Most desktop users won't want to install this release. FreeBSD 9.1 was released in December 2012, and is the most recent stable release. This 8.4 release is a point release in the still-maintained 8.x series, intended for people currently running 8.3 who for one reason or another don't wish to upgrade to 9.x yet, but who do want an incremental upgrade.
9.1 also shipped with a busted MFI driver - it corrupts data on drives larger than 2TB. While you can download and compile a fixed kernel, they still haven't released an official update, since it is seen as a "bug fix", and not a "security fix".
8.4 may have been better for our new server.:(
It's not about how it sounds, these drivers were unfinished or terribly buggy. The OSS USB audio driver for example is a joke, you weren't supposed to plug in or remove any USB audio devices while the driver is running because it would crash the OS. Yes, seriously.
The HDA driver doesn't actually read HDA configuration data and set up your device. If it's not one of a handful of well known device you're responsible for manually creating a text file that configures the device properly.
While I'm using 9.1 on my personal machines, I appreciate that they still provide support the 8.x release branch. Supporting the legacy releases definitely make FreeBSD an attractive option for enterprise environments.
I love the legacy support even for my home machine. I set up my server 2 years ago with the 8.x series, and their continued support makes it easier to maintain than if I had to upgrade to 9.x. For a new build, I'd definitely go with the 9.x series.
It's great that they support older versions. Allowing a version to grow to full maturity is very important. It makes for a really solid lineage. I have servers still running older versions going back to 6.x, that due to late updates, never needed to be upgraded, and are able to continue on in their 6.x awesomeness. Obviously there's advantages to switching over to the latest and greatest, just in those cases there was no need, due to the late upgrades. When you spend a lot of effort modifying a system to your need
Most desktop users won't want to install this release.
How many people run FreeBSD on their desktop? (No, I'm not counting OSX.) The big selling point of FreeBSD is its robust support for ZFS, which makes it great for a file storage server. But it's an extremely marginal and weird choice for a desktop environment.
I'll grant you it's marginal... but why is it weird? FreeBSD works quite well on the desktop. If you want a Unix-y system where you have more control over what goes in it's an excellent choice.
Both Linux and FreeBSD allow building exactly what you want from source if you want to. It's not quite right to say one gives more control over what goes into the system. FreeBSD has a different set of trade-offs in how things are packaged, and their default choices and packaging distribution choices are nice for some purposes. But ultimately there's nothing you can match in multiple Linux distributions if you feel like it. There's always Linux from Scratch if you're hardcore about controlling what goes
The difference between Linux and *BSD has never been wider. I love BSD because of how/etc is configured. Linux made a mess of things and with massive scripts and subdirectories. Things have changed so much since the 2.0 kernel days its almost an entirely new OS.
Well, those who want a desktop would go to PC-BSD, which is FBSD customized for the desktop. Speaking of which, don't they then have version 8.4 of PC-BSD?
I've been using FreeBSD on my desktops, laptops, and servers since late 2001. I've never had issues with it other than ACPI support on the laptops being hit-or-miss. And the ports collection makes package management trivially easy.
"How many people run FreeBSD on their desktop?" No one really knows for sure. I count as 1. If (and only if) your hardware can run it, you're better off running a FreeBSD desktop than Linux. If your hardware is incompatible with FreeBSD, then run Linux. If the hardware won't run Linux, then either run Windows or buy new hardware. (Don't run Windows). As long as you're buying new hardware make sure you can run FreeBSD on it.
Call me crazy, dumb, or just stuck with the Linux way, but I think I'd have to re-learn a decent amount to be able to successfully run and maintain FreeBSD on my desktop. Sure, I learned many of the UNIX basics of the command line before switching from Windows, but I think there are a lot of things that would seriously stump me. For example, things like "mount -o loop" to mount an image file as a loop device and "free -m" to get a quick reading of memory usage are much different, and not exactly easier.
I tried and failed yet again to get a full KDE desktop up and running. The directions I used--a page on the FreeBSD site found through a web search--simply said "pkg_add -r kde4". Nope, nothing. Did it actually install X.org? Didn't seem so, so I logged back in as root and did that. Logged back out and in again as my user, and entered startx: returned endless "failed to load module" warnings, no drivers available, no screens found, unable to connect/connection refused, blah blah blah. Before following
This is what I have been wondering - ever since FBSD came out w/ version 9.x, why are they still coming out w/ versions like 8.3, 8.4...? Does that mean that once they have version 10 out, they will continue to have 3 tracks - 8.6, 9.3 and 10.x?
They typically keep putting out point releases in a series for about five years after the initial.0 release, so at any given time the current and previous one or two series are supported. But they eventually get phased out, e.g. the last 7.x release was 7.4, which came out in early 2011 and stopped being security-managed in early 2013. Wikipedia has a timeline showing the release/support history [wikipedia.org].
One of the reasons for maintaining the legacy branches for a few years is that, within each series, FreeBSD comm
FreeBSD will have official branches as long as it has volunteers. There are companies who have products heavily invested in 6.x and 7.x and the answer has always been something like "you're more than welcome to resurrect those branches, become the official maintainer, and continue to backport improvements but we don't have time or resources"
So if someone in the community steps up, we could see newer 6.x and 7.x releases as long as people are OK with the ports tree ignoring their existence. The modern ports
only recommended if you need to stay on 8.x (Score:5, Informative)
Most desktop users won't want to install this release. FreeBSD 9.1 was released in December 2012, and is the most recent stable release. This 8.4 release is a point release in the still-maintained 8.x series, intended for people currently running 8.3 who for one reason or another don't wish to upgrade to 9.x yet, but who do want an incremental upgrade.
Re:only recommended if you need to stay on 8.x (Score:4, Interesting)
Except 8.4 has:
Better hyperthreading support than 9.1
Newer ZFS features than 9.1
Better snd_uaudio and snd_hda audio drivers than 9.1
These things were MFC'd to 8-STABLE and 9-STABLE after 9.1-RELEASE, so 8.4 is really a better release an some aspects than 9.1 is.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
so basically you are saying I need to do a build world after I drop 9.1 on the new pc tomorrow, thanks.
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Except 8.4 has:
Better hyperthreading support than 9.1 Newer ZFS features than 9.1 Better snd_uaudio and snd_hda audio drivers than 9.1
These things were MFC'd to 8-STABLE and 9-STABLE after 9.1-RELEASE, so 8.4 is really a better release an some aspects than 9.1 is.
And an update to the 9.x branch bring up all those features will make 8.4 a wash for 9.x users. It's great news for 8.x branch users.
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How much better are these drivers? I tried FreeBSD 9.1 some time ago, and the sound was so bad I just went back running to Linux.
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It's not about how it sounds, these drivers were unfinished or terribly buggy. The OSS USB audio driver for example is a joke, you weren't supposed to plug in or remove any USB audio devices while the driver is running because it would crash the OS. Yes, seriously.
The HDA driver doesn't actually read HDA configuration data and set up your device. If it's not one of a handful of well known device you're responsible for manually creating a text file that configures the device properly.
So maybe FreeBSD 8.4 fix
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While I'm using 9.1 on my personal machines, I appreciate that they still provide support the 8.x release branch. Supporting the legacy releases definitely make FreeBSD an attractive option for enterprise environments.
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I love the legacy support even for my home machine. I set up my server 2 years ago with the 8.x series, and their continued support makes it easier to maintain than if I had to upgrade to 9.x. For a new build, I'd definitely go with the 9.x series.
Re: (Score:0)
It's great that they support older versions.
Allowing a version to grow to full maturity is very important.
It makes for a really solid lineage.
I have servers still running older versions going back to 6.x, that due to late updates,
never needed to be upgraded, and are able to continue on in their 6.x awesomeness.
Obviously there's advantages to switching over to the latest and greatest,
just in those cases there was no need, due to the late upgrades.
When you spend a lot of effort modifying a system to your need
Re: (Score:2)
Most desktop users won't want to install this release.
How many people run FreeBSD on their desktop? (No, I'm not counting OSX.) The big selling point of FreeBSD is its robust support for ZFS, which makes it great for a file storage server. But it's an extremely marginal and weird choice for a desktop environment.
Re: (Score:0)
I'm a weird margin!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Both Linux and FreeBSD allow building exactly what you want from source if you want to. It's not quite right to say one gives more control over what goes into the system. FreeBSD has a different set of trade-offs in how things are packaged, and their default choices and packaging distribution choices are nice for some purposes. But ultimately there's nothing you can match in multiple Linux distributions if you feel like it. There's always Linux from Scratch if you're hardcore about controlling what goes
Re: (Score:3)
The difference between Linux and *BSD has never been wider. I love BSD because of how /etc is configured. Linux made a mess of things and with massive scripts and subdirectories. Things have changed so much since the 2.0 kernel days its almost an entirely new OS.
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Re: (Score:0)
I've been using FreeBSD on my desktops, laptops, and servers since late 2001. I've never had issues with it other than ACPI support on the laptops being hit-or-miss. And the ports collection makes package management trivially easy.
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"How many people run FreeBSD on their desktop?"
No one really knows for sure. I count as 1.
If (and only if) your hardware can run it, you're better off running a FreeBSD desktop than Linux. If your hardware is incompatible with FreeBSD, then run Linux. If the hardware won't run Linux, then either run Windows or buy new hardware. (Don't run Windows). As long as you're buying new hardware make sure you can run FreeBSD on it.
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Call me crazy, dumb, or just stuck with the Linux way, but I think I'd have to re-learn a decent amount to be able to successfully run and maintain FreeBSD on my desktop. Sure, I learned many of the UNIX basics of the command line before switching from Windows, but I think there are a lot of things that would seriously stump me. For example, things like "mount -o loop" to mount an image file as a loop device and "free -m" to get a quick reading of memory usage are much different, and not exactly easier.
Re: (Score:2)
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I tried and failed yet again to get a full KDE desktop up and running. The directions I used--a page on the FreeBSD site found through a web search--simply said "pkg_add -r kde4". Nope, nothing. Did it actually install X.org? Didn't seem so, so I logged back in as root and did that. Logged back out and in again as my user, and entered startx: returned endless "failed to load module" warnings, no drivers available, no screens found, unable to connect/connection refused, blah blah blah. Before following
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ah me?
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aparantly in BSD land, they haven't had to deal with the GNOME 3 headache that has been plauging the linux comunity for the last 4 years.
mmm gnome 2.32, thats a decent reasons to jump ship
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Why are they doing 8.x? (Score:2)
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They typically keep putting out point releases in a series for about five years after the initial .0 release, so at any given time the current and previous one or two series are supported. But they eventually get phased out, e.g. the last 7.x release was 7.4, which came out in early 2011 and stopped being security-managed in early 2013. Wikipedia has a timeline showing the release/support history [wikipedia.org].
One of the reasons for maintaining the legacy branches for a few years is that, within each series, FreeBSD comm
Re: (Score:1)
FreeBSD will have official branches as long as it has volunteers. There are companies who have products heavily invested in 6.x and 7.x and the answer has always been something like "you're more than welcome to resurrect those branches, become the official maintainer, and continue to backport improvements but we don't have time or resources"
So if someone in the community steps up, we could see newer 6.x and 7.x releases as long as people are OK with the ports tree ignoring their existence. The modern ports
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Most desktop users won't want to install this release.
Most desktop users probably want to check out PC-BSD, which builds on top of FreeBSD.
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If by "builds on top" you mean it makes FreeBSD so bloated it makes Windows seem frugal comparison, then I agree wholeheartedly.