What features does FreeBSD 5 have over FreeBSD 4 that make the former "simply more easy to use" ?
If it's features such as rc.d as rc(8) or rescue(8), then those features were obtained from NetBSD, even if the history section in those two manual pages neglects to mention this heritage.
NetBSD's setup does not actually make sure everything works, it makes sure it compiles under fake hardware.
That's how NetBSD's support for some platforms got so bad.
That last sentence is wrong!
Native compiling on a [slow] platform doesn't test that "everything works" for that platform, just that the native compiler generates some code on a given model.
This is especially relevant for platforms with a diverse range of hardware, including Alpha.
Cross-compiling on a fast platform reduces the turn-around time for providing software to test on slower platforms. (Why wait a week for a build to compile when you cross-compile in an hour?).
The NetBSD cross-build framework offers other benefits such as allowing build an entire OS release (including install media) without requiring root privileges or fancy OS support such as loopback disk drivers.
More details in my BSDCon 03 talk and build.sh paper.
Either build method does not remove the need for actually testing the resulting build on the variety of hardware available for a given platform.
That is a separate and more important issue.
(Why do [AC] fanboys of some operating systems belittle functionality that their OS doesn't currently have, only to about-face and shout to the rooftops when they finally get it?)
NeXT solved the multi-architecture binary problem many years ago. If Apple ever offered the OS on x86 again, you can bet that every software vendor would recompile their apps and have them available within a month. Most of them could do it in a week.
Except for the OS X application code that makes assumptions that it is running on 32bit big endian processors (PowerPC) and fails when ported to 32bit little endian x86. And we all know the kwality of closed source vendor code, don't we? </ob/.troll>:)
Remember all the UNIX code written over a decade ago for SunOS 4 [on] SPARC that didn't work on x86 boxen, due to lack of correct use of htons(3) (et al)? Nowadays the opposite problem exists; so much [open source] code does #include <linux.h> and assumes it is running on 32bit x86 CPUs.
At least the trickiest endian-bugs won't occur when porting OS X apps to 64bit PowerPC. The tricky bugs are in 32bit little endian (x86) code ported to 64bit big endian (Sparc64, PPC64); they're harder to track down than 32LE->64LE (alpha) because the latter often didn't barf when accessing 32bit entities with a 64bit fetch due to the word layout in memory.
Back to the topic; I'm fairly certain OS X still supports "fat" binaries which can ship with both PowerPC and x86 code in the same binary (package).
You'd telnet instead of ssh into your hacked TiVo because the 50MHz PPC403GX would suck for ssh, just like old (pre-Ultra) SPARCs do.
As for TiVo versus roll-your-own; I use a series 1 TiVo running the OzTiVo software (in Australia), and it rocks. I'll happily deal with the occasional glitch and the amateur quality guide data in order to watch TV how & when I want to. That said, if TiVo offered the service in Australia for a subscription fee I'd pay for it to get the reliable guide data (with episode # information, etc). Foxtel Digital is apparently bringing out a rebadged SkyPlus unit from the UK, but that doesn't do 30s skip / 8s replay, which is probably the killer app for me.
Also; the TiVo GUI Just Works. Compare this with the crap UI in the yumcha DVRs & STBs.
The i8600 has the following benefits over an Apple laptop:
a higher quality and higher resolution screen (1920x1200 vs 1280x854); this allows ClearType in XP or the equivalent in XFree86 to render text far superior to the PowerBook (even with OS X.3).
far superior warranty; 3 year onsite next business day with accident & theft protection is A$400. The PowerBook only gets 3 year "return to base and wait 1 week to fix" without the accident & theft protection for A$600. Apple.au need to lift there game here; as a professional I can't do without my laptop for 1-2 weeks whilst the reseller fixes it.
faster; the Pentium M @ 2.0GHz is sweet. In fact, it compiles kernels at speeds equivalent to a P4/Xeon 3.4-3.6 and an AMD64 3200 (all of these were workstations, compared to my laptop with a slow laptop disk.)
is at least 20% cheaper
runs NetBSD and Linux better than the PowerBooks. (OTOH, I'm told NetBSD & Linux run faster on PowerBooks than OS X)
runs XP vs OS X; there are applications that only work in W2K/XP, and emulating a PC at 1/10 the speed for more money is not acceptable.
comparable or better battery life (IIRC)
comparably quiet
isn't purchased to get a woody about being an elitist brand snob (AKA "I paid more, I have to justify why it's better!". Same goes for.eu cars for.jp cars -- I'm an apostate of the former:)
Where the i8600 lacks compared to the PowerBook:
only has 100Mb ethernet instead of Gig-E. The Dell Latitude D800 (equivalent to the i8600) does have Gig-E but only ships with nVidia graphics, which I don't want to use because of inferior support in XFree86 for nVidia (vs the ATI 9600)
only has 400Mb firewire instead of 800Mb firewire
only has VGA out and not DVI out
subjectively it is not as well built. However, see the comment above about "better after-sales support". All laptops break, even Apple, as I have seen with iBooks and TiBooks.
a warm inner glow for being one of the "skiv" Elites who've seen the light and Converted to the Church of Apple.
A while ago I compared a 15" G4 PowerBook and a Dell Inspiron i8600 "side by side" at my home office for a few weeks. I have two i8600's and one i8500 (about to sell the latter), and had a Inspiron 5000e for over 3 years. I have co-workers and collegues who are very happy with the i8600's. I also have co-workers and collegues who are happy with the G4 PowerBooks. On the other hand, one co-worker had a very unreliable 800Mhz iBook (and the story behind the crap support he got from the local reseller in Australia is a separate rant), and another friend had a similar "bad support" story for his 15" TiBook... I have a friend who swears Dell are unreliable and raves about his PowerBook. What widely divergant views!
In short, use whatever you like for your own reasons. I really appreciate the high quality high resolution screen and far superior after-sale warranty of the i8600 over the G4 PowerBook. If Apple resolved these issues in future models, I may reevaluate.
Except PHP-as-CGI relies upon a "non standard" CGI variable (SCRIPT_FILENAME) to operate correctly, and many non Apache/IIS web servers don't provide that variable. Thus, PHP doesn't work under them.
I worked out this problem a while ago, submitted
bug 28227 with fix, and it's been sitting in the PHP bug database doing nothing for months. Not only that, but many similar bugs (without fixes) were closed prematurely by the PHP team under the incorrect assumption that the submitter's system was misconnfigured, as opposed to PHP being buggy...
Re:Printed documentation (diff NET/FREE BSD)
on
NetBSD 2.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
There are many similarities between FreeBSD and NetBSD thanks to their mutual heritage, but FreeBSD's documentation doesn't usually apply equally to NetBSD. The differences are well covered in NetBSD's own online documentation, though.
There is a lot of code-sharing at the "user interface" level which helps here.
FreeBSD has obtained from NetBSD:
Kubrick may have been a great director _visually_, but the audio quality on most of his movies sucks,
even on the later ones like Full Metal Jacket. FMJ is an excellent filmed marred by muffled dialogue. Fortunately the DVD release has subtitles:-)
I concur; we gave up watching Farscape on DVD around series 3.
Farscape just isn't up to the standard of Babylon 5 or Buffy/Angel in story-arc development, or Stargate SG1 in the comedy-with-some-storyarc. Farscape relies too much on the Unresolved Sexual Tension (UST) angle. (Another series that lost it is Andromeda; by series 3 it had become "Hercules in Space" with all series attempts at story-arc abandoned.)
IMHO, DVDs is the best way to watch series; widescreen, surround sound, subtitles, and no in-program adverts or station watermarks. It can be a costly habit though:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Minor correction: registration stickers haven't been necessary in Victoria since the start of 2014.
What features does FreeBSD 5 have over FreeBSD 4 that make the former "simply more easy to use" ?
If it's features such as rc.d as rc(8) or rescue(8), then those features were obtained from NetBSD, even if the history section in those two manual pages neglects to mention this heritage.
That last sentence is wrong!
Native compiling on a [slow] platform doesn't test that "everything works" for that platform, just that the native compiler generates some code on a given model. This is especially relevant for platforms with a diverse range of hardware, including Alpha.
Cross-compiling on a fast platform reduces the turn-around time for providing software to test on slower platforms. (Why wait a week for a build to compile when you cross-compile in an hour?). The NetBSD cross-build framework offers other benefits such as allowing build an entire OS release (including install media) without requiring root privileges or fancy OS support such as loopback disk drivers. More details in my BSDCon 03 talk and build.sh paper.
Either build method does not remove the need for actually testing the resulting build on the variety of hardware available for a given platform. That is a separate and more important issue.
(Why do [AC] fanboys of some operating systems belittle functionality that their OS doesn't currently have, only to about-face and shout to the rooftops when they finally get it?)
Just how long is "*this* long" ?
If you'd RTFA, you'd see a link to a mailing list message showing the boot output of a Mac Mini, posted two days before the machine shipped.
Except for the OS X application code that makes assumptions that it is running on 32bit big endian processors (PowerPC) and fails when ported to 32bit little endian x86. And we all know the kwality of closed source vendor code, don't we? </ob/.troll> :)
Remember all the UNIX code written over a decade ago for SunOS 4 [on] SPARC that didn't work on x86 boxen, due to lack of correct use of htons(3) (et al)? Nowadays the opposite problem exists; so much [open source] code does #include <linux.h> and assumes it is running on 32bit x86 CPUs.
At least the trickiest endian-bugs won't occur when porting OS X apps to 64bit PowerPC. The tricky bugs are in 32bit little endian (x86) code ported to 64bit big endian (Sparc64, PPC64); they're harder to track down than 32LE->64LE (alpha) because the latter often didn't barf when accessing 32bit entities with a 64bit fetch due to the word layout in memory.
Back to the topic; I'm fairly certain OS X still supports "fat" binaries which can ship with both PowerPC and x86 code in the same binary (package).
As for TiVo versus roll-your-own; I use a series 1 TiVo running the OzTiVo software (in Australia), and it rocks. I'll happily deal with the occasional glitch and the amateur quality guide data in order to watch TV how & when I want to. That said, if TiVo offered the service in Australia for a subscription fee I'd pay for it to get the reliable guide data (with episode # information, etc). Foxtel Digital is apparently bringing out a rebadged SkyPlus unit from the UK, but that doesn't do 30s skip / 8s replay, which is probably the killer app for me.
Also; the TiVo GUI Just Works. Compare this with the crap UI in the yumcha DVRs & STBs.
The i8600 has the following benefits over an Apple laptop:
Where the i8600 lacks compared to the PowerBook:
A while ago I compared a 15" G4 PowerBook and a Dell Inspiron i8600 "side by side" at my home office for a few weeks. I have two i8600's and one i8500 (about to sell the latter), and had a Inspiron 5000e for over 3 years. I have co-workers and collegues who are very happy with the i8600's. I also have co-workers and collegues who are happy with the G4 PowerBooks. On the other hand, one co-worker had a very unreliable 800Mhz iBook (and the story behind the crap support he got from the local reseller in Australia is a separate rant), and another friend had a similar "bad support" story for his 15" TiBook... I have a friend who swears Dell are unreliable and raves about his PowerBook. What widely divergant views!
In short, use whatever you like for your own reasons. I really appreciate the high quality high resolution screen and far superior after-sale warranty of the i8600 over the G4 PowerBook. If Apple resolved these issues in future models, I may reevaluate.
I worked out this problem a while ago, submitted bug 28227 with fix, and it's been sitting in the PHP bug database doing nothing for months. Not only that, but many similar bugs (without fixes) were closed prematurely by the PHP team under the incorrect assumption that the submitter's system was misconnfigured, as opposed to PHP being buggy...
- nsswitch.conf(5)
-
rc.d(8) (which FreeBSD incorrectly refers to as "rcNG"). I have a paper about this.
- dynamically linked world
/rescue - the enhanced ftp(1)
NetBSD has `bought back' stuff such asThe canonical location for that benchmark is:
http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/
not the phish-alike mirror you provided.
Kubrick may have been a great director _visually_, but the audio quality on most of his movies sucks, even on the later ones like Full Metal Jacket. FMJ is an excellent filmed marred by muffled dialogue. Fortunately the DVD release has subtitles :-)
Farscape just isn't up to the standard of Babylon 5 or Buffy/Angel in story-arc development, or Stargate SG1 in the comedy-with-some-storyarc. Farscape relies too much on the Unresolved Sexual Tension (UST) angle. (Another series that lost it is Andromeda; by series 3 it had become "Hercules in Space" with all series attempts at story-arc abandoned.)
IMHO, DVDs is the best way to watch series; widescreen, surround sound, subtitles, and no in-program adverts or station watermarks. It can be a costly habit though :-)