FreeBSD Archive

"FreeBSD 4.6-RC1 (i386) is now available for download. The RC has been on ftp-master for over 24 hours so most of the mirrors have the ISO and FTP install tree, except for some reason ftp.freebsd.org. The build for the Alpha platform should be available within the next 24 hours." Read more at KernelTrap.

The question was asked recently on a FreeBSD mailing list, "What will be new in FreeBSD 5.0?" The thread discussed several ways a person could obtain such information, one good source being the latest release notes. The first developer preview of 5.0 was released on April 8th. The final release is targeted for the end of this year. Robert Watson offered an interesting summary of items to look forward to in FreeBSD 5.0, including: SMPng ("next generation" symmetric multiprocessing), KSE (improved scheduling), devfs (automatic /dev management), Firewire support, and much more. Read on KernelTrap for more details.

DaemonNews reports: "Citing lack of time, energy, fun and commitment, Jordan Hubbard resigned today from the FreeBSD core team. Hubbard, a founding member of the FreeBSD Project, has been a core member from the project's inception. Despite resigning from his administrative duties, Hubbard plans to continue to contribute to FreeBSD through code development."

Katsushi Kobayashi has recently been added to the FreeBSD team so that he can add IEEE 1394 support to FreeBSD 5.0. Get more information here and here.

Linux Orbit contributing author and FreeBSD user David LeCount shows you how to connect your FreeBSD system with the '6Bone': "The next generation Internet that uses this protocol is called the 6Bone, and it's accessible from the current Internet. Now you may ask, "What are the advantages of getting on this 6Bone?" Good question. Some people just want to get an early start on tomorrow's technology. Some enjoy having a new toy to play with. Some may like the idea of owning a huge subnet of IP addresses for free. You may already have had your reasons before clicking on the link to this tutorial. Whatever the case, if you're interested in trying out this new internet and you have a FreeBSD machine connected directly to the internet, keep reading."

This is Part 2 in a two-part series on system panics. In his first column, Michael Lucas talked about how to prepare a FreeBSD system in case of a panic. In this column, he talks about what to do when the worst happens.

Daemonnews reports: "FreeBSD/sparc64 now boots multiuser on multiprocessor Ultra and Enterprise class machines with all CPUs active. We believe this is the first open source BSD operating system to fully support SMP on UltraSPARC hardware."

"This is Part 1 in a two-part series on system panics. In this column, Michael Lucas talks about how to prepare a FreeBSD system in case of a panic. In the next column, he'll talk about what to do when the worst happens." Read the article at ONLamp.com.

From DaemonNews: "A new area of the FreeBSD web site has been created dedicated to release engineering. This new section contains information about future releases of FreeBSD, a specific schedule for the upcoming releases of FreeBSD 4.6 and 5.0, and more." According to the web site, FreeBSD 4.6 is scheduled for June 1st, while there will be two Developer Previews for FreeBSD 5, one at April 1st and a second one on 25th of June. The final version of FreeBSD 5.0 is expected at 20th of November.

"FreeBSD now works with multiple processors on sparc64 systems, thanks to the efforts of Jake Burkholder, and Thomas Moestl", the FreeBSD news page reports.

ClosedBSD is a firewall and network address translation utility which boots off of a single floppy disk, and requires no hard drive. ClosedBSD is based off of the FreeBSD kernel, and uses ipfw as it's native ruleset management system, and natd as it's network address translation utility. ClosedBSD also features an advanced ncurses based configuration manager (screenshots) which allows you to seamlessly configure your firewall ruleset using protocol filters, port forwarding, and network address translation mechanisms through a simple to use menu interface. DHCP is disabled for this beta release.

This bi-monthly report covers development activities on the FreeBSD Project for December 2001 and January 2002. A variety of accomplishments have been made over the last couple of months, including strong progress relating to the KSE project, which brings Scheduler Activations to the FreeBSD kernel, as well as less visible infrastructure projects such as improvements to the mount interface, PAM integration work, and translation efforts. Shortly following the deadline for this status report, the BSD Conference and FreeBSD Developer Summit were held, and will be covered in the next bi-monthly report at the end of March.

No more hours of downloading for the four FreeBSD ISO CDs. FreeBSD Services has officially begun to distribute FreeBSD on DVD. You can pre-order the FreeBSD 4.5-RELEASE DVD here.

By now, anyone who is even remotely related to an IT-type position has heard about Linux, and has most likely used it, if only to see what all the hype is about. However, GNU/Linux is not the only "free" Unix type OS available. FreeBSD and its cousins, NetBSD and OpenBSD are all offshoots of BSD UNIX, a commercial UNIX also known as Berkeley Software Distribution. This article will help you learn more about FreeBSD, its differences from Linux, and it will ease a potential migration process.