FreeBSD 10.0 released
Submitted by FreeBSD 10 has been released. You can read the release notes, and, of course, go ahead and install it.
FreeBSD Archive
The BSD family, pt. 1: FreeBSD 9.1
Guest post by I've been a big fan of FreeBSD since I first acquired 4.4 on 4 CDs. By that point, I had already spent a lot of time in Linux, but I was always put off by its instability and inconsistency. Once I had FreeBSD installed, it felt like a dream. Everything worked the way it was supposed to, and the consistency of its design meant even older documentation would be mostly applicable without having to figure out how my system was different. There is a reason why in the early days of the Internet, a huge portion of servers ran FreeBSD.
But, that was a while ago. Since then, Linux has matured greatly and has garnered a lot of momentum, becoming the dominant Unix platform. FreeBSD certainly hasn't stood still, however. The FreeBSD team has kept current with hardware support, new features, and a modern, performant design.
FreeBSD 10’s new technologies and features
There has been a lot of maturing technologies in FreeBSD 10, with many new features which make this release, I think, the most exciting one in years. A lot of development has gone into virtualisation support. Virtualisation with FreeBSD Jails has been available for a long time, but not so much "full virtualisation".
Let's have a look at the some of the most talked about, most requested and most interesting features that have found their way into or are planned for 10.0, but may not make the deadline.
FreeBSD 8.4 released
FreeBSD 8.4 has been released. "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 8.4-RELEASE. This is the fifth release from the 8-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 8.3 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights: Gnome version 2.32.1, KDE version 4.10.1; feature flags 5000 version of the ZFS filesystem; support for all shipping LSI storage controllers." The full release notes detail all the changes since 8.3.
FreeBSD Q4 2012 status report
The FreeBSD project has published a status report covering FreeBSD-related projects during Q4 2012. It details progress on the bhyve type-2 hypervisor, AMD GPUs kernel-modesetting, UEFI and the port to Raspberry PI, among other things.
FreeBSD on ARM closer to reality
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Want to run FreeBSD on your Raspberry Pi or other ARM-based device? You're not far away from being able to do so. The folks over at the FreeBSD Developers Notebook report huge gains made in running FreeBSD on ARM v6 processors. They've got builds prepared for the Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard, and several others, though support isn't yet total. What can you do with it? Lots of stuff, like running the Go programming language on it like Dave Cheney. Cool!
FreeBSD 9.1 released
The FreeBSD project has announced the immediate release of version 9.1, featuring a new Intel GPU driver and dozens of other drivers, an optional new C+11 stack, lots of improvements to IPv6 hardware offload support, and more. You can now run a ZFS file system in a jail, and the kernel now provides support for IronLake, SandyBridge, and IvyBridge CPUs. Check out the release notes for the juicy details.
FreeBSD Foundation beats fundraising goal
It's not exciting to talk about money, but it does often take cash to keep funding the developers that improve code. Congrats to the FreeBSD foundation then, for beating their fundraising goal of $500K by almost 40%. The $690K they raised will go to funding coders, developer conferences, and some limited travel. That bodes well for continued strong support for FreeBSD in general, soon to release version 9.1 (currently at RC3).
clang now default compiler on FreeBSD x86
"I've made clang the default on x86 systems. There will probably be a few bumps as we work out the last kinks including a ABI issue for i386 system libraries, but the transition is expected to be fairly smooth for most users."
FreeBSD moves away from GCC, embraces Clang
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"For the past several years we've been working towards migrating from GCC to Clang/LLVM as our default compiler. We intend to ship FreeBSD 10.0 with Clang as the default compiler on i386 and amd64 platforms. To this end, we will make WITH_CLANG_IS_CC the default on i386 and amd64 platforms on November 4th."
FreeBSD: Clang replacing GCC in the base system
"The intent is to switch on this option by default rather sooner than later, so we can start preparing for shipping 10.0-RELEASE with Clang as the default system compiler, and deprecating gcc." Good to see Clang/LLVM continue to gain as much steam as it does. This will only make GCC better.
FreeBSD 9.0 Released
Some people already submitted this news last week, but it wasn't until today that it became official: the FreeBSD team has announced the release of FreeBSD version 9.0. As you may expect from the major version number change, this is releas eis packed with new stuff.
FreeBSD 9.0 RC1 Released
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"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."
IPv6-only Testing Versions of FreeBSD, PC-BSD
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"The FreeBSD Foundation and iXsystems announced today their commitment to support the efforts of World IPv6 Day to accelerate global IPv6 deployment. Earlier this year, the FreeBSD Foundation and iXsystems jointly awarded Bjoern Zeeb a grant to create an IPv6-only version of the FreeBSD and PC-BSD open source operating systems."
FreeBSD Needs Fresh Blood
"How long have you been using FreeBSD. Months? Years? Decades? And you love using it because of whatever reason but at the same time you're feeling a bit guilty to use it all for free without giving anything back? Well now you'll have the chance to change that. We at FreeBSD are always in need of new people who are willing to spare some of their time and effort into FreeBSD development."
PC-BSD 8.2 Released
PC-BSD 8.2 has been released. As the name suggests, this version's based on FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE, and includes KDE 4.5.5, as well as various other bugxes and updates.
FreeBSD 8.2, 7.4 Released
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The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE. This is the third release from the 8-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 8.1 and introduces some new features. For more information, see the 8.2-RELEASE announcement, and the 7.4-RELEASE announcement, ehch has also been released.
FreeBSD 7.4 RC2 arrives
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"The FreeBSD developers have made available a second release candidate (RC2) for FreeBSD 7.4. This is a precursor to a third release candidate, due next week, as the developers say that there are "several bugs we feel are critical enough to warrant fixing before the 8.2/7.4 releases are finalized". FreeBSD 8.2 saw its second release candidate made available last week."
FreeBSD 8.2-RC2 Now Available
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Ken Smith officially announced the availability of FreeBSD 8.2-RC2 on the freebsd-stable mailing list. This is the second iteration of Release Candidates which will soon lead to 8.2-RELEASE. An updated release schedule may be found on the FreeBSD wiki.
FreeBSD 8.2 Beta 1 Released
"The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has released the first beta for version 8.2 and 7.4 of its popular free Unix derivative. The first betas will be followed by two release candidates. The final versions of FreeBSD 7.4 and FreeBSD 8.2 are scheduled for the 24th of January."