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BSD Operating Systems News

FreeBSD 4.0 Code Freeze 323

Posted by Nik from the still-chilly dept.
MagusX writes "FreeBSD 4.0 has just gone into a 30 day code freeze leading up to release." This is as good an opportunity as any to mention that our earlier "code freeze" story in fact turned out to be a feature freeze in the run up to the release, and not a code freeze. The 30-day freeze is longer than average for FreeBSD, but as this will be a .0 release, it was felt necessary to spend as much time as possible making sure it's as stable as possible.
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FreeBSD 4.0 Code Freeze More

FreeBSD 4.0 Code Freeze

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  • Re:I need a new machine (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The FreeBSD installer is curses based and is very user friendly IMHO. I have installed FreeBSD in the myriad ways that FreeBSD provides. (cdrom, ftp, make world, binary upgrade) I have installed Redhat 6.1 using the install floppy and cdrom. I _prefer_ the way that FreeBSD breaks down the levels of installation. I do not like the way that the Redhat default server install configures to run on init so many processes. I have to then chkconfig them all away and rpm -e the unneeded packages. If you are tight on disc to start with, Redhat does leave you to the option of a custom install in which you must not forget to select from a very long list all of the items that one might consider to be part of a basic unix OS. This install is very much more detailed than the FreeBSDs most granular install. You may like this. I just think that Redhat misses the mark with providing useful install options. Redhat seems to give you one size fits _or_ piecemeal out of the box. Disk handling in both installers is about the same with the exception of the kooky dependence on the DOS partitioning madness by Linux. If you happen to not have a mouse connected to the server you are installing, then Redhat defaults to a curses based installation anyway. Same easy to use field driven UI blue screen as FreeBSD. Of course, it is up to the admin to pare down or build up a system according to the application. I just find that FreeBSD's installer is more sane. What about new users? I installed FreeBSD as my first foray into unix. I was up and running in 45 minutes thanks to a kick ass network connection at UW. Not that I really knew what the hell I was doing. In some respects I am lead to inquire, "Why in the hell didn't I take the blue pill?" The ease of use of FreeBSD thrust me into a wider world of computing than I ever would have expected. The cool thing about both FreeBSD and Redhat (and free software) is that there is not one thing stopping any of us from trying both systems. Vive la Open Source! Jason C. Wells FreeBSDbie (What was my password anyway?)

  • Re:A newbie question... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Linux kernel was built by a DOS programmer

    Umm, no. Linus came from a Unix background, which is precisely why he wrote Linux--he didn't want to have to become a DOS programmer, and at the time, there was no real Unix for x86 (the *BSDs were all dead off in lawsuit land). Remember, Linux began as an attempt at extending Minix (an old unix-like teaching OS).

  • Re:The real news is that there is no news (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    FreeBSD Project is pretty much alive, thank you very much. It doesn't take much time to see the volume of daily posts on FreeBSD mailing lists and amount of daily commits going into FreeBSD CVS repository. I really wish you did some investigations before posting your nonsence here.

    And you will probably surprised how many posts on FreeBSD-questions mailing lists begin with sentences like 'I am switching from Linux to FreeBSD'. Are all these people just a bunch of necrophiles? Or may be your 'ascending OS' with their world domination babbling just does not cut it?

  • Re:Is NFS better in 4.0 ? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So when if ever will core give Matt Dillon back his commit privileges without requiring prior review?

    So he's good enough to basically fix NFS etc. but core won't trust him? What a pathetic situation where a group of free source bureaucrats can basically degrade a developer because he won't kiss their *ss.

  • Re:A newbie question... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There's not a lot of difference between Linux and FreeBSD if you're a fairly naive user type. (No offense intended, I'm differentiating between users and developers/sysadmins here.)

    My desktop machine is COL 2.2, I needed the IPX support and it was convenient to do. Also the COL installer configured X more or less automagically.

    But I've put up two FreeBSD machines as Apache and Postfix servers. These were older machines that didn't have CDROM drives, and I was too lazy to fiddle with NFS. So I installed FreeBSD from the net -- a pretty easy thing to get going. And the FreeBSD "ports collection" makes it absurdly simple to install just the features you want on your machine. My servers have no X, no KDE, no Ghostscript, no games, no nothing except what I want. And it took very little effort to do this.

    The ports collection isn't on the bleeding edge though, and if you want the very latest version of a particular piece of software you may well have to install it yourself.

    FreeBSD has a reputation for robustness and a fast IP stack -- some very high profile sites run FreeBSD. OpenBSD emphasizes good security. It seems to me that you'd want to look at one of the BSDs if you have a server requirement.

    For the desktop, I'd probably go with one of the Linux distributions. They come loaded with a bunch of applications, the installation procedures are becoming pretty simple, and everybody and his brother releases RPMs and DEBs for Linux. If you're into non-free software, there's any number of vendors out there whose binaries are ONLY supported -say- on RH6.0 or some such. I don't think you can get WebJetAdmin to run on BSD, for example.

    (And since you mentioned MS-Windows... you should consider switching to one of the Unix variants if you want your machine to run for months at a time without rebooting. You should not be afraid of tinkering with the operating system to get it right -- Linux/BSD printing is not idiot simple. And finally, if you must keep MS-Windows around, consider VMWare... which allows you to run a real no fooling copy of MS-Windows in a virtual machine under Linux, allowing you to switch back and forth effortlessly. VMWare is non-free, but a clever hack, and it allows you to test other things without trashing your system (Hurd, Netware, BSD, what-have-you).

  • Obligatory Monopoly Reference (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Go directly to jail()
    Do not pass /var/go
    Do not bind to 200.*.*.* IP addresses

  • A newbie question... (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 30, 2000 @07:51AM (#1321443)
    Can anybody explain to me why I would want to use FreeBSD instead of Windows or Linux? Are there any features my two OS's don't have? Is ther any software available on FreeBSD that i can't get for linux or Windows? I'm just looking for practical reasons, not flames, thanks.
  • there's a perl script that I use for that called pkg_version.

    a simple pkg_version -v | grep "&lt" gives me a list of everything that's definitely outdated, and then pkg_version -v | grep "?" gives me the ones that it's not sure about (multiple versions in the index or installed on the system, e.g. bash, gcc, acroread, etc)

    the only issue is occasionally a package changes names and thus pkg_version dies.

    as for those who want a make upgrade, do a make, then a pkg_delete then a make install (having backed up any config files). and that's as close as you can come for the moment, i believe.

  • DrWiggy,

    So you know you're probably basing your arguments against Linux on version 1.2 or something.

    I've worked on large networks of both (admin of a large linux network, and designing software for a large mostly FreeBSD network) and the fact of the matter is that the technical reasons such as 'stability, security, speed' are there in both the OS's.

    If you need SMP, you use Linux. FreeBSD's SMP support is horrid versus a 2.2 Linux box.

    FreeBSD tends to handle massive swapping conditions better than Linux, this is true, but when you are deploying machines that are properly spec'd they don't swap at all anyway.

    Security is better in FreeBSD? I'd like to know how this conclusion has been drawn. The fact of the matter is that in most situations the deployed servers in large networks tend to be running very customized setups. If you haven't taken the time to set them up properly, they'll be insecure, if you have, they won't be. That's an admin thing, after all, we don't see very many kernel level attacks these days, and we all know that we tend to run the *exact* same software on *BSD or Linux machines.

    I use FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Linux all on a regular basis. They all have their strong points and weak points, but truly, I think most unbiased comparisons of Linux and FreeBSD show that they are very competitive operating systems with very similar features.

    As for 100% reliability, I've seen the following operating systems turn to shit at some point in my life: Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, OSF and of course win*. Nothing is 100%. 99.9999, maybe, but not 100.
  • But it comes down to this: you do an install (or upgrade) for a particular version on a machine but once.

    That's because you're not using Debian. I honestly don't remember how my Debian install process went. It's been such a long time. And I've run Debian 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2...

    ---

  • The FreeBSD ports system could easily be implemented for Linux. I'm waiting for the `FreeBSD' distribution of Linux that does this. Any takers?

    You should try Debian. The package management is excellent. I used Redhat for a year, so I know how much of a pain RPM is. Debian really has it beat.

    Of course, if you're happy with FreeBSD, there's no harm to sticking with that ;-). Judging by user opinion, it's the Debian package management system and the BSDs' ports collections which are the most loved software installation systems. I've got to give FreeBSD a go someday, but right now Debian just works wonders for me.

    ---

  • Larger hardware support for Linux is largely a myth. There happen to be more both closed drivers and toy drivers for Linux.

    --

  • > The ports collection isn't on the bleeding edge though, and if you want the very latest version of a particular piece of software you may well have to install it yourself.

    The maintainers of various ports are by and large the users of those various ports, who track the software as well as any good user can, and update the ports whenever possible. As long as you CVSup (and/or cvs update) your ports, you'll have almost all of the latest software. The biggest reason for a port being behind, other than the port maintainer not noticing it being updated, would be sotware which is very hard to fix for the latest version.

    --

  • I'm certain that's not true, unless for some reason the jail()ed user is both root and jailed to no special directory (just "/"), or for some reason you mknod the wrong devices for him (like mem devices, or hard disk devices, etc).

    --

  • First of all, it was a troll. Obviously the person knew enough that they _could_ have easily figured it out themselves. So either they're a troll, or an idiot living under a rock. It would be different if they were just an ignorant (not being used as an insult; consult the dictionary if you like) user, and didn't know where to find information. Instead, it was a post of rhetorical questions which were nothing more than a troll from an idiot.

    Second of all, FreeBSD is sold in stores. Try computer stores, bookstores, et cetera.

    Third, this troll was not trying "our software". The troll was accusingly issuing rhetorical questions which were just plain incorrect.

    You really need to get your facts straight before trying to criticize others.

    --

  • Yes, that's true. For many people, there wouldn't really be a compelling reason to change; people need to have a reason that they want something else.

    The point of my posting was just to clarify things, since I don't want to turn someone off to FreeBSD as a desktop OS if they haven't tried it already :)

    I get the feeling quite often that FreeBSD doesn't get particularly fairly represented, because some of those people who say things about it must have really never run it. Obviously, you aren't one of those people =)

    --

  • As you can see, I already explained myself around a few posts up [slashdot.org]. You really need to try to read everything before posting.


    --

  • Oh please. I said that the differences are largely a myth, not that the UltraSparc is a toy. There isn't support for UltraSparc in FreeBSD because Sun pulled out its funding for it, and obviously noone's very interested in that platform enough to do it without that funding that Sun was originally providing.

    --

  • Just FYI, you two are talking about the same book :)

    --

  • If you're referring to the accelerated GLX drivers for the Matrox and NVidia chipsets, yes. There's a port for it in /usr/ports/graphics/glx :)

    --

  • Right, of course, everything corroborates your view, especially the very recent posts about the GNUstep code freeze and Linux development kernel release...

    --

  • Mentioning UltraSparc has nothing at all to what I had said. Your arguments have even less to do with with anything I said.

    --

  • Yes, the original poster that I had replied to was making rhetorical questions with incorrect implications. The person was not asking "newbie questions". The person who _was_ had a well-thought-out post, and that is what the troll replied to with his drivel.

    --

  • rhetorical
    adj 2: concerned with effect or style of writing and speaking; "a
    rhetorical question is one asked solely to produce an
    effect (especially to make an assertion) rather than to
    elicit a reply" [ant: {unrhetorical}]

    --

  • That is _not_ what I said. I said:

    "Larger hardware support for Linux is largely a myth. There happen to be more both closed drivers and toy drivers for Linux."

    Which means:

    For the most part, there really isn't hardware that Linux supports, but FreeBSD doesn't. There are a lot more drivers for weird dongles and doodads for Linux due to its very hobbyist beginnings and people using it as an easy way to run some hardware. FreeBSD is used less often for toy hardware, and doesn't have many toy drivers.

    --

  • Matt Dillon is just another normal committer, the same as any other. You really shouldn't speak authoritatively on a subject if you don't know anything about the reality. Weak try at FUD you've got there.

    --

  • > I don't recommend FreeBSD to casual desktop users; they'll find more software for Linux, and more people to help them out.

    I wouldn't say that. You can find all the help you could want in form of helpful people on the various mailing lists (freebsd-questions comes to mind). Any Linux software I've seen that doesn't require its own proprietary kernel module runs on FreeBSD, so if you can't find something (closed) for FreeBSD, find it for Linux and run that. With over 3,000 ports, it's extremely hard to find a better collection of software.

    I use FreeBSD for the "desktop", and have done so for two years. Take this as fact, not conjecture: FreeBSD makes a great desktop OS, despite the fact that someone running FreeBSD for a desktop will still have to learn just like any other OS.

    --

  • Outside of Linux circles, "IP masquerading" is called NAT (network address translation). This is supported in FreeBSD in the form of natd [freebsd.org], and more specific information on setting it up can be found in numerous places.


    One place to get more informations, other than mailing list searching [freebsd.org], is a great site called The FreeBSD Diary [freebsddiary.org], where there's actually an entire section [freebsddiary.org] of the topics devoted to NAT :)


    --

  • Right now it's a 1:all model (as opposed to 1:many, etc). One process is multiplexed to create many "user threads". There has been discussion on the freebsd-arch mailing list about new threading models, but other than just using the ported LinuxThreads or the builtin pthreads, the only pthreads your going to have will be 1:1 or 1:all. Of course, winethreads (?) are now being developed... and FreeBSD will have a much better (read: efficient under SMP) threading scheme not too far off.

    --

  • In one word, absolutely! NFS has had a tremendous amount of work done upon it by Matt Dillon, Alfred Perlstein, and a list of other people. In short, every bug that has been found so far in NFS has been fixed. Many bugs have stuck around or crept in over the years, and Matt Dillon is largely responsible for NFS truly being a seriously usable system in FreeBSD.
    Regarding AMD, FreeBSD 4.0-CURRENT has a much newer version of AMD; I am pretty certain the specific deficiency you mention has been fixed.
    Thanks to work mostly done by Martin Blapp, mount now shows the mount parameters correctly in (what seems to be, I cannot speak in complete certainty due to that being impossible to assure) every case.
    Have you reported how the package system "fails to register all the files"? I haven't seen this behavior. As far as ports not having to be built as root, if you set the make/environment variable "DISTDIR" to any accessible directory, and set "WRKDIRPREFIX" to an accessible directory, you will be able to make ports as a user.

    --

  • The FreeBSD ports system could easily be implemented for Linux. I'm waiting for the `FreeBSD' distribution of Linux that does this. Any takers?

    Project Foobazco, a recently-formed network-services/Free Software development cooperative, is in the early planning stages for such a thing. I do mean EARLY. It'll be a source-only package-by-package build-it-and-go distribution. Choice and security will be priorities. If you're interested, go to the idea page [foobazco.org] for some of my thoughts on where to go with this. Did I mention that it's in the EARLY planning stage?

  • Does anyone know if IP masquerading (or a workalike) is offered in FreeBSD? I'm going to need a IP masquerading box for next semester, and if FreeBSD does this I might try it just for fun. Linux is just getting too easy these days.. :^)

    -- Does Rain Man use the Autistic License for his software?
  • So I have a RH Linux box running Notes because I couldn't get a FreeBSD-intel box (either 3.3 or 3.4-RELEASE) running the Domino Server for Linux under linux binary compatibility.

    Does anyone know if Domino is known to work under the linux compatibility for FreeBSD-4.0?

    cheers,
    -o
  • >Saying that UNIX is the only OS worth running is
    >trolling at its finest.

    Most definitely. TOPS-10, TOPS-20, and VMS all offered distinct advantages over Unix for certain jobs . . . :)

    For that matter, VMS still does.

  • Then again, the politics were part of what lead me away from debian, happily landing with FreeBSD.
  • Now I've got two solid reasons to think about FreeBSD as an alternative to Debian on new systems here.

    Anyone in touch with linux-kernel know if there's been any interest expressed there in bringing anything like these two to Linux?
  • Actually, I seem to have installed a program on my (Debian) system that keeps spamming me about file permission problems and changes. Although I'm sure that OpenBSD is more tightly audited, etc..

    Daniel
  • Security. Linux boxes have software from everywhere and as such the security is only as good as the weakest link.
    Isn't this extremely dependant on the distribution and the administrator?
    Daniel
  • I'm always amused when someone claims that BSD is necessarily more secure than Linux, since most holes are in userland software, which is virtually identical between the two systems! The differences are in the particular versions of software different distributors provide and in the default configurations that are supplied; this is more "OpenBSD vs the World" than "BSD vs Linux".

    Daniel
  • Would you mind doing me the favor of reading my post before replying to it? I never said that OpenBSD was not secure. What I said was that it is not secure because it is based on BSD. OpenBSD is secure because it is OpenBSD, not because it is BSD.
    Daniel
  • I've already setup one OpenBSD box on my network as the gateway/firewall (IPNAT is great for this), and might be considering putting FreeBSD 4 on my workstation. Before I do this, I'd like to know how robust the SMP support in FreeBSD is when compared to that of the current Linux kernels (2.2.14/2.3.* series?). I heard once (a while ago) that the FreeBSD SMP kernel is similar to the SMP kernel from Linux 2.0.*, and it isn't quite as efficient/well-suited for SMP as Linux. Is this still the case? Does anyone have any first-hand experience with SMP between the two? Any problems?

    --

  • fast TCP/IP. Real numbers? (Score:4)

    by Zapman ( 2662 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @09:27AM (#1321480)
    An AC wrote:
    "FreeBSD has a reputation for ... a fast IP stack"

    I've heard this for 4 years now, but I have NEVER seen numbers to back it up. I honestly don't know if *BSD's is faster than Linux 2.2., but I'd like to...
  • I have a windows box just to play games and run my scanner, I don't use it for any real work.

    Just out of curiosity, would SANE [mostang.com] be sufficient to handle your scanner under FreeBSD (or any other flavor of UNIX, including Linux, free or not), or does SANE have no driver for it or are there also Windows applications you need?

    (There's also WINE [winehq.com], for some Windows applications, although I think they may still warn that it's alpha code and not everything will necessarily work.

  • Since you aren't 'with it', the egcs versions are still considered experimental

    The current "egcs version", for what it's worth, is called GCC 2.95.2 [gnu.org]. Does it say in the 2.95.2 distribution that 2.95.2 is considered experimental? This announcement for GCC 2.95 [gnu.org] says:

    The whole suite has been extensively regression tested and package tested. It should be reliable and suitable for widespread use.
    egcs won't release a stable compiler until gcc 3.0.
    Assuming the next major release is even called 3.0; this entry in the GCC FAQ [gnu.org] says:
    When will the GCC version 3 be released?

    There is no firm release date for GCC 3 at this time (Jan 2000), nor has a decision been made whether the next major release of gcc will still be 2.x, or 3.0.

  • The whole suite has been extensively regression tested and package tested. It should be reliable and suitable for widespread use.

    egcs won't release a stable compiler until gcc 3.0.

    Sorry, putting a quote from the 2.95 announcement just before a quote from the person to whom I'm responding makes the above, from my response, a bit confusing; the first of those two statements came from the 2.95 announcement, but the second was a quote from the person to whom I responded - it is not a statement from the GCC 2.95 announcement.

  • If you want that feature why not just go with FreeBSD?

    Because he may have other reasons to want to run Linux, and those may be legitimate reasons; if some particular OS comes up with a useful feature, I have no particular problem with other OSes adopting that feature, or a variant thereof.

  • but the philosophy behind 4.4BSD-Lite is a direct and blatant rewrite of the proprietary code that came before it. What the programmers did was to basically reconstruct the copy-protected code in a new, lawsuit-free form. It's not a direct clone, but it's close enough to look, feel, and behave the same way.

    Umm, the fts routines weren't just a reconstruction of copyrighted AT&T code, they implemented a new API that came out of BSD (I remember when Keith was writing it). Yes, one thing done for 4.4-Lite was replacement of copyrighted AT&T code (note that the project to do so started before the lawsuit...), but that's not all there was to 4.4-Lite.

    As for whether BSD "looks, feels, and behaves" more like "real UNIX" than does Linux, that may depend on your definition of "real UNIX" - init and the twisty little maze of rc files on most Linux distributions "looks, feels, and behaves" more like that of most commercial UNIXes (i.e., is more SV-like) than do init and its rc files on the BSDs, for example.

  • Re:A newbie question... (Score:3)

    by Guy Harris ( 3803 ) <guy@alum.mit.edu> on Sunday January 30, 2000 @11:05AM (#1321486)
    BSD Unixes are mostly ports. They started as a System X release, then some bright folks at Berekely add some extra stuff (like TCP/IP) and pretty soon there was BSD.

    System {III,V} didn't exist when they did the first BSD; the first Berkeley Software Distribution was a collection of software to put atop the Sixth Edition (and possibly also the Seventh Edition) of the UNIX from Bell Labs Research. 3BSD and 4BSD were based on the 32V UNIX from Research, which was essentially a Seventh Edition port to the VAX; the Berkeley folk added demand paging (and other stuff, such as job control, and a TTY driver more pleasant for the user, and ex and vi, and curses, and so on), and, in 4.2BSD, added the BSD file system (file names > 14 characters, symlinks, bigger block size, different allocation policies) and their TCP/IP stack (although that was far from the first TCP/IP stack for UNIX).

    That's why BSD looks less System V-ish than most other flavors of UNIX these days, including most Linux distributions (although I have the impression some distributions - Slackware? - might have a BSD-ish rather than an SV-ish init), although, over time, BSD has grown to look more SV-ish (Paul Vixie's cron is SV-flavored rather than the V7-flavored cron that BSD used to have, and various other system calls, other API routines, commands, etc. have flowed into BSD), just as SV has grown more BSDish (symlinks, BSD-style socket calls standard, and various other system calls, other API routines, commands, etc. have flowed into SVR4).

  • Re:A newbie question... (Score:3)

    by Guy Harris ( 3803 ) <guy@alum.mit.edu> on Sunday January 30, 2000 @04:35PM (#1321487)
    The API is more integrated.

    In what fashion is the Win32 API "more integrated" than the APIs of various UNIX systems?

  • Re:Question for FreeBSD users/geeks (Score:3)

    by Guy Harris ( 3803 ) <guy@alum.mit.edu> on Sunday January 30, 2000 @05:00PM (#1321488)
    FreeBSD will not run VMWare, because VMWare uses a kernel module under Linux. Last I checked, FreeBSD can't use Linux kernel modules. Until VMWare writes a native version for FreeBSD

    ...or writes a replacement module for FreeBSD [mindspring.com]; that page says:

    This piece of software provides some basic support for running the VMware 1.1 for Linux on FreeBSD.

    I'm using FreeBSD 4.0 -current system and don't know whether this software will work on the 3.X branch.

    ...

    At this time I was able to successfully run the following operation systems under VMware on FreeBSD:

    - FreeBSD 4.0 Current
    - Linux (Debian 2.1)
    - Windows NT
    - Windows 95 OSR2 (in safe mode :)
    - MS DOS 7.0 (Part of Win'95)

    (The answer to the implied question about 3.x appears to be "you'd have to bludgeon the kernel changes into compiling under 3.x"; I didn't put a lot of effort into trying to do that, so I don't know if it's doable.)

  • Almost all of the OPINIONS expressed here about why Freebsd is so much better then _PUT OS HERE_ can be found in debian as well. Just once I would like to see some informed posts, rather then raving freebsd zealots preaching the holy word of *bsd's divinity. Why *most* *BSD users bother me. a) If I wanted opinions I would ask my mother. b) Myths don't become any more valid just because it isn't a microsoft making it up. c) They state opinions as though it were facts which they have a truck load of evidence to support them. (0 facts, 0 evidence 100% baseless opinions) d) They think if they say something enough it will become true (1) Linux is less stable 2) Linux is less secure 3) Linux is slower 4) Linux isn't a REAL UNIX 5) Linux is for newbies 6) Linux isn't as GOOD period e) They smell (joke) I like freebsd, I just don't like the majority of the *bsd faithful. For the same reasons why I don't like alot of Linux faithful. I judge the "goodness" of something based on that somethings fruits. Freebsd new fruits: new drivers, a couple new features.. more crazy zealots Linux new fruits: www.linuxtoday.com NT new fruits: More bugs. Ok I am done ranting now. :)
  • Good piece!

    IMHO, whereas I agree about the less controlled nature of linux as a whole, wrt things like upgrading, security and interoperability of the various parts, in practice the situation is mostly well-organized with Linux also. This is due to the fact that about nobody assembles his or her own general Linux system.

    Rather, everybody uses this or that distro, and most distro's at least take care of patches and announcements. Upgrades are not so bad either, for most of them (says this Slackware man :)

    On security, the more controlled way of development is indeed probably a plus, even though I think most of the ports collection, of which you'd probably install quite some packages, is no different from what's in any Linux distro.
  • Next time think before you spit out this utter nonsense. Read the documentation again and mae sure you *understand* it. It says root can do rm -rf /* on a chroot'ed file system, and NOT the root file system of your drive.

    ___

  • Re:A newbie question... (Score:3)

    by Bishop ( 4500 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @12:16PM (#1321492)

    I would like to see more people use BSD. I use OpenBSD myself. However I feel that except for points 2 and 6 your justifications of why *BSD is better are incorrect. Try Debian. It does a good job at at the upgrades. Out-of-the-box it was as secure as my out-fo-the-box OpenBSD 2.6. Patches are easier to apply. The command "apt-get update&&apt-get upgrade" downloads and installs everything I need. I don't have to compile anything. Debian has several good mailing lists as well as Debian weekly news.

    For me BSD really wins in the intergration dept. I really like how the base system fits together well. Configuration is much easier. I wish Debian would stop trying to be everything to everyone and decide on a base set of packages.

  • Nice list, but it's a bit old.

    The compiler is GCC 2.95.2...

    Also included are:
    - Better USB support, including support for USB network adapters.
    - IPv6, including IPsec, an IPv6 firewall and IPv6 enabled netowrking tools.
    - OpenSSL now part of base system.
    - and a bunch more little things...

    -Jeremy
  • But above all, Windows offers unbeatable support for DOUBLE POSTING!
  • The /. code detects when a poster is using a Windows machine, and responds by making them look dumb. As the man said: "Here's a nickel, kid; buy yourself a real operating system".
  • Touche. :^) You win.
  • From memory...

    1) cvsup to sync your /usr/src tree from one of the CVS servers. (Also, cvsup /usr/ports every now and then...) search around the freebsd web site for info on using cvsup.

    2) cd /usr/src

    3) make buildworld

    4) switch to single user mode

    5) make installworld


  • ports has one serious killer flaw: it installs the new package OVER the old package. There is no "make upgrade" in ports. Then when you remove the old port, it wipes out files in the new port.

    another problem: i use cvsup to maintain the ports tree, but why don't individual ports use cvsup to maintain the source tree of the port? cvsup or rsync or cvs or whatever, just something a little more bandwidth friendly than schlorping down everything via FTP. i really HATE having to download megabytes worth of packages just because a few dozen K changed in them. this is where every linux distro also fails miserably. Some countries still pay by the minute for connectivity, some don't have better than 28.8 connectivity -- if they're lucky. Give me incremental updates for EVERYTHING dammit.
  • I'm running 3.3-STABLE, and "make upgrade" in /usr/src fails miserably. It starts making make, and dies with

    ld: scrt0.o: No such file or directory

    sysinstall's upgrade feature gives me a list of FTP sites, none of which work, because it only wants to upgrade to another 3.3, which seems really quite pointless to me.

    Can someone give me a URL I can feed to sysinstall or some pointer on getting "make upgrade" to actually work? I expected it to work sort of like /usr/ports or debian's apt-get upgrade, where it would go out and grab the new version, compile, and install it. Am I way off here? I can live with a binary sysinstall upgrade IF I can find some way of upgrading /usr/src later on.

    Just going out and getting the CD and wiping out my old install and restoring my home dir and configurations from backup is NOT an option I care to entertain...

  • I agree that the relative security between Debian, and the BSDs are pretty even; however, they are not if your IT issue is level of security .

    If level of security is your issue; then none can match OpenBSD, and it keeps getting more secure and more amazing. I now use OpenBSD on my desktop even. I compiled sources for WindowMaker, and installed the ports for WordPerfect, Nedit, Xfig, Gimp, Xchat, Midnight Commander, Xosview, xcdplayer, xmmix, mutt, fetchmail, gv and wmCalClock. These are all the desktop apps that I would ever possibly need for what I do, and I love my system.

    OpenBSD's killer app is the 'Daily Insecurity Report' where email is sent to root about files with bad permissions or dangerous file changes.

    I do miss some things from FreeBSD, mainly that it's GNUstep repository of apps is comprehensive and I love GNUstep. Linux was fastest, but I quickly grew tired of the rate of change, and having my hardware supported but not really.

    OpenBSD actually supports my laptop sound chip, and now I groove while workin'; I love it...
    Hail OpenBSD, the rock of the internet

  • Silly Coward. I use FreeBSD on my desktop myself. I wouldn't run Linux if you paid me. But that doesn't mean I won't recommend it where I feel it's appropriate.

    BTW, I'd appreciate it if you could provide me with a pointer to the post or posts where I accused the BSD crowd of being arrogant. But, uh, I won't hold my breath.
  • What is this about the BSD projects ignoring people? Don't you understand that it's possible and even occasionally beneficial for an OS project to focus on something other than supporting all PC hardware? The Linux people do the Linux thing well, there's no reason for the BSDs to try to be Linux too. They have their niches and it serves them well.

    I think a lot of people around here need to take a chill pill and understand that operating systems are tools, and when choosing tools, the important thing is to pick the right tool for the job in question.
  • Brian, all that you say is true. However, I've found that despite the excellent Linux compatibility environment, some common Linux applications like StarOffice can be tricky to get working on FreeBSD. Also, distributions like Red Hat do a lot more hand-holding than FreeBSD does.

    I didn't mean to imply that FreeBSD is a bad desktop OS; if I felt that way, I wouldn't be running it on my desktop (for four years now). As I said, when someone is fairly technically oriented, I don't hesitate to point them to FreeBSD.

    Remember that the original questioner is already running Linux. If someone is running Linux on the desktop and not experiencing any problems that FreeBSD would solve, I see no point in trying to convert them to FreeBSD.
  • I also found _The Complete FreeBSD_ very helpful when I first started out with FreeBSD. I recommend it highly to anyone who is installing FreeBSD for the first time.
  • Hi Jon,
    FreeBSD does indeed support NAT. Please see the appropriate FAQ entry [freebsd.org].
    You can also get the same functionality on FreeBSD using Darren Reed's ipfilter [anu.edu.au] program.
  • Yep, but if you don't have a large enough /tmp partition, that port won't install.
  • Oh yes, I know, I just dropped the name because I figured it would be helpful to anyone actually looking to purchase the thing. ;-)
  • FreeBSD is probably not right for you, judging from your questions. I recommend FreeBSD to

    -people running production network servers
    -people of a technical bent who are just getting into unix
    -people experienced with older BSD-derived systems who want to move up to something modern

    Why? Well, the first is because the FreeBSD Project's focus is on production network servers, and they are very attentive to issues that affect such systems. The second is because I feel that FreeBSD has a cleaner layout and better documentation than Linux. And the third is because BSD people will find that FreeBSD looks like "home" to them.

    I don't recommend FreeBSD to casual desktop users; they'll find more software for Linux, and more people to help them out.
  • I've done redhat installs with every version since 5.0, and I must say the new GUI install in 6.1 has some functionality I would like to see in the curses install: when doing a full custom install, it gives a description of packages; after you are done selecting packages and you have calculated missing dependencies, it does a much better job of handling changes (I remember foobaring things in the curses install and having to reselect all of the packages).

    But it comes down to this: you do an install (or upgrade) for a particular version on a machine but once. So who cares?
  • That's crazy. Why would you ever want to do that? Now, I update my packages as needed, but that isn't anything but ./configure && make && make install.

  • Does anyone know if IP masquerading (or a workalike) is offered in FreeBSD?

    I believe NAT (network address translation) performs this function. Also, the userland PPP daemon has a -alias switch for that.

    I'm certain you can do it, though I've never tried.

  • I seemed to get an inconsistent rpm database and from that point no installation or desinstallation would go cleanly.

    It does appear that RPM might have a couple of tiny bugs lurking in there somewhere. I did ran into some minor RPM database corruption once, rpm --rebuilddb cleared it up. Mind that this was on a machine that I use for development, where I install, upgrade, and remove RPMs constantly. Given the kind of beating it took, I consider rpm's reliability to be above average.

    I couldn't keep track of what files where installed...

    rpm -q -l -vv package tells you where package was installed. RPM takes some getting used to.
    --

  • to play would with 4.0, I've been toying with FBSD since 2.something and I really like it. I am disappointed in the people saying FreeBSD is dying and such things because they don't get the same publicity that Linux has been getting. Just because it isn't on ZD-TV every other day doesn't mean anything. It seems to me at least Linux gets the attention because it is invading the desktop which is traditionally Microsoft territory. FreeBSD chugs along on servers in the background doing what it does well. You can sell Linux to make a million dollars or you can USE FreeBSD to make a million dollars.
  • I have been thinking of trying FreeBSD but I do not want to add another partition on my Linux box. It already has NT and Linux. I could add FreeBSD I guess, but I am actually interested in setting up seperate machines for my OS's so I can actually use them at different times.

    I do think that FreeBSD is a good OS, althought it is slightly less friendly then Linux (IMHO) distributions Like RH and SuSE. I just tried the RH 6.1 GUI install and it was neat. If FreeBSD were to do a GUI install it would certainly make it an easier adjustment for Newbiews. Just my humble opinion.

    send flames > /dev/null

  • I've tried it in vmware , you mental patient.

    send flames > /dev/null

  • Re:A newbie question... (Score:5)

    by Mullen ( 14656 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @08:40AM (#1321535)
    You want a "real unix"
    Blah. Unix is such a generic term now a days. Who cares if the FreeBSD is descended from Unix that came out 15 years ago. Standards come and go, and new ones pop up. Saying something is "Real" in the Unix world is pretty dumb and short sighted. I think my Linux boxen are pretty damn Real Unix. Looks like Unix on the front end and runs like Unix on the back end. Makes it Unix to me.

    You want something more stable than either of the above mentioned OSes
    Anyone have ANY proof of this? I here this all the time, but I have yet to see one study that proves it right. Just saying something is true does not make it true.
    In this part, I would give a slight upper hand to FreeBSD since it only has distribution. Linux main problem is that there are too many distributions that have too many dumb people running generic stock kernels. Personally, the only way I would be convinced is that you took a FreeBSD box and Linux box and put them on a load balancing hub (Switch) and then compare kernel panics, and amount of work each did. The tests would exclude all problems related to non-kernel issues.

    You want something more secure than either of the above mentioned OSes
    Again, proof. I have ran Linux in a production environment and the only security problems that I have had were with some lamers packet sniffing on the other side of the network. The "Other End" consisted of HP/UX and Sun machines.

    So in the end, I think that a good admin that knows how to run the machine(s) the right way will prevent all (Or most) problems.

  • I'm a one OS type of person. If there's a really cool game for Windows (Riven) or OS/2 (GalCiv), I'll slice out a little partition so I can run them. Otherwise I stick with just one OS. Even though I have two OS's installed, one will always get ignored.

    Right now I have Slack and FreeBSD. I'm using mostly Slack right now, and fiddling with FreeBSD to learn it's quirks. Mostly they're identical in functionality. But one huge advantage FreeBSD has over Linux, is that it runs FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, SCO and SVR4 binaries, while Linux only runs Linux binaries (at least I haven't gotten anything else to work). It suddenly occured to me that I don't have any need for Linux anymore. I can run CivCTP and RTII from FreeBSD.

    So I'm afraid that the near future will see me dumping the Linux partitions in favor of FreeBSD. I really don't want to, but I'm just a one OS type of guy. I'll probably keep a small partition around to check out the latest distros.
  • The battle is, who's weaker, the admin or the software? Yes, the software comes from anywhere and everywhere, but there are more eyes looking at it.
  • Code Freeze beats System Freeze anyday.

  • a year ago i did contract work for a company that was trying to decide between freebsd and linux. their benchmarks showed that you could serve about a million pages per day using linux, but 2 million with freebsd.

    a year ago nobody was running a 2.2 linux kernel, so the difference may be slightly smaller now.

  • How long does it take to fsck seven terabytes? Or are you using a journaling filesystem (which one)?

  • FreeBSD vs Linux (Score:3)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @11:26AM (#1321574) Homepage
    Hi. Having worked with Linux for quite a awhile now, I've gotten dissatissfied in a few areas. My current peeves are the number of global kernel locks and the icky, yucky bdflush.

    Linux has over 400 global kernel locks (calls to lock_kernel()). One even goes like this:
    lock_kernel(); nfs_read(); unlock_kernel(); It's insane. It's also a preformance-killer. Some stuff actually runs slower on SMP system because of all the locking going on.

    bdflush is also a little retarded -- it flushes metadata every 5 and data every 30 seconds. So you get idle disk -- activity storm -- idle disk -- activity storm ... etc. And, conveniently, there's a lock_kernel() and unlock_kernel() around the bdflush code. A performance killer, especially when writing filesystem code.

    How does FreeBSD fare in these areas? Would it be a better choice than Linux for filesystem work? Esp. server-side?
  • (taking moderator hat off)
    I'm going to guess you don't want an unintelligent AC reply ;)

    Check http://freebsd.tesserae.com/
    Then, read up at http://www.freebsd.org/, mailing lists too

    I'd love to address it all in one post, but I can't ;p I'll summarize by saying centralized CVS repository, more advanced (preemptive swapping, unreleased experimental compressed swap in the works, contact Luigi Rizzo for more..) VM subsystem..

    Better USB support with much more drivers, better NIC support, centralized ports/packages for easy installation of ~3000 external packages..

    Based on established 4.4BSDLite code, it just _feels_ rock solid. And much, much more.

  • make upgrade?

    The command is make world. Read the handbook for more.

    And it would also be good of me to inform you that the tree just underwent a series of rapid changes and may more may not build. It has been failing for a lot of people over here..

    If it was ready for the user, it wouldn't be code frozen, it'd be RELEASE'd :P

    Why do people think that "frozen" means "ready"? :)

  • Ports are cool!

    Seriously, typing 'make install' to install a software package is simple. I would think developers would enjoy that.

    When you do a 'make install' in the directory of the package you wish to install, the system will download the source (if available), compile it, and install it.

    Another good reason for FreeBSD is that there is only one version. All the man pages, libraries, and utilities are in the same location no matter what box you are on.

    This message is a post from a recent Linux to FreeBSD convert. I had been using Linux from 0.99.14? to 2.2.10. Anyone remember the SLS distribution? They predated Slackware. I even maintained my system all of the way from SLS.
  • some people complain about no GUI and all that nonsense, but give me a break. is it really such an improvement to see gtk+ widgets as opposed to curses? besides, in my experience, GUI frontends tend to make things prettier at the cost of functionality.
  • Blah. Unix is such a generic term now a days. Who cares if the FreeBSD is descended from Unix that came out 15 years ago.

    I do. I have to disagree that UNIX is a generic term nowadays. It refers to a specific lineage of software written by people who are considered to be gods among men because of what they've done. I could, because of Open Sourcing, take a Linux distribution, make a few changes, and still call it Linux. If I tried to call it BSD, it wouldn't even get out the door, because it's not BSD. Linux was written to emulate UNIX in many ways, but it had absolutely no access to the UNIX/BSD code base from which FreeBSD 4.0 and all other BSD flavors originate. It is, to be honest, a UNIX work-alike. It's like asking someone to choose between a car made by professional auto manufacturers in Detroit or a car-like object made by a grad student with some friends from a BBS in Finland. To me, the choice is obvious. Go with the product that has the 30 year track record of excellence, not the upstart. Frankly, Linux is good, but with a new kernel release every couple of weeks, it's obvious that they're still trying to "get it right."

    Anyone have ANY proof of this? I here this all the time, but I have yet to see one study that proves it right. Just saying something is true does not make it true.

    Slashdot [slashdot.org] and the requisite offsite link [uptimes.net] indicate the truth about uptimes according to OS [uptimes.net].

    I have ran Linux in a production environment

    It sounds to me like you have a pretty good network set up there. Others aren't so lucky, especially considering that there are a lot of malicious hackers and crackers out there looking for a big corporate fish to fry. Regardless of how problem-free Linux has been for you, there are networks out there that get attacked nearly every single day because someone wants access to information they shouldn't have. Situations like these call for a serious OS that can handle the abuse. Of course, now I need to say that OpenBSD [www.openbs...argetblank] is the most secure OS in the world. It's a hefty sword to wield, but if you know how to work it, it can keep your data far safer than NT, or even Linux. That's because it was redesigned from BSD code with security in mind as the top priority. If I ran a calm network like yours that didn't have much in the way of cracking attempts, I might go with BSD and I might go with Linux. If I had a sneaking suspicion that my security knowhow would be put to the test, I'd go with OpenBSD in a heartbeat.

    And you should, too.


    ---

  • Re:my silly install error (Score:3)

    by magician ( 90721 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @10:41AM (#1321609) Homepage
    Had the same problem. The 'install' program is broke, so you need to reinstall it before it works:

    cd /usr/src/usr.bin/xinstall; make all install

    Good luck!
  • We're running a data center with more than seven Terabytes of storage. The data is stored on a few dozen FreeBSD servers. We have approximately the same number of Linux machines which perform tasks where the additional device support and extra Linux functionality are useful. We've never ever had a FreeBSD file system problem (apart from bad hardware of course). I have seen several instances of Linux completely thrashing its file systems, to the point of needing a reinstallation (with various kernel versions). There are also a few performance problems in ext2fs, like the time it needs to delete big files. The data is staying on the FreeBSD servers, we're keeping the Linux machines for the tasks where they're worth suffering a little instability, and all is well :-).

  • Re:A newbie question... (Score:5)

    by ctj2 ( 113870 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @09:58AM (#1321617) Homepage

    There are two major camps today in the computer world. Windows and unix. Anybody asking why we should run Windows over anyother OS is trolling and it isn't worth responding to. Of the Unix offereings there are two main varients: SVR4 and BSD.

    The Linux kernel was built by a DOS programmer according to the specifications and papers he had read from POSIX and SVR4 (yeah, I know there is more to it then that). So much of Linux feels like a SVR4 box. SVR4 is the "One True Unix" as defined by AT&T Bell Labs or whoever owns UNIX now. From this you get a certain set of administrative functions in a particular style.

    BSD Unixes are mostly ports. They started as a System X release, then some bright folks at Berekely add some extra stuff (like TCP/IP) and pretty soon there was BSD. This version was then ported to different chipsets. Including the Intel x86 set. Because it is a port and not a new product, most BSD based OSes have a style that has much history behind it.

    One major difference between BSD and Linux is the question of where things end up. Because Linux is a "kernel" plus distribution, everything but the kernel is an add on. You need to decide if "tcl" is part of the "system" or an add on. In most Linux distributions, everything is considered a part of the "system" so "tcl" ends up in /usr/bin and "gs" (ghostscript) ends up in /usr/bin and so on and so on.

    With the BSD Unixes, you get many base parts. Generaly they have a history leading back to the original Unixes at BSD. For example, there is "cc". While we don't run the portable C compiler on any of the Free Unixes but instead one of the GNU compilers. That means that our "cc" is really "gcc" but it lives in /usr/bin. But those extras... Thats where the big difference is. The extras endup over in /usr/local or /usr/X11R6.

    If I was to remove /usr/local and /usr/X11R6 from my system the base system would be unaffected but i would lose "gs" and "tcl" and "apsfilter" and "kde" and all the other neat extras I've added to my system.

    As to why somebody might choose a BSD system over a Linux distribution.

    1. Upgrades: Last night I went from FreeBSD 3.4 to FreeBSD 4.0-CURRENT. This happened to be my personal box but the total time for the upgrade was about an hour and that upgraded every piece of software on the system. Every configuration script every added package. Everything. And when I say upgrade, I don't mean replacing configuration scripts. I mean merging them or using the ones that I have from 3.4. All and all for an unpleasent upgrade, it didn't take to long.
    2. Stability. The BSD and Linux camps both have excelent stability but in my experence and opinion, FreeBSD has been a little more stable than Linux.
    3. Security. Linux boxes have software from everywhere and as such the security is only as good as the weakest link. While it is still MUCH better than most commerical OSes (Win95/winNT/Irix/Soloris) it still a bit weaker than then Free BSD Unixes.
    4. Patches. Somebody finds something wrong with some software, how do you get the patch and get it installed? With Linux this can mean anything from a full kernel upgrade including upgrading libc and half your system to a simple patch file and recompile. But YOU have to figure out what it is going to take and how this patch will interact with the rest of your system. In BSD, there is one stop shopping in the form of the "STABLE" tree. You can pull the stable tree, build and install and your entire system gets the latest STABLE version of the OS. And you know that all the parts are designed to interact with each other correctly and will not break (for the most part) any extras that you have added.
    5. announcements. FreeBSD has a number of very low bandwidth mailing lists that you can subscribe to (freebsd-announc@freebsd.org) which will keep you up-to-date on the OS with out flooding your mailbox. (Yes, I'm sure there are lists like that for Linux, but finding them can be difficult)
    6. Emulations. With the FreeBSD 4.0 most Linux programs run under the FreeBSD emulation system. The new Heros III runs fine under 4.0 and linux emulation. So does StarOffice 5.1 and vmware. All of this is way good.

    I have a windows box just to play games and run my scanner, I don't use it for any real work. I use FreeBSD for all of the house servers and house computers. The exception being the one MacIntosh my wife uses (besides her FreeBSD box which is what she uses most of the time). I ran Linux for 3 or 4 years before switching to FreeBSD. I don't think I'll go back but every once in a while, when the Linux people announce another cool game that runs under linux but not FBSD I get tempted. With this release of FBSD 4.0, I don't see myself as going back to Linux ever.

    Chris

  • Some really cool stuff in 4.0 (Score:5)

    by bubblemancer ( 127410 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @07:44AM (#1321621)
    My personal favorite is the jail() call that creates a virtual server within your Unix box. It locks stuff down so tightly that even root doesn't have special privileges inside a jail(). Processes in the jail can only see other processes inside the same jail(), and can only bind to the IP address allowed for that jail(), and can only see the disk allowed for that jail(). Unlike chroot you cannot break out of a jail() if you are root. That's just my personal favorite. Lots more cool stuff in there.
  • That's why you Open Source nuts will never get anywhere... You want to freeze the code. Well, while you're freezing the code, and doing all that [pfeh]bug testing... What's that?!? If you'd only spend the proper time putting together GOOD code, then you wouldn't need to freeze it.

    By the way, is this thing gonna be Windows compatible? I've got this great browser I want to seel them if it is...

    Sincerely,
    Bill Gates
    (Score 5, Monopoly)


    Have you tried my latest version of Windows [microsoft.com]? It's nice.
  • I normally don't do my own tech support, that's what I hire people for...

    But since you ARE using my Windows in an otherwise anti-winvironment, I'll see what I can do.

    I do need some more information however, but here are some points to consider.
    • Are there any Linux boxes within 30 - 50 feet of your Windows 2000 box?
    • Are you using Microsoft hardware peripherals where applicable?
    • Ensure that you're not running on that god-forsaken Athlon
    • Are you sure that this is a bug? Oftentimes individuals can be shown to realize that this is actually a feature, and not a dreaded bug
    Regarding article Q666, I'm afraid the daemon summoning only works on Windows 2000 build 1514a, also known as 5.00.14.5343524_1543. This is not yet attainable by consumers, as we're holding out for popular demand. Release date is scheduled currently at or around July 2001.

    The Summon button can be obtained by downloading and installing the Windows 2000 Powertools. (No link yet available) This is also not yet available, as it is being held for deployment until consumer demand is expressed. (No expected date)

    Sincerely,
    Bill Gates
    (Score 5, Monopoly)


    Have you tried my latest version of Windows [microsoft.com]? It's really nice.

  • Cause you hate yourself... (Score:5)

    by Bill-Gates ( 129481 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @08:15AM (#1321626) Homepage
    The main reason you would want to use FreeBSD would be self-pity. If you really hate yourself, and want to give up all technological conveniences for the sake of stability, then use FreeBSD.

    After an independantly funded poll, I've concluded that most people using FreeBSD are on the rebound, or suffering long, painful divorces. Most tend to be suicidal. By using FreeBSD, it's an expression of their mood. They don't realize, that by always running, and being stable, they can lose their jobs, and it won't matter.

    That's why Windows 2000 [microsoft.com] just makes more sense. You'll never have to fear that you'll be fired. Heck, your boss can't figure out what to do with a BSOD. They're there because of IT demand. Ensures job stability. Why would a FreeBSD shop keep around a sysadmin that didn't ever need to do anything???

    Sincerely,
    Bill Gates
    (Score 5, Monopoly)


    Have you tried my newest version of Windows [microsoft.com]? It's really nice.
  • More information about this (neat!) jail() call can be found by reading the manpage.

    Or by following this link [nectar.cc]

    Ben Brewer
    brewer@nullified.org

  • FreeBSD features and improvements. (Score:5)

    by tidepool ( 137349 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @08:05AM (#1321633)
    For those of you that do not know what benefits are in FreeBSD 4.0, here are a list of new / improved features:
    Some New Features include:

    The VM system's anonymous storage subsystem (the swap pager) has been completely
    revamped. It should be a little faster, with less glitches.
    An emulator for SVR4 binaries has been added. [i386]
    Driver support has been added for PCI fast ethernet cards based on the ADMtek Inc.
    AL985 Centaur chipset.
    Driver support has been added for SysKonnect SK-984x PCI gigabit ethernet adapters.
    Driver support has been added for Adaptec Duralink PCI ethernet adapters based on the
    Adaptec AIC-6915 fast ethernet controller.
    Driver support has been added for PCI fast ethernet adapters based on the Sundance
    Techno-logies ST201 controller, including the D-Link DFE-550TX.
    Driver support has been added for PCI fast ethernet adapters based on the Silicon
    Integrated Systems SiS 900 and SiS 7016 ethernet controllers.
    Driver support has been added for PCI fast ethernet adapters based on the Davicom
    DM9100 and DM9102 ethernet controllers, including the Jaton Corporation XpressNet.
    The top-level category security has been added, and IPFW now uses syslog(3) to log all
    messages to /var/log/security.
    A new jail(2) system call and admin command (jail(8)) have been added for additional
    flexibility in creating secure process execution environments.
    The base C/C++ compiler has been upgraded from GCC 2.7.2 to EGCS 1.1.2. This gives
    users full ISO C++ support.

    System Requirements: Standard ISA, EISA, VL, or PCI bus based PC (386sx to Pentium), 8MB
    RAM, 100MB disk space for a binary-only system & 340MB for a full development system.

    For more information, click here [freebsd.org]


    Ben Brewer
    brewer@nullified.org

  • Java 2 SDK on FreeBSD (Score:4)

    by FreeBSDrew ( 146054 ) on Sunday January 30, 2000 @11:25AM (#1321645)

    I will take this opportunity to remind all fellow Daemons to register with Sun's Java Developer Connection and vote for the Java 2 SDK port to FreeBSD!

    While there has been an official Linux port, there is no native Java 2 SDK for FreeBSD. Please, all members of JDC, go here and cast your votes [sun.com] to have Sun release this software. We are up to 2766 votes so far. It took 4551 votes before Sun released the Linux version, so we're almost there, right? ;-)

    (However, I am well aware that the release of the Linux port was due in large part to the excellent folks from Blackdown [blackdown.org].)

    Here are a few of the tons of comments on the "bug report" page where you can vote for this RFE (request for enhancement).

    • "FreeBSD is one of the favorite OS to run servers, and Java is becoming the favorite language to write server applications."
    • "Daemon News supports this project. DN will also issue a certification if it runs well on BSD."
    • "Due to the stability we use either Solaris or FreeBSD. It is very tiresome not being able to develop on FreeBSD for deployment on Solaris. Using solely Linux is not an option for me."
    • "It's a pity that we can't develop on a OS that is very popular among small ISPs."
    • "As has been said, not having Java ports for these platforms helps only Microsoft, and hurts the people Sun really seems interested in helping: the Open Source community."
    • "With official support of Java2 on FreeBSD from SUN, I would be able to finally abandon NT platform and use my prefferd FreeBSD OS for most of my projects."

    You must be registered in the JDC (Java Developer Connection) to vote. Registration is free and quick, so if you're a Java developer or just have a general interest on FreeBSD or Java, please go sign up and vote!

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