I don't see the logic behind dropping support for GNOME when considering the two primary purposes people use it: 1) Uses less resources than KDE
If you are low on resources, neither KDE or Gnome is an option if you care about speed. I use KDE on my desktop, but for my elderly PII laptop, I use
XFCE that is much less resource hungry.
As a perpetual distro switcher, I've tried my hand at both gnome and kde.
You don't have to switch to another distro just to try out another desktop. But then I suppose it's a Linux thing to always install the latest hot Linux distro;-)
I agree. I don't even bother to read FAQ's anymore since they rarely don't answer anybody questions and serve only as a self promotion tool.
It seems that the FAQ has gone the route of the scripted press conference where the only questions that get answered are the ones that show the product/candidate in a good light.
There are still several very good FAQ on the Internet. Some project does not understand that documentation and FAQ are actually import part of it. For myself, I appreciate the quality and usefullness of the
OpenBSD FAQ, as well as the excellent manual pages. Actually, all of the *BSD put alot of hard good work into an uptodate and correct documentation.
Now, that said, I've came across several very bad FAQ and documentation. It's not that the documentatoin/FAQ is scarce, but that it's obviously lagging far behind and buggy.
The only issues i've ever had with FreeBSD in the past is that i'm wined and dined with some of the more `current' or special features that are easily available in Linux- Things in the past like AA fonts for X11, games like quakeforge (kinda buggy on fbsd), mozilla-firebird, vmware, libSDL, etc... No effort to make it go, just apt-get install it and it works.
All of the *BSD has this, with the exception that OpenBSD does not accept non-free binary drivers.
I'm typing this on an older laptop (PII 30MHz) with XFCE4 as desktop, using mozilla-firebird as web-browser. And yes, the AA actually works fine (this is part of XFree86).
Actually, I'm surprised that so many are not aware that most applications used on Linux works just fine on any *BSD.
I used to feel that Debian was that, but they can't manage to get Atheros and Prism2 wireless support in their mainstream releases that will install in 32mb of ram (yea, I want to turn old machines into access points. Yeah, I know I can use pebble. But there are reasons I don't want to).
Then install
OpenBSD. If the card is
Prism2 based, you can easily turn your shiny new OpenBSD gateway to an access point. No support for Atheros based card due to the propertiary and binary HAL component needed to make them work. OpenBSD does not accept unfree drivers.
You are not allowed to do this But since Bush thinks the UN is worthless, the rules fly out the window and the shit hits the fan. And people say Iraq didn't have international consequences.
The same goes for the Geneva Convention, and US strong opposition to the International Criminal Court. In
Bush & Co.: War Crimes and Cover-Up
we have
But evidence of war crimes by the Bush administration - notably Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush - continues to emerge. And in spite of Bush's renunciation of the International Criminal Court, many people around the world are clamoring for Bush and his deputies to be held accountable. In the words of Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman: "It is one thing to protect the armed forces from politicized justice; quite another, to make it a haven for suspected war criminals."
OK, colour me not too bright, but I cannot see why pre-installed Linux is being targeted here by Gartner - their claim doesn't seems to be, pre-installing Linux is the same as shipping the machine with no OS whatsoever.
This is the result of the "free market" : MS paid them to have an opinion. In other countries we have clearly understand the USA definition of "free market".
The ipf code with the new license did not enter the OpenBSD cvs repository, so your link to the cvs repository shows the old license. Darren Reed later changed his license again, but then it was too late : OpenBSD had it's new packet filter pf (as op OpenbSD 3.0).
The author of ipf (Darren Reed) is regularly on the openbsd mailing lists, and quite often it's just gripe. This whole issue has become quite personal, jugding from the posts.
a mobile telephone that is just that : a telephone. And I most certainly don't need a mobile telephone whose OS is so insecure that it needs an anti-virus program.
My guess is that if Sun Java had a more acceptable license, there would be more work on it. Some work are done on java, like native threads (for 1.3). I believe someone is working on 1.4_2
Well, from the perspective of a non-zealot, it means I have to keep another OS around, which is non-optimal.
OpenBSD developers are really concerned about adding restrictions to existing licenses, and the effect this has on future free software. They really want to keep their OS free, and are making unpopular decisions based upon this. There are several recent examples, like the new license for XFree86 and the new Apache license. Both caused a fork.
Another example from last year is the
new license for Plan9 where Theo de Raadt wanted to use their C-compiler.
It's a bit irritating that the zealots of my OS (OpenBSD) of choice do the same thing. They seem to think it's a good desktop OS, which it's not. They tell people not to use Java rather than address the sorry state of Java on OpenBSD.
Zealots are not particularly open for other "truths" than their own. This is not always bad, though. There are alot of zealots working for human rihgts. But I digress. The zealots you are writing about could just as well called narrow minded.
As for Java on OpenBSD : In general it's a license problem. The Sun Java License are very onerous. The OpenBSD developers are very dedicated about keeping their OS free, and in this I happen to agree with them.
Don't have to use OpenBSD for pf anymore, FreeBSD 5.3 has three good firewall choices, all in the core OS, and routes packets much faster than before, and a LOT faster than OpenBSD.
You claim that FreeBSD is now a LOT faster than OpenBSD, but that will (even if true) have no impact on a home gateway. When your broadband connection is fully saturated, the CPU usage will be just a few percent. So, even if FreeBSD is 10 times faster, it does not matter for home
Chances are if they run OpenBSD they will run Linux as well (although why you'd prefer the linux firewall features over the OpenBSD pf firewall escapes me).
Frustrations with setting up a Linux based (SuSE, actually) home gateway a couple of years ago made me try out OpenBSD, and I've stuck with OpenBSD since.
PF gateway example shows how easy it is to configure a gateway on OpenBSD.
Large fluctations in temperature can be quite bad for hardware : it will contract and expand, and thus inducing stresses on the computer. And relability is a big factor : You can't just fly down there to replace broken parts.
Most likely the C-dialect compiler that Plan 9 uses. But the AT&T license is too restrictive for Plan 9 code to be imported into BSD, as far as I know.
The OpenBSD developers does not fool themselves into thinking that they don't make mistakes. Several of the techniques they use, like privilege revocation and privilege separation is to lessen the impact of programming mistakes, including their own. Theo de Raadt recently gave a talk on Exploit Mitigation Techniques
As for not using C, I've read that Theo de Raadt likes the compiler and language that is used in
Plan 9. Can't use it due to license problems, though.
Not just to complain..., but has the Slashdot reflow bug been fixed in 1.0? It's been known for ages, but it's recently gotten much worse in 0.9.x
Security-wise, the 0.9 series are worse as well. Enough so that the port maintainers at OpenBSD will not yet upgrade from 0.8 to 0.9.x until later. OpenBSD will
mark the port as broken rather than upgrade.
Is this book mainly code, or is it mainly theory? I'd like to get a book that explains the guts, but I really don't want to spend days looking at page after page of code on paper.
A book has to cater to so many interests, and one that attempts to descrie a kernel has a really difficult task.
A very important part of a kernel is the device drivers. As it happens, I found on the
NetBSD a
guide to write device drivers for NetBSD. The goal of the article is to implement a device driver for NetBSD while giving an introduction to several relevant parts of the kernel.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are low on resources, neither KDE or Gnome is an option if you care about speed. I use KDE on my desktop, but for my elderly PII laptop, I use XFCE that is much less resource hungry.
You don't have to switch to another distro just to try out another desktop. But then I suppose it's a Linux thing to always install the latest hot Linux distro ;-)
There are still several very good FAQ on the Internet. Some project does not understand that documentation and FAQ are actually import part of it. For myself, I appreciate the quality and usefullness of the OpenBSD FAQ, as well as the excellent manual pages. Actually, all of the *BSD put alot of hard good work into an uptodate and correct documentation.
Now, that said, I've came across several very bad FAQ and documentation. It's not that the documentatoin/FAQ is scarce, but that it's obviously lagging far behind and buggy.
All of the *BSD has this, with the exception that OpenBSD does not accept non-free binary drivers.
I'm typing this on an older laptop (PII 30MHz) with XFCE4 as desktop, using mozilla-firebird as web-browser. And yes, the AA actually works fine (this is part of XFree86).
Actually, I'm surprised that so many are not aware that most applications used on Linux works just fine on any *BSD.
NetBSD again sets Internet2 Land Speed World Record
Isn't it a bit late in the Beta series to import a new BIND?
Then install OpenBSD. If the card is Prism2 based, you can easily turn your shiny new OpenBSD gateway to an access point. No support for Atheros based card due to the propertiary and binary HAL component needed to make them work. OpenBSD does not accept unfree drivers.
For wireless security the authpf - authenticating gateway user shell is quite handy. Or you can just use VPN that is part of base install.
The same goes for the Geneva Convention, and US strong opposition to the International Criminal Court. In Bush & Co.: War Crimes and Cover-Up we have
Of course not. The owners of SAP are not an US corporation.
This is the result of the "free market" : MS paid them to have an opinion. In other countries we have clearly understand the USA definition of "free market".
The ipf code with the new license did not enter the OpenBSD cvs repository, so your link to the cvs repository shows the old license. Darren Reed later changed his license again, but then it was too late : OpenBSD had it's new packet filter pf (as op OpenbSD 3.0).
The author of ipf (Darren Reed) is regularly on the openbsd mailing lists, and quite often it's just gripe. This whole issue has become quite personal, jugding from the posts.
a mobile telephone that is just that : a telephone. And I most certainly don't need a mobile telephone whose OS is so insecure that it needs an anti-virus program.
My guess is that if Sun Java had a more acceptable license, there would be more work on it. Some work are done on java, like native threads (for 1.3). I believe someone is working on 1.4_2
OpenBSD developers are really concerned about adding restrictions to existing licenses, and the effect this has on future free software. They really want to keep their OS free, and are making unpopular decisions based upon this. There are several recent examples, like the new license for XFree86 and the new Apache license. Both caused a fork.
Another example from last year is the new license for Plan9 where Theo de Raadt wanted to use their C-compiler.
Zealots are not particularly open for other "truths" than their own. This is not always bad, though. There are alot of zealots working for human rihgts. But I digress. The zealots you are writing about could just as well called narrow minded.
As for Java on OpenBSD : In general it's a license problem. The Sun Java License are very onerous. The OpenBSD developers are very dedicated about keeping their OS free, and in this I happen to agree with them.
You claim that FreeBSD is now a LOT faster than OpenBSD, but that will (even if true) have no impact on a home gateway. When your broadband connection is fully saturated, the CPU usage will be just a few percent. So, even if FreeBSD is 10 times faster, it does not matter for home
Frustrations with setting up a Linux based (SuSE, actually) home gateway a couple of years ago made me try out OpenBSD, and I've stuck with OpenBSD since.
PF gateway example shows how easy it is to configure a gateway on OpenBSD.
Large fluctations in temperature can be quite bad for hardware : it will contract and expand, and thus inducing stresses on the computer. And relability is a big factor : You can't just fly down there to replace broken parts.
Tricks with LD_LIBRARY_PATH and friends usually have the following comment in the manual page ld.so :
Most likely the C-dialect compiler that Plan 9 uses. But the AT&T license is too restrictive for Plan 9 code to be imported into BSD, as far as I know.
As for not using C, I've read that Theo de Raadt likes the compiler and language that is used in Plan 9. Can't use it due to license problems, though.
In the link in the post thre is the e-mail adress of the one who made it : robert AT openbsd DOT org
I would be nice to find that I misread the post regarding the security issues, and that the lack of upgrading was due to other issues.
Security-wise, the 0.9 series are worse as well. Enough so that the port maintainers at OpenBSD will not yet upgrade from 0.8 to 0.9.x until later. OpenBSD will mark the port as broken rather than upgrade.
Perhaps the devolopment process of OpenBSD might give you a hint.
A book has to cater to so many interests, and one that attempts to descrie a kernel has a really difficult task.
A very important part of a kernel is the device drivers. As it happens, I found on the NetBSD a guide to write device drivers for NetBSD. The goal of the article is to implement a device driver for NetBSD while giving an introduction to several relevant parts of the kernel.