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FreeBSD 5.3-BETA2 available
Nirbo writes "One week after FreeBSD 5.3-BETA1, FreeBSD 5.3-BETA2, is now available to those wishing to update to the most current FreeBSD on the 5.x branch.
It's available from the Main FTP servers, and probably a few more places by this point.
BETA-3 is due out September 3rd, but for those who don't want to go a single day without updating, you can find snapshots (and the ISO images) here."
Just because the *BSD's explosive growth is minscule compared to Linux's explosive growth, that hardly means it's dying...
:D)
:D... now if only we could get off such dependancies as Linux Compatibility for out Flash plugins, we'd be set as both a Linux-ally, and a Linux competitor...
:D
For every 10 Linux users, every 1 has enough sense to fall through the cracks in the Linux Kernel and land in BSD-country (See, we can troll too
Rather, the boom of Linux in recent history has sparked a lot of BSD numebrs to jump too
With 2.5 Million active sites according to Netcraft (Who also run BSD... coincidence? Not really.), *BSD is hardly dead... just too busy disputing the death rumours to really make a show of it's vast and productive life
Just like 5.3 BETA1, BETA2 does not detect my network card automatically, and nothing I do makes any difference (it's always been found by every Linux distribution and all other BSDs, including all previous releases of FreeBSD since 4.7).
I can only hope that someone fixes this before it's released, because I've long been waiting to try a truely modern version of FreeBSD (with KSE, ULE and now X.org all as defaults).
I guess it makes little difference in the long run, as I've mostly switched over to the (admittedly too new to realistically be used in a production environment, yet utterly promising) DragonFly BSD and Mac OS X.
This version has been in the works for over three years now (5.x that is), and I am getting tired of waiting for something that could have been out and stable a year and a half ago were the developers not constantly adding to the feature list while trying to stablise the core architecture of the system.
DragonFly seems to be doing better in this department (it looks as if thier "light weight kernel threading" subsystem has allowed them to almost completely multi-thread their network stack in roughly a one month period (the project itself being little over one year old) while the FreeBSD folks *still* have not made significant progress doing the same with 5.x (no, even with 5.3 there is more code that cannot function without the big giant lock than there is code that can run happily without it)).
I can't wait for version 1.1 of DragonFly (due in some six to eight months). It'll be very interesting to see how far they've come at that time when compared to FreeBSD.
I'm quite impressed how quickly the beta's follow eachother. Even if changes between 5.2 and 5.3 aren't major. (haven't read the changelog though)
It makes me wonder why it takes so much longer for Microsoft with all its resources to go from one beta to the next, even with all the software that has to be tested.
home
For the install CD, use:
3 86 /5.3/5.3-BETA2-i386-disc1.iso
3 86 /5.3/5.3-BETA2-i386-disc2.iso
ftp://ftpX.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-IMAGES-i
Replace "X" with 1 to 14 to use the US mirrors.
For a "live CD" to test hardware compatibility, use disc2:
ftp://ftpX.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-IMAGES-i
Helevius
I, FreeBSD, have NOT failed:
--To support SMP
FreeBSD has SMP support and has for a long long time. SMPnG is SMP Next Generation. It's a complete overhaul of a feature that's already supported.
--To generate media attention
Mac OS X is based on BSD. That's generated lots of media attention. I should also mention that slashdot is a form of media, and has gotten your attention.
--To spawn a professionally managed distribution
Did I mention mac OS X yet? No, oh. How about BSDi? That doesn't count? Oh. Well, I'll have to argue that FreeBSD is much more professionally managed than most Linux distro's (which are a hodgepodge shit-show of amateur code).
--To innovate
FreeBSD SoftUpdates. Ports (which the beloved Gentoo copied and is what most people claim is Gentoo's best feature).
--To be relevant.
BSD is generating news on slashdot, therfore it is relevant and very very important.
Just because there isn't a ________ community on slashdot, doesn't mean that community doesn't exist.
I guess by your logic we can conclude windows is dying as well. There's never a positivly moderated post about Microsoft, therefore windows must be dying.
Good News Everyone!
Fact: There are 307 FreeBSD developers. And there never was a fistfight
Fact: X.org does in fact support all of the BSDs
Fact: Michael Curry doesn't even know what netbsd is
Fact: There are over 55 BSD books
Fact: Gimp has always worked on all BSDs and always will.
Fact: OpenBSD has had the fewest security holes of all OS's
Fact: Truth is not relative
Good News Everyone!
Turns out that *BSD is stronger than ever!
According to an Inernetnews article, Netcraft has confirmed that *BSD has "dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
There has been a steady increase in *BSD developers over the past decade.
There are currently 307 FreeBSD developers as of the 2004 core team election.
You can read more about FreeBSD here
If you would like to try out a BSD, you can download: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, or DragonflyBSD
Enjoy!
Have you submitted a bug report of any kind about this? That is what the BETA is for, and it is why it has the BETA tag.
While I respect your opinion, I do wish you would hold judgement until the final release is made.
-If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
There's BSDWiki, which I contribute to now and again, but it's still early in that project's development and although I know a lot of linux stuff, I am not nearly as conversant in the differences between FreeBSD and Linux, and quite frankly, the handbook makes my eyes gloss over.
FreeBSD for the impatient.
The book is divided into five parts, organized as follows:
Part I, Overview
Three introductory chapters provide the context for the complete operating system and for the rest of the book.
History and Goals, sketches the historical development of the system, emphasizing the system's research orientation.
Design Overview of FreeBSD, describes the services offered by the system, and outlines the internal organization of the kernel. It also discusses the design decisions that were made as the system was developed.
Kernel Services, explains how system calls are done, and describes in detail several of the basic services of the kernel.
Part II, Processes
Process Management, lays the foundation for later chapters by describing the structure of a process, the algorithms used for scheduling the execution of the threads that make up a process, and the synchronization mechanisms used by the system to ensure consistent access to kernel-resident data structures.
Memory Management, the virtual-memory-management system is discussed in detail.
Part III, I/O System
I/O System Overview, explains the system interface to I/O and describes the structure of the facilities that support this interface.
Following this introduction are four chapters that give the details of the main parts of the I/O system.
Devices, gives a description of the I/O architecture of the PC, describes how the I/O subsystem is managed, and how the kernel initially maps out and later manages the arrival and departure of connected devices.
Local Filesystems, details the data structures and algorithms that implement filesystems as seen by application programs as well as how local filesystems are interfaced with the device interface described earlier.
The Network Filesystem, explains the network filesystem from both the server and client perspectives.
Terminal Handling, discusses support for character terminals, and provides a description of the pseudo-terminal device driver.
Part IV, Interprocess Communication
Interprocess Communication, describes the mechanism for providing communication between related or unrelated processes.
Network Communication and Network Protocols, are closely related, as the facilities explained in the former are implemented by specific protocols, such as the TCP/IP protocol suite, explained in the latter.
Part V, System Operation
Startup and Shutdown, discusses system startup and shutdown and explains system initialization at the process level, from kernel initialization to user login.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
First of all, congrats on writing an actually somewhat funny troll.
...
As is the case with most trolls, the 'information' provided is incorrect. Lets look at the specifics..
> --To support SMP
FreeBSD has supported SMP for years, and 5.3 still does. You can argue all you want about which smp implementation is better, but that doesn't change that it is supported.
> --To generate media attention
Your post was a reply to one form of media attention it is getting. Don't think it needs any further comments.
> --To spawn a professionally managed distribution
Ah... like the 200+ incompatible Linux distributions? I'd seriously look at this one again because this is one of the things where it does better then any linux distribution.
> --To innovate
> --To be relevant.
Maybe not to you. I'd hope you refrain from using for exampel Yahoo and Hotmail in the future tho.. else it might just become somewhat relevant for you also.
At any rate.. I had a bit of a chuckle, you at least found a funny way for posting your nonsense.
When I first used mergemaster I thought it was the greatest thing since before that I had to tediously hand-pick through /usr/src/etc on OpenBSD and NetBSD in order to keep /etc up-to-date.
But now the luster has worn off and I'm seeing things a bit differently especially after using Gentoo's etc-update.
So what about mergemaster?
1) split screen mode - mergemaster splits your screen into a left and right half with no scrolling. You get a whopping 40 columns of truncated file to look at on an 80 column display in single-user mode with no network or GUI. The first thing you will notice on the screen is the CVS tags which will almost help you tell which is the new and which is the old file except that they are cut off at 40 columns
2) "l for left" and "r for right" - you type the "l" for "left" with your right hand and the "r" for "right" with your left hand. Screws me up since I have typing skills.
... strike back again. Get a life idiots
BETA. B-E-T-A. BETA TESTING. BETA
B
E
T
A
Can you understand that?
Fact: BSD's dont have several critical security advisories which could lead to root access EVERY months Fact: Linux apps running under emulation will sometimes run faster on BSD than on native linux Fact: Linux community = bunch of script kiddies & pseudo-leet (and as we can see, dozens of trolls) ; BSD Community = Technical guys Fact: FreeBSD is not dead, 4.11 is still coming, 5.3 is near the release.
You're an idiot. Of course I do, but am I supposed to sit here with my thumbs up my ass, because this might still be an issue AFTER the beta, even with problem reports.
Do *you* understand? Thought not.
"Fact: Linux community = bunch of script kiddies & pseudo-leet (and as we can see, dozens of trolls) ; BSD Community = Technical guys"
I think both FreeBSD and Linux are pretty cool, but it is not in anyone's interest to talk trash like this. Do you want people saying that BSD users are arrogant? I think not. I have two machines at home, my main Debian box, and another one that I set up with FreeBSD out of curiosity and a general desire to broaden my knowledge. I like both, although I must admit I have a much better grasp of Debian.
Funny, I just checked amazon.com and there is 1027 *bsd related books.
/. posters like you, heh.
Funny^2, me and a bunch of freebsd users use gimp for ages and never saw a single problem with it.
Funny^3 me and a bunch of freebsd users use oo.org, staroffice, abiword, etc without any problem.
Funny^4, if you just check www.bsdforums.org you will see a minium fraction of the total bsdusers (55K registred).
Funny^5 X.org will be the default X server for 5.3 release and it is working as well as in linux.
Regarding to the media, that's a big difference. BSD community is focused on getting things to work and has a commitment to technical excellence while the linux community has few good sysadmin that work with the linux the way it should be used and you have loads of pseudo-leet-hackers and non-sense troll
Go get a life boy.
mergemaster is the most painful part of a FreeBSD upgrade. 20 minutes of paging through files that I've never touched and probably never will (with a couple of minor exceptions).
/usr/defaults/ and then letting the user put his overrides into a file of the same name in /etc/. Just as we do with rc.conf. Throw in a switch to mean "update everything in /etc/defaults/ without asking me" and everyone should be happy. (That is, the curious and the masochists can still page through every changed config' file.)
I see its purpose, but it could be made much less painful by putting most of those files into
K.C.
Erm. Ahem. Tap tap tap.
Attention, everyone who responded to this post.
YOU HAVE BEEN TROLLED. YOU HAVE LOST. HAVE A NICE DAY.
Or, abbreviated for convenience: YHBT. YHL. HAND.
See http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/YHBT
If you are truly trying to get a working version of FreeBSD onto your system, I suggest you go back to the one of the -RELEASE versions you have had success with in the past. Otherwise, post your findings to the bug database and be patient for just a while longer.
Since you are obviously much more enamored with Dragonfly, Linux, and the other flavors of BSD, I am still puzzled as to why you are even bothering with FreeBSD in the first place. You obviously are more interested in bashing FreeBSD than getting it running on your system.
let's hope they've fixed those buffer problems with the intel e1000 network cards. i'm tired of having to restrict my card to 100mbps
Reading is very difficult isn't it?
I bet it takes you so much energy that you give up after a few words, and consequentely also fail to say anything relevant or usefull at all.
Ah well, whats in a name.
you fell for a troll
Complete and utter troll, obviously, but this:
"hodgepodge shit-show of amateur code"
made me laugh my ass off. Thank you, dear troll.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
> Yeah, it really pisses me off that The GIMP only works on two distros.
> FFS, get over it, man. There's no "incompatible Linux distributions". You name me THREE open source apps (exclusing the obvious installers and config tools) that only work on one distribution.
Ignoring the point is not really going to help.
Yes, I can run vrtually any opensource package on any linux distribuion and any bsd distribution.
Since each and every linux distribution comes with a slightly (or at times wildly) different set of libraries and versions of libraries, there is no guarantee that you can take a binary from distrivution x, and expect it to run without any hastle on distribution y. Yeah, you can definitely get it to work by installing extra libraries or recompiling the thing.
> Struggling? Thought so. Your talk about "incompatible distributions" is ignorant and ill-informed. 99.99999% of open source apps work on all distros without any hassle.
Did you ever build comemrcial Linux software? I did. I also did the installer. There is a good reason for most commercial software either supporting only a few distributions (officially at least) or being statically linked to most stuff they happen to depend on.
You obviously never looked at what those nice installer scripts do but you may find funny things as binary distributed software installing differently based on for example your version of gcc, glibc and a few other such things.
> ATEOTD, Linux has broader hardware support,
Possibly, especially when it comes to non x86 hardware.
I use fairly modern x86 hardware for a whole variety of purposes (including hosting and network infrastructure), and I have yet to encounter a device that I actually want to use that is not supported.
The same can be said about Linux, so no difference there as long as you keep to a supported platform of course..
> runs faster, has better SMP,
If Linux runs faster is rather debatable. My test server runs both FreeBSD current and gentoo with linux 2.6 kernel in a multiboot config. (it is a dual cpu machine btw)
Running exactly the same Apache configuration, in both cases compiled from source, results in the fbsd version handling between 5 and almost 20% more requests/time on a mix of static and dynamic (php and perl) content.
I have the same systems installed on my workstation, an adm athlon xp 2600+ with 512mb and a gforce4 mx.. When running FreeBSD 5, my favorite multiplayer fps (Enemy Territory) runs substantially better then when running Linux (somewhat interesting seeing how this is in fact a Linux binary)
Both annecdotal evidence at best, but definitely 2 cases where Linux doesn't run faster.
With regards to SMP, esp. on non x86 hardware Linux does a lot better, but then, FreeBSD doesn't run on most such hardware to begin with.
If this is true for x86 hardware is debatable, and I'd like to see what things look like once 5.x has been 'stable' for a while, and I keep an eye on dragonfly and their smp work.
I have seen some performance comparisons that were at least trying to measure things instead of basing themselves on annecdotal evidence.. I have yet to see one that is not flawed in how it implements its tests tho.
> has more available commercial software,
Almost all of which also runs on FreeBSD tho,and usually with less trouble, and at times with better performance, so no reason to use one over the other.
> has wider backing,
Definitely. Windows has even wider backing..
> and most of all IS SUPPORTED LONGER
And needs to be supported longer also.
But let's see. Versioning in FreeBSD works somewhat different then in Linux since there is a much closer relation between kernel and userland. Transition between versions is rather painless (unlike upgrading a redhat installation for example) and one of my servers here has not seen an install cd for half a decade now, nor has it been d
I have never used a BSD before, but I think I'll give it a try when this release hits stable, as I've read a lot of good stuff about FreeBSD. What will be the first differences I will encounter? Is it easy to set up a fully functioning GNOME environment on FreeBSD?
Thanks in advance.
It will happen.
If you do, we promise not to judge you, or your lifestyle choices.
Hi! :o)
:-))
I'm trying out the BETA on my k6-II... I always want to have a FreeBSD box lying around. I like FreeBSD and its philosophy, but i'm not completely ready to make the jump from linux yet- there are certain things i'm accustomed to in the linux OS that are different or less-implemented in Fbsd.
but anyways....
Granted *this* is a beta and is full of debugging code and watchdogs and such, but even on official releases i've noticed that FreeBSD tends to have a much larger memory footprint than linux.
Of course, this is most visible when running X (which isn't officially part of the OS). But say, for instance on the k6-II, i can have both Debian Unstable and FreeBSD on the hdd. In both cases i will have just the base system, and then only what is necessary to run windowmaker, gkrellm, firebird, gaim and bitchx- a moderately lean desktop installation.
On disk, linux is about ~250MB, FreeBSD is about ~700.
Boot up, startx, load windowmaker and gkrellm ONLY (aside from standard daemons and services)...
gkrellm reports the linux installation as having 90 of 128mb free, but on FreeBSD (in the same state) it shows 10 of 128mb free. Obviously performance is gravely different between the two- anything else i open or use in FreeBSD lives in swap.
Now i'm not illustrating this as a criticism of FreeBSD- I'm just curious if anyone has an explanation. I'm sure there is a valid reason for this, or it's a matter of ignorance on my part of setting up/configuring between the two.
I do hold FreeBSD in high regard, but it is discouraging to run it on my k6-II. 300mhz and 128mb of ram aren't really limited resources, in my book- one should be able to expect a reasonable and useable desktop experience. No KDE or Enlightenment or Gnome or things like that, but i'm not a fan of heavy DEs (XFCE, Wmaker, bbox are just fine for me
Hell, even WindowsXP (ugh) outperforms FreeBSD (which surprised the hell out of me)
do() || do_not();
BSD vs. Linux
One area in which BSD's are definitely superior (not just to Linux, but to SunOs/Solaris too) is in the reaping of closed sockets. I had numerous test machines (hit very,very heavily with outside connections) where the Linux/Sun boxes would choke due to the slow pace with which they cleaned up old sockets. BSD on the other hand never suffered from that particular problem. It isn't a big issue in most cases, but there are certain real world situations in which Linux cannot be used for the same purposes as BSD.
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
Other than that little rant, I have found bugs@ and current@ very responsive...
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
Trolled again.
There ain't no netcraft confirmation.
this linux dudes just like to troll around bsd news.
I can understand the temptation to respond to a "BSD is Dying" troll. But please wait for an actual trollpost. Responding to a post that mentions the "BSD is Dying" troll is premature.
Heh, for example for webservers this is kindof relevant...
I know its a BETA. But just curios. /newb
It is horrible slow to compile with it. my system is very poor in performence. And GNOME is hardly unusuable it look likes it running on a 486 machine on a dual p3 500.