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BSD Operating Systems

FreeBSD 4.3 Released 195

Posted by michael from the reduced-sentence-for-good-behavior dept.
jesseraf was one of the first to write, and now that the release is official we can post this. Release notes are available, or find the nearest mirror.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

FreeBSD 4.3 Released More

FreeBSD 4.3 Released

Comments Filter:

  • Re:Progress has been made! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So what makes it 1337 then? It's SMP support sucks ass, it has problems with NFS and Solaris NFS servers, it's usability is like Linux's was back in 1995, it isn't massively cross-platform, it doesn't support many devices.

    It's just "different" and "obscure", two reasons for any script kiddie to install it and feel superior to their Windows and Linux using brethren.

    Well, I've used some several Unices in my time, including OSI/Digital Unix/Tru64, Solaris on Sparc, Solaris x86 (blech!), Linux, and I've also given FreeBSD several test spins, (I won't mention running XENIX and early releases of QNX right from floppy) and the only one I consider really relevant in the modern world is Linux. You FreeBSD zealots can enjoy your "superiority".

    Muahaha!

  • Re:Upgradeable? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Use cvsup. Look in /usr/share/examples/cvsup. There is a stable file in there. That will get you what you want.

    Run that, then cd to /usr/src, and do a make buildworld. That will run. Then when that is done, drop into single user mode, do a make installworld. Do a mergemaster. Recompile the kernel, and then reboot. It's pretty painless. Follow the instructions and it's easy.

  • Re:Is it Linux? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Linux is great - for Solaris to poop on!

  • Re:Does FreeBSD matter anymore? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    FreeBSD appears to be doing everything better than linux. "Companies like IBM, SGI, and HP" - have _already_ contributed to BSD - you just didn't read about it because this was 10 years ago when "open source" wasn't the uber-buzzword.
  • The previous/usual primary site, ftp.freesoftware.com, is what ftp.freebsd.org usually points to. However, for several days now, lightning.net has let connectivity to that point stay down. It's pretty bad not to have the usual primary mirror at release time, but pointing ftp.freebsd.org to another powerful server seems to be working :)

    Here's to hoping that lightning.net restores connectivity to ftp.freesoftware.come soon.

    --

  • Actually, the policy nowadays is that the CD image for releases is concurrently made available in the normal places. It wasn't even until recently that the disc images were made available at all, and even more recently that made available by all mirrors, of course... but the way things work now most definitely is that the disc image is treated as just as important as the ability to do a net-install and download parts separately.

    --

  • Oh i agree there ... but if you don't have the resources to do the actual compile .. (or the time) ... the binary update is a reasonable alternative
  • and when one man says "stop fighting among yourselves and focus on the real enemy" they all didn't remember their real enemy, the Romans.

    What have the Romans ever done for us [mcc.ac.uk]?

    Romani Ite Domum..

    Your Working Boy,
    - Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)

  • ...the only one I consider really relevant in the modern world is Linux.

    Solaris irrelevant? Heheheh, I'm sorry, I'm a Linux user and all but that has got to be the most uninformed statement I've heard in a long time.

    You've never even seen a real data center have you?

  • Same cut and paste job as always. Fucking get a fucking life. Blah Blah Blah. Same stupid ESTIMATION as fact.
  • stupid troll, linux is not that freaking great, get over it
  • Huh? I just compiled 4.0.3 on FreeBSD-4.3, no problems.
  • Freshmeat does PROGRAMS, this is an new release of an OS. There is a difference. No one complains when a new Linux kernel comes out and its posted here. This is a big deal to those of us who run FreeBSD, more so then a stupid mir story.
  • nope, that is an old kernel, it has the new 4.3 kernel :)

  • Hummm (Score:1)

    by Icy ( 7612 )
    Connecting to ftp.freebsd.org...
    usw3.freebsd.org FTP server (Version DG-4.1.73 983302105) ready.
    Sorry, but there are too many users logged into this machine now.
    The maximum limit is 550 while we're on temporary hardware
    (ftp.freesoftware.com is off the net for now).

  • Re:Hummm (Score:1)

    by Icy ( 7612 )
    I thought it was kinda weird that only 4.3-Release was in the i386 directory, and the distfiles dir was empty. Kinda bad timing, ftp.freebsd.org was usually the fastest site for me. Off the the mirrors.
  • I just have to say that I have been installing Slackware for the last six years. Over all of that time the install program hasn't changed once... many people like simple setup programs...
  • Well, the manual would tell them about "make kernel", presumably. Also about editing /etc/make.conf.

    --

  • Re:word! (Score:1)

    by MO! ( 13886 )
    Out of curiosity, what mouse are you using? If it's one of the newer MS Intellimouse series or copies thereof, then the issue isn't with FreeBSD's moused. I recently bought a Intellimouse Explorer trackball, and when using a KVM to share between my various boxes every OS I use (FreeBSD, NT Server, Win98) have synchronization problems. MS has documented this on their site and suggest - for Windows of course - waiting a few minutes after switching consoles for the mouse drive to stabilize again before moving it or pressing a button. FreeBSD tends to correct itself quickest of the three when I use flags 0x200 in the psm0 config line for my kernel. This forces moused to recognize it as a standard PS/2 mouse. As for Windows - 98 takes only a few seconds longer than FreeBSD, NT4-sp6 takes a full 2 or 3 minutes to resync.

  • By flooding the world with good GPL'd software, proprietary software can be eradicated, if copyright law is respected / enforced.

    Then I seriously hope that the average GPL coder gets a clue about programming anyway.

    Basic nits: endian assumptions, failure to cast properly, shadowing declarations, malloc()/free() idiosyncracies, failure to grok basic computer architecture.

    Sorry to come off as a snob, but thus far all my ex-colleagues, colleagues and friends [even those using Linux] agreed that everything happening on the GPL and Linux side of things are more and more hacks, whilst BSD introduced pragmatically better source code due to the developer's experience. Needless to say most of them adopted BSD systems to get programming done.

    Now, having said that, I do know a bunch of great Linux and GPL coders who I admire a lot for their understanding and clue-level.

    Another general nit, thus far I have not seen any open source project which made me go ``Whoah'' as to its revolutionary scale of innovation. We see that open source is trying to duplicate existing applications a manyfold, but no real innovations are happening. I think I'll bow to Apple for being at least a bit innovative in this way.

    Also, aside from that, given that we are still living in a world dominated by commercial interest, the chances of GPL reforming the world are less than 0.01 %. If you are serious about everything being non-proprietary, free and open, start by reforming the world first not to depend on economics.

  • How does Red Hat fail on remote upgrade support? It's *nix...you just run "ssh" and upgrade it! Or you could use the point-and-drool approach and use something like up2date...
  • Anonymous Coward said:

    Well, I've used some several Unices in my time, including OSI/Digital Unix/Tru64, Solaris on Sparc, Solaris x86 (blech!), Linux, and I've also given FreeBSD several test spins, (I won't mention running XENIX and early releases of QNX right from floppy) and the only one I consider really relevant in the modern world is Linux.

  • Why the hatred? I'm not sure. But consider that you can divide the world into two personality types. One type doesn't care what choices you make as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. The other type is deeply offended if you don't make the same choices that they did.

    In the latter camp fall the Amiga users of old, and the Linux users of today. The fact that someone else isn't using Linux just pisses them off. They can halfway tolerate Windows users, since they assume it's only out of ignorance. But users of any other Unix or unix-like OS make them seeth with rage.

    Of course, those linuxoids are nowhere near as spiteful as the gnuoids, who get their panties in a bind everytime they thing about the fact that the number free software package out there, bar none, is released under the Apache License and not the Glorious Public License.
  • From the changelog:

    ipfw(8) has a new feature ("me") that allows for packet matching on
    interfaces with dynamically-changing IP addresses.

    Neo says "Whoa".

    Dave
  • Yeah, BSD lets you slap resource (CPU/memory) limits on users by putting them into various (limited) logon classes. As much as I love BSD though, I refuse to believe that Linux doesnt have a similar feature.

  • > The truth is I don't know how things are now, but I do know that as time goes by Linux will pull ahead in these areas because it is where most people are putting their attention.

    Thats just because all you read is slashdot.

  • Too bad it's not possible to install the full version FreeBSD in Linux (re: BeOS [be.com] 5 or WinLinux 2000 [winlinux.net]) for us lazy fuckers who don't want to backup and repartition). Is there a project in development to accomplish this very task?

    Maybe I'm overtired, but this seems like a damn good idea.

    "come off crisp and play up to the cynic
    clean and schooled right down to the minute"

  • Its usually a good idea to rebuild the kernel after an upgrade too...and a merge of config files. There's a great script on FreeBSDDiary.org that I use to simplify the build process.

    Well, of course.. but the original poster was just talking about building the source tree. The kernel is just as easy, too:

    cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
    config KERNNAME
    cd ../../compile/KERNNAME
    make depend
    make
    make install

    If you want documentation for the kernel, just check out LINT.
  • 2.2 and below would do an inode/block check on an fs even if it was marked clean.

    FYI, for 2.2.x, you just have to put `nocheck' among the fs options in /etc/fstab.

  • Is there room for a runner-up among products that compete based on open standards?

    NetBSD and OpenBSD both have niches that are theirs, namely portability and security. FreeBSD on the other hand aims to be a full featured Unix just like Linux does. So the question is, what does FreeBSD do better than Linux? Is it faster, more stable, better under high loads?

    The truth is I don't know how things are now, but I do know that as time goes by Linux will pull ahead in these areas because it is where most people are putting their attention. Companies like IBM, SGI, HP, etc. are all working on Linux, making it better. The pace of development will only increase as Linux further penetrates various markets.

    I hope there is room for FreeBSD in spite of this, if only because it will offer a different way of doing things and help avoid intellectual inbreeding.

  • The BSD license and it's like do not seem to do this, witness Kerberos amongst others.

    *cough* TCP/IP *cough*

    (I would say that was a joke, but the war will probably happen anyway....)

  • I wasn't sure that kernel 2.4.x really had these improvemets on i386. This should make a big difference for people using cheap 50Gb+ disks.

    //Pingo
  • We have 2 popular Linux releases and now the also popular FreeBSD release within one single week.

    This must be a busy week for the routers around the world. I believe there are some ISP's facing severe bandwith problems.

    FreeBSD has it's advantages, such as its filesystem that fsck's much faster than Linux and it has no 2GB filesize limit. The filesize limit is around 4-8 TB.

    //Pingo

  • So far, it looks like these sites have it (the i386 ISO):

    -ftp11.freebsd.org

  • FreeBSD on the other hand aims to be a full featured Unix just like Linux does. So the question is, what does FreeBSD do better than Linux? Is it faster, more stable, better under high loads?

    The truth is I don't know how things are now, but I do know that as time goes by Linux will pull ahead in these areas because it is where most people are putting their attention. Companies like IBM, SGI, HP, etc. are all working on Linux, making it better. The pace of development will only increase as Linux further penetrates various markets.

    And then:

    Religion stops a thinking mind.

    A disjunct between two suffering minds inhabiting the same small head?

  • From what I've heard, they've been having connectivity problems :)
  • Thanks for the info. It'll help a lot of newbies. If anyone does have an ISO available for ftp, can they post the address?
  • Its usually a good idea to rebuild the kernel after an upgrade too...and a merge of config files. There's [freebsddiary.org] a great script on FreeBSDDiary.org that I use to simplify the build process.
  • Actually, I don't love FreeBSD either. However, if you want a REALLY great server, try OpenBSD. It's secure. You can get it running in less than 100M. It's fast. It doesn't come with all kinds of bullshit software you'll never use like linux does. It's Minimum install is REALLY a minimum install.

    The basic OpenBSD install is around half the size of the basic Linux install. All the software you want is available to install, it just doesn't shove it down your throat like linux does with it's 10 CLI text editors in the minimum install.

    I've tried RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, Suse, TurboLinux, Corel Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Solaris 8. The one one who's default install I haven't hated is OpenBSD. The only one that's never given me any trouble installing packages is OpenBSD. The only one that I feel comfortable leaving as my server OS is OpenBSD. The only one that can take me from booting off the CD to fully installed and configured in 25 minutes is OpenBSD. It's got the most simple, wonderful installer ever made. Anyway, just ranting...

    Justin Dubs
  • It's not funny! In fact, I wonder how Slashdot isn't /.ed! Do you guys have a BIG F-A-T pipe which others don't? Or is it just linux which keeps it cruising?
  • >>DSL sucks and is unstable/unusable at any promised speed I'm writing this using a 768k ADSL connection. Next month, I will be changing the connection I use at the ISP I own to DSL, only keeping T1's for the phone lines.



    Dive Gear [divingdeals.com]
  • this is not a linux only site!!!!!
  • Slackware doesnt shove anything down your throat that you don't want there (doh!)
  • >Recently released numbers from IDC System Software Research show that "Linux growth in server OS share has been flat for two quarters, and Unix and Novell continue to fall.

    Well according to:

    http://eltoday.com/article.php3?ltsn=2001-04-23- 00 4-06-PS-SM

    ...IDC are now predicting huge revenues for Linux. No mention of BSD in there, I'm sorry to say.

  • This was the FIRST page I loaded up on shiny new, finally customized and online (with PPPoe) FreeBSD 4.2 system. Somebody's got it in for me, I swear.
  • I was pleased. I'm used to having to back up the current roaring penguin release before waxing my Linux system. ;-) It also seems to maybe be more stable, but I haven't had adequate time to really make that judgment yet.
  • I looked on the mirror sites listing - it lists one mirror site and there is nothing appearing in the 4.3-Release directory. Was someone a bit premature in posting this to /.?

  • It was switched to a different machine, because the usual ftp.freebsd.org is hosted by lightning who have a fucked network.
  • People here bash BSD for not being Linux. BSD'ers bash Linux for not being BSD. But both have started out as the same thing, an open sourced UNIX derivitive or clone. Linux is the clone, BSD the derivitive. This reminds me of MOnty Pythons Life of Brian, with the various Judean schism groups, all fighting with each other, and when one man says "stop fighting among yourselves and focus on the real enemy" they all didn't remember their real enemy, the Romans. Our real enemy folks are people that don't know better than to choose Windows. It doesn't matter weither you win them over with Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, ATheOS, QNX, Amiga, MultiOS, TOS/GEM, or what have you, that is a victory for all of you because it hurts the Microsoft dominance. Sure, the cross-city rivalry between BSD and Linux is there, it should be there. But it should be friendly rivalry, making jokes in pubs afterhours or a friendly game of "who can install the fastest" at the local college campus installfests. For, in the end, there is more alike between us than unalike.
  • Is it possible to upgrade my 4.2 BSD installation? Or do I have to wipe it? I surely hope not!
    The upgrade guide speaks of not using my current version of sysinstall; pray tell, how does one get a newer version w/o upgrading in the first place?!?
  • you are forgetting. *BSD users dont need to post to usenet as much. their OS just works.
  • hmmm...by the looks of the modding, your post is dying...

  • Great (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I just finished installing 4.2 and was testing it by logging into Slashdot. Pardon me while I start downloading again.
  • The launch of Mac OS X is turning Apple into the largest distributor of Unix, and more specifically BSD Unix. Now anyone with a desire to run Unix can purchase it for about the same cost as a Microsoft operating system. For the regular user, it looks and acts just like a MacOS user would expect.

    No it doesn't. Go to MacNN [macnn.com] and see how many Mac users find it quite different. Not all of them dislike it. Many like the changes. Many do not. Look at the threads on making the Finder more "Mac like", or even for running the old OS9 Finder. Look at Apple's own movies of how different OSX is [apple.com]. Or head back to MacNN and watch them bitch about how much worse the Dock is then the application bar.

    Now I like OSX, but I'm not a Mac user. I'm a Unix geek. I bought a Mac to run OSX, and I can tell you it feels totally different, to the point that OS9 apps that run under Classic "emulation" are jarring.

  • Mac users not liking OS X has nothing to do with Unix. On a consumer level, the OS isn't Unix at all, unless you want it to be.

    I'll admit they mostly don't. A few complain about not being able to change all the files and stuff. Many complain about the slowness, which I assume has something to do with it being run on top of Unix and not retuned enough. Well that, and Objective C's late binding :-)

    Most just don't care for the new finder and look n' feel, and yeah that has nothing to do with Unix.

  • In case you wish to do a Binary upgrade instead of a "by source" upgrade as explained elsewhere in this thread (and in the handbook) ... what You basically do is:

    - grab the boot-disks (kern.flp and mfsroot.flp)

    - boot from those ... and select the Upgrade option
  • FYI, 2.4 extended file sizes to 64 bits on intel arch with ext2. Now there is no 2GB limit. Also, 2.4 stopped doing a block/inode check on boot when mounting fses, 2.2 and below would do an inode/block check on an fs even if it was marked clean. For very large fses, it boots MUCH faster now.

    I'm happy about the > 2GB support and LVM stuff, because I run DB servers on Linux.
  • Changes since 4.2 are at:
    http://www.freebsd.org/releases/4.3R/notes.html

    Dave
  • If this is your first build world, Read the handbook on building your world.. It's actually easier than a linux kernel build.

    If that's the case, why can't you just tell us?

    I never had to read a handbook on building linux.

    Who knows why this guy suggested the handbook.. But anyway, here it is:

    make buildworld compiles everything
    make installworld installs the results of make buildworld
    make world compliles and installs everything.

    Why anyone would need to read the manual for this is beyond me.

  • ISP problems to be exact. They had to get a whole new server anddrop it somewhere else and update the DNS. This timed with the release of 4.3 has made things hairy. From what I can tell everything is back up now though.
  • That isn't really a troll. Solaris on x86 is an afterthought by Sun. Hardware support is light, and ide is horrible. Plus it expects SMP all the time. Solaris x86 was created to get peopleto use solaris and work into their hardware which is what they really want to sell. Another nice thing, when many vendors say they support solaris they mean only SPARC.
  • Profoundly vague of you.

    Not at all. It's you that are being pig-headed. I was clear enough: the kerberos problem with Microsoft was a result of a problem with the protocol, not a problem with the license.

    Microsoft embraced and extended the protocol,

    Correct. More to the point, they used a loophole in the protocol so what they wrote is technically Kerberos but as a matter of fact result in incompatibilities between computers running their implementation and computers running others.

    and almost definitely the code (why not, when it's there for the taking?).

    So you think they used the code, eh? Well, FYI, they didn't.

    Thanks to their proprietary business model,

    Well, a true sentence. You are improving.

    aided and abetted by freely available code licensed under BSD-like licenses,

    Huh? In what way? Explain. And, more to the point, explain exactly what would have happened differently if Kerberos had only been available as GPL code. Remember: they wrote their own implementation.

    free software currently has no easy legal way to be to compatible.

    Protocol design. Either you forbid any extensions, or people can screw up. And they can screw up even if extensions are forbidden. As a matter of fact, they can screw up even without extending anything (hello 3Com Home Connect Dual Speed!).

    On the other hand, they could use a proprietary, non-documented protocol, which they could extend to keep things incompatible as they see fit (hello AOL!), or even patent the whole protocol. See real world examples.

    You must understand that I am taking a long term view. In the long term, producing code under a BSD-style license may encourage vendors to adopt 'standards' but it allows them to extend and appropriate them too.

    Corporations can extend any standard, no matter the license of existing source code implementing it. The license is utterly irrelevant.

    In other words, it encourages the Microsoft business model.

    Yeah, you are right. If they simply did not adopt the standard at all, they wouldn't extend/appropriate it.

    Of course, unless the standard became popular. In which case they would simply write their own version of whatever it is and extend/appropriate it the same way, and then kill off the competition with marketing and market share. Just like they do nowadays.

    Code released under viral Free-software licenses is different. True, traditional software houses won't base products upon it initially.

    s/initially/ever/

    Unless it's a stand-alone product, in which case the virus is irrelevant.

    But if enough good viral-free software is produced and used, then businesses lose the option. They either compete against the software head on, or build upon it and release more viral-free software.

    Go on...

    If they compete against it, they are at a disadvantage compared to those who work with it, because they can't build on the freely available work.

    Yeah, right, like anyone does.

    Code reusability is a myth. Libraries, yes. Simple-minded routines here and there, skeletons for things like drivers. Beyond that, which is no real advantage, code isn't reused.

    But the real problem with this line of thought is pretty simple: it assumes the best code wins. When did that ever happen? Get real.

    If they work with it, they can't appropriate it, and the user wins. Code released under BSD-style licenses just slows this process down.

    Excellent analysis. Of course, the premises are flawed, but if they were true, then you would be right.

    The prevalence of TCP/IP has less to do with no-strings free implementations and more to do with a large pre-existing infrastructure developed by the defence and research communities, and that it works very well, if we ignore security.

    Suuuuuuuuuuuuuure. I wonder how did we run Bitnet, the research community network, so long without a TCP/IP stack. And I look at all the other very extensive networks and wonder what happened to them. I look at the world-wide X.25 and wonder where did it go.

    And I look back and all I can recall is how the only wan protocol I could run on my PC/XT was TCP/IP.

  • specifically, viral Free software, like GPL'ed softare, benefits users, because viral Free software promotes real open standards, i.e. freedom from proprietary 'intellectual property'. The BSD license and it's like do not seem to do this, witness Kerberos amongst others.

    You seem misinformed. The Kerberos thing was a problem with the protocol specification, and had absolutely nothing to do with any software license whatsoever.

    On the other hand, BSD code promotes standards because vendors actually use them. You _won't_ see Microsoft use GPL code in their mainstream products. Ever. Period.

    That's why TPC/IP is everywhere, for example. There were many networking protocols in the 80s, but only one which had a free implementation available without strings so every OS maker under the sun added it to their operating systems.

  • There's really only one thing FreeBSD offered before other OS (maybe Debian already have developed an alternative, though) that would be useful to you (as far as I know), jail.

    Check this [freebsd.org] man page, and the links from it.

    On the other hand, both Linux and FreeBSD have been able to deal with the problem you describe like forever. Just set limits on login.conf for FreeBSD, and probably something similar on Debian.

  • Funny that while you criticize FreeBSD's NFS, you seem to have forgotten that Linux NFS is broken beyond hope.
  • >Meanwhile, FreeBSD suffers from old, stodgy code written by core Unix developers with >1980's-style development practices. Sorry, but the art and science of software >engineering have improved vastly, and Linux developers are *NOT* afraid of saying, >"Okay, our implementation of xyz is flawed, let's throw it away and do it again". So >Linuxleapfrogs FreeBSD and will continue to do so.

    Uh, ok, let me see if I can feed the troll here. I can count some of the things that have experienced major retrofits in the recent past:
    3.0 series - implementation of SMP (not so good)
    port to the Alpha architecture
    complete overhaul of SCSI layer to move to cam (ftp.freesoftware.com would be nowhere near as good without this)
    introduction of vinum software/hardware RAID
    4.0 series - major rewrite of virtual memory by Matt Dillon (not the movie star, and I believe his work was helpful to reworking linux vm as well)
    IPV6 support - all new code written by the
    USB support, stable a few months before linux
    move to pcm audio drivers as the default drivers for sound cards, replacing the old OSS code (which still is available for compatibility)
    integration of IPfilter as an alternative to ipfw
    implementation of pthreads - licq and friends wouldn't even compile in the pre 3.4 era
    DRI kernel modules - can be tough to get working (voodoo 3+ w/ xf 4), but it's there if you've got the time
    5.0 series - SMPng in progress (should put FreeBSD back in competitive smp territory on a par with linux 2.4 hopefully)
    libh project to modularize the install process (allow X and text installers) and break the system into smaller packages
    openpackages - use the same build scripts for all BSDs (not really 5.0 but still a work in progress)
    ongoing work on porting FreeBSD to sparc, powerpc, and arm
    kqueues - which look like a good alternative to poll() and select(), though I have no experience with them

    So I don't know what the heck you're talking about. Sure, Linux tends to move things into the stable branch more quickly than BSD and there are a lot more releases, but we get along just fine. From what I've heard, the FreeBSD kernel is a bit more elegant than the Linux kernel because code is less likely to be included unless it meets the committers' standards.
    Linux development moves at a breakneck pace, FreeBSD is more conservative. What does that tell us? Absolutely nothing.
    This is a bit of a flame, but some of the reasons that there haven't been as drastic of changes in BSD as Linux is that some systems have been high quality from the get-go. They drew on well-tested mature code (BSD Lite) that had already had a lot of the bugs worked out.
    How many times has the Linux TCP/IP stack been reworked, like 4? The only place where I can see a halfway coherent argument is in the filesystem. It would be nice to see a journaling filesystem that would give better metadata performance than FFS + softupdates, but all the implementations are under the GPL. As it is FFS does fairly well and is more reboot tolerant than ext2 and until recently had Linux beat for large (> 2gig) files.

    FreeBSD puts out a quality, coherent system that is stable and performs quite well on uniprocessor systems (and soon SMP). So long as they keep doing that, I'll be a devoted FreeBSD (and Debian) user.
  • I had the same problem with the mouse and got around it by not using moused. Instead, just use the raw device in X and set your device to /dev/psm0 (or whatever) and Protocol to Auto.

    AFAIK, this was fixed by 4.2 anyway. I don't use moused as I find little need the mouse in the console. Terminals in X or straight keyboard for the servers suits me just fine.
  • Hmmm...

    contents of /etc/exports:
    # This is the NFS server at home
    /usr/local/export (ro)
    /home (rw)
    #end contents

    killall -HUP rpc.nfsd rpc.mountd

    From another Linux machine:
    mount server:/usr/local/export /mnt
    works fine. How is that broken beyond hope?

    (No, I wouldn't expect to use it in a data center. I'm perfectly happy using it at home to share files and serve up my home directories. But it's not "broken beyond hope" IMHO.)
  • Aside from all that Stormix, Easel, Slackware, Indera (linux based) all gone... Bye bye...

    Aside from the fact that I think you meant Indrema, not Indera (because I've never heard of Indera, but I could just be stupid), you're horribly horribly wrong about Slackware. It's still doing quite fine and the 7.2 release should be coming along soon. Just because Wind River didn't decide to hire the Slack team does NOT mean that it's a dead distribution.
  • FYI, in FreeBSD -CURRENT, background fscks are now a reality (with softupdates). That means that there's really no fsck on boot, but rather a background process that maintains consistency using idle cycles.

    And if it gets interrupted, that doesn't matter either, because it'll just pick up where it left off as its changes are bound by softupdates as well. Isn't that neat?

  • Re:Great (Score:2)

    by Eil ( 82413 )

    Well, those of us with slower connections see your point. But I would imagine people with extremely quick net connections would prefer to have their newest, greatest, latest FreeBSD on a disc, due to the coolness factor of "owning" the latest release. It's probably better and easier to have the latest release specifically if you know or think you'll be doing a fresh install on any boxen soon.

    But I see your point entirely.

    As a sidenote, I just finished downloading Mandrake 8.0 (first disc) over a 28.8 modem... and the checksums don't match... *sob*.... Not an entirely big deal as long as it installs, since I'm going to buy the retail version as soon as it's on the shelves, but still...
  • Oh, great!

    4.3BSD has been out for over 14 years now and you finished upgrading today...
  • I found the nearest mirror, but all I see is myself!
  • It was a good thing. MIT wrote code to support their infrastructure. Because of the MIT License, corporations were able to expand and adapt that system to build systems for their network. As a result, we have other Kerberos networks, and Kerberos is used.

    Had MIT put it under the GPL, there would be no Kerberos. Without the ability to get machines supporting Kerberos, MIT would have scrapped the project. If they couldn't run Athena off Kerberos, no reason to have developers there.

    Their is the theoretical notion that Sun would have GPL'd Solaris to support Kerberos. Fat chance. The companies will ignore GPL'd code, while BSD code creates standards and growth that benefits real users.

    The GPL theoretically benefits users. The BSD actually does.

    Alex
  • Kerberos is under the MIT License. It was developed as part of a research project. It was released for a good reason, they let the OS Vendors port it to their systems.

    MIT WAS NOT going to handle the Solaris, Ultrix, HP-UX, and Irix (all Athena systems in time) ports, and they needed it to all play nicely. As MIT had a HUGE Unix system, vendors played nice to get the sales, which both got a large Unix installation and their system in front of MIT students.

    Kerberos was developed to provide a secure environment for MIT Computing. Lots of University research is government funded. Tax-payer research financed should be available for EVERYBODY, not just those that you consider "worthy." Sorry, Microsoft and its investors pay their share of taxes (and probably more than most of us do), and they should be able to reap the rewards of the tax-payer research, just as the Free Software/Open Source crowd do.

    MIT Released Kerberos because they built it for their needs, MIT IS and MIT LCS are not business trying to maximize profits, releasing it furthered their needs, and releasing it bettered mankind.

    MS extended Kerberos using a portion designed for vendor extensions. They did this for backwards compatibility for their systems.

    Their older domain system was proprietary, this one is too. So what that they used Kerberos code. None of YOU wrote Kerberos, why should you have a say how it was used. MIT's research project turned platform is benefiting Microsoft customers, who happen to be people. MIT's licensing choice benefitted a class of people that all of you trolls would like hung out to dry.

    Know your history, TCP/IP did get chosen because of the BSD availability and as a result, it ran on all the machines of the era. DARPA used it because Berkeley wrote it, released it, and Berkeley's version of the OS ran on the prevalent machines, so the Unix OS and TCP/IP became big.

    Alex

  • You never know, he could be doing a network install ... from Pluto.


    --
    News for geeks in Austin: www.geekaustin.org [geekaustin.org]
  • Woah, dude. That's not bad security, that's bad system administration. Try looking, for example, at resource limits on shells. ulimit and the like.
  • The release announcement didn't go out until the iso was available at: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/IS O-IMAGES/4.3-install.iso [freebsd.org].
  • It was actually a quote [franklin.ch] from the kernel source, in the TCP/IP stack. OTOH, whilst searching Google [google.com] for the afore-mentioned quote, I did happen across an old Slashdot story [slashdot.org] that you might be thinking of. (There are more Slashdot links from the Google results page I linked to.)

    --

  • From the Announcement Page [freebsd.org]:

    FreeBSD is also available via anonymous FTP from mirror sites in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, ... Thailand, Elbonia, the Ukraine and the United Kingdom, among others.

    Makes it easier for Dilbert to get his FreeBSD when he's working on site.

  • You must be new to slashdot. Here we don't just make things up... Perhaps you'd like to try again... Don't worry, you'll get the hang of clicking the pretty buttons before too long.
  • All lies!

    1. DSL sucks and is unstable/unusable at any promised speed

    2. Who gives a flying rats ass about how pretty the installer is? (Maybe winblows users...)

    3. SMP is working great.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • On March 24th, BSD accomplished what Linux has been promising for years now. They put the power of Unix into a desktop system and made it available to the masses.

    The launch of Mac OS X is turning Apple into the largest distributor of Unix, and more specifically BSD Unix. Now anyone with a desire to run Unix can purchase it for about the same cost as a Microsoft operating system. For the regular user, it looks and acts just like a MacOS user would expect. However, all the features that make it Unix are easily tapped into by the developers and power users who want to take the OS to its limits.

    Now, BSD is poised to take over another segment the Linux crowd has been vying for -- the embedded market. Embedded Linux has been a hot topic of late, as new companies are trying to get into the market space.

    However, the business-unfriendly GPL has played a key role in keeping Linux from being adopted by major players in the embedded arena. Especially in embedded systems, retailers don't want to be forced to make their code changes available. When you have to heavily adapt the software to work with your hardware and internal systems, the viral GPL can make keeping your code safe impossible. Instead they have chosen the more intellectual-property-friendly BSD license to protect their business interests, while leveraging the Open Source community.

    Wind River, already an international player in the embedded systems market, announced today the purchase of BSD/OS from BSDi (not the company, just the rights to the software). The remainder of what was BSDi will be spun off into a hardware company called iXsystems. Inc. The new company will sell high-end server machines pre-loaded with BSD/OS and FreeBSD.

    As part of the deal, Wind River has hired Jordan Hubbard to become their principal technologist for FreeBSD. Jordan is one of founders of FreeBSD and has been the chief PR representative for the project. According to Jordan, FreeBSD will remain unchanged; however, Wind River promises expanded funding for the project -- the primary thing that has been holding it back.

    However, the license isn't the only reason BSD was chosen. Wind River executives said there were three reasons. First, that BSD has unparalleled technology. Second, that they love the way the open source BSD is organized compared to the disarray of the multitude of Linux Distributions. And third, the BSD license is very business friendly. It allows customers to build applications without losing intellectual property.

    It also allows Wind River to build a seamless solution, combining all of its internal software properties to meet customer needs. When asked why it chose BSD over the other options, the company replied, "Frankly there was no contest."

    Wind River will continue to market BSD/OS and leverage FreeBSD as a means of accelerating development and innovation. With Jordan Hubbard on board, they will be able to utilize the 2.5 million users and developers of FreeBSD.

    With Wind River targeting the embedded market, and Apple putting BSD on Desktop, BSD's future looks really bright.

    Linus who? That cartoon character from Charlie Brown?
  • FreeBSD ritalin 4.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 4.1-RELEASE #0: root@ritalin.deficiency.org:/usr/src/sys/compile/L UCIFER i386

    Good to know its out, however I hoped they fixed their moused issues

    Apr 20 10:56:20 /kernel: psmintr: out of sync (0040 != 0000).
    Apr 20 17:25:30 /kernel: psmintr: out of sync (00c0 != 0000).
    Apr 21 23:45:42 /kernel: psmintr: out of sync (0080 != 0000).

    Aside from the nitpicking, why isn't this section updated a bit more, there are some good articles regarding the BSD's being posted at sites like DaemonNews, Deadly.org, etc.

    p.s. to the moron who always post those moronic "BSD is dying... I think you should take a look at how many Linux distros, and Linux based customers went under these past few months before you troll

    MTV's True Life [antioffline.com] (unabashed)

  • Its always a Cisco
  • Excuse me if this comes off as a troll, -- I think I just did :-( , but why is is that everytime *BSD gets mentioned on Slashdot, there immediately ensues a flamewar between the various camps?

    I'll acknowledge the different licensing models, but as I'm not a developer, my main concern is having access to a free (beer) *nix OS that can run on pc hardware. I've used FreeBSD, Redhat, and Debian. Correct me if I'm I'm wrong, but has anybody else noticed they are all *nix based, and therefore *similar*? Why the hell do people have this urge to seperate themselves into distict camps and fight over who is more 1337? It's a frickin computer, people! Not a religious war.
    I use windows for some things, linux for others, *BSD for another, and if I have the time, inclination, or disk space, some other *fringe* OS that grabs my fancy.
    I like to geek out with different OSes. If someone can provide me a flame-free explanation of why it is that geeks have to whip out their dicks over what OS they use, I'd love to hear it.

    This post coming to you from MSIE on Win2k, routed through RH Linux, my other box is FreeBSD, and if I had another box, it would probably run on hamsters. Cheers

  • Why and Who (Score:3)

    by dcs ( 42578 ) on Sunday April 22, 2001 @09:47AM (#274771)
    We have to things to thank for for the Release Notes.

    First, we use a source management tool (namely CVS), so all changes made to the source code are documented at the time they are made. This makes it much easier to keep track of what they are.

    Second, Bruce A. Mah, who volunteered for the generally tedious but very important job of actually reading the commit logs and then keeping the Release Notes up to date for both -current and -stable branches.

    Let me take this opportunity to thank him for it.

  • Re:Great (Score:3)

    by Eil ( 82413 ) on Sunday April 22, 2001 @06:35PM (#274772) Homepage Journal

    Er, does anyone else notice that every time a new release of BSD, Linux, or Mozilla comes out, someone says this exact same thing? And their post usually is numbered less than #20 or so?

    Hmm....

  • Re:Complete with XFree 3.3.6!!! Wow this is NEW... (Score:3)

    by IronChef ( 164482 ) on Sunday April 22, 2001 @10:29AM (#274773)
    I never could figure out how the whole "ports" thing worked though... maybe I was a little too impatient to spend the five minutes required to figure it out. *shrugs*

    # cd /usr/ports/path/to/port/

    (say /usr/ports/irc/bitchx/)

    # make && make install

    (then you wait: code is donloaded, compiled, installed)

    That's it. Dependent packages are installed automatically. There are commands to remove packages, etc. Until 4.3 there wasn't a pkg_update command, but all you had to do was delete the old version (1 command) and re-install.

    To use the ports tree in this way you need to devote some disk space (70MB or so?) to the makefiles, so the system knows what to go fetch and compile. Typically you keep the ports tree updated on your system via cvs.

    I prefer the FreeBSD method to Debian (which I tinker with) for 2 reasons.

    1. There is a while direcory tree of software for me to browse. I don't have to hit the web looking for the magic string to apt-get.

    2. I learned it first.

  • Re:why the hatred? (Score:3)

    by IronChef ( 164482 ) on Sunday April 22, 2001 @10:16AM (#274774)

    Well, it's simple. If you support the running-dog capitalist lackeys by using a BSD licensed product, you are contributing to the problem of corporatism. BSD users are causing children to be buried in shallow graves. They are allowing the "IP cartels" to control all of our access to information. The BSD license will date your sister, and then it will make calls to 900 numbers with your mom's credit card number.

    The BSD license seems to allow "freedom," but that's only if your idea of "freedom" is being free to get STDs from the taxi-load of cheap hookers that your FreeBSD box will have delivered to your home.

    You may think that it's OK to use the "right tool for the job," but if you use BSD, you are Bill Gates' tool, and don't you forget it.

    (For the sarcasm impaired: this has been a sarcastic post making fun of the license war between BSD and GPL. Thank you.)

  • The Giant Spinlock (Score:3)

    by wd123 ( 209211 ) <wdNO@SPAMarpa.com> on Monday April 23, 2001 @05:15AM (#274775) Homepage
    I've noticed a recent trend towards trashing FreeBSD's SMP because of "the giant spinlock." What people don't realize is that one large spinlock can be a viable method of locking for the purposes of threading (that is, multiprocessing). It would seem that someone who has a moderate clue about threading and writing SMP-capable operating systems has commented on this, and feels it's bogus, and one or more of the general breed of "BSD is ubersux" trolls has gotten a hold of this and thinks it's the ultimate death knell for FreeBSD/smp. Obviously, you don't really know much about locking at all. It should at least be pointed out that no matter how many locks you have, it is more important to keep the system OUT of a locked state as much as possible, and FreeBSD does this well enough. It's not as if the system is constantly locked and able to use only one CPU. Most processing occurs in userland, far away from kernel locks, so it doesn't tend to matter all that much.

    Now, granted, using one spinlock isn't necessarily the best way to do things, at least not in an OS. However, it's not the worst either. Combined with the fact that it allowed fairly rapid updating and deployment of FreeBSD/SMP, I think the choice to use that 'giant spinlock' was valid. It allowed SMP code that by all accounts worked better at least than the 2.0 Linux kernel's (if not 2.2 as well) to be deployed until a better solution could be created. A better solution will be deployed in FreeBSD 5.0 with the introduction of SMPng. I do not doubt that the 2.4 Linux kernel does a better job at SMP than FreeBSD (release/stable) does, but I think it's worth noting that Linux's SMP has been now five or six years in the making to get to this point, and that the Linux and FreeBSD development and advancement models are significantly different. Where Linux takes gradual steps, FreeBSD (and BSDs in general) tend to take large leaps. That's just a difference in implementation timing.

    Furthermore, it's perfectly reasonable to expect two open-source systems to leapfrog each other in terms of capability as ideas and code move from one to the other, and it's really not something to gloat over. What one does better today, the other will do better tomorrow. It doesn't really matter.

    To those of you babbling on and on about 'the giant spinlock', you might want to go do some research into the theory, and practice, of implementing locks in threaded systems. Until then, shut up, please.
    -wd
    --
    chip norkus(rl); white_dragon('net'); wd@routing.org
    mercenary albino programmer for hire

  • There are times... (Score:3)

    by Liquid-Gecka ( 319494 ) on Saturday April 21, 2001 @11:15PM (#274776)
    ...that I _REALLY_ hate slashdot...

    Crusing along at several hundred k a second.. all of a sudden it starts slowly dropping.. down to double digits.. then single digits.. After trying to reconnect a few times I give up and check slashdot.. only to realize.. grumble.. I guess I won't be getting FBSD anytime tonight!

  • Re:Just One Little Problem - I Can't Find It (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 21, 2001 @10:39PM (#274777)
    If you are new to bsd, there won't be an ISO for a few days and there sure as hell won't be any stinkin' graphical install utility. So here's a simple way to get 4.3 today in the privacy of your own userland.
    1. Download an iso for 4.2. Burn and install normally. Read the faq and handbook at www.freebsd.org [freebsd.org] for instructions.
    2. Now, upgrade that 4.2 using cvsup . If you installed supplemental documentation, you can do a one-liner. Just type in something like sed -e 's/CHANGE_THIS/cvsup4/g' /usr/share/examples/cvsup/stable-supfile > /tmp/stable-supfile && cvsup /tmp/stable-supfile . Substitute in cvsup[1-6] for that cvsup4 reference, since we all don't need to hit cvsup4. Or, read the darn file and learn what cvsup does, and then select an appropriate mirror. You get the idea. The cvsup mirrors are freebsd.org all have it.
    3. This will give you the incremental changes between 4.2 and 4.3. Now, build it with something like cd /usr/src/ && make world . Be sure to run mergemaster, etc. and rebuild any user profiles. Now sure what that means? If this is your first build world, Read the handbook on building your world.. It's actually easier than a linux kernel build.
    4. Stuck? Read the www.freebsdiary.org [freebsddiary.org], which details one (once novice, now fairly proficient) bsd user's experience with install, use and fun over the years.

    The funny thing is, I was upgrading an old compute from 4.1.1 to what I thought would be 4.3-RC, but ended up getting the -RELEASE instead. They must've just switched it on the server!
    In any event, this is sufficiently hidden from the moderators that nobody will ever read this, so I don't know why I bothered to type all this. In fact, I think I'm going to stop typing right n....

  • Re:Just One Little Problem - I Can't Find It (Score:5)

    by Metrol ( 147060 ) on Sunday April 22, 2001 @02:23AM (#274778) Homepage
    Why anyone would need to read the manual for this is beyond me.

    Umm, because there's a bit more to it. More than likely you'll want to get your source tree all up to date, tweak in your kernel config, and get all your user land stuff in sync. A great site for a to the point summary on all this is the FreeBSD Cheat Sheets [mostgraveconcern.com]. This site also includes specific instructions on how to make world [mostgraveconcern.com].

    Personally, my "make buildworld" is running now in the background as I type this. Just cvsup'd the latest source changes, and away she goes! Couldn't care less about getting an ISO for a CD burn. By keeping the tree up to date every week or so it only takes about 5 minutes per update across a dial-up connection. Every couple of months I run through the make world process and everything is up to date.

    Oh sure, this here build takes a while on this K6-450. It's running in the background, so it can take as long as it wants.

  • Re:Progress has been made! (Score:5)

    by oingoboingo ( 179159 ) on Sunday April 22, 2001 @12:48AM (#274779)
    I just have to say that I have been installing Slackware for the last six years

    whoa dude...you have to get a faster CD-ROM drive or something...6 years is a hell of a long time for a Slackware install. i have an old quad-speed lying around here somewhere...i'll send it to you if you want. even off floppies, Slackware shouldn't take more than an hour or two.

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