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BSD Operating Systems

NetBSD 1.4.3 Released 110

Posted by michael from the insufficient-recognition dept.
NetBSD 1.4.3 is out; read the announcement, the changelog, or just start downloading.
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NetBSD 1.4.3 Released More

NetBSD 1.4.3 Released

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  • I don't think it has anything to do with linux being too popular, it has to do with one group thinking that the other group's technology is primitve.

    Example, Linux users look down on Windows users, BSD users look down on Linux users, and Amigans look down on everybody. ;-)

    Maybe the technical excellence of an operating system is related to it's popularity? Less popular means technically better. That would explain why my Commodore 64 clobbers everything that came after it...
  • > Basically, the response was: there's way too much bad blood between us, and many of the core developers will spend weeks or months working on solutions to problems rather than even incorporate the idea that solved the problem in the other OS (e.g. the VM advances made in NetBSD vs. the VM work being done about a year ago in FreeBSD).

    Good. Larry Wall would be proud, there *is* more than one way to do it. NetBSD has on occasion picked up ideas from FreeBSD. I also see no evidence of "bad blood" anywhere except between Net and Open ... well between Open and the rest of the world really -- Theo's about as cuddly as OpenBSD's mascot.

    Besides, I've been hearing rumors that FreeBSD is adopting NetBSD's VM. Keep in mind it's not exactly something you can just drop in. When it comes to the rest of userland, the BSD's are always sharing each others code, since it's much more amenable to change than kernel code.
  • I've been looking for an OS for my toaster...
  • OpenBSD has FreeBSD binary support, as well as BSD/OS, SVR4, Linux, SunOS, and HP-UX.
  • Personally I don't think *BSD can be compared to a distrubution of Linux. I think of Linux as a police force and *BSD as the FBI. *BSD is more stable, more professional, more rock hard kick ass. I picture Linux to be more slick, stable, personal and cool. There are three main BSDs, FreeBSD [freebsd.org], NetBSD [netbsd.org], and OpenBSD [openbsd.org]. As far as I know, FreeBSD seems to be focused on stability, and being robust. OpenBSD is focused on security. NetBSD seems to be focused on being a server and running on many platforms.

  • Re:What happens when it gets popular? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > It's amazing how no one on the BSD side ever gets this argument.

    Because it's specious?
  • Apparently, some of the NetBSD guys still have some sort of pride problem with using anything from OpenBSD, as shown here [netbsd.org].

    Jason Thorpe has committed an OpenSSH-based Secure Shell to the main NetBSD sources. This will be pulled into the netbsd-1-5 branch, so it will be available in NetBSD 1.5.


    Please note that the OpenSSH-based implementation is a temporary measure; it will be replaced with a completely independent implementation as soon as that other implementation is ready (within the next couple of months it is hoped).
  • Well, almost right.... but no, NetBSD will not run on a Mac Plus. It requires an MMU, which means either a 030-based machine or an 020-based machine with an addon card (although some 020 models did have a MMU as standard, I believe). The Mac Plus is a 68000 box.

  • Re:So many BSD's... (Score:3)

    by bugg ( 65930 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @08:53AM (#601024) Homepage
    That last comment has no basis in fact- syscalls are similar enough to the fact that binary compatibilty is not difficult to maintain.

    That said, a unified ABI may not be too far away. Who knows?

  • Yes. It runs on *all* kinds of SPARCStations.

    See http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/sparc/ [netbsd.org]& lt;P> I have it running on these SPARCStations in my personal collection:

    • SLC
    • ELC
    • IPX
    • Classic X
    • LX
    • 4
    and have it installed on someone else's SS10.

  • so windows would be the citizens brigade?
  • You should have informed yourself before you started ranting: This has nothing to do with pride.

    They just have found a faster, cleaner, more flexible (in short: better) solution than OpenSSH.

    You can read more about it in the mailinglist archives, e.g. here [geocrawler.com]:

    "It was originally written for an embedded realtime OS, but also works on Solaris and NetBSD. It has independent reader/writer threads, for MUCH better performance than other Secure Shell implementations, has better Kerberos support, and is just written in a much cleaner way.

    It is already being used inside at least one very popular commercial product."

  • NetBSD- Run on any CPU
    FreeBSD- Optimized to run on X86 , and DEC/alpha, and ease of use
    OpenBSD- Based mainly on NetBSD , Its main 'thing' is security.
    BSDi- Commerical support

    So why do we need 4major BSD's? The exact same reason we have 100's of flavors of linux! The FREEDOM of choice, software , etc etc.

    Also , there is NO 'better' , like i said before , it is Freedom of choice. Which I think it is GREAT we have 4 major flavors of BSD! Because it provides direct competition, also source share, which will in the end bring a better o/s! (well all except for BSDi , cuz you cant steal source from them) I read the change logs quite often and alot of thing say 'taken from XXXBSD'
  • FreeBSD's VM is not a hack to death of Mach VM. The rest of the message just goes downhill from there.

    As for "not knowing much about NetBSD's VM", I put in the UVM != Unified VM/buffer cache note to prevent people from saying NetBSD had "Unified" VM already.

    And since UCB has *not* been merged yet, as you confirmed, it seems I'm still up to date with my info.
  • Are you sure that open won't install on your box. Im many cases ide/hard drive problems are solved by writeing down what the kernel reported for hard drive cylinder/head/etc information and manuallhy inputting that into diskedit. Assuming that this is an x86 or alpha you should consider FreeBSD though.
  • I doubt that Anonymous Coward is a NetBSD developer.

    Users, sure, all BSD have their assholes, as do all Linux distributions, and, in fact, all Operating Systems, and all text editors and all computer languages, and etc, etc, etc, in all things in life from cars to soccer teams to whatever you can think of.
  • Boy, what a troll if I ever saw one.

    No, I'm not saying there are not assholes among developers. Just that there aren't any asshole developers on FreeBSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD.

    As a matter of fact, all our developers have great personality, are intelligent, considerate, polite, well-meaning, charismatic and, generally speaking, perfect human beings. There you have, tons of trolling material.

    I'm amused to notice, though, that you did not contest my statement that _you_ are an asshole.

    As a more to the point reply of what is obviously a troll, I never said a developer could not be an asshole. I just implied that no NetBSD developer is anywhere near the giant, elephant-raped asshole that you are.
  • Yes, and you're running FreeBSD binaries thanks to a compatibility layer, which wouldn't be necessary if they both used the same kernel.
  • "At least one of the BSDs is capable of running binaries compiled for the Linux kernel. And you're telling me that BSD
    has zero cross-BSD binary compatibility? "

    That statement makes no sense. You're claiming that stating BSD has zero cross-BSD binary compatibility is false because FreeBSD has Linux binary emulation?

    Moron.
  • I do agree with your comments about the over-exposure of NetBSD's rhetoric. However, the ARM example is unfair; arm26 and arm32 really are entirely different architectures, and have extremely different requirements for porting.

    The arm32 port is now very mature, but arm26 has not been running for long. I happen to know the arm26 portmaster, and I assure you that if his task was a simple as copying most of arm32 with a few minor modifications, it would have been done and dusted a long while ago.

    A port of NetBSD supporting arm26 AND arm32 would either fail to exploit either architecture to its fullest, or would contain swathes of redundant code and tedious checks.
  • FreeBSD once used the Mach VM. But large parts of that code has been altogether replaced. If you were to answer questions about FreeBSD VM based on Mach VM knowledge, you'd get most of the answers wrong.

    For this reason, I don't think saying FreeBSD uses a "hacked" Mach VM is correct.

    As for UCB having been integrated, *not* at the time I wrote the message, you cheater! :-)
  • ...I confused you with another Anonymous Coward. The risks of browsing flat...

    For this reason, I retract my accusations of you being an asshole.
  • Ok...lets say:

    Linux good - no forks (to day)
    BSD bad - forks from 4.4 Lite tree

    Then can linux be called BAD when Linux forks 3 ways? Present Linux, Embedded/small Linux, and Linux for big iron (IBM)
  • NetBSD 1.5 BETA 2 is worth trying as well. Runs *GREAT*. I use it for my NFS server machine, a machine on which neither OpenBSD nor Debian (my general choices of OS) would not install due to problems with the IDE bus. This installed and acts very stably. It also ships with OpenSSH :-) Very stable too.
  • FreeBSD has changed this a bit, backing away from /etc/rc.local and having startup/shutdown scripts in /usr/local/etc/rc.d/. Any daemons that I install from the /usr/ports (Samba, sshd) put stuff in here instead of trying to edit my (nonexistant) /etc/rc.local.

  • Re:What happens when it gets popular? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > what happens when BSD gets popular?

    If I understand what you mean, there's no reason to worry. The BSDs actually require half a clue before you can install them and many more to actually run them. That's enough to filter out the usual 'I've put the CD in, pressed return a few times and now I'm a sysadmin' kiddies.

    Also, BSDI have already covered the 'commercial distribution' market, and they actually know what they're doing. Not much chance for the likes of redhat to barge in and ruin it for everyone like they did with Linux.

  • OB:Differences in *BSD (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 26, 2000 @06:07AM (#601042)
    Since it gets asked everytime there's a *BSD article or release, might as well answer the differences between the flavours of BSD.

    NetBSD is meant to run on as many platforms as possible. I've seen it run on old VAXen to Mac+'s, iMacs, x86, etc etc etc. Chances are if it's a halfway popular carchitecture, NetBSD will run in some way on it.

    The install is a bit "different," but if you're looking for a *NIX for the old machine sitting in the corner try NetBSD.

    OpenBSD is meant for security. It's the one with the line-by-line security code audit a few years back, and it shows. It's the only freenix I've ever installed, then not fiddled around with right afterwards so I wouldn't get rooted. I went and ate lunch instead. It's SMP is a bit lacking (but it's getting there ;p), there are some complaints about the speed of it's file system, and it doesn't run on as many platforms as NetBSD.

    I'm a bit biased since I cut my teeth on OpenBSD rather than Linux, so I can't speak if the install is easy or not anymore. But if you want security, get this.

    FreeBSD is good for servers/workstations. It has good (hard to qualify) SMP, and runs on many good platforms. It can be made very secure easily, has an excellent ports tree for software, and is fastfastfast at networking.

    The install is easy, the performance is good, and if you want to try out a *BSD but haven't before try FreeBSD.

    Oh, and goatse.cx [goatse.cx]. ;)
  • Thanks for that link, asshole.
  • At one point, the C64 was the best-selling home computer of all time, so I don't think the idea of "less popular means technically better" holds true in that case...

  • > Basically, the response was: there's way too much bad blood between us,

    I have some doubts you /really/ have talked to the core of NetBSD or FreeBSD since I don't believe any [Net|Free]BSD-developer/core-member would have said such thing.

    BTW: This text (written more than *seven* years ago to end the discussion about merging) sums it up, how it *really* was and still is: NetBSD-FreeBSD-merge [netbsd.org] > This is a sad state of affairs, and hurts BSD a lot. Could you tell us why? Where? When?

  • There have been some comparisons of the various BSDs here, which have been helpful. But to me the real issue is what software will run on the various BSDs. I know that the BSDs generally have emulation available, but I never know if it's stable or trustworthy.

    If you wanted to run a database enabled JSP web application, would any of the BSDs work well? Does Postgres run well on any of the BSDs? MySQL? Do they have to run in emulation mode? And what's the status of Java on the various BSDs?

    OpenBSD has a lot of appeal to me, but I have the impression that it won't run the software I need to run.
  • I disagree, unless you want netbsd on a CPU that is not supported by 1.4.x , the reason 1.5 is not a complete os yet. It still has quite a few bugs to work out . I would only recomend useing 1.5beta2 if you dont have to worry about loseing any important things on your harddrive. 1.5beta2 is made for developers of the NetBSD project.
    which is why 1.5 is still in beta(-current) mode. Its still not 'all there yet'
  • Does netBSD run on a Sparcstation?

  • Re:What happens when it gets popular? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here's the thing: no GPL advocate has ever demonstrated that relicensing has had a negative effect on BSD code. GPL advocates practice a naive, populist politics of exclusion because, at heart, they cant believe the bogeyman of non free software will never contribute back to the code base.

    In fact, changes to BSD code by private concerns are routinely back ported into the BSD code base.

    Depending on your purposes, the GPL is a damn fine license. Unfortunately, most people who advocate the GPL advocate split the world down the middle between the dark side and the light side.

    Its an appealing enough philosophy for simpltons, I guess, but even they must certainly remember the punch line: Luke, I am your father.

  • actually i was able to boot it up later on after the instal with a ramdisk kernel (which came on the B floppy) but was unable to get any other kernel to work, even a recompiled ramdisk kernel.

  • The folks I spoke with at The Bazaar were members of the core development teams for both OSes. If they want to speak out, I'm happy to let them, but here are some quotes as best as I can recall:

    "[the person doing the VM work for FreeBSD] is very resistant to the NetBSD code. He has gone off on his own and tried to come up with another way to do it." When I asked why, they said that he didn't want to take code from NetBSD because of creative differences between them on other topics.

    "OpenBSD is not more secure and FreeBSD is not faster on the X86 than NetBSD, but they keep lying."

    Mind you, I also heard a lot of things like the FreeBSD folks saying that the NetBSD work is really good and they'd like to have more time to integrate some of it. It seems like there's just a few "my camp is better than your camp" folks in each camp.

    On the Linux side, we see the same thing. I can't count the number of times that I've heard some RedHat supporter putting down Debian or visa versa with no real reason. There are many core people who can't be bothered with animosity, but a few make it hard to have that air of cooperation shine through.

    Personally, I was looking forward to the effort to put the BSD kernel under Debian's distribution to see how that would affect the various wars. I wanted to see everyone suddenly come to the realization that it's all Open Source and it's all good all the time (to quote a popular TV series).
  • OpenBSD has FreeBSD binary support, as well as [...]

    Cool, I've learned something today then. Is it "emulated" support, or do FreeBSD binaries run as fast as native binaries?
  • It's a misnomer: no hardware or even operating system is really being emulated. The OpenBSD "emulation" just reads the FreeBSD API and runs the software natively. It's just like WINE but for a UNIX system, but since FreeBSD's, Linux's, et. al's. APIs are open and do not have to be reverse engineered, you can expect apps to run at full speed or near full speed.

  • BSD licensed code may be used in commercial, closed source software. Also the advertising clause was once problemous. However, this problem is not something which will stop me from using BSD -- the case is not as bad as Ssh v2, pine or older QPL.

  • Re:So many BSD's... (Score:3)

    by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @10:51AM (#601055) Homepage Journal
    It depends on your definitions of "operating system" and "distribution". Everyone has there own definitions. I like to draw lines between the operating system and the operating environment. Different distributions will have the same OS and nearly the same OE, but everything else can be different. In the case of Linux, the OS is the linux kernel plus necessary infrastructure (lilo, sysvinit, etc). The OE is mostly GNU.

    In the case of the various BSDs, they all have different operating systems and operating environments. Comparing them to different Linux distributions misses the mark. Because they are completely different systems, they are further apart than the various Linux distros. But because they have kept close compatibility with each other, they can be closer together than some Linux distros are.

    A real BSD "distribution" would be one that takes an existing BSD OS/OE and packages their own stuff on top. The only one that I know of is PicoBSD.

    OT: I forsee the day when all these components are readily interchangable. Choose your OS (linux, bsd, hurd), choose your OE (GNU, BSD, mix), and choose your user software (shell, desktop, etc). Mix and match to your heart's content while running the installer.
  • (sarcasm)It's amazing to me that a little old 2 sentace front-page story about a new release has sparked such a discussion.(/sarcasm) But then again, when the trolls come out, someone has to wave the fire in thier face.

    BSD-Pat: you were wrong...you said [slashdot.org] /. only catered to what the majority wants to see...seems the majority knows thier BSD....so what's the problem?

    NO SPORK
  • Hey, you even trotted out the bird for me, thanks!

    Now, any idea where that ISO image might be for real?

    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • I don't know if any ISO's exist or not. The great thing about NetBSD is that an ISO isn't necessary.

    Just download the packages you need. Make a boot disk. Burn the packages you want or do a ftp install.

    What? You need more than 600Mb of software!? :)

    I've always ordered CD's from cheapbytes.com but they are often behind on the newer Net and FreeBSD releases. So do net install (or download the packages first) is very much necessary.

  • Can it run on the iPaq?
  • The BSD's differ amongst each other, and from Linux in a number of ways.

    One thing that has not been mentioned in this thread so far is that most source code will (with minor modifications at worst) just compile under any BSD as well as they would under Linux. People sometimes overstress the difference.

    As to the differences that matter, well: that is mostly dependant on what's important to you.

    I'm continually torn in my preference, and my preference is the only bit I can speak about with real authority. :-)

    I'm running NetBSD on machines that more or less require it (the Sparc and the VAX -- and yes, I know Linux is an option on at least the Sparc). I'm running FreeBSD on a number of machines, because it is fast and free. I'm running BSDi's BSD/OS on machines where I can least afford to muck with the machines, because of the quality of the mods (comparable to Service Packs on Windows, or Jumbo Patches on Solaris, except that they cause less grief :-)

    FreeBSD sort of requires the end user to be half a developer (if not a whole one). If you run into an issue, the solution more often than not is to update your sources to the stable CVS branch and install them. On the other hand, my laptop runs FreeBSD 4.0 so well I'm weary to upgrade it to 4.2.

    At my workplace, we're pretty eclectic. We run BSD/OS, FreeBSD, Linux and the big commercial Unices, we maintain some BSD software packages with RPM, and every once in a while, we move services off one platform and onto another. Whatever works best in a particular situation.

  • >Licenses like the GPL are, at their heart saying, "you can do anything except re-license this code."

    Err AJS, you are being sloppy wih your words here.

    And you know better.

    You can not **RE-LICENSE** BSD or GPL. (unless you are the original copywrite holder) It is a matter of ADDING another layer of license. The GPL does not allow for a way to add a new layer of license that restricts re-distribution of the source code. There may be a way to create a license that you can ADD to a GPL license, but I have never seen such. A BSD license allows you to add another license layer where you can take the code, make additions and then NOT release the changes.

    >On the point of using BSD because it's not trendy, I have to agree with the original poster. Most BSD users that I know use it for that reason.

    Errr, most use it because they find it to be a better product than other options.
  • > Perhaps BeOS would be a good destination

    Hmm. When I condider all the good points of NetBSD, and all the good points of BeOS, I find that almost none of them coincide.

    BeOS is nothing like NetBSD, so I can hardly imagine NetBSD users jumping over to BeOS just because their OS is "too popular". The same applies the other way around also.

  • Same week as FreeBSD? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Bah. You wait ages for one, and then two come along at the same time...
  • ISOs are for wimps. This ain't your grandma's OS.
  • Can the different types of BSD's be compared to the different distros of Linux? Or are they really different from each other? I've seen the list of so-called differences on http://www.bsd.com, but what are the REAL differences?

  • Excuse me, flame whore, but most of the people who use any of the *BSDs have much better reasons to than simply "I don't want to be trendy." For example, people who have some really weird hardware or old hardware like a 286 will probably be using NetBSD, simply because Linux won't run on their machines. There are even contradictions in your argument relating to this:

    Where will these people go then? Darwin?

    Oh no! But according to your logic, they would never use Darwin! It would be used by tens of thousands of Mac users all over the world! That would be very trendy.

    the BSD'ers have no problems with restrictive liscences.

    Ha ha! This is a good one! Please feel free to explain exactly how the BSD license is restrictive. Which you probably won't, because that is a pretty baseless claim if I ever saw one.

  • rofl

    >I'm a newbie to the unix world
    at least your honext

    also, you dont have a clue
    please get one before posting to slashdot again

    and linux kernel is up to 2.2
    by 7.2, i assume your talking about the Mandrake Distribution or some other lame distro.

    thanks for wasting my time
  • OR...just burn a boot disk to your CD using floppy emulation.

    my personal burner for win32 (Nero) has support for this. i'm pretty sure you can do something similar under the linux tools.
  • I think the average BSD-user has better reasons than that to use BSD. I'm not one by the way; I'm an apt-getter. In what way is the BSD-license (too) restrictive to you?
  • That's just because each vendor likes to tweak the kernel in a certain way. If you wipe out the vendor-supplied kernel and build and install your own with whatever patches you might need (wierd hardware, ReiserFS, etc.), the distro will still boot up and work fine.

    All the vendors are doing is patching the kernels with stuff that anyone can download and patch their own kernel against anyway. For example, a vendor might include the ReiserFS patch. That's not a fork, it's just a common patch!

  • BSD's been around far longer than Linux. And it's a lot more "standardized" than linux, thanks to the fact that there' aren't so many distributions, just a few different flavors, that to anyone that knows them are quite different internally and are developed with different goals in mind from one another...

    Past that, the BSD license (i know, this is getting old around here) is a much freer license than the GPL... It doesn't take away your freedom to do with it as you chose, nor does it do that to anyone else. It also doesn't order you to do anything you might not want to do.

    BSD's not going anywhere. While Linux continually chases Microsoft, the BSD's will continue to be the rock solid foundations. There aren't any public companies selling BSD, there aren't any shareholders to listen to, there's no CFO's discussing market share with the CEO and how to grow the market. It's just a bunch of people that have decided that they like this system better than the alternatives, and if you do too, cool, otherwise that's fine too.
  • Can the different types of BSD's be compared to the different distros of Linux?

    Sort of - it's not a bad starting picture, anyway. The main practical difference is that different Linux distributions are usually binary compatible, but not the different BSD versions. For example, "Wordperfect for Red Hat Linux" will (probably) run on Debian, SuSE, Turbo etc.. However, Netscape for FreeBSD won't run on OpenBSD. I don't know that much about BSD though, so if someone wants to post a different viewpoint I'd be interested to read what they had to say.
  • The kernels are different. The linux kernel has never forked, and thus compiled binaries will work cross most linux distributions. BSD has forked into different kernels, which means zero cross BSD binary compatibility.
  • Does anyone know of a good comparison of the various BSD's? Are there any obvious, "this one is better for this" that everyone can agree on?

  • Re:So many BSD's... (Score:5)

    by scrytch ( 9198 ) <chuck@myrealbox.com> on Sunday November 26, 2000 @06:45AM (#601075)
    Can the different types of BSD's be compared to the different distros of Linux? Or are they really different from each other? I've seen the list of so-called differences on http://www.bsd.com, but what are the REAL differences?

    Whereas Linux is technically just a kernel, BSD is the kernel and the base system, including libc, basic utilities like cat, sed, grep, and so on (occasionally a GNU tool like tar is just too good to pass up, so it gets used instead). Unlike Linux, the three free flavors of BSD (Free, Net, Open) have different kernels and base systems, though they still borrow from each other. They can all run pretty much the same thing, and to a novice user running a desktop like kde or gnome, you really can't tell them apart from each other or even a Linux distribution (aside from the obvious differences in a desktop a vendor would supply).

    NetBSD is something of a research platform for new ideas. New virtual memory and driver architectures have usually come out of NetBSD first. NetBSD is also amazingly portable, running on more architectures and devices than Linux has ever imagined. I don't know much about their organization structure, it seems to revolve around a self-organized core team. NetBSD's slogan is "Of course it runs NetBSD".

    FreeBSD, founded at the same time of NetBSD (they were both forks of BSD/386) is aimed more at "real world" use. This isn't to imply that NetBSD isn't good for production use, but FreeBSD makes it their main focus, and thus eschews portability in favor of performance. It runs on only two platforms, alpha and ia32 (there's also a sparc port that's perpetually broken). FreeBSD uses a CVS tree to maintain the source, and the major developers can commit directly to the CVS tree. There is a core team of developers that can veto changes or make major changes affecting many systems; this team was just recently changed to an elected body, picked by all the committers. FreeBSD's slogan is "FreeBSD: The Power to Serve"

    OpenBSD was a fork of NetBSD, but has grown into a full-fledged flavor in its own right. It's very unambiguous about its mission, and that's security. Every line of code in the distribution is audited for security holes, and encryption is ubiquitous, to the point of having features like encrypted swap partitions. OpenBSD's organization is most like Linux's in that it is run by a single person, Theo de Raadt, and a hand-picked team of developers, most of whom do the security audits.

    All the BSD's are able to run Linux binaries at native speed. I personally run Linux Netscape on FreeBSD, because it supports Flash, and is more stable (which isnt saying much, I'm using IE to post this).
  • the BSD'ers have no problems with restrictive liscences.
    Ha ha! This is a good one! Please feel free to explain exactly how the BSD license is restrictive. Which you probably won't, because that is a pretty baseless claim if I ever saw one.
    It's amazing how no one on the BSD side ever gets this argument. The comment wasn't that the BSD license was restrictive, but that the BSD people have no problem with restrictive licenses. Licenses like the GPL are, at their heart saying, "you can do anything except re-license this code." BSD license advocates take exception to not being able to re-license. This implicitly gives a nod of acceptance to restrictive licenses (e.g. Microsoft's NT license on code that comes from BSD's networking).

    I'm not taking sides here. I develop GPLed code because I have always done so (since the late 80s), but have never really disliked the BSD license. I do, however, acknowledge that accepting the BSD license is accepting restrictive re-licensing.

    On the point of using BSD because it's not trendy, I have to agree with the original poster. Most BSD users that I know use it for that reason. Perhaps there are a sacred few that use BSD for technical reasons, but I know a lot of counter-examples. Some use it because the lack of popularity means that less security exploits will be targeted for it. Some use it because they simply cannot bear to use what the majority of the PC-UNIX subculture consider cool.

  • Re:So many BSD's... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    (Time to feed the trolls, eh?)

    It's time to learn something about computers, kid! Looks like you only know a little bit about PCs and have heard about some Linux porting efforts.

    Ok:

    If you support a processor architecture this doesn't mean that you automagically support every piece of hardware that contains a cpu of that kind.

    Example #1: Amigas, old Macs, Ataris, old Suns, old Apollos, Sharp x68, some Ciscos... are all driven by some kind of Motorolas 68k CPU. If you think they all belong to one single hardware platform you must be incredible stupid. Well, I guess you are...

    Infact, with the exception of the CPU they have as much in common as (say) a PC with a PowerMAC.

    Example #2: Linux/mips does not support SGI's O2 or Sony Network Stations, NetBSD does.
  • Umm, when did BSDI fold?
  • Strawman argument in 3... 2... 1...
    no GPL advocate has ever demonstrated that relicensing has had a negative effect on BSD code.
    You are right, of course. It's irrelevant, but you're right. No BSD license advocate has ever demonstrated that the GPL makes cookies.
    Depending on your purposes, the GPL is a damn fine license. Unfortunately, most people who advocate the GPL advocate split the world down the middle between the dark side and the light side.
    Yes to the first point (as is the BSD license). Yes to the second point, but with a proviso: most people who support the BSD license or the GPL have not read either fully.... I have read both. I am not most people, and I think that you need to go back and look at the original statement.

    The BSD license allows for closed licensing around the licensed code. Releasing something under the BSD license is tacitly approving of such a thing. I'm not saying that's bad, nor, I think, did the original poster. It's just that you do accept that, and you have to in turn accept the concequences. That is, you will have to accept the fact that Microsoft is going to use your code and never contribute back. You have to accept that if Corel decides to make a product out of your code and it flops, you'll likely never see their changes (unlike what happened with Debian and XFree86).

    The GPL is a tool that accomplishes a set of goals. The BSD license is a tool that accomplishes a very different, but related set of goals. When you're choosing, you should decide which set of goals you want to achive and choose your license accordingly.

  • We look down on GNU/Linux bigots because they're naive morons. We have much more sympathy for their parents who house and shelter them by virtue of exacting a living wage from fearsome, capitalist exploiters of Information that Wants to be Free.

    --

  • NetBSD 1.5 BETA 2 is worth trying as well. Runs *GREAT*. I use it for my NFS server machine, a machine on which neither OpenBSD nor Debian (my general choices of OS) would not install due to problems with the IDE bus. This installed and acts very stably. It also ships with OpenSSH :-) Very stable too. Going to make that machine my firewall sometime.
  • Actually, the main reason that I've never been too interested in NetBSD is the a.out format. I looked into it about the time that 1.4 came out because I like trying out different OSes. Kind of a fetish I guess. Anyway, when I found out about the a.out/elf issue, I was waaay disappointed. I'll probably give it a try again though when 1.5 comes out.
  • The Berkeley license is a problem, how?
  • http://just.rtfm.net/bench.txt has some initial data on the differences on the last major releases of the BSDs. It is an ongoing project to present a fair, and unbiased representation of performance based on design tradeoffs made in the different bsds.
  • I set up about 6 different sites on a single OpenBSD 2.7 server running apache, php4, mysql, and SSL.

    Unfortunately, java on BSD isn't quite as updated as on linux, although I believe there is some version that will run.
  • Which iPaq? There's the iPaq desktop (which I got FreeBSD to install on it fine... makes a great web server with a very small footprint), the iPaq handheld (which I presume is the one you are inquiring about), or the iPaq MP3 player.
  • It is well known that the BSD's are the darlings of the elitist 'thinks linux is too popular' crowd.

    I wouldn't call it a crowd. More like a small group of malcontents. The vast majority of *BSD users did not choose their system because Linux was too popular.

    the BSD'ers have no problems with restrictive liscences.

    The various BSDs are very concerned with restrictive licenses. So much, in fact, that they will include no software with a restrictive license in the default OS and environment. So much, in fact, that they segregate GPL and LGPL licensed software to its own tree. They do not want to place any restrictions on the recipients use of their source code. That someone may later come along and distribute their stuff closed source is of small concern to them, since the original is still there unharmed and unrestricted.

  • I don't use NetBSD and OpenBSD because Linux is too popular. I think x is too popular, hence I will use y, is a very bad reason for using anything. I use it because for my purpose it does a better job then Linux, for example on a Sparc 2, BSD has better memory handling then does Linux and hence runs faster. As for the license, yes, it is a problem, but not worthy of not running the OS. Plus, for a user a license shouldn't matter much, it should for the developer though. But BSD is BSD and not GPL and I will not argue. Also, just saying BSD is a bit too broad. Linux too, borrows some bits of BSD code.

  • Almost any strongly supported program (that works on linux) will run on BSD, without emulation.

    The best way to check is to look at each OS's ports listing, or to check the support at the application's website. OpenBSD has an excellent ports tree; anything in there will run on OpenBSD, almost always without linux emulation. There's a few applications that require emulation, but it's almost always things like Acrobat Reader, or Netscape Navigator.

    I use both postgresql and mysql on an OpenBSD machine, and have every reason to believe that they both run on NetBSD or FreeBSD. If you want to know if a particular BSD will work for your particular application, the best way to find out is to try it.

    Having tried it, I'll doubt I'll ever go back to a linux distribution... OpenBSD and FreeBSD handle my needs far too well for me to need anything else.

  • The BSD license allows for closed licensing around the licensed code. Releasing something under the BSD license is tacitly approving of such a thing. I'm not saying that's bad, nor, I think, did the original poster. It's just that you do accept that, and you have to in turn accept the concequences


    That is absolutely acceptable to BSD advocates.

    That is, you will have to accept the fact that Microsoft is going to use your code and never contribute back.

    I have no problem with that. If they use the better code, the world is that much better off for it. My hatred for MS buys me nothing - especially if I have to use their product for one reason or another (choice included.) If they have the resources to maintain an independent fork, bully for them. The original code remains under continued OSS development.

    Best of both worlds as far as I can see.

    (I dont understand where I introduced a strawman in my original arguement. I maintain that the standard GPL relicensing arguement is entirely based on one big strawman, actually.)

    --

  • One of the biggest differences (to a sysadmin) is that BSD and Linux use different init scripts. In BSD, your init script is this one big monstrous file. In Linux, your init scripts are SysV-style, in which you have seven directories (/etc/rc[0-6].d) which contain symlinks to files in a master directory (/etc/init.d).

    IMHO, SysV is easier to administrate, because it's easy to follow and the divisions are easy to locate. Each runlevel (0-6), as indicated by its directory (/etc/rcX.d), contains numbered symlinks to files in /etc/init.d. For example, you might have /etc/rc2.d/S01cleanutmp, etc. At each runlevel, init executes the files in each /etc/rcX.d directory in numerical order.

    Certainly the team that developed Solaris thought a SysV init was preferable. That says something, because Solaris used to be BSD way long ago in the 1.x days.

    I guess which system (/etc/rcX.d or one big file) depends on whether you want a lot of easily understood small files or one huge file. In my experience, *BSD and Linux are just about equal as desktop performers. I use Linux because I prefer the SysV init style.

  • Troll alert! First of all, different Linux distributions use the SAME kernel and for the most part the same libraries, and yet there is often binary incompatibility.

    At least one of the BSDs is capable of running binaries compiled for the Linux kernel. And you're telling me that BSD has zero cross-BSD binary compatibility?

    Dolt.

    Dave

    Barclay family motto:
    Aut agere aut mori.
    (Either action or death.)
  • Source code compatibility? What the hell are YOU talking about? I ask out of genuine curiosity; do you have a point, or are you just talking out of your ass.

    And regarding binary compatibility, see the other posts on why that works.

    Do not comment on something you know nothing about.
  • One of the biggest differences (to a sysadmin) is that BSD and Linux use different init scripts. In BSD, your init script is this one big monstrous file. In Linux, your init scripts are SysV-style, in which you have seven directories (/etc/rc[0-6].d) which contain symlinks to files in a master directory (/etc/init.d).

    While this is true of NetBSD 1.4.3, the upcoming NetBSD 1.5 release will contain an /etc/rc.d directory with smallish startup scripts where the order is dynamically determined at runtime based on "provide / require" statements in the scripts, and the startup of services are controlled by system-supplied defaults in /etc/defaults/rc.conf and system-specific settings in /etc/rc.conf. This mechanism makes it easier to "drop in" new startup scripts, and thus builds on the good features of the SysV startup system.

    However, NetBSD 1.5 does not introduce the SysV runlevels -- this is IMHO a good thing, since the above mechanism allows for more flexibility. Your opinion may differ, of course.

  • Re:What happens when it gets popular? (Score:3)

    by moof1138 ( 215921 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @05:24AM (#601095)
    I have NetBSD running on a Quadra 800, and an SE/30. There is a port of Linux to the hardware, but NetBSD is easier to install, more mature, and, for me, easier to admin. These machines make great little servers for low end stuff (print, DNS). I tried out the Linux m68k build about a year ago but I got so many kernel panics that I quickly determined that this was not an option.
    I also use Darwin/OS X a lot, but again not because I dislike Linux, but because for what it is/does it is super.
    BTW, personally I like how easy it is to admin a BSD system compared to a Linux box, I like the ports system more than rpm/apt. I find the portability of the OS handy as I have a lot of weird hardware, and being able to maintain some consistency is a good thing to keep administration simple. This is largely a matter of preference.
    It is not fair to assume that NetBSDers ave a grudge against that more popular system for 'getting to big for its britches.' This is not about obscurantism. We like our lovely OS for what it is, and can do, not because that some other OS is too trendy.
  • Example #1: Amigas, old Macs, Ataris, old Suns, old Apollos, Sharp x68, some Ciscos... are all driven by some kind of Motorolas 68k CPU. If you think they all belong to one single hardware platform you must be incredible stupid. Well, I guess you are...

    Have I developed some kind of "slashdot sense" or can most anybody see these pathetic cries for attention for miles away? Boy you're so knowledgeable, thanks for putting me in my place. I mean, I already knew that, but your combination of authority, condescension, and insult just reminded me and everyone on slashdot whose kung fu is better.

    Feel better?
  • Nevermind, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
  • i was looking through the processor list, and apparently netbsd does not support ARM chips. what's up with that?
  • Actually, I think innovation is inversely proportional to popularity.
  • I don't think that that was the point. Think "meta". The BSD licenses allow someone to relicense with a very restrictive license. While the BSD-licensers don't place the restrictions, they obviously don't have a problem with them;)

    You know, in all the years BSD and its license has been around, you'd think this worse-case scenario would have actually happened. I see some closed-source server appliances based on BSD, yet somehow BSD has not been killed off by these. And FreeBSD has managed to eclipse BSDi to the point where BSDi now distributes FreeBSD.

    Meta schmeta. Show me results.

  • Sad, really... (Score:4)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajs@ajs . c om> on Sunday November 26, 2000 @06:54AM (#601102) Homepage Journal
    I've spoken with people in the core of both the NetBSD and FreeBSD efforts (never had a chance to chat with OpenBSD folks). When I asked if there was a chance of merging the efforts and bringing the advantages of each into a single OS, I was sort of laughed at. Basically, the response was: there's way too much bad blood between us, and many of the core developers will spend weeks or months working on solutions to problems rather than even incorporate the idea that solved the problem in the other OS (e.g. the VM advances made in NetBSD vs. the VM work being done about a year ago in FreeBSD).

    This is a sad state of affairs, and hurts BSD a lot.
  • > There aren't any public companies selling BSD

    What about this one [bsdi.com]? I seem to remember this [sun.com] little company used to sell a BSD before they went to SysV.

  • Re:So many BSD's... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is *absolutely* wrong. Right now I'm on OpenBSD running the 4.76 FreeBSD version of netscape. I could also use the Linux version or if there was a NetBSD version I could use that.

    For Netscape 4.75, I used the BSDI version of netscape. There is a LOT of cross BSD binary compatibility.

    What is lacking is _source_ code compatibility, not binary compatibility.

    Do not comment on something you know nothing about.
  • NetBSD is best for having a uniform operating system on multiple architectures, or using nonstandard architectures that are not supported by FreeBSD or OpenBSD.

    Because the focus of OpenBSD is on security, OpenBSD is considered the best distro for security of the three.

  • BSDi is a private company.
  • In a word, bullshit.

    There is a lot of code going back and forth between the BSD. Net and Free copy security fixes from Open, Open copy stuff from Net and Free, bug fixes are often shared between them (an indication of the extent to which there _is_ common code), FreeBSD imported NetBSD's usb and cardbus support etc.

    Since you did specifically mention VM, let's talk about that. FreeBSD did not and has no plans to replace it's VM with NetBSD's because, to put simply, FreeBSD's is better. For one thing, it's unified buffer cache/VM, and, last I heard of it, NetBSD hasn't unified theirs yet. For another, is has been carefully optimized through many years to both handle ultra heavy loads gracefully and not slow down lightly loaded systems. NetBSD simply isn't there yet.

    So why didn't _NetBSD_ import FreeBSD's VM? Because NetBSD has a tendency to the experimental. The path they are taking is more modular and might, in time, become a better VM than FreeBSD's.

    FreeBSD's goals effectively prevents them from taking such an experimental path with such an important and _proved_ subsystem. NetBSD's goals doesn't. And there, btw, you have why the BSD do not unify, _and_ why that is a good thing.

    And last, but not least, these are monolythic kernels. You *can't* just replace the VM subsystem. It just doesn't work that way. The effort that would be required to change the VM subsystem is enourmous. That's why, for instance, NetBSD doesn't have the unified buffer cache/VM working yet (or didn't, last I heard).

    Finally, as to code sharing, there just are disagreement as to how some things ought to be done. For instance, NetBSD has opted to go "newconfig" while FreeBSD decided to go "newbus". A lot of concepts _and_ some code for "newbus" came from NetBSD's work, which predated it. But FreeBSD developers had fundamental disagreement as to how this thing should work and, thus, went another way.

    ***

    Final note: I once assumed UVM meant "unified" VM, as in unified VM/buffer cache; I was later told by a NetBSD committer that was not the case, and haven't heard of any news since. If the status quo is no longer that, I'd deeply appreciate if someone more familiar with NetBSD would correct me.

    ***

    PS: yes, there is bad blood between OpenBSD and NetBSD. That's mostly because Theo de Raadt has a love-him-or-hate-him personality. That's just the kind of thing that can't be helped.

  • LMbench wasn't even properly compiled on NetBSD (note the row of "-1"'s). The 2:1 difference in mcopy performance between FreeBSD and NetBSD suggests that compiler flags were different between the two. And the single-decimal accuracy for most of the numbers suggests that LMbench was used out of its range of useful measurement.

    I'd say this benchmark "project" is off to a rocky start...

  • "emulation" (Score:3)

    by dcs ( 42578 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @12:24PM (#601109)
    Let me explain here how does "emulation" work.

    You have the kernel. The kernel has a number of services, and a number of functions to do them.

    You have the userland. The userland uses some libraries, and they, in turn, call the kernel to do some stuff.

    Between them, this "call the kernel", is something named "syscalls". These are kernel "functions" that can be called from outside the kernel. They are the interface (in the _real_ CS sense of "interface") between kernel and userland.

    Now... there is a large set of syscalls that is identical between most Unix, and there is a small set of syscalls that are different or unique to each OS. But these syscalls are _numbered_ differently.

    So... what is the emulation, in the context of running Linux or FreeBSD binaries on OpenBSD (or NetBSD, since that's the focus of this story :)? Three things:

    1) A numbering of syscalls identical to the OS being "emulated". There is *ZERO* speed difference here, because this is exactly what native applications do. The only difference between a native application and an imported binary is that different syscalls tables are selected depending on what is the binaries' type.

    2) Some syscall "translation". This is the case where the native OS has a different order of arguments and/or more arguments or different flags values or some arguments/flags of the emulated syscall simply does not apply in the native OS. In this case, there simply is a call with the arguments reordered, and maybe some masking/translation of flags.

    The cost of this is almost negligible, because the cost of *making* a syscall (crossing the userland/kernel border), in itself, is much greater already. Also, the different in speed of the *implementation* of said syscall will often far surpass, one way or another, this overhead.

    3) Implementation of a feature non-existentent in the native OS. There is no overhead here, because there is no translation. The syscall is simply being implemented from the scratch. The implementation may be faster or slower than the emulated OS, because of the native OS' architecture. At the very least, Open Source means we can look at how the other OS implemented it.

    And there you have. "Emulation", when used to speak of different hardware being emulated in software or different a different operating system being emulated, means slower. What is being done here is *not* emulation, but "ABI compatibility" just isn't catchy (or as easily understandable), so few people speak that way. What we do does _not_ add overhead.

    As for databases and Java... Postgres and MySQL can be found in the ports (packages, on NetBSD) tree of all BSD. Java is more complicated, because it depends on a specific model of threads support. FreeBSD is, nowadays, mostly ok when it comes to Java (or so I'm told :). I do not know the state of Java on OpenBSD or NetBSD, but I'm afraid this specific application will not run emulated because it needs some very specific features support in the kernel. But don't take my word on it.

  • Restrictive License? (Score:3)

    by dcs ( 42578 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @12:48PM (#601111)
    Actually, many BSDers *do* have a problem with restrictive licenses, and that's why they don't use Linux. Try suggesting on Open/Net/FreeBSD to replace a BSD-licensed util with a GPL-licensed one, for instance.

    "But the BSD license let someone relicense it under a super-restrictive license," says someone.

    Well, yeah. And, guess what?, we *don't use* that relicensed code, we stay with the BSD-licensed code.

    What we don't have a problem with is other people using the code we created in whatever damned way they wish. That's the whole point of being non-restrictive.

  • Sad, not really [Re:Sad, really...] (Score:4)

    by jkh ( 3999 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @12:53PM (#601112) Homepage
    I don't know who ajs talked to, but I don't know of any "bad blood" between NetBSD and FreeBSD and haven't perceived any such thing for quite some time now. Yes, there were times over 7 or 8 years ago when inter-group relations were a little rocky but it very quickly became apparent to all of us that we were only shooting ourselves in the feet by engaging in sibling rivalry and those kinds of activities stopped.

    Nowadays, there are a number of developers who sit astride both code bases and keep a close eye on development of import to both projects which can be shared. As someone already noted in this thread, the goals of both projects are also VERY different and a full "merger" just wouldn't make any sense at this point, nor would it even be particularly desirable.

    I'm sure the people who do cancer research and the people who research cerebral palsy have a lot in common, for example, in that they're all doctors/health care professionals and share many of the same investigative methods and goals for improving the human condition. The fact remains that they've chosen to focus on different aspects of the very large set of problems facing humans today, however, and while they could probably derive some value in comparing notes from time to time, they're really going after different things.

    So it is with FreeBSD and NetBSD. FreeBSD is focusing on providing a "product" to a wide variety of internet infrastructure and SOHO market folks and is driven by the demands of the market it's chosen to serve. NetBSD is focused more on OS research and providing a very high degree of OS portability. Both are very worthy and often complimentary goals, but they still require some fundamental differences in mind-set and the allocation of scarce (in both cases) volunteer resources.
  • Amigas, old Macs, Ataris, old Suns, old Apollos, Sharp x68, some Ciscos... are all driven by some kind of Motorolas 68k CPU.

    Hey, don't forget the MC 68328 series [motorola.com], which is currently used in all Palm PDAs. When will NetBSD port to that?

    very interested in NetBSD/ppc, just wishing the install process wasn't such a pain...

  • Example #2: Linux/mips does not support SGI's O2 or Sony Network Stations, NetBSD does.

    On the other hand, NetBSD/pmac does not support 601 processor based systems whereas Linux/pmac does. NetBSD and Linux are fairly similar in terms of platforms supported now - each one supports a few that the other doesn't, but both run on the majority of common and vaguely useful platforms.
  • AJS talked with Charles Hannum.
    I was trying to keep this from being a personal in-fight, and keep it to specifics of code-sharing.
    And, hate to say this, but 'outsiders' see bad blood between YOU and Charles.
    Keep in mind that Mycroft (and no, he's not the only one I've spoken to) is not the only person who can get hot under the collar, though he is good at it. He and I have had our share of good-natured shout-fests.
    And people like AJS need to remember that just because 2 highly technical people do not like one another, that doesn't mean they won't share.
    Oh, on the contrary, I have tremendous faith in the idea that even people who dispise eachother can share huge amounts of excellent code (read some of the comments in the Emacs elisp sources). I want to provoke the kind of discussion that will help people see that BSD is BSD. Yeah, your VM might work better than mine, but my paging strategy might be worth integrating into what you've got. No one solution is 100% correct, IMHO.

    I totally agree with your suggestions (I really have to wonder who this is), but keep in mind that I wasn't saying the factions are at eachother's throats, just that they could share more. I'd love for there to be more cooperation, not just between Net and FreeBSD, but between the BSDs and Linux and every other open source / free software / source code enabled OS out there. Hell, I want to live in a world where OSes like BSD and Linux are so much better than the for-pay OSes that companies like Sun are shamed into throwing out things like Solaris! Wouldn't that be something.... If I'm wrong, and the BSDs are already sharing code to the extent that it makes sense, then I appologize to everyone involved. Either way, I think this is a good place for me to politely bow out of this thread. Good luck all!

  • Slackware, the original linux distro, and in the opinion of many still the best linux distro, uses BSD inits.

    You are entitled to your opinion, however I disagree strongly. SysV is easier for automated installation scripts to handle, perhaps, but IMOP it is infinitely more difficult for a human administrator to keep track of. Opening and reading one file is far easier than following link after link through a number of files.

    At any rate, preferences aside, your assertion that Linux==SysV init is false. Linux is not wedded to either system. BSD inits were in use before SysV inits on linux systems, and continue to be used on linux systems.

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