Slashdot Mirror
DragonFly BSD 4.0 Released
An anonymous reader writes From the release page: Version 4 of DragonFly brings Haswell graphics support, 3D acceleration, and improved performance in extremely high-traffic networks. DragonFly now supports up to 256 CPUs, Haswell graphics (i915), concurrent pf operation, and a variety of other devices.
I know that DragonFly BSD forked from FreeBSD about a decade ago. What are the major differences between DragonFly and FreeBSD?
Also what does the boot process look like?
Only 3 known users of DragonFly BSD.
Another OS that has dropped support for 32-bit architecture. This is probably not an issue for most users as 32-bit processors are less common these days. If you have an older machine with a 32-bit processor, you can't slap on the latest and greatest *nix OS.
I am one of them. Who are the other two?
"Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
From the release page: Version 4 of DragonFly brings Haswell graphics support, 3D acceleration, and improved performance in extremely high-traffic networks. DragonFly now supports up to 256 CPUs, Haswell graphics (i915), concurrent pf operation, and a variety of other devices.
I'm not sure if it supports Haswell graphics or not. Can someone look in to that for me?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
In case you live under a rock, *BSD serves a third of the traffic on the internet.
As a long-time Slackware user I'm wary that there might be a change with all the Pottering-based malware currently infecting the Linux ecosystem. After initial setup and some poking around DragonFly seems like it could be a nice substitute should the very worst happen. I'm still a relative noob as far as BSD is concerned but the documentation is top notch from what I've seen so far.
What's a "Unix"?
Is it a system based on AT&T code? If so, how much AT&T code has to still be in it.
Yes. Legally, all AT&T derived systems are grandfathered in as part of the License agreement which exclusively licensed the trademark to The Open Group for relicensing to third parties. For example, the transferrable SVR3 and SVR4 source licenses I own as a result of being sold surplus Class C computing equipment by Weber State University under their blanket source licenses mean my port of SVR3 to the Amiga I did for giggles, is legally UNIX.
Is it a system that passes the Single UNIX Specification test suite and whose supplier is thus allowed to license the "Unix" trademark?
Only if they subsequently license the trademark. If so, then it's UNIX. If they don't license the trademark, even if it passes the tests (which must also be licensed from The Open Group), or if they fail to register a compliance statement, and have it certified, it's not UNIX. Mac OS X, for example, is UNIX. iOS on the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone isn't UNIX -- and can't be; certain required interfaces are conditionally compiled out, as a space saving measure, and additional user space commands are not compiled for the publicly released versions.
Is it a system with a Unix-compatible API?
No. A system with a Unix-compatible API can pass the VSX, VSTH, and VSRT test suites, but unless the user space is there, it can't pass the VSC test suite, nor can it pass the compilation environment test suite, which include ISO C certification of the compiler and libraries, as well as passing negative assertion tests for namespace pollution on the header files (Linux/glibc/glibc2 have serious header file problems; so do the *BSDs). Android can't pass because it fails on threading API compliance with the VSTH test, partly because of the "Bionic" libc implementation having deficiencies (it would take a small amount of work to pass the VSX tests in that regard, but threads are the biggie).
But then I ran out of RAM for the VM I was running it in and haven't put it back up since. Maybe this release will incline me to :)
HAMMERFS rocks as a lighter weight and somewhat more flexible version of ZFS btw.
Because of her humongous shittiness and discrimination related work on Twitter, the FreeBSD name has gone into disrepute.
Please sack her or tell her to rename her handle to freeBS-girl.
Seriously? This deep in the thread? And nobody's gone for the classic? Fine, I'll get it started...
It is now official. Netcraft has confirmed: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Furries make the internet go.