FreeBSD 4.7-RELEASE 414
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.
upgrade (Score:4, Funny)
Re:upgrade (Score:3, Funny)
pallidium and drm support? (Score:2, Funny)
What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:4, Interesting)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, linux because of it's size and diversity will never have the core development group, and central design that the BSD's have.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:3, Informative)
Wasting bandwidth? How do you figure? I imagine that downloading text diffs (cvs) to keep your soruce tree in line is quite a bit less impressive that downloading large binary packages for every update?
You have SOMEWHAT of a point with space, but otoh I don't know too many servers anymore that don't have 1GB to spare (for source and compiling--and that is more than needed!)
Overall even given your valid points, I prefer compiling updates--I can tweak options, only compile what is need, compiler optimizations, etc.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:4, Funny)
Nice idea, in other words, but perhaps not something modern medicine is up to just yet.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:4, Funny)
Blasphemy. This outrage will not go unanswered. Have you no concept of balance, symmetry, proportion, applied aesthetics, and physical/spiritual curvature??
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2, Funny)
The dark side of the force is strong in this one. Much anger that we can use to turn him...
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah! Imagine if some wackos came out with other versions of BSD, they might name them openBSD, NetBSD, NotLinuxBSD, OS X, etc.
Good thing there's just one BSD. Imagine if they followed Linux's bad example!
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2)
actually, since you mention it (Score:5, Informative)
Their kernels differ (often substantially), their filesystem layouts and utilities (to some degree) differ, their packaging systems differ, etc. There is cross pollination, and it's easier to adapt kernel features among the BSDs than between BSD and other *nix type operating systems, but they are not the same Beastie.
And while we're on the topic, OsX is not really a BSD operating system; it's a Mach microkernel with a BSD layer on top that provides some utiltiy functionality. It's not substantially BSDish.
Re:Not Slackware, pardner! (Score:2)
Re:Not Slackware, pardner! (Score:2)
cd
ln -sf
Why would I need a text editor?
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:5, Informative)
Um. Actually there *is* Debian/FreeBSD. You can find more details here: http://www.debian.org/ports/freebsd/
That said, I do agree with your original point.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2)
http://www.debian.org/ports/netbsd/ [debian.org]
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's kind of funny. The nvidia driver works fine under x86 Linux. What it really comes down to is you can have 15,000 different Linux distributions but they're all basically the same when it comes to kernel, libraries, X distribution, etc. So, getting the Nvidia driver to work under Debian is just as easy as getting it working under Red Hat or Mandrake. FreeBSD on the other hand seems to be a stable solid target with a well supported standard configuration base yet it has much less driver support available for it. Why is that? Less users spurring development I suppose.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2)
Last time I checked there was OpenBSD, NetBSD, BSDI, BSDOS, Firewall BSD, Darwin, emBSD, Debian BSD, Closed BSD, Micro BSD, PicoBSD, etc...
Also, there is only 1 Linux. You can download it at www.kernel.org, Linux is only a kernel. (GCC sold separately)
-
this sig for sale
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2)
If you want to say "there's a bunch of BSDs" then I could say "there are a bunch of SysVs [including Linux]" and then on top of that I could say there are a lot of Linux distributions.
The moral of the story is if you are based on or modeled after a Unix, you are in a large family. Period. There's more than one of you.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:3, Informative)
though it has borrowed some concepts from System V.
There is a formal definition of what is and is not
a System V unix. Last I checked it was called the
SVID (System V Interface Definition), but that may
have changed by now.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2)
This means, for example, that while a driver written under RedHat Linux will probably work with any other Linux, a driver written under FreeBSD will probably not work with the other BSDs.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:5, Insightful)
And why stop now? Merge Mozilla/Konqueror/Opera to create the "Super-Duper-Magical Internet & File browser(tm)" too!
Damn, I think we have a winner in that product! Maybe we should call it Windows XP?
Really, I often read on
I don't want a "single best-of-breed Free Unix distribution" just because such a thing isn't possible. So instead of having only one distribution "to bind them all", I prefer having the choice between a lot of good and different ones.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:5, Informative)
The advantages of FreeBSD over Linux is:
Yes, linux is nice
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2, Informative)
the entire source heirarchy, if need be
Check out SourceMage [sourcemage.org]. This is a linux distro that, with a little work, is always the most up to date Linux distro Ever. You get the source from many different locations, and it's the latest stable version. It also has a nifty theme to it, Magic. You "cast"(install) "spells"(programs) and it downloads the source and compiles and installs it, and creates logs of all that happens. You can "dispel"(uninstall) it. you can "gaze" into the "grimoire"(list of spells). Even if you only get it because you can cast xfree86 or cast linux itself, its fun!
ok made my monthly advertising requirement... :P
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2, Funny)
Look, I know we're talking about compiling kernels and whatnot, so none of us is exactly the most popular kid in school, if you know what I mean. But this is just embarrassing. I mean, there's such a thing as taking role playing games too far, you know?
This is incredibly geeky, even by my standards.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. I have several custom ISO's I made for myself for easy deployment of boxes. They all cvsup after install, and then install a ream of ports suited to the purpose of the machine. Like a webserver, database server etc. Complete with a scripted sysinstall! It's very easy to do. "make release" is my bitch :)
Boot from the CD, partition/label, go have coffee and return to a machine ready to deploy. I love it.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2)
I remember reading that OpenBSD group wants an audit of the ports tree due to 40% of the ports being broken. Source based packages can have major problems.
BTW, give GPL some freaking credit, it spawned the opensource movement and created many programmers and hobbiests that release some of the best software, FOR FREE. How many of the ports have a GPL or GPL like license? 60-70%?
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Revisionist history indeed. BSD (in the form of Unix patchkits) were available as "open source" when Linus was still in diapers.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2)
WTF does Linus have to do with this? The claim was that the GPL spawned the open-source/free-software movement. RMS started writing GNU under the GPL in 1984. BSD wasn't freely redistributable until Networking Release 1 in 1989. [oreilly.com]
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:4, Funny)
How does that differ from a single 'make bzImage' in Linux?
If you have to ask, you have obviously missed the point. "make buildworld" will compile userland. You know, all the stuff in
Whereas a "make bzImage" will compile a kernel. Whoop. This is "make buildkernel" in FreeBSD.
[troll]The Linux equivalent of "make buildworld" is "make my mummy buy me a new distro CD"[/troll]
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2)
I guess I'll stick to apt-get (under Conectiva, of course, in order to get rid of Debian's "GNU/*" syndrome...)
Excellent Idea! (Score:2)
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.
Go ahead, try it for a bit. Long enough to know how to update your sources by typing 'cd /usr/src && make update' and how to all of X, and kde by typing 'cd /usr/ports/x11/kde && make install'. Or if you don't like the flexibility of compiling things yourself, 'pkg_add -r xmms', and watch it install everything you need, painlessly.
I guarantee you'll switch!*
* not a guarantee
Re:Excellent Idea! (Score:2, Interesting)
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?"
Good Article on BSD (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,5561
Mark
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2, Informative)
FreeBSD has had better device support for certain types of devices (scsi controllers, usb equipment, etc) than Linux -- again, initially. The larger Linux userbase has made it so that now more devices work with Linux than they do with FreeBSD. It's simply a matter of scale -- more users, more device support. My webcam works with Linux and Windows, but doesn't work with FreeBSD (it doesn't have an equivalent project to V4L).
In terms of software, Linux can get really annoying. I mean, its proponents claim it's similar enought to Unix to replace Unix systems
(corp db servers, etc). However, you run into a lot of Linux apps that either use Linux-specific system calls or are a pain to compile on other platforms. A lot of people appear to code to Linuxisms, and don't care or don't test on other systems (like Solaris, FreeBSD, etc). Even stuff as simple as using #!/bin/bash in shell scripts and using bash syntax makes it hard to run stuff on (say) my AIX boxes at work. Annoyingly enough, I've even run into people who won't accept my patches to get stuff running on FreeBSD (a total of 10-20 lines in > 5k LOC code!) because they can't be bothered to try it out ("all our developers use Linux"). In general, apps written by people who use FreeBSD are more adaptable.
I usually set up Linux servers (using RedHat or Debian) and end up turning stuff off after the installation. With FreeBSD, I get pretty much all the same apps (ssh, samba, etc), but they're disabled by default. This is an important issue when you consider the number of named/apache/etc worms out there (and more are on the way). In that sense, FreeBSD's more security-friendly than many Linux distributions.
Some places have successfully used hundreds of FreeBSD boxes as web farms; I hope someone working at Yahoo or Hotmail posts explaining why they didn't use Linux. (Yes, I know Google uses Linux).
Faried.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2, Funny)
Unfortunately not. (Score:2)
For instance:
1) Softupdates (and dirhash, etc)
This is REALLY GOOD stuff. I'd say in most cases it performs better than journalling file systems.
2) IPFW or IPfilter.
I've looked at netfilter, it is an improvement over ipchains which was crap. Just an improvement tho, not great. I still prefer IPFW/IPfilter from the usage side - the rule construction seems cleaner.
These are the two major advantages of FreeBSD for me.
The FreeBSD VM is pretty good too (but I heard the Linux VM should hopefully be getting better).
The other stuff is nice, but I believe you can get similar stuff in the Linux world.
The make world stuff? Is nice, but for live server upgrades it's nicer to download a bunch of RPMs, check sigs, distribute to all servers, and then install, and reboot in 30 seconds if necessary.
Sure you can synchronize and compile on a "compile server" and then copy stuff over, but in that case it starts looking very like RPMs now eh?
And so far the FreeBSD team seems more concerned about stability. That said, for Linux, its the distros which do the stability testing, so in practice stability/flakiness isn't a prob if you go with a more stability oriented Linux distro.
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sigh .... (Score:3, Informative)
FreeBSD code cannot be "stolen"
Completely untrue... Taking the code and not adhering to the license is stealing. This is what happened when FreeBSD code made it into the linux ATA driver and the copyright was dropped from the source code.
Dinivin
Re:What is the relevance of FreeBSD today? (Score:4, Insightful)
My personal favorite addition... (Score:5, Funny)
Doesn't that just sound like a happy command?
Re:My personal favorite addition... (Score:2)
Mirrors (Score:5, Informative)
Heh jsut in time :) (Score:3, Insightful)
No, dont ask me why they were selling BSD (quite heavily actually) along side Linux on most stalls.
Oh, and a note to KDE and Gnome teams, having blank stalls with two spotty kids sitting at laptops, with no promotional items or banners or posters really isnt a good way to promote your product guys. (And believe it or not, they were sat next to each other, AND NOT FIGHTING
Re:Heh jsut in time :) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Heh jsut in time :) (Score:3, Informative)
It's far better to track the latest release. Setting the tag to "RELENG_4_7_0" would allow you to grab the exact sources used to build the 4.7 cd, AND any security updates as they come out.
Stable is fine, for home users, but some of the patches MFC'd aren't quite as stable as they should be for production equipment.
Re:Heh jsut in time :) (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Heh jsut in time :) (Score:2)
He wanted security fixes too, which are on RELENG_X_Y. RELENG_X_Y_0_RELEASE is static.
Re:Heh jsut in time :) (Score:2)
Oh and just so you know, i use openBSD extensivly so i know what im talking about and not just mumbling
no java? who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
No native JDK 1.4.
It's on linux, windows and solaris. The announcment of the license thingy with Sun came out 12/01 and I haven't heard anything yet.
Re:no java? who cares (Score:2)
Ridiculous claim since Linux binaries are supported at the kernel level.
Re:no java? who cares (Score:3, Informative)
Still no CARDBUS support yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the only thing keeping me from running it on my laptop.
Re:Still no CARDBUS support yet? (Score:5, Informative)
CURRENT is going to rock when it goes STABLE.
Re:Still no CARDBUS support yet? (Score:2)
Of course, pretty much all you could use at the 4.0 point was 3Com network cards, but now most NICs work, SCSI cards work, I even have a SD adapter card working on FreeBSD 4.6-STABLE that worked on the first try without any tweaking.
Suspend works fine, too. So I don't see any reason to not use FreeBSD on a notebook.
No thanks (Score:5, Funny)
BSD ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:BSD ? (Score:2, Informative)
I have a dual-boot system with FreeBSD -current and Debian Sarge; I have to use grub because my Sarge installation is on XFS.
Re:BSD ? (Score:2)
Reasons to try: ports system, easy way to upgrade every part of the core system (make world), everything being in the One True Location (/usr/local, of course...let the flames begin! :-). For some reason I find getting the login prompt back when I've typed in the wrong password *much* faster in FreeBSD compared to Linux. Weird.
Just about all your fave. programs should be around in ports, so I don't think you'll miss too much. Oh, one weird thing I found: can't do...oh crap...what's the term for s00per-high resolution in text...framebuffer...arghh! Stupid head...anyway, can't do in in FreeBSD w/my graphic (don't ask me which one; as you can see, I'm no graphics geek), but it works just fine in Linux. I checked around at the time, and there was talk of source code hacks you could do to enable it, but I couldn't get it to work.
Give it a try; one more OS shouldn't scare you at this point...:-) Oh, and check out www.freebsddiary.org [freebsddiary.org] for tips.
Re:BSD ? (Score:2)
I'm ASTONISHED that nobody has answered this yet.
BSDs get diehard fans for several reasons... For one thing, BSD init/rc scripts are SO much simler than SysV. In OpenBSD, 99% of the configuration of the whole system is done in a single rc.conf file, where you simly change a YES to a NO, or vise versa.
The system is much more elegant & simple, has PnP, every kernel module ALWAYS works, programs don't conflict with each other, the filesystem is better, the security is better, the system is more stable, and on and on I could go. It's easier to just use it, than to write a book about why people like it...
Your reason for not using BSD are the same reasons for not using Linux.
Doesn't Windows have more support? Do Sim City, Black & White, and other Windows games run under Linux(I don't think so)?
The only problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
gcc 3? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:gcc 3? (Score:2)
There was a fairly long thread on the gcc devel mailing list about how gcc3.2 ICE's on a number of applications in the FreeBSD ports tree.
Frankly, FreeBSD doesn't want a "somewhat stable" compiler. They want one that actually functions like it's supposed to
Dinivin
Re:gcc 3? (Score:4, Informative)
ahze@ahze(~) gcc --version
gcc (GCC) 3.2.1 [FreeBSD] 20020901 (prerelease)
ahze@ahze(~) uname -v
FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT #34: Sun Sep 22 20:30:11 EDT 2002
Re:gcc 3? (Score:3, Informative)
This keeps cvs deltas down as imports are much more rare (hence making updates smaller) and helps keep only well tested and well known code in base.
Somewhat (Score:5, Funny)
"Sir -- I got your daughter somewhat pregnant."
I think you should reconsider your definition of "stable" somewhat.
FreeBSD CURRENT (Score:2)
The only Unix I run on my PC right now is FreeBSD CURRENT which is only for the uber-geek or the person who doesn't care when stuff dies
Re:gcc 3? (Score:3, Informative)
How many -release- Linux distros can you name that were using gcc-3.2 even thirty days ago?
Face it, gcc-3.2 has not been around "for quite a bit of time now". It is in their -current (unstable) branches, and if you wish to live on the cutting edge, feel free to use them. But two months is nowhere near the amount of time required to properly test the inclusion of a new compiler in a system with a reputation for stability.
Me hopes for support for my controller (Score:3, Informative)
hmm:
The pst driver, [freebsd.org] for supporting Promise SuperTrak ATA RAID controllers, has been added.
Sweet. There is hope, thank you Søren Schmidt.
And ftp.freebsd.org is hosted by a local ISP, as well as the local mirror. Ah, I will have the disc in 40 minutes. yes.. Now if only I haven't drunk that bottle of wine for dinner, oh well. just makes installing that more fun.
FreeBSD rules! (Score:5, Interesting)
- 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:FreeBSD rules! (Score:3, Informative)
I started using FreeBSD a few days ago myself. I've used Linux for several years previously.
The thing that amazed me most about FreeBSD was the speed and response time of the networking. FTP and Samba are near instantaneous in response time on my local network. I have all my mp3s and oggs on there and I play them in Winamp across the network. Previously it would take 5-7 seconds to start an mp3 up, but now since I switched to FreeBSD the startup time is 1-2 seconds.
I don't know about other OS's but I installed my FreeBSD satrting off with just two floppies, now that is cool! Two hours later I had a complete system and never burned the first CD.
Re:FreeBSD rules! (Score:3, Insightful)
If I absolutely had to use Linux as my main system, I would probably use Gentoo. No doubt about it. But the mere word "linux" is not enough to make me switch back. FreeBSD does what I want it to do and does it well. It's not about being 1337, it's about using the system I want to use.
p.s. I bet both FreeBSD *and* Gentoo users are wondering what all those complaints of sluggish KDE coming from Redhat, Mandrake and Debian users are about...
Re:FreeBSD does NOT rule (Score:2)
XFree86 - MIT License
Apache - Apache License
Perl - Artistic/GPL
Linux - GPL with exception
Mozilla - MPL/NPL
Re:FreeBSD does NOT rule (Score:2)
The GPL part of the dual licensing is typically there just to ensure GPL compatibility. Otherwise the license ends up being least common denominator. This makes a huge difference from the standard GPL. Artistic License + GPL removes all copyleft. MPL + GPL removes the need for GPL linkage chains. Etc.
Even in the trivial case of Linux with a GPL exception, you now have the ability to make standard kernel calls from non-GPL applications. This is not something intended by the GPL.
Best Feature of FreeBSD... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:freeBSD update schedule (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But the real question is... (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/book
Isn't it great when you're trying to be a smart ass, but there's actually a serious answer?
This is the funny part... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is the funny part... (Score:5, Insightful)
But really who cares? Pick an OS... and just use it. I don't see FreeBSD in competition with Linux anymore or vice versa. There are pretty clearly different communities of users with different values. This leads to different kernels and different levels of documentation and standards and practices. Wow, that's pretty general but I think its also common sense.
USE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU AND KEEP YOUR RELIGION TO YOURSELF
Re:Why run *BSD (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Er, no. (Score:2, Informative)
pkg_add -r pkg
No need to determine URL's yourself. portupgrade is also good for this sort of thing.
Re:Why run *BSD (Score:2)
Re:FreeBSD running behind linux? (Score:5, Informative)
How do you measure "stability"? (Score:2)
Re:FreeBSD running behind linux? (Score:2, Informative)
FreeBSD's concept of 'stable' it about 10 times more stable than that of most code in various linuxes. That is a conscious, conservative choice made by the core team. And I like that choice.
Re:still no native java for freebsd (Score:2)
Uh, yes there is... I built it from ports just the other day.
Dinivin
Re:Upgrading? (Score:2, Informative)
Under the Options selection, change the
Release Name: to the appropriate version you want to install.
Then, perform an 'Upgrade' from the main manu.
This will do a binary replacement upgrade.
If you did a custom kernel, it will NOT install the new sources, so before you do this, copy your kernel config file somewhere else and nuke the src directory, or learn about cvsup.
Re:Upgrading? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859
Compile your source and kernel:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859
Re:Upgrading? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:High UID support???? (Score:2, Informative)
FreeBSD had 32bit UIDs quite a while before Linux did.
Please refrain from discussing that which you obviously know nothing about.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Informative)
Steps:
- cvsup the latest -stable sources
- cd
- mergemaster -p (to merge
- make buildworld && make buildkernel KERNCONF=mykernel
- make installkernel KERNCONF=mykernel && make installworld
- mergemaster (to merge
- reboot
I've done this process for years. On the system I'm composing this message, I've done this irregularly for over two years, and hav gone from FreeBSD 3.3 to (now running) the 4.7 release candidate.
If you don't want to wait for 4.7's ISO images, just install 4.6.2 and do the update. It's described pretty well in the handbook.
Re:Ehem... (Score:2, Insightful)
The Unix philosophy is to have many small tools. So, while you could already do yes n | cp, why now add an '-n' option to do the same?
PS: the moderator could at least give some classification...
Re:Why people keep saying BSD is dead? (Score:2, Informative)
Do you really want to use that as your reason for posting a defense of BSD?
In any case, I've heard *BSD is dying <g>
Re:Why people keep saying BSD is dead? (Score:2, Informative)
-Matt
Re:openbsd pre-order is out (Score:2)
Re:Is installation getting easier or better doc'ed (Score:2)
The FreeBSD handbook [freebsd.org] is an excellent guide to all aspects of installing, configuring, and using a FreeBSD system. The allocating disk space [freebsd.org] section contains well written instructions (with pictures) that explain how disk partitions work on FreeBSD, and how to create them.
On my system, I use the GNU GRUB [gnu.org] boot loader (used as the default boot loader in many Linux distributions), and it seems quite able to boot partitions over the infamous 1024 (cylinder?) limit. The GRUB manual suggests this configuration [gnu.org] for booting FreeBSD. If you use GRUB, select the "Leave the Master Boot Record" option when you install FreeBSD.
Note that on an Intel 386-compatible system, you'll need a spare primary partition to install FreeBSD. Perhaps you don't have one, as there are only four, and each DOS or Windows install will want one, and one will be used to create the extended partition your Linux distribution is likely to install itself in. It might be easier to buy another hard disk drive.