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The State of the Demon Address
Kelly McNeill writes "It's an exciting era in the Berkeley Software Distribution world; indeed, things started off with a litigious bang over a decade ago, but now BSD solutions are more varied than ever before and offer the user heretofore unprecedented choice and power. So many are the options today that it's time for a roll call from the various distributions. Paul Webb submitted the following editorial to osOpinion/osViews which takes a look at what each BSD has to offer and also looks at where each is going."
It's an exciting era in the Berkeley Software Distribution world; indeed, things started off with a litigious bang over a decade ago, but now BSD solutions are more varied than ever before and offer the user heretofore unprecedented choice and power. So many are the options today that it's time for a roll call from the various distributions. Paul Webb submitted the following editorial to osOpinion/osViews which takes a look at what each BSD has to offer and also looks at where each is going.
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Each of the four major BSD projects are pushing forward with development and experiencing growth, diversifying the Open Source playing field's offerings Let's take a look at what each project is up to these days.
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is in a precarious state. While it has almost hit critical mass in the corporate world, their latest growing pains have left potential adopters confused. The new FreeBSD 5 branch offers some exciting technology, generally regarded as comparable with or superior to what is offered in Linux. The FreeBSD foundation is still upgrading its FreeBSD 4.x line and suggesting its use for production environments over FreeBSD 5. The reasons for this are very simple -- FreeBSD 5 won't be ready for prime time until FreeBSD 5.4 or 5.5 -- but users are left confused and timid.
FreeBSD's last major release, which now sits highly optimized at version 4.10, works just as well as always. For systems already running with FreeBSD 4.x that see no need to adopt the new technology in FreeBSD 5 or jump to Linux, this operating system is a godsend in stability and continued support. FreeBSD 4.11 is scheduled for a February '05 release, while plans for FreeBSD 4.12 are on the backburner should FreeBSD 5 not achieve -STABLE status by the fourth quarter of 2005. But what if you need the technology available in FreeBSD 5 and don't want to jump to Linux?
FreeBSD 5, currently available at FreeBSD 5.2.1 with FreeBSD 5.3 in late beta, tantalizes the BSD world with the culmination of several year's hard work and narrow escapes. Back in the late Nineties, when WindRiver bought BSD/OS (a closed-source BSD operating system owned by the now-defunct BSDI), FreeBSD users were promised a next-generation BSD made possible by crossing the ultra-robust corporate OS with its Open Source counterpart. While WindRiver let go of its plans leaving the future of FreeBSD in peril, the realization of its goal is almost here thanks to the FreeBSD community and Apple Computer, Inc.'s contribution of FreeBSD code.
That almost is a killer, though, in that it now causes potential users to look elsewhere for modern operating system features elsewhere until FreeBSD 5 is blessed as stable. Given FreeBSD's track record and the corporate sponsors now behind its operating system, however, it has a bright future ahead of it despite these stumbling blocks. Sadly, the same can't be said for its two little brothers, NetBSD and OpenBSD.
NetBSD
NetBSD's claims to fame aren't its optimization or secure code -- it's instead known for running on a wider variety of platforms than any other operating system out there, including Linux. NetBSD's binary releases include support for an amazing 40 platforms and an additional 12 platforms in the source code. In other words, it runs on everything but the kitchen sink. NetBSD forked from the 386BSD/4.4 BSD merger in 1993 and continued on its own in parallel to FreeBSD since then, albeit at a slower pace. It's currently at version 2.6.1, with aggressive testing on the new NetBSD 2.0 promising fruition by the first half of 2005.
Those familiar with NetBSD swear by it, though its use in serious environments is limited. It is not secure and device driver support is paltry at best. NetBSD's true usefulness comes in providing developers of other operating systems -- such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Linux -- with hardware support to base their own new ports off of. For instance, much of the code for the PowerPC FreeBSD port comes from NetBSD. OpenBSD implemented support for A
I can't read the article, so I'll just post a standard response here.
:-)
While it could use some help in the ports and upgrading department
FreeBSD does quite well in both departments. For ports, you have the option of either compiling the source via a simple "make install", or installing the binaries via "pkg_add mypackage.tgz".
For OS updates, you again have a choice. To update form sources, simply run a CVSUp and type "make buildworld; make installworld". To install from binaries, pop the latest CD in, reboot, and go through the "upgrade" instructions. I honestly haven't seen any OS do a better job in package management.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
There are a few mistakes in that article.
as the site claims, there hasn't been a hole in the default install in over seven years.
Actually the claim is "Only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 8 years!"
OpenBSD runs on very few platforms and even then only in single-processor mode
If you're using an i386 system then SMP has been available for a while and is shipping in 3.6 (I have my CDs already.
OpenBSD isn't acceptable as a desktop system
I've used it as a desktop for years and the ports system works very well.
Trolling is a art,
Wow, what a crappy article. The guy couldn't even be bothered to read the websites for each project so as not to fill his article with incorrect information.
As an OpenBSD user, I quickly saw tons wrong in the OpenBSD section, I am sure its the same for Free and Net. OpenBSD's security claim is right there at the front of the main page, and he manages to get it wrong? And he says it runs on "few" platforms, and to avoid alpha and PPC, which is rediculous. The supported platforms page seems to list 12 supported platforms, and 3 more being actively worked on. And alpha and PPC are both fine, in fact some devs have only PPC machines themselves. And he also claims its single CPU only, even though it has SMP support on i386 and amd64, with PPC in the works.
Wrong : OpenBSD has sticked to its schedule of a release every 6 months (November 1 and May 1) since years, and the OpenBSD 3.6 release won't be any different (CD already started to ship to those who pre-ordered by the way).
Please be so good and enter the address http://www.freebsd.org/features.html into your web browser. Thank you very much for your effort..
No, its because the server is shared. The site's normal traffic doesn't deem a dedicated server yet... though I'm seriously considering it for times like this.
ports and packages are good ideas, but never the twain should meet.
Simply installing FreeBSD will most likely (unless you try hard to avoid it) will install some packages. Seemingly harmless, but try to upgrade one of those packages via the ports mechanism and you will begin to feel true pain, young jedi.
Ports are a better path, IMO, because they are far more frequently updated. But mixing an installation of ports and packages will send you down a compatibility and non-compiling path to hell.
Fortunately, I've figured out the trick. Avoid any packages during the initial CD install and then install everything from ports. Then you can update your ports using cvsup and upgrade your apps and likely never have a problem. Worked like a champ for me and I can run the latest releases of Firefox and Thunderbird while others have compiles of the same apps barf on them.
http://mirrordot.com/stories/4b12ececaef8d53c673f8 6b34de8fac5/index.html
Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
Also this and Wikipedia's entry on FreeBSD.
can someone name a few of these killer features?
/usr/ports/; make install" - and it just works. And then if you want the latest software, you can upgrade your entire ports tree with "cvsup ; portupgrade -ra" - automatically downloading new software, uninstalling the old and installing the newer version. It's almost the same 2 lines to keep your kernel up to date. Unless you're using software from outside the ports tree, you'll never have to mess with a .tar/.gz or .rpm ever again.
(1) Organised codebase and system layout. It seems like every Linux distribution has it's own unique layout and defaults. This inconsistency can make it a nightmare moving from one distro to another. FreeBSD has an intelligent and well-thought out placement of system features. It just feels so much more mature and calm than using a Linux system. Linux is the Wild West (expect anything) as compared to FreeBSD's civilized structure.
(2) Superb documentation. The FreeBSD handbook contains information on everything from configuring the system - to recompling the kernel. The developer's guide likewise contains everything you want to know about programming. The major documentation is all in one place, well maintained and well written.
(3) Ports tree. If something runs on FreeBSD, chances are it'll be in the ports tree. The ports tree is a system of approximately 10,000 scripts and stubs that contain instructions on how to download, compile and install various software packages. It's as simple as "cd
(4) Standard open source programs. This isn't an advantage over Linux, but just about any major open source program runs well on FreeBSD. Everything from GCC, X11, Gnome, KDE, cdrecord, OpenOffice - the list goes on.
(5) Linux compatiblity. There's a Linux translation layer that includes a copy of the Linux kernel. It's a translation layer because all the system calls are mapped directly to the underlying FreeBSD calls - with next to no performance hit. So you get to keep all the fuzzy benefits of FreeBSD - and can still run Linux binaries if you want. I have personally run the Linux version of Unreal Tournament 2003 under OpenGL hardware acceleration with no problems.
It would be interesting to see if any of them could be added to Linux
Sorry, but unless you can unite the distributions, form a unified front and stop each distro from going off and doing it's own thing - that's not happening anytime soon. Linux would have to become FreeBSD - and we already have one of those.
No, both were flamed. He says NetBSD is not secure and has poor device driver support: he doesn't know what he's talking about. NetBSD is as secure as the other BSDs and a lot more secure than linux: check the records. And if it weren't for NetBSD, FreeBSD would have pathetic device driver support. (It also wouldn't have rcNG and other innovations).
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.osvi ews.com
Apple's modified version is not the responsibility of the original BSD developers.
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
Ports and packages work just fine together. Using a port is just compiling and creating a package on your machine, and then installing it for you. pkg_info will list the packages you've installed via ports. There is no conflict or problem at all. If you had a problem, it was likely because you used 4.4 packages on a 4.3 system or something like that, meaning the dependancies would be all wrong.
Hm. No mention of DragonflyBSD. I don't have time to give it a proper blurb really, but DragonflyBSD is probably the most promising of the BSDs.
It uses a message passing framework, like a microkernel, but still keeps most things in kernel space. This quite a divergence from the other BSDs and Linux and will hopefully enable some really cool features.
Check it out for yourself at http://www.dragonflybsd.org!
I wonder if the rest of the article is as poorly researched as this:
"Every line of code is hand-audited and, as the site claims, there hasn't been a hole in the default install in over seven years. Striking a balance in hardware support somewhere between FreeBSD and NetBSD, OpenBSD runs on very few platforms and even then only in single-processor mode. [...]
OpenBSD is updated every three or four months [...]
It is dead obvious from the OpenBSD.org website that they claim one remote hole in the default install, that they are including SMP support in the version shipping week after next, and the release schedule has been every six months for many years.
This doesn't give me a lot of warm fuzzies about the accuracy of the rest of the article.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
I've never wanted a program that I couldn't run under FreeBSD--seriously!
/usr/compat/linux
Sure, a little 2k widget program you find somewhere coded especially for linux might be hard to compile on FreeBSD... but the solution is to just compile it on a linux machine (or trust a published linux binary). Why? FreeBSD runs linux binaries. It does this by emulating the linux system calls at almost no overhead and installing a set of libraries from Red Hat in
The kernel/loader takes care of the rest. Basically, linux programs tend to just work unless they depend on some special kernel module.
As for native BSD binaries. You have ports (a push-button way to compile it yourself) or packages (a push-button way to have your computer fetch a precompiled binary from the FreeBSD build cluster).
The best part? FreeBSD maintains a vulnerability database for third-part software. Installing a program that depends on a library version with a known vulnerability? make install gives you a heads up warning. Concerned about people hacking into distribution sites and putting trojans into the source and/or source? The FreeBSD team maintains their own database of MD5 which is consulted to verify that the source is the same source that past inspection by the port maintainer.
OpenBSD is tightly controlled by a madman, thus should be avoided.
Heck, the same could be said about Windows.
Anyway, I've installed OBSD on an old PC for an Internet gateway / firewall and have been nothing but happy. It's small (downloads quick), robust, secure. Power failures? Reboots automatically and continues w/ no problem, it has required 0 maintenance (other than, for example, checking authlog and changing ssh port for all the ssh scanners out there recently). It VPN's to a Linksys box, has dyndns client, and much, much more.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
A long time (well, relatively speaking- (6 years)) user of Linux i'm finding myself spending more and more time in my FreeBSD installation than anything else.
/. readers would have too). It's more elegant in that UNIX way. Things are less complicated through better design and implimentation.
This isn't a rant against linux- Debian and Slackware have both been very good, stable, and fun for me over the years. I have no regrets! But i must say that the grass is greener on the FreeBSD side of the fence, at least for my purposes.
Package management is concise and consistent. The whole OS and all its packages can be found in one place. No sifting through rpmfind.net (we have RH machines at work), sourceforge or freshmeat, or any other craziness. Documentation is well done and up to date. Software installation is almost mindless. Configuring the kernel is amazingly simple. The gripes about hardware support and detection seem to be a non-issue for the hardware i have (which is pretty typical of what 90% of
The BSD folks highlight how the BSD system is all made by one small team, vs. GNU/Linux being made by hundreds or thousands of folks on separate projects. I must attest that there truly *is* a difference in the end product. Everything in a BSD system "fits" and "gets along".
Once again- this isn't a criticism of linux either. The `fragmented' or `modular' method of assembling a GNU/Linux system gives it other strenghts in different areas that some BSD systems might otherwise not have. It's all about the right tool for the job.
A side benefit of the BSD side of the fence is the lack of Crusading To Subjugate The World type of mentality. It's all about the UNIXy goodness instead, which is why -I- got away from Windows in the first place. I find this a very refreshing change.
do() || do_not();
Although FreeBSD is well suited for desktops, it is generally used on servers. The FreeBSD kernel is tweeked for security, performance and stability. Also, FreeBSD can run most Linux code about as fast as the Linux kernel can run the same software. TrustedBSD is being developed which is supposed to eventually make it's way back into the main FreeBSD code. The TrustedBSD Access Control Lists and file system Extended Attribute Support modules are available in FreeBSD 5.0.
No, it was a hole in OpenSSH (also the OpenBSD version of Apache contains a lot of patches and runs chrooted)
Trolling is a art,
This article text was already smelling bad, and the strong points of next version of darwin are:
"support for Java 1.5, XHTML 2.0 and CSS 3.0"
Yeah. Sure.
Ports Tricks
Portupgrade
Cleaning and Customizing Your Ports
Besides being well written, they contain a couple of hacks that turned my port maintenance tasks into piece of cake :-)
I use FreeBSD on an in-depth basis daily in a FreeBSD based development house. I wouldn't call myself a guru, but I know wtf I'm talking about.
I know what packages to get for my system. Packages are rarely updated. Ports are updated frequently. Use both and you're mixing old code with new requirements and you will feel pain.
Packages work fine by themselves. But if you ever want to upgrade your browser with the current release, you'll need to use a port. If you ever want to upgrade gnome, you'll need to use a port. If you ever want to upgrade just about anything, you'll need to use a port.
By keeping to just ports on your system, you only have to resolve the needs of one mechanism. And that pretty much works. Since I took that approach, my upgrades have been headache free.
If you don't agree, fine, suit yourself. Spend hours futzing with builds. I'd rather be USING the system or be off doing something more enjoyable with my time.
If you haven't used one of the BSDs, why not give FreeBSD a try with the FreeSBIE Live CD? FreeSBIE lets you try out FreeBSD and a wide array of its applications without needing to install anything on your hard disk.
FreeBSD is worth advocating, but I bet the avergage BSD connoisseur can come up with better arguments. The article is full of stereotypes and garbage. I really wonder if the author really took an hour to visit the WEBSITES, let alone experimenting with the systems by himself:
The new FreeBSD 5 branch offers some exciting technology, generally regarded as comparable with or superior to what is offered in Linux...while plans for FreeBSD 4.12 are on the backburner should FreeBSD 5 not achieve -STABLE status by the fourth quarter of 2005.
What a fair comparison, let's benchmark STABLE technology available in Linux by the end of 2004 with technology that might be stable in FreeBSD by the end of 2005!
[NetBSD] it's currently at version 2.6.1, with aggressive testing on the new NetBSD 2.0 promising fruition by the first half of 2005...Those familiar with NetBSD swear by it, though its use in serious environments is limited.
OK, first of all, NetBSD is at version 1.6.2, not 2.6.1, and if you are looking for "serious environments", what if I tell you that the world's fastest computer is running NetBSD? Maybe NASA's Lewis Research Center, NEC Europe and Sony Japan do not count as "serious environments". http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/research.html.
Forking from NetBSD in 1995 after a very heated -- and embarrassing -- personal argument, OpenBSD's one and only focus is to offer security. Every line of code is hand-audited and, as the site claims, there hasn't been a hole in the default install in over seven years. Striking a balance in hardware support somewhere between FreeBSD and NetBSD, OpenBSD runs on very few platforms and even then only in single-processor mode.
I don't know who got embarrassed w/ that argument, but certainly not Theo since he keeps a record of it in his own personal website for visitors to see:http://zeus.theos.com/deraadt/coremail.html. There hasn't been a hole in the default install in over EIGHT years, not seven.
OpenBSD runs on very few platforms and even then only in single-processor mode
OpenBSD runs in more platforms than FreeBSD!!! http://www.openbsd.org/plat.html
OpenBSD isn't acceptable as a desktop system or 3D workstation, however...One factor that mars OpenBSD's fair weather is its primary developer, Theo de Raadt...developers may wish to remain wary of this platform and its creator.
What a bunch of nonsense! I've been using OpenBSD in my desktop for years, and had developers listened to you, OpenSSH wouldn't exist, nor have over 88 percent of the SSH server market!http://www.openssh.com/press.html
I could go on and on, but I got tired already. I wonder why you guys promote these articles.
No, even the mascot is referred to as daemon, as in the friendly daemon, not the evil demon.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
The BSD's TCP/IP stack has always been considered supperior and records have been broken in terms or raw i/o.
/etc and in /usr/local/examples/etc(if you use 5.x) which have things like "To add this feature uncomment this line".
/etc with commented options to enable/disable functions. No complex Csh or Bash scripts like Linux that make it difficult if not impossible to customize. Its more reminiscent to the unix way of everything is a file metaphor. Also no symlinks in /etc to god knows where like in Redhat. God I can't stand to work with it for that reason. It makes administration a nightmare. And no init levels and rc.d in etc. BSD inits is alot more simple and predates sysV.
The BSD's are generally more stable and unixlike in terms of stability and reliablity. If you have used Solaris you will feel at home with a FreeBSD install.
Tradionally BSD had better scsi, raid, and USB support than Linux which made it a more server and professional oriented operating system but that gap is now closed. Infact Adeptec writes their drives for FreeBSD first and then ports them to Linux and Solarisx86 next! They would not even touch Linux before kernel 2.4.
Last the documentation and way its installed is supperior. ITs not glitzy like Linux which tries to do everything under the sun( that can lead to buggy and uncustomizable environment.). In Linux you have programs to change settings similiar to Windows. In FreeBSD you have alot of files in
Files are mostly RC in
Last, I have the ports which are more tested and reliable in my opinion than the less tested and more beta portage in Gentoo.
http://saveie6.com/
But, I couldn't let this slide (even giving up my mod points): counting security advisories is just not a good way to judge the relative security of an OS, especially one of the more uncommon ones. SecurityFocus has no vulnerabilities listed for either MS-DOS or EROS, but few people would conclude that both operating systems were equally secure, or that MS-DOS's unblemished security record means it's more secure than OpenBSD (which has many dozens of vulnerabilites listed, most of which are advisories for bundled programs like Apache which OpenBSD nevertheless takes responsibility for).
Even worse, the more that people are believed to be using vulnerability lists to compare OSes, the more pressure vendors feel to improve their scores by sweeping security problems under the rug. Microsoft is notorious in this regard -- years after promising to make security their #1 focus, whenever they think they can get away with it they continue to hide known security bugs from sysadmins (who would be able to deploy work-arounds if they were told about the problems) in favor of silently sneaking the fixes into the next service pack many months later.
Here's a story from
Now that it comes to my mind: the gap is probably not closing, but widening. This is an example of superiority that probably relates specifically to version 5.x.
Btw, benchmarks are important, but personally I've got other reasons to use FreeBSD: stability, reliability, clean and consistent design, and last but not least the less restrictive BSD license (and please, no more discussions on this point: while the restrictions of the GPL might be considered desirable by some people, they're restrictions nonetheless).