FreeBSD 4.10 Released 269
lorand writes "After some delay (initially scheduled to be released on May 5th) the long awaited 4.10 version of FreeBSD was released today. It features a large merge of the USB code from the -CURRENT development branch, some conservative updates to a number of programs in the base system and many bugfixes. The detailed release notes can be found here. Use one of the many mirrors
if you need to get the ISOs."
feargal adds "There are no sweeping changes from 4.9, mostly a consolidation of security and bug fixes.
Looking forward, it is also the first in a new 'Errata Branch' which increases the scope of fixes applied. In the past only critical security fixes were applied to the release branch. The Errata branch will include local DoS fixes and well-tested non-security fixes."
Bsd is dying :P (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:5, Insightful)
The continued maintainance of the 4.x branch is largely for the benefit of those users who -- for good reasons -- are incredibly paranoid about moving to anything new. Users like large banks, for example.
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly, I currently run 5.x on my main server and 4.9 on my workstation.
I'm not running 4.9 out of conservatism or anything like that, but simply for the reason that I don't have time to bother with the current issues regarding the nvidia drivers and multi-threading.
My server runs 5.x because its rock solid and does a good job taking advantage of the smp hardware.
Once I don't have to bother with the linux-threads port to get a working form of kernel scheduling for threads with the nvidia driver or have to stick to libc_r, I'll switch back to 5.x on my workstation. (and yes, I know I'm stuck with libc_r now when using 4.9, but at least I don't have to bother keeping it that way while recompiling updates and such)
(oh, and why not use the xfree nvidia driver? because I want opengl for playing enemy territory and the like... not very important really, but good opengl support itself is important for other desktop uses)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:3, Informative)
NB this is not my experience, it comes from the -current mailing list. My -current build is slow, but it has WITNESS and other debug options and these machines don't.
It would also be nice if they could get mounted
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
Does anyone have recommendations for the best way to upgrade from 4.9 to 4.10? I'm guessing that 4.10 will expedite 4.9's EOL. That's about the only reason I'd consider it.
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:3, Informative)
2. Upgrade your sources.
3. Read
4. Before you install the kernel, read up on mergemaster; it upgrades your
5. Install your kernel and reboot - your downtime will be how long you can run through mergemaster and do an installworld.
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
Cvsup and build from source. The actual time you need to have it out of use can be very small, Eg you can build a custom kernel before starting to do any of the instalation, and it's easy to upgrade multiple machines this way.
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:3, Informative)
No, the OS and the ports are separate. The OS is all maintained as one chunk, and is what you would upgrade with cvsup (or a binary upgrade from CD). The ports just get new versions when someone somewhere updates something.
Usually most installed ports will continue to work when you upgrade the OS. The FBSD peopel are reasonably conservative about that kind of thing. And the 4.X branch isn't chaging fast at this stage in it
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:5, Insightful)
4.x and 5.x are different products. People who know are going to be running 4.x on servers for the next several years, no matter what happens with the 5.x train. All of my servers are 4.9 right now, I have 5.2.1 on a lappie just to get familiar with it.
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
I need 5.x for the 802.11g card - yet I need 4.x for the WORKING pcmcia code. can't get card to work with either system
that said, I just completed 100 days of uptime on my 4.9 system that is a dual xeon with HTT (4 cpus - sort of) and its my main vnc server. it 'holds' my desktop so I can remotely attach and de-attach from it. its my SOP for how I work now. and even with heavy use and dual-head vnc (huh? well, it does work!)
One more FreeBSD 4.X release (Score:3, Informative)
The current plans are for one more FreeBSD 4.X release which will be FreeBSD 4.11-RELEASE. It is expected the upcoming FreeBSD 5.3 release will have reached the maturity level most users will be able to migrate to 5.X.
So probably no more new-feature-development in 4.X. Just keeping it stable.
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:3, Interesting)
--
meyerdg@swr999:~/bin/xterms
$ uname -a
FreeBSD swr999 5.1-RELEASE FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE #2: Mon Nov 24 08
root@swr999:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/SPECIFIC i386
--
It's been rock solid in many respects, but there have been some (not so) small details which make me want to switch back to Linux.
- Sound card doesn't work, but that may very well be my own shortfall.
- Vesa mode console is not supported on my video card, but works like a charm under linux. (this relates t
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
building your own kernel in freebsd is a breeze in freebsd. you don't give much info, so if you already know this I'm sorry..
your kernel config file is /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/GENERIC. make a copy of it and edit it putting in:
device pcm
than in /usr/src:
make buildkernel KERNCONF=yourconfigfile
make installkernel
reboot
Than see if it works.
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:5, Informative)
insmod = kldload - in his case, that would be kldload pcm or kldload snd_hissoundchipset - try ls /boot/kernel to see what's available
lsmod = kldstat
rmmod = kldunload
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
The main reason I want this box is to learn FreeBSD -- one operating system that I have never really messed with. I've toyed around with the BSD shell in Mac OS X a pretty good bit, b
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:3, Insightful)
can someone please explain to me why /.-ers say bsd is dying (i realize the parent is joking)? is it just fud or does someone actually have evidence of declining bsd use or development?
The 'bsd is dying' is FUD. I would imagine that the myth is being perpetuated by a few who for some reason couldn't get it installed. It very well could be due to their lack of ability or desire to read the documentation.
There is a big difference in the attitude of FreeBSD in that most FreeBSD users really don't car
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
That is arguable. 'FreeBSD' (1993) has not been around as long as Linux (1991), however the codebase that FreeBSD is built on is much older than Linux.
Linux is cool, but I love the BSD's, especially OpenBSD. The BSD's are maintained as complete systems and the consistency which that brings really shows. This is not to say that any given Linux distribution does not try to maintain their complete system (thinking Debian).
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2, Informative)
The main reason that slashdotters say that BSD is dying is that open source BSD projects have not traditionally had the cooperative success that linux has. Although BSD's can be functionally superior to linux in many ways, the manner in which they are maintained has tended to create rifts, branches, and partings of ways among their respective developm
Re:Bsd is dying :P (Score:2)
BTW, the Windows crowd might not be as clueless about BSD as some think: Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) 3.5 [microsoft.com]. Apparently it is based on BSD [oreillynet.com] (OpenBSD according to this OSNews.com thread [osnews.com]). Its free now, and in some ways I like it a bit better than Cygwin. When I need to be on a Windows box, I tend to install either SFU or Cygwin. SFU is very handy once you get some of the stuff from the Interop UNIX tools warehouse [interopsystems.com] installed.
Is it just me (Score:4, Funny)
I like it (Score:5, Informative)
BTW - FreeBSD seems to be included on distrowatch now (good thing!) and there is even a nice review there [distrowatch.com] of the 5.x branch. There are even some nice tips included in the review :)
Re:I like it (Score:2, Funny)
Oops, wrong window!
Re:I like it (Score:5, Insightful)
He does have some very positive things about FreeBSD, like its being the fastest distro he has ever tried. Like it or not, this is my personal experience too - it just seems faster compared to my earlier linux distroes (on the desktop - my primary use of FreeBSD) on the same machine. This isn't exactly a popular opinion around here - well around anywhere, now I expect tons of quotes of synthetic benchmarks - yeah, I know about fefe, and no I DON'T HAVE ANY PROOF! - but this is how it feels, can't help it :P
Re:I like it (Score:2)
Re:I like it (Score:2)
Re:I like it (Score:2)
Re:I like it (Score:2)
You can do the same thing with linux. If you have the ram, a 233 is plenty to even run mozilla and open office concurrently without much slowdown.
5.3 scheduled soon (Score:5, Interesting)
Lot of nice things being sorted out in the FreeBSD kernel. I can't wait until the conversation starts about what's going into 6.x
For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:5, Insightful)
I swear that I'm no BSD zealot, but that's pretty impressive.
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:3, Funny)
Even in the face of evidence that it helps you keep it up for longer? Your server, that is. Although.. there is help [freebsd.org] for that other affliction....
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:2)
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:5, Insightful)
FreeBSD, and BSDs in general, are different from Linux in many aspects, including how releases are performed and what is included in a particular release.
BSD development is conservative. Before new additions to the base system are available as a part of STABLE (production release), they undergo severe testing; therefore, BSDs lack a great variety of flaky drivers and questionable stuff that is all arond the Linux kernel. That is pricesely why BSDs may lack some hardware support available on Linux.
BSDs are different from Linux in terms what they consider to be a base system. Linux is composed of the kernel, which is pretty useless on its own, and many extras on top of it. BSDs have a broader sense of the base system. In particular, BSD integrate kernel, libraries and some binaries together to make the base. Closer integration means more polishing; that leads to greater stability.
If you take a look at FreeBSDs kernel, you will see that it is pretty minimal even with the default configuration: it includes only the very basic stuff; the rest has to be added by users. If you go through the configuration file and comment out everything that you do not need, you will have a very tiny kernel. That can increase a chance of having longer uptimes. When I was introduced to FreeBSD I could not believe that kernel could be configured and compiled so painlessly. When Linux developers try to include an absolute enormous amount of hardware support provided by default kernels, BSD developers provide only what is needed for basic functionality; that is truly a big plus.
These are simply several exmaples of why I think FreeBSD can produce reasonably long uptimes. Some people may point you to the historical fact that, in sense, BSDs have been around much longer than Linux; there is a great deal of history and previous experiences there. Can it contribute to longer uptimes? That is something that you'll have to answer yourself.
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:4, Informative)
So I had the handbook open on one desktop, going through the text file on a terminal, following the book point by point, commenting out unnecessary stuff, putting in some lines - than after 5 minutes, I noticed that I can't scroll down any further. I said: what? First I thought I edited the wrong file. I checked the handbook ... and saw that the next page is a different chapter. Even then, I was a bit bewildered: that was it?? Yes.
Many folks would think that by using FreeBSD one can earn geek points, cause it sounds more 'difficult' - this is not the case. If you see someone feeling cool cause he uses freebsd, you can be sure he is bluffing. FreeBSD is easy! Of course, it caters to those who are not antagonistic towards the command line, but anyone who used slackware or debian would easily learn FreeBSD - if he or she is willing to read. Their handbook (see it on their homepage) is the best OS documentation I ever read, their man pages are superb, and configuration is much easier than any linux was for me. In other words: it is a great learning platform, thanks to the great documentation and the consistency and cleanness of the system. Forget about synthetic benchmarks and bsd vs. linux flamefests. FreeBSD is fun, and is an excellent desktop system, and ports just works (no freaking use-flags, its the job of port maintainers to provide lean and mean yet rich experience with the ports - now almost 11000!).
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah. Remind me of one "flaky driver" or "questionable stuff" that was recently added to a stable Linux kernel release. The 2.4 maintainer is EXTREMELY hesitant to include anything new, to the point of frustrating people (see XFS).
Linux 2.4 changed its VM subsystem, and its scheduler in the middle of the 2.4 branch. They worked, but the "extremely hesitant to include anything new" label doesn't fit. The
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, there is a certain feel and polish to the BSD's that are reminiscent of Unix. Linux in recent years has gone down the tubes in terms of beta and alpha level packages thrown in distros.
I am typing this from SuSE 9.1 right now because I dont have time to tinker with everything to set it up FreeBSD as a workstation.
But dont take make my word on it. Try it and use the FreeBSD handbook?
It feels certainly more stable and the
N
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:2)
We were talking about uptimes here and as far as I am concerned, sound cards have nothing to do with it. The guy who started this whole pile of shit regarding freebsd questioned its ability to be stable. Well, guess what, just becuase it lacks some support by default, it does not mean that the system is less stable.
I totally understand YOUR point of view. That is why I use Mac OS X for my desktop. I haven't found hardware that it did not support :) The rest of my servers run BSD or Debian.
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:4, Informative)
However, if you check out their FAQ here [netcraft.com], you will see that the uptime cannot be measured that high for HP-UX, Linux or Solaris. Therefore, this really doesn't say much other than the fact that BSD's uptime counter is programmed better than other Unices.
Re:For the *BSD nay sayers (Score:3, Insightful)
seriously, i would be worried if a system was up so long. of course it means that the system is stable, but it also means that security patches to the kernel have not been applied for a *long* time...
i prefer a secure sytem with an uptime of 2 minutes over and insecure one with an uptime of 2 years. but hey, that's just me...
Here's looking to 4.11 !! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Here's looking to 4.11 !! (Score:2)
Versions are not floating point numbers! Well, they can be, but that's just confusing and silly
Question (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Question (Score:2)
You can't install using this particular card, but the mini-ISO is enough to get it going; then you can pkg_add to complete your install.
This card may be hard to find, but I don't need it anymore, so an eBay solution is a strong possibility. =)
FreeBSD-laptop (Score:5, Informative)
This is the most popular FreeBSD-Laptop site. gerda.univie.ac.at/freebsd-laptops/ [univie.ac.at]
This is a great resource if your laptop is old. www.cse.ucsc.edu/~dkulp/fbsd/laptop.html [ucsc.edu]
Here you can read an article about FreeBSD on laptops. www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/lapt
If you need more FreeBSD resources, then visit www.n0dez.com/freebsd/ [n0dez.com]
If you've got a 32-bit PCMCIA card on your laptop, use FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE. The 5.x branch supports 32-bit PCMCIA cards. In fact, I'm running FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE on an old laptop without a hitch.
Re:FreeBSD-laptop (Score:2)
its not just you. its a known problem with the current release of 5.x.
Re:Question (Score:2)
Paradox (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Paradox (Score:2, Interesting)
And we keep on using it. There's no better platform for avoiding library skew (dll-hell, rpm dependencies,
We do have fewer and fewer machines running FreeBSD though, because of poor support for Java/Tomcat, lack of iSCSI, and decrepit NFS. Ever try to setup an NFS-IMAP server with 100MB+ quotas and maildir? Can't do it in FreeBSD
R7
Re:Paradox (Score:2)
Kind of pisses me off about Sun's poor Java support of BSD, especially since the original SunOS was a mild port of Berkely BSD. Lots of big people at sun (including Bill Joy) hacked the BSD kernel back in the day.
Re:Paradox (Score:3, Funny)
Conservative updates? (Score:5, Funny)
But I'm a liberal, you insensitive clod!
Re:Conservative updates? (Score:2)
One Step Ahead Of Time (Score:3, Interesting)
A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a[nother] Linux user, and I wanted a good reason to use FreeBSD. I've installed it twice, but after realizing that I didn't have a good reason to keep using it, as its maintenance was too time-consuming, I ended up removing it. But I still would like to use it, it feels very consistent, and the fact that it doesn't suffer from the "distributions" disease adds up to that.
Coming from a Debian background, my main complaint (and reason that I resist using it) is that, AFAIK, it doesn't have a large repository of binary packages for installation. I know about the wonders of Ports, but I feel like it is something for users with time and resources on their hands, which I do not have - I don't like the idea of having to wait sometimes hours for something to compile, so I can use it. This time could be better spent actually doing something useful with my computer, rather than it sitting there and compiling stuff.
I'm aware that Debian has two BSDs ports (NetBSD and FreeBSD), but they are far from maturity right now. For myself, I think that an automated system for installation/upgrading of software packages are a must for desktop installations, so FreeBSD is already out of the game here. For server installations, however, I could go without, although it would still be useful. So I'd like to know if there's a reliable and updated repository (i.e. packages website a la linuxpackages.net, for slackware) that FreeBSD users use to get binary packages.
Don't take this post as a troll, I'm really interested on FreeBSD and would like to have some solid reasons to use it.
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:2)
In fact, package management in FreeBSD is very similar to apt-get (different commands, same result... a case in point: pkg_add -r kdebase = apt-get install kdebase)
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:2)
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:4, Informative)
There are also free binary security updates for freebsd - one of the developers (and ./ user with the nick cpercive) provides them.
Also, you can specify a remote site when adding packages. The fruitsalad project provides fresh binary kde packages. I think you would install it with pkg_add -r url_to_their_ftp_repository. Someone (who was also a deb user) asked me for an incentive to try out freebsd. I told him this: if you are 100% satisfied and not curious about it, don't try it. Otherwise, I think its a great OS and it is very rewarding (and convenient) - so go ahead! Also, the community is very friendly and helpful (and before I switched, I came from mandrakeusers and pclinuxonline, so you might guess that I had high standards :)) - www.bsdforums.org is invaluable if you want help :)
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:5, Informative)
I assume that you are not using portupgrade, since you say that FreeBSD doesn't have an automatic update system. Give it a look, it's well worth it.
I haven't used FreeBSD on a workstation since I got a Mac, but it's a great server OS.
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Stability. The -stable branch (right now 4.x series) is ROCK SOLID. Even with a saturated CPU load, it is responsive and doesn't crash. It rivals commercial unix for stability in high-load environments. I think one can get linux to do this using a very stable kernel (ie, not the latest) or distributions (debian stable). The -current branch is less stable. I've had two kernel panics with it in the last year.
2. Saner release cycle. With RedHat and others constantly upping their version numbers, it is nice to see branches supported for long periods. 3.x got security updates for a long time, and I know 4.x will too after 5.x becomes stable
3. Saner Design. Unlike Linux, each release of FreeBSD dictate kernel+base system. Other packages are installed afterwards. Due to this, upgrades are a snap, as each cvsup, makeworld gives you a new release of FreeBSD but leaves your apps alone. Maybe to some people this is bad (KDE not being upgraded), but for servers this is ideal.
4. Part of No, 3, but oh well. Saner directory structure. Maybe I'm old school, but I *like* having all the base system (bin utils, etc) in
5. Documentation. man will give everything you want, but there is also the Handbook, which in my opinion is only rivaled by Gentoo's. It is well written, clear, and easy to find.
So you can see where FreeBSD is geared towards--servers. As such, it is great to set-up, maintain, and run services on it, but it also has downsides, like lack of hardware support (can't have flaky hardware and drivers ruining uptimes). I suggest you try FreeBSD for your server needs, but stick to Linux for more general use, especially if there is no driver support for your favorite hardware.
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:2, Interesting)
Its already driving me crazy but I have nice fonts, codecs for xine, and a whole bunch of other stuff taken care of out of the box.
Already I have discoverd 6 bugs and xine on SuSE 9.1 does strange stuff and core dumps ALOT. That does not happen under FreeBSD.
Of course I dont have the codecs on FreeBSD either.
So its a tug of war.
No way in hell would I trust this release of SuSE on a server. Sadly older redhats and kernels were quite stable.
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all, if you are happy running Debian or whatever, why bother seeking other alternatives? If your time is as precious as you say, then why are you considering other alternatives? Honestly, if you can't think of a reason to use FreeBSD, then you probably don't need to run FreeBSD.
You are right, FreeBSD relies on the ports system and building from source to a greater degree than your typical Linux system. I usually cvsup the kernel about once a month and rebuild the world and kernel. It virtually always works exactly as advertised, and maybe takes ten minutes of my attention. I'm have modest desktop requirements (I don't use Gnome or KDE, in large part because they have large numbers of requirements and are frequently updated with little effect on my overall productivity). I mostly keep up to date on Python, Apache and a few assorted Python modules. The rest, I simply don't worry about keeping up to date on.
Finallly, f you are really in the mood for binary packages, you should learn about "pkg_add -r".
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:3, Informative)
SUP_UPDATE="yes"
PORTSSUPFILE="/somewhere/port s -supfile"
then copy
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:2, Informative)
These features attracts me:
- Native IPSEC support. The IPSEC support has been tightly integrated into the kernel and the base utilities.
- Random IP ID. Make the increment of ID field in IP packets to be randomize instead of 1.
- Shadow Process. Users except root view their own process.
All the above featues are included in the source/cvs without downloading any patch, a big plus.
There are also many other features or pros of FreeBSD. To name a few:
BSD's secure level, sealth f
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:3, Informative)
Redhat, at least, does this, I know because one of our client's machines got this behaviour when it was upgraded.
It is also evil beyond belief and whoever thought of it should be lynched, but that is a religious issue.
Re:A reason to use FreeBSD (Score:3, Informative)
You are allowed to go and do something else while it compiles this is not Windows!
The basic choice is between waiting for it to download, and getting a generic package which may or may not work with the libraries you have to hand etc (consider RedHat RPM hell) and waiting for it to compile and getting something which should use what you have or get what it needs.
I think that an automated system for installation/upgrading of software packages are a mu
BSD 4.1? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:BSD 4.1? (Score:2)
Re:BSD 4.1? (Score:2)
</humour>
FreeBSD jails (Score:5, Interesting)
For those of you unfamiliar, check it out. It's very much like User Mode Linux [sourceforge.net] and allows running virtual servers within a larger server. Many colocation/virtual server providers (e.g. take [johncompanies.com], your [jvds.com], pick [digitaldaze.com]) use FreeBSD jails to provide low-cost root-access hosts for customers. This really has revolutionized cost effectiveness of large scale hosting!
There have been various limitations with FreeBSD jails when they first appeared. There were glitches with information leaking across jails. There's a limit to a single IP address, inability to do raw socket operations or even ping/traceroute, and some glitches with a couple system calls used by major applications like Postfix [postfix.org].
But my understanding is that 5.x seriously improves jail support, especially from a resource efficiency perspective. One of my BSD developer buddies also tells me that he's fixing raw socket support. Keep an eye on the jail feature...
Not really like UML (Score:4, Informative)
bzip2 vs gzip (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wonky Version Numbering? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wonky Version Numbering? (Score:5, Informative)
It looks less strange in a version numbering scheme with three or more components (Linux 2.4.26, Perl 5.8.1, Apache 1.3.20) where it's obvious that you're not dealing with decimal numbers. It's also consistent with the way sections are numbered in many textbooks, RFCs, W3C standards, etc. (chapter 1 section 2 would be headed "1.2", its subsection 20 would be headed "1.2.20".)
Most projects' second (minor) version number never reaches 10, since there's a new major release at least once every 10 minor releases (e.g. Apache 1.3 followed by 2.0, or Debian 2.2 followed by 3.0).
(A few projects do use decimal numbers: Perl used to, so the version before Perl 5.6.0 was something like Perl 5.00503, which would be Perl 5.5.3 in the new system.)
Re:Wonky Version Numbering? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing you are describing is of course Debian GNU/kFreeBSD: http://www.debian.org/ports/freebsd/gnu-libc-base
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:4, Informative)
I ruined my system by deleting stuff from /usr/lib - and nothing would compile. I could reinstall stuff from the CD but that would be a forced downgrade and its just too unconvenient. But thanks to the fact that the entire OS (the 'world' - which is different from gentoo's world: world is the OS in freebsd land, and ports are programs installed on top of the os) build is self contained in /usr/obj, even though I didn't even have a working gcc, I could repair the system with one command: make installworld and a reboot. Oh yes, its a good idea to keep /usr/obj - because you have an OS reinstall one command away, and you don't have to fumble with config files, reinstalling ports, etc...
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:2)
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:2)
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have numerous friends who use FreeBSD, many because of me. More are coming. My webhost uses FreeBSD and the new one I'm switching to does as well. In fact, most of the sites with the longest uptime run FreeBSD or some *BSD [netcraft.com].
The supported hardware is broader than the list suggests, because the list is mostly by chipsets. You'll find LOTS of different products that all use the same chipset. I've found that if you're unsure, just ask... people in the community will help you figure it out. I got a video-capture card for xmas that has worked like a charm. Watching TV in a box on my desktop is nice. I've watched DVDs, had no problems with my sound, get hardware-accel 3D on my video card, network card has always worked, as well as my wireless mouse. All the rest of my hardware besides the video-capture card is the same stuff I had when I ran Windows 2000 (which I bought without knowing I'd be ditching Windows for FreeBSD) and it all worked great when I switched. The ports system kicks ass. Upgrading is a cinch. The OS is very stable. I'm happy.
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:2)
There are a lot of FreeBSD users out there, if you want to estimate try looking at the traffice www.freebsd.org gets, or the number of mirrors.
The rest of the grandparent's post is equally as crufty. Hardware support on FreeBSD is quite good, many times things have worked in FreeBSD that haven't worked in Linux (yes, Linux may have support, but I don't have 3 years to figure out how to make that support actually *work*). Performance wise FreeBSD has lo
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:5, Funny)
Linux has a stable branch now?
(Sorry, couldn't resist. Feel free to mod troll.)
Re:Long awaited uh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why bother with this junk when Mac OS X is here (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? Because freeBSD runs on very inexpensive hardware. I don't have the budget to get Xserves here, and all the Powermac G4s are tied up as workstations. Yet I have a nice PIII rackmount that was doing nothing and now is happily running our mail services with absolutely zero hassles.
My personal server is a freeBSD jail, something I cannot get for OS X at the price that I got it.
For the record, one of the things that sold me into switching from XP Pro to OS X was that freeBSD legacy, since I had been using freeBSD for years before I even saw OS X working. freeBSD is anything but primitive.
Re:have they? (Score:2)
Re:four-dot-ten naming schemes (Score:4, Insightful)
Why bother with this nonsense when it flys in the face of the earliest of floating-point mathematics?
The dot in the version number has nothing to do with the mathematical dot, just like the dot at the end of this line doesn't.
Also, following your reasoning you will have great difficulties with the concept for minor revision numbers like 2.2.7 and 5.2.1...
For what it is worth, if you're doing version comparisons and are treating the numbers as mathematical values, your algorithm is broken by design. The right way is to split the version number by the dots (so you get a 4 and a 10) and compare them with the other splitted versions.
Edwin
Re:four-dot-ten naming schemes (Score:2)
Re:four-dot-ten naming schemes (Score:2)
I wouldn't advise looking at the latest Linux Kernel releases [kernel.org], then. Both the 2.2 and 2.4 branches are at 2.x.26 at the moment.
Not only using two-digit numbers after the dot, but actually having 2 dots.
I guess it just requires adjusting to the fact that software-versioning although looking like a decimal number, often isn't a decimal number and therefore can't really be parsed as same.
Tiggs