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FreeBSD 6.1 Released
nbritton writes "FreeBSD 6.1 has been released! This release is the next step in the development of the 6.X branch, delivering several performance improvements, many bugfixes, and a few new features. Of note are the major improvements to the filesystem and SATA code, possibly making FreeBSD the number one choice for SATA RAID implementations. For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the release notes, errata list, Bittorrent Downloads, Mirrors, Hardware Notes, and Installation Guide."
According to whom?
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
Any notable reasons to try FreeBSD?
Because it's there, Dude. Because it's there. Honestly, what kind of a geek are you?
I do, however, feel duty bound to point out that the man famous for saying that ended up dead shortly thereafter.
If you do manage to survive getting it installed though, what will you have conquered?
None but yourself, Dude. None but yourself.
KFG
So your familiarty with Gentoo allowed you to make "source level" changes. But your unfamiliarty with FreeBSD prevented you from getting X running. So one is better than the other how??
FreeBSD does pretty well on new hardward. Sure it might not support the newest bleeding-edge hardware for a few months. But lets face it, not many of us have that kind of hardware AND are looking for a secure, higly stable platform like FreeBSD (or any other BSD for that matter).
The FreeBSD support community is top notch (mailing lists, handbook, man pages, forums). I've been using FreeBSD at home and in a production environment for a few years now. I know it, I like it, so I may be a little biased. But don't bash on an OS simply because you are unfamiliar with it.
FreeBSD: The Power to Serve!
Abommination! Seriously though, why would someone want a Linux userland with a FreeBSD kernel? The userland and hier of FreeBSD is one of its greater strenghts. I can see a FreeBSD userland with a Linux kernel however.
Some of us are happy with FreeBSD's userland, thank you. The last thing most FreeBSD users would want would be the entire GNU userland and libc.
Well, for one...it's always good to expand the tools available in your toolset. Just because you might not necessarily -have- to use a certain platform/os in your current environment, it certainly can't hurt to at least have a working knowledge of other systems in existance.
I personally use NetBSD in production environments, but make myself familiar with the various other alternatives out there, just in case some lucrative offer falls in my lap. Then at least, I have some working experience.
But that's just my opinion, and most everyone around here thinks I'm dumb.
The older I get, the less I like everyone else.
Typical scenario: you install a server at your office using a PS2 keyboard. Then, you move it to a colo with a USB KVM switch. Guaran-frickin'-tee that if you ever had to work on it in person, you'd 1) have forgotten to reconfigure it, and 2) forgotten to bring along a PS2 keyboard.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for fixing this! That wasn't a problem most people had to deal with often, but it always came up when you had the least amount of time and patience to deal with it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
>This is a troll. "Background FSCK" isn't BSD's answer to journaling. Soft
>updates is Dr. McKusick's implementation to maintain filesystem integrity in
>the event of a system failure. BSD doesn't need journaling, it has soft
>udpates.
Uhm, no. softupdates is a nice (and performant) way to get quick restarts when something crashes, but it isn't close to journalling at all. You still have to run fsck, and yes, it can run in the background, but it *still has to run*.
If you're looking at Terabytes of data, this is very painful and takes ages, whereas a journalling filesystem has no need to do this.
There are certainly important applications where journalling is a must. Just because most home users or small servers don't need it, doesn't mean that softupdates removes the need for it entirely.
I'm actually pretty sure FreeBSD will switch to journalling eventually.
>Is that the smugness of an OpenBSD user I hear in your tone? It's hard to
>tell, as your post had no real point.
He's probably pointing out that if "pf" is what you want, then you might as well use the original version in OpenBSD.
> I don't use Ubuntu, but I'm curious: how does it handle the case where a config file's format has changed for the software you are upgrading?
Debian packages typically use dpkg-reconfigure to configure upgrades. Each package "knows" its config format and provides helpers for dpkg-reconfigure to merge in any format changes. Basically, it doesn't try to merge in the changes as a text diff, it programmatically does so, offering you a choice of GUIs or even a batch mode. If you changed an option yourself, it offers that as the default when reconfiguring. I'm a big fan of ports (not so much portage), but debian's approach at handling config files is phenomenal.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
of course, and the sources were sent to the bsd team using the standard "apple OSS contrubuting" procedure. A 12MB tarball to a gmail account. ;)
:)
----nubis
A good reason would be to learn more about the various other unices out there and the various ways things are done amongst kernels and distros. Other than that, and the really cool ports system, I can't see it being worth the hassle for the typical home user.
:)
I would not deter you from trying, and you might end up loving it, but it's not just another linux distro.
FreeBSD excels not on the single user systems but, in my opinion, where you have multiple users or services running on the same piece of hardware. If you're hosting virtual domains for people and want to make sure that one of your users doesn't disturb things for another, it's great. It's things like login.conf(5) that just come with the OS. I haven't personally run any linux boxen in about 5 years (maybe more) since I started playing with FreeBSD; but some years ago, providing similar functionality in linux was not trivial. It's a stable, feature-filled OS. I'd even suggest it for learning on - like learning to drive on a manual transmission vehicle w/o power steering vs. an automatic. It's great but takes some setting up and might frusturate faster than most linux distros. More powerful, and more knobs. More like pro-audio equipment vs. a typical home-audio component CD player. Less flash, more business.
"The Power to Serve" is the tagline for this excellent OS. That's what it does best - serve - not hold you by the hand. If you're not interested in getting dirt under your fingernails and instead want point-and clicky interfaces to system administrative functions, do look elsewhere. (Spoken to other readers, not necessarily yourself.)
Do not mess with this OS without looking to the FreeBSD Handbook. A quick read will give you a feel of the power and it's something you should have close at hand when starting to play with it for the first time.
Give it a try but be ready for a time investment to get it like you want. Maybe put it on a "closet machine" and let it serve files or web for you so you can take down your regular box for dual-booting, running xine, or the reboots you're sure to have more often with linux than the beastie
It's a great platform, but doesn't come pre-configured.