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Announcements Operating Systems BSD

FreeBSD 5.0 Developer Preview #2 343

Posted by timothy from the five-is-a-prime-number dept.
noackjr writes "'The FreeBSD Project is proud to announce the availability of the second Developer Preview snapshot of FreeBSD 5.0 (5.0-DP2). This snapshot, intended for widespread testing purposes, is the latest milestone towards the eventual release of FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE, currently scheduled for mid-December 2002.' See the announcement, early adopter's guide, and the release notes."
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FreeBSD 5.0 Developer Preview #2 More

FreeBSD 5.0 Developer Preview #2

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  • Smp (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dcstimm ( 556797 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @12:07AM (#4703806) Homepage
    SMP support in this new version should rock, Freebsd never had good SMP support until now, If you are a SMP user check this update out! I know its beta but its well worth it..HUGE speed increases.
    • At present I use Windows, cause that's what 98% of the apps I use are written only for. But I do like learning about other OSes.

      So on to my question (with a possible coda). I read in a BSD guide that "most" apps written for Linux will run under any of the BSDs. Is this true, or was this dude just plain misinformed? Only reason is I ask this is that most of the info I've seen regarding the Unix variants is that BSD is superior over Linux. If that's the case, why use Linux? Anyway, if anyone can answer this 2 part question in a quick, general way, it would be appreciated.

      • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Moridineas ( 213502 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @12:25AM (#4703887) Journal
        Yes, the BSD's have a binary compatibility mode so you can take a linux compiled program and run it most of the time flawlessly. You can ALSO just recompile any opensource program and it will again 99% of the time run fine.

        As for which is superior, that's certaintly a matter of taste. My first Linux experience was with Slackware way back, and then RedHat starting with version 4 and then 5. Then I gave FreeBSD a try. I actually find it easier to get setup and in many ways more consistent in terms of design and organization (given at least beginner level *nix knowledge). It's really a matter of personal taste though.
        • Earlier this year, I was trying to decide which OS/distro I should try next. I narrrowed the list down to two choices: Debian (because apt makes things easy to administer) and FreeBSD (because the ports system makes compiling my own apps easy). Then I discovered Gentoo. It has an excellent ports-like system (Portage) which also takes care of dependencies. I don't know much about FreeBSD's ports system but I hear that Portage is better.

          Sorry if I sound like a troll (I'm just adding my two cents), but Gentoo seems to have the best of both the FreeBSD and GNU/Linux worlds. I get the increased app compatibility of GNU/Linux with a great ports system.

          • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:5, Interesting)

            by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:12AM (#4704049) Journal
            I'm using Gentoo right now, and I have to admit that portage is pretty good, but still, *BSD's ports are still better. Gentoo's package masking system and USE variable cruft is just inconvenient and gets in the way sometimes, and that's one of the major gripes I got with it. But otherwise, portage is pretty spiffy.

            The only thing Gentoo's portage has over *BSD's ports is the better updating mechanism. Portupgrade under freebsd just blows chunks, and not just because yet another script interpreter (ruby) needs to be installed. It croaks a lot when dependancies somehow shift (because you compiled new versions of something). Which lieves you with the dreaded pkgdb -F which sometimes leaves you guessing. I think the FreeBSD ports system could learn something from the NetBSD port system which has a make update target.

            But that's just my personal opinion on both systems. They are both nice, but the FreeBSD ports system comes out on top wrt flexibility.

            • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:5, Informative)

              by rsidd ( 6328 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:30AM (#4704115)
              They are both nice, but the FreeBSD ports system comes out on top wrt flexibility.

              Funny, I have quite the opposite judgement. I'm a huge FreeBSD fan, am typing this on my FreeBSD laptop in fact, but it now dual-boots Gentoo. One of the big selling points of FreeBSD, for me, was the ports system -- RPM is just so much of a headache -- but that was until I met gentoo. It has really gotten rid of many of the headaches associated with FreeBSD's ports: in particular, if you have a port A installed, and then port B pulls in a newer version of port A, the old version can be uninstalled automatically and safely in Gentoo without touching any of the new files. (In fact Gentoo now does it automatically.) And that's just one aspect: I like the fact that gentoo portage supports multiple versions of ports, that it generates the CONTENTS file automatically, and if your favourite port hasn't been updated to the latest version, you can often trivially do it yourself (you can also do that in FreeBSD but it's more complicated to get the CONTENTS right, and if you don't it won't uninstall cleanly). Now that I've used Gentoo for some time, FreeBSD's ports system is clearly showing its rough edges and deficiencies.

              So why am I sticking with FreeBSD? Because it performs better (especially under load), and a lot of things just work better -- eg, I occasionally have problems with ppp or dhcp/cable modem in linux, never in FreeBSD. But gentoo has huge potential, in fact it's already a pretty spiffy system, I think. If I had multiple machines, I'd install FreeBSD on the "mission critical" ones and gentoo on the "play" ones (bleeding-edge software, multimedia, etc).

              • portupgrade and convenience (Score:5, Informative)

                by taion ( 304184 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:34AM (#4704141) Homepage
                I was having similar problems with FreeBSD, regarding newer versions of ports, and portupgrade [freebsddiary.org] helps a lot in making this easy to handle. It's made managing things just so much easier. It's incredible, really.
                • That's funny... You probably haven't had the fights I had with portupgrade. Portupgrade tends to go haywire if you update from installed packages instead of ports. Also, I don't like/need ruby. I'd _really_ love to have a sane way of upgrading ports without installing a scripting language I'll probably never use.

              • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:2, Insightful)

                by Anonymous Coward
                Its funny to watch all the genttoo people oohh and awwwwh over all the things portage does... When FreeBSD has been there for >8 years. Its old hat.

                Yes, ports is older, and has some rough spots. Its also mature and has a good deal of stability. gentoo is infantile, and they are already having trouble keeping up with changes; Look at the massive number of updates each day in freebsd, via freshports [freshports.org]. Gentoo doesn't even come close, and they want to scale this up to something the size of the FreeBSD ports system with 4-5 times the number of applications? As for the rough spots, FreeBSD is adressing each of them, and in truely creative and powerful ways. They already checksum each file as it is installed (autogenerating the CONTENTS file), and refuse in the future to modify, delete, etc files that have been modified, therefore protecting you from customizations or packages that overwrote files). In my experience gentoo only handles A overwrites B in the specific case where it is told ahead of time by the port maintainer that this is true, and how to handle it. That's nice when you're at the size you are now; and FreeBSD could certainly do the same but it doesn't scale at the level FreeBSD operates on, and therefore they are coming up with new ways, automatic ways of handling it. I've also seen the gentoo system screw up royally and delete files its not supposed to because it didn't understand that something else had installed a package (or a different version of a package), and wind up trashing all the custom work the user did. This is very unlikely given the way the FreeBSD ports system works... by assuming if key files are there (regardless if the user chose to use package management) that the requirements are fulfilled. Then if the prereqs were installed through package management it will register the dependancies. This gives users and administrators the best of both worlds. Using ports when it gives them what they need, and letting the admin/user do it themselves when it doesn't. Give gentoo's limitations they really need this.
                • They already checksum each file as it is installed (autogenerating the CONTENTS file), and refuse in the future to modify, delete, etc files that have been modified, therefore protecting you from customizations or packages that overwrote files).
                  Gentoo does these. Checksumming is an integral part of the install process, and a package isn't installed if the checksum fails. If you read the Gentoo Portage manual, you will see that it has config file protection, which is fully configurable. New config files are stored with a different filename, and you can use the etc-update tool to interactively merge the old and new config files.
                  I've also seen the gentoo system screw up royally and delete files its not supposed to because it didn't understand that something else had installed a package (or a different version of a package), and wind up trashing all the custom work the user did.
                  If you upgrade a package, you are supposed to clean the old version away. If you don't, both the old and the new package will be listed in the Portage database as being installed. The problem you described sounds like the user uninstalled the package instead of cleaning it. A clean will remove files that are in the old version but aren't in the new, leaving the new version intact. An uninstall, on the other hand, will remove everything that was part of the old package, including files that may be part of the new version. Of course, this may break the new version.

            • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:4, Insightful)

              by Baki ( 72515 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @02:25AM (#4704281)
              I have tried Gentoo, but I'm back to Slackware. I used to use FreeBSD (for 5 years) but had to switch to Linux because of vmware (current versions alas do not run under FreeBSD).

              For me as an old FreeBSD user, Slackware feels much much more "at home". Yes, Gentoo has ports (I prefer FreeBSD's though) but a big drawback is that, in contrast to FreeBSD, the whole base system is also made up of ports.

              In FreeBSD the 'core' system is the same everywhere, not maintained by ports but having all source code in /usr/src, to be installed/updated by syncing the source and then execute 'make world' in /usr/src.

              Gentoo, with its web of port dependencies and infinite number of configurations, is unstable because of this. Also a small change often requires recompilation and reinstallation of 'everything'. Just read the Gentoo boards/mailing lists to see how often some configuration (combination of ports) breaks.

              FreeBSD ports also break occasionally, but at least the don't affect the base system.

              Apart from that, Slackware is like FreeBSD w.r.t. simplicity for file layouts, rc startup files etc. Gentoo feels more like other Linuces. This is a matter of taste and of what you're used to. I am convinced that most FreeBSD users prefer Slackware if they have to use a Linux distribution.
            • >Portupgrade under freebsd just blows chunks, and not just because yet another script interpreter (ruby) needs to be installed. It croaks a lot when dependancies somehow shift (because you compiled new versions of something). Which lieves you with the dreaded pkgdb -F which sometimes leaves you guessing.

              I suggest you lok into the '-r' and '-R' options of portupgrade, it automatically handles the dependencies for you.

              --Jon

              http://www.witchspace.com
            • Although simpler, I prefer portsupgrade [univie.ac.at]. It is a nice little Perl script that does the job of replacing a port.
          • > I don't know much about FreeBSD's ports system but I hear that Portage is better.

            It's certainly more featureful out of the box, but Portage requires its own toolchain to manage, which defeats the purpose of ports in a few ways. Ports uses make, a familiar well-worn tool to most system administrators. That said, if I install Linux again, it'd probably be Gentoo.

            Besides, BSD will run any linux app that doesn't have kernel dependencies (though most of /proc is supported). It's just too bad that the distro in /compat is redhat, as I would have preferred debian. I can see the reasoning though, since it's generally there to run commercial linux software that's not available on bsd.

      • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Markus Landgren ( 50350 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @12:42AM (#4703937) Homepage
        If the application you want to run is one of the 5000 applications in the "FreeBSD ports collection", then a simple "make install" in the proper directory will download the sources, patch them for FreeBSD, compile and install. If you need to run something that is distributed as binaries only, then FreeBSD has support for the Linux ABI. I run Linux versions of Mathematica and Unreal Tournament 2003 with no problems at all.

        I'm a FreeBSD user since three months, and I think FreeBSD is an excellent beginner's unix.

        My unix adventures started with downloading Redhat and installing it. It took 30 minutes and I learned nothing. Then I sat there with a system that I had no idea how to configure to my taste. I disliked it and went back to Windows.

        My next try was FreeBSD. Installing it took a couple of tries and it took at least a day or two before I was satisfied. But I learned a lot, mainly because of the excellent online documentation [freebsd.org]. Now I run FreeBSD on all my computers and I am not going back.

        That being said, expect Linux to have better support for the latest and greatest hardware. (And expect Windows to have even better hardware support than Linux!) But I'm happy since the recent release of FreeBSD drivers for my NVidia card.
      • One of the reasons I choose Linux over BSD is the rate at which Linux development takes place.

        Linux is beginning to hit so big in corporate America that the software development effort to develop new applications and port existing applications to Linux is amazing.

        This of course is just my opinion, but I would have to say that the development effort for Linux is outpacing that of the FreeBSD community.

        I suppose the bottom line though is what works best for you? I would recommend that you take a look at both and decide for yourself which one works best for you.

        • This of course is just my opinion, but I would have to say that the development effort for Linux is outpacing that of the FreeBSD community.
          Remember that software being ported to any Unix-like system is a win for all Unix-like systems. FreeBSD can run many Linux binaries through its emulated execution layer, and many apps ported to Linux can be recompiled on BSD with relative ease.

          Just because Linux is gaining share doesn't necessarily mean that BSD is losing. It does mean that UNIX is gaining though. :)

        • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Moridineas ( 213502 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @02:22AM (#4704272) Journal
          You do raise a good point in some ways--Linux has a lot of corporate backing and is very "loud" and attention grabbing. In the meanwhile, the server room is running bsd ;)

          Don't forget that when you say development for linux is outpacing bsd what does that mean? The servers apps most people run has nothing to do with the OS. Samba, Bind, Netatalk, Squid, Apache, IP NAT+firewall etc, ssh, ftp, sendmail and variants of these programs--these are what most people run, and these have absolutely no connection to linux.
          • Linux has a lot of corporate backing and is very "loud" and attention grabbing. In the meanwhile, the server room is running bsd ;)

            Maybe at some ISPs. From of what I've seen at corporate environments, BSD is only used unwittingly in appliances. Linux is making some inroads against commercial Unix and Windows.
            The servers apps most people run has nothing to do with the OS. Samba, Bind, Netatalk, Squid, Apache, IP NAT+firewall etc, ssh, ftp, sendmail and variants of these programs...

            That's certainly the kind of view that would validate BSD. If you asked an IT director what important apps are running on his servers, he wouldn't mention any of those. He might mention PeopleSoft, SAP, Oracle, Oracle Financials, Microsoft Exchange, ClearCase, Siebel CRM. The programs you mentioned are more like minor supporting utilities - you choose a platform for SAP, and just assume that ftp is available for it.

            A lot of this key software is becoming available for Linux. You might be able to get it to run on FreeBSD. But would you want to? Would you seriously put Oracle on a platform Oracle doesn't support? In fact, most companies are scared to move these key apps to Linux, even when the vendor supports it 100%.

            So it's not accurate to say the server room is running bsd. Maybe at a few pure-internet companies, or running a little utility DNS/cache/whatever box, but not running the key apps in the corporate world.

            • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:5, Interesting)

              by Moridineas ( 213502 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @04:00AM (#4704514) Journal
              From my own experience my company uses FreeBSD. Yahoo uses FreeBSD. pair.com one of the bigger hosting providers uses FreeBSD. mp3.com uses FreeBSD. Hotmail used to use FreeBSD, I'm not sure if they still do. (after it was bought by MS that is). ftp.cdrom.com uses FreeBSD. I'm sure there are more, and this isn't even getting into the internal server rooms of companies, hard to say there. FreeBSD is definitely a proven platform, it's not fair to lump it as "ISP's only".

              If you had to look at all the linux servers running on the internet today (and discounting personal boxes) I would bet you the VAST majority are running none of those applications you mention. That's one of the reasons that MS and the commercial unixes still hold a sway--running those apps. You do raise a good point--oracle on FreeBSD (for example) is not a viable solution. But I'm not at all convinced that Linux is beating out the BSD's the way you think.

              I would be REALLY curious to see how many linux and bsd boxes are running what you call a little "utility" box (and I'll throw in fileservers too). I would bet that that is the big domain of linux and bsd alike.

        • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @04:58AM (#4704665)
          One of the reasons I choose Linux over BSD is the rate at which Linux development takes place.

          Well, a new kernel every couple of weeks is fine if you're running Linux on a PC in your bedroom, but in the real world, it takes time to deploy software. It has to be tested, downtime scheduled, documentation updated, staff trained, etc. The big advantage of FreeBSD (and Debian for that matter) is that it gets much more thoroughly tested before it's declared "STABLE". Although it may lag behind the cutting edge a little, that's a far, far happier place to be if you are relying on your systems to run your business. Not only that, but there is one FreeBSD, maintained in a consistent way by a single organization. If you are writing or deploying software that requires certain versions of certain things to be in certain places, then you have to only support a subset of the possible Linux distributions, or choose something like FreeBSD which is far more consistent. FreeBSD does not need to make compromises for portability to other platforms (like NetBSD and Linux), it is wholly developed for x86.

          In short, my position is that Linux is better if you want to experiment, FreeBSD is better if you want to run crucial applications or infrastructure.
        • *BSD's are traditionally intended ( and still is from what i understand ) for the server arena, where stability and consistency are much more important then running ' the latest killer app'.

          BSD is more entrenched in the backrooms of corporate America for this reason.

          Now on the DESKTOP i agree, it lagged behind until recently. But now that you can run 99% of proprietary Linux binaries, and there is good desktop hardware support, even that point becomes moot and it becomes more of a matter of preference then 'better'.

      • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:5, Informative)

        by dokebi ( 624663 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @12:46AM (#4703954)
        Besides some small (and not so small) technical differences, the most significant divergence between BSD and Linux is the license model (and the underlying philosophy). Linux is a GPL kernel, with GNU tools providing rest of the system (thus GNU/Linux). The GPL license has a clause that says if one wants to distribute a modified version of a GPL'ed software, one must also include the modified source code. BSD however says you can do whatever you want with the program and its code, including selling your modified version without source code. All you have to do is include the BSD/UC Berkeley copyright notice. If you ever read the MS Windows copyrigth page, it includes the BSD Copyright. Yes, MS Windows has some BSD code.

        A lot of other Open Source software are BSD styled. Others are GPL.

        It's a matter of which philosophy you subscribe to.

      • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @12:48AM (#4703960)
        As of about a week ago, the Linux versions of many games run with full 3D acceleration on NVIDIA cards, for example Quake3 and Unreal Tournament 2003 (out of the box, although it's a pain to get installed).

        99% of Linux executables can be run after a simple 'brandelf -t Linux executable', although I have found a couple of very sloppily coded sh scripts that ran on Linux and didn't work as-is on FreeBSD (most notibly the UT2003 install script mentioned above).

        As someone who switched from Slackware to FreeBSD, I don't forsee ever moving to anything else. Not to disrespect Linux, but it is relatively a mess.

        Someone else here described FreeBSD kernel as being a "borg cube", and that it is - in a structured and nicely organised way. And this philosophy extends to the entire distro.

        If you're happy with Linux, fine - enjoy. You're only going to be able to run mostly the same software anyway. But I would recommend checking out FreeBSD if you're stuck with anything else.

      • Re:Someone explain this about BSD/Linux to me. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @02:36AM (#4704306) Homepage
        1. It's true, most applications for Linux can be run under FreeBSD.

        2. It's a matter of personal choice to run one or the other on a desktop workstation. I run Linux because it's just more fun. Better 3D games support, newer drivers for everything and much more rapid development full of new ideas, little bits of GNU humor or cleverness all over the place and a lot of variety. It feels right. Of course, a lot of FreeBSD users would say that 3D gaming is for gamer weenies, newer drivers equal more unstable drivers, GNU humor and cleverness are really just lack of professionalism and variety is really the same thing as inconsistency. It's all a matter of personal taste if it's your personal system.

        For non-personal systems, I'd say it's more a matter of whatever your vendor is pushing. In more and more cases these days, that will be Linux, but there are still some large firms that are outfitting people with *BSD.
      • Seems lots of people answered the non-existant "Why use FreeBSD" question, and not the "Why use Linux" one ... I should state now that I run FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Mac OS X. So why use Linux?

        I can think of three reasons:
        a) Linux hardware support is often better, and drivers appear more quickly
        b) You may prefer a specific Linux package-management system, like apt, or gentoo's thingy
        c) There are some applications that don't run, or need a lot of massaging to run under FreeBSD - used to be the case with CrossOver (might still be), and last time I checked Ximian didn't work
    • GCC 3.2.1 should will make it faster with new optimizations for P4 and AMD-XP cpus.

      I'm glad to see Sun Blade 100's supported, currently only linux(suse) would work on my blades. (with kde/gnome support even) I wonder if some tested these ports on sparc64 machines.

      • Re:Smp (Score:3, Informative)

        by Moridineas ( 213502 )
        NetBSD I've read has the best sparc port out there (and the most well tested).

      • Re:Smp (Score:4, Informative)

        by Stonent1 ( 594886 ) <stonentNO@SPAMstonent.pointclark.net> on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:23AM (#4704086) Journal
        For the sake of clarity to all... Sparc64 and UltraSparc are 2 different but instruction compatable cpu series. Sparc64 is a Fujitsu product and UltraSparc is a Sun product. They are both SPARC V9 instruction set compliant but have some different innards that make them not the same thing. (Athlon XP vs Pentium 4 basically) The Sparc64 runs at lower clock rates than the UltraSparc series CPU but can achieve similar performance by using more advanced branch prediction and out of order execution techniques. Just mentioning this because many people use Sparc64 and UltraSparc interchangably but keep in mind that just because something is in the "Sparc64" FreeBSD port doesn't necessarily mean it will run on a real Fujitsu Sparc64 system which may have different hardware entirely than Sun. ;)

  • Yaaay team! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @12:07AM (#4703809) Journal
    CURRENT has come a long way. Heck, I've stopped trying to keep a machine CURRENT because problems started with me when they changed ABI's and compilers (from gcc 2.9x to gcc3), so I went back to STABLE land for a while.

    Now that DP2 is here, I might as well jump in the CURRENT water again and give it a go again. The time that CURRENT _did_ work for me, it worked great and I considered it stable. I have been following/lurking the current@ mailinglist for quite a while, and it's been fun seeing al these cool new things appear.

    Great work. I'm definately going to give this a spin.

  • Wait, I thought FreeBSD *was* dead?! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not a troll, a question:

    I thought I remembered hearing some time ago about some politics within the FreeBSD camp or the FreeBSD trademark being sold or something of that nature that gave me the impression that development of FreeBSD would probably slowly grind to a halt, while the other *BSD's would become the new BSD banner-wavers.

    Anyone want to clue me in on what exactly went on in the FreeBSD camp over the last year or so? Are they back on track and humming along as usual? Was anything ever wrong, or am I totally nuts?

  • Supported Applications (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tyrelb ( 619467 )
    I have been running FreeBSD for a number of years now (ever since the 2.x days), and find it great. One thing I've noticed, is that there are no mentions of any graphical displays and applications included in the default install/release notes (i.e. KDE/GNOME support, office applications, etc.). Does anyone know why this is?

    • Re:Supported Applications (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think the release notes are supposed to deal with changes. FreeBSD has always been able to run KDE and GNOME, som them not being mentioned should mean that they still work.
    • Because the FreeBSD core team is really building the OS, KDE and Gnome are userland applications are are out of the scope of the core team. KDE and Gnome is left as a port that the user can optionally install later (cd /usr/ports/x11/gnome; make install clean or cd to /usr/ports/x11/kde3; make install clean). In fact the FreeBSD team has been moving to streamline their installer recently be removing as many third party applications (perl) from the base system as possible and instead making them ports.

      • Re:Supported Applications (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Actually, you stating that the FreeBSD team moving to streamline their installer brings one question to my mind: has their been any debate and/or decision made in regards to the, er, "desktop position" of the FreeBSD project?

        I mean, have they decided to concentrate on making the best server OS, period, they can make -- or have they decided to create a "one size fits all" OS that can be a pretty darn desktop *and* a pretty darn server OS?

        Have they decided to make it a goal to make the project's output more "desktop friendly", like what has happened generally with Linux?

        This is not a troll. I was using FreeBSD way back when as my "desktop" *nix until I needed something that was just available for Linux at the time and switched horses (around RH 5.0). At the time, the installers of the various Linux distros were not that different from 'BSD (ok, maybe except Debian, IIRC) and Linux was as much "desktop friendly" as 'BSD was. But things have changed (Caldera Open Linux 2.2 in '99, etc.) since. Even though I had a bit louch touch/contact with FreeBSD since my switch, I still had a soft spot for it. I've been wondering recently how they were considering The Desktop these days and if they made (substantial (sp?)) changes to their installer.

        Anyone care to light up my lantern? Thanks.

      • The Perl Situation... (Score:4, Informative)

        by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:30AM (#4704114) Journal
        Actually, you can already switch to the port version of perl on STABLE. This will line you up better wrt CURRENT having no perl in the base system, and it might even save you the trouble of compiling/reinstalling all those perl modules again.

        Just after compiling the perl port, do:

        use.perl port <enter>

        and you STABLE system will always use the perl from the ports. This will probably save you a headache or two when upgrading to CURRENT

    • FreeBSD/KDE at least has it's own website here [kde.org].

      Lots of information there, and access to pre-built KDE-CVS snapshots (that is, if they built correctly). They have a handy script that gets the latest built snapshot and installs it for you. Bless pkg_add(1)'s little heart. :)

    • Because KDE and GNOME are not a part of the operating system. In fact, they aren't a part of any Linux based OS either!

      KDE and GNOME are third party software. You can find them in the ports system, along with 7000+ more third party packages. I would hate to see the size of the release notes if they had to document every change to every port and package!

      p.s. Microsoft, GNU, and the Linux distributions have done an admirable job in obfuscating the definition of "operating system". Just because it comes with the OS does not make it a part of the OS.

  • Know what I'd love to see? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @12:13AM (#4703838)
    Someone take BSD and do a Mandrake version of it while at the same time keeping it all opensource and free. Ie make it really user friendly(Gui installer, admin tools etc). I'm surprised there has been no effort to do so. I mean beyond what Apple did I don't even hear any rumors of anyone even trying to do that.

    I know BSD is a more thought of as a server OS, but I've heard plently of BSD users claim its makes a fine desktop as well. If that's every going to happen they definitely need to start working on making it more user friendly.

    • Re:Know what I'd love to see? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:05AM (#4704027) Journal
      Like FreeBSD's text-based install is hard. NOT.

      It's an installer that doesn't get in your way. The partitioning/labelling is pretty easy (and has reasonable auto-defaults). And finishing up after (enabling ssh, nfs et al) is a doddle.

      I don't see why FreeBSD needs graphical cruft in it's installer. The simple ncurses based one lets me install a fully working FreeBSD base system + ports tree in under 30 minutes. If I want something extra after that, pkg_add -r isn't far away.

      I mean, come on... It's an installation, not something you have to work in for more than 8 hours. Yeah sure, GUI installers look nice, but what's the USE?

      • Oddly enough, the installer isn't ncurses, it's a program called 'dialog'. It's a kludge that someone jkh beat into the system a while back, and everyone would like to see changed, although efforts have stalled at the moment.

        The history is here [freebsd.org], for further reading.

        • The history is here [freebsd.org], for further reading.

          Thank you for this post. This clears up a LOT of confusion on my part as to why things were done the way they were.

          Being that this thing was dated over 2 years ago, I don't suppose there's much point in holding our breath for libh's completion. *sigh*.
      • Like FreeBSD's text-based install is hard. NOT.

        No, it's not hard. It's not exactly intuitive either.

        A decision was made to use sysinstall as both the installer, and post installation utility. In short, it's not really adequate for either.

        It's not whether it's text based or GUI. The real problem is that it doesn't follow a linear path to complete the installation. Even after a number of installations it's not entirely obvious what step happens in which order. For a first timer at it, it is quite confusing.

        What should happen is to have a step by step process that walks a user through the process without allowing for deviations. Aside from the GUI, this is what makes the Linux installers so much easier for someone who hasn't seen them before.

        The one advantage to a GUI installer is to provide a little more screen space to describe exactly what is going on. Full descriptions of packages that can be installed, things like that.

        Lastly, a GUI would provide a bit more professionalism to what the user perceives. Text based installers are just too closely associated with the 80's. It's harmful to FreeBSD's image essentially.

        • Re:Know what I'd love to see? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Lastly, a GUI would provide a bit more professionalism to what the user perceives. Text based installers are just too closely associated with the 80's. It's harmful to FreeBSD's image essentially.

          It's not. FreeBSD is for computer geeks and IT professionals, not the ordinary fool that would fall for BillG's latest marketing troll. User friendly means the user gets to do what the user want in the way the user expects, and a GUI does not really help, since it might behave in unexpected ways on unexpected hardware.

          I must admit I haven't done many installations by the latest and greatest GUI installers, but I tried both SuSE 6.3 and Progeny some time ago, and none of them worked on the specific hardware, so I had to use text mode installers. My point isn't that GUI's are inherently wrong for installing, but that an installer has to be robust.

          The FreeBSD installer isn't very good, but it's not because it's text mode. Cramming the same thing into a GUI would suck even worse - the user wouldn't know where to click.
      • The partitioning/labelling is pretty easy (and has reasonable auto-defaults).

        FreeBSD's partitioning and labeling system blows chunks. If you accept the defaults and you don't do anything interesting with the box, you'll get by. The default sizes for / and /var are ridiculous, expecially considering mail is stored in /var/mail.

        And then there's the whole confusing issue of partitioning, labeling and which means what relative to a lot of other OS environments.

        And while I'm on it, there's the crummy sysinstall tool for doing it to new disks added to a system, if you're not brave enough to deal with fdisk and disklabel from the command line (I figured 'em out once, as a forced exercise, and I was happy to be done with it).

        I have no grip with sysinstall for getting a base system installed, but it'd be great if someone re-examined the disk partitioning schemes and tools.
    • You'll see it. It's in the works. http://www.kawaiiproject.org/ [kawaiiproject.org] . It won't be huge and more-than-complete like Mandrake, but it will be desktop-oriented and friendly. Think Lycoris or Xandros. Also think Knoppix...you can slip it into your CD-ROM and boot off that, or you can take the installer and install onto a hard drive, or even a suitably large CF for diskless operations.

      FreeBSD is too good to keep away from the desktop. Heck, the MacPPC folks have OS X...why deny x86 computers this BSD-driven goodness? A FreeBSD-based graphical desktop will run acceptably on older machines (think walk, not crawl) and is a true speed daemon on fast machines. This has been a long time coming, but it is going to happen.

    • Re:Know what I'd love to see? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @03:10AM (#4704412) Homepage Journal
      I know BSD is a more thought of as a server OS, but I've heard plently of BSD users claim its makes a fine desktop as well. If that's every going to happen they definitely need to start working on making it more user friendly.

      What do you mean, "if that's ever going to happen"? It already has! It's my desktop system right now! It may not be the desktop system for your grandma, but then again, I'm not your grandma.

      And FreeBSD *IS* user friendly. Do not mistake pretty pictures for usability. The FreeBSD installer is straight forward and sensible. The documentation is complete and thorough. Configuration is simple. The only drawback is that it expects you to educate yourself on system administration. But actually, that's a Good Thing(tm).

  • A Parable that applies... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @12:16AM (#4703847)
    This whole issue with BSD and the ammount of fervor behind it reminds me of a parable I'd like to share, not meaning to cause offense or shove doctrines on anyone.

    Once in the land of Karjakistan, there was a great sultan who had no heir, his wisemen dispaired and decreed that the queen should be put to death that the king might marry another. In her desperation she called on the wisest guru of the land, Bobi-Son-Denobi (BSD), telling him he was her only hope. So BSD arrived at the palace and met Queen Needs-a-Leia and she told him of the problem:

    "Oh BSD, you must help me, for my husband has not produced an heir for he will not take me into his bed!"

    BSD was confused, what man would refuse a woman with such a large set of erm... kernals? So he searched for the answer high and low until he came to the master handler, Linux. Linux told him of a dark secret, how King Mesa Sofi (King MS) would sneak down into the animals cages and have wild escapades with the camels. BSD was shocked, the world knew MS was cursed but not so defiled, but still an heir needed to be produced, so he went back to the Queen and asked her to disrobe (hey, she did it for Jaba, right?). He gazed at her nubile figure, which seemed as if it were petrified, like Natalie Portman.

    The answer was as obvious as steaming hot grits, of course he thought! I HAS THE SOLUTION!

    And so BSD appeared before King MS, with Linux and the two approached the throne. "Your monopoliness," BSD began, "If you will view the naked body of your wife."

    Need-a-Leia disrobed again her nude form shining forth, "You will notice her... um TCP/IP socket... looks a bit like the toe of a beast of burdan, a camel's toe if you will."

    The King looked on and was pleased, and so the Queen bore him a son and was spared, BSD and Linux had saved the day.

    The moral of the story is, Microsoft is a bunch of sick bastards who need to listen to open source and stop fucking livestock.

  • will OS X be updated with this? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:01AM (#4704018)
    Anyone know if Apple plans on updating their FreeBSD-based bits with this anytime soon?

    Probably too soon for 10.3 to be based on this, but maybe 10.4?

    • Re:will OS X be updated with this? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Moridineas ( 213502 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @04:03AM (#4704523) Journal
      I've read that Apple is working on getting Darwin and FreeBSD a lot more in synch. A lot of the big changes in FreeBSD 5.0 (devfs, SMP stuff, etc) are kernel changes though, and won't matter at all to OSX which has its own kernel and relies on FreeBSD (and NetBSD I believe) for the userland tools and stuff.
      • One wonders why Apple didn't use the stuff from OpenBSD, which, supposedly, has gone through a lot more security reviews than the stuff from FreeBSD. I mean, if they're not needing any of the kernel stuff, then what's left shouldn't be that big a deal.

  • Java? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Offwhite98 ( 101400 )
    I have seen talk on the Java mailing list about a coming release of Java 1.3.1 and 1.4.1. Now that FreeBSD will have improved threading, will it also come with an updated Java release? Will this be certified by Sun?

  • FreeBSD Sells Itself (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <[be] [at] [eclec.tk]> on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:12AM (#4704045) Homepage Journal
    BSD IS DEAD!!!

    Just ask ... yahoo ... netcraft ... and slew of other servers that rely on BSD. If you want a server and you want the best bang for the buck, freebsd is the best price out there. (free)

    For all the trolls who say BSD isn't GPL, well duh, BSD is in itself a license. Sometimes you just gotta wonder. If linux was so wonderful then why would apple choose BSD for OS X and not linux? It's more than just the license, BSD is a very nice OS that is wonderfully stable.

    Rule of Thumb, if it works in linux it will more than likely work in freebsd, and vice versa, well that is until you try to compile a kernel not of that OS :-) ... try it before you bash it.

    • They probably wouldn't recognise a truly living and actively developed Operating System Environment if it gnawed one of their legs off and slapped them in the face with it.

      I use BSD everywhere. I sneak it into places where I work and impress the locals with it. And then it ends up in the server room. FreeBSD world domination! muhahahaha

      Oh, and I never got fired for installing BSD somewhere :)

    • " If linux was so wonderful then why would apple choose BSD for OS X and not linux? "

      Because for the most part, the GPL ensures the code stays truly free and out in the open, something Apple didn't want to have to worry about for parts of their OS. It's not because BSD is somehow more advanced or better than linux. Mach sure as hell doesn't hold a candle to the linux kernel if that's what you were implying. And finally, it MIGHT just have something to do with Next which was based on BSD, which OSX is based on.

      Honestly you troll and then ask people not to bash it, what gives?
      • Because for the most part, the GPL ensures the code stays truly free and out in the open
        Uh, wasn't it that the GPL ensures that new code written by others than the one who chose to use the GPL has to be "truly free and out in the open"? You know, just because Apple used FreeBSD code, this code didn't just go away, it is still as freely available as it was before.

        BTW, Apple (and NeXT before) does use and modify GPL code (GCC, for example), and they don't seem to have a problem with playing after the GPL rules, so maybe the license wasn't the only reason for not choosing Linux after all.

    • Re:FreeBSD Sells Itself (Score:4, Informative)

      by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @05:09AM (#4704686)
      If linux was so wonderful then why would apple choose BSD for OS X and not linux?

      Umm, they didn't. Choose, that is. The decision was made by NeXT, years before, after Jobs had left Apple and started hanging out with Avi Tenevian (sp?). NeXT chose BSD over Mach, which was state-of-the-art for Unix at the time, and is still very good (I personally am ambivalent on the subject of microkernels, but some people have very strong feelings about them).

      Apple's next-generation OS (Copland, Pink, whatever) was in fairly dire straits, they had been working on it for years and had gotten precisely nowhere. So Apple bought NeXT, but NeXT people wound up in charge, and they made the decision that MacOS X would be the next (no pun intended) iteration of the NeXT OS.

      Even without this, Apple would never have chosen Linux - if they had to release their modifications to it under the GPL, people would just have run it on cheaper PCs, and Apple make almost all their money on hardware. The BSD license allowed them to compromise.

  • 10 things you might want to check out in DP2 (Score:5, Informative)

    by geniusj ( 140174 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:20AM (#4704080) Homepage
    Here are some big ticket items in -CURRENT that you might want to check out.

    1) Filesystem Snapshots/Background fsck - On filesystems with softupdates enabled, fsck will be performed on the mounted filesystem (well, actually a snapshot) after the disk is mounted. This allows fsck to be run without affecting uptime along with the other obvious benefits of having snapshot support (dump comes to mind).

    2) ACLs - Filesystem ACLs are included with FreeBSD now and can be set using the standard setfacl/getfacl methods

    3) LOMAC - The LOMAC with DP2 is apparently old and seems intrusive. A recommendation from the author was to try the version of LOMAC from trustedbsd CVS. It is said to contain "99% less ASS" ;).. Recommended you use UFS2 for full extended attribute support.

    4) MAC - I personally haven't tried it yet, however I plan to. Recommended you use UFS2 for full extended attribute support. This could/should rock :)

    5) GEOM - A modular framework for disk I/O. This allows modules to be placed along the I/O request path in order to do nifty things such as filesystem encryption easily. There is an encryption module already written for this as well

    6) UFS2 - UFS with extended attributes support and various code cleanup afaik. sysinstall will use UFS1 by default ;(.. UFS2 is not yet bootable on i386 due to space constraints in the boot loader. No word on whether this will be fixed in time.

    7) SMPng - Have at it.. Last I heard, the speed increases weren't as significant as people seem to think they'll be. The groundwork is laid out though for future speed improvements. A lot of code has been moved out from under Giant (Big Giant Lock). That could have definitely changed though, as the last time I heard an SMPng update was at the kernel summit in SF. There are quite a few debugging options enabled in GENERIC, so you might want to take note of that.

    8) sparc64/Itan{ic|ium} - If you have a supported hardware config.. Itanium is under /pub/FreeBSD/development I believe. sparc64 is actually part of the DP release

    9) gcc3 - Nothing more to really put here.

    10) New and improved rc system in /etc/rc.d. This is basically an import from NetBSD. scripts in rc.d, as opposed to the init.d/rc*.d method where the filename determines the dependency order, use a program called rcorder(8) to determine the order in which scripts are executed. rcorder determines the order by special headers in the scripts. e.g.

    # PROVIDE: sshd
    # REQUIRE: LOGIN
    # KEYWORD: FreeBSD NetBSD

    Ports, unfortunately, does not use this dependency system yet. However, last I heard, there will be a cutoff date at which time they should support it.

    Some information may be outdated, but most of it should be correct.

    Enjoy,
    -JD-

  • perl out of base system (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @01:21AM (#4704083)
    Glad to see Perl has been given the axe in the base system. Now I won't have to have two Perl installs all the time (the base + the port).

    Now if they could only do the same for Sendmail, BIND, and other junk.

    Maybe I'm just more comfortable with systems like Red Hat where *everything* is in a package, but it seems silly to have this 3rd-party stuff in the base, especially if many people use the ports version anyway.
    • Support for not building certain subsystems has been there for a while now. Read /etc/defaults/make.conf, and put the appropriate lines in /etc/make.conf. You won't get BIND or Sendmail or Perl or whatever when you rebuild your system.
    • You already can do that with bind (build with PORT_REPLACES_BASE_BIND8) and openssh (build with OPENSSH_OVERWRITE_BASE).
  • I understand every BSD user's complaints about Redhat/Mandrake and the rpm package mess but how does Debian and apt-get compare? I figure that w/ the design philosophy and package system Debian has, it's quite comparable to all of the benefits of BSD. After installing Debian, I'm not ruled by my Linux box, I have time to do other things. Rock solid, secure (enough for me), and easy to update and install packages. Anyway, I'm still a newbie and ask newbie questions.
    • It's been a while scince I used Debian, but here I go:

      • Even with apt and deb, it's still all binary packages. I like the source-based approach better. (and yes, I know about src-debs. But honestly, what do you use more often?)
      • Building a port yourself is trivial (it's just a Makefile and a list of files that get installed, basically), way easier than building your own debs. I find that on my FreeBSD system, there is way less software installed without being under control of the package management system than on every Linux system I used.
      • FreeBSD doesn't try to be clever unless I tell it to, unlike, for example, Debians "alternatives". If I type "vi", I get vi, and not an end- and useless mess of symlinks pointing to whatever editor. The packages just work like the original authors intended, not like the packagers thought it would be better.
      • Debian has more kinds of dependency. Ports just depend on something, or they don't (of course, what they depend on may depend on some options you choose), but they don't "suggest" anything. I never understood why this fine-grained dependencies are useful, I like the KISS approach better.
      Of course, YMMV. More important than the differences are the similarities, however, especially that both systems "just work". Both Debian and FreeBSD are fine systems, and there really isn't such a great difference between them from a users point of view. Certainly not enough to justify holy wars.

  • Kernel Threads! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PizzaFace ( 593587 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2002 @02:50AM (#4704360)
    Kernel threads are going to mean more than any other feature to FreeBSD 5. Benchmark performance may not increase that much because of kernel threads, but they'll allow many applications to be ported to FreeBSD. Now, a lot of programs that run on Linux, Solaris, and Windows, can't be ported to FreeBSD because of its inferior threading. Thread-intensive languages (most notoriously, Java) and database servers should be much more comfortable on FreeBSD 5, after it shakes down.
  • I'm thinking about running new FreeBSD on my (uncooled) Dual Xeon system - I haven't uptil now because of the lack of second CPU HLT instructions - Does anyone know what second CPU Idling is like in 5.0/5.0DP2?

    Thanks

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