FreeBSD 7.2 Released 204
An anonymous reader writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 7.2-RELEASE. This is the third release from the 7-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 7.1 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights: Support for fully transparent use of superpages for application memory; Support for multiple IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for jails; csup(1) now supports CVSMode to fetch a complete CVS repository; Gnome updated to 2.26, KDE updated to 4.2.2; Sparc64 now supports UltraSparc-III processors. For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the online release notes and errata list."
Adds another anonymous reader, "You can grab the latest version from FreeBSD from the mirrors or via BitTorrent. There is also a quick review of the new features and upgrade instructions."
Includes ZFS and DTrace production ready ! (Score:4, Informative)
Cheers !
Re:Includes ZFS and DTrace production ready ! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Includes ZFS and DTrace production ready ! (Score:4, Informative)
The ZFS in 7.2 is v6, and pretty much can't be brought up to date without breaking 7.x ABI.
ZFS v13 is in 8-CURRENT and pretty much is as production-ready as what's in opensolaris.
Don't expect miracles on a 32-bit platform. The opensolaris people don't recommend it on their 32-bit codebase either.
Re:Includes ZFS and DTrace production ready ! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with ZFS on OpenSolaris i386 is that ZFS is very heavy on 64-bit arithmetic. The only way of doing this on x86 is to store the 64-bit value across two registers, meaning that each calculation uses 4 registers in total, dramatically increasing register churn. This makes performance suck.
The problem on FreeBSD is that the adaptive replacement cache runs out of memory and the kernel panics. This is a much, much more serious problem. I'll take slow-but-working over crashes-and-loses-data any day.
Still, I'm looking forward to 8 RELEASE if it includes ZFS v13 and the improvements to the sound subsystem (per-vchan volume, faster mixing, and so on).
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Production ready really depends upon what you're planning to do with it. It's definitely not ready for environments where the server needs to be up for long periods of time or probably dealing with large numbers of clients. But it does seem to be largely ready for smaller environments where you can turn off the computer at the end of the day and are only supporting a couple of computers.
I'm not aware with any data problems and I've been personally using it as a place to store my backups due to the self heal
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Read the Release Notes, the ZFS memory problem was fixed on FreeBSD 7.2 (for amd64).
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Re:Includes ZFS and DTrace production ready ! (Score:4, Interesting)
In 7,2, you still get the "ZFS is cosidered to be experimental" message when you boot. As mentioned, elsewhere, the 7.x branch retains the ZFS v6 code, and v13 will be in 8.0.
That said, I've put ZFS through its paces on the amd64 platform, and it works great (at least w/ the 2- and 4-GB RAM configurations I've had on my workstation). I don't think I've ever had a ZFS-caused panic on amd64. However, I couldn't find a stable config under i386 to save my life, but I don't really feel that's a problem because ZFS is truly a 64-bit subsystem and should be treated as such. If you're competent to administer large data sets to begin with, you'll be competent enough to take care of any tweaking ZFS may need (which is minimal under amd64, if needed at all).
I really wish BSD would take off. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I really wish BSD would take off. (Score:5, Funny)
I really feel for the BSD guys. Just hope they can keep users. Having choice in OS selection is great.
There will always be a market for BSD. Afterall, what will us elitists use once Linux becomes too mainstream?
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Re:I really wish BSD would take off. (Score:5, Informative)
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OpenSolaris?
That comes after the BSDs take 10% of the desktop market share.
2148 if you were wondering.
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You can't get more elitist by using a cast-off product that's less open. That's like fighting for peace or fucking for virginity, it just doesn't work (although I'm willing to take part in the latter activity.) OpenSolaris is not a serious attempt by Sun to produce another Open Unix, it's an attack on Linux. Otherwise they could have released ZFS under a compatible license. Guess what? Unix is about Openness. Sun done forgot.
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Haiku / BeOS (Score:3, Insightful)
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If I had a x86 PC, I would try Slackware first, then Debian and if all goes wrong, FreeBSD. New fashion eye candy stuff is either too Windows like or OS X like for me. Especially Ubuntu which its fanatics really started to become irritating.
I am using some kind of FreeBSD anyway, OS X, some of /etc is identical even. Of course, there are BSD-Lite parts and several changes but without FreeBSD, it would be a real bad experience.
I reply to your parent too. In another way of thinking, FreeBSD has 10% market sha
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If I had a x86 PC, I would try Slackware first, then Debian and if all goes wrong, FreeBSD. New fashion eye candy stuff is either too Windows like or OS X like for me. Especially Ubuntu which its fanatics really started to become irritating.
The beauty of FOSS is that there really can be something for everyone. Ubuntu is needed to appeal to the masses because it looks pretty, installs easily, and most things work out of the box thanks to binary blobs (it appeals to me too, for the same reasons). For people who like their Linux Linuxy, there are plenty of other options.
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That depends upon your definition. Drivers and commercial support are probably what you're getting at, but what the GP was referring to was that Linux is still seen as geeky to many people. Which isn't really fair at all, sure there are some distros that are, but if you go mainstream like XUbuntu those distros are probably easier to use for the common man than Windows is. Certainly with less learning between releases.
Re:I really wish BSD would take off. (Score:4, Funny)
> I really feel for the BSD guys. Just hope they can keep users.
There are quite a few changes in there, so I can imagine that they will both be happy.
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BSD Has Taken Off (Score:2)
But I think your expectations are a bit off. BSD has its place and eagerly accepted in various spaces but that doesn't mean "rule the world" by any stretch of the imagination. No one should feel sorry for the BSD guys because they are creating great software that is satisfying users all over the world.
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That's only because they're geekier.
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[citation (and pics) needed]
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http://freebsd-image-gallery.netcode.pl/_daemonette/111143969_35533831ab.jpg [netcode.pl]
http://freebsd-image-gallery.netcode.pl/_daemonette/freebsd-002.jpg [netcode.pl]
http://freebsd-image-gallery.netcode.pl/_daemonette/freebsd-003.jpg [netcode.pl]
http://media.photobucket.com/image/penguin%20mascot%20girl/twistedliza/signature%20pics/blog/DSC00767e.jpg [photobucket.com]
http://images.celebrateexpress.com/mgen/merchandiser/38199.jpg [celebrateexpress.com]
http://z.about.com/d/raleighdurham/1/0/u/8/-/-/Fat-Penguin-Clowns-at-Ringling-Bros-Circus.jpg [about.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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still waiting for autofs support as well, as converting from my autofs to amd on local machines is a pain.
Pretty hilarious — I switched to amd back in the SunOS 4.1.3 days because sun's automounter was complete poop. Here you are trying to avoid using amd. Why not just bite that bullet? How hard could it be to write a script to convert one config to the other?
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Re:just my two cents (Score:4, Informative)
Are you aware that Linux 2.6.3 is 5 years old? Linux increased the default group limit in the following release, 2.6.4, to 65536 [kernel.org]
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Are you aware that Linux 2.6.3 is 5 years old? Linux increased the default group limit in the following release, 2.6.4, to 65536 [kernel.org]
I absolutely love this argument that "linux is better" because one constant in the kernel is bigger in the linux kernel (thus also causing certain kernel data structures to be necessarily larger) than on FreeBSD, neither are runtime configurable, both can be changed at kernel build time, and the common case is that a user belongs to well under 65K groups. I concede, linux has won the day, and is the One UNIX-like System To Rule Them All.
Three UNIX-like Systems for the mainframe users under the sky,
Seven f
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Except that if you look at the patch, you will see it's not just "a constant change". If it was this easy, it would have been done already.
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eeh..."already" -> "before"
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Except that if you look at the patch, you will see it's not just "a constant change". If it was this easy, it would have been done already.
The constant change was bundled with a reingineering of the groups structure into a dynamic array. NGROUPS_MAX was and is still a compile time constant that can be altered in either system. It can be debated whether the fixed size array or dynamic array is more appropriate based on memory and kernel cpu time considerations, but my point remains - Linux doesn't have some penguin hoodoo magic that makes it support more supplemental user groups than FreeBSD; its default limits are simply higher. If you don't
Who sponsors FreeBSD? (Score:3, Interesting)
First of all, I'm not trolling.
Most successful open source projects have some kind of corporate backing, whether it be developers, funding or both. Linux has IBM, HP, RedHat, etc. Sun sponsors and manages a number of open source projects.
The community behind FreeBSD have put together what seems to be (I've never used it for more than a few minutes at a time) a solid server operating system whose command-line code forms part of the basis of what is IMO the best consumer operating system (OS X). From what I understand, this is due to a small but devoted group of developers.
Still, not to bemoan the FreeBSD community's efforts, but I'm wondering if there's some kind of corporate backing, seeing as I'm certain several companies use it in critical production situations.
There was nothing about this in the Wikipedia entry.
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7833143728685685343 [google.com]
I'll direct you to about 15:45 of the video. There are still a few very small companies using BSD.
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FreeBSD is supported by (but not run by, as far as I can tell) the FreeBSD Foundation [freebsdfoundation.org], a non-profit. Previous sponsors of the foundation include some big names like Google, NetApp, and Juniper [freebsdfoundation.org]. Apple is missing from the list, but I know that they have donated some significant chunks of code.
FBSD on the desktop . . . (Score:2, Interesting)
. . . is a bit like driving an automobile with a manual stick transmission, while also being a bit like driving one with an automatic, and yet not exactly like the modern compromise, "manu-matic".
(Manu-matic is supposed to give the driver a sense of the control of the stick, while simultaneously incorporating the no-brainer-ness of an automatic.)
The ports system is an undeniably good idea, but only really shines if it is supported by a full-time, high-speed connection.
Running FreeBSD from a set of CD's, on
An open source system BESIDES linux is releasing?! (Score:2)
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I love FreeBSD and have been a dedicated user since the 90s, but sysinstall does blow chunks.
It "works" for installation, but has a weird menu system that doesn't navigate well if you try to use it any other time other than installation.
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Live CD? (Score:2)
Once there was a live CD called Freesbie. But I don't think it's being updated anymore. I wish there was a live CD to evaluate before committing it to the hard drive. Is anyone maintaining a live CD for any of the BSD's?
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PC-BSD has a live CD? Where?
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BSD for embedded systems? (Score:2)
What I don't understand about *BSD is why it isn't getting the kind of uptake in embedded systems that Linux is. It's technically as good, and comes with a lot less licensing risk. There is a lot less variation in interpretation of the BSD license than there is of GPL.
You don't run the risk of obeying, but still getting massively bitched at for not obeying the "spirit" of the license (think Tivo).
You don't have to worry with BSD about exactly how the code you wrote interfaces to the BSD code--no metaphy
Re:Jails (Score:5, Informative)
FreeBSD Jails [wikipedia.org] are a kind of light-weight server partitioning scheme, in the same vein as Solaris Zones [wikipedia.org].
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And in the same vein, they are inadequate because all instances share a kernel. A successful attack on the kernel means a successful attack on the complete system. Hence why we have actual virtualization technologies, and stuff like colinux.
Re:Jails (Score:5, Insightful)
And in the same vein, they are inadequate because all instances share a kernel.
And are significantly faster (on our workload) and more efficient for the same reason. Since all jails pull from the same heap, you don't have to worry about under- or over-allocating RAM to an instance. You also don't have to contend with multiple kernels all trying to do bookkeeping many hundreds of times per second.
Jails obviously aren't the right tool for every job, but when they suit your needs, they're outstanding.
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Re:Jails (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yaaaaay! (Score:5, Interesting)
ZFS + Ports, take that Ubuntu!
I dunno about ZFS, but I've recently been playing with a freebsd install (7.1 I think), and ports, while a cool idea, seems pretty creaky in practice.
My main beefs were not with the infrastructure, which seemed OK, but that the package maintenance seemed pretty spotty: many many packages (even fairly "major" ones) were pretty out-of-date, even compared to e.g. debian stable, and in many cases they were installed as monolithic chunks where a bit of judicious splitting would have been very helpful -- for example, an otherwise fairly dependency-free library that happens to come with some demo apps that drag in all of OpenGL and X (it would have been better to put the apps with their heavy dependencies in a separate package, or make their inclusion easily configurable)!
Sadly, the ports collection felt kind of like a 2nd-class add-on (and I gather, that's essentially what it is). Even though there are many packages in debian where the maintainer should probably be doing a better job, on average debian's package collection feels a lot more solid to me that what freebsd has in ports...
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You can usually configure most ports, try doing a "make config" on the port dir... You should be able to turn those X11/OpenGL demo apps off if the port is well written.
What i hate about binary packages, and debian suffers from this greatly, is when a feature is optional to compile in (as opposed to comprising solely of separate files as in your example).. a binary package will typically be compiled with all the options turned on, thus necessitating dependencies you may not want or use.
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What about removal of packages?
One of the things I like about Debian source packages, is that they can be compiled, installed, played with, upgraded, etc and finally removed - all that without a hustle.
Impression I had that ports is just a nice front-end for "./configure && make && make install". And as usually "make uninstall" is largely missing (as only few source packages provide the functionality).
That means over time system gets loaded with orphaned files.
Actually the thing
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What about removal of packages?
Ports provide a build skeleton for creating packages. Every port comes with a list of installed files and potentially an uninstall script. You can remove them with make deinstall in the port directive or with pkg_deinstall / pkg_delete, just as you can with binary packages.
Impression I had that ports is just a nice front-end for "./configure && make && make install".
Yes, it is (and various other build systems). And providing uninstall support is part of the difference between a nice front end and a trivial front end.
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What about removal of packages?
This is a really basic "RTFM." It's not "make uninstall" like you wrote in your post, but "make deinstall"
Alternatively, you use the "pkg_delete" or "pkg_deinstall" command to delete any installed package. (again, to find out potential options etc, RTFM)
Very simple.
One of the things I like about Debian source packages, is that they can be compiled, installed, played with, upgraded, etc and finally removed - all that without a hustle.
Yes, those would be fundamentals of any packaging systems.
Impression I had that ports is just a nice front-end for "./configure && make && make install". And as usually "make uninstall" is largely missing (as only few source packages provide the functionality).
Your impression is somewhat correct. Again, this is something expected of ANY source packaging system. I'm not sure how else you would want it to operate?
That means over time system gets loaded with orphaned files.
I may have missed something...why
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Unlike Debian or even OpenBSD, ports in FreeBSD don't receive much testing.
Some ports haven't been updated for a while, some even never worked at all, but they are still in the tree for ages. For instance lang/neko never worked on FreeBSD. It compiles, but it was obviously never tested as creating a basic thread is enough to make it crash. Oh and it still has a knob to compile it with MySQL 4.x library (yes, 4.x ...).
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That means over time system gets loaded with orphaned files.
I may have missed something...why are files getting orphaned?
If you're confused about what files belong to what packages in FreeBSD, try the "pkg_which" command.
The comment was to "make uninstall" (as I have seen in automake generated makefiles, or mentioned by you "make deinstall" in *BSD) bogosity.
I had this experience, notably with some man pages and generated /etc/ config files, that "make (un|de)install" will not clean everything, leaving garbage in system.
I know that Debian takes care of it and I'm happy to know now that ports take care of that too.
Fortunately pretty much everyone who runs FreeBSD runs either portupgrade or portmaster. These programs essentially take the place of apt, etc, and work completely within the structure of the ports system.
Nice to know that too. I'd say that apt more flexible, but if portupgrade in the end has the same effect
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The comment was to "make uninstall" (as I have seen in automake generated makefiles, or mentioned by you "make deinstall" in *BSD) bogosity.
Oh, I see what you are talking about.
No, "make deinstall" in the port directory is a PORT command. It uninstalls the port. It is not an application specific type "make uninstall" command that may or may not work.
Like pkg_delete, "make deinstall" removes the application according to the packing list and port specific instructions.
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"I have often come to a conclusion that the only way to maintain a Linux distribution with huge amount of packages is indeed to reinstall it every six months."
You are awfully wrong then, sir. I won't say that there are not distributions where the wisest strategy could be reinstall every some months (or following a major release) but I certainly can say this is not true for some other distributions. The one I'm using has been upgraded since about 2001 while not a single piece of this current computer is th
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First you have to know where it is located
(for that you either need to install another package to (and you have to know that name too) or make sure you have Internet connection and go to freesbd.org ports page to search for the name
cd /usr/ports
make quicksearch name=packagename
You'll find the package. No need to install anything new.
Then you have open the login shell as root,
(and you must know how to do that -- it does not automagically prompt you for a password )
"apt-get install foo" doesn't hold your hand, either. Nor did rpm prompt you for a password the last time I used an RPM-based system.
Then you CD to that directory start the build
and discover that it tries to download source
code for Gnome or KDE then build it -- which
will take half a day on some machines....
welcome to the ports system
The FreeBSD maintainers aren't concerned with being trivial to use. They're more concerned with creating a powerful and flexible system.
They focus on this almost to a fault. There's a recent thread on freebsd-questions with the subject "Modern FreeBSD Installer" where a fe
Re:Yaaaaay! (Score:5, Insightful)
And in rare cases when you need a rare obscure feature, it will not be compiled in, leaving you to play a bit with debuild and stuff. That sucks, too.
However, binary packages are much convinient in many cases. I've been using FreeBSD with ports before, and now I'm using Gentoo with portage (which is inspired by FreeBSD's ports) and I'm happy to turn optional features as I like, but I miss a lot of things from binary distros like Debian -- speed of installation, some assurance that the package will work, less work on my part to get it working, etc. To get the source, change a few switches and create your own deb isn't such a deal if you have to do it for only several packages. I did this on Nexenta OpenSolaris installation recently, and I say it's easier than maintaining a Gentoo installation.
And the unneeded features aren't such a big deal, really. I've run Debian on slow low-end devices, and it runs fine, they take a bit more space and the memory usage somewhat grows, but on a modern system that shouldn't be a problem at all -- it is offset by the lack of ports tree, the need for installed compiler and headers, and the faster installation. Debian developers also splits some optional features as seperate packages, where it is possible. And you never know when you actually might need these optional features.
So ports have their pros and cons, I really liked them when I had to play with them, but as I'm lazy I would choose something apt-get-style now. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a nice choice if you want apt-get, FreeBSD kernel. I'm not sure if they have working ZFS and DTrace support at the moment, but it's still worth checking out.
One of the main reasons I would choose FreeBSD at the moment is ZFS. And there is very low probability that we'll see this in Linux.
Re:Yaaaaay! (Score:5, Informative)
Reason I favor Gentoo Over Debian (Score:3, Interesting)
Revolves around those optional features that are compiled into the damn package, pulling in all those extra dependencies. Portage and the Use flags are very good for that. I can specify on a per package basis what optional features I want, which helps keep my system much leaner.
Another issue I've got with many other distros is the continual insistence of starting so many services at boot. To me it's reaching the point that most distros look like a damn windows installation with all the services running. Per
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Re:Yaaaaay! (Score:4, Informative)
"and ports, while a cool idea, seems pretty creaky in practice"
"any many packages (even fairly "major" ones) were pretty out-of-date"
"Sadly, the ports collection felt kind of like a 2nd-class add-on"
Dude, what are you talking about ? Non of this is true!
If you tried the ports that come with 7.1-RELEASE they are several months old, this is normal, they come with the release. If you want up-to-date software you just need to update the ports collection, this is done via the csup(1) utility. Please try to get a little bit deeper into FreeBSD before talking bullshit about it!
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If you want up-to-date software you just need to update the ports collection, this is done via the csup(1) utility.
Better yet, portsnap fetch update.
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Re:Yaaaaay! (Score:5, Informative)
Sadly, the ports collection felt kind of like a 2nd-class add-on (and I gather, that's essentially what it is). Even though there are many packages in debian where the maintainer should probably be doing a better job, on average debian's package collection feels a lot more solid to me that what freebsd has in ports...
I don't mean to slam your dick in the door, but one cannot compare ports (apples) to packages (oranges).
Now before you fire back with, "But Debian says packages are both source and binaries !", allow me to reply, "Damn you, Debian." Seriously, though -- apt-get from Debian uses either source packages (equivalent to freebsd ports) or binary packages (equivalent to freebsd packages), depending on the commands you feed to it.
Here's how FreeBSD separates source installs from binary installs:
Ports: Slower source installs compiled on your machine with make.conf optimizations for your system's architecture. Gentoo (portage/emerge) and Debian (apt-get) have Jordan Hubbard (now working for Apple on Darwin) to thank for these. Quick explanation below in the code quote:
Installation process for installing imaginary app "slashdot" (assuming you have the ports tree installed on your system):
Packages: Fast binary install that is compiled on someone else's system with their choice of "make config" options, for their architecture; usually a very generic build. These use pkg_tools to install, delete, get info for these binary packages.
Installation process for installing imaginary app "slashdot":
When i say slow and fast for install speeds, these comments are relative to two things: source install and binary install. Source compilation time for monolithic packages like firefox3, openoffice.org, xorg, gnome2, etc. take upwards or 6 hours to several days depending on the system doing the compiling. The loss in program responsiveness by using a generic binary package install may be worth it(unnoticeable) to save 3 says compile time. With computers getting faster, optimizations are less noticeable, etc., however, programs also demand more resources as time goes on, andso this may be a wash; and one STILL may want to compile certain programs for their own machine.
My main beefs were not with the infrastructure, which seemed OK, but that the package maintenance seemed pretty spotty: many many packages (even fairly "major" ones) were pretty out-of-date, even compared to e.g. debian stable
The reason for binary package apathy on FreeBSD, as I see it, is as follows. Most people that use FreeBSD don't care about binary packages beyond the base package for a RELEASE branch install from ftp or cd/dvd. For all other programs, most users will compile from source using ports and fetch new versions using portsnap, and lastly upgrade to said new versions using portupgrade. For aforementioned monolithic programs like openoffice.org, one may want to just bite the bullet and avoid a 3 day compile (which currently takes up ~12 gigs of space) including several license agreements, etc. to compile the beast, and just install a precompiled binary package from the "ooo" site.
With that said, most ports maintainers are fairly quick to release the latest version of a port, and some even maintain not only the release port of a program, but the beta. e.g. there is a firefox3(curren
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My main beefs were not with the infrastructure, which seemed OK, but that the package maintenance seemed pretty spotty:
Could we get a less vague or subjective characterisation? The general concensus by FreeBSD users (and one shared by myself), especially those coming from a Linux background, is that the ports system Just Works(TM). As for the tools to manage installed ports or package, there's certainly plenty to choose from. By that I mean the issue, if there is one, is generally one of "preference" ra
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The general concensus by FreeBSD users (and one shared by myself), especially those coming from a Linux background, is that the ports system Just Works(TM)
If it Just Worked, we wouldn't need to keep an eye on UPDATING and jump through hoops when upgrading certain tricky things; e.g. perl-after-upgrade, the gnome upgrade scripts, knowing when you need to forcibly rebuild dependencies and when you can just upgrade a single package, and knowing what to do when you get it wrong and it starts doing weird things like try to install already installed packages.
Ports are a leaky abstraction; they don't try to deal with every possible situation automagically like some
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My friend, active FreeBSD user, was in part attracted to it because it was one of the few problem-free systems where one can compile newer KDE and Gnome versions. Yeah, it takes time. But it also worked.
As end-user goes, there is a very little difference between Linux and *BDS when some DE runs on top of it.
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As end-user goes, there is a very little difference between Linux and *BDS when some DE runs on top of it.
Except with hardware compatibility. Many consider OpenSolaris or FreeBSD to be superior to the linux kernel as far as stability and performance, and there are distros of each to simplify administration (Nexenta and PC-BSD, respectively), but the linux kernel has always had much better compatibility for me.
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True. Just as few users would be able to really tell the difference between windows 98 and NT 4 from the just the desktop environment. The underlying OS is completely different, but the user space looks very similar. This is a problem in pushing linux for desktop machines, in that most users really don't know or care about the differences between kernels. If Ubuntu decided to switch to nexenta instead of debian as its base, many would not realize there was a change to an OpenSolaris kernel. The DE would be
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Generally speaking, trolls get motivated when you spare time to reply them instead of leaving to mods.
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It is not impossible to make it a desktop friendly, even easier than Windows operating system but you will need to give up so much stuff that it would be nothing like BSD.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/unix.html [apple.com]
Don't get me wrong, OS X is not Cocoa on FreeBSD but it uses BSD parts enough that you can get glimpse of what kind of features to expect on next OS X. I always watch FreeBSD releases for that reason.
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I don't get it either. As if I'd want FreeBSD to be a desktop OS.
Desktop OS's are supposed to be ready for the desktop. Not FreeBSD.
That's...not altogether true. Though maybe kind of. It depends a good deal on how you view computers. If a person views computers as simply a tool, a means to do something mainly concerning the "real world" and events surrounding it, but of no interest as to the computer plus software in and of itself, then that person would probably be better-served with something with Windows
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Maybe you could have read his post instead of imagining what it was and then commenting that he is wrong.
He was talking about PC-BSD, a FreeBSD-based distro designed for desktop use. Since it has many pre-built packages and a GUI front-end for ports, it is actually quite a usable desktop distro. Pretty much about as easy as Ubuntu. I normally prefer linux because of hardware compatibility, so I usually use Ubuntu as my desktop and debian or Ubuntu-server for servers, but PC-BSD is pretty nice.
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Maybe you could have read his post instead of imagining what it was and then commenting that he is wrong.
What, and sully such a longstanding /. tradition?
Besides, that also means that one would actually have to think and respond to certain facts and logical arguments put forth by another person. Such tedium!
He was talking about PC-BSD, a FreeBSD-based distro designed for desktop use. Since it has many pre-built packages and a GUI front-end for ports, it is actually quite a usable desktop distro. Pretty much
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Which mailing list did you post to?
If you posted it to something like "freebsd-kernel" then i can totally understand the bollocking you got.
But, again - FreeBSD (core) is not X.org. Contact the port/package maintainer and see whats up.
Just because you're incapable of obtaining support due to using incorrect channels, doesn't mean freebsd is crap. Disclaimer: I've been using it for 9 years.
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For high-profile applications like you quote it is clear that FreeBSD (as many other source based OSs) would generally provide newer version of packages.
Yet, as Debian package statistics [debian.org] shows, there are lots of minor applications in active used which are not really maintained anymore by their creators - essentially only Debian Developers perform maintenance on the packages.
I'm using number of such obscure, hard-to-find packages since old times. (E.g. "cons" build system). Only once stepping outside
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may also add that my experience (which is 2-3 years old now eventually ..) is that FreeBSD had more up to date packages than Ubuntu, and well, Debian stable? Come on ..
Unfortunately, it's completely dependent upon the port. Ports are maintained by individuals, not by the product. Sometimes you will find a port which is a little out of date, but the most popular ports are up-to-date.
Re:KDE updated to 4.2.2 (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm losing a bunch of my mods applied to reply to this, but I must correct you. For everyone pointing to the lack of nvidia on freebsd x86_64 above, i apologize. you had informative mods until this joker started typing.
Icons still have that retarded mini-sidebar pop up when I hover over them.
Lock the widgets. They only popup when everything is unlocked. While locked, they cannot be moved, added, or removed.
I still have a "Desktop" folder that is not reflected by the on-screen desktop, all in the interest of
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For now, Kubuntu is the only mainstream distro with 4.2 in stable. Fedora 11, OpenSuSE 11.2 etc are not released yet.
Are there any others with 4.2 in stable?
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It absolutely is on FreeBSD amd64, but this is mainly due to the fact that it is still lacking accelerated Nvidia support on that hardware. Terrible hardware support (I've mentioned wifi before) the makes FreeBSD an appalling desktop anyway. I'd leave it in the datacentre where it's actually an excellent choice.
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It's sort of like where Linux was five years ago. If you didn't buy your hardware with reference to the OS that was going to be running on it, you had problems. I've got a brand new state of the art system, which I built for FreeBSD. It's awesome. KDE runs snappier and smoother than it does under KDE on my work system. NVidia sucks, yes, but that is why you avoid NVidia hardware. Don't blame FreeBSD for NVidia's suckiness. Don't blame FreeBSD for hardware with closed specs and proprietary drivers.
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Nvidia works fine here on amd64 on Windows, Linux, Solaris and MacOS X. It's only FreeBSD that appears to have the problem with 64bit - I don't think you can blame Nvidia for that.
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Yes, you can.
http://wiki.freebsd.org/NvidiaFeatureRequests [freebsd.org]
Why would these need to be satisfied for nvidia, but noone else? Because nvidia did things a specific way and will not bend.
Re:It not about the technical excellence (Score:5, Funny)
I think BSD needs a new, cuddly but cool mascot. how do you compete with tux? Is the cresta (remember that?) polar bear available?
He's MIA after his glacier suddenly melted. Witnesses saw a little guy with some sort of trident fleeing the scene.
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Well no, Gentoo is Linux which is not the same thing at all.
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Sorry, couldn't resist... ;-)
Reece
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RMS, is that really you?!?
Of course not! You'd think RMS would forget the "GNU/" prefix in "using linsux emulation".