FreeBSDCon Quickies

There've been a bunch of FreeBSD Con submissions since the Conference started. kken notes that sendmail.net have an early report from the conference. Upside also talk about the conference, concentrating on FreeBSD's position re: Linux (thanks to wozz for that). On the pictures front, we have pics from Bill Fumerola and Gianmarco Giovannelli (here's a much faster mirror for those). Enjoy.

Comments

Microsoft, Unix...

[pb]

First, Microsoft never 'endorsed' FreeBSD. They just can't make NT perform as well. ;)

Second, that pioneer/settler quote also works well for Microsoft. Chilling, really. The people who don't innovate win? I hope it doesn't work that way. Of course there's a big advantage to maintaining a stable system, but that shouldn't mean that you can't invent anything. BSD used to be the 'development arm' of Unix. It looks like Linux has pretty much taken over this role.

Oh, and to all those people talking about "Unix heritage": Unix is a standard nowadays. Whoever can implement it best, wins. (and those who don't are doomed to reinvent it) Any code that matters in FreeBSD has been rewritten from scratch (to be free), therefore it's as much Unix as any good Unix clone is. (and less so wherever it isn't compliant to one of the three+ major standards. :) This goes for all Unix implementations, and doubly so for SCO, DGUX, and HP/UX (because they're freaky).
---
pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.

Pioneers and Settlers

[Dave Zarzycki]

I enjoyed the following in the Upside article:

One area where both McKusick and Hubbard fervently agreed, however, was in their willingness to latch onto the momentum of their higher energy--and now higher profile--Linux colleagues. "My favorite quote about Linux and FreeBSD goes something like this: 'It's the pioneers that get the arrows in their backs, and it's the settlers that get the land,'" McKusick said.

"I'm more than happy to let Linux continue to be the open source pioneers."

Why I have the deepest respect for Mr. McKusick (he's a smart guy), I think he might have misinterpreted his own analogy:

BSD and the FSF pioneered Unix and open source respectively.
Linux came and settled, by the millions.

Re:Advocating *nix in schools.

[kijiki]

"Computer Science" shouldn't focus too heavily on any one programming language. The operating system is completely irrelevant unless you're actually hacking on it. A UNIX administration class, while possibly very useful, is not Computer Science.

Double Post Explanation

[Lazaru5]

The Terminal Room (where I'm at now, least until they tear it down in 40 minutes) here is connected via a 1.5Mb wireless link (I'm at the workstation right next to the trans/reciever.) We're not sure why, but we lost connectivity for about 20 minutes. It was during this time that Nik was trying to post the story, and accidentally submitted it twice. The duplicate story didn't last more than 5 minutes, as he removed it once connectivity was restored. I swear, people will take advantage of any ole thing...

First Posts and Double Stories

[Foogle]

I know that this whole story is going to get bogged down with crap. Already there's a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Post and Pretty soon people will be saying "Hey, this is posted twice d00d!!!" Makes me sad... :(

Anyway, this is also sort of offtopic, but I've been playing around with OpenBSD and I was wondering if any of the FreeBSD gurus out there could point out some advantages I might have in switching over. I'm not really concerned about security, so that's not a staying point. Any advice would be appreciated, because I just keep hearing people say how much better FreeBSD is, but I'm not getting any hard arguments for it.

-----------

"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

Re:First Posts and Double Stories

[cobar]

A lot of Red Hat's slowness seems to come from all added crap that they throw in. They have lots of dumb things, like not statically linking the major binaries like ls and starting extra daemons by default that are totally unnecessary. I played with Slack on a 386 and it practically booted up faster than my celeron with RH6.
I too haven't tried OpenBSD, tho I intend to. FreeBSD is great, I really like a lot of things which may or may not be in OpenBSD. I'd imagine the larger user base brings greater driver support, better SCSI system, more ports, and overall user-friendliness (I may be wrong on any of these). FreeBSD makes a great workstation or server whereas I doubt you need the extreme OpenBSD security on your workstation.

Re:First Posts and Double Stories

[theSpartan]

Understand that I have not used OpenBSD yet (when I can get all my fs's to mount in the ftp install I'll be okay:), but must say that FreeBSD is truly as fast as they say. I have seen much testimonial to OpenBSD's security, and just as many comments saying how sluggish it felt. I have spent about 2 years toying with RedHat (until my switch to FreeBSD), and I only feel right in comparing RH with my FreeBSD experiences, but FreeBSD feels as if there is alot less
overhead....not as encumbered. Definitely give it a try if you don't feel the absolute need for strong crypto and that secure out-of-the-box feeling, although you'll find much of this in the FreeBSD camp also.

Enjoy

Re:Bleah

[NovaX]

How was the comment not refering to views of any community?

More anti-Linux dribble and crap from the FreeBSD zealots. Why dont you people stop with the jealousy, get off your knees and do something productive instead of the constant jabs at Linux ("bastard OS").

"anti-Linux dribbe," "crap from...," "constant jabs at Linux." Those lead me to believe that that AC things the FreeBSD, or more correctly the BSD community is attacking Linux. The article was refering to the black-and-white structure of the UNIX famility tree.

And of course, your right on the branches. I'm not to keen on the idea of calling Linux a "bastard OS," nor would I call it a new branch. Both titles could be accurate, but I'd refrain from using them. Quick question, was it System V or System VII that incorperated BSD features? I remember something about AT&T UNIX incorperating a good deal from BSD Unix...

Re:Gah..

[NovaX]

Exactly. If you read svlug.org's history page, that's very evident. SVLUG was an old Unix user group, but went Linux because of the lawsuit. BSD was hurt badly, or else SVLUG may not have become the debatably largest Linux User Group. Incidentally, its members have done many of the grand Linux advocacy in the press. Could have been BSD.. maybe Xenix (*snicker* - it was still good though).

And of course, Linus only created Linux because he didn't know a free variant of BSD was in the works, and wouldn't have bothered with Linux if he had known. He's said that, well known. BSD had a lot more to offer in te beginning, but the lawsuit did a lot of damage. Believe it, or not. (cuz either way, its true)

Re:BSDs vs Penquins

[NovaX]

That was in the article about BAFUG, if I remember correctly. Check out 'FreeBSD in the press' on FreeBSD.org. If no luck, scan bafug.org, and also Slashdot later posted it.

Re:Bleah

[NovaX]

yeah.. :)

somehow i got this crazy idea that system VII existed.. but then I knew it didn't.. but... just had to ask to be sure I hadn't day dreamed and gone a bit nuts... guess I went a bit nuts. :)

lets see.. BSD was capped at 4.x to not conflict with AT&T.. and such... so whew. I should re-read some unix history and keep sane.

One thing about Red Hat et. al.

[cmc]

What bothers me is that Debian, Red Hat and others use their package management systems for their C libraries, base utilities and the kernel. The things that sold me on FreeBSD were CVSup and well-defined development branches.

Getting back to the package management issue, I believe it's much safer updating the entire system -- kernel, C library and base utils -- but that works best in integrated, full operating systems.

Even newer report on sendmail.net

[Paul Boutin]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the link. We've posted a second update from the conference's second day this afternoon on sendmail.net.

Advocating *nix in schools.

[Dast]

"FreeBSD needs your help," Hubbard intoned. "Even if you're a user who hasn't touched a line of C code in your life, you can still help out, writing articles, passing out CDs, talking to schools. Whatever it takes."

First off, I'm a Linux guy myself, but I'm very happy to see any *nix group pulling together to try to attract new blood. As much as the Linux and the BSD crowd squable over things, either side gaining new ground is a Good Thing(tm). It is a win for *nix in general, especially on the school front.

The college I attent, like many others, started almost totaly *nix, but has been making more and more of a push into total windows*. I think you aren't even required to use unix until the end of your sophomore year/ beginning of your junior year.

While our LUG has been making more and more converts, the CS dept is requiring new CS majors to buy a laptop, which must run WinNT. (Blah. No choice at all. I'm glad I got there long before that rule.) It gets harder and harder to convince all but the most jaded to run a *nix platform when the CS dept requires that they run WinNT as well.

So to the BSD crowd: I hope you make it around to my school. I would personaly be proud to have you all there. ;) (We will, of course, be right behind you with Linux disks.)

This kind of competition and recognition can only benefit all.

Re:Bleah

[NovaX]

hmm.. the BSD community wasn't quoted by saying that. Its the UNIX community, the article was saying consider Linux a "bastard OS." That's pretty true. Sun hasn't 'seen the light' and dumped its decrepit (hah!) OS in terms to Linux, neither has IBM. Those UNIXes are qutie good, and its a bit sad many people view UNIX dead, and only Linux (and BSD) as server OSs of choice. Sun, SCO, etc are only now starting to have some Linux support. How old and well creditted is FreeBSD Linux support? So, umm.. your wrong.

Re:Why so anti-Linux?

[NovaX]

Its always a bit disturbing when almost every article on BSD gets Linux thrown in, whether just to say "its like linux" (which gets extremely annoying..), or comparisions. The reason for Linux's mentioning was alright, and that was to say Jordon and others want enough word out so BSD can follow, safely, behind the Linux trend. They don't want BSD to be overshadowed, or to become extreme.

I agree, though, its pretty bad few people recognize Linux and BSD as all open source. That's not a BSD side problem, its both. With the larger userbase for Linux, there's an idea that seems to float around that open source = GPL = 'free' software.. and the rest are just annoyances that 'ride' along with Linux. It should be a joint thrust, Linux people should advocate Linux, but not condem but even advocate BSD. Same with BSD people. All it takes is education, and the will to admit we're friends with simiar ideology. Friends can always disagree on a few points.. but still friends.