FreeBSD 8.2 Released

meta coder writes with word of the release of FreeBSD 8.2: "This is the third release from the 8-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 8.1 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights includes improvements in Xen support and various bugfixes."

Comments

And tell me what advantages does this offer

[Anonymous Coward]

Compared to say, a train, which I could also easily afford?

Re:And tell me what advantages does this offer

[Joe Jay Bee]

FreeBSD can run a computer, whereas trains merely run them over.

I just have to say

[toygeek]

I can't stand BSD. Who cares?

Re:I just have to say

[carnivore302]

well, lucky for you there seems to be general consensus BSD is dying. Something with netcraft.

Re:I just have to say

[iggymanz]

I prefer BSD for servers over GNU/Linux when I'm able to make the choice. BSD teams work on the distribution as an integrated whole, less of the patchwork quilt / Frankenstein that is typical Linux distro.

“BSD is what you get when a bunch of Unix developers port a Unix system to the PC. A Linux distro is what you get when a bunch of PC hackers sit down and try to write and cobble together a Unix system for the PC.” -- unknown

Put a fork in Xen and turn it over

[Anonymous Coward]

It's done, but it seems like the dying corpse of that BSD didn't get the message.

Netcraft Confirms It ...

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD is Dying!

Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[elucido]

At this point Linux is far more secure, stable, and powerful than FreeBSD. Just analyze the amount of bug reports from both kernels.
At this point FreeBSD is old hat.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I will feed the troll.

Where does BSD fail while Linux succeeds? Citations plz.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[DMJC]

Where does Linux fail where BSD succeeds? should be the real question asked.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe... but I guess the list of companies that build their devices based off it and some of them are security devices...

Cisco (IronPort email appliance)
F5
Juniper
Netapp
Nokia

list goes on...

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[santax]

They both don't have a lack of fanboys that's for sure. Bunch of bitches. Wanna know where they both fail? At the desktop. Why do they fail? Becaus I can't get MS office with support on them and because the sims won't run native on linux nor bsd. And that is the reason why they fail. Both; *this is being typed at a debian desktop*

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't characterize Linux as "failing" in this regard, but one thing that keeps me using FreeBSD is the ports system. I run FreeBSD as a headless server OS only, these servers run as VM guests currently, so the clear advantages to doing GUI stuff in Linux doesn't apply to me.

I like the hybrid source/package system where I can choose what compile options I want when compiling by source, and I like the fact that the ports system has ports for so many things. On the Linux side I'm not sure what I'd move to. Maybe Debian? I want a very conservative server OS like CentOS, but without having to compile stuff by hand or searching around for an RPM. In fairness, maybe the Fedora EPEL project would make me happy in terms of software availability.

In addition to the ports system, I'm also not sure exactly why I'd switch since FBSD has been working so well for me for so long. Doing Xen paravirtualization might entice me to switch when I assess the best hypervisor to use when I go to replace my physical server, but then again, it looks like Xen support for FreeBSD guests is available now.

All of this being said, I'm not promoting FreeBSD over Linux per say, I'm just sharing some reasons why I chose FreeBSD quite a while ago.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Securityemo]

Have you tried Arch Linux? AUR is a ports-like source code repository system, and there is no customization, patching or bloat in the install, it's basically a Slackware install plus the pacman package manager and some extra plaintext config files in /etc.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I forgot to also add that if you want to run ZFS FreeBSD offers an alternative to Solaris/OpenSolaris, and ZFS is fucking awesome.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amateur

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to use FreeBSD, but switched to Debian because I needed a few applications that weren't available for BSD. Personally, I don't really see much of a point in running FreeBSD anymore. The Debian repositories have far more packages, it's trivial to compile packages from source when needed, and it's easily as stable as FreeBSD. ZFS and PF are the only real advantages of FreeBSD, and only a zealot would claim that ZFS on FreeBSD is stable and reliable.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[ulzeraj]

He wants a server distro. I don't know Arch but from what I know it uses platform specific binaries and other voodoo stuff to increase performance.

The best recomendation I can pass is Debian (and I don't even like Linux but I admit Debian is pretty fine). It has a nice minimal installation very suitable for servers, easy package management and its pretty stable. I used to run a farm of Xen Dom0's operating on top of Debian 5.0 (Lenny). You can't go wrong with that. Plus, some corporate vendors are starting to support Debian and often offer .deb driver and software packages with their products.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[hedwards]

I wouldn't recommend using MSO on any platform, unless you're really doing something specific Libreoffice does just fine for most purposes. I was however somewhat surprised that saving a powerpoint in MS' format wouldn't read in Powerpoint, but the open format would.

But yes, the lack of support for commonly used Windows software which one might need to interoperate with is pretty much the biggest downside to migrating to either platform.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the deal with people demanding MS Office, when you have a free, open, and universally accessible alternative (LibreOffice)? I will not support an office suite that is exclusionary to people that cannot afford it (and won't pirate it). Yet it seems if you want to get a job, go to school, do business with anyone, etc, you have to have this pricey, proprietary, garbage office suite.

To hell with MS Office. The sooner people realize that it is discriminatory to require it so broadly when a free version is available, the sooner it will die the death it deserves.

And don't give me this "LibreOffice can read/write MS Office formats" stuff. Not perfectly, and just because it might format differently and thus unprofessionally means that the document will be looked down upon by those who read it.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[ulzeraj]

I had some abysmal performance issues while testing 8.1-RELEASE and their istgt iSCSI implementation. Tests with dd and crystalreports reported something like 4.1mb/s read and write speed on a dedicated gigabit switch.

Needed an iSCSI+ZFS solution, so a guy on IRC recomended me OpenSolaris+COMSTAR. I had a NAS server up and running 15 minutes after completing the OpenSolaris default installation. Very good performance (went 150-200 mb/s using the same hardware), easy to use and admin. A shame what Oracle is doing with Osol.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[ulzeraj]

Just to reiterate. ZFS+FreeBSD NAS solution works fine on FreeNAS. I don't know what the hell happened on that system to present such a terrible performance. Maybe it was my mistake configuring istgt (because local disk performance seemed fine) but the point is that having a very impressive system like COMSTAR ready in some minutes was a big point towards Osol on that project.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Arch doesn't even have signed packages so it's trivial to root an Arch install through simple man in the middle attacks. Even Windows and OS X handle updates in a more secure manner. Furthermore, there's absolutely no security infrastructure surrounding the AUR so malicious packages can, and are, uploaded at will. The AUR is about as safe as adding random Russian repositories to your apt configuration.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[LordLimecat]

Freenas kicks the crap out of the linux-based openfiler, pfsense is a heck of a distro, etc etc.

BSD is still relevant as Im concerned.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[cold fjord]

Where does Linux fail where BSD succeeds?

For some people it's the licensing (BSD vs GPL). For others it is the coherence of the system (how many places hide an IP address in Red Hat?). For others, it is a question of style (BSD vs AT&T type Unix). For some, its functionality (I always liked the way the BSD _______ command worked). From some, it's the simple Joy of BSD, or the McKusick - take your pick. For some, it could be the approach taken to a particular problem taken by one of the BSDs, such as the continuous OpenBSD code audits. For some it might be a particular platform maintained as part of the main distribution. For some, it may be the continuing BSD innovations. For some it might be the counter-culture aspect BSD in the Linux world. Plenty more reasons that people could have, including: Linux - 5 letters, BSD - 3 letters. Do the math.

You could say that the only truly popular Unix desktop is Apple's Macintosh running OS X.
Mac OS X: What is BSD?

What's The Greatest Software Ever Written?

OpenBSD FreeBSD NetBSD PC BSD

FreeBSD Mall BSD Magazine

To each his own.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[GuruBuckaroo]

Next time you hear about a network speed record being broken, check the OS. Betcha it's FreeBSD.

Why use Ubuntu when you could use Debian?

To sum up - get bent is why.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[greg1104]

I'll bite. The main reasons I consider using FreeBSD nowadays are:

1) Reasonable filesystem support. ext3 and ext4 are just terrible filesystem for 24x7 production systems. The potential for long fsck times alone is enough to remove them from a lot of serious applications. XFS does better, but with its lack of popularity the user base is a little scary. Meanwhile, FreeBSD has ZFS, which is just a better filesystem that almost any other choice. And it also has UFS2, which avoids the whole "let's keep the server down while we do a long filesystem check sometimes" problem Linux suffers with by doing background fsck.

2) The new FreeBSD 8.2 includes userland DTrace support, which has been the missing piece that has kept earlier verisons from replacing Solaris for me on a lot of systems. systemtap on Linux just completely misses the point from a complexity and "scary" perspective. It just doesn't have that feel that you're not going to hurt the running process by using it that DTrace has always managed.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Kjella]

Well if you're going to put it this way, it's probably better to ask why OpenOffice isn't a good enough alternative to MS Office and why Linux gaming is so lackluster.

The answer is money. Oh, business customers pay well to have their servers supported so the kernel, network stack, server software, databases etc. is in tip top shape. But the desktop? Very little. Of course open source isn't all about the money, but there's the stuff everyone want to do and there's the drab stuff no one really wants to do. Microsoft and Apple pays people to do a *lot* of boring shit, so do the application developers out there. Ubuntu and friends not so much, least not on the desktop side.

Small money adds up, Angry Birds have now grossed $50m on $1 sales. But most people in the open source community would be violently opposed to a "if you like it, pay a buck" attitude. The software is free/Free/gratis, you pay for service & support. Except I've never wanted nor needed any kind of service or support for Angry Birds and if I did I'd probably declare the game broken and move on. I'm not saying you would be a multimillionaire out of it, but it would help if developers could make a living writing desktop apps. Or at least pizza and beer money. But neither the system nor the attitude is in place.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[ruinevil]

Pretty sure FreeNAS moved to Linux.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an administrator of a large site (larger then slashdot), that runs linux and freebsd I can put it simply: You're wrong.

Our linux boxes lock up randomly, suffer more downtime, have had more security patches against them, and have been hacked more (twice) then their FreeBSD counterparts on identical hardware.

If you want an actual METRIC rather then unsubstantiated claims, check out: http://www.freebsd.org/security/advisories.html _10_ advisories, total, for 2010. Of those only 6 affect the anything freebsd specific (the other 4 were things like openssl, bind, ntp.. that, guess what, affects everyone).

A quick search for "linux kernel vulnerabilities 2010" turns up PAGES of results:
CVE-2010-3081 ksplice (again?! wow, what a great system!)
CVE-2010-4073
CVE-2010-0291 (mremap resource exhaustion)
CVE-2010-2240 (one of the many memory related security exploits for linux last year)
CVE-2010-3848 (sendmsg exploit)
CVE-2010-3301 (ptrace related security exploit)
    oh look we're tied now, and I'm only through the first page on google!)
CVE-2010-3904: Local RDS permision escallation (gee.. AGAIN?)
CVE-2010-4249: Local socket DOS
CVE-2010-4258: ANOTHER kernel memory overwrite bug.

Look, its been fun pwning your complete lack of knowledge, but you simply aren't smart enough to warrant spending any more time on this.

We have fewer linux macihnes then freebsd, and yet the linux systems take the most time.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeNAS

Second paragraph.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah that's why they have the BSD demon on their home page
http://freenas.org/

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

See: Ubuntu.

Next question?

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[toejam13]

FreeBSD has a centralized support system for everything from kernel drivers to userland binaries. Not so much with Linux.

FreeBSD has an excellent centralized configuration system. Almost all of my system configuration settings are stored in /etc/rc.conf. Under Linux distros, they tend to be scattered all over the place.

The FreeBSD ports and packages system is easier to use than APT or RPM.

Excellent Unicode support on a standard console (non-X) terminal using jfbterm.

Ability to run network services within separate sandboxes using the FreeBSD jail mechanism. Easier to setup than Linux-VServer.

I just downloaded Debian 6.0 the other day, and I was constantly frustrated at how much more difficult it was to setup a SOHO firewall with DNS, DHCP, HTTP and SMB services. I could see using a Linux kernel with a FreeBSD userland to gain some additional device drivers, but IMHO, the various userlands are a mess. I really wish that somebody would make the opposite of Debian/kFreeBSD.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[koinu]

Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

I'm using FreeBSD since 2002. Tell me the opposite, why should I use Linux?

secure, stable, and powerful

Do you have something that proves it? Buzzwords alone don't convince me.

Just analyze the amount of bug reports from both kernels.

Do you want to say that FreeBSD does not have many bugs, so it has high quality code in it? Or do you want to say that FreeBSD has many fixes, so people actually work hard on the development and improve the system everyday?

I'm using FreeBSD because it's ONE distribution that is very popular and not only a mere kernel, like Linux. And the way they handle applications (FreeBSD ports) is totally the way I WANT them to be handled. Gentoo, Ubuntu, Debian and SuSE are nice, but the only distribution I don't get headaches from after a while is FreeBSD. Try it at least, before bitching about it. I tried Linux distributions and didn't like them.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[koinu]

Why does PCBSD fail in your opinion?

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[|DeN|niS]

One example:

I have some server apps still on python2.4, and some on python 2.7. They're completely unrelated apps.

On fBSD, just create two jails, and set up the two environments how you like, update them independently.

On Linux (are vservers at the convenience and security level of jails?) goodluck installing a myriad of python2.4 and python2.7 packages, hope the "system python" points to the right one, make you sure everywhere replace "python" with "python2.X" in your apps; or set up virtualenvs or such, which make updating more cumbersome since you now need to track these manually.

That's just a small example, you'd have jails for your database, mailserver, etc, you'd have them on ZFS partitions, and they are completely independent from your main system (i.e. when you update from 8.1 and 8.2 the jails might not work until you update them, but your base is extremely lean and does not carry any of the baggage of the jails, so some python2.4 dependency is not going to break one of your python scripts or whatever. Also, your ports are up to date (see Debian).

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Decker-Mage]

Yet it seems if you want to get a job, go to school, do business with anyone, etc, you have to have this pricey, proprietary, garbage office suite.

To hell with MS Office. The sooner people realize that it is discriminatory to require it so broadly when a free version is available, the sooner it will die the death it deserves.

If it is such garbage, why does everyone fall all over themselves to imitate and inter-operate with it. Sorry, I'm an engineer and I deal in reality not someone's rose-colored view of the world. Reality is that it is on the desktop where you work and/or your laptop ad. It's starting to be web accessible as well. It has way more features than most anyone ever needs, so much so that it has to inline help (the ribbon interface) so you don't get lost along the way. And it has no problems, so far, inter-operating with itself (big surprise). The desktop war has been over for a very, very long time. Deal with it.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can get MS office with support.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[bonch]

Maturity.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[TheRaven64]

Where does Linux fail where BSD succeeds?

Sound. I switched to FreeBSD 4.x almost a decade ago, when Linux had two sound stacks. OSS didn't support sound mixing, ALSA did, but needed apps rewriting for it. So you needed a userspace sound daemon if you wanted more than one app to play audio at once. Some of my apps used the GNOME one, some the KDE one, and some just opened /dev/dsp. With FreeBSD 4, you could set up multiple /dev/dsp.x devices, and set each sound daemon or app to write to a different one. With FreeBSD 5 (2003), each device that opened /dev/dsp got a new audio channel. Multiple apps all playing audio just worked.

With FreeBSD 8, the sound system added full OSS 4 compatibility, and a few things that the 4Front OSS implementation lacks. It also added a new sound mixing algorithm, which has even better performance. Oh, and per-channel (i.e. per app) volume control. From a developer perspective, audio is simple: open /dev/dsp and write audio data, with a few ioctl()s to tweak parameters. No libraries to link, no complex APIs, it's simple to use. From a user perspective, there's no messing around with sound daemons, no dependencies, stuff just works. Every time I hear a Linux user complaining about PortAudio, I wonder why they're still bothering with Linux.

What else? Jails are useful - lightweight VMs that cost about as much as a chroot. The ez-jail port uses union mounts to allow you to create new jails in a few seconds, with about 5MB of disk space each. It also integrates with ZFS, so you can use ZFS cloned volumes instead.

From a developer perspective, BSD libc is a lot less painful to work with than glibc. The system actually comes with documentation - compare GNU/Linux man pages with their FreeBSD equivalents some time. There's also the fact that FreeBSD doesn't change user-visible interfaces without a good reason. If you learned how to use FreeBSD 2.x, most of that knowledge is still valid. New stuff gets added, but the older stuff still doesn't get changed randomly. You may get new implementations of features, but they're exposed using the same set of commands or the same APIs.

Not sure about performance these days. Last benchmarks I saw showed FreeBSD outperforming Linux. Not sure if this is still the case. I did some tests recently for a course that I'm teaching, with large numbers of threads and found that Linux seems to have much lower defaults for the maximum number of threads - not sure what the FreeBSD limit was: Linux was running out of threads but with 64 times more, FreeBSD was still going.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Tubal-Cain]

Yes, it's entirely Linux's fault that a third party chose not to port to it. The problem has nothing to do with technical capability, just the same old cycle of few quality commercial applications for Linux = little demand for Linux and Linux ports.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[mpol]

Why I prefer BSD over Linux. There are several reasons:

1. Tcsh is the best shell ever. I just don't understand why Apple ever switched to Bash.
2. Nvi is a really nice vi editor, much better then Vim. Combined with minimal but effective terminal settings I get my work done much faster.
3. Bind 4 is a proven and secure DNS platform.
4. A command-line with strict ordering is fully POSIX 2.0 compliant. I just can't stand anything with sloppy ordering.
5. The package management is simple but effective.
6. Security patches should come as source code only, so you can review them.

These are the reasons why you should switch to BSD today.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why use Ubuntu when you could use Debian?

Up to date packages. Debian often leaves users insecure.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[ThorGod]

Well, I have exactly that mentality. I would gladly support FreeBSD monetarily if I weren't an unemployed grad-student. I'd love to pay for a FreeBSD disc that included good to "par" desktop functionality. Truth be told, I fully plan on making a donation once I've got funds headed my way. For now, I just try to contribute positively on their forums.

That kind of begs the question of what I do with my desktop, though. Lately, that's mostly chat, browsing, and the occasional FPS. BTW: My FPS of choice *is* free (as in beer). So, theoretically, most everything I do could be done in a BSD environment (except the Microsoft Word/Excel stuff). Oh, and my desktop and laptop have pretty interfaces. Don't laugh, pretty interfaces go a long way on a desktop. The fonts don't hurt to look at and are consistent across the interface. I've had problems with that on my BSD box. (The caveat being I don't use X11 on my BSD box much and I'm fully aware there are ways to make it pretty.)

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[dylan_-]

Which ones? Googling for network speed records gives: http://www.internet2.edu/lsr/history.html and they're Linux...

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[serviscope_minor]

Wanna know where they both fail? At the desktop.

Not at all. They're both excellent on the desktop. I use Linux on the desktop. And, many people I know use linux on the desktop. I like them very much and find that they (well, I haven't had a freeBSD desktop for a while)/it provides by far the best desktop experience available. To ME. I really don't care about anyone else, and I very much doubt they care about me.

So far, the majority of the ideas for improving the popularity of Linux seem to turn it into a nasty cheap windows/OSX knockoff that nobody prefers.

And that is the reason why they fail. Both; *this is being typed at a debian desktop*

You have a strange definition of "fail". The global desktop/laptop PC market has reachd something like 180 million units per year. If Linux has the 1.64% market share claimed on Wikipedia, then that meand that there are over 2 million desktops out there running Linux. If I could fail in that style, I would be very happy indeed.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[serviscope_minor]

For others, it is a question of style (BSD vs AT&T type Unix).

There are distros that are more BSD-like than others. Some have gone most of the way and scrapped the SYSV-init style, others keep in the traditions of older commercial unicies.

Of course, that doesn't affect the other stylistic things like having working man pages for every file in /dev.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Shaiku]

My thoughts on FreeBSD vs Linux... FreeBSD chroot jails are more secure than Linux chroot jails. Even says so in the Ubuntu man pages: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/jaunty/man2/chroot.2.html
http://www.bpfh.net/simes/computing/chroot-break.html

FreeBSD also has kernel-level virtualized jails which are far more secure than chroot jails, and a virtual network stack for jails is right around the corner (vimage/vnet). Then there's also the kernel securelevel, extended attributes/ACLs, TrustedBSD/MAC, and pf/ALTQ which is far superior to iptables. BSD has really been leading Linux in the area of security--Linux is more focused on spreading GPL and getting the media wheel on your USB keyboard to work.

I would say that Linux has much more diverse hardware support and more complete support for cutting-edge whiz-bangs and desktop gadgets like sound cards and webcams--although current FreeBSD is not too far behind. Meanwhile, FreeBSD is focused on powerful features for administration and for servers, such as jails, pf, ZFS, netgraph, GEOM framework, HAST replication, CARP failover, consistent integration of kernel and userland, consistent interface for startup scripts, the ports system and repository, etc.

Of course FreeBSD has the better license without question.

I think the clear choice for security and network related infrastructure is always a BSD box. The only times I choose Linux are when I'm forced to, such as installing to embedded hardware or using as a desktop/workstation.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[serviscope_minor]

Why I prefer BSD over Linux. There are several reasons: ...

1. Tcsh is the best shell ever. I just don't understand why Apple ever switched to Bash.

What on earth are you talking about? Do you even know ANYTHING about unix? Install tcsh and use it! One of the main innovations in unix was userland shells so you could do just this! From the beginning. It's ALWAYS had this feature!

2. Nvi is a really nice vi editor, much better then Vim. Combined with minimal but effective terminal settings I get my work done much faster.

I'm beginning to smell trollish ness here. Firstly, you can install nvi on any Linux system. Secondly, one can set up vim to behave very similarly to the original vi, or much like nvi. Your claim that nvi is much faster for work than vi is really subious unless you can provide any examples.

4. A command-line with strict ordering is fully POSIX 2.0 compliant. I just can't stand anything with sloppy ordering.

I assume this is a dig at the GNU tools, not Linux. export (or rather in your case setenv) POSIXLY_CORRECT, and bask in the glory of posix.

5. The package management is simple but effective.

Hahaha. If there's one thing you will never get people to agree on, it's package management. But, seriously, many Linux distros have decent package management, as do the various BSDs. On both OSs it's mostly a question of "oooh I don't have $PACKAGE".

# $PACKAGEINSTALLER $PACKAGE ... and that's it.

6. Security patches should come as source code only, so you can review them.

Oh, that's just silly. You can easily not install updates until you've reviewed the source. I (not being a security expert) have not the time, incinnation or expertise to read most of the updates. I'll take them on trust, just like I took the entire OS on trust.

These are the reasons why you should switch to BSD today.

Yes, but you haven't really listed any of them.

I personally found it very easy to start hacking drivers in the OpenBSD kernel. I also asked a question on a mailing list and got a speedy, polite and helpful reply from Theo De Raadt. The extensive man pages and consistent documentation made it very easy.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Debian stable sometimes leaves the user stuck with packages that have non-security related bugs, but updates are provided for known security issues.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[underqualified]

ZFS is fucking awesome.

why? because it has a Z?

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[marsu_k]

He wants a server distro. I don't know Arch but from what I know it uses platform specific binaries and other voodoo stuff to increase performance.

If by "platform specific binaries" you mean the 32-bit packages are optimized/compiled for i686, that is certainly true - but really, who runs anything older than a Pentium Pro these days? And now I'll probably get a reply from someone still on a 486; but my point is, the vast majority of PCs still in use are at least i686-compatible, as such it doesn't make sense to have 386-optimized packages.

But even as an Arch user, I wouldn't use it in a server. I do run it on my home file server/mythbackend, and it works really well there, but I'm willing to do some tinkering if needed. The bleeding edge/rolling release-approach doesn't cut it for production servers.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[gpuk]

In the Linux world, the combination of OpenVZ and btrfs would offer a very close approximation to what you describe.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that meant to be a joke or just a very clumsy troll?

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[clang_jangle]

the clear advantages to doing GUI stuff in Linux doesn't apply to me.

Whaa? As a user of both FreeBSD and gentoo, I'd like to remind you that there is no difference in the GUI, they both use xorg. In fact, the only real advantage I've found Linux has over BSD is the support for so many filesystems and partition types. I do wish they'd add that to BSD, but whenever I've brought it up the devs were somewhat antagonistic toward the notion. Can't imagine why, really... But anyway, that's why gentoo became my preferred desktop OS, it's the swiss army knife utility of being able to mount and read/write just about any filesystem. I love FreeBSD though; there's a lot to be said for using a kernel so small you could easily configure it in ee if you wanted. :)

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[clang_jangle]

That's a lot of unnecessary trouble to go through though. I just specify the appropriate interpreter. Works perfectly well, both in BSD and Linux (I have multiple versions of python in each). Like this:

#! /usr/bin/python2.4

or

#! /usr/bin/python2.7

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[gpuk]

"Then there's also the kernel securelevel, extended attributes/ACLs, TrustedBSD/MAC, and pf/ALTQ which is far superior to iptables. BSD has really been leading Linux in the area of security--Linux is more focused on spreading GPL and getting the media wheel on your USB keyboard to work."

From http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/faq/security.html#SECURELEVEL
"Securelevel is not a silver bullet; it has many known deficiencies. More often than not, it provides a false sense of security."

Linux supports extended attributes/ACLs, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_file_attributes

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Security_Modules for a Linux approximation to TrustedBSD/MAC (admittedly it does not enjoy wide spread support yet).

For pf/ALTQ see iptables/iproute2/ebtables

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Securityemo]

That's a good point. I actually hadn't thought about that at all.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[gpuk]

What exactly is difficult with setting up bind, dhcp3, apache and samba?

Seriously, these are all very mature, well documented pieces of software. It is literally as simple as issuing a few aptitude install commands, editing the config files to your taste (all of which are found in /etc) and writing a basic iptables script to open up the necessary ports.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a zealot-in-denial would claim there's not much of a point in running [OS different than mine]*

I left Linux in large part because of the distro fashionistas that make such provincial statements as that.

I found FreeBSD to be more stable (the Linux kernel has caught up there as long as the distro doesn't keep screwing with it), the file system completely logical and the documentation superlative to anything I had ever seen in the Linux world. There were certainly areas where Linux worked better (although BSD is catching up there, and fast) but those areas did not affect me. It was a complete win for me. One thing I am seeing more of is the increasing frequency of source code that, while claiming to be POSIX, is filled with linux-isms such that I can't compile it. This is usually either easily fixed or the program easily forgotten and I attribute it to sloppy programmers rather than GPL** sappers wearing ninja headbands.

So I'm staying put. You stay wherever you'd like.

*In your case, FreeBSD
** 2, 3, 4, 5... take your pick

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[drinkypoo]

XFS is wholly unsuitable for actual use because I cannot mount it on a crappy little low-memory system to do filesystem checks or repairs; To mount a dirty 1TB XFS filesystem you need over a gigabyte of memory free. btrfs holds some hope for the future. Right now I use ext4.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[drinkypoo]

Where does Linux fail where BSD succeeds?

Sound.

OSS doesn't support my hardware but ALSA does.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[laffer1]

MidnightBSD, MirBSD, DragonFly. Let's mention everybody if you're going to talk about the pc bsd distro.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[laffer1]

There is nothing wrong with PC-BSD per se, but you have to agree with several points on design to get into it. First, you have to prefer DLL hell in windows as they install duplicates of shared libraries with PBI to make it easier to upgrade select software. There are advantages to this, but it's also a security nightmare and you force the user to download png and jpeg libraries countless times. Second, you have to like using an OS tuned for a server platform for a desktop. FreeBSD is getting a lot better on the desktop, but it's not a desktop platform. Next, you must like KDE. I don't mind it, but some people hate it for various reasons. Finally, you're choosing a commercial vendor just as you would with redhat or another linux company. Some people have issues with that and others like the support options. Like redhat, ixsystems doesn't control the kernel but they have people's ears who do.

That said, there are many advantages to PC-BSD as well. They've got a good installer and are ahead of alternatives in the BSD world on usability right now. Their sound detection is rather nice and they've made good headway getting drag and drop packages to work. Their updater isn't bad either. You can also use freebsd ports on it.

Obviously, I'm biased running a competing project.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[laffer1]

I'd also like to point out FreeBSD 9 will have journaling with UFS2 (in addition to gjournal which they have now). I believe NetBSD has been working on journaling as well.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Draek]

But most people in the open source community would be violently opposed to a "if you like it, pay a buck" attitude.

Not really. They would, however, be violently opposed to a "if you like it, don't you dare do anything with it including but not limited to giving copies to your friend, you dirty thief" attitude.

It's perfectly alright to ask for payment in exchange of support, as is asking for donations. Demanding you be the sole source of your software, however, and threatening anyone that dares not comply with the full strength of the law is a whole different matter.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[silverglade00]

No, because awesome has a great personality and a smokin body.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Vancorps]

Fixed that years ago, it used to be call MetaFrame and it mildly sucked then but now it's called XenApp and it's your friend

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[geminidomino]

4. A command-line with strict ordering is fully POSIX 2.0 compliant. I just can't stand anything with sloppy ordering.

Forgive my squirrely ignorance, but this caught my attention and interest, so I figure I'll try to learn something in the midst of a lovely flamewar, troll that I am. :)

What exactly do you mean by "strict ordering" in this context?

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Lawrence_Bird]

Dragged into the troll thread but what the heck... Here are my observations, beginning with the unix style... 1) I was a long time user of slackware - from around 1994ish until 2009. To me it was the most BSD like and it was consistent about where it put things both across releases and in terms of being BSD like. The other linux distros are, imho, all over the map - mostly sysv like, kinda like, not quite like. 2) less frequent update cycle. Some will think this a disadvantage but I think it speaks to a more thorough build and release process. 3) ive found that applications seem to be more stable running on bsd than linux (slackware). Both slack and freebsd themself are quite stable but configuration is a little bit easier on freebsd 4) linux is too fragmented though it does seem to be reconsolidating again. 5) all the *nixes fail in regards driver support and likely will continue to trail far behind windows. thats just a fact of life

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[jadavis]

Reasonable filesystem support. ext3 and ext4 are just terrible filesystem for 24x7 production systems.

Yes. I still do not have confidence in either of those filesystems.

First of all, they are fairly old designs. There is no good way to do consistent backups, checksums, or consistent incremental backup. FreeBSD, Mac, Solaris, and even Windows are way ahead here. I'm holding out hope for Btrfs, but it's not really here yet.

And if Linux is going to use an old FS design, you'd think it would at least be stable. But I have no confidence that it is. They are still working through issues like http://lwn.net/Articles/328363/ . There have been many issues that my colleagues or I have encountered with CFQ or ext3/4 ... right now, someone is dealing with a load pattern that apparently causes ext4 to freeze outright (known issue, but I don't have a link).

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Korin43]

If by "platform specific binaries" you mean the 32-bit packages are optimized/compiled for i686, that is certainly true - but really, who runs anything older than a Pentium Pro these days? And now I'll probably get a reply from someone still on a 486; but my point is, the vast majority of PCs still in use are at least i686-compatible, as such it doesn't make sense to have 386-optimized packages.

Not to mention that if you really wanted to, you can use the AUR to get a different kernel if you want. Example: Fedora's kernel. I'm actually surprised there's not a kernel26-386 package, but I guess even Arch users aren't that crazy ;)

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Korin43]

Sound. I switched to FreeBSD 4.x almost a decade ago, when Linux had two sound stacks. OSS didn't support sound mixing, ALSA did, but needed apps rewriting for it. So you needed a userspace sound daemon if you wanted more than one app to play audio at once. Some of my apps used the GNOME one, some the KDE one, and some just opened /dev/dsp. With FreeBSD 4, you could set up multiple /dev/dsp.x devices, and set each sound daemon or app to write to a different one. With FreeBSD 5 (2003), each device that opened /dev/dsp got a new audio channel. Multiple apps all playing audio just worked.

You realize OSS works on Linux too, right? Everyone who complains about the sound systems in Linux doesn't seem to get it: They all work, they're all compatible (code written to use OSS or ALSA will work right with OSS, ALSA, and PulseAudio), and if one doesn't work, you can use another.

I use OSS on my desktop and ALSA + PulseAudio on my laptop (because OSS wasn't working right). Sound on both computers works identically. What do you do with a machine where OSS doesn't work?

Oh, and per-channel (i.e. per app) volume control.

Yeah, PulseAudio does that too.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[greg1104]

I use XFS mainly on production database servers, where it has been a significant improvement over any of the other Linux filesystem alternatives. I agree that it's not appropriate for small memory systems, which is one reason why it's only caught on again recently I think. I really don't care though; I don't own a system with less than 2GB of RAM now, and even the most trivial server I use has 8GB of RAM.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[mpol]

My comment was mostly meant as funny/sarcastic, but I guess no one else thinks of it that way. So anyway...

Strict ordering is afaik part of the POSIX standard. It means that when you run a command line application, you first give the options, then the arguments. Like "less -p 60 /var/log/messages" where -p is an option, and /var/log/messages is an argument.
On BSD's libc strict ordering is demanded, while Linux/glibc have sloppy ordering. You can run it like "less /var/log/messages -p 60" on Linux.
When you're used to the sloppy way, it's hard to get yourself used to the strict way.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[noc007]

I'll bite. ZFS was designed with a different train of thought when it came to the file system and storing files. ZFS lets one do everything from just formatting a single drive with one partition to doing a RAID array with three parity stripes, file system compression, file system encryption, block level deduplication, with file cloning and/or snapshotting to another server with ZFS. The ability to setup an array, selectively apply features (encryption, compression, dedup, etc.) to different directories, mount directories elsewhere in the OS hierarchy, clone, do snapshots, etc. is so easy and only needs a handful of commands.

I use to be a fanboy when it came to hardware RAID with a dedicated RISC processor and RAM. The risk with hardware RAID is if the controller fails, one will probably be in a world of hurt. I didn't like software RAID due to CPU overhead and the damn thing not always working. ZFS has changed that for me. Not only do I not notice CPU overhead, recovery is so easy. I can install an OS on a HDD and then configure three new drives with RAID-Z (ZFS' RAID5 implementation). From there I can replace the OS HDD and start with a fresh OS install; a couple of commands that don't include the paths to the RAIDed HDDs and any backed up config file and my array is back online. All I need are the drives and nothing else. I could even loose a drive and still be fine.

The other beauty is not needing exactly the same drives. Say I have three 1.5TB drives in a RAID-Z and one of the drives fails. Perhaps I can't buy another 1.5TB drive or the 2TB model is cheaper. I can replace the drive with a 2TB unit and ZFS will rebuild the lost 1.5TB. I can either use that 0.5TB for something else or expand the array when the other two drives are replaced with larger drives.

Sure booting from ZFS in FreeBSD isn't perfect, but I don't see a real need for my OS to reside on a drive with ZFS. However when it comes to my storage arrays, ZFS is invaluable.

There's so much to ZFS that considering it just another file system like EXT or UFS is an ignorant assessment. I recommend doing a some research before bashing something you don't understand.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[drinkypoo]

I like being able to recover filesystems from a netbook, with a USB to SATA bridge if necessary. Or from some crusty system that is sitting in the corner and nobody cares if I install Debian. I like to keep my options open. There is something to what you say, though, about having boatloads of RAM everywhere. I still have hard drives smaller than 8GB which is by no means a lot of RAM any more... but it's what's in my desktop machine.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

and windows 2003, and netbsd....

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[HermMunster]

And what kind of bitch fanboi are you? Windows or Mac? Breath less heavy when you say bitches, because you are using our oxygen that could benefit someone more deserving.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Jorl17]

I have to say that sound is where Linux is still lacking the most, at least IMHO.
However, I have tried a range of distros and I have also tried FreeBSD and OpenBSD. When I ran Linux, I had the feeling that I knew what was happening and that I could fully dominate my hardware. When I used *BSD, I felt that we had a pretty install and a lot of useless crap that doesn't usually come with comparable Linux distros. That's ok, because I can just gradually adapt the OS to suit my needs. But one thing still pissed me off -- Hardware. BSD just didn't cut it hardware wise. With most of the Linux distros that I tried, it was real plug and play. With BSD, I could get *some* (not all) of the hardware to work, by compiling sources downloaded on another PC and moved to that computer. The compilation process always seemed out-of-style in BSD (but that's just me used to the Linux way of doing things), and I felt quite confused with the names and directories where configuration files were stored. I also felt that there was some kind of lack in BSD documentation. Moreover, the last FreeBSD that I tried had a horrible and really slow KDE that just made me want to format the disk and do a loop echoing the words "BSD SUCKS" to the disk over and over again (I actually did something like this ;)).
From a license point of view, I don't really care about the license of the operating system. I care, however, about the license of libraries, but those are the same in either OS. I, myself, tend to license my work under the GPL (Or LGPL), but I like the BSD way of doing things.

Sound. Well, in FreeBSD it really just worked great.
I installed my first Linux 7 years ago. It didn't support my hardware that well (Wireless Adapter...) and the sound was choppy. I was only 10 so it took some time until I tried linux again. My *real* Linux fantasy started 5 years ago, with Ubuntu. I had to take a bazillion of guides, but I got sound to work flawlessly. Then, as time passed, I saw it degrade more and more. It wasn't necessarily the "Pulseaudio season" that ruined it -- in fact, I love Pulseaudio and it's always worked flawlessly for me, except for a slight conflict with Wine... What ruined sound was...well...I don't know. Hardware updates? ALSA changes? Distro crazyness? It all made me get mad at it and so, I've since moved to Gentoo.

Now, with Gentoo, I get portage (best thing EVER). I get to choose everything that goes in or out of my system. I build it from the ground -- no KDE, no GNOME, no XFCE, no nothing. Sound just works[tm], much like it just worked in FreeBSD. I get a blazing fast OS (on the same machine, FreeBSD slowed down to a crawl in some very critical situations). Gentoo doesn't necessarily have to give me more power (I think it does), but it certainly gives me more controlled and organized power with proper documentation.

Also, some people have given very informative answers about how Linux can be considered better sound-wise in some way: it allows for ALSA AND/OR OSS, working no different that in other OSes. It might not come prepared with it out of the box, but it certainly is broader than BSD given these arguments.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[TheRaven64]

You realize OSS works on Linux too, right?

Kind of. You can use the 4Front implementation of OSS, but it doesn't support as many cards as ALSA. You can use the ALSA compatibility shim to run OSS apps, but (last time I checked, may not be the case anymore), it didn't do software sound mixing, so only one app could use it unless your card does hardware mixing (as increasingly few do, now everyone has CPU power to burn).

They all work, they're all compatible (code written to use OSS or ALSA will work right with OSS, ALSA, and PulseAudio)

Code written to use OSS may work with ALSA, if you've configured ALSA to provide OSS emulation (not the default in a lot of distros), and your hardware supports hardware mixing. Portaudio's OSS emulation may work, but the last person I know who tried to use it gave up.

I use OSS on my desktop and ALSA + PulseAudio on my laptop (because OSS wasn't working right)

And most of your apps probably have multiple code paths, one for OSS, one for ALSA, maybe one for PulseAudio. As a developer, this is a pain, and I can't be bothered working out what the Linux API of the week is - I just support OSS and if someone wants to ALSA support they can send me patches, or use the OSS emulation.

Oh, and per-channel (i.e. per app) volume control.

Yeah, PulseAudio does that too.

So, to implement core OS functionality (letting multiple apps share a single device), you run a userspace sound daemon, which doesn't expose the interfaces that have been around for the last 15 years, and requires yet another rewrite of the code. Meanwhile, back in FreeBSD land, this stuff has just been working with no user intervention or configuration for the past 8 years or so (maybe longer - that's when I started using FreeBSD).

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[HermMunster]

Some of it is the illusion that you loose control of your software when you port to Linux. Some of it has to do with Microsoft's total cost of ownership that makes it so expensive to create with their tools that you can really only invest so much money and that goes into the desktop with the largest target audience. Some of it has to do with the incessant FUD spread by the likes of those fanboi Windows and Mac users that people can't get a real perspective on it's capabilities and use. Some of it has to do with the fractional nature of Linux. You develop for one distro but it may not work properly out of the box on another. Some of it has to do with the state of many of the projects and even the heavy handedness of some of the more common projects such as OpenGL, X, the desktop managers, etc. Some software is incomplete and has problems that drive the average user away.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[geminidomino]

Ah! I see and I understand.

Coincidentally, I also agree. Every time I see 'chown foo ~foo -R' I find the perpetrator and put thumbtacks on his chair.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[HermMunster]

Wikipedia is NOT the official weights and measure system for the internet. By it's very nature and the nature of people to be fanboish about what they own, know, and use, you can't trust statistics bantered about on the likes of Wikipedia, especially for something as difficult to measure as OS use.

The most definitive estimate, based on 20,000 sites over the past 15 years indicate that Linux has 4-5% of the market. When you look at Canonical and Fedora they claim 12 and 24 million respectively (as of last year). That doesn't account for a year's worth of installs, nor does it account for other distributions. For that matter it doesn't even account for those machines that are in use that are not exposed to the net.

If you go to Microsoft's site you are going to encounter users that use Windows. You will only see a small percentage that use Mac or Linux. If you go to Apple's site you will encounter mostly Mac users. The point is that unless you have a fair system, measured over a long period of time, you will never get a true count. And most certainly someone claiming a certain percentage in a publicly editable document is no true measure.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[underqualified]

I recommend doing a some research before bashing something you don't understand.

i forgot to mention that i was just kidding and that i use ZFS myself.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[badkarmadayaccount]

Linux is no less a sever platform. PBI are filesystem deltas, AFAIK - fs dedupe should take care of it, partially.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[laffer1]

Linux has become a server platform, but it was designed as a free alternative for workstation use. There's still a heavy time investment in projects like ubuntu to make it desktop friendly.

I have not looked into the PBI format in the last year or two, but the original version made multiple copies of shared libraries for each package. Comments I've read from Kris Moore when this has come up in the past make me think it's still that way.

Matt Dillon had an interesting solution to this problem that was posted on the DragonFly site when he started that project that actually gave a different view of the file system to different software as a way to mask version differences. I think it was deemed to much work to pull off though and they went to pkgsrc for ports.

mports rely on all packages getting generated from one build cluster run and based on the version number (and portrevision) will update packages as necessary. I'm actually working on this today.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[iggymanz]

Microsoft Office has huge problems inter-operating with various versions of itself, and the web view has many bugs to give differing presentations. And that ribbon is the biggest UI abomination I've ever had to work with for the last six months at my company. That's why I mostly use OpenOffice and only use the Microsoft shit when absolutely necessary for a client. The sooner the world gets off that overpriced garbage the better. Many entire countries are throwing Microsoft OS and Office Productivity Impediment Suite in the crapper, and of course the Internet Exploder and Outhouse mail client have cost businesses billions of dollars in damages by spreading malware.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[JonJ]

I also felt that there was some kind of lack in BSD documentation

What? The BSDs and especially FreeBSD has well maintained manpages and a very comprehensive handbook. How can you possibly claim they lack documentation? They're by far better than most Linux distributions in this regard.

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[Jorl17]

You may be right. You probably are, that's why I tried to keep my tone subjective: "felt that" != "saw that". Maybe I just wasn't in a good day/week? I don't know exactly, but I think that I saw some manpages that just told me to use info and I didn't like that. But I've never lacked a piece of documentation in my Ubuntu / Gentoo machines. I did, however, feel that FreeBSD didn't give it to me like I wanted (again, I'm not sure if I was just in a bad week...).

Re:Why use FreeBSD when you can use Linux?

[dylan_-]

You may have misunderstood the concept of a "record". The IPv4 and IPv6 records are both Linux...

ZFS improvements

[ulzeraj]

Version 15 of ZFS seems to have a better support for quotas and other accounting stuff: http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Community+Group+zfs/15

Re:ZFS improvements

[Freultwah]

I've been running ZFS v28 on FreeBSD 8.2 prereleases for quite some time now. More or less weekly patches are at http://people.freebsd.org/~mm/patches/zfs/v28/. I have not had anything to report to the maintainer and from what I see, he's mostly cleaning up the code to merit further patches, the functionality is all there already.

Re:ZFS improvements

[ulzeraj]

I would have no reason to use ZFS on anything other than a file or NAS server. I don't think its worth the risk unless maybe for the deduplication feature on a backup server (while maintaining periodic backups on removable media).

Speaking of ZFS I'm very interested on checking those NFSv4 ACL modules for Samba. From what I heard you could have Windows-like acl editing (from the user workstation) on a samba server running shares on zfs.

Re:ZFS improvements

[bill_mcgonigle]

I would have no reason to use ZFS on anything other than a file or NAS server. I don't think its worth the risk unless maybe for the deduplication feature on a backup server (while maintaining periodic backups on removable media).

It's sorta sad that FreeBSD makes ZFS, perhaps the most reliable filesystem to date, 'risky'. But there are certainly man corroborating stories.

I've read previously that FreeBSD 9 will have the necessary plumbing to make it run well.

Re:ZFS improvements

[ulzeraj]

You misunderstood. Its not ZFS, its using a weekly build of the ZFS driver on file servers that parent suggested. The current 13-15ish implementations of ZFS used on Osol and FreeBSD are decently stable.

Re:ZFS improvements

[Freultwah]

I did not exactly suggest it. I just said I was doing it and that I had encountered no issues with it. Your kilometrage may vary, I've only gone as far as mirroring and no heavy activity on the volumes. I basically wanted to communicate the fact that if you need the newer version for some reason, it can be done and where you can find it.

As for the NFSv4 ACL modules for Samba, they work just as you described and it's pretty neat.

Re:ZFS improvements

[Shaiku]

I've been using ZFS for about a year without any data loss. I had a kernel panic once on a 32-bit system with about 1GB of RAM, but no data loss. I don't think it's risky at all. I have a 2TB raidz1 pool that's full and gets pounded daily, as well as ZFS running on single disks in both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. There's some sysctl and kernel option tweaking required for the 32-bit low-memory systems, but all has been well after that.

Re:ZFS improvements

[Billly Gates]

Solaris ZFS is not as stable either. I do not administer such systems but from what I read many Solaris admins still run UFS on new server builds for this reason.

Re:ZFS improvements

[dnaumov]

I would have no reason to use ZFS on anything other than a file or NAS server. I don't think its worth the risk

You are doing it wrong. I don't think it's worth the risk to use anything else except ZFS on a file or NAS server.

Re:ZFS improvements

[Eil]

At one of my previous jobs, we ran ZFS on Solaris in a financial enterprise environment and never had a single problem with it. Mind you, the entire Unix administration team hated just about every other aspect of Solaris (we only used it because we were stuck with the hardware), but for logical volume management, ZFS is leaps and bounds better than any other filesystem on Solaris.

Re:ZFS improvements

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they aren't "decently stable". All it takes is 15-20 minutes of skimming the freebsd-stable and freebsd-fs mailing lists to see what the state of ZFS is on the FreeBSD stable/production branch. Many of the problem reports on the mailing lists are justified.

The biggest problem right now has to do with ZFS not behaving correctly with sendfile(2), causing the kernel to allocate tons of memory without release. This impacts daemons such as Samba, Apache, nginx, BSD ftpd, and other mission-critical services (many of which use sendfile(2) exclusively (no way to turn it off; Apache, Samba, and nginx do permit this). There are patches for this problem but they did not make it into 8.2-RELEASE. There were also problems related to mmap(2) (again, tons of memory allocated in the kernel) which did get fixed before 8.2-RELEASE was tagged.

ZFS tuning on FreeBSD is still required, with the "official" Wiki subject page being severely out of date. Users are forced to read mailing lists to find out how to stabilize their systems.

There are also commits to the ZFS code in the stable branches which contain horrible comments, and all commits are non-transparent (that is to say, users are expected to follow commits and understand the code; the commiters do not announce anywhere what their commits are doing or what they might break). The amd64 ZFS uma(9) fiasco is a perfect example of this behavior.

If you want stable, reliable, no-bullshit ZFS, run Solaris or OpenSolaris / OpenIndiana.

Someone mentioned "all of this will get hammered out in FreeBSD 9". That was the same message told to the masses when it came to FreeBSD 8. The list of problems seems to get larger, not smaller.

Re:ZFS improvements

[Decker-Mage]

The reason I'm interested in FreeBSD now, aside from many years living with it rather long ago, is utilizing the dedupe feature of ZFS in support of virtualization. There are certainly other implementations out there, ZFS or no, but it looks like a wicked combination. Now if I could get deduped memory, without breaking the bank, as well... ;-).

Re:ZFS improvements

[Galactic Dominator]

It's sorta sad you and others like you assume the ZFS corruption on FreeBSD is somehow FreeBSD's fault. I can provide examples of how ZFS pools/ZIL's can be corrupted regardless of the OS it's running under. (Hint: Lying hardware is to blame so it's neither OS or file system's responsibility)

http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/2010-January/035740.html -- After digging into a few ZFS corruption complaints on FreeBSD, this type of error seems to be the most common one.

Can you demonstrate a scenario where FreeBSD is the cause of ZFS corruption?

Re:ZFS improvements

[bill_mcgonigle]

Solaris ZFS is not as stable either. I do not administer such systems but from what I read many Solaris admins still run UFS on new server builds for this reason.

UFS is conceptually simpler, and ZFS has been traditionally hard to boot from, but today everybody on *Solaris puts all their data on ZFS. It's as rock solid as any filesystem ever created.

Re:ZFS improvements

[bill_mcgonigle]

Can you demonstrate a scenario where FreeBSD is the cause of ZFS corruption?

The lists are full of corruption and panics with the ZFS+BSD stack. It's possible that they all have faulty SSD's that ignore write cache flushes, but it doesn't seem likely.

Re:ZFS improvements

[Galactic Dominator]

The lists are full of corruption and panics with the ZFS+BSD stack.

Since I'm a member of every logical list one would seek out support for FreeBSD ZFS issues, I can assure you that there is not nearly the level of stability as you seem to believe. I've never had a single kernel panic or corrupted file due to ZFS in the nearly 2 years I've been using the setup, and that's including extensive "die mf, die" stress testing.

It's possible that they all have faulty SSD's that ignore write cache flushes, but it doesn't seem likely.

Yes faulty SSD's are not the lone culprit and that was shown in the thread I linked to as well. Other offenders are other types of flash media and some bad controllers. The offender I think is someone who has the skillset of the average Ubuntu user who's heard the ZFS and comes over to increase their geek cred. They go ahead and install ZFS on memory constraint i386 architectures. Then they hit the inevitable kernel panic and/or poor performance issues, blame FreeBSD and ZFS, take their ball and return to the mothership to relaying their poor experiences back to the Linux hive mind where is can be assimilated and disseminated. Problem is, documentation existed very early on and it's takes an almost active level of avoidance to not see it. This or similar user error are the bulk of the complaints in my estimation, not bad hardware. Of course, if you actually do have some evidence of corruption beyond hearsay and rumors, I would genuinely like to see it. I just don't think you can produce such evidence because I've been watching closely for a long time and haven't seen anything that would convincing point to FreeBSD as the likely cause of corruption.

Re:ZFS improvements

[kungfuj35u5]

My version of v28 on 8-stable has issues with zfs diff on snapshots, does yours?

Re:ZFS improvements

[bill_mcgonigle]

Here's just one that I noticed last time I checked in:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2010-June/057239.html

Perhaps you could illuminate that example?

It also seems that in 2GB systems, lots of hand tuning is required to avoid kernel panics but the Wiki is not kept up to date with the required information. Keeping up with the mailing list seems to be required.

A filesystem can't be considered 'stable' if it panics the kernel without a disastrous underlying hardware failure.

Re:ZFS improvements

[Galactic Dominator]

Perhaps you could illuminate that example?

Sure, it says right in the thread that when he reverted to default values the system was stable.

Anyways, there are some problem with uma(9) and ZFS so it's disabled by default.

It also seems that in 2GB systems, lots of hand tuning is required to avoid kernel panics but the Wiki is not kept up to date with the required information. Keeping up with the mailing list seems to be required.

The wiki has all the information you need to run stable regardless of RAM. For good understanding of performance, and other tunings participation in mailing lists and ongoing research is still a requirement. It's not like ZFS is perfect yet, there are still some corner cases where both performance and stability are affected(e.g. sendfile(2)). Hopefully everything will autotune at some point, but this type of in depth administration is actually pretty typical of introducing a new FS/features. For example, when softupdates first came to FreeBSD, it was a much more manual involved process and you could screw it up. The point is it if you adopt certain technology you are expected to know enough how to implement it. ZFS progress has been making it easier, but yes it's still more involved than a traditional file system.

A filesystem can't be considered 'stable' if it panics the kernel without a disastrous underlying hardware failure.

And ZFS doesn't do this if you follow the proper tuning. If you're an ext3/4 user, I hope you have barriers enabled.

Re:ZFS improvements

[bill_mcgonigle]

Hopefully everything will autotune at some point, but this type of in depth administration is actually pretty typical of introducing a new FS/features.

OK, thanks, that gives me a better understanding of where ZFS/FreeBSD is at this point.

If you're an ext3/4 user, I hope you have barriers enabled.

They're on by default in ext4.

But I just installed 8.1

[kriston]

But I just installed 8.1.
Sigh.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[CAIMLAS]

Looks like it's another 2-3 hours of compiling packages and the odd several hours of library/package build error resolution for you!

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[ulzeraj]

Err... freebsd-update should be just fine: http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.2R/announce.html

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[Anonymous Coward]

Took me ~20 minutes on an Atom N510 to go from from 8.1-RELEASE to 8.2-RELEASE.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[koinu]

That's exactly what happens with Linux distributions. But it's not applicable to FreeBSD unless you update across a major version boundary. Not one application failed here after the update. If you understand the concept of STABLE branch in a development, you will know why it is like this.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[cdp0]

Looks like it's another 2-3 hours of compiling packages and the odd several hours of library/package build error resolution for you!

You can use freebsd-update to do a binary update. Also, recompilation of ports is not usually necessary in between minor upgrades (ie. 8.1 to 8.2). Of course, you may have chosen to build a custom kernel and then you need to build it manually. On my dual core CPU with 4GB RAM it takes about 10-12 minutes to build the kernel and 30-40 minutes for world. To deal with etc scripts you can use etcupdate.

Also, if you don't like this way of doing things and you are a more desktop oriented user, you can look at PC-BSD which comes with its own package system for binary packages, while still offering access to the ports system. And PC-BSD 8.2 (which is obviously based on FreeBSD 8.2) was just released, too.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[Anonymous Coward]

But in Ubuntu there's no STABLE that anyone cares about. They're all running NEWCOOLSHIT.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[Anonymous Showered]

# /usr/sbin/freebsd-update -r 8.2-RELEASE upgrade

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[Anonymous Coward]

But in Ubuntu there's no STABLE

LTS releases.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[CAIMLAS]

On the contrary: rebuilding ports is usually perpetually necessary due to package security problems. Seems damn near half the time I update a ports tree, some prerequisite library port gets 'updated' to something that breaks a significant portion of the system, silently - something not noticeable until after you start (or even complete) your ports upgrades.

Access to ports is not a badge of pride. Someone running ports on a server, without an extensive in-house vetting and change control system for ports itself, is negligent.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[CAIMLAS]

Were you replying to someone else?

I've yet to have an issue doing a simple: aptitude update && aptitude upgrade && aptitude dist-upgrade (or the various equivilent across the years). Worst case, I've had issues with desktop applications or esoteric/old/consumer hardware on the newer releases.

What I was referring to was ports (where anything usable comes from), not the FreeBSD/jails/build system/bind/sendmail/whatever blob that comes with a FreeBSD minimal install. You're kidding yourself if you don't call an apple an apple, as the case may be with comparing FreeBSD's base system to a Linux distribution, then considering ports not part of the equation.

(That said, I do prefer the -model- FreeBSD uses for "base" and "packages" - I just think they do a poor job.)

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[Anonymous Coward]

It's FreeBSD, not Gentoo. You don't have to recompile packages between minor releases, and library issues? Easily identified by pkg_libchk in the sysutils/bsdadminscripts package.

Remember kids, read UPDATING, use portmaster, and run pkg_libchk after a major install and you'll have zero issues.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[Anonymous Coward]

# freebsd-update upgrade -r 8.2-RELEASE
# freebsd-update install
That's it unless you have a customized kernel. See http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/updating-upgrading-freebsdupdate.html

There should be packages available for most of the ports you have installed, so little compiling should be necessary unless you want specific compile-time options.

# portmaster -D -y -P -a

should get you updated quickly.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[Galactic Dominator]

CAIMLAS, do you never tired of trolling FreeBSD articles?

There is a binary upgrade path to both base system and ports. It takes approxiamately the same time to binary upgrade a Debian system as a FreeBSD one, except for certain ports which FreeBSD is not licensed to redistribute a binary form of the program. An example of this would be FreeBSD native JDK.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just install the binaries provided by the project, just like Debian users typically do.

Regards,
Jason C. Wells

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is different from other systems how? The cascading dependency problem exists everywhere in open source. And FreeBSD doesn't generally force dependencies to upgrade. You get a message saying "foo-1.3.2 is required but foo-1.3.1 is installed." Minor-minor version changes are typically safe to link to as dependencies. I've never worried about them and I've never had a problem.

Regards,
Jason

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[kriston]

THe real reason I am bellyaching is because this particular system is a 1.5 GHz VIA C7 Esther with an ancient 1 gigabyte CompactFlash card on the IDE port. It's not fast in any notion of the word.

Re:But I just installed 8.1

[cdp0]

For the record, I just upgraded a system from 8.1 to 8.2. It has 6 jails running software like mail server, web server, name server, db server and others. Everything works fine, without the need for recompilation of ports.

Also, for as long as you read the file /usr/ports/UPDATING, you should be just fine even with rare port upgrades. Add to that a tool like portupgrade, and you are set for a nice ride.

Xen?

[mr100percent]

Does this mean full headcrab support?

Re:Xen?

[CAIMLAS]

Yes, but it's experimental headcrab support. That means it's full featured, you've just got to read the source to figure out how to use it.

Re:Xen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Experimental for BSD means don't run on production systems, cause it might blow up .
 
  BSD have ridiculously good documents in general, generally better than the program they describe. (see sysupgrade)
 
  So:
 

Yes, but it's experimental headcrab support. That means it's full featured, you've just got to read the source to figure out how to use it.

 
should read
 
 

Yes, but it's experimental headcrab support. That means it's full featured, but the resulting zombie may spontaneously combust.

Re:Xen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: to make it work you need to read it aloud while standing inside magic circle.

Either or..

[libcrypto]

Even if FreeBSD just manages to keep up with Linux I for one am glad its around. Remember Open Source is about choice. BSDs provide one more. One that is far better than Hurd, Haiku etc. at the moment.

Re:Either or..

[Kjella]

Even if FreeBSD just manages to keep up with Linux I for one am glad its around. Remember Open Source is about choice. BSDs provide one more. One that is far better than Hurd, Haiku etc. at the moment.

Reality is that the user probably doesn't want FreeBSD or OpenBSD or NetBSD, there's choice but not in a good sense. What the user wants is probably one system where everything works. I've been there doing the distro rounds where yes, my problem is fixed on $new_distro but it turns out that instead $other_feature is broken. That kind of thing is just a lot of effort and wasted time for little or no gain. That Linus has managed to keep the kernel from fragmenting I think has only been a strength for Linux over the BSD kernel. Too bad the user space isn't nearly that united. That said it's better with fragmentation than stagnation...

Re:Either or..

[koinu]

You know that by comparing different BSDs you are comparing totally different products? Developers are exchanging/porting code, of course, but it's hell difficult. Point is... a FreeBSD system, for example, is exactly one single distribution. You cannot say it about Linux. It does not even have a default configuration that everyone would pick (see: "GENERIC kernel" in FreeBSD).

And btw, desktop user would rather use a preconfigured FreeBSD environment like PCBSD or DesktopBSD.

Re:Either or..

[thejoyoflex]

Sorry, but i can hardly imagine a happy no tech-savvy desktop user of *BSD w/o a need for someone to come and make "all this stuff up and running".

Re:Either or..

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I've been there doing the distro rounds where yes, my problem is fixed on $new_distro but it turns out that instead $other_feature is broken.

I've done this as well. SuSE, Mandrake, Red Hat, Debian, Slackware, Gentoo for varying periods of time. I've dabbled a bit with FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD for various reasons as well, but ran into software incompatibilities that may be fixed by now.

I've found Arch Linux to be absolutely right for my needs and wants, it's like a best of breed between Debian and Gentoo, but better. Things just work when installed, all the packages are completely vanilla with no weird tweaks or configs (I'm looking at you, Gentoo), there are no obtuse config tools apart from vi and whatever you install yourself, it has a sane init system, the community is extremely helpful and both installation and configuration is a breeze with a simple installer that does what it's told and well-commented config files.

It's probably the most FreeBSD-like Linux distro I've found, perhaps that's why I like it so much.

Re:Either or..

[koinu]

When you want to have everything served for you (not everyone likes to have the computer set up by someone else), you should search for a distribution and service that you expect. Take a look at PCBSD.

Re:Either or..

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD isn't here to "beat" linux, or "keep up" with linux. It has distinct advantages and disadvantages compared to linux, and the people who use FreeBSD are aware of those differences. It's also just as old as linux, but has evolved seperately on a different path. Clearly, there will always be a place for alternative unix-like systems. OpenBSD and NetBSD each have a niche too.

Re:Either or..

[aliquis]

Yeah. Because so much more doesn't work in FreeBSD than whatever Linuxdistribution (say Arch just for fun ..) just because there's only one Linux kernel (as if there was plenty of FreeBSD ones ..)

Fail?

Re:Either or..

[Anonymous Coward]

Earch BSD kernel is a derived from directly or indirectly from the 386BSD kernel, and each one has its purpose: Performance for FreeBSD, Security for OpenBSD and Portability for NetBSD, also concurrency and embedded systems for DragonFly. That is hardly kernel fragmentation I view it more as kernel specialization.

Re:Either or..

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been a while since I used any distro of Linux in a serious way. Is Arch Linux more BSDish than even Slackware? I might have to play with it then.

Re:Either or..

[jonescb]

I don't see the connection between Arch Linux and FreeBSD at all. Especially since you brought up Gentoo and Debian. Gentoo's Portage system is directly based on FreeBSD's ports system. And both Gentoo and Debian offer a FreeBSD kernel that you can replace the Linux kernel with. Arch Linux is no more like FreeBSD than Ubuntu and Fedora are.

Re:Either or..

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if FreeBSD just manages to keep up with Linux I for one am glad its around. Remember Open Source is about choice. BSDs provide one more. One that is far better than Hurd, Haiku etc. at the moment.

Reality is that the user probably doesn't want FreeBSD or OpenBSD or NetBSD, there's choice but not in a good sense. What the user wants is probably one system where everything works. I've been there doing the distro rounds where yes, my problem is fixed on $new_distro but it turns out that instead $other_feature is broken. That kind of thing is just a lot of effort and wasted time for little or no gain. That Linus has managed to keep the kernel from fragmenting I think has only been a strength for Linux over the BSD kernel. Too bad the user space isn't nearly that united. That said it's better with fragmentation than stagnation...

This means I've wasted the last 6 years using something I don't want? If only you'd posted this sooner!

Re:Either or..

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Well, there's the whole init system, rc.conf, the minimalist base system install, a choice between precompiled and source packages and so on.

It is very unlike Fedora and Ubuntu, which are filled with semi-functional config tools, default GUIs, SysV init madness and a lot of other things I don't like.

The biggest difference compared to BSD (apart from the kernel) is that Arch is rolling-release and generally has more up-to-date packages.

Re:Either or..

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I'd say it's very similar to Slackware, but with a solid dependency-solving package manager and a rolling release schedule.

Re:Either or..

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest difference between Arch and other distributions is that Arch has absolutely abysmal security practices. It's 2011 and you don't even have signed packages... The number of Arch users that have unknowingly been rooted through trivial man in the middle attacks is ridiculous. The only thing more pathetic is the security issues surrounding the AUR.

Re:Either or..

[KozmoStevnNaut]

So write a patch or stop whining?

Re:Either or..

[Anonymous Coward]

No thanks. Arch offers practically nothing over other distributions with a minimal install. I just find it laughable that so many idiots recommend Arch when it has such blatant and trivial security problems. It's worse than pretty much every other modern operating system in this regard.

Security is the real advantage

[judeancodersfront]

Linux servers get taken down all the time, FreeBSD not so much. I'm sure some of this is due to security by obscurity but I really don't care.

Re:Security is the real advantage

[ForumTroll]

The vast majority of those servers are being compromised through insecure web applications and misconfigured mail servers. The underlying platform has almost no bearing on that. From an attacker's perspective, there's little difference between a Linux box and a FreeBSD box running nothing but SSH.

Re:Security is the real advantage

[judeancodersfront]

It you only look at kernel exploits FreeBSD has a much better record. Let's not forget that big one from last year:
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/09/20/0217204/Linux-Kernel-Exploit-Busily-Rooting-64-Bit-Machines?from=rss

Re:Security is the real advantage

[Korin43]

Let's not forget that big one from last year:

The one where you need to be already logged in? If someone malicious has an account on your server, it's only a matter of time before they do something bad, no matter what OS you're using.

Re:Security is the real advantage

[judeancodersfront]

They can at least be limited to a single account and not have access to the rest of the system. For web hosts that last exploit caused a lot of headaches.

Re:FreeNAS is still FreeBSD based...

[bgalbrecht]

Yes and no. iXsystems sponsored development of FreeNAS to upgrade it to FreeBSD 8, so it's still FreeBSD based, but there is a fork of FreeNAS that is Linux-based called OpenMediaVault.

Who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who used Necromancy skill again?

The ISOs have been up for a couple of days...

[rainer_d]

ah - does anyone remember the days when Slashdot, in need for a "scoop", would make a release-announcement the moment the ISOs were hitting the main FTP site?
A couple of comments down the original story, JKH would make an angry comment and insist that slashdot stop that practice....

Those were the days ....
;-)

KDE 4.5.5?

[tyrione]

Now how sad is it that FreeBSD 8.2 has KDE 4.5.5 before Debian Sid? Great news for FreeBSD but truly pathetic for Debian, who keeps punting on any exact dates for KDE 4.6 builds, let alone 4.5.5.

Re:KDE 4.5.5?

[koinu]

It's a tradition that FreeBSD has recent desktop environments earlier than Debian. When I moved from Debian to FreeBSD almost a decade ago, FreeBSD already had KDE3 since over 6 months and Debian could not get it into the package manager somehow. I've been fed up with this slowness and was impressed how great the FreeBSD portage system is being managed. I sticked to FreeBSD since then with occasional excursions to different Linux distributions, but I always ended up on FreeBSD.

Re:KDE 4.5.5?

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeBSD + KDE = biggest piece of crap - I left FreeBSD about 3-4 years ago (after 10 years using it on desktop) when I realized the FreeBSD KDE people were unable to make CDROM mounting work out of the box ... and when I went on IRC to talk to them, they were the worst kind of programmers: "just edit the files required to get it working" kind of replies. I switched to Ubuntu and then to ... MacOS-X (Hackintosh I admit).

Re:KDE 4.5.5?

[Anonymous Coward]

MacOS-X + MacPorts.org I should have said ... making it a pure BSD system, with fine tuned GUI ...

Re:KDE 4.5.5?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a tradition that FreeBSD has recent desktop environments earlier than Debian. When I moved from Debian to FreeBSD almost a decade ago, FreeBSD already had KDE3 since over 6 months and Debian could not get it into the package manager somehow. I've been fed up with this slowness and was impressed how great the FreeBSD portage system is being managed. I sticked to FreeBSD since then with occasional excursions to different Linux distributions, but I always ended up on FreeBSD.

And you're surprised why? You don't run Debian if you want the latest and greatest -- you run Debian if you want a bulletproof system that won't break with random updates.

Re:KDE 4.5.5?

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE 4.5.5? Who cares...

I'm still using FVWM.

Re:KDE 4.5.5?

[phoenix_rizzen]

And 4.6 is just about ready to hit the FreeBSD ports tree. :)

Re:KDE 4.5.5?

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian has always valued stability over currency. What's sad are emotional comments which substitute sadness and pathos for knowledge.

Re:KDE 4.5.5?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you can allready have it (kde 4.6.0) !

Check out "svn co http://area51.pcbsd.org/trunk/area51" and apply patches to your ports "sh area51/Tools/scripts/kdemerge -a /usr/ports"

Using it since one week and... just as FreeBSD, rock stable !

Java support

[Billly Gates]

I use Eclipse and the lack of Java support is the reason I no longer run FreeBSD

Re:Java support

[avgapon]

I use Eclipse 3.6 on FreeBSD without issues. Installing Java (openjdk) from ports was trivial.

Re:Java support

[laffer1]

FreeBSD has binary java 1.6 although it's quite out of date on security patches. They've also got openjdk 6 and 7 ports. I think FreeBSD has the best java support of any BSD right now.

I've run many websites on java + tomcat + apache + mysql on FreeBSD servers over the years. It's fine.

Re:Java support

[Billly Gates]

I am remembering FreeBSD 4.12 and 5.x. I remember bootstraping Java 1.3 code and shaking my head at the process.

I forgot that Java was released as open source. If Java 6 is supported I may give it another try as it has been several years.

Re:Java support

[laffer1]

You can either use the openjdk port, build java from source or download packages from here:

http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/downloads/java.shtml

the one true user

[epine]

What the user wants is probably one system where everything works.

I agree with you. It's very important I can fix anything that breaks. That's the only way you can achieve a system that works. If the component doesn't come with source code, my efforts to address brokenness are stymied.

Glad we've all agreed to jettison binary blobs in favour of a platform where everything works. How nice to live in a world where you never reach a fork in the road, such as a stable 2D video card with source code vs a faster 3D video card with no source code. When confronted with a fork in the road, all travellers choose the same path: whichever works. Now I have no insight into the one true user, so I'm rarely able to guess which of these paths is the one that works for everyone. I have to pull up my horse and wait for someone such as yourself to come along and explain which path is which.

It's the same spectrum with relationships. Many users define a good marriage as mind-blowing sex on the honeymoon. Others are in for the long haul, and put a higher priority on constructive conflict.

Some of the same people value engineering principles over straw polls, even when its difficult and obscure.

Re:the one true user

[drinkypoo]

Glad we've all agreed to jettison binary blobs in favour of a platform where everything works.

Are you on crack? The closed nVidia driver is probably an order of magnitude higher quality than the open ATI one, which doesn't support hardware which has been out for quite some time, and which doesn't properly support hardware which has been out for years. If I want my Linux system to work I NEED binary blobs. I would PREFER open-source drivers all else being equal but for example the only vaguely compliant hardware-accelerated path to OpenGL on free Unix is through nVidia.

The circle, she has closed

[Anonymous Coward]

For some it might be the counter-culture aspect BSD in the Linux world.

After a brief pause I hope you stepped back and recognized the breathtaking irony in what you wrote.

When is it going to finish dying?

[Anonymous Coward]

When is it going to finish dying?

USB Webcam support yet?

[venkythegeek]

The sad state of USB webcam support discouraged me to use PC-BSD which is based on freeBSD hope this version fixed it.

Re:USB Webcam support yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.. There's been webcam support for... at least a couple of years.

pkg_add -r webcamd

You will of course need something to USE the webcam with. GNOME comes with 'cheese', etc. If you use the GNOME desktop you'll be all set. Heck if you use GNOME, it comes preconfigured with webcamd. (you do need to tell it to load webcamd with "webcamd_enable="YES" in /etc/rc.conf. But that's it.

Re:USB Webcam support yet?

[rycamor]

Why is this modded down? +1 informative, please.

Groupware for FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to use the *BSDs more in my line of work, but the lack of decent groupware makes it unsuitable for some of my clients. Anyone know about something that's fairly simple to install? Kolab, Zimbra, Scalix, Open-xchange and kerio doesn't support it and it looks like a challenge just to get them running on a *BSD system.

Once pc gaming is dead

[judeancodersfront]

PC gaming and FreeBSD have been dying years.