FreeBSD 9.0 Released

An anonymous reader writes "FreeBSD 9.0 has been released. A few highlights include: A new installer, bsdinstall(8) has been added and is the installer used by the ISO images provided as part of this release, The Fast Filesystem now supports softupdates journaling, and Kernel support for Capsicum Capability Mode, an experimental set of features for sandboxing support."

Comments

Clang/LLVM in FreeBSD

[bonch]

As noted in the release notes, FreeBSD 9.0 includes Clang/LLVM, the goal is to be rid of all GPL dependencies by version 10.0. At the 2011 LLVM Developers' meeting, Brooks Davis covered the effort in bringing in LLVM for 9.0 and the work remaining for 10.0 to replace GCC. The move was originally intended for 9.0, but there wasn't enough time to get it all done, particularly due to the thousands of pieces of software in the ports tree that still require work. GPLv3 is cited as the catalyst for all this, for preventing cooperation between free and proprietary software sectors.

Re:Clang/LLVM in FreeBSD

[iggymanz]

just a case of "different", not wrong. GPL can't be used in some cases where BSD licensed code can, for example one can distribute modified BSD code without providing the source code as long as its done the way the BSD copyright mandates.

Re:Clang/LLVM in FreeBSD

[tomhudson]

Apple hired several of the FreeBSD devs, and lots of the code was, and continues to be, given back to the FreeBSD project. Also, in case you haven't noticed it, that Apple-sponsored code includes the rewrite to WebKit that all you Chrome users like so much. You might want to check out the other stuff here and here. Also, if you use CUPS to print anything, thank Apple - they bought the source code from the original developer. Use zeroconf for networking? Thank Apple for their open standard (as opposed to Microsoft's closed one, which wasn't adopted by the IETF).

Re:Clang/LLVM in FreeBSD

[causality]

There are reasons not to use GPL not having to do with modifying code, but simply running the code. E.g. GPL'd libraries.

Libraries are generally licensed under the LGPL. The LGPL is specifically designed to avoid the imaginary problems you bring up. From that link (emphasis mine):

The LGPL places copyleft restrictions on the program governed under it but does not apply these restrictions to other software that merely link with the program.

If you're going to be childish and call me names like "moron" and "zealot", you should least demonstrate a basic familiarity with the facts. If you feel a need to deal with things that way, it is a sure sign you are reacting emotionally and not proactively evaluating anything reasonably. Against anyone who remains reasonable, you are going to make yourself look foolish. Just for your future reference.

Dennis Ritchie

[ShanghaiBill]

The FreeBSD Project dedicates the FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE to the memory of Dennis M. Ritchie, one of the founding fathers of the UNIX operating system. It is on the foundation laid by the work of visionaries like Dennis that software like the FreeBSD operating system came to be. The fact that his work of so many years ago continues to influence new design decisions to this very day speaks for the brilliant engineer that he was.

May he rest in peace.

Re:Dennis Ritchie

[muon-catalyzed]

more importantly, the creator of C language

EC2 AMIs available

[cperciva]

FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE machine images for Amazon EC2 are available for m1.large and larger instance types: http://www.daemonology.net/freebsd-on-ec2/

FreeBSD & ZFS

[ThorGod]

What? A new FreeBSD release and no body talks about the ZFS features in the release? I don't memorize version numbers, but I know the ZFS system has updated significantly between 8.2 and 9.0. Deduplication is in there, now, for instance.

Granted, the new installer is one of the bigger changes. sysinstall...I'm happy to see you go!

Re:Gnome version 2.32.1

[geek]

In the future Gnome3 will require SystemD which is Linux only.

Re:ZFS v28

[bill_mcgonigle]

For many scenarios, ZFS v28 is the minimal 'usable' version number, which has previously limited FreeBSD's ZFS adoption. Now it's a real contender, and I congratulate the team.

Re: deduplication. Be sure you have enough RAM or you're going to be in for a heck of a surprise. 2GB of dedicated RAM per TB of disk usage is recommended as a rule of thumb. I found this out the hard way when it was new.

PC-BSD 9

[future assassin]

http://www.pcbsd.org/ will be announced today hopefully. Looking forward to giving it a spin and hopefully might change my mind about Linux Mint and become my main OS. Didn't have hardware luck with it in the early days.