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FreeBSD 5.3-BETA5 Available
Nirbo writes "FreeBSD 5.3-BETA5 is now available! Get it while it's hot! Here is the mailing list post. Remember folks, this is currently the last beta that will be released for 5.3, we're only a week from a Release Candidate, and two weeks from a release!"
Because it's a system and not a kernel?
.NET v1.1 was released, because *gasp* I like .NET.
To be honest, if you're happy with Gentoo, then use it; we don't really care either way, we use BSD because it's the best for us.
Try it, for 2 months at least, and then decide. If you like it, fine, if you don't fine.
I don't really care what other people uses, as long as it doesn't interfere with what I'm doing; hell, I've even started using Windows when
I wouldn't say that its a not invented here attitude, but more the fact the developers take a large amount of pride in their little corner of the kernel, and its hard to take pride in someone else's work when all you've done is implemented it. It goes toward the general feeling that Linux is more haphazardly put together, touting the individual parts as strong points whereas in the *BSD's its the finished product thats held high as a source of pride. You end up with a 'I did this myself,' compared to a 'we created this with the best ideas out there.'
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
The Linux kernel development model works quite well.
;) are still on kernel version less or equal to 2.2.x.
There are however a few dark spots; the first come first serve attitude, like the old VM debacle for example; and all the other beta stuff that enters, like drivers for example.
The fact is that technical merits are always weighted by opinions, and opinions on lklm are strong.
These things will not bite you if you're sensible and don't update your kernels day in and day out; the few good Linux admins I know (maybe because I know few Linux users
It really doesn't matter what system you run; be it AmigaOS, Windows, VMS, BSD, Random Linux Distro, or OS/400, to name a few; if you know what you're doing you kan do pretty much anything.
Matt has and have always had a strong opinion on the weight on specific technical merits, namely simplicity.
You have to remember that Matt is originally from AmigaOS country, and his opinion therefor is strongly shaped by his love for its design.
While I agree with Matt, I also understand why the rest of the FreeBSD team picked another option; because it also, from their point of view, the best.
Matt's opinion is strong, and he refused to accept the choice of others, like he has done many times before; therefor we have DFBSD.
This is not bad or wrong, because we will have two excellent options to choose from, depending on how we weight technical merit with our opinions.
"Also, dependency hell was changed to use-flag hell. When Midnight Commander installs (I don't know if it still does) XFree86 as a dependency, there is a problem."
You think that's bad. Earlier this year Xinerama changed from a default to a use flag option. My WORKING CONFIGURATION spontaneously stopped working after a rebuild with no changes to the configuration, and I couldn't get an answer until I gave up on Gentoo entirely and then tried it again later this year. Then, when I was doing a fresh install I noticed Xinerama had been added to possible flags.
Then there was a time KDE had a dependency that was masked. You couldn't use KDE on a Gentoo-stable system for over a week. This could only have happened if no one anywhere had tried the build on a stable system.
It's beneath pathetic. It's not a usable system unless you have the time to constantly tweak things and update things.
I cannot be more clear about what I'm about to say: I cannot and will not use a system that silently changes things required for satisfactory operation, and that requires me to figure out what's been changed to fix it. I cannot use a system that sometimes doesn't work with a standard configuration based on the state of things outside of my control. Because Gentoo does these things, I cannot use Gentoo. All of the wonderful things it does are irrelevant because it does not meet my basic requirements.
If you use Gentoo and you're happy with it, you either have way too much time or you've been very lucky.
"Simple, user-friendly, very fast Unix-like OS, which is easier to learn (because of the documantation AND its consistency) for a newbie like myself than any other linux distro I have tried."
I had the same experience with OpenBSD. The Linuxes either to so much handholding that you don't know what's going on or they do so little that you're lost. The BSDs have a big FAQ that says "If you want to do X, you must do Y. This is how you do Y." for basically everything you need to do. The concepts are simple, and they're easy to learn when they're laid out like that.
I actually do use Suse Linux and MacOS because they do so much handholding and do it sufficiently well that I don't need to worry about maintaining them. They're not adequate for the more complex things I do, but that's what my OpenBSD box is for.
I don't actually use FreeBSD right now, but I have as recently as 5.2.1. I would still use it if I had a spare computer.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
"To my astonishment, the user, who had to do a recompile just like myself, didn't share my exasperation. In fact, his reaction was: That's what I like about gentoo (referring to the use-flags, and ranting about the wonderful flexibility of the system!)."
:)"
This is true zealots of other OSes (languages, etc) too. They think it's great because it suits them, and they can't put themselves in the place of another user that has different resources and needs. This is often true of people that are otherwise brilliant. Unfortunately, they get mod points sometimes.
I try to learn a lot of OSes and languages for this reason. I don't have a problem with something being different, or unsuited for my purposes. What I have a problem with is people that think their tool of choice is good at something it's not, or alternatively, that the task being discussed is not important.
Gentoo zealots think Gentoo is reliable and easy to maintain. I don't know how they can think that, but they do. I'd just shrug my shoulders and forget about it if they wouldn't lay on the evangelism so thick. I keep getting told things which I know to be untrue.
"I only mention this because that somehow, modding your comment as troll reminded me of the absolute resistance to any kind of criticism (well, there are exceptions of course) on the part of the community. Saying anything against gentoo is dangerous indeed
Well, I did use the phrase "beneath pathetic". That's a bit pajoritive.
It's a bit irritating that the zealots of my OS (OpenBSD) of choice do the same thing. They seem to think it's a good desktop OS, which it's not. They tell people not to use Java rather than address the sorry state of Java on OpenBSD.
This is how I convince myself I'm not a zealot... I have a favorite OS which I use whenever possible, but I recognize that it's not a good desktop OS and use something else. I have a favorite language that I use whenever possible (Python), but some problems just don't want to be solved in Python, so I use other languages a lot.
Being a zealot will only cause you to miss opportunities. Knowing Python makes me a better programmer in C and Java. I can't stand Lisp, but it has the same effect. Knowing BSD makes using Linux easier. Expand your horizons people. Try something else.
I know 8 OSes (counting Linux once), and 12 programming languages. I can't stand most of them, but I'm a better programmer for it. And I found the stuff that was right for me. Python and OpenBSD weren't the first stops, of that you can be sure.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Zealots are not particularly open for other "truths" than their own. This is not always bad, though. There are alot of zealots working for human rihgts. But I digress. The zealots you are writing about could just as well called narrow minded.
As for Java on OpenBSD : In general it's a license problem. The Sun Java License are very onerous. The OpenBSD developers are very dedicated about keeping their OS free, and in this I happen to agree with them.