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."

Comments

*BSD will live forever!

[Nirbo]

Just because the *BSD's explosive growth is minscule compared to Linux's explosive growth, that hardly means it's dying...

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 :D)

Rather, the boom of Linux in recent history has sparked a lot of BSD numebrs to jump too :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...

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 :D

Definately a beta

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Definately a beta

[BSDimwit]

Guess I don't understand why you think that your NIC being detected is the the end all be all for an OS. If you have been around a the BSD circles for a while you should know that it does not support as much hardware as Linux. However, what it does support is usually supported quite well. Instead of complaining about it, go to the store and buy one it does support, it's not like they are expensive...at the very least, see what you can do to get support for the NIC you are talking about. Open Source operating systems are open so that folks like you, can contribute code to fill in the known holes. If you aren't a programmer, fine, but look for other ways of helping. Yeah, FreeBSD 5-stable has been a long time coming, but like you said, there are alternatives for those who simply cannot wait.

Re:Definately a beta

[SillyNickName4me]

Hmm, it would be interesting to know what network card you are having trouble with. This quite sounds like a bug to me.

With regards to your comments about FreeBSD 5.x and Dragonfly, I'd like to mention a few things..

- It is very easy to have a high speed of development in a new project. People are focussed on the project goals and there is little 'distraction' in the form of people actually using the project. It is about as difficult to keep an old project making progress because of the opposite conditions being true in general.

- If KSE and ULE are such good ideas is debatable, but seeing your post, you are interested in trying them. This architecture took its time to develop, and if you followed the smp mailinglist in the last few years, you'd see that that development was not easy, and in fact, noone before FreeBSD managed to implement this architecture in a workable way (while it looks very promising in theory, in practise it comes with lots of nice little problems)

I think Dragonfly is a very usefull addition to the *BSD family because of the exact work that you mention, a multithreaded network stack.
It may bring more equally important new developments in the future if it can keep up its pase of development.

> 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)

I did my own reimplementation of the FreeBSD network stack at some point so I do have some idea what the code looks like and what kind of work would be involved..

The biggest part of it is properly splitting up the code, as it is now, it is mostly concentrated in a few HUGE functions that are almost impossible to maintain.

From there to a multithreaded implementation is not such a big issue once you have settled on an architecture for multithreading inside the kernel.

It seems that the method chosen by Dragonfly results in a lot less work in the kernel then what FreeBSD chose.

> 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)).

How much code can run without it is hardly relevant. How much time is spent running such code is of major relevance.

This of course would suggest that the network stack is something to look at....

At any rate, lightweight kernel threads lead to fast results for Dragonfly. If it will keep supporting that in the future is a question for me. Almost always such quicker solutions come to bite you a little bit later. If it does however then all the better. It is good to actually see multiple different branches of development for this.

Re:Definately a beta

[Brandybuck]

That is a supported card. It uses the "rl" Realtek driver. See p os=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+6-current&format=ht ml> for more information. Searching the bug database I find... no open problem reports on this card! Are you sure you submitted a bug? The last reported bug on this card was in FreeBSD 4.2.

Is this the SAME card you used sucessfully with FreeBSD 4.x? D-Link is notorius for changing the chipsets in their cards while keeping the model number. Make sure it's really a Realtek 8129/8139 chip. What does dmesg say? You are going to submit a problem report, right? Bitching about the quality of a BETA release without submitting a bug report is silly. Make sure you include the full output of dmesg in your problem report.

Fast...

[JamesTRexx]

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.

Re:Fast...

[x3ro]

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.

I assume you're referring to beta versions of Windows? If so, remember that Windows is a kernel, window manager, desktop environment, set of APIs, blah blah blah, all in one. Imagine trying to change versions of not just FreeBSD itself, but also X.org, KDE/Gnome, and probably quite a few apps that aren't part of the OS but come bundled with it (eg Konqueror) .. that would be a better comparison.

Of course the other reason would be bugs being shallower with more eyes etc, closed vs. OSS. But I'm inclined to think that the more significant contrast is OS-as-monolith vs. Unix-style small, atomic utilities. Not talking monolithic vs. micro kernels here .. I mean the OS as a whole, or in MicroSoft's case, as a product.

Example "direct link" to 5.3-BETA2 .iso

[Helevius]

For the install CD, use:

ftp://ftpX.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-IMAGES-i3 86 /5.3/5.3-BETA2-i386-disc1.iso

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-i3 86 /5.3/5.3-BETA2-i386-disc2.iso

Helevius

Re:Example "direct link" to 5.3-BETA2 .iso

[Eil]

It actually boots into sysinstall. Far as I can tell, the only difference from the install CD is that it doesn't contain any packages but does include a live filesystem that you can use to repair a broken system.

Re:Beta 3 Due This Week

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Why BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:

[DashEvil]

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.

good sources for BSD newbs OTHER than Handbook?

[discogravy]

I'm looking for lots of short how-tos and best-practices stuff (security, notably,) and not just "do this to that file and killall -HUP the service to affect changes" -- I'd like some theory behind some of it so that I can understand the whys and hows a BSD system is different from a Linux or Solaris box.

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.

Re:good sources for BSD newbs OTHER than Handbook?

[IamInsane]

Here's a list of links that you might find useful:

Interesting read's for all newbies to FreeBSD:
http://www.freebsd.org/projects/newbies. html

Some tutorials, very short list but interesting none the less:
http://freebsdaddicts.org/

Some outdated but still usefull articles here:
http://www.freebsddiary.org/

Excellent information on setting up a new FreeBSD host
http://users.rcn.com/rneswold/fbsd-init.html

The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD OS

[ubiquitin]

www.mckusick.com/FreeBSDbook.html

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.

Re:Beta 3 Due This Week

[SillyNickName4me]

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.

Re:

[BasharTeg]

The beta is broken, plain and simple. No networking ability means it's not ready for prime time. Can you understand that?

BETA. B-E-T-A. BETA TESTING. BETA

• BETA

B
E
T
A

Can you understand that?

"mergemaster considered harmful"

[kace]

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).

I see its purpose, but it could be made much less painful by putting most of those files into /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.)

K.C.

OK what NIC is it?

[BSDimwit]

No where in your post do you mention which card it fails to detect. I happen to have an nforce2 chipset with NVIDIA's proprietary NIC built in, which is also not supported, but I also have another NIC installed that it does support...so while I agree with you that networking is of prime importance, there are viable workarounds such as the one I mentioned.

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.

Re:Beta 3 Due This Week

[SillyNickName4me]

> 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

FreeBSD

[oKtosiTe]

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.