Posted by
michael
on from the thanks-for-all-the-fish-screensavers dept.
Nirbo writes "FreeBSD switches to X.Org, The 'HEADSUP' can be found here, and on the -x11, -current, and -ports mailing lists. Very good news for those FreeBSD users who have either changed to X.Org in anticipation, or have been waiting in hope for this momentous change."
Re:lack of second side of the coin... again
by
strabo
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
bad news for those who are to lazy to rtfm.
If you want to keep the old XFree86 on -current, simply set X_WINDOW_SYSTEM=xfree86-4 in make.conf
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Bet you can't back that up.
Re:The lesson of X11....
by
cortana
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· Score: 2, Insightful
People have been sick of the way xfree86.org have fucked up X11 development for years. The licensing issue was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.:)
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
aristotle-dude
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Why? I like the XNU kernel and kernel extensions. I thought the last thing we wanted was a monoculture? Aren't we all trying to escape the monoculture of MSFT? Why advocate creating a new one?
Now that Gentoo has been ported to OSX, we have Darwin ports, fink and Gentoo Portage. Do you understand that Linux is just a kernel? We already have the userland BSD "and" GNU (what you seem to think is linux) on OSX so I don't see the point of switching kernels.
Apple contributes to KDE KHTML, BSD and various other open source projects. What is it exactly that you are complaining about again?
-- Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Re:So XFree Is Dead then
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Microsoft didn't steal it. That's the nature of the BSD license. We don't care if you, Microsoft, or anybody else is using the code for commercial purposes.
It's a strength, not a weakness.
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
brilinux
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You know, I was going to make a similar joke, but seriously, competition is always good. My laptop runs Gentoo, my desktop runs FreeBSD and WinXP. Why? Because Linux is good for a lot of desktop stuff and programming that I would be doing for school, I need XP on my desktop for gaming, and when I am not doing that, FreeBSD is something different that is nice and fast, a great server, and something that runs familiar programs that I normally run under Linux. So, do I need FreeBSD instead of Linux? No. But it serves purposes that are often different from the ones served by Linux and it is more specific in its direction and use.
Re:Xorg vs XFree86
by
Lisandro
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· Score: 2, Insightful
As it is, X.Org is not at all different from the latest "non-crippled" XFree release - i'm running it in my Gentoo box and besides beeing just a tad faster, it's the same. It has minor patches applied and a few configuration files names changed. The upgrade is as painless as it can be; even my nVidia linux bnary drivers worked perfectly.
The thing with XFree it's been the attitude of it's developers (David Dawes in particular, do a google search of Usenet groups for some fun) - and this translated to the project in being very hard to submit codes or patches and had them approved. XFree has then been quite stagnant in the recent past; the licence fiasco was simply the cherry on the top.
X.Org has a much more open developement and i expect it to become quite different (advanced) of XFree in the future; stuff like Cairo and other X extensions (check http://www.freedesktop.com/) will at some point be incorporated onto X.Org giving us a nice, nifty OpenGL accelerated desktop.
Can't wait for that myself.
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
drinkypoo
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
We need FreeBSD so that we can keep the developers who are interested in developing an operating system under a BSD-type license, but who are not interested in writing code under a GPL license, busily writing code that benefits us all.
Competition is good for everyone but the losers, and in a certain sense it's good for them too - as a wake-up call. Competition can be a major driving force, even if you're only competing against yourself. For example, I'm on everything2, and when I see a writeup that I think sucks and I say "I can do better than that" it's a strong motivator to me to outdo the existing writeup. So, someone implements something on Linux, and some BSD type says "I can do that! Shit, I can kick that thing's ass!" Next thing you know the feature in Linux is being upgraded or replaced because its author wants it to be the best tool of its type, or someone else wants features which are in the BSD version.
So even if you don't think it's important for what it can do in and of itself, BSD is important for the same reason as the lower class - to scare the shit out of the middle class.
-- "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
useosx
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
BSD is important for the same reason as the lower class - to scare the shit out of the middle class.
That is the most absurdly ignorant, hateful statement I have ever read. You're telling me you think that lower class people strive every day to make enough to live on--often at the sacrifice of their own health--and that is important because it motivates the middle class to work harder at their dumb ass job they hate. You, drinkypoo, are a huge asshole. I mean, unless you're a millionaire, why the fuck are you advocating for a system that continuously fucks you over?
People walk around throwing out phrases like "laws of nature," "human nature," "the way of the world," "that's the way the world works," like there's some sort of fucking truth. You give us your cute little scenario about Linux hackers vs. BSD hackers like it's some kind of truism, like it proves something. Please.
Think about how many different cultures there are throughout the world and how different they have been throughout history. It doesn't have to be this way, folks. Want to get educated? Read a book. Want to do something? Go work for a labor advocacy group.
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
rsidd
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You're telling me you think that lower class people strive every day to make enough to live on--often at the sacrifice of their own health--and that is important because it motivates the middle class to work harder at their dumb ass job they hate.
No, he's saying the middle class shouldn't get too smug in their middle-class comfort, because in today's equal-opportunity world, the lower classes will not stay down there forever. And similarly, even if Linux is ahead in a lot of things, the BSDs will catch up (in fact, it wasn't long ago that the BSDs were ahead in most aspects of stability and performance and Linux was the "lower class" playing catch-up, and in many respects the BSDs are still ahead.) And I didn't understand very much else in your rant.
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
AKAImBatman
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Name anything freebsd actually does better than linux?
Well, for one, my mouse actually works. And so does USB. Oh! And my zip drive works! And I don't randomly lose files in a crash! And my programs are more responsive. And my system stays up longer. And I'm hacked less. etc. etc. etc.
There are more advantages to an OS than just ticks on a "supports this feature" list. Supporting a feature is not the same as supporting it well. The FreeBSD guys usually don't add a feature until it's supported well. The Linux guys add the feature, then improve after everyone tells them it's broken. Both camps have their advantages and disadvantages.
BSD is running on fumes of hype right now, once people wake up and realize it sucks it will be all done.
Do a 's/BSD/Linux/g' and you're getting pretty close. Modern Linux systems tend to be highly unstable with large numbers of known issues and overall poor testing. This is done intentionally to help Linux reach a competitive stage more quickly. But one does have to wonder: Is it worth completely reinstalling your OS every three months? The whole reason of ditching windows was to get away from reinstalling, DLL hell, and system instabilities. So we've made things better by replacing these 'problems' with reinstalling, RPM hell, and system instabilities.
That's not progress!
Progress is something like Mac OS X: build a system that is MORE usable, and MORE feature-rich than the competitor. Yet what people like you seem to miss, is that Linux is not about building a "better" system! Linux is about building a system that is "free" in Stallman and Linus's definition of the word. If that is what you want, than Linux is a great choice. If you want a "better" end-user OS than Windows, then you're going to need to compromise some of the principles on which Linux is based. Take your pick, because these goals are mutually exclusive.
Re:So XFree Is Dead then
by
neurojab
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
>This weakness made it possible for IBM, Sun, HP, etc. to proprietize Unix and make many incompatible versions that only run on their hardware.
So would you say that made UNIX less successful? Anyway, you're spouting nonsense. IBM and Sun were never forked from BSD. They were forked from derivations of AT&T Unix, a proprietary product.
>The GPL was only created because of the lessons learned from the whole Unix-fiasco.
Unix, arguably the most sucessful operating system ever, was a fiasco? Surely you jest.
The GPL was created for those who believe that software should always be free. Believe it or not, there are those of us in the industry that are totally comfortable with closed-source software as well. For those of us that don't MIND that a large company might make money off software that we freely write, the BSD license is a good fit.
Re:Who is left...?
by
Quattro+Vezina
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Anti-aliasing is screenshot-pretty, but for actual use, it makes me want to scratch my eyes out.
Thank you. Finally, there's someone else here who can't stand to read antialiased fonts.
I'm pretty obsessive about not having my fonts antialiased. I've turned off AA in KDE's Fonts control centre dialog. I've grepped/etc for the variable GDK_USE_XFT (cd/etc && grep -R GDK_USE_XFT *), and set each occurence of it to 0. I always compile Firefox with the moznoxft USE flag.
You're also right in that AA is good for one thing: screenshots. I find screenshots of OS X, antialiased fonts and all, to be quite pretty. But I would never want to actually use a system with antialiased fonts--they're horribly grating on the eyes if you're doing anything but looking at a screenshot.
The first part of your post might be why I can't stand the Bitstream Vera Sans Serif font--if the BV fonts only look good when antialiased, and I go out of my way to not have antialiased fonts, then logically, the BV fonts would look ugly.
*looks up at the parent again*
Dear Zod, why is your post at 0? Someone mod this guy up!
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
SillyNickName4me
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· Score: 4, Insightful
> Why do we even need FreeBSD when we have Linux? The developers of FreeBSD should abandon it and migrate over to Linux.
Because WE NEED CHOICE.
There is no reason whatsoever to turn Linux into the enxt monoculture, that in fact is one of the most important things to prevent.
Besides the fact that FreeBSD is better at specific things, but you as home linux zealot are extremely unlikely to have a need for those else you'd have known about them already and not have asked this utterly stupid question.
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
SillyNickName4me
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· Score: 4, Insightful
> See it's only these silly amateurs who think BSD is so freaking exciting.
And with that one comment you have proven yourself to be utterly and completely clueless with regards to the subject.
*BSD is not about being exciting, it is about doing its job well. That is very boring actually, nothing exciting there.
> Linux has superior support for USB
Since when? Linux USB support is such an amazingly horrible hack that it is surprising it does anything at all. I suggest you go read the source instead of posting bullshit.
only on very recent Linux versions things like my USB mouse and sd card reader started working (2.6 series kernel on gentoo) while it has worked out of the box on FreeBSD for the last 3 or 4 years at least.
> Linux actually has journaling filesystems so you don't lose files in a crash where as BSD still fails to have one,
Hrm, there exists a JFS implementation for BSD, but I would not use that for any production work. More promissing sounds the porting of XFS.
At any rate, Reiser has caused me way more problems then FFS ever did (while I have a lot more data on FFS)
I hear the same from everyone here who has seriously tried both.
Besides, you seem to be a bit clueless once more.. journaling filesystems do not prevent data loss, they prevent situations where your data and meta data is out of sync, and they provide for a rollback to resync those in case they do end up being out of sync still.
You can still lose data with that, but you will not get a filesystem that is in a inconsistant state... normally.
Now, unlike traditional ufs and filesystems like ext2fs, the FFS filesystem does not write data and metadata asynchroneously, so the inconsistancy between those two is extremely unlikely.
That said, a production quality journalling filesystem would be nice to have
I'd rather want to have FFS2 snapshop functionality to go with that tho.
> RPM hell only existed on distros that used RPM and even then it has been fixed for years with tools like urpmi, up2date and yum.
Last time I checked RPM is part of the LSB but you are right here, it is not used by every distro, and not even part of "Linux" itself.
Re:BETTER QUESTION: Why do we even need FreeBSD?
by
BrokenHalo
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If he's only used SillyHat or any of those rpm-based distributions he may well have had problems.
They tend not to arise with proper distributions.:-) I'll let you decide for yourself what is a proper distribution (mine's Slackware, but YMMV).
An operating system can't hate another operating system.
Dragonfly doesn't hate freebsd, it's forked from it. Openbsd doesn't hate Netbsd, it's forked from it. It's merely a difference in direction that the developers took, nothing more. It's a matter of "scratching an itch", not making some sort of social statement.
You really make too much out of nothing.
Re:The lesson of X11....
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Insightful
As somebody who has been using Debian for a while, uses apt-get and dpkg a lot, and who has compiled programs from source (including XFree86) many times, I can just say that your posting tells more about you than about Debian.
Oh, and about "horrible hacked crap dating back 10-15 years or more". How old do you think most of/bin/ls and/bin/grep are? In open source software, old does not mean bad. Most likely the opposite, because it lasted that long without being replaced by anything better.
The problem with XFree86 was not specific badness the source, but the relatively closed structure of the conservative development team that controlled it.
Re:The lesson of X11....
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
And I also completely understand that there was virtually NO development happening beyond bug fixes and the occasional tweak type enhancement to XFree. XF 4 was a major update but that was still like 2 years ago. 4.1, 4.2 were mostly bug fixes, 4.3 completed some of th features for 4.0, and fixed more bugs.
Are you crazy? Sure, the XF folks were a bit slow to include changes from others and too conservative about major architural changes, but to suggest there was "virtually no development happening beyond bug fixes" and tweaks is simply false. The fork was definitely a Good Thing, but to belittle the work that had been done prior to the fork is just insulting a bunch of open source contributors.
> There's really nothing wrong with the license, despite what the GNU team thinks.
I do not see them saying it is wrong, I see them saying it is incompatible with the GNU GPL.
To quote their statement on it:
"This is a simple, permissive non-copyleft free software license, incompatible with the GNU GPL because of its requirements that apply to all documentation in the distribution that contain acknowledgements."
They believe it is a very bad idea to make licenses incompatible with the GPL, but there it ends. If GPL compliance is not relevant for you (as it is in the case of *BSD) there is no issue (well, except when you are called Theo maybe).
A much better reason to move to X.org is that it quite looks like most development moved to X.org as well.
Re:Bad News Everyone?
by
JamesTRexx
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· Score: 2, Insightful
One *BSD hates the other? Where did you get that idea? If it's just because some developers have their own idea on how to implement things, you might as well say that every GNU/Linux distro hates the other ones. Which does seem to be the case with all the distro zealots and their ranting on how only their choice is the good one.
Re:Bad News Everyone?
by
jdog1016
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually, FreeBSD is increasing it's market share, as mentioned here,
here, and here. You really should know a little about what you're talking about before you talk about it.
As for one BSD hating another, that is utterly ridiculous to the point that I laughed at you when I read it.
Finally, I don't know what you define as "success" but the way I see it, microsoft still has the dominant desktop operating system in both quality (IMHO) and popularity (statistically) and IMHO FreeBSD still has the upper hand over Linux in the server department. So, if you follow that, that still leaves linux behind both of them.
I suspect that OpenBSD will not switch to x.org until after the release of 3.6 in november (and hence go x.org in 3.7, 1st of may). Why? At the moment x.org looks promising, but really hasn't released anything substantial. And since OpenBSD by tradition (and goal) is quite conservative when it comes to importing third party software, I think it will probably take a while.
Another thing is that OpenBSD has developed a few handy patches for X11, like privilege separation (something I hope will be ported to x.org's distribution) and with OpenBSD's security goal I don't think they will give that up in a whim. OTOH, periodically merging with XFree or merging with x.org is probably the same amount of work...
Slashdot Mirror
bad news for those who are to lazy to rtfm.
Bet you can't back that up.
People have been sick of the way xfree86.org have fucked up X11 development for years. The licensing issue was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. :)
Now that Gentoo has been ported to OSX, we have Darwin ports, fink and Gentoo Portage. Do you understand that Linux is just a kernel? We already have the userland BSD "and" GNU (what you seem to think is linux) on OSX so I don't see the point of switching kernels.
Apple contributes to KDE KHTML, BSD and various other open source projects. What is it exactly that you are complaining about again?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Microsoft didn't steal it. That's the nature of the BSD license. We don't care if you, Microsoft, or anybody else is using the code for commercial purposes.
It's a strength, not a weakness.
You know, I was going to make a similar joke, but seriously, competition is always good. My laptop runs Gentoo, my desktop runs FreeBSD and WinXP. Why? Because Linux is good for a lot of desktop stuff and programming that I would be doing for school, I need XP on my desktop for gaming, and when I am not doing that, FreeBSD is something different that is nice and fast, a great server, and something that runs familiar programs that I normally run under Linux. So, do I need FreeBSD instead of Linux? No. But it serves purposes that are often different from the ones served by Linux and it is more specific in its direction and use.
As it is, X.Org is not at all different from the latest "non-crippled" XFree release - i'm running it in my Gentoo box and besides beeing just a tad faster, it's the same. It has minor patches applied and a few configuration files names changed. The upgrade is as painless as it can be; even my nVidia linux bnary drivers worked perfectly.
The thing with XFree it's been the attitude of it's developers (David Dawes in particular, do a google search of Usenet groups for some fun) - and this translated to the project in being very hard to submit codes or patches and had them approved. XFree has then been quite stagnant in the recent past; the licence fiasco was simply the cherry on the top.
X.Org has a much more open developement and i expect it to become quite different (advanced) of XFree in the future; stuff like Cairo and other X extensions (check http://www.freedesktop.com/) will at some point be incorporated onto X.Org giving us a nice, nifty OpenGL accelerated desktop.
Can't wait for that myself.
We need FreeBSD so that we can keep the developers who are interested in developing an operating system under a BSD-type license, but who are not interested in writing code under a GPL license, busily writing code that benefits us all.
Competition is good for everyone but the losers, and in a certain sense it's good for them too - as a wake-up call. Competition can be a major driving force, even if you're only competing against yourself. For example, I'm on everything2, and when I see a writeup that I think sucks and I say "I can do better than that" it's a strong motivator to me to outdo the existing writeup. So, someone implements something on Linux, and some BSD type says "I can do that! Shit, I can kick that thing's ass!" Next thing you know the feature in Linux is being upgraded or replaced because its author wants it to be the best tool of its type, or someone else wants features which are in the BSD version.
So even if you don't think it's important for what it can do in and of itself, BSD is important for the same reason as the lower class - to scare the shit out of the middle class.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
BSD is important for the same reason as the lower class - to scare the shit out of the middle class.
That is the most absurdly ignorant, hateful statement I have ever read. You're telling me you think that lower class people strive every day to make enough to live on--often at the sacrifice of their own health--and that is important because it motivates the middle class to work harder at their dumb ass job they hate. You, drinkypoo, are a huge asshole. I mean, unless you're a millionaire, why the fuck are you advocating for a system that continuously fucks you over?
People walk around throwing out phrases like "laws of nature," "human nature," "the way of the world," "that's the way the world works," like there's some sort of fucking truth. You give us your cute little scenario about Linux hackers vs. BSD hackers like it's some kind of truism, like it proves something. Please.
Think about how many different cultures there are throughout the world and how different they have been throughout history. It doesn't have to be this way, folks. Want to get educated? Read a book. Want to do something? Go work for a labor advocacy group.
No, he's saying the middle class shouldn't get too smug in their middle-class comfort, because in today's equal-opportunity world, the lower classes will not stay down there forever. And similarly, even if Linux is ahead in a lot of things, the BSDs will catch up (in fact, it wasn't long ago that the BSDs were ahead in most aspects of stability and performance and Linux was the "lower class" playing catch-up, and in many respects the BSDs are still ahead.) And I didn't understand very much else in your rant.
Name anything freebsd actually does better than linux?
Well, for one, my mouse actually works. And so does USB. Oh! And my zip drive works! And I don't randomly lose files in a crash! And my programs are more responsive. And my system stays up longer. And I'm hacked less. etc. etc. etc.
There are more advantages to an OS than just ticks on a "supports this feature" list. Supporting a feature is not the same as supporting it well. The FreeBSD guys usually don't add a feature until it's supported well. The Linux guys add the feature, then improve after everyone tells them it's broken. Both camps have their advantages and disadvantages.
BSD is running on fumes of hype right now, once people wake up and realize it sucks it will be all done.
Do a 's/BSD/Linux/g' and you're getting pretty close. Modern Linux systems tend to be highly unstable with large numbers of known issues and overall poor testing. This is done intentionally to help Linux reach a competitive stage more quickly. But one does have to wonder: Is it worth completely reinstalling your OS every three months? The whole reason of ditching windows was to get away from reinstalling, DLL hell, and system instabilities. So we've made things better by replacing these 'problems' with reinstalling, RPM hell, and system instabilities.
That's not progress!
Progress is something like Mac OS X: build a system that is MORE usable, and MORE feature-rich than the competitor. Yet what people like you seem to miss, is that Linux is not about building a "better" system! Linux is about building a system that is "free" in Stallman and Linus's definition of the word. If that is what you want, than Linux is a great choice. If you want a "better" end-user OS than Windows, then you're going to need to compromise some of the principles on which Linux is based. Take your pick, because these goals are mutually exclusive.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
>This weakness made it possible for IBM, Sun, HP, etc. to proprietize Unix and make many incompatible versions that only run on their hardware.
So would you say that made UNIX less successful? Anyway, you're spouting nonsense. IBM and Sun were never forked from BSD. They were forked from derivations of AT&T Unix, a proprietary product.
>The GPL was only created because of the lessons learned from the whole Unix-fiasco.
Unix, arguably the most sucessful operating system ever, was a fiasco? Surely you jest.
The GPL was created for those who believe that software should always be free. Believe it or not, there are those of us in the industry that are totally comfortable with closed-source software as well. For those of us that don't MIND that a large company might make money off software that we freely write, the BSD license is a good fit.
Anti-aliasing is screenshot-pretty, but for actual use, it makes me want to scratch my eyes out.
/etc for the variable GDK_USE_XFT (cd /etc && grep -R GDK_USE_XFT *), and set each occurence of it to 0. I always compile Firefox with the moznoxft USE flag.
Thank you. Finally, there's someone else here who can't stand to read antialiased fonts.
I'm pretty obsessive about not having my fonts antialiased. I've turned off AA in KDE's Fonts control centre dialog. I've grepped
You're also right in that AA is good for one thing: screenshots. I find screenshots of OS X, antialiased fonts and all, to be quite pretty. But I would never want to actually use a system with antialiased fonts--they're horribly grating on the eyes if you're doing anything but looking at a screenshot.
The first part of your post might be why I can't stand the Bitstream Vera Sans Serif font--if the BV fonts only look good when antialiased, and I go out of my way to not have antialiased fonts, then logically, the BV fonts would look ugly.
*looks up at the parent again*
Dear Zod, why is your post at 0? Someone mod this guy up!
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
> Why do we even need FreeBSD when we have Linux? The developers of FreeBSD should abandon it and migrate over to Linux.
Because WE NEED CHOICE.
There is no reason whatsoever to turn Linux into the enxt monoculture, that in fact is one of the most important things to prevent.
Besides the fact that FreeBSD is better at specific things, but you as home linux zealot are extremely unlikely to have a need for those else you'd have known about them already and not have asked this utterly stupid question.
> See it's only these silly amateurs who think BSD is so freaking exciting.
And with that one comment you have proven yourself to be utterly and completely clueless with regards to the subject.
*BSD is not about being exciting, it is about doing its job well. That is very boring actually, nothing exciting there.
> Linux has superior support for USB
Since when? Linux USB support is such an amazingly horrible hack that it is surprising it does anything at all. I suggest you go read the source instead of posting bullshit.
only on very recent Linux versions things like my USB mouse and sd card reader started working (2.6 series kernel on gentoo) while it has worked out of the box on FreeBSD for the last 3 or 4 years at least.
> Linux actually has journaling filesystems so you don't lose files in a crash where as BSD still fails to have one,
Hrm, there exists a JFS implementation for BSD, but I would not use that for any production work. More promissing sounds the porting of XFS.
At any rate, Reiser has caused me way more problems then FFS ever did (while I have a lot more data on FFS)
I hear the same from everyone here who has seriously tried both.
Besides, you seem to be a bit clueless once more.. journaling filesystems do not prevent data loss, they prevent situations where your data and meta data is out of sync, and they provide for a rollback to resync those in case they do end up being out of sync still.
You can still lose data with that, but you will not get a filesystem that is in a inconsistant state... normally.
Now, unlike traditional ufs and filesystems like ext2fs, the FFS filesystem does not write data and metadata asynchroneously, so the inconsistancy between those two is extremely unlikely.
That said, a production quality journalling filesystem would be nice to have
I'd rather want to have FFS2 snapshop functionality to go with that tho.
> RPM hell only existed on distros that used RPM and even then it has been fixed for years with tools like urpmi, up2date and yum.
Last time I checked RPM is part of the LSB but you are right here, it is not used by every distro, and not even part of "Linux" itself.
They tend not to arise with proper distributions. :-) I'll let you decide for yourself what is a proper distribution (mine's Slackware, but YMMV).
An operating system can't hate another operating system.
Dragonfly doesn't hate freebsd, it's forked from it. Openbsd doesn't hate Netbsd, it's forked from it. It's merely a difference in direction that the developers took, nothing more. It's a matter of "scratching an itch", not making some sort of social statement.
You really make too much out of nothing.
As somebody who has been using Debian for a while, uses apt-get and dpkg a lot, and who has compiled programs from source (including XFree86) many times, I can just say that your posting tells more about you than about Debian.
/bin/ls and /bin/grep are? In open source software, old does not mean bad. Most likely the opposite, because it lasted that long without being replaced by anything better.
Oh, and about "horrible hacked crap dating back 10-15 years or more". How old do you think most of
The problem with XFree86 was not specific badness the source, but the relatively closed structure of the conservative development team that controlled it.
Are you crazy? Sure, the XF folks were a bit slow to include changes from others and too conservative about major architural changes, but to suggest there was "virtually no development happening beyond bug fixes" and tweaks is simply false. The fork was definitely a Good Thing, but to belittle the work that had been done prior to the fork is just insulting a bunch of open source contributors.
> There's really nothing wrong with the license, despite what the GNU team thinks.
I do not see them saying it is wrong, I see them saying it is incompatible with the GNU GPL.
To quote their statement on it:
"This is a simple, permissive non-copyleft free software license, incompatible with the GNU GPL because of its requirements that apply to all documentation in the distribution that contain acknowledgements."
They believe it is a very bad idea to make licenses incompatible with the GPL, but there it ends. If GPL compliance is not relevant for you (as it is in the case of *BSD) there is no issue (well, except when you are called Theo maybe).
A much better reason to move to X.org is that it quite looks like most development moved to X.org as well.
One *BSD hates the other? Where did you get that idea? If it's just because some developers have their own idea on how to implement things, you might as well say that every GNU/Linux distro hates the other ones. Which does seem to be the case with all the distro zealots and their ranting on how only their choice is the good one.
home
"Where does this leave xfree?"
It leaves XFree86 with the world's most complex configuration file, and as the source of most of the linux-related problems people have.
You are forgetting however, that as a FreeBSD user, he isn't going to be an ass-hat about that sort of thing.
Best Slashdot comment ever
BSD is running on fumes of hype right now, once people wake up and realize it sucks it will be all done.
Is that why 48 of the top 50 of the longest uptime servers are running BSD?
Source: Netcraft
Actually, FreeBSD is increasing it's market share, as mentioned here, here, and here. You really should know a little about what you're talking about before you talk about it.
As for one BSD hating another, that is utterly ridiculous to the point that I laughed at you when I read it.
Finally, I don't know what you define as "success" but the way I see it, microsoft still has the dominant desktop operating system in both quality (IMHO) and popularity (statistically) and IMHO FreeBSD still has the upper hand over Linux in the server department. So, if you follow that, that still leaves linux behind both of them.
I suspect that OpenBSD will not switch to x.org until after the release of 3.6 in november (and hence go x.org in 3.7, 1st of may). Why? At the moment x.org looks promising, but really hasn't released anything substantial. And since OpenBSD by tradition (and goal) is quite conservative when it comes to importing third party software, I think it will probably take a while.
Another thing is that OpenBSD has developed a few handy patches for X11, like privilege separation (something I hope will be ported to x.org's distribution) and with OpenBSD's security goal I don't think they will give that up in a whim. OTOH, periodically merging with XFree or merging with x.org is probably the same amount of work...