FreeBSD 8.0 Released

An anonymous reader writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 8 stable release. Some of the highlights: Xen DomU support, network stack virtualization, stack-smashing protection, TTY layer rewrite, much improved ZFS v13, a new USB stack, multicast updates including IGMPv3, vimage — a new virtualization container, Fedora 10 Linux binary compatibility to run Linux software such as Flash 10 and others, trusted BSD MAC (Mandatory Access Control), and rewritten NFS client/server introducing NFSv4. Inclusion of improved device mmap() extensions will allow the technical implementation of a 64-bit Nvidia display driver for the x86-64 platform. The GNOME desktop environment has been upgraded to 2.26.3, KDE to 4.3.1, and Firefox to 3.5.5. There is also an in-depth look at the new features and major architectural changes in FreeBSD 8.0, including a screenshot tour, upgrade instructions are posted here. You can grab the latest version from FreeBSD from the mirrors (main ftp server) or via BitTorrent. Please consider making a donation and help us to spread the word by tweeting and blogging about the drive and release."

Comments

Awesome!

[ground.zero.612]

I was going to put Win7 on my HP dv7, but now this!

Re:Awesome!

[hairyfeet]

Seriously though, is there even enough BSD desktop users to even worry about? That must be a truly itty bitty number, like 0.0001% or something. Not trying to cut down BSD, it is just from what I understand BSD is THE distro to go to to make routers, firewalls, all kinds of uber hardened network appliances for corporate and enterprise usage. I have never really heard of anybody doing large BSD desktop deployments like you do with RHEL or SUSE.

So is there really enough users out there to make all this hard work worth it? I know if they want to do it "just because" that of course is fine too, but I would think that since BSD is so widely used in the network appliance role that someone would build a Redhat style corporation around BSD and most of the funding would be that way. Is there any major corps funding BSD?

Re:Awesome!

[cboscari]

I was going to make a joke like "You mean other than Apple?" but that's too easy.

BSD's desktop users fill the same nitch as Slackware. Advanced users that want to do it themselves. That said, most Linux distro's were put together because, as we all know, Linux is a kernel, and not a complete OS. BSD's, are a more complete distro, and the ports system alleviates the need for a lot of stuff that Linux distros take care of (like a package manager.) Still, they both are "worth it" to develop for for their developers and users, and that's a good thing.

Re:Awesome!

[turbidostato]

"Seriously though, is there even enough BSD desktop users to even worry about? That must be a truly itty bitty number, like 0.0001% or something."

Seriously though, does it matter a damn? If it's good for the purpouse, then it's good for the purpouse no matter how many (or how little) people use it. If number of users were a quality indicator, Windows would be the best system by an order of magnitude (hint: no, it's not).

And then again, for the casual desktop user, there's no difference between KDE on FreeBSD, KDE on Debian or KDE on Ubuntu. For the expert user differences between FreeBSD and, say, Debian or Red Hat are quite within the same league (and certainly they are much more akin between them than the three compared to any Microsoft offer).

"it is just from what I understand BSD is THE distro to go to to make routers, firewalls, all kinds of uber hardened network appliances for corporate and enterprise usage."

It is just that your understandment fails. That maybe can be the 'vox populi' about OpenBSD, not BSD as a whole.

"I have never really heard of anybody doing large BSD desktop deployments like you do with RHEL or SUSE."

Do you know that exactly your very flipplant rant can be used for unix-like systems as a whole, do you? ("I have never really heard of anybody doing large unix-like desktop deployments like you do with Windows"). Now, so what?

"So is there really enough users out there to make all this hard work worth it?"

Of course yes. Proof: the ones doing the hard work consider themselves enough of a user pool to push for it -and in fact do it.

"I would think that since BSD is so widely used in the network appliance role that someone would build a Redhat style corporation around BSD and most of the funding would be that way."

Again you miserably misundestand what BSD is but, anyway, there *is* in fact a "Redhat style corporation around BSD" and it's even bigger than Red Hat. You may recognize its name: Apple.

Re:Awesome!

[smash]

True, you can get caught out if you make assumptions. However if you read the docs before assuming, its easier than being totally foreign. Also, once you get the "BSD way" for a few applications, the rest of the OS is configured and operates much more consistently than the mish-mash of ways linux apps seem to do things.

Stick with it... might take a little while for the thought process behind BSD to "click" but once it does for you, linux is full of glaring inconsistencies and just feels "dirty" by comparison (for lack of a better description - BSD just "feels" clean... as much as an OS can inspire "feel"...)

Funny how similar the free Unices are

[amorsen]

Most of this could be from a Linux distribution list of new features... Slightly ahead in some ways, slightly behind in others.

Re:Funny how similar the free Unices are

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD is way ahead for serious users. I'm talking about people running high-availability and high-traffic servers, and workstation users who need a stable and reliable operating system.

Most Linux distributions just can't provide the high level of quality that the FreeBSD project manages to offer. FreeBSD may not have the best accelerated 3D graphics drivers, or the flashiest X desktops and themes, but it's there when you need it, and it doesn't disappoint.

Re:Funny how similar the free Unices are

[MrHanky]

What utter drivel.

I'm sure FreeBSD some times performs better or with greater stability than Linux, and I'm just as sure that some times it's the other way around. Some times Windows beats them both. And who knows, perhaps even Solaris. It depends on a lot of things, though, and to say that FreeBSD is simly 'better' for 'serious' tasks just makes me convinced that you've never used a computer for serious tasks.

As for your other claims, that "FreeBSD may not have the best accelerated 3D graphics drivers, or the flashiest X desktops and themes": that's also wrong. FreeBSD can use all the X desktops and all the themes that Linux can use. Nvidia makes drivers for FreeBSD, too.

You know you're on Slashdot when a jar full of fanboy wank is called 'insightful'.

How the fuck is this insightful?!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously - some anonymous person makes vague claims about how it's "higher quality" - without defining "quality" or providing any citations, reasons, or examples, and it's modded "insightful"?!?! TWICE!??!!

What. The. Fuck!??!!

Here's my refutation of this post - containing just as much "insightful" commentary as yours:

Nuh-uh!

So, where are *my* "insightful" mods?

Re:You are right.

[sound vision]

If apps were "coded like console games"... *Every application would need to include device drivers for every piece of hardware on the system. For every system you want your app to run on. So that boils down to coding (or getting from the manufacturer) drivers for every computer device in existence. *There would be no multi-tasking. Let's say you are working on something in Microsoft Office. In order to look up something on Google real quick, you'd need to save your work, unload Office, load up Firefox, look up whatever you needed to, unload Firefox, re-load Office, and open your file back up. I could go on, but I don't feel like doing so in a reply to an AC. Simply put, there's a good reason that operating systems to exist. They act as an abstraction to the hardware, making development of applications *way* easier since you only have to code your program to interface with the APIs of an operating system, which in turn has drivers installed to work with whatever particular hardware is on a machine that you are trying to run your app on. I'm pretty sure all the game consoles developed in the past decade have their own pseudo-OS, to let Xbox Live etc. run concurrently with all the games. Or maybe they just have libraries for that stuff that they give to the developers to include in their games. Either way, it works because all PS2s/Xboxen/Wii are the same. That is not true of personal computers.

Re:What's the point in the screenshots?

[TheRaven64]

Possibly that is the point. Reminding people that the 'Linux desktop' actually has very little to do with Linux.