This is actually one of the best ideas I ever heard. Of course stating that we will replace the code is stating the obvious (that's what linux hackers been saying all along) but what matters is the 'smell' of this statement: it smells professional and businesslike. And most importantly: it is a proactivedocument.
Also, it might provide some legal protection against alleged 'willful' infringment. If they can point their fingers to their Open Source Assurance Plan whenever they are brought to courts by a party claiming infringment, they have the acting in 'good faith' argument on their side, unless they won't live up to their promises (which is _very_ unlikely).
You might say this Plan is just words, but still, it has an important side-effect. Those who don't read groklaw daily, but know about SCO's fiasco, can now call RedHat whenever they receive a threatening letter. Of course, they could have called them anytime, but this document is like a message: call us if someone contacts you claiming infringment. This puts customers in touch with RedHat first, and RH can tell directly to their clients (who, as I said, don't necessarily read groklaw) what this case is about, and SCO failed to pinpoint any infringing code.
Well, I consider myself an atheist (technically) but I still get more out of religious texts than "obey or you shall burn in hell." Talking about free thinking...
You definitely should. I was a RedHa (7.3) then mandrake (9.0, 9.1) then Debian (woody, updated to testing) guy until tried freebsd 5.1. Stayed with it since then, and I will. I use it as a desktop OS, and it works perfectly. Since sremick answered most of your questions, some notes on digital cameras:
Check out this thread: http://www.freebsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php ?s=&threadid=12015 - and join that forum:) It is one of the friendliest forums I ever been to. Join it if you wish to try freebsd:)
Another advice: freebsd folks spend a great deal of effort (money, resources, time) in writing the best *nix documentation out there. This is true across the entire distribution. The man pages are superb and cleaner than those I find in linux, and there are more of them (almost every.conf file has a man page, as well as general things - try man ports). Also, you will find sample configuration files for almost every package (base system + ports) in/usr/share/examples. For instance,/etc/make.conf will have a sample in/usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf. And finally, their handbook is comprehensive and easy to follow. Although installing and running freebsd is no more difficult than debian/slack/gentoo, the best advice I can give is to read the handbook before starting installation.
I've been in love with FreeBSD since the moment I tried it (I installed it because when I pulled shorewall from sarge, it erased my/etc/network in debian. I friend recommended bsd. Before putting it on a server, I decided to try out on my desktop/test machine. A week later I removed my linux partition, and been using it as my desktop since then:) And now about some quirk (it is only fair to mention some disadvantages compared to linux):
1) Java - it works, but it is 'difficult' to install. By difficult I mean: you have to download some files manually, portinstall jdk14 won't work out of the box). When you get used to freebsd's package management/ports (yes, you have both, with automatic dependency resolution) you consider this as annoying:)
2) Flash - no native flash for freebsd, and again, you have to install linux-flash manually. It works in mozilla/firebird (both native and linux version) but not in konqi. A better solution is on the way though.
If you can live with these, you will love freebsd, especially if you want to get the latest and greatest progs. I find (I know, since my roommate uses it) that freebsd ports are slightly more up to date than portage in gentoo (which is no minor accomplishment). For example, gimp 2.0pre was added the day it was released.
Here is one I just made - please mirror it (villagephotos has a 5 megs quota/day). It is basically the same as previous devel versions, but it has a new splashscreen.
I must say that the new GIMP has one of the best UI I ever seen. You can stack dialogue windows the way you like by simply dragging and dropping the title - for instance if I clinck on 'Paintbrush Optins' you see on the left and drag it to my desktop, it will be deattached - reattaching it is simply dragging it back onto the small bar you can currently see between the main dialogue and Paintbrush Options. You can also make tabs - for instance, Layers and Channels on the right are separate windows, but I put them on the same stack as tabs (instead of just putting them below each other like you see the other dialogues on the left).
Here is the screenshot (but please, click on it if you can mirror somehow... my server is down cause atacontroller died - was about time for the cheap mobo that it was).
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-6/215362/snaps hot1.jpg
oops - "(and sometimes only available) in KDE (on FreeBSD btw)" - available generally of course, the reviewer used FreeBSD as the underlying OS - that's what I meant.
"... and I've yet to find anything that KDE can do that Aqua can't seem to"
Here is something that a Mac OS X user found useful (and sometimes only available) in KDE (on FreeBSD btw). I can't think of an easier way to rip CDs than it is implemented in Konqi, network transparency, stability (note that this heavily depends on the rest of the OS - KDE never crashed on me on FSBD, although there was a small window when the port contained a nasty bug in KUser) - to name a few.
Thanks for the tip.. I thought about mergemaster - that amounts almost to manual editing, no? I had to edit master.passwd manually once when I was fortunate enough to get hit by the KUser bug:( I only wanted to add my user to operator group):(
I wonder how FreeBSD stores passwords. It has an/etc/master.passwd - which is similar to/etc/passwd in linux. However, if you put something manually in it, you have tu run a command to 'install' it, which updates a pwd.db file, that seems binary to me.
KDE? - its modular: you can install kdebase to have basic stuff (brings in few dependencies, but not much). Than you can gradually add things: kdenetworks - network utils + support, kdemultimedia, kdegraphics, koffice, etc (some 10 packages)... - just leave kdeaddons for last (it depends on kdemultimedia, kdenetwroks and such stuff). That it, if your distro supports this kind of configurability (read: doesn't lump everything together in one KDE megapackage. I guess gentoo doesn't do that - nor does FreeBSD, unless you want it).
"Now that the fileselector is improved, what will you bitch about now?"
Attitude perhaps? I remember the massive amount of trolling about KDE's file selector on osnews - and referring to an outlandish HIG experiment they created one that was so minimalistic that even gnome fans denounced it. Now they make a file selector that it is _very_ similar to KDE's file-selector (widgets are different, but you can theme them afterall) - and the 'news' hits slashdot. Would this prevent 'KDE has no HIG' folks beating the same drum over and over again? Don't bet on it. Its so typical btw - you can mod me down, but this is getting tiresome. The same old story: KDE implements something, GNOME 'fans' (in quotation marks, cause they don't do any good to the GNOME project, which I respect) start flaming KDE (example: Karamba) - than a few months later: looky-here!! We have a cool new stuff in GNOME, its called Garamba. Yeah baby!
You managed to describe in a single post the feeling (and my reason for) using freebsd better than I could in several. Its been only for 3 months now, but that's exactly how I figured mount_msdosfs should work on a digital camera, once someone told me it uses fat.
This is where the care, money and resources spent writing that handbook pays of - it easy to read even for absolute beginners, yet it gives you in-depth information about the system. And it leads you with a gentle hand - you don't even notice that you have learned more from it than any documentation I had on linux (saw mandrake's and rh's documentation - they are answers to questions between how and what:)) - maybe except for one perhaps: The Intro Linux Guide. A good guide for those wanting to learn more about linux (and yes, gentoo documentation is still more like a how-to, as far as I can see).
Hehe, my friend (has his computer near mine right here) uses gentoo as well. What makes FreeBSD easier for ME is its rc system (don't like sysv init) - but that's just my personal preference + good documentation. If I'd use a linux distro, I would go with gentoo (got too used to ports) - if it were the only OS I'd use... But since I don't want to duplicate the time spent with compilation, I think I'll go for slackware on my second hd.
Hmmm... I'm not an expert (I read about jails, but never implemented it - and been using FreeBSD for 3 months, 1 year linux before that) but I thought you can configure a jail the way you like, ranging from having an entire base system (including kernel of course) to having just an executable. From man jail:
Setting up a Jail Directory Tree This example shows how to setup a jail directory tree containing an entire FreeBSD distribution:
D=/here/is/the/jail cd/usr/src mkdir -p $D make world DESTDIR=$D cd etc make distribution DESTDIR=$D mount_devfs devfs $D/dev cd $D ln -sf dev/null kernel
In many cases this example would put far more stuff in the jail than is needed. In the other extreme case a jail might contain only one single file: the executable to be run in the jail.
We recommend experimentation and caution that it is a lot easier to start with a ``fat'' jail and remove things until it stops working, than it is to start with a ``thin'' jail and add things until it works.
Anyhow, thanks to the info:) It made me think: what if I simply cvsup (download sources to/usr/src/) to FreeBSD 5.2rc2 on my 5.1 box - will 'make world' create the base system for the 5.2 release in the jail? Provided its possible at all. I'm still learning basic stuff (just configured postfix) so I'll have to wait till I can dig into these stuff.
Well, I screwed it up a bit:( Putting 'device pcm' in the kernel just saves you the trouble of having to reconfigure your system when you put in a new card. Well, some linuces do what you claim they do, others don't. I used Mandrake 9.0, and 9.1 later, and hw detectin worked fine. On the other hand, with the motherboard I'm currently using, onboard sound wasn't detected properly in either of them. I had to write to asrock (well, I know its a cheap mb) and they pointed me to a via site from where I had to downlaod the driver and install it manually.
But this is not the point. My point really was that any moderately experienced linux user (those who use slackware or debian on the desktop for instance) wouldn't have any trouble with FreeBSD, in fact, they might find configuring the system easier (or in case of Slackware, very similar, for it uses the BSD init system) Of course, I can't convince anyone of this, unless someone tries both. And as another poster has written, one good thing about FSBD is that they care a great deal about their documentation. Check out their handbook to see what I'm talking about, so no hunting for howtos scattered over the net. And its always up to date - wherever things differ in the 'new technology release' branch, those changes are noted in the handbook - and it is free (as opposed to SuSE documentation, that some people mentioned as coming close in quality to freebsd documentation).
Also, you don't have to recompile to get sound to work. You can use 'kldload pcm' and there you have it - as I said, 'device pcm' is good if you change sound cards or something. Essentially FreeBSD works similar to linux, but there are little differences. For instance, during boot time, my hardware (soundcard) is properly detected, and device nodes created automatically in/dev/. Want sound to start at boottime? Its a one liner in/boot/loader.conf:
snd_via8233_load="YES"
(every modul you might need that it is not in the kernel works like that). You want linux compatibility. ls/boot/kernel, and you'll see a file: linux.ko So what you need is:
linux_load="YES"
These are just examples of 'easy' configurability, as opposed to/etc/modules.conf (or was it conf.modules) or was it something different (modules.autoload on gentoo perhaps?) - see what I meant?
To sum it up: my post wasn't intended for anyone's grandparents.
"Consider this example: a company develops an app around the newly-released FreeBSD 4.8. This app depends on components from the base system and Ports tree. After 12 months, FreeBSD 4.8 is no longer supported and users should move to 4.9."
Very realistic example. Companies have a tendency to write software, dump it on a platform, than leave it as it is. Rrriiight. Currently, the last officially supported BSD is 4.7, released in October 2002. 4.8 will be supported for almost a year from now. Architectural changes between.8 and.9 are so negligible, that it would require a mimimum effort (if it requires anything at all) for that software to work under 4.9. Basically this is true for most softwares written for the 4.x branch. If a software company cannot do the mimimal work to maintain its software package (and it IS MIMIMAL work to have the software working without any problems in any of the releases of the 4.x branch) than I guess that company should be out of business soon.
What you have written is also true of any linux distributions (glibc changes in RH anyone?) Also, you clearly don't understand how the ports system work: "app depends on components from the base system and Ports tree." I have news for you: both the 4.x branch and 5.x uses the SAME ports tree, even the changes to the base system are significant.
I mainly addressed the average linux user. If you check the config file for the fsbd kernel, u will see how easy it is to edit it. You don't even have to open it btw:
echo "device pcm" >> MYKERNEL
Then:
config MYKERNEL
cd../compile/MYKERNEL
make depend && make && install
REBOOT
Do this once, and you can buy a new card, plug it in, and it will work. Of course, you don't have to recompile the kernel to have sound working. Just as in linux, if you know what module you need for your soundcard, you can just do
kldload snd_via8233
or
kldload pcm (I think) to get any supported sound card working.
Not any more, and 'make world' is being deprecated in favor of 'make buildworld'. The difference is, that 'make buildworld' is totally self contained. You do 'make buldworld' on one machine, export/usr/obj (and/usr/src as well?) as nfs, mount it on your 300 boxen, and you only need to install the shiny new bsd with 'make installworld'. That's it. So it is actually quite easy to deploy on a large server farm. You would go the same way with the ports btw: build on one machine and have it make pakcages, than install the packages with pkg_add -r whatever on the rest of the machines. Neat.:)
How can this be modded 'interesting'. Since fefe's test, everyone is trolling with those results, and in more detail btw. What does he mean by the 'polish' of linux? It doesn't make any sense. (the kernel? it might be polished even though its a.0 release, but I doubt its more polished than -STABLE - whcih have been polished since 2000). Mod parent down please, we don't need this here.
(Besides, although this is a personal experience, KDE 3.1.4 on FreeBSD 5.1 uses less memory (doesn't touch swap with 256 SDRAM) than any linux I have tried (well, those were Mandrake 9.1 and RedHat), although I have to admit I didn't try it on more slicker distroes like slackware. (I like linux as well:))
I'm a freebsd user (5.1 - cvsupping to 5.2rc2 at the moment) and I love it. Contrary to some myths, it is great on the desktop. There are some things that just work. Put one line in your kernel config file (devce pcm) and you can just plug any supported sound card in, and it will just work, without the need for any configuration. The same goes with digital cameras: plug it in, and mount_msdosfs/dev/da0s1/mnt/camera and there you go. Configuration is no more difficult than slackware (in fact, its easier, with automatic dependency checking/resolution ala apt-get, or by simply using the ports system). On the other hand...
I agree with parent post... sadly, this announcment will be considered as flamebait. I don't understand this, really. I signed up to bsdforums when switched to BSD, and I must say its one of the friendliest forums I ever been to (including mandrakeusers.org or pclo which are also great). I don't find the hostility against linux in bsd users there the way I find hostility towards bsd users from linux users here on slashdot or recently, even osnews.In fact, there is a linux section (other os) on bsdforums, and I saw people helping out with fedora install or whatnot there without any 'use bsd instead' notes. I wish this continual flamewar would end, but frankly, I believe (mod me down if you wish) that most hostility comes from linux users. If you find some bsd folks here a little touchy, considering the amount of trolling every bsd announcment gets, it is a small miracle that people still come here for bsd news, that they are not as bitter as one would expect (but than, they - warning, flamebait! - seems to be more mature.
This is not because BSD is better or something. I like linux as much as I do BSD, I just like to use the latter better, because it is more interesting/fun to _ME_. I believe the linux crowd can be (and maybe it is) as 'mature' as bsd folks, but it is a more diverse group as well as considerably larger, so I think there is more room for a small but vocal minority to ruin the relationship and raise ill will towards each other. I wish that more considerate linux users would help out modding down trolls, afterall, we both have profited from each other's work.
Unfortunately, due to licencing, code exchange is mostly a one way road (BSD > Linux), but still BSD has to thank for GCC (well, not specifically linux) or the ULE scheduler (which is partly based on a linux developer's work - more linux specific) without which our beloved OS would be poorer.
Anyhow, the point I was trying to make is that this article can sadly be considered a flamebait, although we see similar announcment without anyone fearing that it is on the 'other' side. It would be nice to live without fears that such announcments would attract a large amount of trolling, to think that the article (read it!) has its on technical merits that can be interesting to anyone who visits slashdot (nerds?) no matter what OS they use.
Ok, I might have been a bit agitated too:) I just want to keep this friend of mine on the linux track (used, and unfortunately still uses win2k), and was angry at gentoo (not because overall its not good, but based on what we have experienced so far, it is not what I would expect based on the hype that surrounds it. But then, its pretty young, so I guess it will stabilize in time (and a good thing would be if they got rid of sysv init and used bsd init, like slackware does:)) - that would be the distro of my dreams.:)
I'm sorry if I was a bit harsh.
So everyone who has a problem with gentoo is a troll. Hmmm... Maybe everyone on gentooforums who had difficulties with 2.6 is a troll too. Nice attitude.
btw... my friend doesn't even write to./ - I just helped him a bit with gentoo (he is new to linux, but he followed the instructions in alsa-guide by the letter when encountered the sound problems. I know cause I double checked him - and yet, sound doesn't work, and is it turns out, it is a devfs problem: no/dev/dsp - kde gave me a clue - and no devices is/dev/sound either. Yet devfsd is configured correctly. I even suggested to create the devices manually with makedev, but how is he supposed to know about this, for according to the manual and people like you here, gentoo is just perfect. Anyonw saying otherwise is a troll, no?
Slashdot Mirror
This is actually one of the best ideas I ever heard. Of course stating that we will replace the code is stating the obvious (that's what linux hackers been saying all along) but what matters is the 'smell' of this statement: it smells professional and businesslike. And most importantly: it is a proactive document.
Also, it might provide some legal protection against alleged 'willful' infringment. If they can point their fingers to their Open Source Assurance Plan whenever they are brought to courts by a party claiming infringment, they have the acting in 'good faith' argument on their side, unless they won't live up to their promises (which is _very_ unlikely).
You might say this Plan is just words, but still, it has an important side-effect. Those who don't read groklaw daily, but know about SCO's fiasco, can now call RedHat whenever they receive a threatening letter. Of course, they could have called them anytime, but this document is like a message: call us if someone contacts you claiming infringment. This puts customers in touch with RedHat first, and RH can tell directly to their clients (who, as I said, don't necessarily read groklaw) what this case is about, and SCO failed to pinpoint any infringing code.
Well, I consider myself an atheist (technically) but I still get more out of religious texts than "obey or you shall burn in hell." Talking about free thinking...
Interesting indeed, for they have hinted at the possibility of suing BSD users earlier.
sorry, link above is: cameras
You definitely should. I was a RedHa (7.3) then mandrake (9.0, 9.1) then Debian (woody, updated to testing) guy until tried freebsd 5.1. Stayed with it since then, and I will. I use it as a desktop OS, and it works perfectly. Since sremick answered most of your questions, some notes on digital cameras:
p ?s=&threadid=12015 - and join that forum :) It is one of the friendliest forums I ever been to. Join it if you wish to try freebsd :)
.conf file has a man page, as well as general things - try man ports). Also, you will find sample configuration files for almost every package (base system + ports) in /usr/share/examples. For instance, /etc/make.conf will have a sample in /usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf. And finally, their handbook is comprehensive and easy to follow. Although installing and running freebsd is no more difficult than debian/slack/gentoo, the best advice I can give is to read the handbook before starting installation.
/etc/network in debian. I friend recommended bsd. Before putting it on a server, I decided to try out on my desktop/test machine. A week later I removed my linux partition, and been using it as my desktop since then :) And now about some quirk (it is only fair to mention some disadvantages compared to linux):
:)
Check out this thread: http://www.freebsdforums.org/forums/showthread.ph
Another advice: freebsd folks spend a great deal of effort (money, resources, time) in writing the best *nix documentation out there. This is true across the entire distribution. The man pages are superb and cleaner than those I find in linux, and there are more of them (almost every
I've been in love with FreeBSD since the moment I tried it (I installed it because when I pulled shorewall from sarge, it erased my
1) Java - it works, but it is 'difficult' to install. By difficult I mean: you have to download some files manually, portinstall jdk14 won't work out of the box). When you get used to freebsd's package management/ports (yes, you have both, with automatic dependency resolution) you consider this as annoying
2) Flash - no native flash for freebsd, and again, you have to install linux-flash manually. It works in mozilla/firebird (both native and linux version) but not in konqi. A better solution is on the way though.
If you can live with these, you will love freebsd, especially if you want to get the latest and greatest progs. I find (I know, since my roommate uses it) that freebsd ports are slightly more up to date than portage in gentoo (which is no minor accomplishment). For example, gimp 2.0pre was added the day it was released.
Here is one I just made - please mirror it (villagephotos has a 5 megs quota/day). It is basically the same as previous devel versions, but it has a new splashscreen.
... my server is down cause atacontroller died - was about time for the cheap mobo that it was).
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-6/215362/snaps hot1.jpg
I must say that the new GIMP has one of the best UI I ever seen. You can stack dialogue windows the way you like by simply dragging and dropping the title - for instance if I clinck on 'Paintbrush Optins' you see on the left and drag it to my desktop, it will be deattached - reattaching it is simply dragging it back onto the small bar you can currently see between the main dialogue and Paintbrush Options. You can also make tabs - for instance, Layers and Channels on the right are separate windows, but I put them on the same stack as tabs (instead of just putting them below each other like you see the other dialogues on the left).
Here is the screenshot (but please, click on it if you can mirror somehow
oops - "(and sometimes only available) in KDE (on FreeBSD btw)" - available generally of course, the reviewer used FreeBSD as the underlying OS - that's what I meant.
"... and I've yet to find anything that KDE can do that Aqua can't seem to"
Here is something that a Mac OS X user found useful (and sometimes only available) in KDE (on FreeBSD btw). I can't think of an easier way to rip CDs than it is implemented in Konqi, network transparency, stability (note that this heavily depends on the rest of the OS - KDE never crashed on me on FSBD, although there was a small window when the port contained a nasty bug in KUser) - to name a few.
Thanks for the tip.. I thought about mergemaster - that amounts almost to manual editing, no? I had to edit master.passwd manually once when I was fortunate enough to get hit by the KUser bug :( I only wanted to add my user to operator group) :(
I wonder how FreeBSD stores passwords. It has an /etc/master.passwd - which is similar to /etc/passwd in linux. However, if you put something manually in it, you have tu run a command to 'install' it, which updates a pwd.db file, that seems binary to me.
KDE? - its modular: you can install kdebase to have basic stuff (brings in few dependencies, but not much). Than you can gradually add things: kdenetworks - network utils + support, kdemultimedia, kdegraphics, koffice, etc (some 10 packages)... - just leave kdeaddons for last (it depends on kdemultimedia, kdenetwroks and such stuff). That it, if your distro supports this kind of configurability (read: doesn't lump everything together in one KDE megapackage. I guess gentoo doesn't do that - nor does FreeBSD, unless you want it).
"Now that the fileselector is improved, what will you bitch about now?" Attitude perhaps? I remember the massive amount of trolling about KDE's file selector on osnews - and referring to an outlandish HIG experiment they created one that was so minimalistic that even gnome fans denounced it. Now they make a file selector that it is _very_ similar to KDE's file-selector (widgets are different, but you can theme them afterall) - and the 'news' hits slashdot. Would this prevent 'KDE has no HIG' folks beating the same drum over and over again? Don't bet on it. Its so typical btw - you can mod me down, but this is getting tiresome. The same old story: KDE implements something, GNOME 'fans' (in quotation marks, cause they don't do any good to the GNOME project, which I respect) start flaming KDE (example: Karamba) - than a few months later: looky-here!! We have a cool new stuff in GNOME, its called Garamba. Yeah baby!
You managed to describe in a single post the feeling (and my reason for) using freebsd better than I could in several. Its been only for 3 months now, but that's exactly how I figured mount_msdosfs should work on a digital camera, once someone told me it uses fat.
:)) - maybe except for one perhaps: The Intro Linux Guide. A good guide for those wanting to learn more about linux (and yes, gentoo documentation is still more like a how-to, as far as I can see).
This is where the care, money and resources spent writing that handbook pays of - it easy to read even for absolute beginners, yet it gives you in-depth information about the system. And it leads you with a gentle hand - you don't even notice that you have learned more from it than any documentation I had on linux (saw mandrake's and rh's documentation - they are answers to questions between how and what
Hehe, my friend (has his computer near mine right here) uses gentoo as well. What makes FreeBSD easier for ME is its rc system (don't like sysv init) - but that's just my personal preference + good documentation. If I'd use a linux distro, I would go with gentoo (got too used to ports) - if it were the only OS I'd use... But since I don't want to duplicate the time spent with compilation, I think I'll go for slackware on my second hd.
"why doesn't BSD do this by default?"
:( Putting 'device pcm' in the kernel just saves you the trouble of having to reconfigure your system when you put in a new card. Well, some linuces do what you claim they do, others don't. I used Mandrake 9.0, and 9.1 later, and hw detectin worked fine. On the other hand, with the motherboard I'm currently using, onboard sound wasn't detected properly in either of them. I had to write to asrock (well, I know its a cheap mb) and they pointed me to a via site from where I had to downlaod the driver and install it manually.
/dev/. Want sound to start at boottime? Its a one liner in /boot/loader.conf:
/boot/kernel, and you'll see a file: linux.ko So what you need is:
/etc/modules.conf (or was it conf.modules) or was it something different (modules.autoload on gentoo perhaps?) - see what I meant?
Well, I screwed it up a bit
But this is not the point. My point really was that any moderately experienced linux user (those who use slackware or debian on the desktop for instance) wouldn't have any trouble with FreeBSD, in fact, they might find configuring the system easier (or in case of Slackware, very similar, for it uses the BSD init system) Of course, I can't convince anyone of this, unless someone tries both. And as another poster has written, one good thing about FSBD is that they care a great deal about their documentation. Check out their handbook to see what I'm talking about, so no hunting for howtos scattered over the net. And its always up to date - wherever things differ in the 'new technology release' branch, those changes are noted in the handbook - and it is free (as opposed to SuSE documentation, that some people mentioned as coming close in quality to freebsd documentation).
Also, you don't have to recompile to get sound to work. You can use 'kldload pcm' and there you have it - as I said, 'device pcm' is good if you change sound cards or something. Essentially FreeBSD works similar to linux, but there are little differences. For instance, during boot time, my hardware (soundcard) is properly detected, and device nodes created automatically in
snd_via8233_load="YES"
(every modul you might need that it is not in the kernel works like that). You want linux compatibility. ls
linux_load="YES" These are just examples of 'easy' configurability, as opposed to
To sum it up: my post wasn't intended for anyone's grandparents.
"Consider this example: a company develops an app around the newly-released FreeBSD 4.8. This app depends on components from the base system and Ports tree. After 12 months, FreeBSD 4.8 is no longer supported and users should move to 4.9."
.8 and .9 are so negligible, that it would require a mimimum effort (if it requires anything at all) for that software to work under 4.9. Basically this is true for most softwares written for the 4.x branch. If a software company cannot do the mimimal work to maintain its software package (and it IS MIMIMAL work to have the software working without any problems in any of the releases of the 4.x branch) than I guess that company should be out of business soon.
Very realistic example. Companies have a tendency to write software, dump it on a platform, than leave it as it is. Rrriiight. Currently, the last officially supported BSD is 4.7, released in October 2002. 4.8 will be supported for almost a year from now. Architectural changes between
What you have written is also true of any linux distributions (glibc changes in RH anyone?) Also, you clearly don't understand how the ports system work: "app depends on components from the base system and Ports tree." I have news for you: both the 4.x branch and 5.x uses the SAME ports tree, even the changes to the base system are significant.
Although I might have missed your point here, I believe what you are describing is similar to FreeBSD jails :)
I mainly addressed the average linux user. If you check the config file for the fsbd kernel, u will see how easy it is to edit it. You don't even have to open it btw: ../compile/MYKERNEL
echo "device pcm" >> MYKERNEL
Then:
config MYKERNEL
cd
make depend && make && install
REBOOT
Do this once, and you can buy a new card, plug it in, and it will work. Of course, you don't have to recompile the kernel to have sound working. Just as in linux, if you know what module you need for your soundcard, you can just do
kldload snd_via8233
or
kldload pcm (I think) to get any supported sound card working.
"having to do a make world on 300 boxen"
/usr/obj (and /usr/src as well?) as nfs, mount it on your 300 boxen, and you only need to install the shiny new bsd with 'make installworld'. That's it. So it is actually quite easy to deploy on a large server farm. You would go the same way with the ports btw: build on one machine and have it make pakcages, than install the packages with pkg_add -r whatever on the rest of the machines. Neat. :)
Not any more, and 'make world' is being deprecated in favor of 'make buildworld'. The difference is, that 'make buildworld' is totally self contained. You do 'make buldworld' on one machine, export
How can this be modded 'interesting'. Since fefe's test, everyone is trolling with those results, and in more detail btw. What does he mean by the 'polish' of linux? It doesn't make any sense. (the kernel? it might be polished even though its a .0 release, but I doubt its more polished than -STABLE - whcih have been polished since 2000). Mod parent down please, we don't need this here.
:))
(Besides, although this is a personal experience, KDE 3.1.4 on FreeBSD 5.1 uses less memory (doesn't touch swap with 256 SDRAM) than any linux I have tried (well, those were Mandrake 9.1 and RedHat), although I have to admit I didn't try it on more slicker distroes like slackware. (I like linux as well
I'm a freebsd user (5.1 - cvsupping to 5.2rc2 at the moment) and I love it. Contrary to some myths, it is great on the desktop. There are some things that just work. Put one line in your kernel config file (devce pcm) and you can just plug any supported sound card in, and it will just work, without the need for any configuration. The same goes with digital cameras: plug it in, and mount_msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /mnt/camera and there you go. Configuration is no more difficult than slackware (in fact, its easier, with automatic dependency checking/resolution ala apt-get, or by simply using the ports system). On the other hand...
... sadly, this announcment will be considered as flamebait. I don't understand this, really. I signed up to bsdforums when switched to BSD, and I must say its one of the friendliest forums I ever been to (including mandrakeusers.org or pclo which are also great). I don't find the hostility against linux in bsd users there the way I find hostility towards bsd users from linux users here on slashdot or recently, even osnews.In fact, there is a linux section (other os) on bsdforums, and I saw people helping out with fedora install or whatnot there without any 'use bsd instead' notes. I wish this continual flamewar would end, but frankly, I believe (mod me down if you wish) that most hostility comes from linux users. If you find some bsd folks here a little touchy, considering the amount of trolling every bsd announcment gets, it is a small miracle that people still come here for bsd news, that they are not as bitter as one would expect (but than, they - warning, flamebait! - seems to be more mature.
I agree with parent post
This is not because BSD is better or something. I like linux as much as I do BSD, I just like to use the latter better, because it is more interesting/fun to _ME_. I believe the linux crowd can be (and maybe it is) as 'mature' as bsd folks, but it is a more diverse group as well as considerably larger, so I think there is more room for a small but vocal minority to ruin the relationship and raise ill will towards each other. I wish that more considerate linux users would help out modding down trolls, afterall, we both have profited from each other's work.
Unfortunately, due to licencing, code exchange is mostly a one way road (BSD > Linux), but still BSD has to thank for GCC (well, not specifically linux) or the ULE scheduler (which is partly based on a linux developer's work - more linux specific) without which our beloved OS would be poorer.
Anyhow, the point I was trying to make is that this article can sadly be considered a flamebait, although we see similar announcment without anyone fearing that it is on the 'other' side. It would be nice to live without fears that such announcments would attract a large amount of trolling, to think that the article (read it!) has its on technical merits that can be interesting to anyone who visits slashdot (nerds?) no matter what OS they use.
IANAL, but if SCO's really basing their claim(s) on errno.h and the like, I can't imagine how their attorneys justify $9M in fees over the last year
They
can justify $9M exactly because they base their claims on errno.h and likes. Reputation is expensive.
Ok, I might have been a bit agitated too :) I just want to keep this friend of mine on the linux track (used, and unfortunately still uses win2k), and was angry at gentoo (not because overall its not good, but based on what we have experienced so far, it is not what I would expect based on the hype that surrounds it. But then, its pretty young, so I guess it will stabilize in time (and a good thing would be if they got rid of sysv init and used bsd init, like slackware does :)) - that would be the distro of my dreams. :)
I'm sorry if I was a bit harsh.
So everyone who has a problem with gentoo is a troll. Hmmm... Maybe everyone on gentooforums who had difficulties with 2.6 is a troll too. Nice attitude.
... my friend doesn't even write to ./ - I just helped him a bit with gentoo (he is new to linux, but he followed the instructions in alsa-guide by the letter when encountered the sound problems. I know cause I double checked him - and yet, sound doesn't work, and is it turns out, it is a devfs problem: no /dev/dsp - kde gave me a clue - and no devices is /dev/sound either. Yet devfsd is configured correctly. I even suggested to create the devices manually with makedev, but how is he supposed to know about this, for according to the manual and people like you here, gentoo is just perfect. Anyonw saying otherwise is a troll, no?
btw