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BSD Operating Systems

NetBSD 1.5ZB 73

Dahan writes: "I just saw that the development branch of NetBSD is now at version 1.5ZB. A change log is available for those interested. Note that although the title of the page says it's a list of changes from NetBSD 1.5 to 1.6, NetBSD 1.6 is not out yet--the page lists changes that will be in 1.6 whenever it's released. (And when will that be? "When it's ready," of course.) Standard caution about not running development kernels on mission-critical systems applies, although I've been running 1.5ZA on my DEC^H^H^HCompaq Alpha PC164 web/mail/DNS/whatever server for a few months now, and it's been great. And for those of you used to the Linux version numbering scheme and are wondering what all these letters mean, here's an explanation of NetBSD's version numbering."
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NetBSD 1.5ZB

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  • Anybody care to explain the NetBSD threading model in 60 words or less?

    Specifically, for concurrency, is there a default inter-thread communication protocol or is it standard synchronization events? Our company has the OS under consideration.
    • Not entirely clear what you're asking. We implement POSIX pthreads (the really good version of that, which uses scheduler activations, is on a branch pending the cut of 1.6 -- it will be integrated into -current shortly.)

      Anyway, pthreads, which is pretty much the Unix standard, has a set of mechanisms available for synchronizing the multiple threads.

      Inter-process communication between threads, processes, etc. happens pretty much the way you want it to -- message passing via sockets, shared memory, whatever you like. It is pretty much the way any POSIX style system works.

      The advantages of NetBSD are not primarily in the API, which it shares with most POSIX systems, but in the license and the quality of the implementation.
  • by perry ( 7046 )
    As someone involved in NetBSD release engineering, I'm guessing 1.6 is going to branch "soon", likely within weeks (though no promises.)

    Our hope is to pick up the pace of releases now that we have a lot more infrastructure for doing fast release engineering. A lot of that was developed only in the last six months.
  • Good job... (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by LiquidPC ( 306414 )
    making sure to notify slashdot that just because there are lists of changes on a web site IT ISNT OUT, because frankly we've already gone through fake posts like that before. They expect money by subscriptions yet they cant even check story authenticy. Disturbing.
    • It is the "development release", also known as "-current" and it is available as source code from the CVS repository. You will also be able to get it shortly from ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-current/tar _files/ as source tarballs.

      There will be binary snapshots on ftp.netbsd.org soon. They are always in ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/{alpha,i386,s parc,etc}/snapshot/
    • WTF are you talking about? 1.5ZB most certainly is out. Please try to be less clueless in the future. I'd also appreciate it if you wrote comprehensible sentences.
      • I was referring to the FACT that 1.6 IS NOT out. Which is like when slashdot posted FreeBSD 4.5 _was_ out, when it wasnt. I know how difficult the english language is, but please try to understand the grouping of words as sentences is a simple concept, i'm sure thats difficult for you.
        • Who said that 1.6 was out? Seriously, you need to take some remedial reading and writing classes. Thanks in advance!
          • Ok, i'll try to break this down for you, so your tiny little brain can comprehend, ok? First, slashdot put on the front page that FreeBSD 4.5 was out, WHEN IT WASNT. That was about a month ago. Then in THIS VERY ARTICLE, the guy that submitted the article said: "Note that although the title of the page says it's a list of changes from NetBSD 1.5 to 1.6, NetBSD 1.6 is not out yet--the page lists changes that will be in 1.6 whenever it's released." Then I posted that it was a good job that (s)he clarified that so slashdot authors don't get confused. I hope you understand and I didn't confuse you with any big words like "the" and "that". Yeah, thanks for the random stupidity, as well.
            • Like I said, you need to read... I submitted this article. You know how it says, "Dahan writes ..." at the top of the story? That's me. I'm Dahan.

              I was referring to the FACT that 1.6 IS NOT out. Which is like when slashdot posted FreeBSD 4.5 _was_ out, when it wasnt.

              This implies that slashdot (or someone) claimed that 1.6 was out, when it wasn't. Only problem is that it's not like when slashdot posted that FreeBSD 4.5 was out--nobody is claiming that NetBSD 1.6 is out.

              Yeah, thanks for the random stupidity, as well.

              No prob, glad to have been of assistance.

              • Dude, you sure are on slashdot alot. Are you one of those guys that hits refresh on his user page to see if his comment got any replies, 500 times a day? But anyways, I never said 1.6 was out or that anyone did.
                • Funniest ... exchange ... ever.

                • Dude, you sure are on slashdot alot.

                  PKB!!!

                  Actually, /. has this feature that lets you know when someone's replied to one of your comments. It's sort of like the difference between interrupts and polling. Sounds like you're still using the polling method.

                  anyways, I never said 1.6 was out or that anyone did.

                  If so, you're -1, Redundant for repeating what I said with an awkardly-structured sentence. Looks like someone gave you -1, Flamebait instead though. Heh

                  • Excuse me for not caring enough about slashdot to have it send me useless emails that would clutter up my already filled inbox. Also, pardon me for trying to set the record straight for someone who obviously didnt have the capability to comprehend a comment on their own.
  • rc system (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Fweeky ( 41046 ) on Sunday March 10, 2002 @05:40AM (#3137348) Homepage
    NetBSD's got a very nice rc (startup) system; as opposed to the monolithic (Open|Free)BSD approach, NetBSD's is a highly modular dependancy based model; no more giving scripts esoteric names like "000.wibble" to try to get it executed before "001.wobble"; just add a dependency in wobble on wibble and the rc system will make sure wibble is executed first.

    There's an interesting PDF paper on the design and implimentation [mewburn.net], some conciderably more terse and less interesting official documentation [netbsd.org] and a Daemon News article [daemonnews.org], and for those uber geeks, the CVS repository [freebsd.org] where you can compare with the other BSD's.

    You'll note FreeBSD -CURRENT is looking at adopting it, while Open sticks with the tried and tested BSD4.4-type setup
  • DEC [doh] ^H^H^H Compaq [doh] ^H^H^H^H^H^H HP
  • Seriously. I installed it. Set up everything I want and use from my linux drive. I love how clean the directory structure is compared to linux. I really want to use it exlusively for a couple months and see how I like it. I've written and compiled programs on it. But I can't for the life of me get it to mount a ext2 partition. Yes, I recompiled the kernel with ext2fs support. I ended up just burning everything that I wanted from linux on a cdrw, mounting it under FreeBSD and thought that I would be able to work it out. But all my ogg files are in three different ext2fs partitions. I need to have access to those. Until I can get FreeBSD to do this, I can't use it. And that's a shame to me. One of my partitions is /dev/hdb3 under linux. I tried every combination I could find under mailing lists and web pages. /dev/wda2s3 or whatever (this was a couple weeks ago and I can't remember now). Nothing worked. And I got very frustrated with the whole thing. Maybe I'll check back in a year or so and see how it's progressed.
    • This is more appropriately addressed to the freebsd-questions mailing list, and you seem like you've already made up your mind that this won't work.

      But, I'll bite. Check the device naming conventions. They really make (for my mind anyway) a lot more sense.

      Your linux /dev/hdb3 (what does this this stand for? Hard Disk Controller B partition 3? What if it was on the SCSI chain?) is, infact, /dev/ad1s3 (ata contoller 2, third slice) under FreeBSD.

      Try mount -t ext2fs /dev/ad1s3 /mymountpoint

      Hope that works for you. If not man mount_ext2fs(8). Also, you shouldn't have to recompile the kernel explicitly with ext2fs support either. Usually the system will auto load these modules if it needs them.

      Also, check out the handbook [freebsd.org] and the FAQ [freebsd.org]

      Let me know if it works.


      -Peter

      • Thanks for the pointers. I searched through the mailing list archives and had seen my question asked many times with many different answers. It seemed like the naming convention had changed. I tried a bunch of different ways.

        Hope I didn't come across like an ass, I just got very frustrated with the several times I tried to get it working.

        I haven't completely given up, just close. I'll give this a try before hanging it up for awhile.

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