DragonFlyBSD 1.0A review 41
ValourX writes "NewsForge has a review of DragonFlyBSD 1.0A. If you recall, this was forked from FreeBSD 4.8 a little more than a year ago, and has since achieved several of its goals. According to the review it's not quite ready for prime time yet, but it looks like DragonFly is shaping up to be the ultimate BSD."
Ultimate BSD (Score:2)
I've not had all that much experience with BSD, but I'd say that packaging always seemed quite difficult, for me coming from a Debian GNU/Linux background.
This is explained on their homepage (Score:5, Informative)
See here. [dragonflybsd.org]
Re:Ultimate BSD (Score:5, Insightful)
A BSD that can run on a toaster or on EarthSim which is compiled from the code tree
A BSD which is very, very secure and runs on at least a couple of different CPUs.
A BSD that runs really well on the most prevalent architecture and has a large software selection that is as easy to install (or easier) than on Windows or Mac OS X. Dragonfly isn't any of things right now but in the future, who knows? That's one of the interesting things about BSD: if an idea turns out to be really useful eventually it makes into all of them (at least where it makes sense) if it sucks, well evolution it pretty ruthless.
Honestly though it does seam like there is lot of acrimony (I suppose that's to be expected in cases where more than one person is involved) and I hope that resources that should have been programming weren't used in the non-technical parts of the effort to fork (i.e. a totally new website &tc.) but I suppose there is no avoiding that. I hope all of this works out, I find LWKT fairly interesting and have successfully launched a product running NetBSD which turned out really groovy.
Can't resist this: OtterBSD?
Re:Ultimate BSD (Score:5, Insightful)
with most of NetBSD's packages all you type is "pkg_add" or if you need source (like I do mostly) you use pkgsrc and "make && make install in the correct directory. I think this is the case with the rest of *BSD (sub ports with package)
With the windows & OS X you have to find the package on the 'net first
Use Samba for example (disregarding the fact that Samba takes over 16 hours to compile on my platform) You go to the Samba directory in /usr/pkgsrc/net/samba2/ and execute the commands all of the source is downloaded, compiled and installed and because my system already knows it's a 64bit MIPS system I need not remind it so the right config and make file are processed
Having said that I must admit that SuSE's YAST is nice also because of the search & GUI and the YOU update thingy.
I use OSX daily and it's not that convenient! (It would be if Other stuff was in software update rather than just Apple
While I'm ranting about how cool things are OpenOfficeOrg native file formats are truly cool (zipped!?) and I despise XML (Disclaimer I'm an developer for embedded devices and find *ML way to verbose)
YaST (Score:3, Interesting)
YaST seems nice, but I've been running Suse 9.1 pro on my laptop for a month now and already I want my BSD port system back. Sure it doesn't have a fancy GUI (or at least I never used it), but portupgrade and an always up to date ports tree rocks.
I've been playing battle for wesnoth lately, and while it is great, I only have 0.7.1, and .8 is current. YaST however doesn't have the update, nor updates for most of the other programs I've installed. Sure libpng was there soon after the exploit, but the re
Re:YaST (Score:2)
Re:Ultimate BSD (Score:5, Insightful)
As a side comment, I'm not sure I got the review, it seemed a little unfair. Dragonfly is new, but it seems a lot more stable and friendly then the review would wish you to believe.
Re:Ultimate BSD (Score:2)
You mean I have to find my mouse?! And, uh, does it automatically check for upgrades?
Re:Ultimate BSD (Score:2)
and yes, a mouse is required (well, unless you love the wacom tablets)
this may be stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:this may be stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
However the opposite is not true without the consent of the contributors to the GPL code.
Re:this may be stupid (Score:5, Informative)
The opposite is not true - period. If all copyright owners relicense their software under BSD license, then it can be used in BSD'd code.
Re:this may be stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Cleaning up (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cleaning up (Score:3, Insightful)
Beg to differ (Score:1, Informative)
I've been flogging gcc for a few weeks now, upgrading all my FreeBSD ports, and I'm pretty sure gcc is GPL.
Many of the ports I run are GPL projects. I suppose that means that the port itself (set of patches, mostly) becomes GPL, although I've never really looked.
Now if you mean that BSD projects can't take GPL code, stir it with BSD code and release it under a BSD license, then I agree with you.
Re:Beg to differ (Score:1)
Re:Beg to differ (Score:2)
Doesn't make it so.
Re:this may be stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, if done properly. Here's an interesting discussion on how not to do it. [slashdot.org]
Summary (Score:2, Funny)
Rus
Ehh...this guy's on crack. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a feeling the author of this article was expecting to jump into a 1.0 release OS the same way he would jump into FreeBSD 4.x stable. That's just not the way it works. You have to do research before you dive into a hyper-actively developed OS in the state that DragonFly is currently in. It's like running FreeBSD-current, only with the steel insides ripped out and replaced with titanium, gear by gear.
Re:Ehh...this guy's on crack. (Score:3, Informative)
the major complaints of the reviewer were temporary issues at the time he tried it, so if you take 1.0A-REL now, eg. building X would work again (the freebsd people changed the way the port works at that time, and dfly still reuses their ports system)
similar things apply to the other issues (slow connectivity to the main server for cvsup - solved now, and a pretty usable mirror list on the main website all the time - WTF?)
Re:Ehh...this guy's on crack. (Score:1)
on the topic of alternative OSes... (Score:2)
Re:on the topic of alternative OSes... (Score:2)