I had the exact same problems (segfaults only during compiles at random points) until I realized it was my crappy sdram. I have an AthlonXP 2400+ and my mb can accept either sd or ddr rams. Wheny I had 256Mb sdram, I had to change the FSB of my processor and ram from 133 to 100 (proc was recognized as XP 1800+) in order to have everything build properly. Later, when I upgraded to 512DDR, all my problems went away.
For your interest: this is a copy & paste job from FreeBSD current mailing list. The thread name is "FreeBSD 5.3b7and poor ata performance," and by now it is solved. It looks like it was a hw misconfiguration issue.
This also flies in the face of this troll's claims of FreeBSD developers are uncooperative *sholes. Follow this thread to its end, and you'll see that even though the original poster (as DES rightly claims) was quite confrontative, they went out of their way to reproduce the issue. Robert Watson even commited some code to help trace down similar problems. And some stats from the same guy later, when the problem was solved:
Transfer rates: outside: 102400 kbytes in 1.897858 sec = 53956 kbytes/sec middle: 102400 kbytes in 1.934135 sec = 52944 kbytes/sec inside: 102400 kbytes in 2.735875 sec = 37429 kbytes/sec
Ah, it just occured to me: compiling the kernel without acpi is the suggested way. From/usr/src/sys/i386/conf/NOTES:
# Note that building ACPI into the kernel is deprecated; the module is # normally loaded automatically by the loader. device acpi options ACPI_DEBUG options ACPI_MAX_THREADS=1
I think 5.3 will be quite STABLE. On the other, I don't think 5.3 is a real 5.x release. I know it sounds silly, but as long as the old 4BSD sheduler is the default scheduler, I consider it something like a hybrid. I know this is just one thing of the many improvements/features of the 5.x branch, but this is the one (as a desktop user) I feel mostly. Of course I use ULE, but this switch back (for the sake of PREEMPTION) gives me the feeling of incompleteness.
Hopefully, as soon as the release process is over, they will switch back to ULE in -current (officially, that is. in every dmesg/kernel config file I have seen on current, most developers run ULE). And I hope 5.4 will be the ULE release!
So, to answer your question: yes, 5.3 will be STABLE (and not only in name. the whole 5.x series is fairly stable, at least beginning with 5.1, or at least as stable as your average linux distro). I think it will be out on my birthday:))) (nov 11). But I also think that 5.x will be really ready when they have ULE back as default (ditch preemption if it needs be, ULE is so much better in every other aspect).
My experiences with USB on FreeBSD is very positive.
Likewise. Works better for me than hotplugd Recently when helping out a friend with suse, I didn't know how to make a flashdrive work. Partly this is because of my negligence: I forgot a lot about how linux works. Hotplugd was running, yet the system didn't gave any indication of what happens when I plugged it in. On the other hand:
Plug in flash drive in freebsd (5.x):
umass0: Super Talent Flash USB 2.0 Flash Drive, rev 2.00/10.00, addr 2 da0 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0 da0: <S Talent Flash Drive 2.0 1000> Removable Direct Access SCSI-0 device da0: 1.000MB/s transfers da0: 123MB (252928 512 byte sectors: 64H 32S/T 123C
plug out flash drive
umass0: at uhub0 port 2 (addr 2) disconnected (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): lost device (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): removing device entry umass0: detached
plug out my usb mouse (samsung optical)
ums0: at uhub1 port 1 (addr 2) disconnected ums0: detached
plug mouse back in
ums0: vendor 0x055d product 0x1030, rev 1.00/0.04, addr 2, iclass 3/1 ums0: 3 buttons and Z dir.
Note that even Z dir is detected:) These messages all appear on the first console. Now about the bad things: crappy usb2 support. You need device ehci in your kernel config file, and currently, ehci is in want of a maintainer, because it is quite buggy. It doesn't bother me too much, but I think it is high time now for FreeBSD to have better USB 2 support.
How sluggish KDE is? For me it works quite nicely (see my post below) - even though I load up a load of things at startup (lots of applets, oooqs - openoffice quick starter -, etc.). I'm only asking because if it is extremely sluggish, check if you have tcp/udp blackhole set to 2/1 respectively - that slows things down quite a bit. I know, of course, that 'it works for me' is not particularly helpful though..:/
I ran FreeBSD 5.3 since beta3 on my desktop, and beta 5 (booo!!!) on a server (don't start shouting at me, it is a low traffic webserver/firewall/nat - I know, I know...). Desktop performance: with ULE (I don't need preemtption) it is simply fantastic!! Sometimes I have to check if portupgrade/make is still running, because I almost can't tell the difference (playing movies - divx/xvid - in mplayer, using openoffice, whatever). Don't qutoe me on this (this is totally subjective!) but I feel KDE 3.3 more responsive on FreeBSD (but I'm not sure, so the difference, if there is any, is really small) than on slackware 10 (custom built 2.6.7 kernel). If desktop use is any indidication of general performance, I must say that 5.3 doesn't seem slow at all, compared to previous versions or of linux.
Some criticism: for the reasons listed above, I am really sad about the switch back to SCHED_4BSD. And it was their mistake. A lot of us felt that ULE was stable enough to become the default in 5.2.1. ULE is/was just stable enough (w/o preemption) to become the default for a 'new technology release'. It is my default scheduler since december last year, and didn't have a single crash related to it, except in beta 5 when I tried preemption. Think about it: that would have given 9 months to expose/fix bugs, not a few weeks in a beta cycle. With SCHED_4BSD, at least on the desktop, FreeBSD barely perfoms better (if at all, my comparison is mandrake 9.1) than a 2.4.x based linux distro.
I'm just updating the server btw to rc1. A lesson learned by playing with betas: I have to do portupgrade -fa to have ports use the correct libraries (no prob on the server, it has only ~30 packages or so). It was a hassle on my desktop puter however. Anyway, the server ran smoothly (apache 2.0.50, php 5, mysql 4, and pureftpd, up 25 days now). It was portscanned a number of times + suffered a minor flood attack (according to the logs), but had no problems with that. So, I'm a satisfied 'customer.' One thing: don't listen to troll(s). The HawkinsOS guy is a known troll (and more: sells FreeBSD rebranded as HawkinsOS for a lots of money, w/o delivering anything, so he is also your friendly "Nigerian royal family member" as well. Claims to have lots of patches for well, anything, making FreeBSD 'enterprise ready', but won't show you unless most FreeBSD quit the project and apologize - for pointing out some copyright violations in his project btw!!!). He is becoming more and more agressive as his hoax is being exposed, so beware!).
Don't listen to this guy. He has been spamming every -bsd related announcment for weeks now. He is selling an os called HawkinsOS which is still beta. Trolled FreeBSD mailing lists as well, and when he was pointed out (politely I might add) that he might be violating some of the copyrights in the BSD os (not the BSD copyright, but other copyrights included in the base system) he went mad and started a crusade against FreeBSD developers. Began with PHK and DES, but by now, as you can see from the thread I linked to above, he has an issue with everyone, even documentation folks.
This is a hoax folks. He claims to have sold 2000 copies of HawkinsOS, which is basically FreeBSD beta!!! He claims to have developed patches making FreeBSD 'enterprise ready' (meaning: in his opinion, FreeBSD isn't. lol: tell it to yahoo, or netcraft, or even apache.org!), but if you check his site (the spelling mistakes, the prices) or any of the threads he started, you'll see how 'serious' he is.
Thanks for the link. Onlamp is one of the best FreeBSD related sites. I always find their writings (interviews, guides, articles) very helpful. They are also good readings for those who haven't tried, but are curious about FreeBSD.
You're right. As I pointed out some time ago, my OS does indeed respect the (C) notices. All I got when I pointed out the abysmal SMP support in FreeBSD 5.3 was a lot of flamage. I've sold nearly 2,000 copies of my beta system so far, and was planning to give back the enhancements to the FreeBSD team. I won't, at least not until they remove assholes like Scott Long and DES from the team. phk? Who cares, he's the most annoying SOB I've ever seen.
I usually don't reply to trolls, but this one is soo funny, I can't resist. I just want to say that I noticed that your list of assholes is expanding: now you added Scott Long as well (and the doc people for God's sake!!!). As ulib noted, you'll have almost all FreeBSD developers leave FreeBSD development for your 'enhachments.
To add more fun to what ulib noted: did you spell-check the announcments on your site? I mean, how should anyone take you and your 'enhachments' seriously if you can't check your own site for errors. Not being English is not an excuse in this case (what, you don't have the resource to get one man proof read it for you?). You are way out of touch with reality my friend. And to think that you probably made your threats with a straight face, and to think that you are trolling on slashdot... what would your customers say?
Haha, maybe there is a connection between your "Nigerian royal family member" style and the fact that you are selling FreeBSD renamed to HawkinsOS for 138$! Oh, it is only 1000$ if you buy 8 packages! YESSS, that's really the best deal if I ever heard one. You are one little entertaining troll. And this, in your about HawkinsOS box on your website:
About
HawkinsOS is being developed by T.J.HAWKINS. It relies heavily on the FreeBSD Foundation. More information will become available soon.
Yes, I'm sure the FreeBSD Foundation is glad to hear that they are writing FreeBSD. And I'm sure DES and PHK are really eager to get your 'enhachments'.
Some more entertainment:
Haha, little troll, I checked out your link, and it doesn't prove your point if you follow the whole thread. Points are made pro and con, and actually it is Matt who is a little bit more arrogant than, let's say PHK.:)))
Are you the frustrated HawkinsOS guy btw? Some things points to it... if it is true, than I understand your frustration. You are on a crusade against FreeBSD developers, because they pointed out that 'your' os violates a number of licences that are part of the BSD system. Let me just say for all who would buy into your bs: you were given a good advice in a polite manner, and you reacted to it as if someone close to you was murdered by the FreeBSD devs.
Of course, it is possible that you have nothing to do with HawkinsOS. If that is the case, well, nevermind.;)
I admit that I find this development baffling -- not only does AOL already own a browser, but why on earth would a non-AOL user want to use an AOL-branded version of IE?"
That's easy to explain. First they tried something logical. Buy netscape. Open up codebase. Attract zillions of developers. Use enhanched codebase for own brand. Whatever.
It didn't work out as they expected. So now, they must think: we tried something that made a lot of sense and it didn't work. Maybe if we try out something that doesn't make any sense it will work. Simple and logical.
He never left, he was unfairly kicked out
Oh, I see. Sorry, my mistake. But to bring this up NOW??? And Greg Lehey's comment seems quite reasonable.
If DragonFly will be that cool as the developers claim it will, I would switch. Presently I am a 'satisfied customer' of FreeBSD 5.3Beta7:)) But only time will tell which project is better on the long run. Dragonfly's focus on code maintainability can very well pay off in the future in contrast to the complexity of code in 5.x But we don't know what plans FreeBSD devs have for 6-current. I think for now it would only be a test-bed for 5.x releases (hammering out problems with ULE scheduler - which works very nicely for me since 5.1 times - for instance). It can even adapt DragonFly's stuff if it proves to be successful, it can come up with an entirely different model, or it can continue the current trend (which seems to be quite successful: M:N threading, ULE scheduler, very fast network stack, etc..).
Point is: I don't think Matt or anyone needs anonymous supporters trolling slashdot and bitching about developers in the "other" project. Such behaviour is not only stupid, but doesn't do any good, and it even reflects badly on DragonFly (or at least its userbase).
What a silly troll. This is a new kind: now instead of "BSD is dying" ones we got "PHK and DES is an asshole" trolls. I saw a similar messag in the NetBSD RC2 announcment.
I've been reading current mailing list for the past 2 months quite regularly, and my impression of both devs is a positive one. DES goes sometimes crazy, but disagreements are resolved in an open and honest manner - read: by providing pro and con arguments - (even though they sometimes border on flamewars), but that's not a problem I think. PHK's posts usually carry an air of authority, but that's also fine, and he makes a lot of contributions. (Linus has this kind of authority as well). Otherwise, both DES and PHK seemed to be quite helpful with current users, at least since I've been reading the list. Of course, you probably could come up with examples to the contrary, but that doesn't prove that they are not nice people, it only proves that they are human.
As to Matt Dillon: the reason for DragonFly is technical. He had different ideas about the direction 5.x should take than the rest of the project. Since more ppl disagreed w/ him than agreed w/ him, he left. Fair enough. On his way out, he stepped on some developer's toes, and some developers stepped on his toes, and that is also normal I think.
What isn't normal is that some people cannot switch to another OS without being an asshole. I mean, who is this AC? A DragonFly zealot? What would someone gain from such comments? Fewer people would use FreeBSD? And why is this good for AC? I mean, it is FREE software, no one is forced to use it. Or is his heart bleeding for poor Matt Dillon because of what that evil PHK and DES did to him, so he tries to discredit them? Does he have a (platonic) relationship with Matt? (like some users have with Linus - no offense). This is sick.
As he ^ said. FreeBSD has package management similar to Debian's apt. Packages might be somewhat outdated compared to ports (but they are built from ports! once in a month if I know correctly).
apt-get install postfix = pkg_add -r postfix
or if you have portupgrade installed:
portinstall -PP postfix
But that's not all! You can combine the two:
portinstall -P postfix
will try to install the latest version from packages, but if it can't find it it will build the port! FreeBSD's port/package management is one (if not THE) best I ever seen.
The funny thing is that one of the reasons for switching back to 4BSD was problems with preemption. I tried options PREEMPTION with 5.3BETA3 and BETA5 _with SCHED_4BSD, and had exactly the same problems as with ULE (and preemption).
I've been using ULE since last year december (5.1) and I never had any problems with it. In fact, it performs much better, especially on the desktop (interactivity remains better while building in the background for instance). I will continue to use it for this reasons, despite not being the default.
I have to add: you are absolutely correct about the advertisement value. I was (still am, but I have too little time to attend it) a member of a p2p forum. There was a "post a screenshot of your desktop" thread and I choose to show it in full 3D (looked best when I configured 3 desktops). I gimped an image that showed switching desktops - it had 3 rows and 2 images in each, showing each step, from zooming out from a current desktop to finally zooming in to another displaying the website of the forum in a browser.
Everyone was impressed, and wanted immediately the prog. I provided them with the link, but had some explaining to do afterwards (no, you won't be able to install it on XP) - including some positive things I had to say about Linux.
Sorry for the typos above. I should go to sleep now.
This is quite an old program (I used it in Mandrake 9.0!). Worked fine for some time, than it became buggy - either the prog or Nvidia drivers. Oh yes, I had a TNT2 card, and it worked fine with it. Tried it once on FreeBSD since then, but had many crashed (that was before the recent nvidia driver update, and I have an FX5200 now).
This is an funny but accurate description of the port:
3D-Desktop is an OpenGL program that lets you switch virtual desktops in a seamless 3-Dimensional environment. Impress your friends, and slow down your desktop... all at the same time!
You are right about zealotry, of course. It just felt good for a second to say: [tongue in cheek]Hey my OS is better than your OS, muhaha[/tongue in cheek].
8 OS? whoops! I know 3: linux (more or less), freebsd, windows (98 - forgetting quickly). Recently I got accustomed with win2k (I have three OS on my puter: freebsd (use it 90%), win2k, slackware (5-5). I will try out XP soon (replace my win2k partition). I'm sorry to say I don't know any programming languages (few things in bash and even fewer in python), but it isn't related in any way to my studies or my work. In fact, I think I am one of the few (if not the only) geeks in the department (of arts and literature) lol.
Funny thing is, that I just wanted to use the OS. When I got to FreeBSD and ports, I thought that this is what I'll do. Then it became more and more interesting, and I found myself learning apache, ftp, firewall configuration, and developing an interest in programming. I think I am doomed. Ciao!
lol. We are threading on dangerous grounds here, don't you agree? Two things prompted me to reply.
One: someone modded you troll, even though your criticism is specific and it is easy to look up your claims. Which leads me to my experience of the userbase. A ran into the absent nspluginscan problem, and searched the forums for an answer. That's how I found out that I need WITH_MOTIF. A user, just like me, found out this only after having compiled kdebase! I made sure that I didn't miss anything before compiling - and that's how I found the extremely useful description quoted above. Naturally, I was angry: there was no way to know before compiling a beast like kdebase that WITH_MOTIF is needed for plugin support. And of course no one can be expected to search for caveats on the internet before installing each port (or ebuild). To my astonishment, the user, who had to do a recompile just like myself, didn't share my exasperation. In fact, his reaction was: That's what I like about gentoo (referring to the use-flags, and ranting about the wonderful flexibility of the system!).
I only mention this because that somehow, modding your comment as troll reminded me of the absolute resistance to any kind of criticism (well, there are exceptions of course) on the part of the community. Saying anything against gentoo is dangerous indeed:)
Second: don't think (modders) that freebsd folks are antagonistic towards linux in general and gentoo in particular. Go to bsdforums, and search for the terms linux or gentoo, and you will find more threads that praise either of those than critical remarks. What really bothers me, however, is that I feel (both here on./ and osnews) that when I am asked: why am I using FreeBSD, answering it is always like walking on eggs. Saying it is better in some respects (well, documentation is beginning to be accepted more or less) always results in attacks. So, for a time, I gave very careful and almost apologetic answers, full of remarks like this is just my personal preference, this is how I like it, OF COURSE THIS IS SUBJECTIVE, and so on. I am tired of this, so here is for burning some karma:
I LIKE FREEBSD BECAUSE IT IS BETTER IN EVERY ASPECT THAN ANY DISTRIBUTION I HAVE TRIED! Note the word: distribution. Not linux - linux distributions. It is as fast or faster than SLACKWARE, it has a kickass package management (pkg_add -r foo does exactly what apt-get install does - yeah, binary, precompiled, relatively up to date packages, and as a bonus, it has ports). It easier to maintain. It is straightforward. Documentation is unparallelled. Stable. It just works (out of the box, my usb mouse worked, without any ado and hotplugd or whatever). And most importantly: it is consistent.
One distribution might have excellent documentation. Another might be fast. Another might be simple (slack comes to mind). But I have yet to find one that has all of these. I use slackware occasionally, and except for lacking (or having to use 3rd party) package management, it comes close. But no separation of base and packages. Everything is dumped in/etc/. What does KDE do in/opt? Or gentoo: what does mplayer.conf or operarc do in/etc? Consistency is not the forte of gentoo.
ONE downside: linux distroes tend to have better hardware support (except for networking). Solution: I have fairly standard hardware, and next month, when I'm going to buy new components (a tv card) I would make sure that it works under FreeBSD.
I had similar experiences with gentoo. And what really bothers me is that they advertised portage as having 'real' dependency checking in answer to a question of why not use ports. I was surprised to find out that (as of may this year) in fact gentoo didn't have proper reverse dependency lookup.
Also, dependency hell was changed to use-flag hell. When Midnight Commander installs (I don't know if it still does) XFree86 as a dependency, there is a problem. In FreeBSD, it is the task of the port maintainer to configure a port that is good for 99% of the users. Everything has sane defaults, while still preserving flexibility: most ports offer a nice ncurses based menu for switching off or on different knobs. In gentoo I had to know what a particular use flag does: in case of motif, I found the extremely redundant info: "This use flag will install motif on your system" - well, thank you very much! On FreeBSD I have to remember one thing: if I interested in configuring a port differently than the port maintainer did, I can look into the usually well commented Makefile (takes less than half a minute).
And don't start me on documentation. I saw a PR (problem report) about one description file of a port, coming from FDP (FreeBSD Documentation Project). The COMMENT in bold was considered a bug:
Description
The COMMENT for the x11/kdelibs3 port is (for KDE 3.2):
<b>This is the base set of libraries needed by KDE programs</b>
It is bad practice to start a COMMENT with 'This is the', since this could be prefixed to almost all comments and has no informational value.
Fix
I suggest to change the COMMENT to:
Base set of libraries needed by KDE programs
Full PR is here - link might be slow because PR database is always overloaded. This is a paradigmatic example for the difference between FreeBSD and various linux distributions. I think this attention to little details and the general simplicity - read userfriendliness - of the commands, ranging from configuring your firewall to configuring start-up services is what makes FreeBSD so excellent. Forgot to mention: with ports, you can leave your puter building for the night. Even if some ports fail, building will go on, and at the and you will find a nice list of which packages succeded, which failed and why, if there were any. No skipfirst kinda stuff (which seems to a me workaround for the weakness of portage). Also make search key|name will give more info on basic level than portage would give on maximum verbosity. Makes looking for stuff easier.
So yeah, I know what you're talking about:)
ps.I studied literature (finished Univ. last year) - and switched to linux after a virus wiped out most of my very important docs in windows 2 years ago. I have never had any computer training. I loved RH 7.3 (my first linux), and I liked Mandrake even better (till 9.1). Then came debian, but still, there was this urge to try out another distro, and then another, and so on. Since I tried FreeBSD last year in september, I realized that this was exactly what I was looking for. Simple, user-friendly, very fast Unix-like OS, which is easier to learn (because of the documantation AND its consistency) for a newbie like myself than any other linux distro I have tried.
Someone mentioned here that perfomance gain, especially on the desktop, is noticeably with ULE. I agree. I've been using ULE since 5.1. The reason I switched back to 4BSD is that options PREEMPTION was said to be buggy with (and this was the main reason for making SHED_4BSD the default for this release).
However, when I tried recompiled my kernel with options PREEMPTION, I had two complete lockups under heavy load (compiling in the background, running KDE, etc). During beta4, I removed options PREEMPTION for this reason. Now I've put it back, and I experience similar problems. I got error messages repeatedly (and the OS stopped responding for a few seconds now and then) when downloading files (with roughly 500Kb/s from network shares. Perhaps the same errors would pop up in other circumstances of heavy disk I/O. The messages were like this:
Sep 20 21:37:59 mcsaba kernel: ad0: WARNING - WRITE_DMA no interrupt but good status Sep 20 21:38:10 mcsaba kernel: ad0: TIMEOUT - WRITE_DMA retrying (2 retries left) LBA=123095148
After removing PREEMPTION, problems went away. Note that I used preemption with SHED_4BSD, not ULE!
On the other hand, 5.3 will be an excellent release. Other than problems with preemption (which I don't quite understand, I mean preemption, so I would be glad if someone explained to me what it does exactly!), the BETAS were quite stable. In BETA5, the old problem of floppy not working with ACPI on some chipsets (I have via) is solved. Start up time is very fast, I think it is faster than 5.2.1. (it starts up roughly 2x faster than slackware with 2.6.7 kernel on the same box.) Perfomance on the desktop is similar to previos 5.x releases (and I have a few problems with KDE 3.3 now).
Oh yes, another question. options PREEMPTION is listed under the SMP section of/usr/src/sys/conf/NOTES. Is preemption SMP specific? From the few things I've read (and the even fewer things I could understand:() I didn't think it was. Can someone explain this to me? And: does preemption help with latency? (I have problems with sound in some games, and I think they are latency related).
Slashdot Mirror
R.I.P. ULE. For now at least.
I had the exact same problems (segfaults only during compiles at random points) until I realized it was my crappy sdram. I have an AthlonXP 2400+ and my mb can accept either sd or ddr rams. Wheny I had 256Mb sdram, I had to change the FSB of my processor and ram from 133 to 100 (proc was recognized as XP 1800+) in order to have everything build properly. Later, when I upgraded to 512DDR, all my problems went away.
This also flies in the face of this troll's claims of FreeBSD developers are uncooperative *sholes. Follow this thread to its end, and you'll see that even though the original poster (as DES rightly claims) was quite confrontative, they went out of their way to reproduce the issue. Robert Watson even commited some code to help trace down similar problems. And some stats from the same guy later, when the problem was solved:
Hopefully, as soon as the release process is over, they will switch back to ULE in -current (officially, that is. in every dmesg/kernel config file I have seen on current, most developers run ULE). And I hope 5.4 will be the ULE release!
So, to answer your question: yes, 5.3 will be STABLE (and not only in name. the whole 5.x series is fairly stable, at least beginning with 5.1, or at least as stable as your average linux distro). I think it will be out on my birthday :))) (nov 11). But I also think that 5.x will be really ready when they have ULE back as default (ditch preemption if it needs be, ULE is so much better in every other aspect).
Likewise. Works better for me than hotplugd Recently when helping out a friend with suse, I didn't know how to make a flashdrive work. Partly this is because of my negligence: I forgot a lot about how linux works. Hotplugd was running, yet the system didn't gave any indication of what happens when I plugged it in. On the other hand:
Plug in flash drive in freebsd (5.x) :
plug out flash driveplug out my usb mouse (samsung optical)plug mouse back in Note that even Z dir is detectedHow sluggish KDE is? For me it works quite nicely (see my post below) - even though I load up a load of things at startup (lots of applets, oooqs - openoffice quick starter -, etc.). I'm only asking because if it is extremely sluggish, check if you have tcp/udp blackhole set to 2/1 respectively - that slows things down quite a bit. I know, of course, that 'it works for me' is not particularly helpful though.. :/
Some criticism: for the reasons listed above, I am really sad about the switch back to SCHED_4BSD. And it was their mistake. A lot of us felt that ULE was stable enough to become the default in 5.2.1. ULE is/was just stable enough (w/o preemption) to become the default for a 'new technology release'. It is my default scheduler since december last year, and didn't have a single crash related to it, except in beta 5 when I tried preemption. Think about it: that would have given 9 months to expose/fix bugs, not a few weeks in a beta cycle. With SCHED_4BSD, at least on the desktop, FreeBSD barely perfoms better (if at all, my comparison is mandrake 9.1) than a 2.4.x based linux distro.
I'm just updating the server btw to rc1. A lesson learned by playing with betas: I have to do portupgrade -fa to have ports use the correct libraries (no prob on the server, it has only ~30 packages or so). It was a hassle on my desktop puter however. Anyway, the server ran smoothly (apache 2.0.50, php 5, mysql 4, and pureftpd, up 25 days now). It was portscanned a number of times + suffered a minor flood attack (according to the logs), but had no problems with that. So, I'm a satisfied 'customer.' One thing: don't listen to troll(s). The HawkinsOS guy is a known troll (and more: sells FreeBSD rebranded as HawkinsOS for a lots of money, w/o delivering anything, so he is also your friendly "Nigerian royal family member" as well. Claims to have lots of patches for well, anything, making FreeBSD 'enterprise ready', but won't show you unless most FreeBSD quit the project and apologize - for pointing out some copyright violations in his project btw!!!). He is becoming more and more agressive as his hoax is being exposed, so beware!).
Don't listen to this guy. He has been spamming every -bsd related announcment for weeks now. He is selling an os called HawkinsOS which is still beta. Trolled FreeBSD mailing lists as well, and when he was pointed out (politely I might add) that he might be violating some of the copyrights in the BSD os (not the BSD copyright, but other copyrights included in the base system) he went mad and started a crusade against FreeBSD developers. Began with PHK and DES, but by now, as you can see from the thread I linked to above, he has an issue with everyone, even documentation folks.
This is a hoax folks. He claims to have sold 2000 copies of HawkinsOS, which is basically FreeBSD beta!!! He claims to have developed patches making FreeBSD 'enterprise ready' (meaning: in his opinion, FreeBSD isn't. lol: tell it to yahoo, or netcraft, or even apache.org!), but if you check his site (the spelling mistakes, the prices) or any of the threads he started, you'll see how 'serious' he is.
Thanks for the link. Onlamp is one of the best FreeBSD related sites. I always find their writings (interviews, guides, articles) very helpful. They are also good readings for those who haven't tried, but are curious about FreeBSD.
I usually don't reply to trolls, but this one is soo funny, I can't resist. I just want to say that I noticed that your list of assholes is expanding: now you added Scott Long as well (and the doc people for God's sake!!!). As ulib noted, you'll have almost all FreeBSD developers leave FreeBSD development for your 'enhachments.
To add more fun to what ulib noted: did you spell-check the announcments on your site? I mean, how should anyone take you and your 'enhachments' seriously if you can't check your own site for errors. Not being English is not an excuse in this case (what, you don't have the resource to get one man proof read it for you?). You are way out of touch with reality my friend. And to think that you probably made your threats with a straight face, and to think that you are trolling on slashdot... what would your customers say?
Haha, maybe there is a connection between your "Nigerian royal family member" style and the fact that you are selling FreeBSD renamed to HawkinsOS for 138$! Oh, it is only 1000$ if you buy 8 packages! YESSS, that's really the best deal if I ever heard one. You are one little entertaining troll. And this, in your about HawkinsOS box on your website:
Yes, I'm sure the FreeBSD Foundation is glad to hear that they are writing FreeBSD. And I'm sure DES and PHK are really eager to get your 'enhachments'. Some more entertainment:Consulting
Documentation of HawkinsOS
Community (!)
Well, you get the picture. Everything will be availabe if you deposit some money there after june 15 2004. :))))))
Are you the frustrated HawkinsOS guy btw? Some things points to it ... if it is true, than I understand your frustration. You are on a crusade against FreeBSD developers, because they pointed out that 'your' os violates a number of licences that are part of the BSD system. Let me just say for all who would buy into your bs: you were given a good advice in a polite manner, and you reacted to it as if someone close to you was murdered by the FreeBSD devs.
Of course, it is possible that you have nothing to do with HawkinsOS. If that is the case, well, nevermind. ;)
You have some very good questions there. I wish I had modpoints (well, actually I had, but choose to post).
That's easy to explain. First they tried something logical. Buy netscape. Open up codebase. Attract zillions of developers. Use enhanched codebase for own brand. Whatever.
It didn't work out as they expected. So now, they must think: we tried something that made a lot of sense and it didn't work. Maybe if we try out something that doesn't make any sense it will work. Simple and logical.
HEADS UP: BIND 9 imported, and working!
A satisfied customer.
Unsatisfied customer
If DragonFly will be that cool as the developers claim it will, I would switch. Presently I am a 'satisfied customer' of FreeBSD 5.3Beta7 :)) But only time will tell which project is better on the long run. Dragonfly's focus on code maintainability can very well pay off in the future in contrast to the complexity of code in 5.x But we don't know what plans FreeBSD devs have for 6-current. I think for now it would only be a test-bed for 5.x releases (hammering out problems with ULE scheduler - which works very nicely for me since 5.1 times - for instance). It can even adapt DragonFly's stuff if it proves to be successful, it can come up with an entirely different model, or it can continue the current trend (which seems to be quite successful: M:N threading, ULE scheduler, very fast network stack, etc..).
Point is: I don't think Matt or anyone needs anonymous supporters trolling slashdot and bitching about developers in the "other" project. Such behaviour is not only stupid, but doesn't do any good, and it even reflects badly on DragonFly (or at least its userbase).
I've been reading current mailing list for the past 2 months quite regularly, and my impression of both devs is a positive one. DES goes sometimes crazy, but disagreements are resolved in an open and honest manner - read: by providing pro and con arguments - (even though they sometimes border on flamewars), but that's not a problem I think. PHK's posts usually carry an air of authority, but that's also fine, and he makes a lot of contributions. (Linus has this kind of authority as well). Otherwise, both DES and PHK seemed to be quite helpful with current users, at least since I've been reading the list. Of course, you probably could come up with examples to the contrary, but that doesn't prove that they are not nice people, it only proves that they are human.
As to Matt Dillon: the reason for DragonFly is technical. He had different ideas about the direction 5.x should take than the rest of the project. Since more ppl disagreed w/ him than agreed w/ him, he left. Fair enough. On his way out, he stepped on some developer's toes, and some developers stepped on his toes, and that is also normal I think.
What isn't normal is that some people cannot switch to another OS without being an asshole. I mean, who is this AC? A DragonFly zealot? What would someone gain from such comments? Fewer people would use FreeBSD? And why is this good for AC? I mean, it is FREE software, no one is forced to use it. Or is his heart bleeding for poor Matt Dillon because of what that evil PHK and DES did to him, so he tries to discredit them? Does he have a (platonic) relationship with Matt? (like some users have with Linus - no offense). This is sick.
I've been using ULE since last year december (5.1) and I never had any problems with it. In fact, it performs much better, especially on the desktop (interactivity remains better while building in the background for instance). I will continue to use it for this reasons, despite not being the default.
Everyone was impressed, and wanted immediately the prog. I provided them with the link, but had some explaining to do afterwards (no, you won't be able to install it on XP) - including some positive things I had to say about Linux.
Sorry for the typos above. I should go to sleep now.
This is an funny but accurate description of the port:
8 OS? whoops! I know 3: linux (more or less), freebsd, windows (98 - forgetting quickly). Recently I got accustomed with win2k (I have three OS on my puter: freebsd (use it 90%), win2k, slackware (5-5). I will try out XP soon (replace my win2k partition). I'm sorry to say I don't know any programming languages (few things in bash and even fewer in python), but it isn't related in any way to my studies or my work. In fact, I think I am one of the few (if not the only) geeks in the department (of arts and literature) lol.
Funny thing is, that I just wanted to use the OS. When I got to FreeBSD and ports, I thought that this is what I'll do. Then it became more and more interesting, and I found myself learning apache, ftp, firewall configuration, and developing an interest in programming. I think I am doomed. Ciao!
One: someone modded you troll, even though your criticism is specific and it is easy to look up your claims. Which leads me to my experience of the userbase. A ran into the absent nspluginscan problem, and searched the forums for an answer. That's how I found out that I need WITH_MOTIF. A user, just like me, found out this only after having compiled kdebase! I made sure that I didn't miss anything before compiling - and that's how I found the extremely useful description quoted above. Naturally, I was angry: there was no way to know before compiling a beast like kdebase that WITH_MOTIF is needed for plugin support. And of course no one can be expected to search for caveats on the internet before installing each port (or ebuild). To my astonishment, the user, who had to do a recompile just like myself, didn't share my exasperation. In fact, his reaction was: That's what I like about gentoo (referring to the use-flags, and ranting about the wonderful flexibility of the system!).
I only mention this because that somehow, modding your comment as troll reminded me of the absolute resistance to any kind of criticism (well, there are exceptions of course) on the part of the community. Saying anything against gentoo is dangerous indeed :)
Second: don't think (modders) that freebsd folks are antagonistic towards linux in general and gentoo in particular. Go to bsdforums, and search for the terms linux or gentoo, and you will find more threads that praise either of those than critical remarks. What really bothers me, however, is that I feel (both here on ./ and osnews) that when I am asked: why am I using FreeBSD, answering it is always like walking on eggs. Saying it is better in some respects (well, documentation is beginning to be accepted more or less) always results in attacks. So, for a time, I gave very careful and almost apologetic answers, full of remarks like this is just my personal preference, this is how I like it, OF COURSE THIS IS SUBJECTIVE, and so on. I am tired of this, so here is for burning some karma:
I LIKE FREEBSD BECAUSE IT IS BETTER IN EVERY ASPECT THAN ANY DISTRIBUTION I HAVE TRIED! Note the word: distribution. Not linux - linux distributions. It is as fast or faster than SLACKWARE, it has a kickass package management (pkg_add -r foo does exactly what apt-get install does - yeah, binary, precompiled, relatively up to date packages, and as a bonus, it has ports). It easier to maintain. It is straightforward. Documentation is unparallelled. Stable. It just works (out of the box, my usb mouse worked, without any ado and hotplugd or whatever). And most importantly: it is consistent.
One distribution might have excellent documentation. Another might be fast. Another might be simple (slack comes to mind). But I have yet to find one that has all of these. I use slackware occasionally, and except for lacking (or having to use 3rd party) package management, it comes close. But no separation of base and packages. Everything is dumped in /etc/. What does KDE do in /opt? Or gentoo: what does mplayer.conf or operarc do in /etc? Consistency is not the forte of gentoo.
ONE downside: linux distroes tend to have better hardware support (except for networking). Solution: I have fairly standard hardware, and next month, when I'm going to buy new components (a tv card) I would make sure that it works under FreeBSD.
Mod away!
Also, dependency hell was changed to use-flag hell. When Midnight Commander installs (I don't know if it still does) XFree86 as a dependency, there is a problem. In FreeBSD, it is the task of the port maintainer to configure a port that is good for 99% of the users. Everything has sane defaults, while still preserving flexibility: most ports offer a nice ncurses based menu for switching off or on different knobs. In gentoo I had to know what a particular use flag does: in case of motif, I found the extremely redundant info: "This use flag will install motif on your system" - well, thank you very much! On FreeBSD I have to remember one thing: if I interested in configuring a port differently than the port maintainer did, I can look into the usually well commented Makefile (takes less than half a minute).
And don't start me on documentation. I saw a PR (problem report) about one description file of a port, coming from FDP (FreeBSD Documentation Project). The COMMENT in bold was considered a bug:
Full PR is here - link might be slow because PR database is always overloaded. This is a paradigmatic example for the difference between FreeBSD and various linux distributions. I think this attention to little details and the general simplicity - read userfriendliness - of the commands, ranging from configuring your firewall to configuring start-up services is what makes FreeBSD so excellent. Forgot to mention: with ports, you can leave your puter building for the night. Even if some ports fail, building will go on, and at the and you will find a nice list of which packages succeded, which failed and why, if there were any. No skipfirst kinda stuff (which seems to a me workaround for the weakness of portage). Also make search key|name will give more info on basic level than portage would give on maximum verbosity. Makes looking for stuff easier.So yeah, I know what you're talking about :)
ps.I studied literature (finished Univ. last year) - and switched to linux after a virus wiped out most of my very important docs in windows 2 years ago. I have never had any computer training. I loved RH 7.3 (my first linux), and I liked Mandrake even better (till 9.1). Then came debian, but still, there was this urge to try out another distro, and then another, and so on. Since I tried FreeBSD last year in september, I realized that this was exactly what I was looking for. Simple, user-friendly, very fast Unix-like OS, which is easier to learn (because of the documantation AND its consistency) for a newbie like myself than any other linux distro I have tried.
However, when I tried recompiled my kernel with options PREEMPTION, I had two complete lockups under heavy load (compiling in the background, running KDE, etc). During beta4, I removed options PREEMPTION for this reason. Now I've put it back, and I experience similar problems. I got error messages repeatedly (and the OS stopped responding for a few seconds now and then) when downloading files (with roughly 500Kb/s from network shares. Perhaps the same errors would pop up in other circumstances of heavy disk I/O. The messages were like this:
After removing PREEMPTION, problems went away. Note that I used preemption with SHED_4BSD, not ULE!On the other hand, 5.3 will be an excellent release. Other than problems with preemption (which I don't quite understand, I mean preemption, so I would be glad if someone explained to me what it does exactly!), the BETAS were quite stable. In BETA5, the old problem of floppy not working with ACPI on some chipsets (I have via) is solved. Start up time is very fast, I think it is faster than 5.2.1. (it starts up roughly 2x faster than slackware with 2.6.7 kernel on the same box.) Perfomance on the desktop is similar to previos 5.x releases (and I have a few problems with KDE 3.3 now).
Oh yes, another question. options PREEMPTION is listed under the SMP section of /usr/src/sys/conf/NOTES. Is preemption SMP specific? From the few things I've read (and the even fewer things I could understand :() I didn't think it was. Can someone explain this to me? And: does preemption help with latency? (I have problems with sound in some games, and I think they are latency related).