FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE

Triumph The Insult C writes "FreeBSD 4.7 is out. Here is the announcement. New items include an option for IPFW2, a number of disk controller updates, security updates, and some changes to userland. Remember, please use a mirror." Among other things, the release announcement says: "FreeBSD 4.7 also incorporates all of the security and bug fixes from 4.6.2 (released in August 2002), including several ATA-related bugfixes, updates for OpenSSL and OpenSSH, and fixes to address several security advisories." And here are the release notes.

What is the relevance of FreeBSD today?

[pieterh]

Just a question, I'm not knocking FreeBSD.

But I'm seeing Linux coming up so fast... Is there a likelyhood of putting the best of FreeBSD into Linux and getting a single best-of-breed Free Unix distribution?

Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today?

[aridhol]

Depending on your viewpoint, one of my "major advantages" to the BSD system may be a disadvantage to you. And it wouldn't translate well to Linux.

If you get FreeBSD 4.7, it is exactly the same as anybody else's FreeBSD 4.7 in terms of included software. There's no RedHat FreeBSD, SuSE FreeBSD, Debian FreeBSD, etc. It's just FreeBSD.

Now if only they could get that NVidia driver [netexplorer.org] working, it would be perfect.

Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, there isn't much likelihood of that, because "best of breed" isn't a sensible goal. Different people want different things.

For example, some people want lots of developers adding lots of bleeding edge features. And some people want every line of code audited and tested for months. Conflicting goals.

Some people want a good UI. Some people want a Windows clone. Conflicting goals.

Some people want init scripts to be intuitive. Some people like System V.

What would your "best of breed" Unix be like? Whatever you come up with, someone is going to say, "That sucks worse than Linux and worse than FreeBSD." And then other people will agree with you.

It just doesn't make sense.

This is the funny part...

[big_groo]

'It is also reported that in some situations, Linux binaries perform better on FreeBSD than they do under Linux.'

BSD ?

[AresTheImpaler]

I want to try BSD... but have some questions before doing so. My computer has both win xp and linux. I am going to buy another hard disk to put freebsd. Can I boot bsd with grub? also... Can anyone please tell me why some people prefer bsd from linux? doesn't linux have more support? does unreal tournament run under bsd(I don't thinks so)? I'm a bsd newbie but been using linux for about 2 years. What differences would I find? thanks

The only problem...

[Sp4c3 C4d3t]

I love FreeBSD. I would run it in place of Linux... but my Audigy doesn't work. And I don't have accelerated nvidia drivers (though I did read something about those coming to FreeBSD?). But the nvidia issue isn't important... I need sound, and that's all there is to it... and I refuse to use those payware drivers that apparently don't support the digital out on the card.

gcc 3?

[Ashish Kulkarni]

just a curiosity...what is the reason that all the *BSDs are sticking to gcc2.95.x? I know that Linux has been using gcc3.2 for quite a bit of time now, and it can be considered somewhat stable.

Re:FreeBSD running behind linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to add some to this here are problems I have with FreeBSD:

- I want binaries (ports take too long to compile and cause too many problems on my slow ass computer). apt-get fits this nicely.

- No nVidia support. (I know it's coming, but damn, it's taking way to long; on Linux it just works)

- No (recent version) VMware support. This is simply unacceptable since I use VMware every day to get my job done.

Some questions I have and need to find more about:

- Does FreeBSD have framebuffer support? I like to use my server as a TV (fbtv) sometimes. I don't want or need X on it.

- I use my server as a VCR also so I need libraries like AVIFILE to work. Do these work on *BSD? (avifile uses Windows binaries on Linux by the way)

Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today?

[Enahs]

Much of the software that's available on the average Linux distribution is available on FreeBSD. Add to that a consistently stable VM (which certainly has a lot to do with overall stability) and the ability of FreeBSD to run Linux binaries(!) and I have to say I see no reason to take from FreeBSD to add to Linux.

FreeBSD rules!

[Petronius]

I started playing with it a week ago and now I'm thinking about abandonning RH for FreeBSD: so far, I've had nothing but good experiences with it:
- all the stuff I like (bash, Python, Java, PostGres, webmin) is there
- KDE is fast, very fast!
- boot time is amazingly fast
- the Ports system is *amazing*
what's not to like about it?

Re:Why people keep saying BSD is dead?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't understand why those people like to keep doing those "BSD is dead" post in every single freaking BSD related news.

I think it's payback.

Look here [google.com] In case you haven't noticed, while the FreeBSD crowd loves to denounce Linux, they are in fact obsessed with it. Why are they talking so much about Linux,and not AtheOS or NetBSD?

If doubt it's potential, consider how some FreeBSD users used to brag about their TCP/IP stack.. Where's the difference now? The same is happening with the VM, as well as any other areas of the kernel (such as latency.)

As time goes by, people will have less things to brag about with regards.

Remember, Every OS shines in different area. Linux is NOT the ultimate solution for every single task. (gaming and critical mission app comes into mind)

Right. Would you happen to be Alan Cox by any chance? Linus himself? They are the type of people who will decide that, not you. With each release of the kernel, it gets much better, and eventually it's going to reach a peak much higher than any other kernel. Of course, this happens to be my personal opinion, but I'm baseing it on what I have seen in the past. It is just fine for serving, as well as playing games (and I anticipate after 2.5 is out it will be an even better gaming kernel due to lower latency.)

Enjoy the slight advantage while it's here. Soon the only advantage you will have to speak of will be the licensing scheme, but in time even that will be a non-issue as well.

Re:Excellent Idea!

[jazman_777]

Seriously though, people like FreeBSD for different reasons than people like Linux. They've been hashed out over and over again, so I won't beat that dead horse, but I will note that I've never met anybody who after using FreeBSD, didn't migrate away from Linux.

I had heard about OpenBSD, and how it was constantly audited for security. So I checked it out, and looked at how to set up firewalling + NAT. Looked pretty easy (documented, with a good working example), and I had it working easily. Maybe now I just think I'm smarter than I really am. Now, when I go look at Linux iptables, it makes my head spin (it just _looks_ a lot harder than OpenBSD's pf). For crying out loud, RedHat "starts" both ipchains _and_ iptables. That's a distro problem, true.

And I like the minimalist install of OpenBSD, and you add only what you need through ports, which is way easier than filtering though a list of 5000 packages, trying to figure out, "do I really need libZonk and libZonk-devel, what is it for?"