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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."
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
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!
Just like 5.3 BETA1, BETA2 does not detect my network card automatically.
You won't get much help if you don't give a little bit more information like which brand and which type.
because I've long been waiting to try a truely modern version of FreeBSD
If so, you would have known that you always had the possibility of running 5.2.1 and to keep current with the latests patches. Cvsup is your friend.
by Anonymous Coward
That's what I thought.
bash$
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.
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.
> 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