Slashdot Mirror
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."
There should be a special FreeBSD 6.6.6 release with the demon/daemon emphasized.
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.
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.
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.
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
-- If I were a fish, I'd be wet
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.
Well, BSD has been along for a long time, since the late 1970s. In fact, here is the Berkeley copyright notice for FreeBSD:
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.