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FreeBSD 4.11-RC2 Available
hugo_pt writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 4.11-RC2. This is the second of three scheduled release candidates. At the moment there are no known severe issues. However the Linux Emulation subsystem (mostly added as a package) has been completely updated based on Red Hat 8.0. We would appreciate people testing the Linux emulation support. In particular testing to see if Linux applications continue to behave correctly if the linux_* packages get installed while using sysinstall(8) during the initial installation of the machine. The package set for disc1 is still being decided on, what is on disc1 for this RC will most likely change before the release."
Forgive my ignorance, since I don't usually follow the FreeBSD distro (having moved from NetBSD to RedHat over four years ago). But it seems a bit late to be targeting the Linux emulation towards RedHat 8.0. Not only has RedHat 9 already been obsoleted by Fedora, but 8.0 was extremely short-lived (even by RedHat's usual release timeline) having had numerous problems. In addition, before the days of RedHat Enterprise, RedHat recommended that users requiring stability stick with 7.2 (or something around there).
FreeBSD:
FreeBSD, Stealth-Growth Open Source Project (Jun 2004)
"FreeBSD has dramatically increased its market penetration over the last year."
Nearly 2.5 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (Jun 2004)
"[FreeBSD] has secured a strong foothold with the hosting community and continues to grow, gaining over a million hostnames and half a million active sites since July 2003."
What's New in the FreeBSD Network Stack (Sep 2004)
"FreeBSD can now route 1Mpps on a 2.8GHz Xeon whilst Linux can't do much more than 100kpps."
NetBSD:
NetBSD sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (May 2004)
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record (30 Sep 2004)
OpenBSD:
OpenBSD Widens Its Scope (Nov 2004)
Review: OpenBSD 3.6 shows steady improvement (Nov 2004)
*BSD in general:
..and last but not least, we have the cutest mascot as well - undisputedly. ;)
Deep study: The world's safest computing environment (Nov 2004)
"The world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin."
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Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.
May be you miss a thing, FreeBSD is not a commercial project/OS. The market share or some other shits is not a goal of FreeBSD (and maybe it's also right for others *BSD). So, please stop trolling here. I use both Windows and FreeBSD, and I love them, I don't care if they are popular or not. They help me solve my problems, help me understanding more prety things and that's enough.
MS-DOS since 6.0, Windows since 3.1, Novell Netware since 4.5 and FreeBSD since 4.5
the issue I had was with some closed-source (sigh) software that was linked against old old libc. it was a $200 mp3 encoder that I bought and ran fine under RH6.x. but never under later versions. even running this binary under modern LINUXs caused problems. this being the best encoder I have ever heard - and having paid $200 of my own money for it - I really wanted this to work. and since I'm now a 100% freebsd user, I needed this to work with bsd.
it does now. I'm sooo happy about it. finally I can get rid of all my linux compute-servers on my mp3 render farm. they are now all 4.11 bsd boxes and couldn't be happier.
I'll probably submit this to the bsd guys, but it would be nice if they included these files as well. I needed them for this last level of linux emulation:
compat/linux/lib/libc.so.5
compat/linux/lib/li
compat/linux/lib/ld-linux.so.1
those get you libc (not glibc) compat, from what I can tell. when I did an LDD on the mp3 encoder binary, it showed this:this is the first time since freebsd 3.4 (I think) that I've gotton this old linux binary to run under freebsd.
again, yay!
great work guys. you made my week.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Can someone clarify FreeBSD's terminology? I thought a release candidate was different from a beta (known in FreeBSD-speak as a -STABLE).
Usually with a Linux base update there is a package for it. So far the only ones available are:
linux_base-6.1_6
linux_base-7.1_7
The package spare those of us with limited bandwidth from having to download a billion rpms and the tools needed to manage those rpms.
The difference has to do with the types of changes that can be committed. Basically, it is harder to get a change approved after the RC stage.
Check out the FreeBSD Release Engineering page for more info.
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
Nearly 2 Million Active Sites running FreeBSD (July 2003)
"[FreeBSD] is the only other operating system [the other ones are windows and linux] that is gaining, rather than losing share of the active sites found by the Web Server Survey."
I think it's true that market share has little importance for the BSDs, but before taking for granted what a troll says, it's always good to check it out. ;)
One more thing: I don't think that guy simply "wants to troll" as you put it. Since his/her/its FUD-spreading activity has been going on for *years*, that would probably qualify as something else. :)
(Of course I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility of a mental issue
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Being able to read *other people's* source code is a nice thing, not a 'fundamental freedom'.
Oh, thank you a lot for your comment. I'm just new here and I really misunderstand the situation :)
MS-DOS since 6.0, Windows since 3.1, Novell Netware since 4.5 and FreeBSD since 4.5
Same old FUD, that has been disproved countless times...
This paper presents a suite of benchmarks and results for comparing the performance of these operating systems. The benchmarks target core operating system functionality, server scalability and thread implementation. These benchmarks are useful server-based criteria for demanding applications such as loaded webservers, databases, and voice-over-IP (VoIP) media relays. The results indicate that NetBSD has surpassed FreeBSD in performance on nearly every benchmark and is poised to grab the title of the best operating system for the server environment.''
Full paper: http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/gmcgarry/
"The results indicate that NetBSD has surpassed FreeBSD in performance on nearly every benchmark and is poised to grab the title of the best operating system for the server environment."
While an interresting UP benchmark it in no way says anything about performance for SMP machines and 64-bit CPUs. That is what matters for most servers today (at least those that would be suitable for a new OS) and that's where all servers will be tomorrow.
Life is what happened when Good Intentions met Harsh Reality (the brother of the more infamous Chaos).
FreeBSD is already known to have made a lousy AMD64 implementation, a lousy SMP implementation (which, on 2-way and probably 4-way SMP machines, is actually SLOWER than NetBSD 2's giant lock model), and haven't even finished supporting their new kernel facilities on Sparc64 and Alpha.
So if this test was even possible on a 64 bit CPU in SMP mode, it wouldn't save FreeBSD. The source is out there though, so why not run it yourself? Of course it won't help because all of those are UP-centric micro benchmarks, and you'll just have to run, say, an Apache or MySQL bench.
We're waiting for your report eagerly.
Sam ty sig.
Actually, I just re-read your post, and noticed you have no clue at all. Let me explain: an algorithm is an algorithm. It doesn't matter if it's running on a machine with one or two procs, one instance of the algorithm will still only run on one processor at a time. It doesn't matter if it's 64 bit or 32 bit, since NetBSD is 64-bit-clean and hence doesn't have nasty side effects; let's assume FreeBSD is up to scratch on this as well. The algorithms will still scale the same and, if the instruction horse power is equivalent, take the same time.
What you said was "this is a great display of how a person can run, but it doesn't say anything about how he would run with a friend or on a Thursday!"
Sam ty sig.
On the other hand: nice (micro)benchmarks! Thanks :) It appears that FreeBSD developers know of these issues:
You may find the the rest here. It is also a pity that some troll spammed every single FreeBSD mailing list with a "haha, freebsd developers suxorz, especiall PHK and DES" kinda message. Reminds you anyone we know?If you read my post again then you must also have noted that I never mentioned algorithms but the notion parent used that "is poised to grab the title of the best operating system for the server environment."
m ance/2005-January/001019.html
What I did not clarify is that I ment proper server tests with actual workloads where SMP machines are used. The benchmarks are mostly checking the microoptimisations of a UP machine and it is well known that the current state of FreeBSD 5 is not optimized towards that. I also assume that you have missed the bug where hundreds of cycles where wasted when doing Mutex releases. A lot has happened since 6-CURRENT was created and 5.4 is only looking nicer day by day.
You also fail to realise that I in no way have any problems with NetBSD being faster (as I use it on my backup machine).
However, as history with FreeBSD and Linux have shown, why do you think a BGL SMP implementation would scale better than a FGL implementation? Even given the clean lean source of NetBSD? Just curious.
NetBSDs performance is looking very nice but don't make too sweeping assumptions about actual server performance based on this alone and that is also what the paper says in the end. More benchmarks needed.
BTW, regarding the actual benchmarks, rwatson had an interresting comment about it http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-perfor
Life is what happened when Good Intentions met Harsh Reality (the brother of the more infamous Chaos).
Apologies, I guess I misunderstood your post as saying the benchmarks were run on the wrong kind of system, rather than the benchmarks being used for sweeping assumptions.
So 5-STABLE is actually becoming worth using, you say? I'd like to try that, in fact I will when I can afford to (currently only two machines under my control and both are life-critical, for my life anyway). I've really wanted to get back into FreeBSD, it's highly usable and all, but my negative experience with 5.3 (yes, even tracking -STABLE for a month or so) put me off.
Has anything been said on the topic of the new, stupid disk sync style? Unlike all other systems which sync their dirty buffers quickly and know about it, FreeBSD 5 now can generate MORE dirty buffers during syncing and has to wait for 3 consecutive "no really, it's all clear this time" checks before being satisfied; and each check is spaced about a second. This results in possibly 5-10 seconds spent just waiting for disk syncing, which is digusting compared to near-instant syncs in other systems.
Anyway, does anyone want to run an Apache or other bench on a 64-bit SMP system with NetBSD 2_stable and FreeBSD 5.3-STABLE? Be worth a look I'd say. I wouldn't run a server based on small performance merit myself, it'd all come down to administration, cleanliness, security and stability... but then I don't pay for my hardware myself.
Sam ty sig.