FreeBSD 6.4 Released 64
hmallett writes "FreeBSD 6.4-RELEASE, the fifth release from the 6-STABLE branch of FreeBSD development, is now available. In addition to being hosted at 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."
Re:I wonder if the cd installer still sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
Or you could just try installing a more common set of packages. Or you could just use the DVD release. Or you could always just use ports, packages aren't really meant to be used except in the case of excessively large programs or on boxes without a whole lot of memory or processing power.
I've been using FreeBSD for nearly a decade and I've never encountered that particular problem.
That being said, it's not like Linux installers are that great. The fact that they can't seem to get partitioning correct after all these years ought to be fixed pronto. There's absolutely no excuse as to why the Linux partition manager needs to suck far worse than the Windows one does.
I should be able to clear a partition and then have it automatically sliced up into useful portions without having to boot in the middle of the process. At least with Windows the worst problem is it's pickiness about which partition and it's one size fits all MBR, hardly difficult at all to fix, doesn't even require an extra boot if you're prepared.
Re:Takes a licking (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes it's because you're running critical shit. Sometimes it's because you're running critical shit and the last person with reboot experience retired 10 years ago.
Re:I wonder if the cd installer still sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahem. You not having encountered the problem doesn't make the parent's complaint any more or less valid.
Also, your attacks on "Linux installers" are uncalled for and off-topic. We're talking about the FreeBSD CD installer here.
I guess there is a part of your post that is insightful, but most of it is off-topic, and I would have modded it accordingly.
Re:Takes a licking (Score:2, Insightful)
It is supposed to be good for servers, it comes from an age when an uptime of a day was pretty good for a UNIX system(see the unix haters' handbook). Now it is a measure of the amount of widely known security holes the admin is willing to leave open.
Your servers should have an uptime of 365/6 days a year, but that should be achieved by having a redundant array of servers that you update regularly, not by having a single server that you never reboot.
Re:Takes a licking (Score:3, Insightful)
Use CARP and update each server individually. Just because individual hosts go down for a reboot (which should be very quick anyway), doesn't mean your service should.