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FreeBSD 9.2, FreeBSD 10.0 Alpha 4 Released
An anonymous reader writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has announced the release of FreeBSD 9.2. FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE has ZFS TRIM SSD support, ZFS LZ4 compression support, DTrace hooks and VirtIO drivers as part of the default kernel configuration, unmapped I/O support, and numerous other minor features. FreeBSD also announced FreeBSD 10.0 Alpha 4 on the same day, which is the next major feature release of the open-source BSD operating system."
heh, well the userland part of FreeBSD has more desktop installs than Linux distros. and likely most slashdotters have devices in their home and workplace running either Free, Net or Open BSD and not even know it.
I agree with the smartphones. I disagree with cable and DSL modems, many of which use VxWorks or another commercial embedded OS.
The interesting thing I noticed in the release notes was that the Firewire driver was pulled from the 9.2 GENERIC kernel. Meanwhile, Thunderbolt isn't expected until 10.x.
I think the days of Firewire are nearly over.
They're not providing any value, they're summarizing a release announcement -- and the only things they left out are three bullet points that are just version number bumps for major apps/libraries in base.
Found this tidbit here: when developing OS X v10.3, the "BSD layer was synchronized with FreeBSD 5".
Will new FreeBSD features eventually show up in Darwin/OS X, or have the two projects been sufficiently forked to prevent that from happening?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Thanks. The less noobs like yourself that use it, the less of a target the OS will be. I've been happily running internet facing stuff on FreeBSD since 2001, and it's been a pleasant change from the chaos that is Linux development and distribution upgrade.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
And all netapps array, junipers, iphones, ipads, ipods and macs run a variety of FreeBSD components.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not relying entirely on security via obscurity. But if the OS is not the most common mainstream noob-used OS, then it is going to see less effort put towards hacking it. All my shit is still firewalled and doesn't even listen to any remote admin port via the internet.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
no. they enable use of proprietary blobs, but do not ship with proprietary blobs in the kernel.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
You might want to scan the Android stack for FreeBSD copyrights sometime. Most of the Android libc is a slimmed-down version of the FreeBSD one, and there are quite a few other bits of FreeBSD code in there too. In terms of lines of code, I think there is about as much FreeBSD code in Android as there is Linux code.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You can upgrade quite easily with the freebsd-update utility.
I had a look through this timeline tracing from the origin at NeXTSTEP 0.8, and now my brain is slightly melted O_o... but I managed to find all of the inheritance from other systems (excluding integrations between derivatives of itself like Darwin, OS X Server, OS X and iOS etcetera):
So it looks like mostly FreeBSD and a little of the old Mach, I think NetBSD was used as a means for porting between architectures more than a literal inheritance. interesting how the last bit of FreeBSD was way back in 2004 from FreeBSD 5 (The timeline goes all the way up to present with OS X Mavericks). of course there are probably newer bits of FreeBSD used that are only known internally to Apple.
Not having looked this closely at the OS X part of this timeline before i found the transition between OPENSTEP and OS X quite confusing... according to the timeline Rhapsody (what OPENSTEP turned into after Apple started working on it) directly became Mac OS X Server and Darwin, but OS X was not derived from any of them itself and seems to be directly linked to Mach 3.
Then the timeline proceeds with Mac OS X as what appears to be where all of the development is taking place (including inheriting from FreeBSD), with Darwin and OS X Server only ever taking from OS X like mirrors. Then suddenly in 2006 this model changes and the OS X 10.5 beta inherits from Darwin 9.0 beta, when OS X 10.5 and Darwin 9 mature the model goes Darwin -> Mac OS X -> Mac OS X Server... Then in 2007 during the OS X 10.7 beta the model changes again when the server branch is eradicated all together and gets integrated into OS X and OS X gets integrated into Darwin so the model goes OS X -> Darwin again but without the server.
This suggests OS X didn't inherit from Rhapsody at all until the period between 2006 and 2007, not sure if this is true or not, but interesting none the less. Also makes you wonder how much of the original OPENSTEP was inherited, perhaps it's more that it was not publicly disclosed how much of the technologies became proprietary Apple technologies at the beginning of OS X rather than a lack of direct inheritance at the beginning.
comprehension fail. i'll take "well secured niche os" over "well secured high value target" any day of the week, thanks.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
FreeBSD is very well documented (The manual is awesome) and it has a great community. There are a lot of good discussions on the mailing list, and it doesn't require you to be a kernel hacker to participate. I use both Linux and FreeBSD, they both have their strength and weaknesses. I slightly prefer FreeBSD, as I feel its easier to turn it inside out(for hacking).
Btw. Poul-Henning Kamp tweeted this a few days ago.
Between FreeBSD, Varnish and Ngnix, at least 2 out of 3 packets on the net are delivered by #BSD licensed open source software. #EatThatRMS
So I would say, FreeBSD is a lot more interesting today, than 10 years ago.