FreeBSD’s Murray Stokely announces the availability of FreeBSD 4.8, the latest FreeBSD-stable release, which has dealt with known security issues, and added initial support for Firewire, HyperThreading, and other new hardware technologies.
FreeBSD 4.8 Released
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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After reading the 1st paragraph I thought I’d actually explain everything to you, but by reading further I realised that your post is a ridiculous troll.
I know, it was the second paragraph that ruined it all for me.
Should we lough ?
Why don’t FreeBSD developers give up and work on linux ?
ahahahahaha
Anyway your post was the morning laugh!
i don’t get it
You sure don’t 🙂
Enabling sound support for my mb (via VT8233) on Linux : installing alsa, patching and recompiling the kernel – on FreeBSD 5 : loading sound module on startup (means changing 1 word in a configuration file)
I just finished installing gnome 2.2 from ports – FreeBSD is the best, just try it.
OK, I’ll bite.
“why are they still working on 4.x and adding support for new technologies like firewire and hyperthreading. this is so very stupid, why don’t the people working on those projects help finish freebsd 5.0 instead ”
No, it’s how they do their release engineering. They have a STABLE branch (just now 4.8) and a CURRENT branch, which are much akin to Debian’s stable and unstable/testing (although they are about as much the same as they are different). If you want bleeding edge or want to hack around on the kernel, run CURRENT. If you want something for your server, run STABLE. Makes total sense.
It’s all explained here:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/index.ht…
“freebsd developers don’t make sense, and seem to be wasting their time, my time, and everyone else’s time”
You sir are not even a good troll. Try harder next time please.
or better yet, why don’t they all give up and work on FreeBSD…
…yet they can’t even agree on a common standard for an alternative os and make over 200 of them! (distros)
This sounds more like the truth.
Yes, it does make more sense to continue FreeBSD development than to abandon it. No matter if you consider Darwin/MacOS X a *BSD or not, the development of Darwin/MacOS X is largely dependant on the development of FreeBSD.
There are more desktop users using a FreeBSD-dependant OS than desktop Linux users. It wouldn’t make much sense to abandon FreeBSD development and start coding Linux, now would it?
You linux zealots should get hold of the fact that FreeBSD *is* superior to linux and will continue to be whether you like it or not. It is a fact and take it from me, a one time linux user.
Look at netcrat and check the longest running websites! nearly 5 years uptime from FreeBSD systems! Most of the top ones are FreeBSD! Only the commercial BSD/OS matches it. Some internet backbone routers run on FreeBSD and others use the BSD TCP/IP stack! How many linux systems can claim such high availability?? And its license is better too! Thats why I’m going to run my websites on FreeBSD systems.
what does freebsd offer that linux doesn’t?
The kqueue mechanism for one, O(1) synchronous, stateful multiplexing of a variety of events. Linux is attempting something similar with epoll(), however this provides no means of waiting for either socket or filesystem events (Linux provides filesystem monitoring through DNotify)
from what I have read freebsd 5.0 did NOT fix smp bugs from freebsd 4.x
They weren’t “bugs”, it was simply a markedly inferior implementation.
and that linux 2.6 will blow freebsd 5.0 out of the water.
There’s been a great deal of discussion regarding a 1:1 vs M:N threading implementation. We won’t really know which one is better as far as how they’re implemented by Linux/FreeBSD until the FreeBSD developers add KSE support to FreeBSD’s threading library. Regardless of the kernel implementation, KSEs should prove a superior solution to Linux’s approach because more of the threading functionality won’t require expensive system calls/context switches.
Furthermore, Linux is just now getting support for next generation threading. Its previous implementation used a hack which created a pseudo-LWP through the clone() system call. Threads took up process table entries, and every threading function required its own system call.
FreeBSD, on the other hand, used a userspace implementation. This allowed for threading functions to be implemented without requiring system calls. It had the grave disadvantage of threads being unable to scale across multiple processors, however. Furthermore, whenever any thread entered a system call it blocked all threads. This could be seen in such things as Opera for FreeBSD, where transfers of large files seemed to hang the entire browser.
KSEs remedy the issues of multiprocessor scalability and allowing multiple concurrent system calls between threads. This is quite a feat, considering the previously mentioned kqueue mechanism is thread safe and handles requests from multiple threads in an intelligent manner.
and i also read that the entire point of freebsd 5.0 was to fix smp. linux 2.6 isn’t aimed JUST at making smp better, but it’s going to blow freebsd out of the water?
All I can say is “We’ll see”. I’d love to try out Linux 2.6 and benchmark it against FreeBSD 5.0, but the last time I built a Linux 2.6 kernel it paniced when I tried to boot.
or better yet, why don’t they all give up and work on linux.
Because despite what you may think, there’s a large FreeBSD community out there who depends on these developers. That’s like asking why doesn’t everybody in the world move to Switzerland because it’s the nation with the highest GNP.
Look at netcrat and check the longest running websites! nearly 5 years uptime from FreeBSD systems!
Before one of the Linux zealots gets mad at you and rants, I should point out:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/accuracy.html#cycle
The method that Netcraft uses to determine the uptime of a server is bounded by an upper limit of 497 days for some Operating Systems (see above). It is therefore not possible to see uptimes for these systems that go beyond this upper limit. Although we could in theory attempt to compute the true uptime for OS’s with this upper limit by monitoring for restarts at the expected time, we prefer not to do this as it can be inaccurate and error prone.
Of course, don’t let that dissuade you from the fact that FreeBSD is an incredibly stable and reliable operating system, or the fact that those uptimes are rather impressive.
I love how bsd zealots talk about how thier os is supieor, but fail to give any reasons why. Back it up!
reading post before answering them makes sense, really
-A
Some internet backbone routers run on FreeBSD
I think you talk about JunOS that runs on Juniper routers. Supposendly based on FreeBSD 3.x, dunno how much truth is in that one.
I love how bsd zealots talk about how thier os is supieor, but fail to give any reasons why. Back it up!
1) Look above your post, smartass.
2) The other way: Explain why your holy Linux is supposed to be so good, and how that justifies some high profile sites not using it.
Netcraft can reliably get uptimes for FreeBSD as well as Linux, and I dont see linux systems having uptimes as high as FreeBSD. So I guess my point on that is relatively accurate. Yes the JunOS does run on top of FreeBSD as a program.
The problem is that Linux counts time in 0.01s ticks. This overflows a 32-bit unsigned integer (which can store up to 4294967295 ticks) in approximately 497 days:
497 days * 24 hours / day * 60 minutes / hour * 60 seconds / minute * 100 ticks / sec = 4294080000 ticks.
The counter overflows at exactly 497 days 2 hours 27 minutes 52.95 seconds.
You are just a plain full idiot.
If you do not like it, do not understand it, just pass by and shut up. We do NOT need such comments.
There is no point to spit on those FreeBSD people.
L.
Wow, it’s always interesting to see how users of operating systems which claim to be technically (and morally?) superior to MS hate each other. Good PR there, guys….
(hes so righ)
off topic>>
gimme a good reason to switch to *bsd OR Linux (distro)
im actually using win2k
and its stable
i can tweak it
i have large choice of appz (crack …yep no gpl free thing there, but eh at the end its the same)
im no enterprise …no need of server
also a thing i saw lately an opengl game specially done for linux that was so sad … these type of os cant seriously dream of getting M$ customers
UI r NOT user friendly
ppl dont want to hack in to make things work
also recently linux distro getting expensive
i dont think it was the spirit…
in fact u gonna loose the old users and never get newer
since windows 2000 is up i really dont c whats the plus of linux and Co.
ps: ill install one day winXP for alpha blending icon :p
this is about freebsd linux trolls go away and yes I happen to like freebsd
I think FreeBSD is impressive.
I think Linux is impressive.
Having said that, I would like to know something about FreeBSD because I would like to try it out in the future.
If Linux 2.6 will help with the X starvation, how does FreeBSD cope, is it currently alot better than Linux or does it have other issues?
Also which would version of FreeBSD would start recommend that I try for the first time?
Using Mac OS X, I’m starting to get interested in FreeBSD (as a server). Which version is recommended? 4.8 or 5.0? It’s not for production use, just testing. My experience with unix lies mainly with Linux and MacOSX.
“Using Mac OS X, I’m starting to get interested in FreeBSD (as a server). Which version is recommended? 4.8 or 5.0? It’s not for production use, just testing. My experience with unix lies mainly with Linux and MacOSX.”
FreeBSD 4.8 since version 5.0 is not yet ready for production use (nor its features are all complete!)
I could never unserstand, why you, intelligent and technically savvy guys, running FreeBSD and other BSDs, are constantly enticed into pointless flamewar with someone, who just managed to boot linux first time, ’cause his friend told him how “it’s k’ul” ?! Have you ever seen linux-kernel developers posting any inflammatory posts about linux ? Or BSD developers comments about linux ? (ok, I admit, UNIX’s fathers did say some nice comments about linux code
.
By answering like you do, you only give bad impression about BSD-community. Leave it to linux vs. windows
…some (like me) are asking if the FreeBSD Core Team will REALLY put all efforts now into the much-needed stabilizing work on the 5 series.
I could never unserstand, why you, intelligent and technically savvy guys, running FreeBSD and other BSDs, are constantly enticed into pointless flamewar with someone
Yeah I do agree with you!
I am running FreeBSD. I do not really like Linux but I’m not boring everybody with this.
I have a friend who is a Linux freak. We actually use to say this kinds of things to eachother (just for fun).. “BSD is better because bla bla.. ” – “ahah you ran dstumbler and it just crashed your laptop” – “yeah remember when you installed linux kernel 2.5 what happened to your filesystems” bla bla bl al bl albl albllblala
stupid sh*** ! We are all on the same side!
Who cares if Linux is better than FreeBSD.. Everybody likes the system he uses or he would just change.
After all.. They are people using windows
I used to run Linux about two years ago, then I switched to FreeBSD.
Why? pkg_add in a nutshell. Also installation took 5 mins from ONE cd. And on my 64Mb server only uses 28Mb whilst running:
Apache + PHP
MySQL
Squid
DHCP
named
samba
webmin
sendmail
Last time I booted a Linux system running similar I started hitting swap.
For me, FreeBSD makes better use of the resource on which it resides.
is this version able to boot from CD and no floppy’s required? i might have misunderstood something to any prior versions, but i recall them neccesary.
Doesn’t Microsoft use the TCP stack from FreeBSD in windows?
Is FreeBSD ready for the desktop?
Ok, funny joke, haha. But seriously… is it? I hear a lot of lauding for FreeBSD’s stability with network services and such, but depressingly little about it’s suitability for day-to-day productive use in the office and at home. Is FreeBSD even being developed with that goal in mind, or are the developers sticking to a behind-the-scenes stable server model?
I’ve played with Gentoo, Mandrake, RedHat and other Linuxes. I like the *nix philosophy of configurable services, isolated user spaces, and so on, but no distribution has as yet really convinced me that it’s time to switch over. It’s just different versions of the same cobbled mess. Could FreeBSD be the one?
I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
GMFTatsujin
MS ripped it.
I have been moaning about lack of 1394 support every time BSD releases were mentioned.
Well, it is finally in the stable branch, so here I come!
The support looks weak, but I can get video in and out of a camera with it, so that will work for now.
For those who haven’t tried FreeBSD, it is a wonderful OS. It is a little harder (just uglier?) to install than most Linux distros, but way easier than Gentoo with the same type of benefits and more stability.
Linux apps run just fine without a recompile, so lack of applications is not an issue.
XFree 4.3 supports Radeon cards and Nvidia even makes FreeBSD drivers. Hardware support is not an issue.
Unless you are just a Linux, Windows or whatever zombie, there are hardly any downsides to giving it a try.
Good job guys!
Mutiny
Is FreeBSD ready for the desktop?
Ok, funny joke, haha. But seriously… is it? I hear a lot of lauding for FreeBSD’s stability with network services and such, but depressingly little about it’s suitability for day-to-day productive use in the office and at home. Is FreeBSD even being developed with that goal in mind, or are the developers sticking to a behind-the-scenes stable server model?
The better question is, are YOU ready for FreeBSD ?
While some people (like me) might consider FreeBSD to be ready for the desktop, many others are likely to disagree with me. Hell, a lot of people think even RedHat 9 and Mandrake 9.1 don’t cut it for the desktop yet.
The main desktop-related problem that seems to be plaguing FreeBSD is it’s installer, which is loathed by many and loved by just as much. It’s similar to the Debian installer in a way, it’s a straight, no eye-candy, no bullshit installer which assumes you either know exactly what you are doing or you read the “Installation” part of the FreeBSD Handbook as you are installing the OS.
It’s also true FreeBSD doesn’t support as much new hardware as Linux does, but with the right hardware, it works like a champ. If FreeBSD sticks to it’s true BSD philosophy, I doubt we’d see an enormous jump in the amount of written drivers even if the amount of developers doubled. This is because according to the BSD philosophy, code is tested over and over and over before code from -CURRENT makes it into a -RELEASE.
Personally, I use FreeBSD 5.0 as my home desktop system, while my girlfriend is using RedHat 8.0. She would’ve been using FreeBSD instead of Linux, but FreeBSD doesn’t support her Terratec 128PCI soundcard and an USB Wacom Intuos 2 tablet. She doesn’t care about OS politics and she ain’t an OS guru either. She just wanted away from Windows so I helped her in that department
Is FreeBSD ready for the desktop?
No, but Mac OS X is. (It’s more ready than Linux and even WindowsXP imo) Different kernel than freebsd, yes, but pretty much the same tools and libraries.
Why not? It might not fit your needs, but WinXP doesn’t fit mine.
—————————————————–
or better yet, why don’t they all give up and work on FreeBSD…
…yet they can’t even agree on a common standard for an alternative os and make over 200 of them! (distros)
This sounds more like the truth.
——————————————————
First, BSD teams are even more stupid because there are OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD. Why not only one BSD operating system ?
Second, BSD license will never atract companies because anyone can derive and close the source code. Imagine if M$ steal FreeBSD code and make a Windows BSD ?
GPL is more inteligent license because your contributions will never be closed.
Why not mix BSDs and Linux kernels ? The best applications that *BSDs use nowadays are made first for linux and then ported to BSDs.
Ok, I’m not trying to start a flame war here, although it seem like one has already been started. I want pure facts (or at least as close as we can get). I’ve heard lots of talk about fbsd 5.0 vs linux 2.6 and even fbsd4.8 vs. linux 2.6. What about the current kernel? I want to know how does linux 2.4.20 plus the prememptive kernel and low latency patches compares to freebsd 4.8 on speed and desktop responsiveness. I know freebsd would kill linux as a server, but I dont care about that, I just want to run it as a desktop.
If anyone would have any benchmarks or something that would be great. If not people’s own experience is good enought. I just really haven’t seen any fair comparisons. Eugenia you should probably be able to help me out here, I know you love freebsd. I’m intrigued by this OS becuase I’m a computer science student and I want to run unix, I’m not just on the anti-microsoft train. I used to be, but after using linux for a while and having a unix class in school, i’m loving unix (well i do still hate microsoft;-) ). But I find my self using the command line to do things way more often then nautilus or anything like that. It just makes more sense to me for some reason than dealing with a mouse. Anyways sorry for the sidetrack, but i want to see what people think. Thanks.
Well, I installed 4.8 rc2 to play with a few days ago and KDE 3.1 was faster than I’ve ever seen it on any Linux distro. X was much, much more responsive on the same hardware and all apps loaded faster. I was impressed.
First, BSD teams are even more stupid because there are OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD. Why not only one BSD operating system ?
As opposed to what, over 200 Linux distros, more often than not with incompatible package management systems and kernels and glibc patched to all hell ? Different BSD’s exist because they have different goals. Main goal of OpenBSD is security, NetBSD is for portability and FreeBSD for mad perfomance and reliability on mostly i386 (although new ports are coming).
Second, BSD license will never atract companies because anyone can derive and close the source code. Imagine if M$ steal FreeBSD code and make a Windows BSD ?
GPL is more inteligent license because your contributions will never be closed.
I’d say it’s the GPL license that will never attract commercial companies. Companies spend billions on R&D and now they must just go ahead and make all the results avaible to the competitors because they have to use something GPL ? Do you not realise that if not for the BSD license, MacOS X wouldn’t have existed today. Do you not realise that if not for the BSD license, you and me most likely wouldn’t be using TCP/IP today, because a whole lot of OSes are using the BSD TCP stack, because it’s clean and portable code ?
Why not mix BSDs and Linux kernels ? The best applications that *BSDs use nowadays are made first for linux and then ported to BSDs.
Because those kernels are completely different and incompatible ? Because the BSD developers believe that GPL is too restrictive of a license ? 99% of the “Linux” applications you are talking about can be downloaded as source tarballs and compiled on a BSD system without any changes whatsoever, just as you would do on a Linux system. They are not “Linux” applications, they are “UNIX” applications. If somebody made code (not counting device drivers and the like) that was only directly usable on Linux, then it’s horrible code. Plain and simple.
Additionally, all three BSDs share code when they feel it’s needed. All security fixes done in OpenBSD are ending up in Net and FreeBSD, while hardware support from Net and FreeBSD is likely to eventually end up in OpenBSD.
Windows is already using BSD code. Windows TCP stack is based on 4.4BSD and Windows comman-line “ftp” and “telnet” programs are pretty much direct ports from BSD. Has it ever crossed your mind that the BSD developers actually WANT their code to be used in any way you want, without any strings attached ?
….now just gotta wait a few weeks before the FreeBSD subscription comes in before enjoying the gooey goodness of FreeBSD.
you IT ppl talk about “internet backbone” and “uptimes.”
I am only concerned with games. I can work with anyone’s half-assed GUI or CLI if it can run games. Hell, I would settle for using EDIT.COM as an “office productivity suite” for text / html development if the damn OS would run some games. If you can get Pacific General, Master of Magic, or XCOM2: Terror From the Deep to run on xBSD, i’ll switch today.
because I’m lazy, please tell me, does Wine or Winex work on xBSD? Are there any online guides for installing such software, like Linux has?
….back to Pacific General.
-BL
because I’m lazy, please tell me, does Wine or Winex work on xBSD?
Yes and yes.
Wow, it’s always interesting to see how users of operating systems which claim to be technically (and morally?) superior to MS hate each other.
heh, wanna see a real deathmatch? tell a Gentoo person that Debian kicks Gentoo’s ass, then through them in a room with SuSE and Red Hat users….
people who see morality in using any type of software need to quit surfing for porn and go outside. otherwise they’ll be looking like RMS or ESR soon. *shudder*
technically superior is so subjective, but my .02 is that all Windows really has is a GUI. *nix is more of a swiss army knife. it just gives you more tools and better documentation, so custom solutions tend to be easier than throwing down a large chunk of cash for someone else to do it for you.
is FreeBSD ready for the desktop, dunno. But, considering all of the major packages Linux advocates hail as the killer apps for Linux desktop success run on FreeBSD(faster, with easier setup, a lot of the time), I can’t see why it isn’t ready for the desktop.
for me, just dealing with every ex-Windows turned anti-MS Linux user out there is enough to make me not want to deal with any flavour of Linux. and yes, since the free software arena is mostly community based self support, we do need to like the people in our community. the Linux community turned sour about 3 years back. it went from Linux for the sake of choosing the best tool for the job(working with a budget), to Linux for the sake of destroying MS. it’s a shame, really.
then through them in a room with SuSE and Red Hat users….
that should be throw.
<<You linux zealots should get hold of the fact that FreeBSD *is* superior to linux and will continue to be whether you like it or not. It is a fact and take it from me, a one time linux user.>>
I’ve seen allot of this in my life, but it is not completely true anymore. FreeBSD is first of all optimized for the server, rather than for the desktop. I agree, on the server it does very good, and especially on old hardware. But on the desktop? Common! I’ve used FreeBSD on the desktop, and I must admit I love it. But there are drivers ported from Linux over, KDE, Gnome, XFree86, Apache, all are the same. If there is whole in Apache then it will afect both Linux and FreeBSD. Not in an equal manner, but it will affect them. FreeBSD has its advantages, and having a Linux distribution has other advantages. Please don’t give people that crap of superiority, because its not true. I like both Linux and FreeBSD. And While FreeBSD is a complete OS, Linux is just a kernel, pretty portable this days, and it depends how every distribution uses it.
Cheers.
Main goal of OpenBSD is security, NetBSD is for portability and FreeBSD for mad perfomance and reliability on mostly i386 (although new ports are coming).
That’s not entirely true. OpenBSD and NetBSD also aim for performance. NetBSD and FreeBSD both want security. They all aim for the same objectives, it’s just some of them are more advanced in either one.
What the uptimes are concerned; Just because FreeBSD has a long uptime on netcraft, doesn’t mean it’s more stable than Linux. That’s the dumbest argument I’ve ever seen. Have you ever thought of people restarting their machines? Linux people tend to restart their servers more often, because every 2 weeks a new distro/kernel comes out and they feel the need to upgrade.
All security fixes done in OpenBSD are ending up in Net and FreeBSD, while hardware support from Net and FreeBSD is likely to eventually end up in OpenBSD.
That’s not true. Some of the security fixes done in OpenBSD don’t end up anywhere else, because OpenBSD is so different from the other BSDs. It’s closer to NetBSD than FreeBSD, but there is a lot of code in OpenBSD that *can’t* go to other OSs, because they don’t use/utilize that feature. Security fixes to pf, don’t go anywhere, because no one else uses pf (allthough I hear they’re porting it to FreeBSD).
The point here is that all BSDs aim for the same things (with exception of OpenBSD. For OpenBSD, if nothing compiles or the drivers are crappy and outdated, it doesn’t matter…as long as the OS is super secure). Just because some of the BSDs are more advanced in some areas than other doesn’t mean that’s all they aim for.
I think both Linux and *BSD are good. I use NetBSD for all my servers and Mandrake 9.1 on my laptop. All open source OSs have their uses (and all have their problems too). And I think both Linux and FreeBSD are ‘stable’ because neither of them crashed on me. For all the people who keep asking “is FreeBSD/*BSD ready for the desktop?” well, all BSDs support KDE and GNOME and every other windowmanager on the planet. They are ALL READY FOR THE DESKTOP. Just because they don’t come pretty out-of-the-box with all the fancy themes and window managers, doesn’t mean they aren’t good as desktops. I use mandrake as my desktop because I don’t have the time to compile stuff. But that’s all I use mandrake for; a desktop, and nothing else.
I saw a quote once in an article or something and thought it made a great point and still applies today.
“Proponents of Linux tend to take a “revolutionary” stance, seeing their work as a war to compete with, and destroy, Microsoft and other commercial software vendors. But the BSDs are content to coexist with commercial software, and in fact are happy to allow commercial software to use what they create.”
Thanks for the heads up Eugenia. I will be installing this when I get home (Linux is just being too weird lately. One day it’s speedy, the next it’s a slug, the next it won’t let me upgrade my software without running through a plethora of ./configure opetions. I love ports).
I think it would be best if I stayed out of this whole Linux vs. FreeBSD thing, and just simply state: Don’t freak out because I happen to find FreeBSD suites me better than Linux. I still <3 the penguin, and eagerly await 2.6.
4.7 ran KDE very nicely on the desktop. FreeBSD is easy and fast to install, has excellent docs (in the form of a nice manual) and dual boots with win2k very easily. e.g no messy bootloader problems. And it’s not the fragmented mess that many linux’ are.
“”First, BSD teams are even more stupid because there are OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD. Why not only one BSD operating system ?””
Their not stupid their smart. Each has it’s own goes, Super secure, runs on anything, all around OS, respectivly. These traits arn’t something that goes together in one OS very well. Also they are defined as there own thing, you don’t have mandrake netbsd and red hat netbsd… you just have NetBSD, what you are running is what your freind who has net BSD is running. The biggest problem with linux is all the distro’s If there was just one distro as there is with each of the *BSD’s things would be much nicer. Having to decide between distro’s is anoying and just causes disorter between each. If you want a BSD you just pick the one for what your doing.
“Second, BSD license will never atract companies because anyone can derive and close the source code. Imagine if M$ steal FreeBSD code and make a Windows BSD ?”
You have it backwards, the licesnse is the very reason companies will use it. Apple seams to be doing very well using bit’s of BSD. If MS (note it’s spelled with an S) made a OS of freebsd so be it, that’s the way the license is. Not everyone had problems with people and companies using their stuff. Some people would be very happy if MS took their code and used it. MS has used the BSD networking and yes people can tell because they have a note in there saing so. MS is not going to steel code and node follow the license it came from, honest programmers work on it and would report it if they did.
“GPL is more inteligent license because your contributions will never be closed.”
Thats your opinion, many would consider it a horrible license since someone could never close the code. The BSD type license is better because someone can close it if they like or leave it out there, it’s their choice, more freedom.Once again it goes back to how you feel about things, many would have no problem with their contribution being put into something closed.
“Why not mix BSDs and Linux kernels ? The best applications that *BSDs use nowadays are made first for linux and then ported to BSDs.”
Time to lay off the drugs. This simple isn’t possible. The license for each to start with prevents this. The two kernels are rather differant as well. For apps there is no basis for this. Most apps are made for both at the same time since one works on the other with no effort, it’s just a compile. I can’t think of an app that worked on linux that didn’t work on freebsd, that had some sort of revelance to your “point”.
I know you were just trolling, but please if your going to troll, do a better job
“is this version able to boot from CD and no floppy’s required? i might have misunderstood something to any prior versions, but i recall them neccesary. ”
I don’t remeber ever when you needed both, probably did a long time ago. You can do a diskette install were it downloads everything off the net during the install, or you can download an iso and burn it to cd and it’s a bootable cd. The instructions do tend to lead more towards the diskette method i think because they were written when much fewer people had cd burners.
The last time I tried this OS it was an exercise in frustration.it installed without a hitch whwreupon i was prsented with a commandline..nothig else just a commandline.from there I was expected to know all the chipsets and whatever for each and every piece of Hardware I had ,and all this BEFORE I could access any type of desktop environment,How Prehistoric!! this has the reputation for being an extremely powerful OS and I don’t doubt it,But at least Linux lets you get your foot in the door so to speak by auto detecting most of your hardware and letting you work from a gui to configure the rest,I mean I screwed around for hours and still couldn’t get my monitor to display KDE properly.If Apple could tame this beast and make it user friendly(OSX) why doesn’t anyone else bother?
It does seem to be a more coherent OS than Linux in most respects,but come on people this IS the 21’st century after all and for a person spoiled by the ease of Windoze,MacOS and BeOS,this all seems to be unecessarily complicated.I have tried hobby OS’s that were easier to get up and running properly!(minuetOS for one)
Thanks Brad.
i was about giving up on an answer, but you saved my day
maybe i’ll try FreeBSD soon now, because of this.
First, BSD teams are even more stupid because there are OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD. Why not only one BSD operating system ?
Wow, it’s so amazing, which it’s one of most stupid sentence I ever have read for years. I have lost my count on how many Linux distros out there, but not on BSD.
Most Linux zealots are always idiot, because they like to troll over at any of OS. They usually don’t understand and can’t even accept when OSs (include kernels) have the some better parts by its own than each others.
[quote]The last time I tried this OS it was an exercise in frustration.it installed without a hitch whwreupon i was prsented with a commandline..nothig else just a commandline.from there I was expected to know all the chipsets and whatever for each and every piece of Hardware I had ,and all this BEFORE I could access any type of desktop environment,How Prehistoric!![/quote]
This is not true. The FreeBSD kernel had automatic hardware detection for a long, long. long time. It works better for me than recent Linux kernel versions, but that could of course just be my hardware. That you don’t know this, means that either
1) you installed FreeBSD a very, very long time ago, and you are speaking of things that I just don’t know of because I’m only using FreeBSD for two years;
2) you didn’t install it at all, and are a troll.
As the rest of your reply consists of speaking about ‘Linux’ and ‘the installer’ and ‘Default GUI’ as if Linux is a complete OS and there’s only one of it, I just assume that 2) is correct.
@ skaeight:
If you want to know more about Unix, I would recommend you NetBSD: its code is clean and very well documented. FreeBSD would come second.
@ emre
“Have you ever thought of people restarting their machines? Linux people tend to restart their servers more often, because every 2 weeks a new distro/kernel comes out and they feel the need to upgrade.”
I understand your point, but that argument isn’t better than the one you find “dumbest”. After all, every 4 to 6 month you have a new version of FreeBSD. Would you say that FreeBSD users do not feel the need to upgrade (upgrading FreeBSD needs a reboot too), or are too lazy to do so?
Just installed FreeBSD 4.8!
AWESOME!! Fast as hell (faster as every linux distro I ever installed, beats even a gentoo installation), everything works, Gnome and KDE run fine. Try it and you’ll forget about linux.
Congrats to the FreeBSD team
Just installed FreeBSD4.8R on vmware under redhat8, works fine, next week i´m going to install it as a main OS.
PS: FreeBSD Roolzzz
“First, BSD teams are even more stupid because there are OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD. Why not only one BSD operating system ?” By Marcelo (IP: —.user.veloxzone.com.br) – Posted on 2003-04-04 16:47:23
Stupid: 1. Slow to learn or understand; obtuse. 2. Lacking or marked by a lack of intelligence. 3. In a stupor; stupefied. 4. In a dazed or stunned state. 5. Pointless; worthless. These adjectives mean lacking or marked by a lack of intellectual acuity.
I feel very upset when you say that.
Can it be done with a few mouse clicks like in my linux?
Does it have automatic update that reminds me whenever new patches available and patch it automatically like in linux?
pkg_add -r <package name>
will perform a network installation of the latest version of the given package, and will download all necessary dependancies as well, similar to apt-get install <package name>
There is no “automatic update” feature. There isn’t really a need to update the system except new releases, at which point upgrades can be done through /stand/sysinstall
When I hot plug e.g. my USB digital camera will it beeps and a pops up a new icon for me to access it like in linux?
How lucky win users must be that they can use novadays Linux because they have wizards and autodetection, automatic-updates (ex. RHL), and so on… Well get this: You don’t have to use Linux to look smart, even win users can do usefull stuff. Why then bother whith FreeBSD? It is not ment so that everyone can master its power. And powerfull doesn’t mean eaye-candy installs, automatic updates, and Control-Panel like control center. So, just stick whith what you can master, namely win….
When I hot plug e.g. my USB digital camera will it beeps and a pops up a new icon for me to access it like in linux?
Well, nice to see my well written response was actually to a troll.
If you’re looking for the best experience from a desktop operating system, might I suggest Windows or OS X?
I’ve always admired how clean the BSDs are compared to the Linux distributions. You don’t need to have symlinks flying all over the place, 15 level deep redundent directory structures, or ignored configuration files. Everything is neatly labeled and located where it ought to be.
I’m currently running Mandrake 9.1 and Win2K (which I’m in at the moment after a week without, since I have a Word document Abiword can’t handle the graphics of and WINE is insanely slow), and I just keep hitting my head when I try to go “outta bounds” in Mandrake. If you want to modify something outside of Mandrake Control Center or actually want to compile your own programs, you have to go through path and dependency hell. It’s obscene. After using solely OpenBSD for over a year, going to Windows and GNU/Linux feels like a major let-down (I need GCC 3.x, however, so the super-secure, super-stable, super-lean, super-clean OpenBSD is no longer an option). I’ll switch to FreeBSD once the 5.X series hits stable and never look back.
The cleanliness of a BSD system is wonderful. And the package and ports system is untouched by the poor GNU/Linux imitators (apt-get and portage don’t come *close* to being as clean yet powerful as packages and the ports tree). Everything is up to you — the closest any GNU/Linux distro has come to even the lowliest *BSD release is Slack, IMHO, but even that grows bloated and symlink-y.
Thanks Bascule: pkg_add -r <package name>
I think I can live with that. I have a good experience on apt-get before with my linux.
Do I need to compile it to install?
No need to update? That’s even better.
I have an old PIII Vaio notebook with 128RAM and 10GB harddisk. Can FreeBSD run on it dualboot with windows?
@aherm
No, it cant’t be done with a few mouse clicks!
for automatic update use pkg_add or portupgrade. portupgrade is the tool you asked for
Oh, I forgot, this requires opening a console and typing a command. Too complicated for a Red Hat/SuSE/Mandrake user.
BTW: Did you ever make a major upgrade, let’s say from Red Hat 7.1. to 9.0, with your “automatic click-and-feel-happy-tool” ?
I never managed it do to a upgrade of a linux system without any problems. FreeBSD does. Granted, it’s not easy for a *nix rookie, but it works.
I’m not trolling, just curious:-)
Anyway
I do a lot of programming and simulations. I need programming IDE like Kylix3 which is available for both windows and linux. Is Kylix3 also available or is there any comparable C/C++ IDE in FreeBSD?
@aherm
Dunno, if kylix is available for FreeBSD(at least no native BSD version). It’s available for Linux and FreeBSD has a Linux emulation, so it’s likely that Kylix runs under FreeBSD. Rumours say, even Oracle DB runs under FreeBSD
Somebody correct me, if I’m wrong, I never checked it …
OK, so maybe it WAS a good troll. Sure got a lot of comments for just one post. Sorry to feed the flames, but I thought he had kind of a good (frequently misunderstood) point about the release engineering, and if you haven’t seen that doc it probably doesn’t make sense.
Yea, keep patting yourself in the back. BSD is superior by virtue of 1. BSD License 2. Code
Point me one area and I mean technical, not superficial cheesy factor, where GNU/Linux (note that it is a complete OS now) actually beats FreeBSD in terms of performance. JUST ONE. ONE. PLEASE
I have a question if anyone knows: Does this release support the Creative Audigy 2? I’d realy apreciate your help.
Thank you.
Give this a try and spare your mind and fingers:
http://www.majoros.net/isdying/
Cheers…
Go johnny. Go!
Manik:
I understand your point, but that argument isn’t better than the one you find “dumbest”. After all, every 4 to 6 month you have a new version of FreeBSD. Would you say that FreeBSD users do not feel the need to upgrade (upgrading FreeBSD needs a reboot too), or are too lazy to do so?
No…most FreeBSD users who use FreeBSD in production environments don’t upgrade very often, because no one wants to mess with something that works. If there needs to be an upgrade, it’s because of bugs, and 95% of the time the bugs are in userland and don’t require a reboot. There are of course people who run snapshots who reboot every day, but we’re talking about Netcraft uptimes here. Web servers don’t get upgraded very often, unless it’s apache/php/mysql you’re talking about and upgrading that doesn’t require a reboot.
If there is a bug in one of the BSDs, the users patch it by downloading a patch or by updating via CVS. Linux users just install a new distro, because by the time there is a bug, Redhat already released another version. Most of the time, there are way too many bugs in Linux (just watch bugtraq for a day), so they don’t bother to patch anything.
My point in the end is, that FreeBSD is ‘upgraded’ less frequently than most Linux distros. FreeBSD users still reboot and upgrade their OS, but they don’t do it every 2 weeks like most Linux people.
Upgrading FreeBSD is extremely easy once set up. Of course is is not done by not-RTFM but the excellent FreeBSD handbook explains it easy for you.
You install the ports system, cvsup and portupgrade.
Setup cvsup to run once a week with cron to sync system source and another crontask to sync the ports system.
then you just do “portupgrade -ar”
This recompiles those ports that have been upgraded compared to your installed versions and in additione to this is uses your set optimisations specified for GCC.
If you feel like updating the userland (system tools) you
“cd /usr/src/”, “make buildworld” and then do “make installworld” as easy as 1,2,3. Again this uses the optimisations you’ve specified for the compiler.
Now this does NOT require a reboot altho the suggested way is to drop to singeluser mode.
Now about the FreeBSD uptime: The system have been so thoroughly tested before being allowed into the STABLE branch that “It just works”(tm).
FreeBSD is an sysadmins dream; rock solid stability, secure default setup, easy software/system upgrade/maintenance and a superb IO-subsystem. It’s like the good things from Debian (stability, apt-get), Gentoo (sourcebased ports system, guess where they got this idea from, and the easy systemwide recompile with cpu-specific optimisations). A properly set up FreeDSB server of desktop requires 1/10th the adminwork of an equivalent Linux system and still giving you better speed and stability.
I just (monday this week) moved one of our dual-cpu servers/workstation from 4.7-RELEASE to 5.0-RELEASE (clean install) and I have to say that as impressed as I first was when I met FreeBSD, I’m just as impressed by the move from 4 to 5. I have yet to encounter a problem and an application crash. The whole system was backed up, setup, ports and specific apps installed and then the whole shebang went through an optimized recompiled with a trimmed kernel in GCC 3.2. All this in just about 8 hours (the recompile takes some time with all that’s needed with Gnome2. The machine is used both as a server and as a workstation which is why X11 and Gnome2 is needed on it).
Speed is actually somewhat faster on 5.0 on that machine than with 4.7 and 4.7 was also recompiled with 3.2 before this just to be able to test the speed difference.
Now I’m gonna put 5.0 on my laptop today (used Slackware/WinXP) replacing Slackware as the *nix system on that one.
see this 😀
http://www.heise.de/ix/desktops/2002/07/ix0702_1600x1200.jpg