Looking at FreeBSD 6 and Beyond

Provataki writes "OSNews published an interview with core FreeBSD developers John Baldwin, Robert Watson and Scott Long. They discuss about the upcoming FreeBSD 6 and its new features, the competition, TrustedBSD, Darwin and much more."

Comments

Not much info on Darwin

[dancpsu]

From the article:

The TrustedBSD Audit support originated in large part from Mac OS X, and we really appreciate Apple's work with us to develop audit support, and their support in getting it out into open source. One of the outcomes of this will be our (TrustedBSD's) continuing maintainership of OpenBSM, a bundling of the libraries, documentation, and command line tools, which will be portable across a host of operating systems including FreeBSD, Darwin, and Linux. This sort of arrangement can be a strong motivator for companies like Apple to release software under open source -- we're already preparing bundles of documentation and feature enhancements that we hope they will be able to adopt back into Mac OS X.

I'm glad Apple is helping out, but I was hoping they would go more into the BSD kernel api that's appearing in Tiger.

Re:Not much info on Darwin

[ocelotbob]

They're separate projects. While Darwn may have started out with FreeBSD roots, that was several years ago. Both projects have moved on and changed considerably since then. At this point, having FreeBSD developers discuss Darwin's API is little more relevant than having Steve Ballmer discuss the BSD kernel API in Tiger.

Re:Not much info on Darwin

[DECS]

Hardly.

When Apple aquired NeXT, NeXTSTEP for Mach was Mach+4.2 BSD. Apple used their experience with mkLinux (which was also a Mach kernel combined with a *nix userland) to modernize the kernel.

Part of this effort involved bringing 4.2 BSD up to date with more modern developments from all of the BSD projects, but primarily FreeBSD. Apple continues to incorporate technologies from *BSD projects, despite Darwin being separately maintained.

Clearly, FreeBSD has a lot more in common with OS X / Darwin than Windows NT does, even if some parts (the kernel obviously, and Darwin's driver IO Kit) are significantly different.

Re:Not much info on Darwin

[ocelotbob]

But the original topic was the kernel api, which has, by your own admission even, significant differences. Now if you were discussing userland, you may have had a point, but not kernel API

FreeBSD is going strong. Linux OTOH is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another sickening blow has struck what's left of the Linux community, as a soon-to-be-released report by the independent Commision for Technology Management (CTM) after a year-long study has concluded: Linux is already dead. Here are some of the commission's findings:

Fact: Linux has balkanized yet again. There are now no less than 140 separate, competing Linux distros, each of which has introduced fundamental incompatibilities with the other distros, and frequently with Unix standards. Average number of developers in each project (except for Redhat and Novell/Suse): fewer than five. Average number of users per project: there are no definitive numbers, but reports show that all projects are on the decline.

Fact: The trivial issue os what to call Linux continues to hound Linux. At a recent Linux conference in San Francisco, a fight broke out between RMS (Richard M. Stallman) who says Linux should be called GNU/Linux and Linus Torvalds who created Linux and says that Linux should be called Linux. This led to a massive barroom style brawl involving at least 150 Linux geeks. The SFPD was called out to break up the melee, and arrested 150 people. It was estimated that at least 2 to 3 times that many were involved in the brawl, but there wasn't enough police on hand to arrest or count all of them. Sixty one people were hospitalized as a result of this brawl, and one person is still in a coma. Another three people had to get their jaws wired shut.

Fact: Linux is plagued by a lack of professionalism. The stereotype of Linux users being fat unwashed dateless geeks who still live in their parents' basements and refuse to shower more than once a month is all too true. The best example of this is RMS who claims to have a "water phobia" and thus rarely bathes. RMS also looks like he has been living in a cave for the last 5 years. In fact, RMS has been arrested twice because he has been mistaken for Osama Bin Laden. While RMS has always been found to not be Osama Bin Laden, it has created a perception of that Linux is the "terrorist operating system". Linus Torvalds has been forced to spend a great deal of time correcting this perception instead of working on the Linux kernel. Alan Cox quit Linux kernel development since he got tired of everyone saying that he was a terrorist.

Fact: There are almost no Connectiva developers left, and its use, according to Netcraft, is down to a sadly crippled .005% of internet servers. This led to Mandrakesoft, makers of another troubled distro, to purchase Connectiva and become Mandriva. However, industry anaylists say that this will not help since Mandriva is already a shell of its former self.

Fact: X.org will not include support for Redhat's Fedora project. The newly formed group believes that Fedora has strayed too far from Unix standards and have become too difficult to support along with other Linux distros and Solaris x86. "It's too much trouble," said one anonymous developer. "If they want to make their own standards, let them doing the porting for us."

Fact: Ubuntu Linux, yet another offshoot of the beleaguered Debian "distro", is already collapsing under the weight of internal power struggles and in-fighting. "They haven't done a single decent release," notes Mark Baron, an industry watcher and columnist. "Their mailing lists read like an online version of a Jerry Springer episode, complete with food fights, swearing, name-calling, and chair-throwing. It also doesn't help that most people think the word, "Ubuntu", is an obscure term for a homosexual orgy." Netcraft reports that Ubuntu Linux is run on exactly 0% of internet servers. An attempt to save Ubuntu by creating a derivative distro called Kubuntu has also failed.

Fact: Debian Linux, which claims to focus on "being free" (whatever that is supposed to mean), is slow, and cannot take advantage of multiple CPUs. "That about drove the last nail in the coffin for Linux use here," said Michael Curry, CTO of Amazon.com. "We took our Debian boxes ou

Cool

[phaetonic]

There should be a special FreeBSD 6.6.6 release with the demon/daemon emphasized.

Re:Cool

[ni5mo]

Apparently 616 is actually the number of the beast. Bet all those Slayer fans feel pretty stupid, getting tats with the ancient equivilent of a typo on them :P

Re:Cool

[ToasterofDOOM]

Slashdot's misspelling roots go bakc logner htan yuo mgiht tihnk.

Re:Cool

[brilinux]

I believe that 616 is actually the Latin numerological number of the beast, whereas in Greek or Hebrew, it was 666. Interestingly, Nero's name in Latin cooresponds to 616. It depends, though, on the Alphabet being used and the translations.

Re:Cool

[Spetiam]

It's three sixes. Not six hundred, sixty-six (or 616)... three sixes. Simple explanation:

Hebrew does superlatives by repeating the adjective three times. (E.g., "Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus" is Latin words with Hebrew grammar. A full translation to Latin would have been "Sanctissimus.") The number 7 was the ideal/perfect number and one less than 7 (i.e., 6) was the worst/imperfect number. So, just as 7, 7, 7 would be "the best," 6, 6, 6 would be "the worst." True, the Greek text says "six hundred sixty-six," but the idea behind it is three sixes grouped together.

In other words, it's not 616. :) And it's probably a mistake to rely on adding up the letters of a person's name to find out if they're the Beast. I've seen people make the most imaginative distortions of alphabets, numbers and logic to show that the Pope, Michael Moore, George W. Bush, Barbra Streisand, Mother Teresa or whoever/whatever the object of their hate might be, are all the Beast.

Come one, I'm sure there's a slashdotter out there that can add up "Microsoft" such that it equals "666." ;)

Re:Cool

[mav[LAG]]

In other words, it's not 616. :)

There are manuscripts where it quite clearly says 616. You're absolutely right about the superlative symbolism but the point of most numbers in apocalyptic visions is that they contain multiple meanings packed up into a single number. Non-Roman readers of Revelation would have had an "aha" moment at the tripling of the 6s, Roman readers would have spotted that 616 is the result of adding up the letters of "Nero Caesar."
Both are canonical.

And it's probably a mistake to rely on adding up the letters of a person's name to find out if they're the Beast.

No it's not a mistake. The Romans did it all the time. Archaeologists have even found graffiti from the time which says "I love her whose name is 545." It was an extremely common practice.

The point of the passage is that there will always be corrupt leaders who will persecute the church and currently this is exemplified by You-Know-Who (Nero).

Re:Cool

[Mant]

I though it was 616 simply becuase that is what they have founded in the earliest version of Revelations that has been found.

So it doesn't matter about the significance of the number 6, or repeating things three times, 616 was what the text actually said.

Re:Cool

[Spetiam]

Interesting. I hadn't heard that before. Do you know which MSS 616 appeared in?

Re:Cool

[Spetiam]

No it's not a mistake. The Romans did it all the time. Archaeologists have even found graffiti from the time which says "I love her whose name is 545." It was an extremely common practice.

Yes, but I still think it's ridiculous to go around adding up letters to find the anti-Christ. :)

Re:Cool

[mav[LAG]]

I think you misunderstand me. I am not advocating running around adding up the letters in people's names to try and find the anti-christ. I agree that to do so today is ridiculous and is probably missing the point of the passage and the book.

I am just pointing out that doing so was a common cultural practice at the time of writing, and that Nero Caesar fits the two different numbers we find in the MSS (as well as being at the right time in history).

Re:Cool

[Spetiam]

Ah, I see. I think we both misunderstood each other, then. No hard feelings.

Re:Cool

[thanjee]

For verily God said chmod 0777 earth, and it became thus. And there came into the land one being called Bill Gates who looked upon the earth and the chmod of God, and did say, I shall take that seed of wisdom and incorporate it into my own, and I shall be like unto God, ye, I shall become God.

FreeBSD on the laptop

[raistphrk]

FreeBSD 5 was the first FreeBSD major version that actually worked properly on my laptop. I'm really excited about FreeBSD 6. Possibly the best feature will be the inclusion of WPA for 802.11. Everything seemed to work on my Thinkpad when I was hardwired, but wireless support was TERRIBLE in FreeBSD 5. Having native drivers for wireless adapters, as well as WPA support will make a transition to FreeBSD full-time on my laptop possible. The only other thing I could really ask for would be an easy-to-use DVD transcoder. I've used most of the packages out there for *nix, but they're still in their infancy. It won't be too long before they're ready for prime-time.

Re:FreeBSD on the laptop

[debilo]

My experiences with wireless support have been great. But I run a Centrino, which isn't really uncommon hardware. I have used both NDISulator and Damien Bergaminis excellent ipw driver. I recommend using the latter to anyone using a Centrino-based laptop, it works flawlessly.

Re:FreeBSD on the laptop

[failure-man]

For video transcoding and rough editing with a GUI check out Avidemux. Runs on all the various *nixes.

Re:FreeBSD on the laptop

[brilinux]

It works great for me; I have an HP5600, and the only hardware not supported is the modem; Wireless works with NDIS (though I have a prism cardbus card as well). I have already backported the VESA drivers for a 1400x1050 console, and processor scaling for the P4M from 6, and it works great. I still love FreeBSD, and hope that it only gets better in the future.

Re:FreeBSD on the laptop

[NuclearDog]

"The only other thing I could really ask for would be an easy-to-use DVD transcoder."

MPlayer/MEncoder?

Re:FreeBSD on the laptop

[raistphrk]

I've messed with ipw a bit, and it has promise. However, since I use WPA on my network for wireless security, the lack of WPA compatibility in 5-STABLE renders ipw pretty useless for me. The other thing that would be useful would be a good gui-based wifi monitor. I've messed with the few available for KDE, but nothing seems to be user-friendly. I'm fine making calls to ifconfig or whatever cli tool I need to use for configuration, but sometimes I just like the convenience of having a graphical tool to do it all for me, ya know? 6-RELEASE or -STABLE is going to need some type of gui tool for wireless to put it side-by-side with Linux or Windows in terms of friendly wireless support.

Re:FreeBSD on the laptop

[KenFury]

I agree I have a t42, and when I made the from debian to freebsd the only problem I had was getting my ipw2200 to work.

FreeBSD

[debilo]

I enjoy FreeBSD a lot, it is a great OS and it's fun to use, and I'd like to thank everyone involved.

Having said that, there are a few areas where FreeBSD sadly lacks behind Linux. For example, support for USB 2.0 is flakey, devices often don't work or behave oddly, and if you have atapicam compiled into the kernel, good luck with your iPod (firewire works flawlessly, though).

Another thing is WPA, there's no support for it in the stable branches, only in -CURRENT. I find support for USB 2.0 and WPA to be very important for an OS 2005, and frankly, support for both should be taken for granted, I think.

Other than that, it's a great OS and I am looking forward to 6.0. And I encourage everyone who is unfamiliar with FreeBSD to try it out - you might love it. :)

Re:FreeBSD

[Not The Real Me]

Everyone knows that BSD is dying...Oh, wait a second! I mean OpenBSD is dying. FreeBSD is alive and well.

Re:FreeBSD

[_merlin]

You see, that's *why* it's not in stable. In BSD, something has to work properly before it moves from current to stable.

OTOH, Linux pushes things in as soon as possible, without extensive testing. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a different attitude.

Re:FreeBSD

[debilo]

Hello,

I wasn't complaining about the fact that it hasn't been MFC'ed yet, I was expressing my worries about the fact that overall support for things I consider essential (like USB 2.0, WPA, and even the possibility of a higher console resolution) has been started rather late compared to other OS's.

Re:FreeBSD

[discogravy]

I heartily agree with that. The instant-workstation port is dead and unbuildable, which is a damn shame, as it can come in handy if you want a quick and easy desktop-user system. FreeBSD can be a great desktop distro...if you want to install all that stuff yourself -- linux distros in general have a more user friendly way to do that (which isn't FreeBSD's priority, which I understand, but still...)

I wound up making a script to add the packages that I wound up using the most (see it here).

Re:FreeBSD

[gcantallopsr]

This attitude gets more things tested, faster, through dozens of mostly experimental distributions used by advanced users and developers. Then you have mostly stable distributions built on top of all that experience, supporting large amounts of different devices, with little trouble. It's not just the attitude, it's a matter of raw numbers: more developers feeding more testers leads to more supported devices.

In both cases (GNU/Linux and *BSD) you have to build your systems to be supported by the OS if you want a perfectly stable system with good performance and availability, but with GNU/Linux you choose among many different options.

Re:FreeBSD

[Arker]

You see, that's *why* it's not in stable. In BSD, something has to work properly before it moves from current to stable.

OTOH, Linux pushes things in as soon as possible, without extensive testing. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a different attitude.

And this is why some of us risk being seen as overly pedantic by insisting on using words properly. Linux is not an OS, it's a kernel.

What OS you're referring to with the word Linux I can only guess, but I can tell you right now that, for instance, when features go into Debian 'stable' there's a damn good chance they really are stable.

Re:FreeBSD

[hawk]

Yes, but there's also a very good chance that the version in Debian stable dates to the Reagan administration . . .

:)

hawk

Re:FreeBSD

[SnowZero]

I resent that statement. While your beloved FreeBSD was adding these "features" such as "scalability", I'll have you know that NetBSD has been ported to three new architectures that nobody has ever heard of, and OpenBSD has fixed a very important sercurity flaw which happens when a cosmic ray passes through the earth and hits the MMU on an Intel Pentium 3. "Preparation for fine-grained locking" doesn't look so cool now, does it?

Re:FreeBSD

[bluGill]

FreeBSD is a server OS first. Things that make a great server get priority, things that make a great desktop are done whenever.

I use FreeBSD on my desktop and I love it. In large part because all that automatic stuff that makes for a great desktop gets in my way.

Re:FreeBSD

[Arker]

Now you're just being mean :P

FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Council]

This reminds me: I recently got a shiny new hard drive and am going to put a bunch of partitions at the end. I was recently reminded of FreeBSD, and I'm gonna include that alongside Mandrake and Ubuntu (and whatever BeOS is left these days).

Are there any other major BSD distros, or is it just these guys? And what non-linux, non-BSD OSes are around now? (I hear OS X is due to be leaked for x86 any day now).

Are Linux and Free/OpenBSD the only real options now?

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[NutscrapeSucks]

Calling Solaris a *BSD is a rather perverse rewriting of history.

(Like all UNIXes it has BSD code, but the *BSD revival movement was primarily spurred by Sun/Bill Joy's decision switch to the more modern and performant and more complex System V.)

Solaris is also THE real option other than Linux/BSD, so learning it can't hurt. Unlike BSD, it might get you a job. :)

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[debilo]

Are Linux and Free/OpenBSD the only real options now?

I don't know if you left it out on purpose or merely forgot to add it to your list, and I hardly ever use it, but NetBSD is a damn fine BSD variant too. It just doesn't get the press it deserves, focus seems to be on Linux and Free/OpenBSD mainly.

Well, then there's The Hurd, but it's barely usable. So, yes, I guess those are the only real options now. :)

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Council]

Yeah; I've never used any of the BSDs other than occasional sitting-at-a-mac-console, but Solaris is what's running on the school machines I program on. But really, other than the desktop environment, it doesn't feel different from Linux. Of course, that's from the perspective of a dude on a student account making scripts and programs and browsing the web.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Wdomburg]

Solaris hasn't been based on BSD since the 1.x days.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[timmarhy]

:O then i must be dreaming or in a martix style world because according to you my bsd skills didn't help me get this job!

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[GuruBuckaroo]

As another poster noted, there's also NetBSD. I'm a former/current NetBSD user, although I'm moving away from it to FreeBSD.

NetBSD is great it you have obscure systems - I ran it on my VAX collection, and it worked great. However, it doesn't seem to stand up as far as new hardware support goes next to FreeBSD.

One thing to note - when you hear of people breaking transfer records, it's almost always NetBSD - they have a great network stack. I currently use FreeBSD for my file servers (nss_ldap/pam_ldap support is lacking from NetBSD), and use NetBSD for my VPN/IPSec routers. I'm probably going to switch over to FreeBSD just to keep things consistant, though.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[MrDomino]

And what non-linux, non-BSD OSes are around now?

There's Plan 9 and Inferno. I haven't had much opportunity to experiment with either one, but they both look really interesting. There's also Hurd, but as far as I can tell (which admittedly isn't very far) it's currently about where it was in the nineties in terms of actually working.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[NutscrapeSucks]

For the most part, all Unixes are pretty identical as a regular user.

But Linux is largely a SV/Solaris clone on the command level, and Solaris & BSD are both riding on Linux oriented desktop projects. There's still system adminstration differences of course, and that's where the Unix-specific jobs are.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Pushnell]

Unless, of course, you want a job at one of the hundreds of ISP's or web hosts that run BSD.

I've personally built a wireless ISP/webhost entirely using BSD several years ago which now hosts several hundred sites (even though their emphasis is on the WISP,) and since worked at and with several networking companies which also use BSD.

I now work with a consulting company. I don't know if it's the old greybeards in the back offices or the new hipsters moving up into management, but I've been surprised (and delighted) at how often I discover that the medium-sized businesses I work with now use BSD at some point in their processes.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[NutscrapeSucks]

That's true that quite a few ISPs use BSD, as well as some older dotcoms like Yahoo. However, I've never seen any corporate use of BSD, hipsters or not. Not to say it doesn't exist, but it's certainly no where near the level of Solaris or Linux (and the commercial app support reflects this.)

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[680x0]

Solaris hasn't been based on BSD since the 1.x days.

Yeah, back before it was called Solaris. Back when it was called SunOS. Back when it was cool.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[linguae]

And what non-linux, non-BSD OSes are around now? (I hear OS X is due to be leaked for x86 any day now).

Well, there's always Windows. You did say non-Linux, non-BSD, right?

Other than that, for the x86, there is Solaris, Plan 9, Hurd, MS-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, BeOS, Darwin x86, NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, Apple Rhapsody (there's a beta floating around somewhere for the x86, closest thing we're going to get to Mac OS for Dells other than NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP), and Minix.

If you have access to emulation, you have even more choices. Mac OS 6/7/8 (under the Basilisk 68k emulator), Mac OS X (under PearPC), OpenVMS, Unix 32/V (if you want to get really old school), AmigaOS, and probably many more that I don't know/forgot.

And if you want to have some fun with Linux/BSD, try running Linux 0.01 or 386BSD (its available somewhere). You can even find really ancient versions of BSD (such as 2.11BSD and 4.3BSD) if you felt like some emulation and going back in time.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Anonymous Coward]

There's Menuet OS and Ada OS to start with. You might also have fun doing some of the Debian experiments with other kernels such as NetBSD/Debian or Debian/HURD. There's a project that runs Linux on L4 (a microkernel). Naturally, since microkernels are far, far superior to monolithic kernels, you should also try Minix. ;)

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Vanders]

And what non-linux, non-BSD OSes are around now?

You should give Syllable a look.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Geist3]

... I recently got a shiny new hard drive and am going to put a bunch of partitions at the end ....

I may be mistaken, but I thought xBSDs had to be put on one of the four primary partitions.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Zemplar]

Seriously look at OpenSolaris (totally free, but brand new and a tad rough in spots [package mgmt, install]) or Solaris 10 (free, but requires registration).

I've used most major Linux distros and FreeBSD quite a bit, but I currently run Solaris 10 as the 64-bit SMP is bar none the best out there. If that weren't a major issue, I might be using FreeBSD as it is also very good and has a great package management system and a much better kernel than Linux. BTW, Solaris 10 also includes StarOffice as the default office suite, and it is much better, IMHO, than OpenOffice.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[releppes]

I think Linux and FreeBSD are the most popular. Can't say much about Open, but I agree with the NetBSD comment. Of all the OS's out there now, I think NetBSD is the most underrated.

Linux and FreeBSD tend to be the best choices because they have more up-to-date hardware support. NetBSD has great hardware support too in everything except multimedia. In general, NetBSD doesn't support any 3D hardware acceleration. It also only supports the basic SoundBlaster audio. No 3D surround sound stuff that I'm aware of. For that alone, many people would probably avoid NetBSD as a workstation OS.

However, NetBSD is a great OS when all you want is a clean OS that's stable. In regards to education, I think NetBSD should be THE classroom OS. Why a college would use Linux for instruction is beyond me. NetBSD has a strong emphasis on design. Everything is pretty much designed to be generic. It's why NetBSD is the most easily ported OS. Linux on a PDA? Why? NetBSD is a much more natural choice. When one thinks of embedded Linux, they're looking at ucLinux libraries and Busybox and tools like that. In NetBSD, you can build ONE SINGLE BINARY that contains the kernel, libraries, and all the unix commands you want. I haven't done it yet, but really it sounds pretty cool. And you use the exact same source tree you would for a normal system. NetBSD is so generic, that it can emulate Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD, as well as Solaris and possibly AIX and HP-UX binaries. Yes, that's right! You can run Linux binaries directly on top of NetBSD. You can run Solaris binaries directly on top of NetBSD. Although NetBSD accomplishes this through emulation, it's remarkibly fast.

So yes, NetBSD is a poor choice for multimedia. However, it's great for stability (ie: you want an OS that runs like an appliance) and it's great for emulating other UNIX OS's. I use it as my desktop of choice because I find it very easy to manage. That and it has a small footprint comparied to other UNIX OS's. The actual application support is very good. Packages for NetBSD are much more up-to-date than Debian. I don't do 3D graphics and I don't play games (other than Wesnoth), so I don't really miss the 3D acceleration. Besides, if I really needed good 3D acceleration, sadly, I wouldn't be running a free unix system. I think NetBSD is a great OS if you just want to do work.

As a small testiment to driver support of Net vs Linux: I had a slightly older laptop I wanted to run unix on. I always used Linux for that sort of thing, but I always had to jerry rig with modules and conf files to get the all the hardware working just so. After trying to get Debian-stable working (twice), I thought I'd give NetBSD a whirl just for fun. I was amazed! Just in the boot process alone, the boot and root floppies detected ALL hardware and network adapters. No extra driver disks or configuration farting around. After the install, everything just worked. Didn't have to configure a thing. Audio, wi-fi, lan....ok, video gave problems, but it was an XFree thing (would have been the same in Linux). And the base image was small. After that I was sold. I realized unix was unix. Firefox, XFce, Abiword, ...etc all work the same no matter what's under the hood. I suppose I shouldn't tout NetBSD but rather say that if you're a unix end user, one owes it to themself to try other unix varients. They all have their strengths.

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Wdomburg]

Actually it wasn't until Solaris 2.0 that the switch to the SVR5 based SunOS 5.0. And it's still SunOS; Solaris is the name for the bundle of SunOS and the windowing system (origionally OpenWindows).

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[680x0]

Actually it wasn't until Solaris 2.0 that the switch to the SVR5 based SunOS 5.0.

The name Solaris wasn't invented until Solaris 2.0 was release. SunOS 4.x was retroactively named Solaris 1.x.

Solaris is the name for the bundle of SunOS and the windowing system (origionally OpenWindows).

And SunOS 4.x could run the non-X11 based SunView, or X11R4 (or was it X11R5?). You must be one of them young whippersnappers. :-) I did programming on Suns from '89 to '95. Ever use a Sun with a 68020 (not Sparc) CPU?

Re:FreeBSD and its place in the . . . field

[Wdomburg]

Well, to be more accurate, they didn't start using it until Solaris 2.0 was announced. Solaris 1.0 was still on the market for something like a year before 2.0 was available. :)

And of course you could install SunView, NeWS, or X11 (R5 was out while SunOS 4.x was still king), but that doesn't preclude adopting a name for a bundle of components. SCO did a similar thing in the same time period with their OpenDesktop product, which was SCO Unix 3.2 + X11 and some other crap.

As for the pre-sparc Suns, I think my first was actually a 68030, though I never seriously used sun3 machines. Most of my early experience was AIX, followed up by HP/UX and various flavours of SCO (Xenix, Unix, Opendesktop). Eventually I ended up with an IPC, but it was a bit of an antiquated machine at that time.

Re:what ever..

[Chreo]

AFAIK it isn't closed yet.

Re:FreeBSD is going strong. Linux OTOH is dead

[ElitistWhiner]

Anyone with a little experience in Life, would recognize Linux state-of-affairs as par for the course on Evolutionary terms. Chicken Little's would like to have corporate structure, command, control, dress code, etiquette and predictability of a market based product cycles to salve their insecurities.

Linux has contributed an enormous amount of good code that has driven the debate on software development. Dead would not describe Apache, *nix, open source and vertical applications that are disrupting the way American corps adopt new standards.

Re:Bye Eugenia

[debilo]

Yeah. She made internet history with the intensity and brutality of all the flamewars she provoked. I will miss that. :)

Why Should...

[DAldredge]

Why should I use FreeBSD over Solaris 10?

Re:Why Should...

[DAldredge]

Has the quality of /. users sunk so low that questions like the above are marked as trolls?

Re:Why Should...

[Flower]

Can't answer that one. Can you go out, do some research, and then come back to me on that? Now we'll need that answer by Monday so you'll have to come in on Saturday. Oh, and we lost a couple of "BSD is dying" ACs so we'll probably need you to work on this Sunday too. That'd be great.

Thaaaanks.

Re:Why Should...

[leereyno]

Well I can give you reasons why you should use Linux instead of Solaris 10, and I can give you reasons why you should use Linux instead of FreeBSD, but I can't really say very much when it comes to Solaris vs FreeBSD.

Both OS's are certainly making progress, Solaris 10 in particular represents major progress over the previous versions, but neither is quite there yet and the weaknesses of one tend to be shared by the other.

The things I'm thinking of are related to the UI for both systems. Neither uses bash (or even tcsh) as the default shell. Neither uses gnu coreutils for things like ls, cp, rm, etc. These things may not matter to some, but they do matter to me. I'm sure the core OS of each is a very strong and capable system, but the same can be said of Linux and I don't have to fight with it to beat the UI into something usable.

Lee

Re:Why Should...

[diegocgteleline.es]

Why should I use FreeBSD over Solaris 10?

Nobody asked you to do that, right? As far as I can see nobody tells you "use BSD" they just inform you of what freebsd 6 will have, so why do you question yourself what OS you have to use?

Re:Why Should...

[Flower]

Ok, I'll stop fooling and try to give a serious answer. One that I can think of immediately is the licensing if that's important to you (Hey, for some people it is.) Two, if you need to have a *nix on some platform other than x86 or SPARC. Three, (possibly, I haven't personally compared) driver support especially on the x86 platform.

That's what I can think of off the top of my head.

Re:Why Should...

[Badanov]

The things I'm thinking of are related to the UI for both systems. Neither uses bash (or even tcsh) as the default shell. Neither uses gnu coreutils for things like ls, cp, rm, etc.

You feeling okay? Last I checked (about a minute ago) I could run a whole BASh language script on BSD just as well as Linux. In fact, you can invoke sh and BASh alternately to run the same script on FreeBsd.

The 'default' shell can be reset to BASh or any other shell, if you prefer ( As I do ) the BASh shells, and the base install CD gives you the option before committing to an install.

My experience with sh shell commands is that the BSD versions run much better than the GNU versions anyway.

Seriously I hope you reply to this because, frankly, your above quoted statements made no sense to me at all.

Re:Why Should...

[0x000000]

They use sh standard for user accounts, csh for root. bash is in the ports tree. Same with GNU coreutils. Not that it really matters much at all, as they act the same.

There where it matters most is where FreeBSD and Solaris come out ahead. Solaris for it's ability to work on systems with 64 CPU's, and gigs of memory. Also it's debugging tools, virtualization (better than jails).

FreeBSD used to be the poor mans unix, now Solaris is a viable choice as well, so you can pick. FreeBSD is strong in memory management, as well as speed on any random box you throw at it. It also contains jails, and some standard desktop stuff that might be important to people.

Re:Why Should...

[Pushnell]

the same can be said of Linux and I don't have to fight with it to beat the UI into something usable.

Are you saying that the BSD UI is less usable, or less usable for you because you are used to gnu/linux?

I'll leave it to the true zealots to debate the usability of one OS vs. the other, but your statement basically says "Linux is more useable because I know Linux." I personally grew up (unix-wise) on BSD and csh, and thus I need to beat every linux box into something "usable." This is something I accept, knowing that every OS is different. Either the OS or my norms will be beaten about until productivity is satisfactory.

Just try to seperate your preferences, habits, and past experiences from your view of the pro's/con's of an OS in the future.

Re:Why Should...

[Ded Bob]

Neither uses bash (or even tcsh) as the default shell.

Huh? csh is the default shell on FreeBSD. It also happens to be tcsh. Personally, I use zsh for my shell on all Unix systems I run.

Re:Why Should...

[Nasarius]

Not that it really matters much at all, as they act the same.

bash and csh act the same? What planet are you on? I mean, tab completion alone...

Re:Why Should...

[bofkentucky]

Pro FBSD: Better old and new x86 HW support, better FS (ZFS is still vapor at this point), Better Package/Port management
Con FBSD: Support contracts may not be what your sun platinum has provided, supposedly the instant-workstation port is broken.
Pro S10: Sun JDS makes mass *nix workstation rollouts a breeze, kick ass tech support if you want to pay for it
Con S10: JDS costs lots of cash, per workstation, for some rollout and management interfaces for free software (OpenOffice, GNOME), HW support might not be good on your hardware.

Re:Why Should...

[guacamole]

Solaris 10 and FreeBSD serve different needs and user bases, so you gennerally, wouldn't need to ask that question.

Re:Why Should...

[Adidas13]

Not recommending an OS becasue of the *default* shell?

All of those things are easily changed, and the reverse could be said just as easily from somone who prefers the Solaris or BSD utilities.

Re:Why Should...

[Cochonou]

You've heard about chsh, haven't you ?

Re:Why Should...

[Santana]

OpenBSD now uses pdksh as the default shell for all accounts (yes, including root)

Re:Why Should...

[ocelotbob]

The problem is that many system utilities are designed to use that default shell, so if one has to diagnose an oddly booting system, then you can run into some problems if you aren't familiar with the scripting language.

Re:Why Should...

[pboulang]

Not the users, but the moderation system. But then, can you not fault yourself for asking a vague potentially religious question? Were you to be more specific as to WHAT you wanted comparison on, then it would not have appeared so.

If I were to toss out "which is better, a motorcycle or a minivan?" without qualification such as in terms of seating capacity, miles per gallon, top speed, acceleration, safety / accident ratings, then yes, I would expect to me marked a troll.

Let me ask a question in reply to your original question: For what?

Re:Why Should...

[Ricin]

In the case of (t)csh on FreeBSD this is absolutely NOT true. System utilities are almost all compiled from C and things like rc scripts are always in plain sh. Always.

Insightful? Yeah right.

Re:Why Should...

[Moridineas]

set autolist ambiguous

now tcsh is indistinguishable from bash to 99% of users ;)

Re:Why Should...

[sparkz]

I think he's complaining that "I don't understand the plain shell", which sounds, to me, on a Friday afternoon, pretty close to saying "I'm not capable of calling myself a sysadmin, so why am I even trying to go beyond my abilities?"
But maybe I'm being harsh,

Re:Why Should...

[pooh666]

The really sad thing is the lowest rated post on this, is the most truthful :)

Re:Why Should...

[Ricin]

HARSH(1) would be a great name for a shell :)

Re:Why Should...

[WinterSolstice]

IIRC: you should not set the default root shell to anything but sh. I seem to recall this having something to do with crash recovery, but I couldn't lay my hands on the note fast enough to be worth while.

Of course, if you mean a user's shell? Heck, use whatever you want. I use bash for all of mine, and I installed Solaris 10 SPARC directly from the CDs. Bash was included by default.

usermod -s /usr/bin/bash username

-WS

BSD is about discipline

[puzzled]

Linux and the associated cloud of distros are like an English garden - mad experiments in all corners, and a mostly clear middle.

FreeBSD is like the lawn of the commanding officer at Camp Pendleton. Each blade the same distance from the blades around it, all the same height, and if one should slip out of place someone comes and corrects this quickly.

I love the flow of cool GPL stuff ending up in /usr/ports, but the FreeBSD crew keeps my grounds in order so I've got time to play.

Re:BSD is about discipline

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, that analogy sounds familiar.

Why the change from an American funeral home in OBSD to Camp Pedleton for FreeBSD? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Re:FreeBSD is going strong. Linux OTOH is dead

[Nugget]

Neither does "Linux" describe Apache, *nix, open source, or vertical applications.

Re:Why does it keep going?

[ClaraBow]

Why do people write poetry or write stories? You do it for the love of it. It is your passion and your hard work that you want to show the world. To me it is a form of artistic expression. That's why there are some many flavors of Linux and BSD.

Re:Why should apple give a damn?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Why should Apple care?

Because mac os x shares code with freebsd, and helping freebsd will help themselves?

This is my first post . . .

[BungFist]

. . . but isn't FreeBSD dead?

Re:This is my first post . . .

[sycotic]

Welcome to Slashdot!

Please refrain from using the played out jokes seen elsewhere on Slashdot, you would do particularly well not mentioning "in soviet russia...", "xyz is dying" and "imagine a beowulf cluster of these!" in the future

The reason I say this is simple: you will very quickly have a friend to foe ratio that simply does not work in your favour :)

Re:This is my first post . . .

[uchi]

You're right. The title was a typo -- it should have read "Looking at FreeBSD 6 feet under"

Re:This is my first post . . .

[Shanep]

Please refrain from using the played out jokes seen elsewhere on Slashdot, you would do particularly well not mentioning "in soviet russia...", "xyz is dying" and "imagine a beowulf cluster of these!" in the future

Don't forget Natalie and those grits which are said to be hot.

Re:This is my first post . . .

[hotdiggitydawg]

No - in this instance they "looked beyond" with a ouija board...

Re:This is my first post . . .

[MassacrE]

In Soviet Russia, A Beowulf Cluster imagines YOU

"Late"

[diegocgteleline.es]

The SMPVFS work is a task to add fine-grained locking to the VFS layer of the kernel as well as the UFS and nullfs filesystems.

I don't hate FreeBSD, but this is one proof of how bad has been the 5.x release. 5.x was suposed to be the SMP-friendly version, but a piece of code so important as the VFS is, is still under a single-lock kind of locking. I mean, I can imagine how BAD freebsd 5.x must be in filesystem-intesive workloads in SMP systems

I mean, what have they been doing all those years? Freebsd 5.x took a lot of time, this kind of optimization should have been done already.

Re:"Late"

[0x000000]

FreeBSD 5.x certainly does not shine when it comes to I/O intensive stuff. Especially if you have multiple procs, so i am happy to see it move away from the singe lock, to something that is more useful.

5.x however was still more SMP friendly, in the fact that most of the other kernel code could be run on the other CPU's if available, while the IO code was run on a single CPU. So the trade off was not that bad. As FreeBSD still performed better with 5.x on servers with multiple CPU's vs 4.x. Just IO was still lacking.

Re:"Late"

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, what have they been doing all those years? Freebsd 5.x took a lot of time, this kind of optimization should have been done already.

You know what I tell my users who think my open source software should have feature X (or should have implemented feature X N years ago or what not): Show me the money.

Really. If you want FreeBSD (or some other open source) program to have a feature you want, show them the money.

The upcoming PC OS revolution.

[CyricZ]

There is a PC operating system revolution in the making. In the next few years we will see a display of software battlery like never before. Mac OS X will be available on x86-based PCs, and FreeBSD 6.0 will be released. Solaris 11 promises to be perhaps the greatest true UNIX workstaton release ever. The new offerings from Mandriva, based on Debian rather than RedHat, will surely be amongst the top of their class. And of course there will (maybe) be the release of Longhorn.

With the advent of multicored CPUs, the level of concurrent performance will explode. OSes like Linux, FreeBSD 6.0, Solaris 10 and 11, and Mac OS X will be prepared for that change. They will be able to effectively take advantage of the first generation of multicore PC CPUs. There are questions as to whether Longhorn will be able to cut it in the New Computing Order that will soon be upon us.

Re:The upcoming PC OS revolution.

[diegocgteleline.es]

pass me a toke of whatever you are smoking

Re:The upcoming PC OS revolution.

[CyricZ]

Indeed, the release of Zeta (derived from BeOS) will also be a major player in the upcoming PC operating system future. BeOS offered the pinnacle of multithreading performance in the early 1990s. In fact, it was built from the bottom up to have a completely multithreaded microkernel, as well as a multithreaded GUI. That is why it will become one of the premiere operating systems to use on quad-core x86 CPUs in the very near future.

Re:The upcoming PC OS revolution.

[diegocgteleline.es]

sorry, smoking is ok but I won't inject things in my veins

Re:The upcoming PC OS revolution.

[releppes]

On top of that, NetBSD's popularity is starting to take off too. The choice of "quality" OS's out there are staggering. Linux was first out of the starting gate. FreeBSD and NetBSD had some licensing issues. Although resolved, managed to cause the effect that many thought them a premature death. FreeBSD jumped into the server market with Linux and is now thought of as the web server OS. NetBSD has always been silent. Many assuming that it an archaic OS becuase it's the only OS that runs well on archaic hardware. However, NetBSD has this black hole effect in that once a Linux or FreeBSD user tries NetBSD they don't come back. They quietly disappear and no one talks about it....it's spooky I tell you! Oh, and yes we have that red headed bastard step child we call OpenBSD. Surviving entierly on one man's ego. Not a single hole...I mean not a single remote hole....wait....maybe there's one but only one hole since....hmmm....has there been two yet?....

Re:The upcoming PC OS revolution.

[PeterBrett]

> With the advent of multicored CPUs

I initially read that as "multicoloured CPUs".

*Wibbles*

I want a green one!

Re:The upcoming PC OS revolution.

[elteck]

While I doubt if that is really going to happen, you are certainly right that the landscape is changing. During the clockfrequency race, the same programs just ran faster. In future speed improvement has to come from parrallelism and specialized execution units, meaning that the code has to be adapted to the hardware much more then in the past.
And this is certainly interersting as now we have to see who is able to utilize the new architecture faster: open source ore closed source? Especially since probably the hardware per user could differe a lot.

However, for desktop usage, it is really the applications that make the value, not the OS.

At least she didn't post false resignations at /.

[CyricZ]

I was quite an OSNews fan until I saw that David Adams, the publisher of OSNews, posted a fake resignation here at Slashdot.

Re:Why does it keep going?

[ryturner]

For one thing, some people don't like the restrictions that other licenses (like the GPL) place on use of the source code. I can understand why some people like it, I am just not one of those people.

That sickens me!

[CyricZ]

The mistreatment of such a respected and glorious veteran such as yourself is an utter mockery.

Quit bitching and use DragonflyBSD!

[CyricZ]

Yes, mistakes were made and things have gone less than well. But have no fear! Ex-FreeBSD developer Matt Dillon to the rescue! For a fellow like yourself can use DragonflyBSD instead of FreeBSD 5.0. It offers the SMP capabilities you crave and need, without the Giant Lock syndrome of FreeBSD 5.0.

Re:Quit bitching and use DragonflyBSD!

[CyricZ]

Like Matt says, it will be addressed very soon. Soon DragonflyBSD will be the premiere multithreaded operating system for use on multicore x86-based PCs.

Re:Quit bitching and use DragonflyBSD!

[iggymanz]

DragonFly is cool and all, but it still has The Giant Lock for most things, and it will be YEARS before it reaches production stability. I use FreeBSD on my servers, but then they are only 2 way SMP....Linux is probably the way to go for "mid to big iron", which most servers are not.

Re:Quit bitching and use DragonflyBSD!

[Brandybuck]

What do you guys do, come here in pairs? One guy posts that FreeBSD is crap, and the second with a link to Dragonfly? Give me a break!

Re:Indeed.

[CyricZ]

Well, that's the sort of mistreatment I'd expect from OSNews, not from Slashdot. Respect plays a key role in the everyday dealings of this site.

Re:Why does it keep going?

[LnxAddct]

The truly selfless give without expectations.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Bye Eugenia

[Phil06]

Maybe she's leaving because her work had to many incomplete.

Yeah, but....

[Bane1998]

This is Slashdot.... what does this have to do with Linux? :P

Re:Why does it keep going?

[cdwiegand]

Yes, and the GPL *removes* my ability to use that software in a corporate environment. I literally CANNOT work on a GPL project and be a programmer-for-hire. It's the same problem that Microsoft has with their programmers and open-source: they might contaminate corporate IP. The GPL is VIRAL. It's intended that way. Of course, so is Microsoft's license. I won't look at code from either one (unless it's MY code).

The BSD license means that as a corporate programmer, if I know that there's a function out there that does what I need, I can use it. The BSD license means that ANYONE can do just about ANYTHING with the code (I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advise). GPL means that I must avert my eyes and not fix bugs that I find because I can't look at the stupid code! Boy, that irks me.

Actually...

[Duhavid]

Yes, I have said that about a man.

Darwin?

[LFS.Morpheus]

I'm not sure if this is even worth mentioning, but there is Apple's Darwin. I know nothing about it so I can't tell you more, but the site seems to be http://developer.apple.com/darwin/ and it does have install CDs.

Maybe someone else can tell us ups and downs of using Darwin?

Re:Bye Eugenia

[eeg3]

Wasn't she leaving like a year ago?

Re:Why does it keep going?

[linguae]

Well, BSD has been along for a long time, since the late 1970s. In fact, here is the Berkeley copyright notice for FreeBSD:

Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994

The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Compare that history to Windows (first released in 1985, although to be fair, Windows development and the release of DOS was in 1981), and to GNU/Linux (GNU project started in 1984, Linux started in 1991). Now, BSD has been freely available for just about the same time as Linux, though. Read your history before you start flaming.

Secondly, the BSDs have a nice level of integration between the kernel and the userland, since the developers work on both parts. For example, the BSD developers work on the kernel, the userland, the C library, the manual pages, etc. The only parts that aren't developed by the BSDs are the C compiler (from GNU) and a handful of other GNU utilities. This is different from Linux, in which the kernel is developed by Linus and contributors, while the userland is developed mainly by the GNU project.

Finally, the BSDs have proven themselves over the last 25+ years that they are very stable and capable operating systems, with a lot of merit. BSD was the first operating system to implement TCP/IP. BSD was a major commercial player back in the days of 4.3BSD and the VAX, and it does behind the scenes work in many of the non-BSD operating systems that people use (e.g., the core of Mac OS X and many Windows networking tools). BSD was one of the first pieces of software that went from closed-source to open-source (but not without a fight from AT&T, which explains why Linux, and not BSD, seems to be more popular).

BSD is a very nice operating system, and developers like working on it because it is well engineered and is proven. Read some BSD history and try a BSD before you start flaming.

It matters alright.

[Some Random Username]

One of the nicest things about the BSDs is that they have good userlands, instead of the horrible mess of GNU crap that you get stuck with on linux. And the userland utilities all have real documentation, and in the same format even!

Re:It matters alright.

[Nimrangul]

Documentation does seem to be one of the greatest strengths of the BSDs, noone involved in actual projects for Linux and GNU stuff bother to document - they need to start up seperate projects for it.

Re:It matters alright.

[mixmasta]

sorry for the dumb question,

but would you mind elaborating a little? I'd like to know more about the differences in these OS's and why the gnu utils aren't as good. Same format? do you mean man vs. info?

Re:It matters alright.

[Some Random Username]

Yes, I mean man vs info vs various other random formats. With BSDs, you get a whole OS: kernel, libraries and userland, all made by the same people, all documented consistantly (as man pages). With linux distros you get a kernel by some people, and libraries and userland utilities from various different groups of people. Command line options and documentation are wildly inconsistant, both in quality and accuracy, as well as format.

Gnu utils aren't as good because they are bloated with dozens of useless command line options that don't need to exist, and that are non-standard and non-portable, thus leading to linux people making bizzare shell scripts that only work on linux. Their documentation is sub-par at best, and nonexistant at worst. They also have had a suprisingly large number of security problems, in simple commands.

Re:It matters alright.

[mixmasta]

Ok, thank you. I've been thinking for a while that a bsd might be better for me, as I tend to crave order and simplicity.

The reason I haven't until now is that I've heard that hardware drivers are a big problem, and I've finally got almost eveything working on my laptop with linux, after a year trying! Everything except the webcam works now.

maybe a hybrid linux/bsd userland would be the best of both worlds?

Re:It matters alright.

[SpinJaunt]

If Linux has proved anything so far, starting seperate projects for every little part that is inadequate by someone who doesn't have "intimate" knowledge of the subject is just the biggest waste of time.

The only person that can write the documentation for every little function, program, configuration, etc, is the person that created the thing in the first. it also shows that they know and understand what, how, why, where, when.

the BSDs are "living" proof this works.

Re:It matters alright.

[Nimrangul]

I'm sorry to read about that Anonymous Coward, man pages assume you have a basic understanding of Unix and what you don't understand can be learnt from most other man pages.

Start with manning man, then man sh, then from there you should be manning anything you don't know how to use.

With OpenBSD since 2.2 and with the new 2.0 release of NetBSD there is a man page you read to start things off, afterboot. That sucker is the best place to start and is available online.

Most of what appears in the two afterboot pages can be used to extrapolate a good start with FreeBSD.

If you find the documentation of FreeBSD to be of poorer quality than OpenBSD, this makes some sense; that is due to OpenBSD's more dedicated (read; hardcore) stance regarding documentation. But you cannot say that the man pages for GNU and Linux tools are anything short of garbage and have me hear anything more out of you but hot air.

This is because most of the time the man pages aren't even there, there are random HOWTOs you are expected to use on the Internet. The people writing these are the *USERS* and thus lack any actual information, just details on how to make exactly what they have.

Searching through the man pages none contain the strings version and compile together and non that contain either read as you describe.

Perhaps you are confused.

I don't see what's wrong with using ipfw on FreeBSD when the documentation is there, were you missing a function that you found particularly intetesting or useful?

Quit lying then.

[Some Random Username]

If you know that dragonflybsd is still under giant lock for lots of stuff, maybe you shouldn't be posting that people should use it instead of freebsd to get away from giant locks?

Until dragonflybsd actually has a stable release, quit pretending its an option.

Re:Quit lying then.

[CyricZ]

BSD is often a very viable option for small web servers! Indeed, the security of OpenBSD is unmatched compared to many other operating systems (including the Windows 2003 Server that I gather you're advocating should be used instead).

Did you reply to the wrong post?

[Some Random Username]

Nothing in your post has anything to do with what I said, or the topic at hand. Maybe you should try reading this thread again?

Re:At least she didn't post false resignations at

[Nimrangul]

That's what's called a joke son.

That's an easy challange!

[ImaLamer]

From:
http://www.zejn.si/~natan/666.html

Warning! Bill Gates (the president of the Microsoft) may be the next antichrist:Revelation 13:18 says:

"Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666."

The real name of the Bill Gates is William Henry Gates III. Nowadays he is known as Bill Gates (III), where "III" means the order of third (3rd). By converting the letters of his name to the ASCII-values (which are used in computers) you will get the following:

B I L L G A T E S 3

66 + 73 + 76 + 76 + 71 + 65 + 84 + 69 + 83 + 3 = 666

M S - D O S 6 . 2 1
77+83+45+68+79+83+32+54+46+50+49 = 666

W I N D O W S 9 5
87+73+78+68+79+87+83+57+53+1 = 666

'Bill Gates 666' in Google gives me 129,000 matches. Of course it's using Ascii, not Hebrew letters as it should be. Another great Gates/Anti-Christ page is (even has that old Excel '95 easter egg:
http://egomania.nu/gates.html

What Slashdotter doesn't know this by heart?

Re:That's an easy challange!

[TheLink]

The ascii value of "3" is 51.

Yawn.

Re:That's an easy challange!

[Ed Avis]

See the evil finder to generate this sort of thing.

Re:That's an easy challange!

[blue_adept]

The ascii value of "3" is 51.

Yawn.


OMG your message, including line breaks, is EXACTLY 36 (6x6) characters long.

New version of freebsd coming out?

[diablobsb]

Does this mean that there IS an afterlife?

Well we all knew the freebsd daemon would go to hell :)

x86 Mac does not mean PC hardware

[AHumbleOpinion]

Mac OS X will be available on x86-based PCs

No, Apple is a hardware company. Mac OS X is the hook to get you to buy the slighly more expensive (today) Apple hardware over commodity PC hardware. Apple's switch to x86 does not mean they will be selling Mac OS X for PCs. They will have a non-PC proprietary design that Mac OS X will require. Other OS' may be ported to that new hardware but Mac OS X will not be moving off of it. Do not be confused by current development systems that are pretty generic. Apple has a history of not supporting development systems in the retail product, even when the hardware was their own.

Great ice breakr, drink some caff'nated liquid 1st

[tod_miller]

1. Tell us more about SMPVFS and its significance.

Yeah, nice warm entry into this article...you want more? more than? I feel the sleep fairys pulling down my eyelids!

Robert Watson John Baldwin: The SMPVFS work is a task to add fine-grained locking to the VFS layer of the kerne....

At this point I would simulate key presses synonymous with my head hittin the keyboard after falling asleep, however, I realised this may be too subtle for the slashdot crowd, and I fear I am verging on troll/redundant as it is.

On the other hand, Microsofts articles at least would allow the executive to stay awake long enough to scrawl the url to bring it up at the next meeting, or remember it...

I guess this is a techie case document, but BSD's should have business case documents around, as in companies where the IT guys have some real power, it is used substantially (like in our offices) but in larger corps, maybe it is overlooked?

The New Testament was not written in Hebrew

[grouse]

And the Greek text says "Hde h sophia estin; ho echn noun psphisat ton arithmon tou thriou, arithmos gar anthrpou estin; kai ho arithmos autou hexakosioi hexkonta hex."

That means six hundred sixty-six.

Re:The New Testament was not written in Hebrew

[aug24]

So what if it was written in Greek? The blokey who wrote it would have spoken Hebrew (or Aramaic) day-to-day. It's a better explanation than the triple-six birthmark in The Omen.

J.

Re:The New Testament was not written in Hebrew

[Spetiam]

Hmmm... as I recall, I already noted that:

True, the Greek text says "six hundred sixty-six," but the idea behind it is three sixes grouped together.

Are you daft, or did you just stop reading my post when you hit the word "Hebrew?" Greek wasn't John's native language, and if you're under the impression that he entirely abandonded his thought processes and culture when writing in Greek... then you're either ignorant or you really are daft. Furthermore, to get technical, half of what you put up doesn't make any sense since that excerpt is rife with typos... but I'll stop now.

Re:The New Testament was not written in Hebrew

[grouse]

It's unlikely he "thought" in Hebrew either since his day-to-day language would have been Aramaic.

Re:The New Testament was not written in Hebrew

[Spetiam]

Good grief. Now I'm done.

Are you telling me it's wrong?

[ImaLamer]

I know, it's amazing to see people twist the facts when writing propaganda!

It's only a joke. No matter, us Jews don't buy that Revelations bullshit.

Bad design by Intel with hyperthreading

[Viol8]

In the article I noticed this:

"The issue found with HT is that the two logical CPUs on a single core share the same caches "

Thats a seriously nasty hardware "bug"! Didn't anyone at intel even consider the security implications with this or were they just beaten over the head by the marketing guys who were desperate to get one over AMD??

mkLinux

[MichaelSmith]

Changing the subject here.

mkLinux doesn't use Linus's kernel so is it correct to even call it mkLinux?

I have a second hand Apple performa which I know can run mkLinux but at this late stage I can't find a working mirror to download it from. Any suggestions would be welcome.

You just hope it can happen one day

[poofyhairguy82]

This made my day. My favorite distro is finally important enough to be used in a "Linux is dead" post by a BSD troll. Go Ubuntu.

Re:You just hope it can happen one day

[poofyhairguy82]

You only use Linux because you think you're "cool" by doing so.

That and I got tired of Windows....jeez you say it like it's a bad thing!

You probably have no real programming/hacking experience,

Not a lick. I have experiance in areas that can't be off-shored as easily.

and the fact that you run a "distro" based on a hippy bastard "distro" obviates the fact that you surely masturbate to hentai and have regular fantasies about violating small quadroped housepets.

You are like the best troll ever. Can I have your autograph? That was awesome!

I have a question for you BSD types

[Rogerborg]

If acceptance of BSD code is 100% based on merit as I've repeatedly heard claimed, then why are there multiple different distributions? Shouldn't they all be using the best code?

Re:I have a question for you BSD types

[releppes]

The difference between Linux and the BSDs is that all bazillion Linux distros basically run the same kernel. Use the same drivers. Have the same memory manager. With the BSD systems, each one is distinct. They do share code, however the kernels are very different from each other. Unlike RMS, I feel an OS is defined by it's kernel, drivers, and memory manager, process scheduler, things like that (It's Linux not GNU/Linux!). For Linux, those are pretty much all the same on all Linux distros. That's not the case with BSDs. Each BSD really is a separate OS. It's why a merging of all the BSD into one OS is pretty much not possible. The only one I'm not sure of is OpenBSD. It's the only BSD that is a true folk from a previous project (FreeBSD and NetBSD were never on the same trunk, they were both created as separate OS's from the beginning). OpenBSD was a split from NetBSD, so I'm sure the kernel and what not are very similar to Net. However, the claim to fame for OpenBSD was that they do all sorts of fancy code auditing for security purposes. I believe they've changed much at the low levels of the OS. So much so that OpenBSD does not share the same broad platform support that Net does. I do feel Open probably could merge back with Net, however Theo's ego would get in the way. For that reason, I don't think it'll ever happen. I'm probably wrong when I think it, but I look at OpenBSD as being nothing but a tweaked NetBSD. In some ways it's good, but I prefer NetBSD. Compairing the security of both, I really don't see where OpenBSD stands that far above Net, Free, or even Linux.

Re:I have a question for you BSD types

[bluGill]

Why do you assume there is one best for all circumstances? Depending on what you are trying to do sometimes you need different underlying algorithms to get the same result.

NetBSD claims to be best because it runs on everything. That means that have to reject code that uses more memory than a VAX or sun3 system is likely to have. FreeBSD can get some extra speed because they can assume you have more memory.

Look closely at DragonFlyBSD. That project split from FreeBSD not long ago because there are two fundamentally different ways to do SMP. Nobody knows which will be best, and until both are implemented fully we cannot know. There is no choice here but to have two different BSDs, each doing their own things.

OpenBSD exists because the founder is a great programmer, but he cannot get along with anyone else.

Re:I have a question for you BSD types

[Rogerborg]

I get all that. But I've heard BSD developers of all sorts claim that Linux is inferior because it accepts any old garbage into the (single) kernel. I don't get how Linus accepting one patch out of five candidates is more likely to produce garbage than five BSD distros each using (an equivelant) different candidate to do the same thing. In fact, it seems likely that 4 out of 5 BSD distros have picked a sub-optimal patch.

Maybe it's all just petty politics and dick swinging; I just wondered if there was any actual technical merit behind any of the claims.

Re:I have a question for you BSD types

[Rogerborg]

Thanks, that's a good answer. So, is there a decent - informed but independent - resource that describes which BSD is good for which purpose?

BSD works because not everyone is an asshole

[John Nowak]

The reason BSD continues to exist is that, despite what capitalism assumes, not all people are assholes who feel the need to own and control everything. If I write software and release it under as BSD license, and then come company uses it, is my software any worse off? Of course not. However, people now do have one more avenue to take if for some reason I stop developing my version, or if the commercial version advances at a more rapid pace. The GPL on the other hand somehow assumes that a company using open code to benefit themselves, and hence making better software available to everyone, is a bad thing, because people are making money off of it. Any company with good intentions is going to give back to the community (see the first comment in this thread about Apple). Any company without an interest in helping out won't use GPL code anyway, so the argument that GPL is the only way to encourage contributions is silly. In fact, if not for the BSD license, FreeBSD wouldn't be benefiting from Apple's contributions at all!

BSD works because not everyone is an asshole. The fact that you're shocked it does work is a testament to the terrible state our world is in today. Modern economic theory is an idiotic, self-fulfulling prophesy.

Re:BSD works because not everyone is an asshole

[runderwo]

The GPL on the other hand somehow assumes that a company using open code to benefit themselves, and hence making better software available to everyone, is a bad thing, because people are making money off of it.

Wrong. The GPL writers assumed that self-interested companies will take open code and deliberately market slightly incompatible versions which must then be reverse-engineered to regain interoperability, at significant cost to whomever does not have the source code. This assumption has been borne out time and time again throughout the history of the PC (not UNIX!) industry. Preventing the company from closing the source means that whoever originally wrote the code is not placed at a disadvantage. THERE IS NOTHING IN THE GPL THAT FORBIDS YOU TO PROFIT FROM THE SOFTWARE.

Re:BSD works because not everyone is an asshole

[runderwo]

It doesn't matter whether "few" people pay for it or not, as long as a cash flow can be sustained. The issue is these people claiming over and over again that the GPL removes the freedom of the user to make money using the software or to sell it, which is a blatant falsehood.

I'm not sure what your point wrt Java is. There are many open source JVM applications which all implement varying levels of the Java API, but none of them carry the Java trademark, because the trademark is owned by Sun and only issued to fully compliant implementations. A similar scheme can be employed with any open source platform, middleware, or protocol library as long as it is significant enough to foster a consortium to fund the trademark management.

Finally, even if incompatible forking happens within open source, the GPL ensures that interoperability can be restored without unreasonable effort if need be, because the fork's source is still available to anyone who receives the binary. If a BSD project is forked and extended by some big proprietary vendor, you'll spend years trying to interoperate with other systems running your own code. Some people might like that idea, but I don't like it one bit, so I prefer a LGPL for anything that does not have a demonstrable practical advantage to existence under a more permissive license.

If the (L)GPL weren't available, I would develop less free software, so I really just don't understand the point of these license wars.

When...

[mnemonic_]

will FreeBSD be as easy to install as Mac OS X? Or am I the only one who cares?

Re:When...

[ninboy]

freebsd is hard to install ? , would you like a nice pretty gui installer for a os that is mostly installed on servers ? then here yo go http://www.pcbsd.org/

Re:FreeBSD is going strong. Linux OTOH is dead

[0x000000]

This is the best troll i have read in a while. Something new. Wonder how often we are going to see it pop up.

I couldn't let this go unchallenged

[sparkz]

They use sh standard for user accounts, csh for root.
That's flamebait! See Csh Considered Harmful. Solaris uses Bourne shell for root and user accounts, by default. Bash is installed if you install the full (SUNWCXall) package cluster.
Solaris scales to more than 64 CPUs - certainly 96, presumably higher in principle (though the biggest Sun server, AFAIK, goes to 96 CPUs)

Re:FreeBSD is going strong. Linux OTOH is dead

[RautenkranzMT]

Amazon.com does not run debian. The run redhat.

Re:HD support ever get out of the dark ages???

[braindigitalis]

What is different?

All freebsd device names are in the form:

e.g. ad0, ad1... ed0, ed1... agp0, plip0...

All start at zero, all use the device driver's name, seems pretty straight forwards and standardized to me, or are you suggesting that everyone should just copy linux and somehow, being the youngest OS around, it is more correct? :-)

Re:HD support ever get out of the dark ages???

[vivin]

I'll bite, but just because it will be informative for those who don't know.

FreeBSD does have a system. Hard-Drives are /dev/adX (X being an number). There are slices (partitions) on each drive, so you can have /dev/adXsY (Y being a number). Slices are like Microsoft-style (FAT/NTFS) partitions. In addition to the slices, you have a partitions within that slice, so /dev/adXsYZ (Z being a lowercase letter).

There is a convention to the letters:

a = root
b = swap
c = whole disk
d = obselete whole disk
e-h = everything else

So, ad0s1a is the root partition on disk 1, slice 1. It's not "unstandardized". Other devices have their own conventions too. It's not that hard. Anyone with a little bit of intelligence can make sense of it.

Re:Great ice breakr, drink some caff'nated liquid

[overbom]

Slashdot used to have techie articles like this all the time. I was actually glad to see that articles like this could still make it to the front page here and there. I don't think it's overlooked, but it doesn't have the media PR machine behind it that Linux has, not by a long shot. Yahoo! runs on FreeBSD. The big corps definitely use it. ISPs definitely use it. Webhosting companies definitely use it.

I'm not sure what you mean by business case documents. I'm guessing that's like brochures and PR materials for management. FreeBSD just started up a marketing team, you'll probably be seeing stuff like that more in the near future.

Solaris, BSD, SysV

[speck]

Solaris (SunOS) 4.x was actually a BSD variant. When they went to SunOS 5.x (confusingly also called Solaris 2), they changed to a more classical SvsV version of Unix, and that's been the basis of Solaris since that time.

Obligatory response

[Zancarius]

I'm going to regret this... but:

"In Soviet Russia, Slashdotters are dying imagining a beowulf cluster as their new overlord owning you, Netcraft confirms..."

Re:Why does it keep going?

[Frobean]

So do the truly broke...

Re:FreeBSD is going strong. Linux OTOH is dead

[Nugget]

Reality doesn't really support that assertion. Free, open source web servers predate Linux. Free unixes predate linux. Open source predates linux by decades. There's absolutely no reason to presume that open source would not have survived with or without Linux.

Re:Great ice breakr, drink some caff'nated liquid

[tod_miller]

I agree wholeheartedly, it belongs on slashdot without question.

freeBSD was used in a small company I worked at as a router/fileserver/hey we need a xyz server.

In my present larger job, its use is far more crucial, running webservers et al.

But I think the article was a little weird, it didn't look like a techie-lets-get-our-hands-dirty article, and the focus group was scattered.

I expected a jargon free talk about benefits etc. Maybe techie sites just got more sexy looking.

Is reading so difficult?

[Some Random Username]

He is talking about linux, the kernel. USB2.0 support has nothing to do with distros, its drivers in the kernel, that get stuck in there when they compile, and lead to lockups and crashes. You don't even get stable and unstable kernels with linux anymore, its just all unstable.

Is thinking so difficult?

[Arker]

It's still a distro issue. Distro makers select a kernel, test it, and alter it to their own specifications and tolerances before shipping it in their OS. The kernel hackers' audience is the distributer, not the end-user.

Re:Is thinking so difficult?

[Nimrangul]

So you're saying it's not the responsibility of the people doing the coding to make sure it was coded properly?

Testing something should be a part of developing it and should always be treated as such. Or is it no longer tcpdump's developers' reponsibility to test their code because they want operating systems to integrate it in the system? No longer postfix's reponsibility to test their stuff?

troll much?

[Some Random Username]

OpenBSD strives for security and freedom, much more so than the other BSDs. And if Theo couldn't get along with anyone, he'd be the only developer wouldn't he?

Depends on your hardware.

[Some Random Username]

I use openbsd on my laptop, and everything I use works fine, and without having to do anything to get it working. The only things that don't work are the winmodem obviously, and firewire which openbsd doesn't support. But laptops that require ACPI and don't have APM, or have hardware with no docs can be a problem.

For what its worth, I always thought it would be worth putting a BSD userland on top of a linux kernel. The fact that debian does the opposite has always seemed really bizzare to me.

How is that relevant?

[Some Random Username]

Just because the distributors get to suffer from linux's "we don't offer stable software anymore" attitude, doesn't mean its ok. And believe it or not, you sometimes have to upgrade kernels to get new features, or drivers, so even ordinary users do in fact get screwed by this. Regardless of who their audience is, they should have some basic standards to produce stable software.

My point is don't slam the guy for calling linux an OS and then try to dismiss his point because you "don't know what OS he means", when you are the one that's confused. He was right, he was referring to linux correctly, as a kernel, with no standards of quality or stability.

Re:Requiem for the FUD

[ulib]

>Will you people [...]

??
It's a collection of pretty relevant BSD-related *facts*. It's hardly "bullshit" - and hardly a "troll".

If you read the first line, you'll see that it's meant to stay under the +1 level, in order not to disturb those who already read it.
If you have seen it, it's because you read slashdot under the +1 level - i.e., you are reading tons of *actual* crap and *actual* troll posts.
That makes your complaining really weird - not to say totally absurd.

A couple of other things:
>twice the number
No. That comment gets posted once per thread at most - and only when FUD gets spread.
>Noone cares [...] noone wants to see
I really don't think so - that post got modded up wildly in the past. Please don't talk like you're representing everybody: *that* is actually kind of annoying.

--
Requiem for the FUD

Re:HD support ever get out of the dark ages???

[DashEvil]

d actually represented the whole FreeBSD slice, not the disk.

Re:Requiem for the FUD

[Nimrangul]

It's an anti-troll troll, thus a troll. You're copy and pasting this shit over and over with no reason to do so, it's not like anyone buys into the other trolls.

You just keep adding to the mess.

I read at -1 because the moderation system on Slashdot is worse than useless, it is fickle and run by morons. I don't trust the opinions of random Joes to be correct.

I've seen a few times where you weren't the only one posting it and it never needed to be posted in the first place.

When somone makes an actual post with some depth and character to it, it's alright, when someone copies the same stupid post every damned story it irritates.

That the afore mentioned morons who are ignorant get to moderate and choose to moderate that highly doesn't mean someone who actually has some concept of what's going on thinks it's worth reading.

Re:Oh noes!!!""!1

[toadlife]

"You employ other peoples work for your own benefit without having to do any real work yourself. What's not to like? Hell, if there are people out there generous enough and stupid enough to give you a free ride like that, then more power to them I guess.

That's probably what the IBM execs say about GNU/linux when they all converge around the water cooler.

Re:Still not as good as DragonFlyBSD

[SillyNickName4me]

So what is your contribution to the world other then repeating the drivel from some of the Dragonfly lunatics? (and with that I don't mean Matt, he has a founded opinion, tho one you can disagree with, and actually contributes things)

The code has become fragile and unreadable. Too many hacked in "fixes" have left nasty sharp corners which will snag you unexpectedly.

AH yes.. like whats Dragonfly's package system of the day? and hey, we are goign to move everything from under giant real soon (but not for now)..

Or.. like how NetBSD 2.0 manages to keep up for a whopping 12 hours on average on my quad hypersparc machine before crashing?

Don't get me wrong, both are nice systems, but have their own issues.

Re:Still not as good as DragonFlyBSD

[Nimrangul]

Or.. like how NetBSD 2.0 manages to keep up for a whopping 12 hours on average on my quad hypersparc machine before crashing? And you've submitted a bug report and are talking to the sparc maintainers to try to troubleshoot this issue?

Re:FreeBSD 5

[Anne Thwacks]

I write this using FBSD5 as my desktop. Where is the disaster of which you speak?

Sure 5.0 and 5.1 did not install on any hardware I own, but then, Windows2k won't install on this machine, and no-one knows why. (It did run Win2kServer, but one day it stopped, and I have not managed a successful reinstall!).

This is a perfectly normal P4 with a standard mobo. It runs FBSD5.4, and its been running it since the day RC2 came out. The only problem I know about is Xine crashes a lot. If I cared, I'd do something about it. I am more interested in PGSQL than Xine (Sad, I know)

Re:Still not as good as DragonFlyBSD

[SillyNickName4me]

No, the bug was already known when I encountered it. (just google for netbsd sparc smp crash)

Re:Bye Eugenia

[stevenaaus]

Thanks E. for your great editting.