DistroWatch has a a review of the latest release of FreeBSD 5. In the first part of the story they are looking at the history of BSD, compare BSD with Linux from a technical perspective, and talk about licensing considerations. The second part will bring you practical information about installing FreeBSD, followed by a handful of useful tweaks, and configuration examples.
FreeBSD – The Power to Serve
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The big thing i like about FreeBSD is that there is only one Distrobution, yes i know there are other bsds, but only 3, Its really easy to learn and not much has changed in between the versions, which makes it easy to upgrade, and not have to relearn everything and it still has its same sysinstall interface. The thing about linux and gnu is that its constantly being updated, and there are so many distros. FreeBSD is truly a kickass OS, not to say i dont like linux =)
There are ports for creating firewall rules.
It also makes it sound insanely hard when it comes to setting up ipfw rules… it is actually insanely easy and has a nice man file for it.
There is also ipf, a packet filter ported over from OpenBSD, but it is not commonly as used or has as nice of man files. Ipf does allow ipnat to be used thought, which is nicer for nat that natd is since changes to it can be made on the fly.
Notice how people are having trouble spelling distribution? I guess it stems from the Linux “distros”.
“yes i know there are other bsds, but only 3”
You mean FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD, right?
But what about DragonFlyBSD, MirBSD and ekkoBSD?
The best things about BSD – and especially about FreeBSD – is the documentation.
The very,very good handbook (one of the nicest layouted docs in the internet) and the tons of websites with Howtos.
Sure also Gentoo and Debian have got a lot of documentation but Gentoo is mainly about managing your desktop and Debians is sooo ugly- a pain to read(with the exception of the Debian book on openoffice.org).
The Freebsd docs often focus on advanced admin-tasks.
Well, and the Freebsd-mailing-list is great.
A huge bunch of very experienced and friendly users.
The openbsd-users are probably the funniest bunch of all.
Flaming at its best!
There’s whole lot more than just 3 BSDs.
There’s at least 2500 different BSD variants and that count is conservatively low because of the commerical variations that do not claim BSD (appliances, embedded devices).
If you’re going to correct the article, then you should make sure you’re correction is also correct.
“There is also ipf, a packet filter ported over from OpenBSD, but it is not commonly as used or has as nice of man files. Ipf does allow ipnat to be used thought, which is nicer for nat that natd is since changes to it can be made on the fly.”
IPF (IPFilter) was not ported over from OpenBSD. That would be PF (Packet Filter).
“yes i know there are other bsds, but only 3”
You mean FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD, right?
But what about DragonFlyBSD, MirBSD and ekkoBSD?
And don’t forget Darwin/Mac OS X either. Plus all the BSD CD versions like LiveBSD, FreeSBIE, LiveBSD, NetBSD live, Frenzy and MicroBSD (I’m probebly forgetting quite a few here).
For example look at:
http://node1.yo-linux.com/cgi-bin/man2html?cgi_command=hier&cgi_sec…
vs.
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=hier&apropos=0&sektion=0&m…
Or look at “SYNPOSIS” and “MODES”:
http://node1.yo-linux.com/cgi-bin/man2html?cgi_command=chmod&cgi_se…
vs.
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=chmod&apropos=0&sektion=0&…
Last example:
http://node1.yo-linux.com/cgi-bin/man2html?cgi_command=ps&cgi_secti…
(this manpage is really complex)
vs.
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ps&apropos=0&sektion=0&man…
I think the file hierarchy under FreeBSD is cleaner and it is very practical. The tools are consistent, for example UFS has additional flags and ls knows about and can display it. (EXT3 has attributes too, but ls can’t show it. There is an extra tool lsattr for this.). Many details are elaborated.
I don’t like the most GNU stuff. It’s big, or POSIX-inconform or incompatible (/bin/sh -> /bin/bash). (Doesn’t mean that all is bad!).
I look forward to the 5.3 Stable Release. (:
He makes a point about the difficulty of configuring firewalls on FreeBSD, but for the average home user, do they really need a firewall?
I use OpenBSD.
But I whant to learn linux as well.
So my workstation at work is Linux.
I tried redhat and mandrake. Linux is such a mess compared to BSD.
And then, I read here on OSNews about slackware.
I fell in love (electronic love, not real love
. It almost felt like BSD. Clean config files, clean distribution. Good community. No gui tools to mess my config files.
So if you love BSD but want to use/try/learn/haveto linux, the slackware is my recommendation.
Final note: Every rule have exception. Except the rule “Every rule have exception”
I use OpenBSD.
But I whant to learn linux as well.
So my workstation at work is Linux.
I tried redhat and mandrake. Linux is such a mess compared to BSD.
And then, I read here on OSNews about slackware.
I fell in love (electronic love, not real love
. It almost felt like BSD. Clean config files, clean distribution. Good community. No gui tools to mess my config files.
So if you love BSD but want to use/try/learn/haveto linux, the slackware is my recommendation.
Final note: Every rule have exception. Except the rule “Every rule have exception”
Setting up a simple firewall for a singele home box is easy in FreeBSD if you have LAN connection (just adding a couple of lines to /etc/rc.conf and adding your addresses to /etc/rc.firewall). DSL PPPoE with dynamically set host address requires much more tweaking and is not specifically addressed in the FreeBSD Handbook. There’s some nice GUI apps and easy-to-use perl scipts for Netfilter firewall configuration in Linux, and they can also handle DSL PPPoE connections.
On the other hand, compiling kernels is much, much easier in *BSDs. 😉
It’s nice to see FreeBSD getting more visibility now that it is listed in Distrowatch too. Although I’m personally not very happy with the current state of FreeBSD 5.x branch (hopefully 5.3 makes me a convert once again), FreeBSD is at the moment the leading flavour of *BSDs technologically and it well deserves all the publicity. Hopefully the Distrowatch publicity does its bit to lessen the stupid bickering you sometimes see between BSD and Linux advocates. Despite their differences both BSD and Linux support Open Source that is the future of computing.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that IMO it’s a good article — makes an entertaining reading. I like Storey’s style and approach because he doesn’t take everything too seriously.
For the most part, not really…
But it is simple enought to learn…
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=ipfw&apropos=0&sektion=0&m…
Google can also turn up some nice tutorials too.
FYI:
1) ipfw/ipfw2 (When people talk about ipfw, they typically refer to ipfw2).
2) Ipf (IP Filter)
3) pf (ported over from OpenBSD).
There is also ClosedBSD which is BSD dedicated to being a firewall. And I know I am missing more *BSD distrobutions.
BAH!
Provide links, version numbers, sysctl info, dmesg, and sysctl info and then taking your trolling seriously may be possible. With out that all it is all a baseless claim.
as excited as I am about trying FreedBSD (once 5 goes stable– trying to learn on a development branch seems to me as smart as trying to learn to ride a bike on a crotch-rocket death bike), and while some of the differences I can appreciate, the naming convention has left me scratching me head. I can see how “eth0” is my nick but “vr0”? Or how the hell is “ccuu” a serial port? Is this just something you memorise? Is there a list that translates everything?
yeah, of course there is ^_^
Man of course
Check here for vr…. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=vr&apropos=0&sektion=0&man…
Just use man <device name minus number> .
BTW what is this ccuu? I get nothing on it, but there is a cuaa thought, but no info on it… this is a rarity thought. But yeah, cuaa is serial thought. BTW you will find cuaa covered under sio. ^_^
Another good place to look for device info is… http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.2.1R/hardware-i386.html and the like.
There is one GUI I know of for FreeBSD firewalling:
http://m0n0.ch/wall/
Quite an interesting project, really… MonoWall is a bare-bones verson of FreeBSD with firewall management GUI, but since the GUI is PHP/web-based, it seems there should be nothing preventing the use of it on any regular FreeBSD firewall.
Does anybody here happen to know how the rumor got started that the BSD Daemon’s name is “Chuck”?
Figured it would be unwise to Google “Chuck”…
# I would suggest that the “faster” claim is only valid maybe
# for the start time, and not for the actual software execution.
Faster in the real world, not in benchmarks. This is true under heavy load. Linux has sometimes problems here I hear.
And sure, threads are slow. Therefore 5.x has KSE which seems to be superior to NPTL, but I have no URLs to analyses. But KSE isn’t the default at the moment, 5.3 Release will have it.
5.x has a new Scheduler too. The new O(1)-Linux-Scheduler seems to have flaws in special cases, look for example at:
http://people.freenet.de/cirad/documents/scheduler.pdf
And FreeBSD is very tunable. And performance isn’t the only thing that count, look at Microsoft or OpenBSD or whatever.
Maybe Linux is faster in your case and maybe you need this performance, than use Linux. If FreeBSD is faster in your case, use FreeBSD. What’s the problem?
PS: There are in order of increasing severity: lies, damn lies, statistics, and computer benchmarks. (;
Hi
I didnt see any issues in the link you provided. it was an interesting read neverthless
Hi
it also mentions ULE borrowed unique concepts from linux 2.5 which is good
As usual, this “review” should more correctly be called “A brief history and installation walkthrough”.
Why is it that “reviews” of OSes
a) spend a disproportionate amount of space covering the installation (something you do once or twice), and
b) Rarely move on to anything else ?
Whenever I see the words “[…] reviews $OPERATING_SYSTEM”, I always know I”m going to get a page or two with a brief history of the OS, about 8 pages walking through the setup procedure, maybe a page or two of some post-install configuration and a page concluding that $OPERATING_SYSTEM is ok, but different. In other words, practically no useful information at all.
People, if you’re going to review an OS, actually *review it*. Spend a few weeks using it *full time*. Document general procedures for installing and uninstalling applications, updating/upgrading applications, updating/upgrading the OS, comment on the consistency of the environment, comment on the system documentation and “help”, comment on difficulties you have, comment on any special requirements, run some benchmarks, etc. Basically, you need to talk about the stuff users will be spending 99% of their time doing, not the stuff they’ll be spending 0.1% of their time doing.
Don’t spend 9/10ths of the “review” talking about irrelevant issues like the “history” and rewriting the installation HOWTO for the hundredth time. The only time an OS’s “history” is relevant to a “review” is to explain/justify quirky behaviour, or (briefly) for a *major* release to emphasise why this release is important. Comments on the installation procedure shouldn’t run over 10% of total content (if that) and be mainly concerned with whether the “easy” install is “easy”, whether the “custom” install is sufficiently flexible and how well it can be automated (if at all).
/rant
I was not impressed with the 5.2 fiasco, and 5.2.1 was merely tollerable. There’s no doubt in my mind that the FreeBSD folks will eventually iron out the issues with 5.x, and I’m quite sure that eventually it will be great, but right now is a frustrating time to be a FreeBSD user.
They keep piling on more and more new features, small as they may be, before the really big importnat ones have been adequately adressed. 5.0 should not have been released until the code got to where it’s going to be around what will now be 5.3, and don’t give me that chicken and egg garbage, about needing a release for testing, because that’s what betas and RCs are for.
I am looking forward to 5.3 however, FWIW.
“but right now is a frustrating time to be a FreeBSD user.”
How so? And is that as opposed to being a Windows user or as opposed to being a Linux user?
Following the recent inclusion of BSD distributions on DistroWatch, we are pleased to bring you our first BSD article
No matter how many times i read this sentence, it makes no sense, but after all, it was great news when i heard freebsd got listed on distrowatch, i like some features they have, like the package versioning shipped and the releases history that goes back to 1.0 and the missing (and not linked in freebsd.org, i wonder why) jkh announcement emails.
About the review, i gave a cross eye, and 2 things get to my notice, the easy writing of the author and the target audience, clearly linux users.
It’s independant of using Windows or Linux actually. FreeBSD progress “feels” slow, pained, performance has declined, and the system seems fragile.
I say this as a long time fan of the system.
So to a FreeBSD noob, you’d recommend staying with 4.9 until at least 5.3 comes out? Or would you recommend another BSD entirely? I’ve only worked with 5.2.
I’d say wait for 5.x to become stable if you plan to do anything improtant with it. More and more it has all the feature you could realistically want, but there are times when it’s flaky as hell.
Hopefully, 5.3 will be a good time to adopt it, but we’ll have to see.
So what problems are those?
Clearly freebsd 5.x has a road ahead.
Im currently using 2.6.6-rc2-mm1, for the major branch 2.6 and you notice too the work that those guys need to follow to reach a stable kernel. And that only will be called that way around 2.6.1X-2.6.2X
Knowing that Stable-4 only was something worthy after 4.7 theres no doubt that until 5.3 gets out, and judging by the promise of a -STABLE fork after 5.3, we are all being release testers for the days ahead. So i wouldnt bitch too much, about 5.2/5.2.1. If I needed a stable version for production now, i would go 4.9 or the newcomer 4.10
As usual, this “review” should more correctly be called “A brief history and installation walkthrough”.
Why is it that “reviews” of OSes
a) spend a disproportionate amount of space covering the installation (something you do once or twice), and
b) Rarely move on to anything else ?
Whenever I see the words “[…] reviews $OPERATING_SYSTEM”, I always know I”m going to get a page or two with a brief history of the OS, about 8 pages walking through the setup procedure, maybe a page or two of some post-install configuration and a page concluding that $OPERATING_SYSTEM is ok, but different. In other words, practically no useful information at all.
People, if you’re going to review an OS, actually *review it*. Spend a few weeks using it *full time*. Document general procedures for installing and uninstalling applications, updating/upgrading applications, updating/upgrading the OS, comment on the consistency of the environment, comment on the system documentation and “help”, comment on difficulties you have, comment on any special requirements, run some benchmarks, etc. Basically, you need to talk about the stuff users will be spending 99% of their time doing, not the stuff they’ll be spending 0.1% of their time doing.
Don’t spend 9/10ths of the “review” talking about irrelevant issues like the “history” and rewriting the installation HOWTO for the hundredth time. The only time an OS’s “history” is relevant to a “review” is to explain/justify quirky behaviour, or (briefly) for a *major* release to emphasise why this release is important. Comments on the installation procedure shouldn’t run over 10% of total content (if that) and be mainly concerned with whether the “easy” install is “easy”, whether the “custom” install is sufficiently flexible and how well it can be automated (if at all).
/rant
I totaly agree. It would be nice to see a proper review on maby on how the OS performs doing ordinary things people do. Or what admins do and why it makes it better.
I’d persona;t would like to see a review anout SuSE 9.1 and video editing. Including the use of S-Video out and such.
But since this is a bsd thread I better make my comment more on topic. I agree that FreeBSD is a VERY FINE system. Alot of the smarter bigger companies as well as smaller ones that want to remain on a tight budget and be secure use freebsd.
I felt that freebsd is not my cup of tea, but I did run openbsd for a while before witching back to linux. I find Linux to be the easiest to set up and run. But thats just me.
But in any case you can finnaly use the line ‘the Right Tool for the Job’ Since any of the bsd’s and linux fits well under.
For IPTABLES, there are several easy-to-use point-and-click utilities which make it easy to create firewall rules (I personally use Guarddog for this). For FreeBSD there is no equivalent – you must write your own rules one line at a time, and this can be a painstaking and error-prone process.
Theres no better gui than vi/m. I dont understand the point of the click argument, since that is the windows argument of doing things. Despite my rule of thumb is if you are going to spend more than a year using it consider donating atleast 1% (atmost3.5 days) of that time to setup it accordingly. I think its a fair catch, and the software’s authors would love to know that despite the usage you can give to some piece of their work, you actually spend some time reading the manuals, all available fine documentaion and on try and error before you reach the ultimate state.
I must add either that Freebsd bundles and installs a rc.firewall sample script with severall options for a desktop/server usage. So you actually arent starting from the Zero. You just need to change some lines and you ready to go.
But, and to finish, i wouldnt mind to see some App to build ipfw/pf rules with a gui, someone already mention m0n0 webgui/ncurses solution. Porting the already available MacoSx, im aware, of at least 3 apps for ipfw2, would be on the end, interesting.
This was a very clear, lucid introduction to Free BSD for
anyone coming from linux or windows. It can only aid the
promotion of this powerful os. But maybe I missed something
because I don’t recall seeing anything about connecting the
sound card.
Also I got a bit twitchy with that “I prefer Emacs to vi”
statement. He probably lost half the linux community in one
go.
I hope that the people who don’t like Mr Robert Storey’s article will write their own account on FreeBSD (or perhaps on some other flavour of BSD) and offer it to be published in osnews.com. I’m sure osnews.com welcomes all well-written reviews.
I’m not sure how or what rumor you’re referring to, but to answer / partially answer your question, the BSD daemon’s real name is Beastie. And if I remember correctly, his name has even been trademarked…
-Karrick
… Doh!
I suppose I should have read the article prior to my comment. Nothing like that to help you feel humble in this dear world of ours…
Happy Computing!
-Karrick
Google search ‘freebsd chuck’ gives (among others) this address:
http://forums.devshed.com/archive/t-89496
The BSD ‘beastie’ appears to be currently FreeBSD specific. OpenBSD has a blowfish mascot and the NetBSD’s new logo will be revealed in any day now. DragonFly BSD’s mascot is pretty obvious…
-=Solaris.M.K.A=- (IP: —.csolve.net) wrote:
“But in any case you can finaly use the line ‘the Right Tool for the Job’ Since any of the bsd’s and linux fits well under.”
Very true
here we use
FreeBSD for the DNS, DBs, Web and mail servers
Gentoo for DNScache, DHCP, fileserving, LTSP and desktops
OpenBSD for the gateway and firewalls
we run
FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE-p5 from 4.9 a month ago
Linux 2.6.5
OpenBSD 3.4 moved to 3.5 (on CVS 3days ago)
And eventhough we run the latest versions all of them are rock stable
btw Vinum is very reliable on our Raid 1 systems
Too bad, the FreeBSD team has not corrected this problem despite complaints from several people. I am one of the unfortunate people to experience this on my PC.
Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode
And the system reboots. This happens after about 10 mins of using FreeBSD. Reboot again and again and again….
This problem occurs on 4.8, 4.9 and 5.x series.
Various Linux distros have no issues and no problems on my systems hardware even with kernel 2.6.x.
BOOH for FreeBSD.
The hardware specs:
AMD 2800+ processor
512 MB RAM
NVIDIA GFORCE FX 5200 with 128 MB memory (note that I am using it with the 2d nv drivers and not the 3d accelerated drivers from NVIDIA)
SoundBlaster Live Card
ASUS motherboard with the VIA chipset
USB HP PSC 2100 combo
“Various Linux distros have no issues and no problems on my systems hardware even with kernel 2.6.x.
BOOH for FreeBSD.”
“Various Linux distros have no issues and no problems on my systems hardware even with kernel 2.6.x.
BOOH for FreeBSD.”
There’s always one. For godsake, you think Linux has no bugs?? You think that I can’t find somebody with an equally tragic story about Linux? No issues and no problems, huh?
Another Linux troll speaks out. Always got to be on in every BSD thread..
I am not trolling here. Yes, Linux may have its problems but the fact that FreeBSD is touted as being extremely stable and without problems because it comes from just one vendor makes no sense here.
Linux may have its problems but the fact that many eyes watch over it helps fix bugs faster. Not so with FreeBSD it seems.
And BTW, care to read properly and understand each comment before you troll here.
IF you can help fix the problem then open your big mouth else just shut up. That is good for everyone.
This is really a cool article with good efforts.. i like it soo much.
I like all BSDs .
i’m using all the BSDs.
i wish all BSDs should enter into specific fields faster and wider.
the usage of BSDs are increasing heavily..
-sathish
Linux still has better hardware support.
That’s why its better for the desktop
“I am not trolling here. Yes, Linux may have its problems but the fact that FreeBSD is touted as being extremely stable and without problems because it comes from just one vendor makes no sense here.”
Yes you are trolling. The title you chose for one, points to that fact.
“Linux may have its problems but the fact that many eyes watch over it helps fix bugs faster. Not so with FreeBSD it seems.
And BTW, care to read properly and understand each comment before you troll here.
IF you can help fix the problem then open your big mouth else just shut up. That is good for everyone.”
Don’t tell me that you posted on this thread, with the subject “BOOH for FreeBSD” with the expectation that people would help you resolve your problems.
Hi there, nitpicking on others comments is what is called trolling and not stating a genuine problem that has still not been fixed by the FreeBSD team despite innumerable people complaining.
Enough said.
“Hi there, nitpicking on others comments is what is called trolling and not stating a genuine problem that has still not been fixed by the FreeBSD team despite innumerable people complaining.”
Well, okay, if you really posted because you wanted to get help here, please accept my apologies.
Maybe next time you could phrase your post better, because I’m sure I’m not the only one who read your post as mostly “Linux is better than FreeBSD because FreeBSD doesn’t work for me”.
Have a good day
Hi,
It’s OK. Forgive and forget. So anyone got any solutions to this problem of kernel panic and page faults.
If you haven’t sent any problem report to the freebsd-mailinglists then you should do so so that they are aware of it.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/problem-reports…
Read this first.
Hi, I’m running FreeBSD 4.10-BETA. Running without a single glich. But then I’m only using it as a workstation. Looking forward to 5.3!
They do have IPF (Inferiour Packet Filter) and such but yet there ain’t a native PF. Why not?
Can be anything..
did you tried to disable acpi on boot time?
either way, can you try to remove any peripheral non necessary, boot the sys up and work from there until you find the one making the trouble, if its an hardware prob?
another sugestion, would be to check your ram for faulty cells, memtest86.com is a choice for that.
If you eliminate the hardware side, as you said, anylinux worked without a problem, then must be the acpi/freebsd support and 1st sugestion should solve it.
As someone already sugested, send a pr. Or use the [email protected] mailling list. Theres 2 others good resources outthere for a more realtime suport, that is bsdforums.org or the irc.
theres at -current
when 5.3 cames out you will see it as a real option, meanwhile you can install the security/pf port
“He makes a point about the difficulty of configuring firewalls on FreeBSD, but for the average home user, do they really need a firewall?”
Yes they do. Or you need to stop the running services like sshd, telnetd, ftpd, and so on. Otherwise some script kiddie (or exploit coder even) comes along with a brand new exploit.
Firewalling is sort of overall approach cause most users can’t be bothered with disabling services. It also helps prevent spyware and trojans from conviently listening. Obviously spyware is rare on BSD, but trojans are common.
Really?
I have yet to see any thing that impressive come from linux in the area of hardware support that would even make me consider for a second switching.
Like some one else said, it could be any thing. You not provided any specific info that would be useful for figuring out what it is.
Posting inflamitory posts here wont help… like the other person said, try the mailing lists and sending a pr. like current and questions… probally a good idea to cross post such a thing?
You need to include what release, your kernel config, hardware list from the like of pciconf, dmesg, and sysctl settings you have changed. Remember if you want something like this solved, it is best to provide info on what is happening.
@xedx:
# Linux still has better hardware support.
# That’s why its better for the desktop
*g* I thought this was a argument to use Windows for the desktop and against Linux? Funny. <:
“when 5.3 cames out you will see it as a real option”
Neat
— with AltQ integrated? I don’t like to recompile my kernel for QoS/AltQ support…
“”I am not trolling here. Yes, Linux may have its problems but the fact that FreeBSD is touted as being extremely stable and without problems because it comes from just one vendor makes no sense here.”
Trolling is exactly what you’re doing. Did you make an attempt to seriously compare Linux to FreeBSD? Did you say that you’re having a problem and would like some help (even though this isn’t a BSD help forum)? No, you came in here basically saying FreeBSD sucks, Linux rules, the usual nonsense we get from trolls everytime there’s a BSD thread. This isn’t a Linux vs. FreeBSD thread. You like Linux better? Good for you, now go tell somebody else cause nobody here cares.