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Debian Gets FreeBSD Kernel Support
mu22le writes "Today Debian gets one step closer to really becoming 'the universal operating system' by adding two architectures based on the FreeBSD kernel to the unstable archive.
This does not mean that the Debian project is ditching the Linux kernel; Debian users will be able to choose which kernel they want to install (at least on on the i386 and amd64 architectures) and get more or less the same Debian operating system they are used to.
This makes Debian the first distribution, and probably the first large OS, to support two completely different kernels at the same time."
But with FreeBSD doing Linux apps, and Debian able to run the FreeBSD kernel, things are getting kinda weird in UNIX-land.
I think I need to lie down now.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Gentoo managed to get this kind of setup working years ago, didn't they?
Gentoo has supported the FreeBSD kernel for a while now, afaik
Debian has had an unofficial kfreebsd-i386 port for years. It is still an unofficial port.
when this image was actually an on-topic response to a Slashdot story.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Given that Ubuntu is down stream from Debian, does this mean that I can run the FreeBSD kernel on my Ubuntu install now?
No, just like you won't have Ubuntu for PA-RISC architecture (even if you have Debian for it).
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
It's one thing to sit and think about a beautiful system. To daydream wistfully about interfaces so well-thought that you can swap kernels and userland implementations without the world coming to an end. It's another thing entirely to see it happen with a full featured OS like Debian! Congrats are in order for the Debian team for tackling this and (apparently) going all the way.
Too much repetition my too much repetition!
GNU/FreeBSD. FreeBSD kernel (and libc?) + GNU userland (instead of the BSD userland). There's no linux involved (except perhaps the linux syscall emulation)
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
TFA doesn't give much information. It would be interesting to know whether there are some practical reasons to want this. One possibility I can imagine is that if you have a particular task that you want a server to do, you could measure its performance with both kernels. If one is 10% faster than the other, you pick that one. Another possibility would be if you want to test your software to see if it's likely to be portable, or if it contains hidden linuxisms; however, I would expect most of the incompatibilities to be in things like shells and command-line utilities, not the kernel.
Find free books.
What exactly does it mean to be running Debian with a FreeBSD kernel? Is it essentially just FreeBSD with APT and gnu userland instead of ports and bsd userland?
Is available at http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/
There isn't much, but a little bit in the install notes.
So can I install just one system and choose between the two kernels at boot time? Or do you have to make a completely different install with executables build separately for each kernel?
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
GNU C library
Actually Ubuntu has supported PA-RISC/HPPA for ages:
https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/hppa
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/daily/current/
(these are the links for the in-development release Jaunty, but HPPA has been a part of Debian since Breezy).
This signature was left intentionally blank.
FreeBSD fans created that image, but...
1. It shows that FreeBSD is gay.
2. It leaves no doubt why FreeBSD is represented by Satan.
Clearly, this is why we must stay away from FreeBSD.
Hmmm, I think this would be an interesting way to finally get real ZFS support in a Linux-like system.
Unfortunately FreeBSD is much more limited in terms of modern software technologies like virtualization, hardware drivers, etc. Linux is way ahead there so I guess this is still not that great. Interesting though.
I'm waiting for Windows kernel support to be added. I prefer blue screens over seg faults. :P
Does this mean Netcraft no longer confirms it?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
ZFS, woohoooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Even getting a decent lamp server fully setup is a chore under freebsd. Hopefully debian/apt can breath more life into it!
I couldn't imagine why...
Compiler and toolchain, and all the 'standard' UNIX tools: the shell, the text utils like cat, grep, awk, etc.
Basically, back in the 80s, the FSF, reimplemented what was at that time nearly the entirety of what was called UNIX except the kernel (which was what the HURD project was/is). It was to be the GNU OS. While the kernel was in development, the userspace tools were developed and ported to other UNIX systems like sunos as a replacement for the often deficient historical versions supported by the UNIX vendors.
So when Linus came along and wrote a UNIX-like kernel using gcc, he could load all those programs on and have a mostly functioning UNIX environment. This was the reason RMS objected to calling it just Linux, at that time the majority of the code running on the system was GNU. It was probably a legitimate point at the time. And even if there were a different compiler, without a set of userspace tools that people could freely get and use it is unlikely Linux would have been able to take off.
Now, of course, a huge part of the user experience is provided by X11, the desktop environments, and various graphical appliations. GNOME is part of the GNU project but X.org, KDE, and most of the applications are not. So it isn't really true that GNU software is still the majority of the OS. Of course, the kernel is even less important in terms of the user environment, and despite all the other software around it, GNU utilities are what makes it (not) UNIX.
Debian is dead. Netcraft confirms it.
I'm calling it GNUBSDEBIAN... or nubs, for short.
Lies. RMS hasn't ever gotten Emacs to boot successfully.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I must be missing something. I have a Debian FreeBSD Live CD from 2006. Here it was reported that Debian imported the FreeBSD Kernel over 4 years ago. What exactly happened now that is new?
You can be an insane coder too, read: Insane Coding
There are at least two things that need consideration here, in a sort-of general aspect:
There's little documentation about the Debian project but it doesn't say which route they've chosen, and what about possible issues with it (mostly: admin utilities).
And besides, a very large number of BSD users will agree that its userland is what's most important - the consistency of development and behaviour, the ease of administration. The kernel features are just icing on the cake :)
-- Sig down
http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Whippersnappers. I haven't rebooted my Multics machine since the 60s!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Yeah, we all know the excuses. Stallman even tries to excuse his lack of desire to credit X11 and so on, saying that X11 is part of his GNU system and thus credited by "GNU"!!!
Truth is, nothing irreplacable was provided by the GNU project. At the time when Linus was writing his kernel, the legal cloud hanging over BSD (AT+T lawsuit) only concerned the kernel. The BSD tools were perfectly suitable and ego-free.
Remember that even glibc and gcc were nothing special in 1991. The modern versions were built via the efforts of Linux hackers, including major funding from Red Hat. The FSF did not create what you see today. It is unjust for "them" (Stallman really) to be claiming much credit.
As for "fundamental" stuff like "cp" and "ls", well that's just trivial.
Debian added:
Hurd kernel port in ? 1999 ? (may have been earlier, wasn't later)
Netbsd kernel port in 2002
And there was an unofficial port of the Open Solaris kernel to Debian a couple years back.
http://www.debian.org/ports/
I wonder if 4chan use a FreeBSD/Apache/PostgreSQL/PHP stack...
Why not just run FreeBSD with a real BSD userland and ports system? I'm just curious why you would use a BSD kernel but keep a Debian userland when it would probably be more reliable to just use FreeBSD's userland too.
Poor package management? Ports is one of the best I've ever used. What problems did you have?
I realize that a few people have asked variations of this question, but I have yet to read a convincing answer. Why? I understand that there are benefits to both the userland and kernel of FreeBSD as well as Debian, but if you desire certain features of the Debian userland on a FreeBSD system or features of the FreeBSD kernel on a Debian system, why not work with the developers of the relevant project to implement the features? This seems like kind of a roundabout way of reaching whatever goals this is intended on achieving. I'm open to arguments for the value of this project, but I have yet to see a convincing one.
Apple's mkLinux (Wikipedia) was based on the Mach 3.0 microkernel. There was a howto to make it work with the standard monolithic kernel. It doesn't really count as "shipping with 2 kernels" but it did run on top of two kernels. It's been pretty much dead since 2002.
OS/2 from IBM also shipped in both monolithic and microkernel flavors. The ill-fated but technically shipped PowerPC version was microkernel-based, but not in the same installable package as a monolithic kernel based OS. This was in about 1996.
I wouldn't be surprised if back in the day, some experimental OSes shipped with both 32-bit and 16-bit kernels.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Apparently whoever wrote the 'news' isn't aware that Debian already supports the NetBSD and Hurd kernels.
When I switched my company's lamp servers to florescent, uptime went up but most end users are still not used to the differences between that and the old tungsten servers.
Now corporate is telling me to prepare a migration plan to the newfangled led technology. I'm all on board with the energy savings but the help desk is going to have their hands full for a few months.
Well, it's job security.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm assuming you're referring to ports because of the title. I was actually on the verge of giving up on BSD's for the same reason until I found out that there is a binary package system, too. I setup a LAMP (well, BAMP I guess) in a matter of a few minutes on FreeBSD with minimal trouble after I learned about packages.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/packages-using.html
I don't understand the "ego" criticism of calling the system GNU/Linux. No one's demanding that anyone call the system "Stalmanux" are they? It's about ethics/ideology, not about ego. The concern is that "Linux" as the name for the system encourages people to adopt the apathy the Linus and a lot of kernel developers share about issues concerning software freedom. If you care about software freedom and you think people should be able to do whatever they want with the software they use that is on *their* own machines, then call it GNU/Linux. If you opt for this pseudopragmatism instead, just call it whatever you want.
Ultimately, the name isn't the most important thing, is it?
So how long does it take that centaur to login?
but that's what, once a month, once a year, once a decade if your server is in good health?
You seem to make the assumption that people keep their computers on 24x7.
I imagine *many* consumers want their computer to turn on instantly during a cold boot. That's obviously unrealistic for now. But even more certainly, *more* people would prefer it.
Now, I know you may not care much -- but if given the chance -- wouldn't you want faster boot times if possible? Why not? So if yes, why not try?
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Excuses, excuses. It's not about ethics/ideology (and, BTW, I'm mostly in the Stallman camp on the freedom issue) but about ego. "GNU" is a name chosen by Stallman.
BTW, since I know you're thinking it, Linus did not name the OS after himself. Some FTP site admin in Finland did that, via the creation of a directory to hold the OS. In typical hacker fashion, Linus had chosen the truly dreadful name Freax for his OS.
Fact is, a group of people clustered around the kernel developers put the system together. Theodore T'so, a kernel developer who doesn't care for the "GNU/Linux" thing, is the person who made the mistake of building the first Linux install disk with GNU odds and ends rather than BSD odds and ends. He certainly couldn't predict that this would result in an aggressive and hostile campaign to rename the OS.
Unfortunately, the name is damn important. You can be sure that Microsoft and Apple put lots of effort into choosing marketable names. Linux is marketable. GNU is not very marketable; in English it is unpronouncable or bad-sounding. (sounding like guh-noo, noo, jee en yoo, etc.) The three-letter acronym looks technical and complicated before you even mention the recursion.
If Stallman's selfish renaming efforts have done anything related to software freedom, the result has been negative. Making the OS sound less friendly and approachable ensures that fewer people will end up running free software.
I'm not surprised that somebody's done a FreeBSD client that runs on top of Xen - but can you run a Xen server on a FreeBSD base?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"a Linux binary would no more run under a BSD kernel than it would under DOS"
Errr... yeah... that's not completely accurate.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
FreeBSD supports Linux binary compatibility as a kernel compile time option (and now available as a module I think).
This could mean in theory you would "only" need to have a base package with the FreeBSD kernel and have it load FreeBSD specific kernel modules and that could be a base install from which existing Debian packages could be installed. Although, in practice I can image it would really mean updating other packages as well as the installer, e.g. like those for bootloaders, to ensure they were aware that using a FreeBSD kernel was an option.
As a point of interest, Solaris 10 is also compatible with Linux binaries, if you have the appropriate compatibility package installed. In theory (license permitting) the same thing could be done with Sol 10.
Bit off topic:
Solaris could REALLY do with better package management - Sun's own patches are inconsistent and some of the defaults are terrible (such as being insecure by default) and of course it lacks both the sophistication and convince of apt+dpkg on Debian. Often Sun packages don't even check for pre-requisites properly, I find them very sloppy and haphazard - this is frustrating especially as without some essential packages software may still run, but behave unexpectedly.
I raised this with Sun at an open event in London, while they were launching the Sun Fire x86 range (which are really excellent servers) which Andy Bechtolsheim gave a presentation on. They asked for general open questions and made a polite enquiry regarding package management. They seemed to have no idea their existing solution was so poor (compared to package management on Debian, Red Had and even FreeBSD) and were _very_ dismissive of the polite inquiry. They looked at each other for a moment, a bit confused and responded "Most of our vendors run hundreds or thousands of systems" they sniffed, "and have no trouble managing their packages".
Of course having seem hundreds of Solaris boxes over the years I know most major Sun customers they only /think/ they have no problem keeping their systems patched and up to date. The reality is they slap them behind private networks, are usually not patched after installed and are almost never patched thereafter (despite having a a number of essential bug fixes in their patches). This accounts for not only security holes but also a great deal of bugs.
Aaah, well, if you're going to use an experimental OS :->
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