FreeBSD 5.3-BETA6 Available

ulib writes "The FreeBSD 5.3 testing cycle goes on with a brand new BETA Release. Eager for the Final? Then try this Beta out (mirrors) and help them find/fix bugs! Here are the announcement (check it for fixes, enhancements & known issues), the schedule (could be updated soon), and the todo list."

Comments

Am I ready to take the BSD plunge?

[museumpeace]

I bought a cheap [e-mahcine] 2.4gHz box with the intention of just reformating XP to oblivion and loading up a Linux...but now here is BSD. Hmmm the install instructions at the BSD site look detailed. Last time I tried this was with RH 6.something, I was using an even cheaper machine with an oddball graphics card...never did get X windows or any thing but command line mode [which would have served my purposes]. I guess what I really want before wiping windows off my box is a throrough HW compatibility list...one size DOES NOT fit all PC's.

Re:Am I ready to take the BSD plunge?

[beholder77]

You could try to load up the first install disc, or even better the miniinst disc if you don't want to waste bandwidth, and see during the boot messages if all the hardware in your box is probed.

Don't worry if it can't find your sound card though, install kernels don't have multimedia features.

However, as a hard core BSD user, I would say if you're looking for a desktop replacement, you may not find the joy here. First, getting BSD up and running as a desktop requires a bit of work and a certain comfort level working with the command line.

Being Bi-OS-ual (I swing Linux and BSD where necessary ;), I would recommend either Knoppix 2.6 or Fedora Core 2 as a better starter unix. With these, you won't be dropped to a prompt after a fairly mimimalist install to fend for yourself. You'll also get a chance to run a ton of pre-configured desktop applications, so when you finally do attempt the BSD desktop, you'll know what you want to install beforehand.

If however you're wanting to setup your first server environment, I would recommend FreeBSD over everything else. You will learn unix the proper way, which is at the command line and manually configuring your service config files. (Yes I've used Debian and Gentoo for this in the past, and I still think FreeBSD is better suited).

Re:Am I ready to take the BSD plunge?

[torako]

FreeBSD can make a pretty good desktop machine. It has a really lean base system and using the ports system you can get all the software you want.

Once you get your GUI running you won't notice any difference.

In terms of administration and setup I'd compare FreeBSD with Slackware Linux. You will need to do some config file editing to get stuff done, but FreeBSD has a very well documented and easy-to-understand configuration system (you can basically set all the important system preferences in the /etc/rc.conf file).

Give it a shot, you just might like it.

Re:Am I ready to take the BSD plunge?

[Anonymous Coward]

you could also try FreeSBIE http://www.freesbie.org/, a very nice freeBSD live CD. it worked fine on my DELL laptop (except for the wireless card, but that's expected) and on another old DELL PIII desktop I had lying around but of course since your machine is new YMMV.

s.

Re:ULE scheduler?

[endx7]

The open issues page shows the SCHED_ULE as "needs testing" for the 5.3 release -- the last release still used the old 4BSD scheduler. Have the issues with preemption been ironed out?

Work has been done to make it more stable, but SCHED_ULE (especially with preemption) still isn't stable enough, so SCHED_4BSD will be default in 5.3