FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE Now Available

cperciva writes "FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE, the fourth release from the highly successful 6-STABLE branch of FreeBSD development, has been released. In addition to being available from many FTP sites, ISO images can be downloaded via the BitTorrent tracker, or for users of earlier FreeBSD releases, FreeBSD Update can be used to perform a binary upgrade."

Re:A very niche OS

[larry bagina]

1) *BSD isn't encumbered by politics (or at leat the same set of politics). ZFS will be a part of FreeBSD while goldilocks and the 3 hippies argue over whether it's too FREE or not FREE enough.

2) They don't appeal to the same segment of computer users. "Linux is for people that hate windows. BSD is for people that love UNIX". If you look at the commandline utilites, BSD distros maintain them, they're consistent, and the man pages are up to date. Linux distros are a hodgepodge from various sources. It's a good thing they're open source because the man page is probably non existant or hopelessly out of date.

3) Considering there are 4 BSDs (Open, Free, Net, and Draogfly) it seems unlikely core developers would rather be developing linux.

Re:A very niche OS

[geek]

I used to be a diehard FreeBSD fan. Used it on all my servers and my desktop. I'd still use it before Linux on a server but on the desktop there just is no comparison to something like Ubuntu. The last time I installed FreeBSD on my laptop I felt I had gone back in time 10 years to 1998. Everything I wanted seemed to be a linux emulation too. That's just how I felt anyway. I love FreeBSD and always will, but they don't seem to have the focus on usability for the desktop that distros like Ubuntu have.

Re:Dedicated to Itojun

[Anonymous Coward]

is he dead?

Re:A very niche OS

[dknj]

FreeBSD is like solaris with better driver support and a robust third-party package library. If you know how to use it, its fucking solid. If you're new to the game, you will feel lost unless you pickup a good book