The second release candidate of FreeBSD 6.2 has been released. "All problems we felt needed to be addressed before 6.2 could be released have been taken care of. Unless further testing turns up something new RC2, which is available now for dowloading, will be the last of the Release Candidates and 6.2-RELEASE should be ready in about 2 weeks."
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Member since:
2006-04-19
Member since:2006-10-08
"With 6.1, I have a full desktop (KDE) going except for one thing: a working printer. CUPS = SUX. Maybe printing is one area that will improve with 6.2. I am prepared for the possibility of disappointment, though."
May I ask what printer you own? Maybe, using APSFILTER instead of CUPS will solve your problem.
Member since:2005-07-11
As they say, YMMV, but we've standardised on CUPS as it's the best thing out there for printing. Especially if you can get PPD files for the printer. Nothing else (that I've found) works directly with PPD files. And the beauty of a PPD is that you can use a PPD "designed for" Windows or MacOS X on any CUPS system (and with MacOS X using CUPS for printing, there are more and more PPD available out there).
Have a look at http://www.linuxprinting.org to find out if your printer is even supported under any Unix. If it is, the best driver to use will be listed. This site has been invaluable in our Unix roll-outs, even back when we were using LPRng.
Oh, and why would a new release of FreeBSD affect your printing? Odds are, if you can't get it to work with CUPS, you aren't going to get it working with lpd either.
Edited 2006-12-27 22:32
Member since:2006-10-08
"And the beauty of a PPD is that you can use a PPD "designed for" Windows or MacOS X on any CUPS system (and with MacOS X using CUPS for printing, there are more and more PPD available out there)."
Wow! Maybe I get the stupid Develop D-16F all-in-one device (in German: eierlegende Wollmilchsau, "egg laying wool milk sow") working!
"Oh, and why would a new release of FreeBSD affect your printing?"
You can update your printing driver system at any point in time you want, you don't need to wait for a new OS release because the printing drivers are not a part of the OS.
# cd /usr/ports
# make update
# cd print/cups
# make deinstall && make && make install
# pkgdb -aF
Or use
# portupgrade cups
"Odds are, if you can't get it to work with CUPS, you aren't going to get it working with lpd either."
For correctness: lpd belongs to the OS and is the line printer spooler deamon. It comes with tools like lpr (send job to printer), lpq (query) and lprm (remove job). These programs have nothing to do with printer drivers, they just control the printing queue in which the data provided by the printer driver is hold.
While some printer driver systems offer their own queue tools with other names (I think CUPS does it this way), others use the system tools or own tools with similar names.
For example, if I do
% lpr dingenskirchens.jpg
the file is passed to the apropriate APSFILTER driver / filter that translates the JPG file into data which the printer can understand, for example PCL or PS. Then, the PCL file is stored in the printer queue and passed to the printer as soon he is online and ready to print.
Member since:2006-01-18
Member since:2006-07-15
Cups is a beast, sometimes you can tame it, sometimes it will attack you 
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
---
But on topic, remember OSnews and Slashdot ... BSD is dying :o) ;-)
Member since:2006-10-08
"Cups is a beast, sometimes you can tame it, sometimes it will attack you "
Haha! :-) It might not help the author of this essay (I read the german translation), but with the setup tool of APSFILTER, which is done in text dialog mode, he wouldn't have had any problem achieving his initial goal.
(1) Printer Driver Selection - 3) printer driver natively supported by ghostscript - 2) 179 HP LaserJet 6 -- (2) Interface Setup - 3) Unix/network printer (lpd), Machine name for remote printer: minx - Remote Printer Name: however the printer is called -- (4)...(7) as it is needed, (i) Install printer with values shown above -- (q) Finish installation. DONE.
"But on topic, remember OSnews and Slashdot ... BSD is dying :o) ;-)"
How long does this dying take? :-)
Edited 2006-12-28 02:53
Member since:2006-08-31
"But on topic, remember OSnews and Slashdot ... BSD is dying :o) ;-)
How long does this dying take? :-)"
Ha! Exactly! Dying who?
And for example, now that OSX Leopard (which is basically BSD based) is coming out, who's "really" dying :-)
BSDs? I don't think so!!!!
Edited 2006-12-28 06:32
Member since:2006-07-15
Member since:2006-05-19
This is not CUPS problem but KDE 3.5.4 bug (supports only CUPS 1.1.x). With KDE 3.5.5 CUPS works just fine (CUPS 1.2.7). We tested every possible configuration for upcoming PC-BSD 1.3 release and stuck with KDE 3.5.5- printing works but now we have half backed HAL support (buggy as hell on FreeBSD- impossible to use KDE without HAL now- it is so deeply hardcoded...). I hope this mounting problem will be gone with FreeBSD 6.2 release. Great work guys- FreeBSD is evolving with every release and can replace Linux on desktop really soon now.
Member since:2005-09-10
now we have half backed HAL support (buggy as hell on FreeBSD- impossible to use KDE without HAL now- it is so deeply hardcoded...).
What are you talking about? HAL support is optional for kdebase, it is even off by default (you have to change it with make config). In other words, kde builds without HAL by default - I know, because I actually had to recompile kdebase just to get HAL working (I read that 3.5.5 will support HAL on freshports, but didn't know that it will be off by default).
Member since:2006-01-09
Funny thing is that antik was asking about HAL being hardcoded into kdebase on #kde@irc.freenode.net a couple of days ago and the KDE developers told him several times that it is not. I was there when that happened!
I can't understand why he kept pushing that line afterwards...
RE: Looking forward to it...
Member since:2006-06-20
BSD is a really good piece of EDU but hardly usable as a desktop OS and its lack of support and any real use in the commercial world really holds it back. The fact that its kernel is based on 30 year old code doesn't help either. For best results use Linux.
Sure, it's not used in the commercial world:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html
What OS do you think that Yahoo is using for supporting 250,000+ sites?
Edited 2006-12-28 12:14
Member since:2005-08-28
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html
Let me guess, you're new at this? This is so five years ago. Anyway, from the FAQ linked to on the same page:
"Additionally HP-UX, Linux, NetApp NetCache, Solaris and recent releases of FreeBSD cycle back to zero after 497 days, exactly as if the machine had been rebooted at that precise point. Thus it is not possible to see a HP-UX, Linux or Solaris system with an uptime measurement above 497 days."
What OS do you think that Yahoo is using for supporting 250,000+ sites?
Yahoo! is also a Linux shop now, esp. wrt the mysql backends, even if all (?) the frontends are still FreeBSD. A search for 'linux' at Yahoo's own jobs page yields 77 hits, while a search for FreeBSD gives 28 hits, most of which looks to be duplicates of hits also found with the 'linux' search.
So while Yahoo! has found it necessary to also use Linux for important infrastructure (go and look through some of their job openings), I'm not aware of for instance Google, Amazon, or Akamai having felt the need to start using FreeBSD.
Edited 2006-12-29 08:07
Member since:2005-11-09
Member since:2005-08-28
Despite some googling, I was unable to find any support for this claim. I also can't recall having seen it mentioned on bsdnews.com, which is usually pretty good at catching positive *BSD articles, and this would be a major one.
What I did find however is that Yahoo! have also become a heavy Oracle user, deployed on Linux.
From a blog post (http://java.apress.com/article/329/oracle-openworld-news-and-observ...) with observations from the Oracle OpenWorld event held a couple of months ago:
Oracle continues to push grid computing using clustered Linux server environments. Example: Yahoo! is an Oracle customer that was primarily used as a chief Yahoo developer talked about their commitment to Linux (and moving away from BSD).
Following that lead, I found that Yahoo! engineers held two presentations (http://tinyurl.com/ylt5eu) at the event, one of which has the following in it's abstract:
Yahoo's core functionality is providing internet users with up-to-the-minute information on demand. Scalability and high availability are key requirements for Yahoo. This is why Yahoo uses Oracle Real Application Clusters and Linux in its Tier 1 applications.
It's also interesting to note that Yahoo!-owned sites like flickr.com and del.icio.us seems be running Linux even on the front end.
It looks like Yahoo! are in fact much a heavier Linux user than I had previously thought. In fact, one of their Linux-related job openings is for a "Linux Kernel Hacker".
Member since:2005-07-07
The comment I'm replying to is curiously omitting to mention that, since Oracle doesn't support FreeBSD, it's hardly a surprise that Yahoo deploys Oracle on a different OS - they're simply forced to.
However, I'm not aware of any commercial constraints that would prevent Yahoo from choosing a different OS for their fast-growing web infrastructure. But, again, it looks like this is not the case:
http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?host=yahoo.com
This is hardly a surprise either, since worldwide FreeBSD is running many more websites than any Linux distro - 2.5 million against RedHat's 1.6 million, were the numbers two years ago.
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/06/07/nearly_25_million_acti...
Member since:2005-08-28
The comment I'm replying to is curiously omitting to mention that, since Oracle doesn't support FreeBSD, it's hardly a surprise that Yahoo deploys Oracle on a different OS - they're simply forced to.
Hardly. If a customer like Yahoo!, who probably spends millions a year on Oracle (a search for 'oracle' in the above-mentioned Yahoo! jobs page returns 89 openings), wanted to run Oracle on FreeBSD, they would get the support they need. This is a missed opportunity for FreeBSD, since this is exactly the kind of customer Oracle needs to justify FreeBSD support. Instead, Yahoo! uses Linux, just like they did with MySQL earlier.
However, I'm not aware of any commercial constraints that would prevent Yahoo from choosing a different OS for their fast-growing web infrastructure. But, again, it looks like this is not the case: http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?host=yahoo.com
Why would they? Yahoo! has been a FreeBSD shop since day one and FreeBSD serves very well in this capacity, noone has claimed otherwise. However, as indicated, much of the heavy lifting in the back is now done on machines running Linux, be it with Oracle or MySQL.
Remember when Hotmail used to be another high-profile FreeBSD user that people would bring up in a discussion like this? Well, it was always Solaris in the back (http://www.securityoffice.net/mssecrets/hotmail.html), and the situation with Yahoo! looks to become somewhat analogus, but now with Linux in the back.
This is hardly a surprise either, since worldwide FreeBSD is running many more websites than any Linux distro - 2.5 million against RedHat's 1.6 million, were the numbers two years ago.
Indeed, and ironically enough considering the above discussion, in large part due to Yahoo's deployments. The thing is, FreeBSD is occupying pretty much the exact same niche it did ten years ago, as primarily a web hosting platform. In the mean time, Linux has established itself on everything from mainframes and supercomputers to handhelds, and has established itself in what used to be a FreeBSD stronghold, Yahoo!.
Member since:2006-08-27
Member since:2006-04-19
Member since:
2006-11-18
Member since:
2006-09-22
Member since:
2006-02-01
Unix is in no way dieing, it's said by people who really don't have a clue.
Think about it, the amount of servers running FreeBSD alone.
OS X being based on Unix, and is still chipping away at popularity.
Even that Desktop BSD is really quite good.
Announcement is here.
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2006-December/031...
Along with the MD5 sums.
Download here.
ftp://ftp15.us.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-IMAGES-i386/6.2/6.2-RC2...
Edited 2006-12-28 11:17
Member since:2006-07-15
Of course BSD is dying and it's humor, because this is most of the time the tenor in every *BSD news (the discussion afterwards) at OSNews and Slashdot. *BSDs inferiority e.g. makes me laugh every time I hear it, because most of the people saying these things don't have any clue what's the point with *BSD. But vice versa there are many people that know why not to use Linux, because they were Linux users for years. But this is only my opinion and my rant as long time Linux user (Debian, ArchLinux) :-)
Member since:
2006-03-15
6.x series really stopped the bleeding of the project. It put FreeBSD back on the right path and got people excited once again about it. That said, FreeBSD 7 will be the release where all the volunteers hard work (over six years of SMP madness) will finally pay off. With the SMPng project mostly done, and the FreeBSD project moving to a 1:1 threading model, and with a lot of useless code getting gutted (ex. fair-queue process scheduling), the code for FreeBSD should start looking a lot cleaner, quite a bit more efficient, and far less buggy. While I am certain that it won't be better than Linux (just as Linux isn't better than BSD), I am certain that a lot of companies who really had no option but to go to Linux due to its technical superiority, will now be able to consider FreeBSD and its "Free as in Free" license.
Anyways, just saying that these are exciting times for the FreeBSD project. Kudos to all the hard working volunteers.
Edited 2006-12-28 18:59
Member since:2005-08-28
the FreeBSD project moving to a 1:1 threading model
That's far from certain:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.os.freebsd.devel.threading/3515/focus...
Member since:
2006-09-16
Quite disappointed with FreeBSD 6.2 rc2 installation: keyboard dead at CD boot; hw detection problems (ok, it's a RC, I'll grant that); packages spread over 2 cd's; system panicking before installation is completed and fine-tuned (system will reboot anyway, no matter what language you're using to swear around the room).
Also, I wonder what it is that keeps the FreeBSD folks from releasing a mini-DVD image which everyone would like better than the 2 cd sets for DJ's.
Member since:2005-07-06
For most installations you only need ISO 1. FreeBSD is primarily a net-aware system and installation is preferrentially done by booting the mini-iso and pulling the rest of the extra packages from the net. If you really need a DVD iso you'd probably be better off with a FreeBSD derivative like Frisbee, Desktop BSD or PC BSD. If you really really need a FreeBSD DVD-iso, why not build one or better yet help out/volunteer to pull some lifting to get it done
