FreeBSD 5.3 RC2 Released
ValiantSoul writes "FreeBSD 5.3 Release Candidate 2 was just released. This new RC includes an updated network stack that fixes a bug where the system stops responding when under severe network load, the complete disabling of the ULE scheduler due to instability, and other fixes. Originally the FreeBSD team decided not to release a RC 2 however the fixes in the latest CURRENT were important enough to do so. As long as there are no severe problems with RC 2, this will be the last test release until a final one. See the full announcement on the mailing lists."
Whell, FreeBaSeD is only on Version 5.3 - speak to the hand, thats so like 2002 retro - You aren't all that and a bag of potato chips.
Like whateva, Solaris is on version 8 and Fedora is on 9, Slickware is leading with 10, Gentoo is Gentoo is.... As if I would use something so not invouge. I run this click so I might just use 2003 since it has such highya numba.
Where is my lip gloss. Don't mess with me. I'm one crazy mo-fo. I once popped a cop cause he wasn't giving my props in Oak town. I've heard that somewhere.
#3 shouldn't have been in the list, I meant that to be part of the last paragraph. That was a pretty amateur thing to do.
You mean I just made a coaster and a frisbie? I just downloaded RC1 last week and burned them onto two CDs. Now I have to wait for 5.3 to come out before I burn two more CDs. By the way, does anyone want two used CD-Rs?
I don't like it when they tell me that RC1 is most likely the final release candidate and then release another release candidate. I might just stick to 4.10 for the near, and possibly distant, future as I have heard of some performance slowdowns in the 5 branch when compared to the 4 branch on single processor machines.
This is just more proof that the folks over at FreeBSD are committed to releasing nothing that's not at-or-near perfect. For sure, nothing will hold the -RELEASE tag unless I'd run it at home if not in a production environment.
Personally, I'm happy that they're more concerned with stability than they are with the release schedual. The bugs in RC1 were pretty severe if not overreaching.
Afraid not, the kernel is all hacked in house, along with the userland tools to make it a Real OS.
I am really impressed with the work that went into this RC. GDB fixes, plus work on memory allocations and networking data structures.
Bravo! I hereby increase my bid to $52,000.
Sincerely,
Jeff Merkey
(Please remember that directing vitriol against the mentally disabled may be a violation of Federal Hate Crimes statues)
Yeah, but this release is probably just to show off to the NetBSD team that the FreeBSD team has the guts to stick with the demon logo.
Lemon curry???
Anyway, i wouldn't give a damn buck for a BSD licensed FreeBSD kernel...
"1. Why not fix the new schedular?" "2. Why did it take so long for them to realise it wasn't going to work" 5.x has been too slow. They want to release a stable, functional operative system. Despite of the lack of the ULE scheduler there're a lot of stable areas and new features in FreeBSD 5.X which people need in the real world to solve real problems. Hence the "need" of a 5.x-based "stable" release, to leave 4.x behind (just for mainteinance) and start to work 100% with 5.X. The ULE scheduler has some problems but it also has a lot of good things that work, it'll be just delayed to get maximum stability for 5.3. It looks like they don't want to have Yet Another Delay. Other operative systems (linux 2.6, windows, other BSDs) are also a natural competition for freebsd and freebsd needs a stable 5.x to face them because 4.X is just old and misses lots of features. I'd guess the ULE scheduler will be fixed and enabled by default in 5.4.
not meaning to troll, but isn't linux certed to have faster networking than FBSD now? please post links in reply so we can discuss evidence, I just remember hearing a whole heap of BSDers always claim the networking is better and then someone counter-claiming that linux had FBSDs scalp finally.
[Man with OS slung over his shoulder] 'ere's one!
[FreeBSD, slung over shoulder] But I'm not dead yet!
[Man with cart] 'e sez e's not dead.
[Man with OS] Don't mind 'im, what does he know?
[Man with cart] Well
[FreeBSD] Netcraft? Netcraft! Well, that bloody does it!
FreeBSD jumps off the second man's shoulder and begins to club both men, vigorously.
See what I've been reading.
Flatery aint going to get you shit my dear.
...includes an updated network stack ...
In other news, Microsoft has declared they have just improved the network-stack of Windows XP, making it more robust under heavy loads....
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
i'm using 1024x768 @75Hz (128 columns of text!) and it's a dream for coding in. i don't wanna use X, so only way i'll be happy in fbsd is if i can get big BIG console windows like this. anywhere from 128 to 132 cols is good enough for me.
(i already checked fbsd web site man pages for wscons, and it looks like 800x600 with 90 cols is the max???)
What is the best way to upgrade to this version? Download the CDs? Through the ports? Do you have some sort of strange method that no one else has heard of?
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
earth to mods, i was joking.
some time ago there was something happenning about grapgics for the console, hmm let me google...
http://people.freebsd.org/~nsouch/kgi4BSD/
Flatery? Isn't that what the Japanese call that Lord of the Dance guy? Did you mean Flattery?
SchedulAAAARRRRRR!!!!
Those are some cheap chocolate bars you've got (ours are at least 35p, typically). Also some expensive CD-Rs. I can get CD-Rs for around a nickel (2-3p, about) apiece.
+++ATH0
The ULE scheduler was supposed to be the default scheduler. It was placed as the default in 5.2. Between 5.2 and 5.3 kernel preemption was enabled. Some serious flaws in ULE popped up leading to crashes and other instability. Due to the complexity of ULE and preemption together only a handful of core people are able to fix this.
Since 5.x has been hold back long enough it was decided to drop ULE as the default scheduler for 5.3 and concentrate on releasing 5.3.
This doesn't mean that nobody is working on fixing the problem nor that ULE will not be the default scheduler. It is just going to take a while before it happens.
The reason for totally disabling ULE in 5.3 was to focus on other bugs in 5.3 and fix ULE on current (6.0) and then backport this to a later 5.x release.
I suggest you read cvs-src summaries at http://www.xl0.org/FreeBSD/ which gives a view on what is happening on current.
damn, we're 3 now?!? Who's the new one?
This 5.3 release is full of bugs and is slow too. It still does not release the Big Giant Lock like it was promised a year ago. It looks like it's time to give the DragonFly branch of FreeBSD 4 a try.
I've been running FreeBSD 4.x on my web and database servers for a while. I'm about ready to buy some new hardware, and I'd love to put 5.x on it, but after looking at the release notes for 5, it appears that they are urging me not to do this. So I guess I'll go with 4.10 on my new machines. Does anyone know when the 5 branch will be ready? Is 5.3 final going to be it? If so, how many more months before it arrives?
and recommended over 4.10?
what's the main difference between ULE and the one that will come with 5.3-RELEASE? what difference does that make to a sysadmin that has absolutely no clue of c programming? what features am i missing without ULE?
I remember a few months ago that 5.3 was the target for making the 5.X branch the official "stable" branch. Any word on when 5.X goes stable if not with this release?
"Watch your cornhole, bud."
Good, then that means I can use it in commercial embedded systems without the encumbrance of the GPL.
It's great to have choice!
Let's not get too huffy here about ULE. Anyone care to bring remember the ugly VM wars of the early 2.4 series? Even now there's still plenty of LKM traffic over scheduling in the 2.6 kernel. The unfortunate thing is that I think a bunch of the work is for naught. I believe Dragonfly (at least in concept) will end up being much more scalable. If that proves true, I'd hope that down the road they re-merge to focus resources on IMHO is the most robust of the FOSS OS's.
My daemon pumpkin http://www.joyrank.com/misc/daemon-finish-20041028 .jpg
I did Tux last year with a stencil I found on the net so this year I made the daemon one from scratch. Kinda rough in a few places but overall, I was pretty satisfied with the results.
Cheers,
I once tried to install FreeBSD on my system. I couldn't get X and many other apps to work. And installation wasn't very "pleasant". So, here is my question: Can an ordinary user like me use FreeBSD?
The release was all ready to go out, imperfect and buggy as it was, but was called off at the last minute due to 2 of the numerous bugs lying around in FreeBSD 5.3. Who knows how many more bugs there are just waiting to bite an unsuspecting FreeBSD user who naively believes the FreeBSD 5 experimental warning is finally ready to be lifted. This last minute recall does not inspire confidence at all.
Well, it must be a security feature. When you are under a DOS attack, stop processing requests...
I thought a release candidate was supposed to be the actual code which would be released, unless problems were found in it. That is, the final release candidate should be *exactly* the same as the final release. Somehow, 'release candidate' has become just another synonym for beta version.
If changes are made after the final release candidate, then they haven't been tested in the real world.
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD
Incidentally, jeffr just came back and applied a couple of significant fixes to ULE, notably the KSE+ULE+PREEMPTION that was the primary reason it was disabled. Now let's hope its speed can be brought up to 4BSD levels for server tasks (assuming that it hasn't got better since the last benchmarking was done, which may not be true), so it can be turned back on and give us back that desktop-interactivity love.
(Parent post was definitely accurate on the reasoning)
Get the CD and install on a spare machine. BEAT THE HELL OUT OF IT.
If you find a bug you will be a GOD in the eyes of those that want to run 5.3 production-style.
I vote wait untill that release is FULLY READY TO GO OUT THE DOOR. 5.3 is critical to further acceptance of FreeBSD, further commercial funding support, further legitimacy of the platform, and confidence in the developers/Release Engineering team.
If you need it now, run the RC. Unless a TON of people need 5.3 NOW, the developers should feel no pressure to get it out the door. They should feel pressure to get testers to find problems. They should feel pressure to find people that like inflicting damage on a running OS. Find those twisted individuals and give them a RC CD and a keyboard. Hear their stories.
Make it good as the worlds's eyes will be upon this relase and any further potential problems. RC2 should be fixing a much smaller list of bugs.
WE'RE STILL PLAYING AROUND WITH SCHEDULER CHOICES!! ???? I'd suggest more RCs. Blank CD-R media is CHEAP. Corporate downtime when bugs are discovered 1.5 weeks out from a release IS NOT!
Test Test Test Test Test. Beat the hell out of it - portinstall all ports. Rock the box and see how she holds. Try and crash it. Pound it from the network. Pull a live disk. JMP to a block of random bytes. Run 200 instances of your JVM. Start up as many desktop applications as possible. Try and kill your install and see how Beastie holds.....
5.3 is going to ROCK but SHOULD NOT BE RUSHED!!! If it needs time, by all means give RE-team time!
I hope we don't have to see a 5.3.1 release.
Perhaps the developers should require a certain variation in hardware platforms tested on or a given number of people to run it with no problems before final release.
(I don't run FreeBSD in a corporate environment or profess to know much about RE's testing process. Just trying to get in people's heads that extreme testing WILL make this release a HUGE success.)
Who modded this piece of shit spic up? All his saying is bullshit, and what the hell are "operative systems"?
Puto sudaca.
HawkinsOS, total pwnage.
Jeff Roberson, the only person who understands the ULE code has been away for some months. I have patches that fix 2/3 of the bugs (some of the PREEMPTION stuff is nasty), and I'll happily donate them as soon as I see a public apology by DES and PHK.
HawkinsOS, FreeBSD 5.3 done right.
Your fetish with the reminds me of a Billy Mays commercial. Hold it down. Seriously...
Wow, that's a lot of dying sites! I think that is the internet version of the "Black Death".
Look here:
Presentation on new things in Network Stack for 5.3
I think it was an excellent idea to delay the release and revert to the older scheduler. I installed RC1, and am using it now for ordinary day to day desktop stuff. In general it seems to be an excellent release, but within the first week of use, I experienced problems that seem to be problems with the scheduler. It's only a sample size of one, admittedly, but I think it indicates that the problems with the scheduler were not esoteric ones that would only bother a few people.
Find free books.
Sorry about the yelling people.
I LOVE FreeBSD!!! I really can't wait for this release. Actually I can (perhaps unlike others), but it does excite me quite a bit. Just wish I had a MP machine on which to play....
Developers. Developers. Developers. You're all beautiful. Your work is wonderful. You code so we don't have to. Kudos, thanks, and appreciation to the Nth!
Same goes for the testers. FreeBSD wouldn't be where it is today if it weren't for you installing untested code on your machines and diligently reporting problems and fixes. Cheers to you brave, brave souls.
Shoutouts to the documentation crew! THE HANDBOOK ROCKS and has since I started reading it. What a value. It comes free! Free OS, Free docs. What's not to love???
Port maintainers. Put up your hands for these guys. A wide range of code setup for flawless builds with a single command.
Wizardry. Pure wizardry.
But fear not: it's not a plague. Actually, you know, it often makes your PC go definitely faster. :)
About FreeBSD's Network Stack
Do the ULE scheduler problems have anything to do with XMMS skipping while doing certain other things? For example, every time I mouse over a link in Firefox, XMMS skips a bit even though Firefox is niced at +10. This is really the only thing that still bugs me about my new 5.3 RC1 install...
I just upgraded my desktop at work to RC2 from 5.2.1. The hiccups were minimal (remove PFIL_HOOKS, add devices io and mem, re-download HFS support), and for my trouble my problems getting my iPod to talk to the USB 2.0 interfaces have all gone away. While I was at it, I added LDAP NSS and PAM support ports and am now a very happy camper! Kudos to everyone involved.
Look, I too suffered from the same halitosis, foot odor, kronik badd speehlin, and social ineptitude as T.J. Hawkins.....then I read THIS!!! It changed my life, and for only $132/year it can change yours, too! How, you ask? None of your business, asshole, 'cause that's proprietary - just like all of the Really Big & Important Software projects. Read on.....
Look, I've been doing consulting work for nearly 15 years. About the site, I had to put up an old copy because after that thread several FreeBSD members broke into my network and nearly deleted everything. I'm 75% sure that it's the work of Dag-Erling and his friends, as most of the packets and exploit attempts (until they succeded) were coming from Norway and Denmark.
I've sold 2,000 copies and made money off *my* work. How many copies has the FreeBSD foundation sold? Oh, that's what I thought, becuase 5.3 is not usable in a production environment, not without my patches. And guess what, they won't be getting my patches unless I see public apology from DES and PHK.
Support my [hawkinsos.com] operating system!
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=amd64/
There is a patch, but its not being committed. Anyone know why? How come the patch exists.... works perfectly.... and isn't being commited?
Look, I too suffered from the same halitosis, foot odor, kronik badd speehlin, and social ineptitude as T.J. Hawkins.....then I read THIS!!! It changed my life, and for only $132/year it can change yours, too! How, you ask? None of your business, asshole, 'cause that's proprietary - just like all of the Really Big & Important software projects. Read on:
Look, I've been doing consulting work for nearly 15 years. About the site, I had to put up an old copy because after that thread several FreeBSD members broke into my network and nearly deleted everything. I'm 75% sure that it's the work of Dag-Erling and his friends, as most of the packets and exploit attempts (until they succeded) were coming from Norway and Denmark.
I've sold 2,000 copies and made money off *my* work. How many copies has the FreeBSD foundation sold? Oh, that's what I thought, becuase 5.3 is not usable in a production environment, not without my patches. And guess what, they won't be getting my patches unless I see public apology from DES and PHK.
Support my [hawkinsos.com] operating system!
Most Reliable Hosting Providers during October
and the 4th is a bsd as well
I'm primarily a desktop user of FreeBSD, and I miss ULE soo much (hiccups in mplayer - and even JUK sometimes - during compile with 4BSD, and general responsivity issues - on the desktop of course).
Just a minor correction (granpda) : ULE was not made the default scheduler in 5.2/5.2.1! In fact, I think that was the main problem (switching to ULE only in current later meant less exposure, and less chance to find the bugs as early as possible, less time to work on those bugs, etc...)