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A Taste of FreeBSD With VirtualBSD
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Mar 10, 2009 08:13 AM
from the touches-of-os-x dept.
from the touches-of-os-x dept.
ReeceTarbert writes "If you wanted to try FreeBSD but didn't have the right hardware, or enough time to make it useful on the desktop, VirtualBSD might fit the bill: it's a VMware appliance based on FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE and features the Xfce 4 Desktop Environment and a few of the most common applications to make it very functional right out of the box. If you're curious you can have a look at the screenshots, or proceed to the download page and grab the torrent file right away. (Note: VirtualBSD also works in VirtualBox 2.x as long as you create a new virtual machine and select the virtual disk from the archive instead of creating a new one)."
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[+]
FreeBSD 7.1 Released 324 comments
Sol-Invictus writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE. This is the second release from the 7-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 7.0 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights:
The ULE scheduler is now the default in GENERIC kernels for amd64 and i386 architectures. The ULE scheduler significantly improves performance on multicore systems for many workloads.
Support for using DTrace inside the kernel has been imported from OpenSolaris. DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework.
A new and much-improved NFS Lock Manager (NLM) client.
Boot loader changes allow, among other things, booting from USB devices and booting from GPT-labeled devices.
KDE updated to 3.5.10, GNOME updated to 2.22.3.
DVD-sized media for the amd64 and i386 architectures."
[+]
Developers: VMware Releases Open Source Virtualization Client 218 comments
ruphus13 writes in with the news that VMware has finally decided to open-source its client for virtual desktops, releasing it under the LGPL. This was in response to intense pressure from the growing number of Linux distros that include virtualization by default. From the post: "The CEO replacement who entered VMware last year was Paul Maritz, a long-time Microsoft executive with intimate familiarity with how Windows swallowed up entire categories of utility software as it grew up by simply wrapping free utilities into the operating system. Paul knows about that, and he had to have seen last year the dual threats to VMware of open source virtualization offerings and virtualization on board in operating systems. The VMware View Open Client allows businesses to host virtualized desktops in the data center, and users can access their desktops from any device. Going with an open source solution like this was VMware's only choice, especially as Microsoft includes Hyper-V virtualization in Windows Server. I'm sure Maritz was very focused on the Microsoft threat, because he used to be behind similar threats. VMware can grab market share with this move, stave off Microsoft's dominance, and offer support and services around its open source offering.'"
[+]
Mobile: VMware Demos Two Operating Systems On Mobile Phone 52 comments
nk497 writes "Virtualisation firm VMware has demonstrated its new mobile virtualisation platform, which allows two operating systems to be used at the same time on a single device. On stage at its European conference, VMware reps used a touchscreen Nokia N800 — more of a tablet computer than a phone — with a prototype of its hypervisor to boot and run both Windows CE and Google's Android, at the same time. The firm has yet to announce when such tech will be found in phones."
[+]
FreeBSD 7.2 Released 204 comments
An anonymous reader writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE. This is the third release from the 7-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 7.1 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights: Support for fully transparent use of superpages for application memory; Support for multiple IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for jails; csup(1) now supports CVSMode to fetch a complete CVS repository; Gnome updated to 2.26, KDE updated to 4.2.2; Sparc64 now supports UltraSparc-III processors. For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the online release notes and errata list."
Adds another anonymous reader, "You can grab the latest version from FreeBSD from the mirrors or via BitTorrent. There is also a quick review of the new features and upgrade instructions."
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Not quite... (Score:5, Informative)
Note: VirtualBSD also works in VirtualBox 2.x
FreeBSD works in VirtualBox 2.1.2 and later. Earlier versions had a bug which prevented FreeBSD from working correctly.
Mod parent up (Score:3, Informative)
Until just recently FreeBSD installs always failed in VirtualBox.
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
However, non-trivial disk acivity (such as compiling a port) caused the OS to shit itself with geometry errors.
That's my experience too, even with VBox 2.1.2-VBox 2.1.4: Any nontrivially intense disk activity will panic/oops the kernel with disk controller related errors. Once or twice it even was triggered in the installation phase when I elected to install some ports from the second CD. And forget about SCSI controller emulation as a workaround -- that instantly dies on newfs.
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Prior to 2.1.2, this VM would fail with the eflags error on any heavy activity. This is a stock install of FreeBSD 7.1, with no extra patching, and now works perfectly. Running Xephyr on the host and
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FreeBSD works in VirtualBox 2.1.2 and later. Earlier versions had a bug which prevented FreeBSD from working correctly.
That's why VirtualBSD mentions VMware Player (or better) explicitly and only places hints about VirtualBox in /boot/loader.conf and /etc/X11/ReadmeVirtualBox.txt (you may also want to run /usr/local/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl as you won't need them any longer).
As I see it, the only problem is that there is no free (as in beer) VMware Player for OS X as the only option is VMware Fusion -- and I don't know if Parallels can run VMware appliances, but that one ain't free either.
Reece
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Oi, as a broke kid I feel I have to paint my face and say... you may take away our code! But you'll never take away my... server 2003 torrent! yaahhhhHHH!!!! *rides off on a horse*
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Maybe you can run cooperative linux under wine?
Terminology (Score:2)
Did I miss some sort of shift in terminology? When did virtual machines start getting referred to as "Appliances"? When I think "appliance", I usually think of toasters, microwaves, stoves, refrigerators, etc. Images for operating systems is the last thing that comes to mind.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it becomes an 'appliance' when it comes already configured and downloadable to you like a black box.
VMware currently hosts some large number here [vmware.com]. Like an 'appliance', you plug it in and go without worrying about the fiddly bit
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Reece
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"When did virtual machines start getting referred to as "Appliances"?"
When vmware player was launched I do believe... and it's not just any virtual machine, it's the use of a virtual machine to distribute a ready working self contained machine that does what it says on the tin (yes, virtual machines come in tins these days) rather than lengthy install procedures or live cds. It's an appliance because it's ready to plug in and go. But, as vmware say, "hate the game, not the player'
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When did virtual machines start getting referred to as "Appliances"?
When the "Marketing Department" got involved.
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The Amana "Internet Appliance" will be the next big thing. A gigantic iPhone that floats in the air and follows(stalks?) you around the house.
Surely you jest (Score:5, Informative)
don't have the right hardware
It is almost more difficult to find wrong hardware for FreeBSD. Granted, it doesn't support quite as many systems as NetBSD, but unless you are running something quite odd it is likely you can run FreeBSD on it. Hell, most systems that are being thrown away right now can run it just fine.
FreeBSD 7.1 was released for:
And if you happen to be running an Alpha, you can still run FreeBSD 6.3 [freebsd.org]
Re: (Score:2)
USB cameras and MIDI devices are examples of hardware categories supported by OpenBSD and not FreeBSD. Until 4.5, however, there is no DRI support on OpenBSD (there is some on 4.4, but it's not finished and not enabled by default).
OpenBSD also tends to have better support for ARM-based platforms. Unfortunately, it does not have any flash-focussed filesystems, although a port of NetBSD's LFS would probably not be too hard.
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see UVIDEO(4) for usb cameras
'man uvideo' on FreeBSD 7.1 returns nothing. It doesn't appear to on 8-CURRENT either [freebsd.org]. On OpenBSD, it gives me a man page listing supported cameras.
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It is almost more difficult to find wrong hardware for FreeBSD.
True, as long as you run it as a server and don't need fancy graphics, audio, and whatnot -- and does a fine job at that. But try it on a modern, off the shelf PC, notebook or netbook and you won't be so lucky. I mean, even a onboard NIC might be problematic!
That said, this is clearly not FreeBSD's fault (as vendors seldom release source code or specifications and stick to binary drivers for select Linux distributions at best) but the result doesn't change: it's a very daunting task to get any kind of mo
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even a onboard NIC might be problematic
I have several systems with onboard NICs, and even onboard wireless NICs, that worked fine right off the bat.
desktop oriented FreeBSD (that's not their goal either, but I digress)
Their motto still is
The Power To Serve
So I would say they aren't all that worried about desktop, yes
I think an argument could be made that anyone who loads FreeBSD on their desktop probably didn't really understand the purpose of FreeBSD to begin with...
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It is almost more difficult to find wrong hardware for FreeBSD. [...] Hell, most systems that are being thrown away right now can run it just fine.
Right. But there is a proverb: "If you are so smart, why so poor?", IOW, if so cool, why popularity is so miserable and much smaller than Linux?
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What if I have a Vax? What version of BSD can I get that will run on that?
(This is largely theoretical, although I *do* have a MicroVax 3100-40 sitting around doing nothing in particular...)
Also, you forgot to mention ARM processors, which are pretty common, and 8-bit and 16-bit x86 systems, which used to be pretty common, pre-PowerPC Macs (6800 processor), and the Z80, among other things.
Does it run xen? (Score:1, Troll)
I don't get it (Score:2)
Where's the login/passwd??? (Score:1)
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Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, here goes:
Username: virtualbsd
Password: virtualbsd
root: root4u
Reece