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BSD Operating Systems

Updated FreeBSD Release Schedule 347

Posted by Hemos from the for-the-world-at-large dept.
Serin K Medusa writes: "The folks over at FreeBSD.org have put up a new 'roadmap' detailing the plan of action for the remainder of the year. In particular, check out the plans for a 5.0 preview and expected dates for 4.6. Interesting reading if you're following -CURRENT."
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Updated FreeBSD Release Schedule More

Updated FreeBSD Release Schedule

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  • Thanks FreeBSD team (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's been a hectic year and a lot of confusion in the FreeBSD arena with the loss of Jordan and the selling off of Walnut Creek. Thanks to the team for staying focused. It is appreciated. For non-users, try FreeBSD if you have concerns about your favorite Linux distro being around. FreeBSD is for UNIX lovers. Linux is for those who hate microsoft. Join the Daemon Revolution.
    • I don't understand why you say that JKH was lost. He is still active with FreeBSD and will be for a while to come as far as I've read.

      BSD rocks, enough said.
    • I love playing with FreeBSD, but sometimes I have to get work done. FreeBSD is Unix. Linux is Linux. They're different operating systems, and have different goals. FreeBSD aims to be a good Unix. Linux aims to be a good general-purpose operating system that happens to be POSIX compliant (well, sort of). I find that when I need to get work done, though, FreeBSD doesn't hack it for me other than as a web server.


      -E

    • Loss of Jordan? He hasn't gone anywhere, he just works for Apple now instead of WR/BSDi/WC. FreeBSD isn't a company and doesn't employ anyone. He's still -core and still the lead P.R. person.

  • Well planned release (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lamj ( 153635 ) <jasonlam&flashmail,com> on Saturday March 16, 2002 @06:22PM (#3174734)
    It seems to me that FreeBSD is more well planned than Linux in terms of project management(This is not Linux bashing). When a development project gets bigger, it takes a lot more planning as a group effort than one man's decision, there maybe something for Linux development team to learn. I agree that it is hard to find the balance because most of us like Linux for some advanced new feature but there's got to be better planning and announcement system to let user know what to expect.
    I would really appreciate if Linux kernel set stable checkpoint to indicate "This is a stable kernel" instead of 2.4 series trial and error approach.

    • Re:Well planned release (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, Linux is a kernel and FreeBSD is a whole OS. You should compare it to one of the distros.

    • Re:Well planned release (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I switched from FreeBSD back to RedHat, because of things like iptables, transparent proxying, etc. I'm sure some of these things can be done in FreeBSD too, but some packages are still "broke" because of the way that FreeBSD is. (For example, the SMBD package doesn't work as a domain controller because you can't have a dollar sign in a user name in freebsd. There is no smbclient or smbmount, so you can't even think of doing that.) It's a pretty good and fast operating system, but I've switched back to the more popular one for more features and support.
      • umm... I (used) to run a samba PDC on freebsd, never have ran into a broken package (security problem? thats an issue with the maintainer and is intentionally 'broken'), and have smbclient and can mount smb shares fine (the program isn't called smbmount, but it converts SMB to NFS and is mounted as an NFS share. Can find easily if you look in the ports.)
        • the program isn't called smbmount

          Right, it's called mount_smbfs, as another message indicated.

          but it converts SMB to NFS and is mounted as an NFS share

          No, mount_smbfs mounts using the FreeBSD SMB-client VFS - no NFS involved.

      • useradd doesn't let you create usernames with $s, but you can run vipw and add it afterwards.
        It does making running a PDC annoying - can't create machine trust accounts on the fly with stock useradd, but you could just hack the tool up to remove the limitation.

      • Re:Well planned release (Score:5, Informative)

        by swb ( 14022 ) on Saturday March 16, 2002 @08:20PM (#3175133)
        There is no smbclient or smbmount, so you can't even think of doing that.

        $ uname -sr
        FreeBSD 4.5-STABLE
        $ man mount_smbfs

        MOUNT_SMBFS(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual MOUNT_SMBFS(8)

        NAME
        mount_smbfs         - mounts a shared resource from an SMB file server

        It was added to the system in the past year.

      • Re:Well planned release (Score:5, Informative)

        by Metrol ( 147060 ) on Saturday March 16, 2002 @08:28PM (#3175171) Homepage
        I switched from FreeBSD back to RedHat

        Funny, I switched from RedHat to FreeBSD due to a seemingly endless line of RPM dependancy issues, config files that seem to defy all logic, and a directory structure that feels like your totally lost in a video game maze.

        but some packages are still "broke" because of the way that FreeBSD is.

        276 packages installed here on my primary workstation. Full implementation of Samba, KDE, Gnome, Apache, MySQL, and lots and lots of other stuff. Each and every package in there is working as expected. Oh, and when one of those packages comes out with a new version...

        portupgrade samba

        ...and it just handles ALL the rest. No subscription fees to RedHat to get access to a non-sucky FTP server.

        (For example, the SMBD package doesn't work as a domain controller because you can't have a dollar sign in a user name in freebsd.

        Umm, why would you want a dollar sign in the user name?? When doing NT style networking you place the dollar sign in the share name, which works just peachy.

        There is no smbclient or smbmount, so you can't even think of doing that.)

        SMB support is right in the kernel! Yes, smbmount exists natively in FreeBSD. smbclient isn't native, as it's a part of the Samba package. As it should be I might add.

        It's a pretty good and fast operating system, but I've switched back to the more popular one for more features and support.

        Probably for the best. Either you haven't used FreeBSD in the last 2-3 years, or you didn't properly research the subjects you were having troubles with.

        • Funny, I switched from RedHat to FreeBSD due to a seemingly endless line of RPM dependancy issues, config files that seem to defy all logic, and a directory structure that feels like your totally lost in a video game maze.

          I switched to OpenBSD because I needed a codebase that had been audited for security, and a proven track record of security. And I got tired of RPM-hell, too.

        • Umm, why would you want a dollar sign in the user name?? When doing NT style networking you place the dollar sign in the share name, which works just peachy

          Well, you want a $ sign in the username, because the machine name MACHINENAME has to be in the system passwd file as $MACHINENAME, if you want to have a samba server join machines to it's domain. It might be MACHINENAME$, I'd have to double-check.
        • Funny, I switched from RedHat to FreeBSD due to a seemingly endless line of RPM dependancy issues, config files that seem to defy all logic, and a directory structure that feels like your totally lost in a video game maze.

          It sounds like you really needed to try Debian.
          • It sounds like you really needed to try Debian.

            I've actually gotten together a spare box to play with a bit. Slapped Suse on there to goof around with. It sure are perty and all, but I found myself kinda confused about how to install apps that weren't a part of the CD's. Disclaimer: not a dig on Suse, just that I'm very new to it.

            When I get done futzing around with Suse I'll probably slap Debian on there for a bit. Been hearing a lot of comparisons to FreeBSD concerning that distro, so I know I'm long overdue in checking it out. Heck, just got finished reading an interesting article about Debian in Linux Journal.

            My only real concern about Debian is that it seems to have a fairly small set of apps that are all prepped for apt-get versus FreeBSD's portupgrade. There's a LOT of FreeBSD ports, of darn near all the latest stuff that I'm interested in. Maybe I'm in for a pleasent surprise.

            • Don't worry about app availability on Debian. The apps on stable are a bit out of date, but otherwise the main Debian archive is about as big as the FreeBSD ports, and if you run unstable about as up to date.

              When you do run unstable you may run into some weird problems from time to time though. It's not too bad, but the occasional dependency conflict arises. That's why it is unstable after all.

              Mart
    • Isn't that the point of the whole thing? If you want what you described, you use BSD, and if you want the features of Linux, you use GNU/Linux.

      This isn't meant in any disparaging manner, but usually when people say things like "I like what we have for the most part, but if only this part of it was like what they have over there" it means that there's a tradeoff that creates both the greater whole that they like and also that one particular difference. Usually.

    • I've been running linux since kernel 0.99pl14. I like the hardware support, but freebsd has
      matured so much and is so much more stable that
      I moved away from linux to an all-freebsd environment.
      For those of you that bitch about the time between releases, just look at debian. And learn how to cvsup. :)
      • I'm in the same boat as you. Since '96 I've been a Linux user, screaming about it from the rooftops, bringing it into huge companies and basing smaller companies on it. Ever since 2.4 though its been degrading. These days I don't dare run a stock kernel unless its been patched all the way to hell and halfway back. Even then its iffy. Linux apps are twitchy, and an above poster is definitly correct about it feeling thrown together.

        Just last week I tried out FreeBSD 4.5-RELEASE and I must say I'm impressed. The whole thing feels really professional and tightly bundled, and the ports tree is a dream. I havn't found anything that isn't straightforward. It still blows my mind that I was able to do whatever I needed to do by looking in logical places, or at worst doing my one stop shopping for info at www.freebsd.org.

        The project feels like one team built the whole works as opposed to everything being a mishmash from whoever showed up for amature night.

        Best of all, I don't have to look at that fat, stupid penguin. It was cute a couple of years ago, but its a really insipid logo that makes it seem like a kiddie project.
      • For those of you that bitch about the time between releases, just look at debian.

        Man, what a cheap shot at Debian!

        In any case, FreeBSD gets a new release every six months like clockwork. There may be a couple of Linux distros that have faster cycles, but most are in the six to nine month range.

        If even that's too slow for you use cvsup.

    • ...and it shows. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by pschmied ( 5648 ) on Saturday March 16, 2002 @08:53PM (#3175242) Homepage
      FreeBSD feels like a real quality product. The installer, and the overall level of "spit shine" is better than I've seen anywhere else (Windows, Solaris, Linux, QNX).

      The packages/ports collection rocks. Software works as documented. Documentation exists.

      I can't wait to see all the goodies planned for FreeBSD-5.

      Anyone who is interested in UNIX should check it out. It is one of the very "cleanest" implimentations out there, and it also happens to perform quite well.

      Go ahead download the .iso (or buy from Daemon News [daemonnews.org]). The install doesn't take long (6 minutes boot to finish on my 1.0ghz Athlon).


      -Peter

      • Bullshit.

        FreeBSD installer while fast and efficient is the same installer they have used for years.

        The main problem I see with BSD vs. Linux posts is nobody can ever say anything good about either, its always 1 sided. Linux has good points and so does BSDs. BSD isnt gods gift, and linux doent cure cancer, Both are tools that should be used for its purposes.

        The only reason I still use linux is its popularity and all the apps I want run on it. It supports the hardware I have, the applications I want are on the cd in .rpm format.

        If you must argue or promote a viewpoint, at least give some details. Then people can comment on your views, or give some insights, maybe offer alternate ideas.
        -
        Before you open your mouth to speak, please make sure it's an improvement upon the silence.
        • freebsd 5.0 will cure cancer.

        • Re:...and it shows. (Score:2, Informative)

          by KiwiSurfer ( 309836 )
          FreeBSD installer while fast and efficient is the same installer they have used for years. What's is the problem with the current installer? If it works well for the purpose it was designed for in the first place there isn't really any need for a new method of installing that may or may not improve on the current installer used in the 4.x releases of FreeBSD. That said, there are, I beleive, some work on a new installer which will be able to work in either text-only mode or graphical (X11) mode and will include many other improvements over the current installer. However, from what I know, it probally won't be used till 5.0-RELEASE or later releases. The only reason I still use linux is its popularity and all the apps I want run on it. It supports the hardware I have, the applications I want are on the cd in .rpm format. I rectently bought a very new box and FreeBSD 4.5 worked right-out-of-the box with all the stuffs except the onboard AC'97 sound so its hardware compatibility is, IMHO, quite good. It may not support some of the more exotic hardwares but it does have decent support for most hardwares that are in common use. Also, I have yet to find any decent UNIX program that doesn't work on FreeBSD -- i currenly have around 130 different packages installed (including KDE, GNOME, gaim, freeciv, doom, galeon, xchat and many others) and they all work perfectly. FreeBSD also has excellent linux binary emulation which emulates many Linux binaries (including StarOffice, Netscape, Acrobat Reader, Opera, and others) flawlessly. - James
          • The FreeBSD installer is hard for new people, thats why linux distros take the time to develop nice graphical installers with online help. But then FreeBSD has always target the advanced crowd. But its true, after you installed your OS, do you really care about the installer? Nope.

            all the stuffs except the onboard AC'97 sound..
            Are you using that as a workstation? Then ya gotta have sound.. AC97 is widely known, must be a configuration issue.

            I migrated to linux for the tcp configuration, then moved to FreeBSD for my servers, went back to Linux for my dual cpu servers. Now Linux is mature enough and stable to keep using Linux. The gripes i had about the lack of configuration tools in linux/bsd has been solved in most Linux Distros now. No reason to switch again. Even thou people have stated the VM engine has major problems, I havnt personally noticed any problems or downtime. But Ill just upgrade my kernel with a fixed VM when the time comes. And now that I have a journling FS, cant find anything to bitch about. Well other than X-Windows (smile) problems. Ill be glad when a FrameBuffer replacement comes out.

            -
            My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right? - Charles M. Schulz
            • The FreeBSD installer is hard for new people, thats why linux distros take the time to develop nice graphical installers with online help.

              First of all, not all Linux distros have gone to a GUI installer. The two notable exceptions are Slackware and Debian.

              Second, a text mode installer will work on 100% of target machines. A GUI installer will not. So you still need to keep around a text based installer. The next version of the FreeBSD installer will be a library with two (or) more front end interfaces. Aside: I think a CGI front end would be cool for installing remotely.

              Third, the text based FreeBSD has excellent help. I actually prefer text mode installers because I can read a whole page of help, instead of constantly scrolling down a tiny 640x480 text widget made even smaller with borders and scrollbar .

              Finally, and I don't mean this sarcastically, users who won't use FreeBSD because they don't like, or are afraid of, the text mode installer are not the target audience. They just might be happier elsewhere. Once past the installer there will be a myriad places where the command line will have to be used. If they are uncomfortable with the command line, then I would suggest OSX.
        • Ok, granted its not as pretty as Mandrake's installer. It is pretty simple though. Ever try to trudge through Debian's ocean (and I MEAN ocean) of packages and you'll understand. FreeBSD's installer is pretty simple to walk through.

          That, and the kernel compile is pretty hard to screw up. First shot through and it booted doing all I wanted it to do. The sound was a little confusing to configure because there wasn't anything to configure! Just tell it you want a PCI sound card and from there on out its pure magic.
      • The installer, and the overall level of "spit shine" is better than I've seen anywher

        I'm a happy FreeBSD user, but I think the installer still needs work. In a lot of ways it's still un-intuitive, and I think it needs to be a bit more descriptive about the packages (Red Hat did this right). The other annoying thing about the installer is that it doesn't DO a whole lot for configuring various stuff. For instance: if I select bash as my default shell, it would be nice if I got some sort of freaking .bashrc SOMEWHERE on the system! (no, you have to make one yourself). If you want window maker as your desktop environment, good luck. the majority of the programs won't be on the programs list, and the ones that are listed probably aren't even installed.

        With that said FreeBSD can be a pain in the ass to set up initially, but once that's done you can basically clone most of the config stuff for the rest of eternity - it's just a hurdle that beginners shouldn't have to go through IMHO.
        • Installer doesn't hold your hand because the intended audience isn't the pirate who got pissed because Microsoft requires them to register the latest version of Windows.
        • Systinstall works pretty well for installation, especially if you do a complete non-X installation. It gets weird if you try to do anything out of the ordinary, tho.

          I've actually roached a disk or two trying to do post-installation partitioning of a disk with sysinstall. To do this day I'm not sure what went wrong. Heh, nor do I remember how to make FBSD partitions and slices using fdisk and disklabel..

          I think the biggest obstacles to improvement is probably the urge to fit the whole thing on two floppies. I'm sure no one will agree with me, but it'd be nice to see some modularization that would create multiple disk 2s depending on what kind of install you were doing -- CD, FTP, NFS. Putting those methods and their supporting code on seperate disk 2s might leave enough room to clean up and strengthen sysinstall.

          One thing I don't think it needs is a GUI installer, or lots of flash. I'm not sure why people like GUI installs so much, but a clean, text-based installer seems so much easier to work with than a bad UNIX GUI.
        • For instance: if I select bash as my default shell, it would be nice if I got some sort of freaking .bashrc SOMEWHERE on the system!

          The primary reason for this is that bash itself does not come with .bash_profile or .bashrc files. It is not the FreeBSD way to alter any ported software package beyond the minimum needed to port it or correct bugs.

          That said, you do have a .shrc file installed by default in your home directory. bash should be using this by default in the absence of a .bashrc file, but unfortunately it does not. The solution is absurdly simple. Link .shrc to .bashrc and be finished.

          If you want window maker as your desktop
          environment, good luck.

          Huh? Windowmaker is one of the default window manager you can choose during installation (the others being KDE, GNOME/Sawfish, GNOME/Enlightenment, Afterstep and fvwm).

  • Looks cool (Score:1, Redundant)

    by ksb ( 517539 )
    I've never used *BSD, but this looks like an excellent and organised approach to an already well renouned product.

    I'm almost certain a few peeps here will turn this article into a Linux/BSD flame pit, but I just think it's great that there are options available for us coming from such strong and seemingly well organised groups of developers.
  • Action:FreeBSD 5.0 Developer Preview 1
    Expected:1 Apr 2002
    Description:A full release for the i386, Alpha, and sparc64 architectures.

    Prerelease planned for April 1st? Hmmm...

  • 5.0 is a pretty big change. (Score:5, Informative)

    by jon_c ( 100593 ) on Saturday March 16, 2002 @06:44PM (#3174814) Homepage
    in case anyone cares the goals for 5.0 are:

    SMPng - fully threaded, preemptable and re-entrant kernel with interrupt handlers running as threads. More than one CPU can run in the kernel simultaneously.

    devfs - fully dynamic device creation and tear-down (for things like PCCARD and USB).

    Geom - stackable disk model (http://www.freebsd.org/~phk/Geom)

    Newcard - New PCCARD/CARDBUS subsystem with much better support for newer hardware (like CARDBUS) and integration with FreeBSD's newbus driver API.

    gcc 3.0 - Upgrade to latest compiler technology

    source [bsdtoday.com]

    • Now, that's much better than the simple links about schedule dates... I always hated pre-announcements, that's so Microsoftish...

      Developer Preview 1 is quite soon, possibly in two weeks, but with 5.0 planned at the end of November... that's quite some time for good stuff.

    • Does anybody know something about the planned integration of TrustedBSD [trustedbsd.org] features?

      I remember that 5.0 was meant to use some of their stuff. Will this be done? If so, which features?

    • Re:5.0 is a pretty big change. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, 5.0 seems to be a significant change. Now, what I'm curious to know -- sorry if this is OT -- is: will the FreeBSD code used by Apple in Darwin/MacOS X be sync'ed with FB5.x???

      Furthermore, and, er, "reversely" (can I say that?) will some of the stuff that Apple has been working on (integration of FreeBSD over the micro-kernel who's name I forget, something to do with drivers, etc.) be integrated back into FreeBSD?

      With Jason Hubbard now working at Apple and with the *nix underpinnings of MacOS X (IOW: Darwin), how much cross-polination will occur?
      • ...will the FreeBSD code used by Apple in Darwin/MacOS X be sync'ed with FB5.x???


        Most likely not. The FreeBSD code that Apple used in OS X is from the 3.x line of FBSD, and in the future jkh has said they'd update to 4.x. (or something to that effect)


    • I read that Wind River will be contributing more features back to the FreeBSD community. According to an article I read (Wind River announces product rollout plans for future BSD/OS releases [bsdtoday.com]), FreeBSD 6.0 will be based on be based on Wind River's VxWorks microkernel.

      • The article you reference says no such thing:
        BSD/OS 5.0 and other future releases of the product will target servers, server appliances, and purpose-built server applications, as well as non-real-time embedded systems that require a full-featured UNIX-based operating system. Such systems often have high degrees of software complexity and need the capability to run applications developed for UNIX-style operating systems.


        Wind River's VxWorks(TM) real-time operating system will continue to be Wind River's core offering for embedded applications that require real-time, deterministic performance and constrained memory footprints.


        Try harder next time, please.
      • FreeBSD and BSD/OS are *not* the same thing. They are two totally different operating systems.
  • 5.0 looks great. Lots of nice goodies to bring FreeBSD back up to snuff with Linux (feature wise). I have one question though: what about firewire/iLink/IEEE-1394, especially with SBP2 support? The Linux support is pretty decent, and I depend upon it for my CDRW drive, as USB for storage is a joke and my Vaio 505 came with a IEEE-1394 port anyway. So, any BSDers out there know what's up with firewire on FreeBSD? I know some dude in Japan had basic firewire working for use with digital video and such, but I want my Serial Bus Protocol 2 support, dammit! (grin)

  • It's Interesting to Me... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Neovanglist ( 566939 ) on Saturday March 16, 2002 @10:15PM (#3175514)
    It's interesting to me how you can think FreeBSD is dying when several major things have happened on the FreeBSD front.

    1)FreeBSD released FreeBSD-4.5 RELEASE just not to long ago, and it has full Java support.

    2)FreeBSD is getting new applications ported to it every day. (Note: XFree86 4.2.0 now has FreeBSD binaries available, check XFree86.org)

    3)FreeBSD was a good enough OS to have Apple base their new flagship OS (MacOSX) on it. (I don't see them planning to make a Linux based MacOS)

    4)FreeBSD's TCP/IP stack was good enough for Microsoft to steal and put in Win2k/XP

    With all this said, and the new release schedule, how in the world can you call it dead?

    Regards,
    Neovanglist
    • 3)FreeBSD was a good enough OS to have Apple base their new flagship OS (MacOSX) on it. (I don't see them planning to make a Linux based MacOS)

      To be fair, Apple doesn't incorporate *anything* GPL'ed but many things BSD/MIT licensed; case in point: curl (not to be confused with Curl) is included not the supperior wget. So, regardless of the technological merits Apple would not base its flagship product based on Linux.

      Until, perhaps, the GPL is determined unenforceable and deemed just plain wacky by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS).

      BTW, Mac OS X rocks.

      • Thanks for pointing that out. I've yet to really use Mac OS X because I have a PC, but if I could get ahold of a version of Mac OS X, or program that allows it to run on my PC then I'll probably give it a shot.

        Later,
        Neovanglist

      • Apple doesn't incorporate *anything* GPL'ed

        That's just not true, apple incorporates gcc, emacs and other bits of the GNU system into OS X.

        If you read the GPL, it states:

        In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

        So it's perfectly safe to do this, and FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD distribute gcc as part of their base systems as well as things like cvs, awk and grep

        - Aidan (typing on a FreeBSD machine)

      • curl (not to be confused with Curl) is included not the supperior wget.

        I don't think it's fair to say that wget is always superior. They're different tools for different jobs. wget's big feature is recursive fetching of linked web pages. curl concentrates more on single operations, and lets you do a lot more in this area. One biggie that I'd really miss is the ability to use HTTP POST instead of GET. It can also upload files (HTTP and FTP); wget can't.

        It's worth noting that curl is basically a simple wrapper around libcurl, which is probably the best cross-platform library out there for doing stuff with HTTP.

    • Re:It's Interesting to Me... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PhotoGuy ( 189467 ) on Sunday March 17, 2002 @01:41AM (#3175971) Homepage
      3)FreeBSD was a good enough OS to have Apple base their new flagship OS (MacOSX) on it. (I don't see them planning to make a Linux based MacOS)
      I think this has a lot more to do with the licensing. No commercial vendor in their right mind would base their custom OS with value-added proprietary extensions, upon an OS that places such heavy dependencies upon the GPL license. (The term GNU/Linux just makes me shudder.)

      The FreeBSD license doesn't preclude commercialization, which makes it far, far, far, more appealing for putting on commercial users' desktops.

      Of course, the rock solid stability, better planned releases, centralized control, yadda, yadda, yadda, are no doubt factors that made it more appealing than Linux as a base. But even if those things were all equal, the GPL alone would have prevented Apple from basing OS X upon Linux.

      Similarly, I'm working on two projects that will be commercialized; I'm using FreeBSD as the base, and sleeping well knowing that I won't have any licensing grief down the road. Linux and it's supporting utilities are just too fraught with GPL restrictions; if the core technology of Linux were leaps and bounds above FreeBSD, it would be more of a dilemma. But in terms of the kernel and core utilities, they really are neck and neck. I make my living creating this value-added code, I can't afford to give the source away for my modifications or extensions, and live off of services or whatever. (And the zealots will no doubt scream "if you don't like the GPL, don't use software that uses it!" Well, despite the kneejerk reaction that might be, that's exactly the right advice in my case, I'll use FreeBSD.)

      I do think it's a shame for Linux, though. If Linux didn't have this restriction, and had four or five offshoots of commercialization, I think it'd be taken a lot more seriously on the desktop. With the release of OS/X, BSD really did leapfrog Linux in terms of popular acceptance on the desktop. Linux might have been the beneficiary of this, if it were more BSD-like in its licensing. And FreeBSD seem to be gaining even more momentum every day.

      In any case, choice is good. I love Linux, but I choose BSD. :-)

      -me
    • 4)FreeBSD's TCP/IP stack was good enough for Microsoft to steal and put in Win2k/XP

      And you were doing so well before this. I am going to say the same thing I have been saying over and over and over and over to this bullshit:

      PROVE IT

      The most evidence anyone has ever offered was BSD copyrights in the DLL's ... precisely the same ones that are in the BSD sockets compatibility header files. A header file does not a stack make.

      Are you really even interested in the truth though?
    • #3) That's as much due to OpenStep's ties with BSD and the BSD license than FreeBSD being better than Linux.

      #4) It's not theft when it's been given away.

  • Please Ask Yourself This (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Neovanglist ( 566939 ) on Sunday March 17, 2002 @01:17AM (#3175923)
    I have a question of this community. I remember back in the days when conversations would be carried out over BBS forums/newsgroups. What I remembered of those "old-school" programming/networking communities was a group of people who were always ready to help, and who were always ready to encourage someone in whatever they set out to do. I have a hard time understanding how this community turned into something as bitter and close-minded as what it is now. It seems that there are only a handful of people left out there that still have the original focus of what created this community.

    I do not understand how this bitter *BSD vs. *Linux war started. One side blames the other, and vice-versa. The result is a spiral toward a completely destroyed community. You may ask yourself "Well what is in being nice and helpful for me" the answer is, if this trend continues and expands itself onto others like it has as of recent, there will be no more community. That means that once again the computer world will be dominated by companies who are out for nothing but money, and as a direct result, you will suffer from it. Even with corporations like Sun Microsystems, who are big supporters of this community, if the community turns south, it will start to hurt them as well, resulting in them ceasing involvement with it.

    As much as you all say *BSD is dead, you do nothing but complain about how it is dead, and why nobody should focus on it any more. Wouldn't someone truly in the spirit of open-source do what they could, or contribute to *BSD in some way to help it? You must all see that the reason any OS will fail is because of a lack of support from a community. Even Windows would disappear off the face of the earth should no person want to use it or support it. I do not believe that *BSD is dead, but with respect to those who do, please answer my question. Why do you continue to say this without making a effot to help? The only reasons I can find is that it is either easier for you to just complain and do nothing, or you vent personal frustration on it thus making yourself feel better at the expense of others. Both are acceptable, but there are other answers that would benefit the community as a whole as well.

    This community greatly reminds me of a failed Communist government. It started with intentions to make everyone equal, and make everything available to everyone on the terms that some people would give to the community as well as take. But this proves that history repeats itself, even on a medium such as the Internet. It would seem to me that once again a Communist government has failed because of one thing. Money. Greed from corporation's, people's frustration from it, and a mixed, and cut-throat atmosphere have destroyed it. The people are becoming bitter, and taking harsh sides, (Note the way people acted during the Russian/Soviet revolutions, because the community activity matches up quite well with what we see here) and making bitter enemies.

    As much as it would seem, that all hope is lost, it is not. With cooperation of this community, and a re-focus of what we all try to stand for, we can rebuild it into something far greater, and something remarkable that can leave it's positive mark on the world for future generations to behold.

    Please, join me and join all of us who want to make this community great, and voice your thoughts on what this should become. Lets build toward a future, not destroy it. I am going to call this emotion of mine the "Open-source Manifesto" and hope that one day the world will share it for the good of not only the Internet, but the people that love it so.

    Regards,
    Chris Gilbert
    • This "war" has been going on for as long as the two have existed, and is carried over from the BSD vs. Sys V wars of the late 80's (that Sys V won when BSD-based SunOS, the last major commercial BSD release, was sunsetted and replaced with SysV-based Solaris). FreeBSD is, of course, BSD. Linux started out very Sys V'ish.

      There are a number of us who switch back and forth between the two based on what we feel like running at any given time. For example, I did the port of mtx [sourceforge.net] to FreeBSD myself, mostly by reading their scsictl source code.

      Lately I've been stymied in doing this by the resolute refusal of the FreeBSD and Reiser people to get along. The Reiser file system is the best filesystem for Linux right now -- it does away with that aweful inode limit for example (I need the ability to put 40,000,000 symlinks onto a single volume, no, that's not a typo, these symlinks are pointing off into a virtualized DVD jukebox). So some of my most important filesystems on my home server are now Reiser'ed. That basically means that it has become excruciatingly difficult to flip back and forth between the two. Other than going back to the pathologically broken ext2 filesystem (which is altogether too shaky for my preference), there's little I can do about that situation. Thus FreeBSD has faded from my horizons lately, even though I've been very frustrated by the Linux 2.4 kernel (well, up until 2.4.18, which so far actually appears to WORK RIGHT, a new thing for 2.4 series kernels!). The fact that my employer can't find any jukebox virtualization software for FreeBSD undoubtedly contributes to this too (we have found at least four different commercial jukebox virtualization packages for Linux).

      • I did not understand your last paragraph. It looks like you are comparing ext2 to Reiser. FreeBSD supports neither. You are comparing Linux to Linux. Are you saying the FreeBSD's UFS does not handle 40,000,000 symlinks on a single volume?

        OT: why in the world would you need 40,000,000 symlinks? I doubt you have that many songs on a DVD jukebox, so I cannot imagine the need. I am just curious.
    • I have a question of this community. I remember back in the days when conversations would be carried out over BBS forums/newsgroups.

      The first day I installed FreeBSD and had problems with the bootloader, I went over to #freebsd on efnet and asked for help. The guy who wrote the bootloader helped me out. Perl problems get answered with regularity on #perl. Both of those channels are fairly sick of newbies asking FAQ's, but that attitude was around in the old days too ... asking the gurus something that was beneath them was to beg for their forbearance with your ignorance.

      There's irc.openprojects.net, which is well-known for being a helpful place that even helps with FAQ's.

      Finally, you could do with toning down your lofty rhetoric, it's frankly over the top. The people you want to appeal to are smart folks who don't care for demagoguery and emotional manipulation. This is operating systems, not world peace.
    • The users fight each other all the time.

      But the people actually building stuff rarely if ever fight.

      Get a Debian and FreeBSD user locked in the same closet and blood will flow out under the door. Lock a Debian and FreeBSD developer in the same closet and you'll get a new feature.

  • Why? (Score:2, Funny)

    by PhoenixK7 ( 244984 )
    Seriously, why do you people waste so much energy flaming every time there's a post about BSD/MacOS/MacOSX/Be/etc. Why the heck do you care what someone else uses?! If it gets their job done, and they like it, whats the use posting unconstructive things like:

    "It sucks!! Why are you using it!!??"

    "Its dead/dying!!"

    etc..

    If you're going to whine and complain about someone elses OS, at least provide _VALID_ _TECHNICAL_ points.

  • BSD is DEAD? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sofawarrior ( 554910 ) on Sunday March 17, 2002 @06:49AM (#3176374)
    I guess the "BSD is DEAD" boneheads do not manage servers on the net.. Can you say STABLE.. SECURE, UPTIME? As for support? -- Rackspace offers FreeBSD on Dedicated servers with 24x7 Support.. Hmm I have never called them for support on my machines.. wonder why? Isn't Hotmail still "stuck" with BSD on the backend? I remember an article on the WALNUT CREEK ftp server, serving more ftp users daily (over a terrabyte of data) on a single Pentuim Pro than the entire MS FTP Farm (700 GB)... Hmm I recently remember having to change out 3 Linux boxes to FreeBSD because the Linux boxes choked on 160K mail messages per hour. Hmm have not recieved an alarm on the FreeBsd boxes in six months.. I wonder if my pager is broken?

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