.. then CVSup the sources to Current and make buildworld, make installworld. Though, if you don't have a very new computer, 5.2-Release will be just fine. I haven't used 4.9-Release so I can't offer much on it. I use 5.2 because ifconfig and acpi weren't working good enough for my laptop when 5.1 and 4.8 were out. (ifconfig from 4.8 was lacking functionality that it had in 5.1) As for 5.2, acpi is up and running pretty good.

As for, gnome v kde.. I could care less about that bloated crap. Check out their websites. I will give my vote for XFree86 4.4.0 though. Hopefully it will be released soon and plopped into /usr/ports. I'm using CVS sources from xfree86 at the moment. I use it since I'm able to use vncviewer to control windows xp boxes with it. Wouldn't work with 4.3.0 for some reason.

p

PS also, it goes without saying that watching dvds goes great using ogle or mplayer. Read Dru Lavigne's articles on Onlamp to get help with that stuff. use plugger playing media from websites. There are plenty of mp3 players in /usr/ports

PPS get familiar with portupgrade and cvsup your ports.

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seriously considered getting a Mac laptop (since it offers a combination of a BSD system and important apps like MS Office), but I just can't make myself like the Mac OS UI. The global menu bar, the single-app instance policy, the poor keyboard navigation; it just can't compete with Windows XP, WindowMaker or even CDE. I wish Apple would at least offer the classic NeXT UI as an alternative.

I guess Apple had to design a UI that would be friendly for existing Mac users, but if it wants to attract non-Mac users, it should offer a more professional UI as an alternative (see the wide variety of X window managers, or the `Classic UI' on Windows XP).

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosty... Why would you use VNC with XP when you can use the RDP protocol (using RDesktop [rdesktop.org])?

Re:Which FreeBSD to install??

[ph43thon]

You got me.. I guess I just assumed a client didn't exist. I installed it from ports and it works great on my local lan. Hopefully, it'll work good from remote locations.

p