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BSD Operating Systems

*BSD News 155

Posted by CmdrTaco from the big-batch-o-bsd dept.
Woody writes "There is tons of stuff happening on the BSD front. The NetBSD Foundation is scheduled to release version 1.4 of their multi-platform OS tomorrow, May 12. The OpenBSD group is scheduled to release version 2.5 of their super-secure multi-platform OS on May 19. Finally, those boys over at FreeBSD are scheduled to release version 3.2 of their i386 optimized OS on or around May 15. Lots of rumblings in the BSD world! "
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  • Re:What does BSD stand for? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It stands for Berkeley Software Distribution, if I recall correct.

  • BSD subsidized by charity (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Because of ongoing financial difficulties with the BSDs, Usenix has been asked to fund the pressing of BSD cdroms. In addition to the struggling BSD market, Debian Linux is among the other troubled organizations which can not finance its own development. A collection for the "homeless" was taken up, with Usenix footing the bill.
  • *BSD is the continuation of a failed idea -- that quality matters.

    A failed idea that I can accept.

    The lesson of the last 20 years has been that marketing is more important.

    I really pity you if you honestly think marketing is more important than quality. It is obvious that which matters more is purely dependant on your goals and if your goal is only to sell lots of something you wind up with Windows. Well I have news for you. Not everybody is only concerned with quantity. Some of us actually care about quality. I know that there are some out there that have a deep need to have their OS outnumber the rest but that is foolish. That is why lots of people run Windows and I have even heard it used as a reason to run Linux rather than the other Free *nix products. I personally choose the platform based on what I need it to do. If Linux's only goal were quantity it would turn into crap as well. I obviously know that isn't true but that is the implication of your premis.

    Unix vendors (and this includes the *BSD people) have responded by creating Yet Another Unix which will have higher technical quality than the opposition.

    Oh HORROR!! What Fools!! Don't they know they need to produce crap or it won't sell?? After all how much it sells is all that matters.

    Me? I use Linux, because I want to make a difference in the world.

    If it would make you happy to run something well marketed you must be running Windows right? No? Your running Linux? What for? Its not marketed like Windows and it is far more concerned with quality! After all just like *BSD, Linux is Yet Another Unix. But you say that *BSD is competing with Unix rather than Windows. Linux's goal was to be a free nix Just like *BSD.

    I will give the *BSD folks an ounce of credibility when they reconcile their differences.

    Why should there only be one BSD? The three projects have different goals. BTW Which Linux distribution do you use?

    I personally use whichever OS fits the job at hand. I use FreeBSD on my servers and RedHat on my desktop. I also keep a Windows partition for games.

  • Re:I want to try BSD .. but which one? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So when is some one going to do a mixed BSD, implimenting all of the xBSD's?

    I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but possibly the answer is this: both NetBSD and OpenBSD will run binaries compiled for each other, as well as FreeBSD, BSDI, most (all?) Linux distributions, SCO, and Solaris x86. This is done through emulation modules for each of the other OSes (and possibly loading the shared libs from the other OS into /emul//usr/lib - not needed if the application is statically linked). Likewise, the Sparc ports of Net & Open will run SunOS 4.x and Solaris 2.x binaries, the Alpha ports will run Digital Unix binaries, the m68k ports will run SunOS, etc.

    I'm not sure what emulation capabilities FreeBSD has, but I imagine they are similar.

  • Re:Why are Linux users? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So quick to tell me that BSD sucks?

    I thought linux was about CHOICES. I thought that you people screamed that we all should be able to CHOOSE what we should run. Now that there's another Unix (A REAL unix, not a flavor) out there, you are instantly telling me that it's WRONG to like choices? You people are so fucking hypocritical. Take a look in the mirror, kiddies, and wonder WHY the big boys like Yahoo, and Hotmail, and such are running FreeBSD. Maybe THEN you'll understand that Freedom of CHOICE is more important than pushing a fucking COMPUTER program.

    Jarrod

  • Linux "success" a phony (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The main difference is that Linux is a success and *BSD is a failure

    This is why FreeBSD is used by people like Yahoo, Hotmail, Xoom, Geocities, Inktomi, Verio, US West, the IMDB, and just about every other major ISP and large content provider you can name. The only bright star on the Linux map is DejaNews, and you can tell it's a Linux system by the "Document contains no data" errors you get using it.

    A recent, conservative, estimate suggested that FreeBSD systems might well be serving as much as 50% of the content currently available on the 'net. That's not "failure" by any stretch of the imagination.

    And just to correct the other misapprehensions in your post; while OpenBSD (and possibly NetBSD) did indeed require funding to press their Usenix CDs, these aren't commercial organisations. They don't exist to make money - they exist to write software. You might as well suggest that Linus press "linux kernel" CDs to go with all of the commercial distributions.
    The FreeBSD project has never had any trouble pressing massive numbers of our immensely popular CDs; we've just released a 6-disk companion toolkit, for example, to take the pressure off our regular 4-disk release.

    But feel free to avoid our very buoyant and popular vessel - we can do quite happily without people like you.

  • Re:The absence of the GPL (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How many people use your operating system AC? None? What do you mean you haven't written an operating sytem? Well... that makes you a failure, doesn't it?

    What was the point of that line of questioning? Simple, don't impose your goals on other people. Just because you think world domination is the only acceptable goal for a software project doesn't mean that it has to be the opinion of the people who write *BSD. I don't know any of them personally, so I can't say this for sure, but I would assume that like any good open source project, their goal is to write good code simply for the love of hacking.

    Why is *BSD loosing market share? Markets fluctuate, people are fickle, etc... But it sure as hell isn't going to go away. The BSD's weren't written for the average user. They were written for people who needed an operating system they could trust as being stable and secure enough to run on their servers. Those are the kind of people who stick with an OS, not the kind who always have to use "The Next Big Thing." Now I'm not saying people don't use Linux for the same reasons, however alot of the new Linux users are just using because of the hype. Who knows what OS they'll be using in 5 years. When the market consolidates as you put it, percentage wise, BSD will take the smallest hit.

    Oh yeah, and BSD is about to inherit a few million users from an OS called MacOS, which just switched its base to BSD. That'll help their market share a bit I would assume.
  • Well, you can order the FreeBSD CD direct from Walnut Creek CDROM (the people who sponsor ftp.cdrom.com, maybe you've heard of them). Check out their homepage at http://www.cdrom.com [cdrom.com]
  • But why is BSD a failure? Why does it continue to lose marketshare? These questions are never answered. Only a complete idiot would think that BSD is winning. BSD is in an ongoing downslide. As the marketplace consolidates, BSD has become one of the first casualties.

    Your comments sound oddly familiar to the condition of Unix in general, circa 1995:

    But why is Unix a failure? Why does it continue to lose marketshare? These questions are never answered. Only a complete idiot would think that Unix is winning. Unix is in an ongoing downslide. As the marketplace consolidates, Unix has become one of the first casualties.

    If you're choosing Linux over BSD because of marketing, why aren't you running Windows instead?
  • "ambitious designs" is really in the eye of the beholder. Personally,I find Linux to be far more ambitious than NT. Since you're referring to "UNIX Vendors" I guess you're not really dissing Linux....but the sound of your post leads me to believe that you think NT is more ambitious than even Linux

    I'll have to disagree with you.

    Linux is, and aims to stay, Multi-platform (truly difficult to accomplish, and certainly highly ambitious)

    On the user-interface site of things, projects like Enlightenment that allow full user-customization of the work environment aim to take "windows" to a new level...while maintaining the beauty and availability of a command line interface...another ambitious goal.

    That Linux can run on a 386 is testament to the ambitious ideas of its designers as well. NT scoffs at the need to support old hardware...but to me, supporting it is ambitious and commendable.

    So I guess...what it really comes down to, is what turns you on. I would say that UNIX developers are more ambitious than NT developers....just in different ways.

  • So if FreeBSD's threads are implemented entirely in userland, how do they avoid putting all of a process's threads to sleep when one thread blocks on IO?
  • I only have a 33'600 Baud dialup-connection to the internet and therefore do not want to download the whole stuff. Probably there would be two newer versions of each, before I finished downloading. =:-)

    Actually.. NetBSD and OpenBSD (1.3.3 and 2.4) can be FTP'ed in 7-9 hours, depending on your connection (took me around 8hr each at 24kbps). It's not really likely there'd be a new version released while you were downloading, unless you're downloading the -current release. :) Dunno how long FreeBSD would take, though.

    If you have the money (and/or patience), though, get a CD. If nothing else, you'd be helping them continue working on the OS.

  • It did sound to me like some pointless insult: "They are so poor they have to accept charity."
  • As soon as they replace the BSD utilities and C library with the GNU equivalent. Which would be apoproximately as pointeless as Tom Christiansens project to create a BSD/Linux.

  • Pah! VMS had clustering back in the early 80s.

  • Basicly, the difference is this:

    - FreeBSD is the fastest (you can argue about this, but it is that way 85% of the time), and has better Hard and Software support (running WordPerfect or Doom or Quake (even the beta 3) for Linux is no prob ...

    - NetBSD runs on a lot of different platforms

    - OpenBSD has more encryption/security options ...

    I would recommend FreeBSD in your case ...
  • Scalability is a very ambitious technology, and something that only high-end Unix systems really have a claim to. I keep laughing when I hear about NT clustering. Can they really call two nodes a cluster whilst keeping a straight face? If it seems "sexy" on NT, it's probably been around with Unix for ten years already.

  • For example, the BSD groups have been so strapped for cash that they can not even afford to manufacture their own CD ROMS anymore.

    Do you have any evidence to back this up? The story [usenix.org] cited in another posting [slashdot.org] says only that they're "providing grants to the OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Debian Linux development projects, to support each of them in issuing new releases.", and says that this is "because CDs of their distributions will be given away for free at the Usenix Technical Conference in June".

    If the continued existence of the BSDs (or of Debian GNU/Linux, for that matter) makes you unhappy, I wish you many years of continued unhappiness....

  • In contrast, Linux executables are completely portable between Linux distributions. All Linux distributions share a common kernel.

    ...and, probably, a common libc, at least when all distributions adopt glibc2.1. There's more to an ABI than just system calls....

  • So if FreeBSD's threads are implemented entirely in userland, how do they avoid putting all of a process's threads to sleep when one thread blocks on IO?

    By wrapping a pile of API calls (e.g., read(), write(), etc.) so that descriptors run in non-blocking mode (with the non-blocking mode that the API calls return being maintained by the threads library, rather than being the kernel's value for that mode), using an unwrapped select() in the thread scheduling loop, etc.. See the stuff in the lib/libc_r/uthread directory in the FreeBSD source tree.

    No, it doesn't keep the entire process from blocking if, say, a file read() reading from a file server blocks because the file server isn't responding, but it catches the common case of reads or writes from serial ports, network connections, and the like.

  • duh (Score:1)

    by cthonious ( 5222 )
    I'm using linux at home for that too, I wanted to try BSD out of curiosity.

    Besides, it is well known that BSD's NFS implementation is better than Linux's.

  • I plan on using it for to mount my /home and run squid on my lan at home ... which one would be best?

    I'd be running it on a P-150, 64MB. I have a copy of FreeBSD 3.0 but I was wondering if NetBSD or OpenBSD is better/more interesting for any purpose ...

    ... or hell what are the differences anyway?

  • There is currently support in FreeBSD (3.1->) for a native port of the LinuxThreads kernel threads package, but the need for kernel threads on FreeBSD is a lot lower than on Linux, because the userland threads (libc_r - which should be POSIX compilant) has a very quick context switch. The performance between the two is pretty much the same, and should perform very similarly to libpthread on Linux.

    There has been a lot of talk about a lightweight kernel threads implementation, especially to use SMP effectively accross threads, but there is no code.

    -Jeremy
  • This reminds me, did that project ever get off the ground? I would be interested in helping if possible.

  • Re:heh (Score:1)

    by Intosi ( 6741 )
    Well, it really is i386 optimized. For a long time, FreeBSD only ran on i386 compatible machines (it runs on Alpha as well, these days). Because of this, the system is tuned for i386 without having to be compatible with other hardware architectures. NetBSD and OpenBSD are released on a large number of platforms, so lesser effort is put in optimalisation for a specific platform.

    Intosi

  • Please, do stop FUDding us BSD people. I use both Linux and *BSD, and I can tell you, both are just fine for NFS and SMB work. With proper tuning, my FreeBSD outperforms (a tuned) Red Hat on the same hardware when it comes to SMB, but that can be caused by the fact that I am better in BSD tuning than I am in Linux tuning.

    Anyway, why is it that every time there appears a *BSD related message on /., people start bashing *BSD and promoting Linux? You are only annoying people that way, doing more harm than good.

    If you want to run Linux, fine. But don't flame people who don't.

    Intosi

  • NetBSD supports a wide range of binaries.

    Here's some of the kernel config file:

    # Compatibility options
    options COMPAT_NOMID # compatibility with 386BSD, BSDI, NetBSD 0.8,
    options COMPAT_09 # NetBSD 0.9,
    options COMPAT_10 # NetBSD 1.0,
    options COMPAT_11 # NetBSD 1.1,
    options COMPAT_12 # NetBSD 1.2,
    options COMPAT_43 # and 4.3BSD

    options COMPAT_SVR4 # binary compatibility with SVR4
    options COMPAT_IBCS2 # binary compatibility with SCO and ISC
    options COMPAT_LINUX # binary compatibility with Linux
    options COMPAT_FREEBSD # binary compatibility with FreeBSD

    # Executable format options
    options EXEC_ELF32 # 32-bit ELF executables (SVR4, Linux)


    Also, there are various packages in the NetBSD package system to automatically download and install the appropriate libraries for compatibility with these systems, and an ld.so to handle the magic. :)
  • hmm... openBSD.... may 19.... Star Wars.... do I smell a conspiracy?
  • but I thought you were supposed to pray to the great lord Lucas while waiting for the holy movie...

    hmm... I see your point... install the holy OS, while waiting for the holy movie and praying to the holy director.

  • ummm... the BSDs don't generally rely on the GNU tools as much as Linux. They have their own original BSD versions.

    Of course you CAN install the GNU versions if you like.

  • Re:The absence of the GPL (Score:3)

    by JoeBuck ( 7947 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @06:44AM (#1896668) Homepage
    This is at least the second time Daemon News has resorted to red-baiting. Just for fun, I'll do a bit of reversing here.

    I fully respect and honor people who find the BSD license preferable to the GPL, or who object to the GPL because they think its retrictions are unnecessary. I have no use for jerks who argue against it on the basis that it is "communist", especially from proponents of the BSD license.

    After all, the BSD license is more communist in the sense of Marx than the GPL. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." If you tell me I should use the BSD, you're saying that I should contribute work to you to do whatever you want to do with, because I have the ability and you have the need.

    The GPL is more market-oriented. The author who uses the GPL gives software to other developers to make derivative works from only if the other developers are willing to give back their changes. Many developers who use the GPL also sell proprietary software; in some cases (e.g. Aladdin Software, makers of Ghostscript) they use dual licensing: folks who don't like the GPL restrictions can pay $$$ to get other terms.

    As Russ Nelson has said, the reason he uses the GPL is "When I write commercial software I want to get paid." Those who claim that developers must use BSD-like terms when they write free software are saying that they must give up their work without any compensation at all, to whover needs it, in accordance with Marx's dictum.

    There's no question that RMS has a political agenda, but then so does the Daemon News, which has repeatedly demonstrated that its political agenda is to try to get people to release software on BSD-like rather than GPL-like terms.

  • Does any of the *BSDs have a proper pthreads implementation based on kernel threads? Last time I checked, only FreeBSD had a pthread.h in /usr/include.
  • In fact, threads on linux are kernel based, so the blocking IO problem doesn't exist there.
  • Assuming you've installed the source tree from your 3.1 distribution, a cvsup to 3.2 will not take long at all, since it only updates the things that were changed. I wouldn't expect it to take more than 30 mins on a 33.6 connection.

  • Why is it that with every BSD story, someone has to go trolling for flames?

    If someone posted anti-Linux propaganda replies to every Slashdot story with a penguin on it, it'd be war.

    Doug White
    Tech Support Volunteer
    questions-at-freebsd-dot-org

  • I'm very interested in security stuff.

    I currently use debian's non-US security stuff; primarily, ssh, ssl, apache-ssl, ssltelnet, etc.

    What can OpenBSD offer over what I already have?

  • Go to the web sites and look around a little bit...

    For instance, OpenBSD's site is pretty small and to the point: you can order CD-Roms from a variety of places, including Amazon. You can also get rather nice T-Shirts.
  • Oh yes, and for buying OpenBSD in Europe, you have a choice of Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Britain, and even France now ! :)
  • This is one prominent new feature of OpenBSD 2.5, along with IPv6 and loads of minor tweaks everywhere.
  • Complete FUD.

    Almost every `free' distribution get sponsored by various people at different points. The FSF gets grants, David Millert is payed by RedHat, and so on.

    Getting a grant from Usenix and using it to press/give away more CDs makes perfect commercial sense.

    This does *not* mean BSDs are dead. I can assure you that OpenBSD is quite well, financially speaking.
  • We're getting there as far as the new VM system goes... as far as I know, NetBSD still has some trouble with it in some areas, which is kind of why we're waiting on it...

    On the other hand, it's true that we could use more people to play on some lesser-used platforms... one cool point of OpenBSD is that it's fairly open: once you prove you know how to do honest work, it's real easy to become a developper, and the source is completely open & visible for everyone to comment on.
  • Not only is this FUD, but this looks malicious as well.

    Either you're hell-bent on destroying OpenBSD's image, or you're completely clueless and terminally brain-dead, take your pick.

    Yes, it's true, OpenBSD does not cater to complete idiots, as you've found out.

    - ssh ?
    patent issues: can't be included on the CD if it's to be used BOTH in the US, and elsewhere. *however*, there is a port, and this is probably the most prominent package that gets built for all architectures... Installation is just a matter of getting either the intl or usa flavor, and doing a pkg_add. Shesh !

    - sslay ?
    why don't you try `man ssl' some time ? maybe you'll find out that there *is* a patent issue as well, and that the true, complete sslay libraries with RSA code are *also* available for download... same problem as with ssh, and that *everything*'s ready for use (secure web server, and all that).

    I should know, my OpenBSD box uses only ssh, and I'm setting up a secure-webserver next month... tried all the experiments on OpenBSD with no problem at all.
  • Wow, does this mean redhat has stopped patching kernel and pcmcia sources to add support for their system management utilities ?

    Last time I looked, either you used redhat unadultered, or you lost most of their system administration stuff each time you installed a new kernel.

    Besides, installing new kernel source usually completely destroys your rpm database... pretty hard problem to solve, I know. But you're acting as though this kind of stuff didn't exist.
  • Ok, so redhat-specific sound configuration
    utilities don't exist...
    and the redhat kernel source is the actual official release...

    and the pcmcia drop-in without any trouble.

    and you install your kernels WITHOUT upgrading /usr/include, or are you saying you don't overwrite files there ?
  • There's a large difference between the Linux and the BSD model of development.

    In Linux-land there is about one kernel (with slight tweaks) and loads of distributions with lots of minute to large changes everywhere).

    In BSD-land, you've got three distributions, which noticeable changes everywhere: kernel, user-land, ports.

    If you look at BSD logs, you'll often see the same names, or stuff taken from one BSD to the next. I think there might even be a higher level of cooperation between BSD distros than Linux. I know for sure that we don't hesitate to pick useful stuff from Net/FreeBSD when it comes along... in some cases, we wait until stuff is stable enough to include.

    Sure, you might miss some of the `bleeding edge' that's soooo keewl when running linux with a beta kernel, a beta glib, and beta stuff everywhere.

    Not to say that this is impossible in BSD land, my laptop running full-tilt egcs-990502 and soon binutils-990427 is about as bleeding edge as it goes :) It's just a bit less accessible for newbies, which just means you can't feel like a hacker without *becoming* one.
  • Binaries are usually portable if you have to.
    One point of the matter is to try to run from source when you can, which is why the ports systems of all three BSD are highly functional.

    Just cd to the right directory, type make install, and magic starts: the box finds out what it needs, gets it thru ftp, and builds a brand new binary. Magic, or not ? :)

    As far as emulation goes, let's see...
    - I've been running Linux's quake.
    - svgalib works as well, even though it's somewhat insecure.
    - libggi is mostly working.
    - my netscape is a bsdi binary, and I use Maple for linux every day.

    Icky stuff such as OSSaudio calls works pretty well under OpenBSD (xanim runs, complete with sound)... it just becomes a question of how far you're willing to push linux support. One reason to run OpenBSD in the first place is so that you don't have to finnagle with all those libc5/libc6/glibc2.1/egcs fun that Linux seems to have these days. :)

    Oh, and I also know that Mathematica runs, or that WordPerfect has a complete functional port... but I don't use these.
  • but with an ABI layer you are running at the same speed as the processor, just adding and extra translation layer inbetween the running program and the OS.

    If my understanding is correct, this isn't true, at least not for FreeBSD.

    The image activator that is responsible for initally loading the program image, fixing up references to shared objects, and the like, also selects the translation table used for system calls.

    FreeBSD (in common with Linux, and probably the other *BSDs as well) has several image activators, and one is chosen depending on the binary format. For example, there's the a.out activator, the ELF activator, the gzip activator (that lets you run binaries that have been gzip'ed) and the Linux activator.

    The Linux activator is much like the normal FreeBSD activator, excepts it selects a different syscall translation table. That's it. There's no on-the-fly translation of Linux instructions, or anything like that, so there's no performance hit.

    N

  • www.ixsoft.de, www.lob.de
  • Because it's nonsense.


    Usenix [usenix.org] subsides developement of the *BSDs and Debian because CDs of their distributions will be given away for free at the Usenix Technical Conference in June (I submitted this story [usenix.org] to slashdot, but well...).


    All of them are non-commercial organizations who rely on donations solely. But this doesn't mean that they are at the brink of collapsing. The term 'charity' is not just false, it was used in an inflammatory sense here.


    That's why.


    belbo

  • Hold on, let me wipe the tears induced by uncontrollable laughter from my eyes!

    Wow, what a bold statement. "The main difference is that Linux is a success and *BSD is a failure" and "Most BSDs will be gone within a year or two due to fincancial problems".

    Hmm, what "facts" do you have to support such a bold statement? (Personal feelings, etc?)

    As for *BSD dists dieing, HAHA. There are many corporate/commercial sites that only run FreeBSD for their "live" web, mail, and DNS servers.

    Sarcasm On

    Gamespot, Yahoo, the Apache Group, etc... They must be insane!!! for using FreeBSD; educate them before it's too late!!!...

    Sarcasm Off

    Ahh, anyway, why would I want to buy, for my purposes, a FreeBSD CD if I can:

    1. Do a FTP install
    2. Make a local CVS copy

    So, CD publishers are not a big concern for me, and maybe the other users of the *BSD's as well, although I don't have any data to back that statment up. :)

    "But only a fool would switch to this BSD sinking ship"

    Oh man, you top it off by insulting the *BSD users! Clearly yours is the attitude of a person who has not used a BSD variant (correctly) before. As for me, and I can ONLY speak from personal experience, *BSD is here to stay. It has been truely "Rock Solid" for me, and has met and surpassed any requirements we have thrown it's way. Linux is great as well.

    Use what you like. Use what works best for you.

  • Well, someone appears to be pissed off that his favourite Linux distro didn't get the offer from Usenix!

    NetBSD will be pressing its own CD-ROMs, actually, though it will likely wait for the 1.4.1 release, since it will be out in the fairly near future (a couple of months) and it seems a bit of waste to press a huge pile of 1.4 disks only to have them go obsolete a month later. And I doubt that Walnut Creek is lacking in the resources to press FreeBSD CDs for the new release, either.

    cjs

  • OpenBSD - The FreeBSD ports with NetBSD's selection of different hardware. Has auited the code for security.
    FreeBSD - Optimized for x86 opcodes. Easy to use ports/packages.
    Actually, the NetBSD ports tree is right up there now, too. In the eighteen months since it was created it's come along fantastically.

    Note that OpenBSD doesn't have as broad multi-platform support as NetBSD any more; OpenBSD started with the NetBSD source code a couple of years ago, but they've not imported most of the major NetBSD changes in the last year and a half (and there have been some big ones in the kernel, such as a complete new VM system).

    Another problem that OpenBSD has had in the past (and may still have) is getting code compiled regularly on all their platforms; sometimes they appear to go a couple of months without a compile of some ports. So even if you're not a programmer, you can be a big help to them just by doing regular builds of OpenBSD-current on non-i386 hardware. (This help would also be welcome in the NetBSD camp, of course, though having more developers they aren't as needy in this regard.)

    cjs

  • The thing that I don't get, is that the Linux people are always saying that BSD is a waste of time and that there's too many versions to make a difference.

    This is coming from a community where there are approximately 12 different distributions of the same operating system. Not to mention, there is a new kernel patch released every other day, then Alan Cox makes his own patches of the same thing. Doesn't that sound a bit hypocritical?

    As far as the different free BSD's go, they all have different goals for what they want their operating system to do, but they also cooperate with each other. The Linux kernel hackers have been known to borrow from the BSD's from time to time also.

    So quit your quibbling over which is better. If you look in comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc and comp.os.linux.advocacy, almost all the threads are a BSD vs. Linux vs. Windows, or a GPL vs. BSD license argument. Both sides are trying to convince the other that they're better, while the other side isn't listening at all. It's like a catholic priest trying to convert a buddhist monk.

    The moral of the story, kids, is use what you like, and don't worry about which is better.
  • Binary emulation under OpenBSD (at least Linux emulation on i386) works more or less exactly like that of NetBSD.

    My only problem under OpenBSD is that linux programs using /dev/dsp instead of /dev/audio will not sound too good. Just hack the specific program and recompile at it will work fine.

    /G
  • How can a mutlithreaded application using userland threads take advantage of SMP? The kernel will only schedule the process on one processor and then all the userland threads must take turns running on that single processor. Kernel threads let one process run threads on multiple processors simultaneously.

  • FreeBSD at least has very robust Linux emulation. Civ:CTP will probably work with very little effort (Wordperfect and Q3Test both run on FreeBSD using the Linuxmulator.)

    I believe that binary swapping between the BSD's is also possible, though being a FreeBSD user, binaries for NetBSD and OpenBSD are usually already available for FreeBSD, making emulation of them unnecessary most of the time. As for the other two, I will defer to users of those.
  • "Some would say that the absence of the GPL is one of the features of BSD".

    Some other would say that the absence of the BSD license is one of the feature of Linux.

    It depends of what you think about both licenses. I don't like to think that the BSD license allow people to take the software you have written and are just obliged to say "thanks to x for programming this great software that will allow us to make big bucks on it without giving anything back to the community".

    The GPL isn't perfect but at least she infect the code so anybody can still make money out of a GPL'd program but he must give something back to the community if he want to improve the program (or to keep the improvment for himself otherwise).
  • What's wrong with "cvsup -g -L 2 -z /etc/cvsupfile" followed by a "make world"?

    But don't hesitate to buy the CDROM if you'd like to support FreeBSD.

    hroi@sorbated ~ > uname -a
    FreeBSD sorbated.prunes 3.2-BETA FreeBSD 3.2-BETA #0: Tue May 11 13:35:35 CEST 1999 root@sorbated.prunes:/usr/src/sys/compile/SEXTANT i386
  • Why was this moderated down???
  • Is there some sort of connection between Usenix and the BSD release dates?
    All of the free BSD's are releasing just in time for Usenix it seems. Hmm.
    The NetBSD folks will have NetBSD 1.4 running on an IMac at Usenix.
  • I have always been curious about portability between the various versions of FreeBSD versus the portability between distributions of Linux.

    For example, the new game "Civilization: Call to Power" should be able to run on any distribution of Linux, as long as the kernel is 2.0.x or 2.2.x.

    Are binaries usually portable from FreeBSD to NetBSD to OpenBSD?

    -- UOZaphod
  • Last time I ordered, you could buy any of the three BSDs for $5 apiece from www.cheapbytes.com or all three together (3 cdroms) for $10. These aren't the "official" releases though. Just everything you'd get with an "official" release.

    A problem still exists with international distribution (at least of the NetBSD CD) because the crypto is included on the CDs.

    I would consider shipping a NetBSD CD with the crypto directory removed (it's not very big and you can download that part yourself) to a few individuals if needed. (but I only have a slow CDR drive so I'm NOT a publisher by any means).
  • FreeBSD isn't very fast if you're not running an Intel processor. (but several other architectures are being ported to)

    I've learned a lot from running NetBSD/i386, myself. In my very humble opinion, NetBSD has the brightest future, as it's from the get-go designed to be platform neutral. But it's definitely not a fighting matter.

    All 3 of the free BSDs are available on CD-ROM from Cheapbytes. I got great satisfaction when I was first experimenting with NetBSD out of downloading the whole i386 port myself, though.

    PCMCIA is better supported in NetBSD than in any flavor of Linux. It isn't a bolt-on accessory, it's right in the kernel. And I like that the whole userland can be compiled as a unit. It's not a stew of added-on pieces as with Linux.

    Just my humble opinion. I've run Linux since 1994 but NetBSD only about a half a year.
  • An interesting, and to some developers, central point of the difference between Linux and the BSD unices is that BSD is not under the GPL. This can become a very political issue if pushed to the wall. There's an interesting article [daemonnews.org] about these issues in the latest issue of Daemon News [daemonnews.org], which is a publication well worth reading if you're interested in BSD.

    Some would say that the absence of the GPL is one of the features of BSD.
  • > There's no question that RMS has a political
    > agenda, but then so does the Daemon News, which
    > has repeatedly demonstrated that its political
    > agenda is to try to get people to release
    > software on BSD-like rather than GPL-like terms.

    Nobody can deny that there is politics on both sides of the arguement. "Politics" is not automatically a dirty word. My biggest concern where the GPL is concerned is that as the popularity of Linux increases and it continues to commercialize, there may be a legal melt-down at some point. (How much of the GPL has been tested in court? With the pockets of GPL advocates and benificiaries growing deeper and deeper every day, how long before the legal hassles start?) 'FUD', I know, but fears that will only be go away when uncertainty is removed, to eliminate the doubt.

    I like the idea that there are other licensing schemes out there being advocated, and not just GNU. It strikes me sometimes that certain GNU advocates view the GPL they champion as a Borg-like entity that will inevitably absorb all software.
  • Nothing on their home page. Their news department is a little moldy with the most recent news article being from 12/98 about offering Linux compatilibity [bsdi.com] of some sort. "BSDI will ship open beta software of the new Linux application platform in the beginning of the first quarter 1999."

    Hmmm....

  • >

    And why can't Linux or BSD do a binary emulation of my Concurrent 3200 OS/32 programs? Come to think of it, how about IBM 370 mainframe code???

    Actually, there is a big difference between emulation and the ABI layer (app. binary interface). xBSD's on an i386 platform can run most of the i386 Linux apps, since the processor can run the actual code without "emulation", but xBSD's are not going to run Sparc SunOS code on an i386 platform, anymore than your average PC running M$ slow-doze is going to run Mac programs.. or your M$DUHS machine running Vax/VMS DCL scripts and executables.

    An emulator would be painfully slow... but with an ABI layer you are running at the same speed as the processor, just adding and extra translation layer inbetween the running program and the OS. When properly handled the time taken by this layer will be very negligable. Obviously this will have a greater effect on programs that do a lot of I/O (lots of system calls) versus programs that do a large amount of calcuation (work in memory will run the same under the ABI as not, perhaps better than under the original OS if the ABI machine has better memory management).
  • If you are going to buy an OpenBSD cd, please do The Right Thing(TM) and buy an official cd. It may cost a few more dollars, but those dollars are going to support the project.

    While Open BSD is free to use and distribute (as in beer and speech), it is not free (beer) to develop.

    Myself, I will be buying an OpenBSD cd and couple tshirts when they are released on may 19 (I can just drive to the distribution point in Calgary).

    But since OpenBSD is free software, you are free to make your own decision.
  • *BSD is the continuation of a failed idea -- that quality matters. The lesson of the last 20 years has been that marketing is more important. Unix has always had superior technology to anything Microsoft. Microsoft has always out-marketed Unix vendors. Unix vendors (and this includes the *BSD people) have responded by creating Yet Another Unix which will have higher technical quality than the opposition. But the opposition is not the other Unices, it is Microsoft (or any other proprietary OS vendor).

    Me? I use Linux, because I want to make a difference in the world. I will give the *BSD folks an ounce of credibility when they reconcile their differences.
    -russ
  • Not a single *BSD partisan addressed my point -- that the maxim "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door" is false.
    -russ
  • At the moment I run a SuSE-Linux at home. Since you can never learn enough, I'd like to try out one of the BSD-Clones on some DOS-infected Hardware.

    Where can I buy a CD-ROM with all I need to setup a *BSD-System? I only have a 33'600 Baud dialup-connection to the internet and therefore do not want to download the whole stuff. Probably there would be two newer versions of each, before I finished downloading. =:-)

    Does anyone know if there is some shop selling a distribution here in switzerland/europe?

  • Uhmph, sorry, that should have been
    ... Linux is like a Ferrari and *BSD is like a Mercedes ....

    (I accidentally pressed Submit instead of Preview button.)
  • I like that comparison from one of the FreeBSD advocacy sites. It goes somewhat like this:

    Linux is like a Ferrari and FreeBSD is like a Mercedes (OpenBSD comes with tinted bulletproof windows, NetBSD can go on any road and FreeBSD has a good diesel engine). NT is like '72 Yugo

    This Ferrari-Mercedes comparison is, of course, not speed-wise but reffering to what are each of these OSes meant for.

    BTW, I have an '83 Yugo (really) and I'd really love to make a switch to Ferrari or Mercedes :-)
  • I've been using linux since 1996 and am happy with it. Never tried any BSD but I'd like to. What are the differences between linux and BSD? Is BSD worth a try?
  • So you can install it on your laptop while waiting for the movie.
  • And this gets score 1??? Is Slashdot now condoning FUD?

    There is no ongoing financial difficulties with any of the BSDs. Usenix is not funding the pressing of BSD/Debian cdroms, they are funding the cds they will distribute to Usenix visitors.

  • Yeah, I was wondering these days what was the deal with new releases of SuSE, Red Hat, the new kernels, etc... :-)

    I know that some people *did* object to a FreeBSD one month ahead of schedule, but with *everyone* else doing it, there was really no option.
  • I don't know about NetBSD and OpenBSD binaries, but I'd be surprised if the Linux Civ:CTP binaries don't work on FreeBSD... :-)

  • Re:cvsup (Score:1)

    by dcs ( 42578 )
    If you install the source code from 3.1, it will be over so fast you'll think it didn't work. :-)

    Well, ok, maybe not *THAT* fast on a 33.6, but fast enough. :-)
  • It is not true that the performance is similar. The performance of userland threads is much higher than that of kernel threads. On FreeBSD, up to 3.1-RELEASE (but not 3.1-STABLE) that has been obscured by a performance bug in the pthreads library, but feel free to compare an application with a significant amount of threads (try 100) on any kernel threads implementation of any OS versus the FreeBSD pthreads library on 3.2-RELEASE.
  • I use Linux, because I want to make a difference in the world. I will give the *BSD folks an ounce of credibility when they reconcile their differences.

    So, what's the best Linux distro, then? :>)

    --
    They call me Cuban Pete, I'm the king of the rhumba beat,
    With a pair of maracas I go chick-chicky-book chick-chicky-boom.
  • The main difference is that Linux is a success and *BSD is a failure.

    Why is it that some people feel that for Linux to succeed, BSD must fail? Or that Windows must fail? Why can't an operating system stand on its own merits?

    Some people seem to think that choice of an operating system is a popularity contest. This is the "eat shit: 2 billion flies can't be wrong" argument and serves no useful purpose beyond starting flame wars.

    When I choose an OS, I couldn't care less how much of an istalled base it has as long as it does what I need it to do. Nor does it matter whether the OS has a well-known personality associated with it, or that it's the current media darling.

    I use Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows because each of them fulfills a special need that I have, not because of hype, popularity, or snob appeal.
  • Unlike what many people think, the GPL does not permit freedom, it forces openness, if you use it or any of the software under it. The BSD license and thus the BSD OSes are a better choice for commercial businesses in that it allows them to patch sources with their own code and sell the binaries, provided that the authors and contributors get credit for their work. I consider this to be an amazingly good and often overlooked advantage of the BSD License over the GNU GPL.
  • FreeBSD is mostly based on 4.4BSD Lite2 developed in the University of California in Berkeley. FreeBSD only barely has to do with GNU, in that it uses gcc (egcs in 4.0-CURRENT) and a few other of the binutils (as, nm, etc.), however, RMS has no right to say that it should be called GNU anything, since GNU is a minority under FreeBSD.
  • Why do you gloat so gleefully over the potential failure of the other major free operating system? I certainly don't. It doesn't strike me that linux 'winning' the 'os war' would be any better than microsoft winning the os war, especially if the first victim on the road to victory is the *BSD movement. Instead of an arrogant, bloated, disorganized, over-reaching company producing endless vaporware and releasing bug fixes as product upgrades, there would be an arrogant, unfocused, fratracidal set of hackers producing endless variants of the same program, none of which the average user could ever fathom. Where's the improvement in that?

    That being said, I think it would better for the *BSD movement if there was some consolidation. The article at salon.com yesterday is relevant to the *BSD issue.

    Gonna order my copy of OpenBSD tomorrow.
  • You're right, if a thread blocks for IO the whole process blocks for IO. The key is to use non-blocking IO. fcntl is your friend.

    Anyways, Linux has the same problem, so it doesn't add much fire to the Linux vs. BSD arguement.
  • BS.

    I've used pthreads on FreeBSD, I've used pthreads on Linux (Redhat 5.2) Both block the whole App when a thread waits for a socket connection.

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