A FreeBSD "Spork" With Touches of NeXT and OS X: NeXTBSD 165
There are a lot of open source operating systems out there; being open source, they lend themselves to forks, clones or near clones, and friendly offshoots. There are even services to let you customize, download, and (if you choose) bulk-install your own OS based on common components. Phoronix notes a new project called NeXTBSD that might turn more heads than most new open source OSes, in part because of the developers behind it, and in part because of the positive thoughts many people have toward the aesthetics of NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X. (And while it might be a fork of FreeBSD, the developers would rather call it a spork, instead.)
NeXTBSD was announced last week by Jordan Hubbard and Kip Macy at the Bay Area FreeBSD Users Group (BAFUG). NeXTBSD / FreeBSD X is based on the FreeBSD-CURRENT kernel while adding in Mach IPC, Libdispatch, notifyd, asld, launchd, and other components derived from Apple's open-source code for OS X. The basic launchd/notifyd/asld/libdispatch stack atop their "fork" of FreeBSD is working along with other basic components of their new design.
You can watch a recording of the announcement as well as a longer introduction linked from Phoronix's story.
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Apple are no longer interested in maintaining xnu/darwin and see strategic benefits from re-basing iOS and OS/X upon FreeBSD?
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The direction that a project is going, is further away than where you want it to go.
Lets consider Android vs. GNU/Linux (Now I personally hate calling Linux "GNU/Linux", but I need to differentiate it ). They both use the Linux kernel, but the rest of the Operating systems are very different.
Android was forked so it can better suit a mobile system market. GNU/Linux was more towards the server and workstation.
As Android uses more direct frame-buffer technology, GNU/Linux focuses around X windows.
Android does
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I wouldn't call Android a 'fork' of Linux. Linux is just a kernel, a plug-in component used in many different operating systems, i.e. Debian, Slackware, SuSE, Ubuntu. Android didn't 'fork' from any of those operating systems. It just incorporated the Linux kernel. It isn't a linux 'distribution' because it's for the most part a unified whole, not a dogs-breakfast of misc. userland programs from all over, which is what most (all?) of the operating systems that call themselves 'Linux' are.
Re:Use-case? (Score:5, Funny)
systemd envy.
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launchd does not replace su(1) so it's not envy.
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A different asshole wanted to be in charge.
1. Jordan Hubbard was one of the original founders of FreeBSD. He didn't need to fork to be in charge.
2. Jordan is not an asshole. He is a friendly, outgoing, and helpful person. Perhaps you have him confused with Theo de Raadt.
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Perhaps you don't understand what the word "harbor" means. It means to give a home or shelter to someone; in this usage, it implies doing so in secret. Allowing someone to contribute code openly (not in secret) is precisely the opposite. It keeps the person talking, thus revealing that person's location, and making it easier to bring that person to justice.
Besides, it's a bit like the ethical question of "tainted" money. If someone earns money through doing bad things, is it ethical to use that money f
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One of the key points of prison time is being removed from community, much more so than lacking freedom.
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We've seen what happens when you treat unrepentant criminals as outcasts. They remain unrepentant criminals. The recidivism rate in American prisons should be proof enough that such tactics don't work. Or take a look at countries that try to imprison the opposing forces after a civil war. Things never stabilize. Sometimes, forgiveness by others is the first step towards repentance—turn the other cheek, and all that.
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You do know that there is such a thing as false conviction, and the standard of "repentance or permanent ostracization"—remaining in glorious effect long after punishment by the state has run its course—effectively demands the the wrongfully convicted confess to crimes they never committed, in order to have any hope of returning to productive society ever again?
In general (absent subsequent e
Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Kind of interesting. From what I gather it's supposed to be the unstable rolling release branch of FreeBSD (-CURRENT), which presumably some Apple enhancements? Maybe the interface? I don't know, they're rather vague with what their ultimate goal is. The progressive part sounds like they intend for this to be something like Arch for Linux, but -CURRENT is not exactly a bastion of stability. It's the beta branch. Users won't want it because it's too unstable, and all the extras are going to make it unappealing for testing, I think. A neat idea, but I think this would be much better off if pulled from -STABLE or better yet, -RELEASE. THEN we'd have something quite interesting on our hands.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
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The targeted usecase is FreeNAS, and previous presentations by Jordan Hubbard made clear that he want to restructure the project to better manage daemons and configuration.
Don't expect any graphical display stuff, they are from the proprietary stuff from apple, the only things that can be imported are bits from Darwin.
Expect at some point wayland port depending on how much upstream is deep in their little linux world, but I don't think that'll come from a iXsystems. Expect maybe some graphical stuff from the lumina project, but not a complete DE like KDE, Gnome or MacOSX (more likely a nice "lightweight" Qt desktop).
Ohhhh so its going to be systemd for BSD?
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Ohhhh so its going to be systemd for BSD?
Yes and no.
Some of the legacy Unix issues that systemd is supposedly intended to address have been attacked by Apple in the tools NeXTBSD is adopting: ASL, LaunchD, GCD/LibDispatch, NotifyD, etc. Note that unlike systemd, the Darwin replacements for traditional init, cron, & syslog aren't monolithic and are relatively mature. LaunchD & ASL have been evolving for over a decade in mass-market OS releases and it is apparent to anyone using them attentively in MacOS over that time that Apple has been working to make them actual improvements for admins and developers interacting with them over the legacy tools, rather than merely replacements. They were both problematic in their earliest releases, but they both have been developed over time to the point where they no longer seem like the products of CS theoreticians who've never managed real systems.
Beyond that, I think it is safe to assert that there is MUCH more well-earned community goodwill towards Hubbard & Macy than there ever has been or ever could be for Poettering, so the social drama isn't preset for tragedy in the event that the project is unremarkable for a while.
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Systemd is not monolithic. It's highly modular and only a few small parts are mandatory for systemd's init to function. Saying systemd is monolithic does not make it so.
As for the evolution of launchd and it's current usability, the same exact things can be said of systemd. systemd is not a creation of theoretitists. It actually solves practical problems in a practical way, as does launchd.
It's just ironic to me that slashdotters will come to launchd's defense while lambasting systemd.
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When I read the description, I saw the exact same thing as It sounded just like the discussion points for the upcoming FreeNAS 10. Its so wicked that Jordan now works for iXSystems :)
The new iXSystems FreeNAS 10 platform would be a great foundation as a general application server platform. I'm not sure how well it would behave as a desktop OS. You sure cannot go wrong with root ZFS though, which is something that is not trivial on linux.
Will it run Windowmaker? (Score:1)
Afterstep? Or utilize Enlightenment for that composited OSX feel?
Would love a modern NeXTstep (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love to see a desktop OS that builds on what NeXT did. I know Mac OS X is that to some degree, but I'm thinking of something more like the original NeXTstep GUI.
It's somewhat ironic that when GNUstep first started, one of the reasons why it didn't get much traction was the use of the "non-standard" Objective-C. As a result, effort was instead spent on KDE and then GNOME. If GNUstep became the standard, it could have changed Linux on the desktop as porting Mac OS X apps over would have been much easier. Of course, no-one knew that then.
More Accurately DarwinBSD (Score:2)
... but that name was taken
I was thinking something similar, and to be fair it is called "NextBSD" but as far as i can tell from the GitHub repo it's some combination of FreeBSD and Darwin, the open-source base system that OS X runs on top of. I think the Next name just fit well.
Maybe this one will be more successful than the previous short lived attempts to make the Darwin sources into something useful... I'm not sure what exactly they are doing that is different though.
Re:Would love a modern NeXTstep (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why I started MidnightBSD. I just didn't keep enough developers around after the initial push to finish it.
I've been looking at their code for a few weeks (it was in the trueos repo on a branch) and it's rather interesting. The Mach IPC layer is actually a port from code in NetBSD up to around 5.0. Then they've brought in patches for libdispatch workqueue support and a bunch of apple code.
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This appears to be the vision of a very small number of developers. One? Of course they welcome help but the single vision is important.
A person I greatly respected (my mommy) used to say, when she saw an ugly building, "It looks like it was built by a committee."
Have you ever noticed this effect in a software project?
NeXT (Score:2)
I'd assume Apple still owns the trademark for NeXT, so I expect they'll rename it if it gets any traction.
Maybe NextBSD or nxBSD or something wouldn't fall foul of the trademark?
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it's a crappy name designed to create confusion with NetBSD in any case.
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Just like everyone knows that XWindows and Windows are so easy to confuse.
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An ancient FAQ written by users is hardly authoritative, but if you accept those kind of credentials:
X was named after an earlier window system called "W". It is a window system called "X", not a system called "X Windows". [foldoc.org]
I've always referred to it as 'The X Window system'
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It's X11. No, it's Xorg. Wait, it's X11 since there are a few non-Xorg systems. Wait, if you run it raw it doesn't manage windows so perhaps that's why it is an "X Window system".
Re:Will it include systemd? (Score:5, Informative)
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You mean that Apple is a trademark of NeXT.
Apple was sold for very cheap to NeXT, I mean it is the CEO of NeXT with their flagship product NeXTStep but renamed Apple and OS X.
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FreeBastard or NextBastard
Doesn't this already exist? (Score:2)
Why not just run / fork (okay, fine, "spork") Darwin?
-- Nathan
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They are FreeBSD users and developers that want to push the FreeBSD ecosystem further than the Current branch is able to go. They don't want a new kernel that works like Apple's OS X, they want a modernized in it that keeps the UNIX principles firmly in mind, while paving the way for mobile form factors and many others.
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Do you mean GNUStep? It's alive and kicking.
The GNU has most of the stuff to make NeXTSTEP now, but nothing is quite right.
* GNUStep ...
* GNU Mach
* GNU HURD
* GWorkspace
Richard Stallman was obviously trying to copy NeXT for a very long time.
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He knows what is best for us. Unix was broken so he is fixing it.
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Soon he will declare the kernel too confusing and replace it with a systemd command. I'll get the popcorn.
adding Libdispatch, notifyd, asld, launchd... (Score:5, Funny)
Systemd can replace all of that.
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You're getting it whether you like it or not!
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No I'm not. I'm running FreeBSD.
OpenSource NeXTSTEP == Apple Darwin (Score:1)
Wait, didnt' Apple open source the base OS as Darwin?
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Apple killed Darwin. I ran it for a little while, though I prefer NetBSD. Darwin wasn't very interesting compared to an OS that has a vibrant active user/developer community.
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It's still around: http://www.opensource.apple.co... [apple.com]
launchd not as bad as systemd (Score:2)
But also nearly universally reviled.
Why does everyone care about saving five seconds during boot that will be completely overshadowed by the time you spend in BIOS POST?
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Haven't used a UEFI system?
The other day, there was a forum thread by a guy who had assembled a new PC and thought that it didn't work. The thing went so quick as to not show anything on the display then monitor would get put on stand by. You pretty much have to mash keys before turning the thing on to get in the setup screen.
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He obviously has no option ROMs. I have to wait through the LSI SAS controller, Chelsio NIC, Intel management engine and Broadcom network boot option ROMs booting and displaying their messages before my workstation can start loading an OS.
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I kinda do have to boot from my SAS controller - that's how my disks are attached. But even if you aren't booting from them, you need to wait for them. Each of these cards has an embedded computer on it and you have to wait for that to be booted and configured before you can get into a state where you're ready to let an OS loose on the host machine.
About time (Score:2)
My job keeps buying these shitty Gateway boxes and they used to have the slowest BIOS on the planet. I mean a good 15 seconds by the time it gets to the OS.
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But also nearly universally reviled.
Why does everyone care about saving five seconds during boot that will be completely overshadowed by the time you spend in BIOS POST?
Because Cloud.
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But also nearly universally reviled.
Why does everyone care about saving five seconds during boot that will be completely overshadowed by the time you spend in BIOS POST?
Um, ever heard about containers, cloud images, disposable VMs, instant-on embedded appliances, etc. ?
Re:launchd not as bad as systemd (Score:4, Interesting)
Um, ever heard about containers, cloud images, disposable VMs, instant-on embedded appliances, etc. ?
None of which require the full suite of services which cause boot to be so slow. None of which will boot faster with launchd because the limited set of services depend on one another and so have to be started serially anyhow. None of which we are talking about right now, since we're discussing a desktop OS. None of which is relevant right now, so why did you bother?
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I remember Steve Jobs found it important to save 5 seconds on the boot of one of the first Apple machines, because you save lives.
Say that there are about 10 M people who have OS X. Each reboots their machine once a month (because everyone is using standby these days). That is 10 M * 5 seconds * 12 = 3 Gs.
If you then look at how many seconds someone lives for 75 years. 3Gs / (75*365*24*60*60) = 1.26 lives per year saved.
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I remember Steve Jobs found it important to save 5 seconds on the boot of one of the first Apple machines, because you save lives.
How about a computer that doesn't need to reboot so often? I used most of the early Apple machines, Apple I and /// aside, including the ][gs, Lisa, Macintosh 512k (sorry, missed the 128k) and Plus, I think I still have a SE with an accelerator in it just for the nostalgia value, had a IIci, etc etc. And I've had a lot of free reboots, most of them from Macs, and most of those reboots occurring between the era when Macs started getting MMUs, and when they started actually using it.
The Amiga would be done bo
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I've heard of this trick, though I never owned an Amiga or any manner of useful Apple (though there is ostensibly a useless pizza-box-shaped Mac over there on the table, and an example of the Last Hoorah of the PPC 24" iMacs working fine and being useless in my garage waiting for me to figure out how to ship it because they're still valued at hundreds of dollars, but not to me because it largely fails at Spoti
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1986 Amiga 1000 booting - 15 seconds from power to disk prompt, over 60 seconds to usable desktop
That's the worst case, not using the means I described above. You may try again when you learn to read, not until.
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Okay, show me your video. I don't doubt it's fast, but there's no way it's faster than the Happy Mac icon.
I dunno, I've had some inexplicable waits for that icon to show up. It just doesn't show up as quickly as you suggest every time. And I've used a very broad range of Macs, they were just sneaking into the schools while I was being forced to be in them, but I also come from Santa Cruz which is a very nerdy college town, and also full of liberal arts and graphic arts and whatnot and thus full of macs.
The only Amiga I have handy to make a RRD on is an A1200. It's kind of too new, it might invalidate the point.
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It isn't about saving 5 seconds at system startup. People use that as an excuse because it's user visible. People constantly complain to me about MidnightBSD boot speed though. The real reason to do launchd (or maybe the one good thing about systemd) is that it allows you to make intelligent power decisions. If you know you're running on battery, you can avoid running background tasks that take a lot of CPU or disk IO. For example, the locate database could be updated next time you're plugged in. You co
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allows you to make intelligent power decisions.
init run levels. Old news.
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Run levels don't solve the problem for desktop users. You can't ask a typical user to manually switch run levels. Not to mention rc.d in freebsd isn't setup like that.
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stating a random, completely unsuitable, feature of init.
But the parent poster stated:
you could change graphics modes on low battery
that's all supported by init. From the init man page:
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If you watch the last 20 minutes or so of the BAFUG video, Jordan Hubbard talks about launchd. I don't believe that boot time comes up a single time as a reason for making the switch.
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But but its not init!!! Get out the tar and feathers
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It's not about saving 5 seconds. Its about not having a registry. Windows users and admins are stamping their little feet because no registry. And its about writing and installing start/stop scripts. Shell scripts. Windows doesn't have (practical) shell scripts. Windows is not made up of lots of little single purpose utilities than can be piped together, call other shell scripts or executables, handle I/O and return values. And all without having to worry about whether the utility was implemented as a bina
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If the goal of systemd creators is to slowly move users back to Windows, these are all capabilities that need to be eliminated. So UNIX/Linux users can't use them as reasons not to move.
Yes it's all a big conspiracy! Red Hat isn't actually a supporter of Linux, despite being one of the top [redhat.com] contributors [neowin.net] to the Linux [linuxfoundation.org] kernel and creating and supporting client and server distributions of Linux systems from which most of their revenue is derived they are actually trying to destroy Linux and drive people to Windows so they can kill their own business and profitability!
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GM saw itself as the premier auto/truck maker in this country. And yet, they made some stupid mangament and engineering decisions that are slowly leading them into the corporate graveyard.
So you're saying the goal [slashdot.org] of these management decisions was to move people away from GM cars? I don't think so, just like RedHat's goal isn't to move users to Windows.
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Launched is NOT about speeding up boot, it is about a highly reliable daemon dependency system, which allows keeping running process to the minimum, and allows new events to register themselves i8n a uniform manner that is simple and doesn't introduce the complexity not SystemD. It is also production proven in both he mobile space a it is on every iPhone ever shipped, as well as all OS X systems in the last five+ years.
Funny. (Score:2)
I downloaded the ISO on Friday night. Yesterday, I installed it ot a VM. Just got out of be a few minutes ago, and the VM is open in my right hand display, waiting for me to configure it. The network works right - I pinged Google from it. That's about all I know right now, since I've never installed a BSD before. I need to refer to some installation and setup guides next!
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One time I installed NetBSD on a box and configured and used it as my desktop machine. A few weeks later I needed to reboot it and was confused why it didn't have a hostname. It turned out that it was because I had installed it, done the first boot after install, and configured everything, but had never booted it a second time and had forgotten to add a hostname in the /etc/rc.d/rc.conf file. In other words it ran for weeks as a useful desktop machine but had only been booted a single time.
NetBSD is that
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Yeah, the website is pretty crap. It took a bit of perseverance to actually grab the ISO. Want the link?
$ wget http://www.optimcloud.com/disc... [optimcloud.com]
So far, I've installed bash, and configured it as my default shell, then installed nano, and configured as default editor. One step at a time, if/when I feel like it, I should have a working system before 2115 . . . .
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http://itsfoss.com/97-percent-worlds-top-500-supercomputers-run-linux/
97 Percent Of The World’s Top 500 Supercomputers Run Linux
Percentage of Supercomputers on the Desktop: 0%.
Mach messages vs sysv messeges (Score:1)
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Mach messages are much faster than SysV but not up to the speed of Solaris doors (which have some odd security issues but drop context swtiches). The SysV streams message system is based on the SysV IPC which is based on SysV shared memory and SysV semaphores. That stuff came from the early 1980s when a 2 CPU WE32000 in a 3B20 (or 5 or 15?) was the reference design for the biggest hardware Real UNIX (TM) would run on. Since that came from AT&T who wanted to make mainframes but had to have phone switches
Re: Mach messages vs sysv messeges (Score:2)
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I would be pretty confident that shared memory using atomic compare/exchange for notification and pickup would be the fastest on any hardware/software architecture. Definitely faster than Mach messages I would assume. Rather primitive, though. I would benchmark both named pipes and unix domain sockets as well, because they are architecturally nice.
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But until it has a GUI.. (Score:1)
Then even people who should know better will see it as just another CLI based OS. All the "Good feelings" garnered for pre 2009 OSX and NextStep etc, were based on their human interface component. The fact in this case, however, is that there'a a huge opportunity here to create a far better interface. Something less blocky than OSX and the "Next" interface, Something with all the good improvements of Finder and Explorer, as well as all the different Linux GUIs. Something that REALLY "just works" .. like Mac
It's perfect (Score:2)
I think this would be a perfect new home for Leonart Poetering. It's a place were he could be productive and apreciated and the rest of us could be rid of him.
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It's "confidant" not "cosmonaut."
:sigh: another newbie... and since you posted AC, so also shall i...
Perhaps they forked it.