http://www.osnews.com/story/15734/BSD_Usage_Statistics_Project_Launched Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Sat, 25 May 2013 08:33:00 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://www.osnews.com/thread?159207 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159207 FreeBSD users should consider this, even though we tend to not care about numbers. Anything that will get us better hardware support is welcome. Also, perhaps down the road these numbers will help convince potential (or current) employers that you weren't just wasting your time ;-).

I am definitely going to set this up on the 100+ machines I am responsible for. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rycamor) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159213 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159213 Nice project but with some limitations- it can't detect if current system is some FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD or other OS derivative like: PC-BSD, FreeSBIE, DesktopBSD, RoFreeSBIE, etc.

More organized hardware side would be nice too, with custom queries and report generator- maybe even screen resolution and default desktop environment statistics.

Overall good idea. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 16:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (antik) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159231 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159231 I think the first focus should be to just get the *BSD numbers, later on they could sort into versions and hardware statistics.
Just letting manufactors know there is a huge number of installations should be enough to get some to start thinking of support. Even if they only write a driver for one version, it should make it easier to port it to another. (as long as it's not a binary-only driver though) Tue, 05 Sep 2006 16:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JamesTRexx) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159242 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159242 All BSD fans should install this program. I have done this already on FreeBSD.

cd /usr/ports/sysutils/bsdstats
make install clean

then follow the instructions. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Chezz) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159249 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159249 sure, i will particiapte. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (happycamper) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159250 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159250 once it is installed,

ee /etc/periodic.conf

and add these two lines:

monthly_statistics_enable="YES"
monthly_statistics_report_devices="YES"

--------------------------------------------------

I installed it on all of my servers. Great to see something like this. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (GMFlash) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159253 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159253 This is a great idea.

It could be cool to view usage statistics for Linux also. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (chris_dk) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159268 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159268 If you update your ports (cvsup or portsnap) first, then the latest version of bsdstats automatically sets up the configuration. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 18:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rycamor) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159296 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159296 This reminds me of The Linux Counter: http://counter.li.org/

Once upon a time, most of new Linux users registered there, if only for fun. Nobody seems to care these days. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 18:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (saxiyn) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159310 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159310 I thought netcraft could already be used to confirm that BSD is dying.

Why is another project needed? Tue, 05 Sep 2006 19:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (setuid_w00t) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159345 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159345 I update my page semiregularly. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 20:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (twenex) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159350 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159350 The linux counter should do something similar. Actually the linux counter should be initiated by the distros, be in the form of a similar script. Linux like BSD needs actual usage numbers for lobbying purposes. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 20:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dukeinlondon) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159365 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159365 I want to, but the script doesn't provide for a proxy option. All my machines use the proxy to get out there on the big, bad internet.
I'd either have to redirect or allow the connection to this site through the firewall. (not happy to do that) Tue, 05 Sep 2006 21:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (JamesTRexx) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159368 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159368 I always love to see the ever expanding interest in the *BSD's, be it for OpenBSd, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, FreeBSD and other BSD friends.

I love everything about the *BSD's, from how clean the partitioning schemes look (slices are nicer than mulitple partitions IMHO), to the consistancy of the handbooks, manuals and overall system experience. I love it.

All the best, to all the *BSD's. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 21:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (w00dst0ck) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159413 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159413 Nice project but with some limitations- it can't detect if current system is some FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD or other OS derivative like: PC-BSD, FreeSBIE, DesktopBSD, RoFreeSBIE, etc.

Given the goals of this project, it doesn't matter wether someone uses FreeBSD or PCBSD; they use the same drivers after all. Better to show a unified listing to vendors rather than a fractured list of systems people want support for. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 22:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ronald Vos) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159422 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159422 Their script doesn't support OpenBSD. By including the metrics for it on their page with 0 participants, it looks like no one is using it. They should either take it off, or make note of that on the page. Tue, 05 Sep 2006 22:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rugmonster) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159598 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159598 Uh, where do you get the script from? Not everyone is using the freebsd ports tree, especially not on non-freebsd systems. Wed, 06 Sep 2006 03:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159636 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159636 The page isn't that cluttered. Look at the last paragraph of their "Mission":

To participate, download the following script, known to work with FreeBSD and NetBSD: http://www.bsdstats.org/downloads/300.statistics Wed, 06 Sep 2006 07:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (asusanator) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?159724 http://www.osnews.com/thread?159724 Nice there's a script for non-freebsd users, but how am I supposed to use it? (on NetBSD) Periodicly once a month in cron? What does it send exactly? Can I run it as non-root? Can I re-run the script if I forgot to put monthly_statistics_report_devices="YES" in /etc/rc.conf? Of course I could "analyse" the script itself, however some information should be nice... Wed, 06 Sep 2006 13:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (welmers) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread?160331 http://www.osnews.com/thread?160331 Read the man page for periodic all your questions are answered in there. This has nothing to do with cron. Fri, 08 Sep 2006 00:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phoenix) Comments