"The first RC build for the FreeBSD-9.0 release cycle is now available. ISO images for the architectures amd64, i386, ia64, powerpc, powerpc64, and sparc64 are available on most of our FreeBSD mirror sites. One of the many new features in 9.0 we would like to be tested is the new installer, so we encourage our users to do fresh installation on test systems. Alternatively, users upgrading existing systems may now do so using the freebsd-update(8) utility."
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Member since:2006-03-29
@DOSguy, that sounds plausible. I was also thinking it may be the case that since the kernel API's have stabilized since 7.0 that the team is being more diligent about MFC's and the features are simply more spread out between point and major releases now. It is hard to be certain since it is purely subjective.
@jefro/@celt, you both missed the point. New features do not necessarily a great product make, but they have traditionally been a pretty good indicator as to how rich the labor and intellectual economy of a given open source project is.
@laffer1, knowing how much work it is simply to keep up with the modern age wrt drivers and third party software support, I do not envy you guys. That said, I would love to see more collaboration between our respective projects, though I am not sure how exactly one goes about putting a foot forward in that regard. There are a number of us who are effectively red-headed stepchildren of the BSD community after all. It couldn't hurt to establish a dialogue to see if there are ways in which our work can overlap beyond periodically porting and sync'ing code.
@joekiser, I know a large number of FreeBSD developers and users that left the project for greener pastures (Linux, typically) during the SMPng/5.x development cycle. That timeframe I can certainly comment on. I haven't really kept a well-tuned ear to the FreeBSD community since sometime in the 6.x development cycle, which is why I raise the question. I am really genuinely curious if there has been some exodus of developers (did Apple hire them all?) or if things have otherwise slowed down, or if it is simply my mistaken impression. Despite what a couple have said in this thread, I am certain that at least _ideas_ for new features and improvements are not lacking.
Member since:2005-07-11
New features in the latest 8-STABLE / 9.0-RC1, that I know of off the top of my head:
USB3 support.
GEOM-based fake-RAID support (all those software RAID features on motherboards)
ZFSv28 support.
bunch of stuff around the syscons driver
802.11n wireless support
This page shows more:
http://ivoras.net/freebsd/freebsd9.html
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Member since:
2006-07-14
That is what I and probably the parent was looking for. It seems odd that its that difficutl to find, and not hosted on Freebsd.org. Compare that to the sparse official release notes.