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FreeBSD 5.3-BETA4 Available

Posted by timothy on from the like-a-rock dept.

BrunoC writes "Once again, the FreeBSD Project presents yet another beta release of FreeBSD 5.3. FreeBSD 5.3 BETA 4 features major bugfixes for ATA, 4BSD is now the default scheduler and overall stability has greatly improved. BETA 5 should hit the streets next week and should be the last BETA and a Release Candidate is scheduled too. 5.3 should be around by October 3rd. ISO images are available for those who want to help the testing process." (Use a mirror.)

4 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. atapicam by dar · · Score: 3, Informative

    I notice that FreeBSD now has a scsi emulation layer for atapi devices. Very nice. Might be time to take another look at FreeBSD.

    --
    My other Slashdot ID is much lower.
    1. Re:atapicam by euclid+manatee · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm not sure when it became available, but it's there in my 4.10 system. I use to to write DVD-Rs.

    2. Re:atapicam by phoenix_rizzen · · Score: 4, Informative

      Now has?? It's been in there since the middle of the 4.x series.

  2. Re:Scheduler? by anholt · · Score: 5, Informative

    Part of it was that there were problems with ULE and PREEMPTION, which we really hope to have working for the release if possible. But it was also not performing well for some specific tests that are being done (supersmack on mysql, among others). That combined with a few little bugs (load avg reporting) and the author not really being available to work on it, meant that it was decided to move back to 4BSD for the release (and possibly -STABLE), while hopefully getting ULE going well on -CURRENT. ULE has its own set of features -- better interactivity on heavily loaded machines (so nice for your desktop while compiling!) and, as I remember, better algorithms for machines with tons of processes, but its youth menas it's not well-tuned yet for general server use, which is what FreeBSD focuses on.