FreeBSD 7.0 Release Now Available

cperciva writes "The first release from the new 7-STABLE branch of FreeBSD development, has been released. FreeBSD 7.0 brings with it many new features including support for ZFS, journaled filesystems, and SCTP, as well as dramatic improvements in performance and SMP scalability. In addition to being available from many FTP sites, ISO images can be downloaded via the BitTorrent tracker, or for users of earlier FreeBSD releases, FreeBSD Update can be used to perform a binary upgrade."

ZFS?

[Anonymous Coward]

What level of ZFS support does this have? Is it well tested yet?

Re:Still hard to install?

[piojo]

Hmm. The time I tried to install FreeBSD, the installer choked on my hardware. I tried two different dell desktops. Part of the problem was an inability to deal with a USB keyboard. I hope that has been fixed, and I plan to try FreeBSD again, some day. I'll stick with a more common OS, for now.

Re:No need to comment

[BasharTeg]

How about the benchmarks that show that FreeBSD just took the performance crown from Linux?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Any luck with HT1000 DMA yet?

[Just Some Guy]

I have a dual-Opteron rackmount Dell with a ServerWorks HT1000 chipset, running 7.0-PRELEASE from January 15, that was having DMA-related fits. Does anyone know if they've got that problem under control yet? I had seen it discussed a lot on the mailing lists but lately haven't had the time to follow closely. Either way that server's staying on the 7-STABLE line because it's so much faster that I can live with running the drives in PIO4 (and with 4GB of RAM those drives don't get touched a lot).

Re:STABLE

[Just Some Guy]

Linux has had journaling file systems for years.

FreeBSD hasn't wanted journaling filesystems for years, since we've had softupdates which solve many of the same problems but with half the writes. The recent gjournal plugin to the GEOM system is a block-level journal. In other words, it handles all writes to a device, whether or not the overlying filesystem supports journaling. Journaled FAT anyone?

I just said journal a lot, didn't I?

An important remaining question

[damn_registrars]

Is when FreeBSD and wine will start to care about each other.

Re:Still hard to install?

[LM741N]

Ubuntu easy to install? Perhaps. But does it meet the quality standards of FreeBSD and esp OpenBSD? I dumped Ubuntu and over wrote the partitition with OpenBSD because everytime I tried to manually enter in my network encryption parameters manually, the next time Ubuntu booted it just ignored it and locked onto the strongest unencrypted signal.

Jealous of ZFS

[cblack]

I've been reading about zfs for awhile and recently started implementing it on some Solaris servers and really getting into it. It's nice. Really nice. I am anxiously awaiting being able to run it on linux (not via FUSE) in production. Has anyone heard anything on the objections over license compatibility and stepping beyond traditional filesystem areas of the kernel?

Upgrading HOWTO?

[ewhac]

So: How do you upgrade an existing system from FreeBSD 6.0 without wiping the entire system and installing from scratch?

And before anyone asks:

• Yes, I know about the ports collection.
• Yes, I know about the binary packages.
• Yes, I know how to configure and compile the kernel.
• No, I've never really tried to compile userspace.

All the docs I've read on the subject tend to suggest that the Real Way to keep a FreeBSD system current is to download the kernel and userspace core every so often and recompile them. And that's fine, sorta, except that it doesn't address how to deal with the "leftovers", such as config files that have been moved or eliminated. (I mean, honestly, compiling the world is not a realistic way to keep current on X.org.)

Who has practical experience doing this? How do you keep your machines current, particularly with security patches?

Schwab

Re:Still hard to install?

[MattBurke]

There's something about Dells, USB keyboards and any non-windows installer... Tried about 5 os boot disks on a vostro before I discovered you need the keyboard in just the right socket - and then it screwed up after you chose the kbd type in the installer, necessitating a different machine to install on. Once installed it's worked well.

Re:No need to comment

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, Yahoo predominantly uses Linux now, not FreeBSD. They still have FreeBSD stuff in use, but their predominant platform is Linux now. And yes, they still have FreeBSD boxes available for testing/development by the FreeBSD Project/Foundation hosted at Yahoo.

Re:Considering switching.

[excelblue]

I happen to have a very similar setup on my FreeBSD 7-STABLE system right now, and it works great.

You should have no problems at all. It'll work perfectly.

However, is there a compelling reason for you to switch? Debian is a great operating system, and unless it's not working out too well for you, you should not just switch for no good reason. You risk being unproductive for a few days, running into issues you don't know about, etc.

What *I* found in Freebsd 7.0

[esbee]

My feedback as an user of "current" Linux distros.

- I found the same sysinstall that I saw 4+years ago when I last tried installing Freebsd.
- I found that the official way to configure is to generate the config file template using 'Xorg -configure' and then hand editing the xorg.conf config file!!!!
- I found that the standard install still installs TWM and doesn't even ask for KDE/GNOME (I know you need to install the packages *after* the install, and yes I know I can use sysinstall) and you are dropped to a text login after install.
- I found that my amd64 cpu with the nvidia integrated card doesn't have an nvidia driver. And the default nv driver can't make use out of DDC to configure my brand new widescreen LCD monitor.
- I found that my mouse pointer is invisible in X.

Now, before other start, please understand why I am saying this - I know Freebsd has a different approach to building a distro. I also know that reasons like prop. drivers are not its fault. I also accept that I probably am facing some system specific issue inherent in any .0 release of distros.

My point here is simply to let how a typical user who thought of migrating to Freebsd thinks. I for one, value using my relatively new hardware to the fullest, so I am going back to Ubuntu.

I still have tremendous regards for Freebsd as a server. I have found them to be much more stable than any current Linux distro, and capable of much more punishment too.