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Operating Systems Software BSD

FreeBSD 5.4 Review 120

Posted by timothy from the freebers-creepers dept.
gammelgul writes "Jem Matzan has written a review of the new FreeBSD 5.4 release on NewsForge. He writes about enhancements and the 64bit edition of the OS."
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FreeBSD 5.4 Review More

FreeBSD 5.4 Review

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  • 5.4 Dedication (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11, 2005 @03:46PM (#12790279)
    The FreeBSD 5.4 Release is dedicated to the memory of Cameron Grant [dbsi.org]. Cameron was an active FreeBSD Developer and principal architect of the sound driver subsystem despite his physical handicap. His is a superb example of human spirit dominating over adversity. Cameron was an inspiration to those who met him; he will be fondly remembered and sorely missed.

    http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.4R/announce.html [freebsd.org]

  • Boring (Score:5, Informative)

    by debilo ( 612116 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @03:48PM (#12790285)
    This is a rather shallow review and has been discussed over at OSNews [osnews.com]. Just read the comments and you'll finde you don't need to read the actual review.

    Someone mentioned a better review here [ofb.biz]. Enjoy!

    • Re:Boring (Score:3, Informative)

      by wk633 ( 442820 )
      Also discussed on the freebsd-advocacy mailing list.
      ahref=http://docs.freebsd.org/mail/archive/2005/fr eebsd-advocacy/20050605.freebsd-advocacy.html/ [slashdot.org]http ://docs.freebsd.org/mail/archive/2005/freebsd-advo cacy/20050605.freebsd-advocacy.html/>

      look for "Negative Review of FreeBSD 5.4"

    • Re:Boring (Score:3, Interesting)

      by molnarcs ( 675885 )
      I can't believe this is posted. Here is why. [osnews.com]

      On a sidenote: I just finished compiling openoffice1.9m107 a few days ago (now that the port is updated to m109, I'm there compiling again) - with KDE support. Running it under KDE with native widget support is simply amazing speedwise. Startup times don't change much, however, opening various dialogues (options for instance), the help, etc. is instantaneous - just like konqi when preloaded. Not that it was very slow before, but still, once oo starts up, it is l

    • Re:Boring (Score:5, Informative)

      by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @07:21PM (#12791476) Homepage Journal
      Is there a way we can turn off reviews coming from OSNews in our preferences? Please?

      I'm getting sick and tired of reviews that in no way reflect the experiences I have with the very same product. This guy has weird bleeding edge hardware, and then tells us it's not ready for me with my mainstream hardware. FreeBSD WORKS on with my CPU. FreeBSD WORKS with my NIC. FreeBSD WORKS with my harddrives.

      I don't expect operating systems to be perfect and support every piece of hardware ever built, but I do expect reviewers to base their evaluations on hardware that ordinary people out in the real world are using.
      • I'm an ordinary person who'd like to be able to run FreeBSD 5.4 on my Sun Java Workstation W2100z, but guess what, I can't due to the same issues as described in this review.

        The net result, losing another potential FreeBSD user/developer.
    • It's even less informative than their 5.3 review.

  • That FreeBSD 5.4 (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It certainly is 0.1 more than FreeBSD 5.3

  • Review Formula (Score:5, Funny)

    by CableModemSniper ( 556285 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .odlapacnagol.> on Saturday June 11, 2005 @03:51PM (#12790304) Homepage Journal
    Here is the formula for the review of incemental updates to Unix-alike OSes.

    1) Describe the OS, being sure to mention its Unix origins. If the OS is not Linux-based, mention Linux.

    2) Comment on the weird piece of hardware by brand name in your box that made it crash

    3) List the new and improved features in the kernel and the daemons. (Note: security patches are feautures too)

    4) Base everything else on how easy it was to install.

    • Re:Review Formula (Score:2, Informative)

      by debilo ( 612116 )
      True. I don't know why such absolutely non-informative reviews get submitted in the first place, when there are much better sources of information and reviews. In a post above, I mentioned this [ofb.biz]one, which I enjoyed a lot.
    • Then again, for a release that is basically minor enhancements like security patches, updates of contributed software, and more work on SMP/thread safe drivers and other kernel subsystems ... what else can you say?

      I think untill 6.0 (and possibly even of 6.0; since it's basically focussed on VFS scalability and not new features) you'll keep having such reviews. In the now stable 5.x series they won't roll out big new features.

      There aren't big exciting reviews about every 2.6.x release of linux too, th

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @04:03PM (#12790361)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • 5.4 amd64 is seriously broken thread-wise (Score:4, Informative)

    by asserted ( 818761 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @04:04PM (#12790365)
    the box couldn't run Apache 2.0 (worker MPM) compiled with libpthread for a single day without a panic!
    at some point apache child starts boimbarding kernel with syscalls (500k syscalls/second), soon, if left unattended, the box panics.
    had to get back to i386 for stability.

    this is all on common hardware - Intel (EM64T) Xeons, Pro/1000 (em) network. and mind you, we still use SCHED_4BSD.

    conclusion? 5.x is by NO means -STABLE on amd64 yet.
    • I've been reading the freebsd mailing lists, and as far as I know there are still lot of "small issues" left in 5.x...the 5.x branch has been quite painful for the freebsd people, and that's why 5.4 took so long, and why 5.4 still has issues, like stability in some places but specially from the performance POV (like the threading subsystem, the freebsd guys would rather release a slow kernel than trying to speeding up and unstabilize everything so they released 5.4 despite of having some patches to speed up

    • Re:5.4 amd64 is seriously broken thread-wise (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11, 2005 @04:41PM (#12790572)
      I can tell you that I'm running FreeBSD-amd64 since 5.2 and it IS stable on this platform.

      Perhaps Apache 2.0 is not as clean as one might think? That's why I'm still using Apache 1.x.

    • Could you please reference some sources for these problems?

      I run half a dozen AMD64 boxes and I've had minimal problems running the following threaded APPS:

      apache-worker-2.0.54
      perl-threaded-5.8.6_2 (Just disable the port warning)
      php5-5.0.4_2

      Along with all perl modules compiled with thread support.

      I've seen no stability issues.

      I find it interesting that you mention using the AMD64 FreeBSD, yet say you're running it on EM64T. I was not aware that EM64T is actually considered to be an equivalent implemen
      • yes, technically EM64T is the equivalent of x86-64.
        it might not be as microarchitecturally efficient, but it is 100% compatible (as far as i know).

        hm... what you mean by referencing sources?
        i had the behavior i described (syscalls burst then panic) repeatedly, which was corrected by rebuilding-reinstalling the i386 world and kernel.
        no problems since then.

        Apache (2.0.54) wasn't even doing any heavy-duty php/perl, just static content, SSI and some proxying.
        alongside apache there's a lightweight httpd servin
        • yes, technically EM64T is the equivalent of x86-64.
          it might not be as microarchitecturally efficient, but it is 100% compatible (as far as i know).

          There are small differences. The ubuntu apt repository gives me the option of installing an amd64-generic kernel, an amd64-k8 kernel and an amd64-xeon kernel.

  • Complaints about stability have plagued 5.x (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pschmied ( 5648 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @04:38PM (#12790552) Homepage
    Speaking as a former FreeBSD user, I want this operating system to work again. I was disappointed to find that that didn't happen with 5.4-RELEASE. If you have FreeBSD 4.11 production machines and are thinking of upgrading, I suggest you leave them as they are for now.


    This is sad. I too remember fondly the 4.x days. FreeBSD hasn't made the transition to these "enterprise" features like the ULE scheduler, and getting out from under the "big lock" SMP.

    The 4.x series is still alive and well, but the writing is on the wall. If the FreeBSD 5.x series doesn't start fixing some of those show-stoppers, it risks becoming irrelevant.

    NetBSD and OpenBSD seem to have found their niche to a certain extent. I suspect that some network equipment vendor like HP will start putting OpenBSD in switches and routers. It seems like Cisco and IOS have the most to lose from OpenBSD gaining ground.

    NetBSD seems to chug away at its own pace making solid incremental gains. They tend toward evolutionary rather than revolutionary changes. When they do make more revolutionary changes, they tend to include them in small numbers, and only after a long period of vetting in the current branch.

    The laundry list of improvements to FreeBSD 5.x makes me wonder if that project didn't bite off more than it could chew. That the BSD faithful are starting to raise questions about the long road to stability with FreeBSD 5.x should be a warning to other Open Source projects to stick to regular release cycles with clearly defined and narrowly scoped improvements.

    I suspect that FreeBSD development may have slowed somewhat due to the "fun factor" waning. Announcing Big Gigantic Changes can be good to generate enthusiasm in a user base, but it can be oppressive to the poor developers caught doing the work. Lots of small, discrete tasks can be fun for experienced developers, and a good way to snag novices.

    Despite these problems, FreeBSD has very recently been a very vibrant project. They have traditionally had a level of coordination rarely seen in any other Open Source project. I think this can work, but FreeBSD 5.x may fall into the "lessons learned" category.

    Or, as I mention in my blog [thoughtspot.net], Darwin may see a surge in popularity following Apple's Intel announcement.
    -Peter
  • I find the following comments from the article to be not accurate: I was disappointed to find that Linux binary compatibility was still 64-bit only for 64-bit FreeBSD. That means no 32-bit Linux binaries.
    Here's what you need to do:

    1. reference /usr/src/tools/lib32 which will tell you to:
      1. add "WITH_LIB32= yes #This makes buildworld compile lib32 linux code support" to /etc/make.conf
      2. buildworld/installworkd in /usr/src
    2. be sure the following options are in your kernel config:
      options COMPAT_43 # Compatible with BSD 4.3 [KEEP THIS!]
      options COMPAT_IA32 # Compatible with i386 binaries
      options COMPAT_FREEBSD4 # Compatible with FreeBSD4
      options COMPAT_LINUX32 # Compatible with i386 linux binaries
      # Linux 32-bit ABI support
      options LINPROCFS # Cannot be a module yet.
    3. Recompile kernel, install kernel, reboot.
    4. Certain programs may require you add:
      linprocfs /usr/compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw 0 0
      to /etc/fstab
  • Although ULE may be 'more' fixed in FreeBSD 5.4, I still find it to be very unstable. I'm unable to have a system booted for more than a few minutes before it kernel panics. (I'm also ironically unable to recompile a GENERIC kernel all the way through).

    I was very excited to try the ULE Scheduler for FreeBSD after having read the excellent article: ULE: A Modern Scheduler for FreeBSD [chesapeake.net].

    I eagerly await the next version of FreeBSD, in hopes that ULE is mature enough to take advantage of the performances in
    • ULE works for me just fine. What's your setup? Because as far as I know, stability issues come up in smp environments with ULE. On single processors it should work - and it works very nicely: desktop interactivity remains top notch when using ULE even while doing CPU intensive tasks (like I do right now, compiling oo.o-2) - meaning smooth playback of movies with mplayer and all. See my kernel config here [unideb.hu].
      • Yes, it was on an SMP box actually -- I'll have to give it a try on a non-SMP.

        I'll also follow the below comment and try -CURRENT and see if the SMP ULE situation has improved.
    • People often forget that 4BSD has gotten several of the features that ULE has during the last two releases of 5.x. The advantage of 4BSD is obvious when you consider people who manually enable HTT, or buy dual core cpus. In my case, my system must run under 4BSD because of the SMP issues.

  • FreeBSD is always dead on /. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11, 2005 @05:03PM (#12790698)
    Does anyone who actually has a service provider/network engineering job even care about these fbsd is dead/dying lines of thought anymore? FreeBSD has been quietly running a good chunk of the net for years. If your idea of a solid OS is something to run whatever the latest eye-candy is on your desktop then good for you, go compile Gentoo until you turn blue. For me, and a lot of folks like me, if I can run a web server that never fails, a DNS farm that never fails, mail servers that never fail, etc, etc then I could care less if my iPod doesn't automount or whatever other new technology isn't supported.
    • I agree..I have 3 boxes running 5.4 and it's absolutely stable. As far as I can tell nothing's broken at all. The only reboots I have had are intentional. I have them all configured as web servers, servers, and routers (only using one at a time)and file servers. I have a couple of Slackware boxes and they all are neck and neck. I like the FBSD better as a DSL router because of PF and kernel ppp support.
      • I like the FBSD better as a DSL router because of PF and kernel ppp support.

        I'm curious why people would use FreeBSD as a router with PF? Why not OpenBSD? OpenBSD now also has pppoe in kernel, BTW.

        On a related note, I found recently that my Netgear DG632 ADSL MODEM/router would perform flawless half-bridge mode when in MODEM mode. This allows me to use PPPoA with an MTU of 1500 and still have my OpenBSD firewall see my external IP and all traffic directed to it. Allowing me to avoid PPPoE and avoid MTU i
    • I'm not a server operator, i'm more of a web developer. I have tried to get FreeBSD5.4+Apache1.3+Mysql+PHP4 running on at home, an old 'test-server' and it's a bit hard to get it 100% right (it now only lacks session suport). I suppose this is the job of the IT admin, but FreeBSD lags a bit behind Windows in the 'it-just-works department' IMHO.

  • Jem Matzan (Score:5, Insightful)

    by essdodson ( 466448 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @05:51PM (#12790947) Homepage
    Everyone pleae stop reading reviews done by this guy. They're uninformative, biased, and it's blatently obvious he's unwilling to actually learn FreeBSD beyond installing it two or three times each new release and writing a review catering to the already pre-established opinions of Linux users.
  • The author has managed to prove that FreeBSD is not suitable for beginning desktop users who have no interest in reading the documentation. I wasn't aware that they were a target market.

  • What's the point in FreeBSD? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is not a troll, I'm not an Unix guru and I just wonder.

    NetBSD is about portability. Okay.
    OpenBSD is about security. Okay.
    What is FreeBSD about?

    It looks like FreeBSD just tries to follow Linux, ie. make something that tries to do a bit everything without any focus.

    So what is the point in running FreeBSD over Linux?

    The software is the same. Running Gnome, KDE, Firefox or Emacs on FreeBSD or on Linux doesn't change anything, it's the same source code.

    The common userland apps are the same. There are m
    • "It looks like FreeBSD just tries to follow Linux, ie. make something that tries to do a bit everything without any focus."

      FreeBSD is older than Linux.

      "The software is the same. Running Gnome, KDE, Firefox or Emacs on FreeBSD or on Linux doesn't change anything, it's the same source code.

      The common userland apps are the same. There are minor differences like "cp -a" that doesn't work on FreeBSD, but it doesn't really make any difference, the same things can be done the same way."

      What's the point in runn
      • gee. I thought there was only one Linux too ? DEBIAN.......................
      • Really? Tell me how FreeBSD would be vulnerable to a bad implementation of linux's passwd, for example.

        Obviously not all of the software is shared, but nearly all of the network server software is and that's where it's the most important because that's where you have the most exposure.

        keyword "FreeBSD" --> Found: 76 Secunia Security Advisories, displaying 1-25 keyword "Linux" --> Found: 3264 Secunia Security Advisories, displaying 1-25 ... outchie...

        Of course, you wouldn't want to weed out a

    • It looks like FreeBSD just tries to follow Linux

      Actually Linux followed FreeBSD. While older, FreeBSD is also free'er (as in speech). That is its fundamental difference. Which is better entirely depends on what you want to do.
      • Linux certainly predates FreeBSD, and while Bill Jolitz' work on 386BSD predates Linus' first efforts on Linux, even 386BSD first release was as late as march '92.
        • Linux certainly predates FreeBSD, and while Bill Jolitz' work on 386BSD predates Linus' first efforts on Linux, even 386BSD first release was as late as march '92.

          386BSD and FreeBSD were just the i386 ports
          of BSD. And BSD 1.0 came out on March 9 1978. ;-)
          Linux 1.0 came out on March 14 1994.

    • Since you're self-proclaimed clueless, maybe next time you could limit yourself to asking "Why should *I* use FreeBSD?", instead of asking "What's the point in FreeBSD?" - that definitely sounds like a troll, looks like a troll and smells like a troll.

      Anyway, here are my humble reasons for choosing FreeBSD over any Linux distro.

      The main one is definitely the wonderful ports system [freebsd.org]. The only thing that comes close to it in the Linux world is Gentoo portage: I didn't try it, but those who did [osnews.com] didn't find it
  • netcraft confirms... bsd is alive!
  • Hello,

    I have been a FreeBSD server operating system user for a very long time. Over the period of my usage of FreeBSD I had been very happy with it. Then after 5.0 it has gone down hill. I have to agree with some of the points that people note in the article. The main one. It does appear as though they are trying to optimise the code that doesnt work rather than make it work. For example why are they working on 6.x already when there are so many problems in the 5.x one? are they just trying to move past a
    • 5.0 through 5.2.1 was DEVELOPERS previews, FFS! I'm soo getting tired of hearing the whining about 5.0-5.2.1 as they were ONLY for early adopters. I'm sorry but sane people can't help it if you can't take a clue from the REALEAS ENOTES. 5.3 and even more 5.4 have been very stable on the hardware that we've been using it and that includes SMP machines for bioinformatics as well as UP servers for web/mail/routers. 5-STABLE is IMHO so much better than 4-STABLE that it just isn't funny anymore.
      • We only went to NetBSD in the last few weeks. That was after holding off and holding off for a stable 5.x branch. We understood that it was a developers release.

        There has been some really good inroads with 5.x however it didnt suit our requirements as well as NetBSD.

    • Looks like it has been so long since 4 was released that everyone has forgotten how unreliable 4 was, up until about 4.5 or 4.6.

      I think it's great to see the FreeBSD team setting some lofty goals and working towards them.

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