FreeBSD 3.4 released 143
On the networking front, the 'netgraph' code has been integrated, giving a much more modular networking framework, allowing arbitrary protocols and transports to be connected together. Amongst other things, this means that PPP over ISDN and PPP over ethernet now work. Many ISPs want to support PPP over ethernet now, and FreeBSD is ideal for this environment. The netgraph code was written and donated to the FreeBSD project by Whistle, and interested hackers can read more information about netgraph.
ISDN support has been improved, with an updated i4b(4) driver. Amongst other things, this adds support for more ISDN cards, including Asuscom ISDNlink 128K, AVM Fritz!Card PCI and PNP, and the Siemens I-Surf 2.0.
There have been security improvements across the board, including a new FreeBSD auditing project, to inspect the source code for potential problems, and fix them as necessary. ICMP redirects, outgoing RSTs, and incoming SYN|FIN frames can all be blocked, to negate certain DoS attacks, and the packet forwarding system can be configured to do so without decreasing the TTL, making gateways and firewalls much less visible, to list a few of the security related enhancements.
The Linux ABI has been improved, thanks to the efforts of Marcel Moolenaar. Linux versions of Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament work flawlessly (and often faster) on FreeBSD, as do many other apps for which only Linux binaries are available.
As well as these, there have been the general plethora of fixes, updates, improvements to the documentation, and additions to the ports tree. There are currently more than 2,800 software ports available, from Apache, to Zope, which makes software installation that bit simpler for everyone.
FreeBSD 3.4 is available now.
Negative on that 4.0 thing, its sooner than you th (Score:2)
"Those will come with the 4.0 release, later next year."
Not really "late" next year.. Q1 or Q2, depending.
Sysinstall is finally being replaced with something a little more modular. Expect to see X-based installs, just like Caldera and RedHat, as an option for users who don't care about the OS but are instead writing a magazine review
The second biggest change with sysinstall is that if one of the packages is interactive and prompts the user for a question about their mail relays or something else, when the progress meter on the first tty stops, the dialog will come up (For the weenies you don't realize you have to do Alt-F2, i watch _entire_ installs on that screen. Progress bars are for weenies)
Enough of that. I'm going to give sysinstall source a whirl.. dcs and jkh have been fighting over who does what next
Super Cool. (Score:2)
Why should I change? (not a flame, just a serious question)
-Davidu
Re:Negative on that 4.0 thing, its sooner than you (Score:1)
Markus
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Re:Super Cool. (Score:1)
Re:Super Cool. (Score:1)
say...hmm....RH6.1 (GUI) or RH6.0...also, does it support most of the same hardware?
It's a fairly straight-forward text install. Feelwise, the install is closest to Slackware.
As for why to switch, why not try both and see what you prefer? There are technical reasons not to choose FreeBSD (eg, its SMP support sucks chunks through a straw compared to Linux), but then there are technical reasons to choose it as well.
Re:Super Cool. (Score:1)
but i've done debian 2.0 and redhat 5.1 installs.
I'd say that the FreeBSD install is _DEAD_ simple.
It is as straightforward as you'd possibly want..
You won't see X-based graphics until 4.0 sometime, so you will have to settle for the console, curses (well, dialog) screen.
You tell it if you want a minimal, basic, X-user, developer, etc. install, whatever other packages you want, it runs XF86Setup for you, you tell it whether you want KDE or Windowmaker or what have you, you tell it whatever, its dead simple..
Installation of software is a sinch, nothing is easier than pkg_add -r packagename or cd
Stuff doesn't break much
http://www.freebsd.org/
Read, it'll talk a lot more than I will
Re:Super Cool. (Score:1)
SMP has been making leaps and bounds.
What is it with Slashdot? (Score:1)
on the other hand, its not that big a deal since slashdot doesn't actually aim to be an up-to-the-minute news source, but rather an all-encompassing method of keeping geeks informed. (read: don't flame me)
some info for those new to FreeBSD (Score:4)
Why Yahoo uses FreeBSD [geocities.com] written by David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo
Booting Linux and FreeBSD using BootEasy [freebsd.org]
Booting Linux and FreeBSD using LILO [freebsd.org]
Linux+FreeBSD mini-HOWTO [linuxdoc.org] Excellent resource for installing and using FreeBSD and Linux on the same system
Official Java Support for FreeBSD No. 1 RFE on JDC (Score:2)
After Linux was announced officially supported the Linux RFE was obsoleted and now support for FreeBSD is the number one Request For Enhancement on Sun's Java Developer Connection!
Check out the Top 25 RFE's [sun.com]. (Free JDC membership requiered)
Markus
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Re:Super Cool. (Score:1)
Can't get ISO (Score:1)
Wonder when the ISO will be downloadable. Probably as soon as it's mirrored to the other sites...
--
WorldServe Consulting [worldserve.net]
Re:BSD has lost, Linux won the unix war. READ ON (Score:1)
per the previous intel/freebsd hype story... this is pure hogwash, intel should be sued by the linux community.
For what? Is that what you think linux is about? Linux is not about suing.
its a known fact that linux is far more secure out of the box, scales better, runs faster, and has more support.
I'd like to hear the source of this "known fact". All of MY sources say OpenBSD is the securest OS out there.
freebsd and any other bsd for that matter cannot stand up to the superiority and mass appeal of linux.
Huh? In my opinion, once the people convert to linux then other people will show them how similar and interchangable all the Unixes are.
linux has won the unix war. it crushes *BSD, Solaris, IRIX, AIX, etc. no other os can match its superior SMP scalability, security, and more advanced features.
Huh again? SMP? As far as I know, linux does NOT scale well past 4 processors... i'm not a comp science degree so correct me if i'm wrong, but that's what I've heard.
can you say GNOME???
Linux, the choice of a GNU generation
LOL what does GNOME have to do with anything you've said before... is gnome even tied to linux? It's my understanding (flame me if i'm wrong) that pretty much anything Open source is useable on pretty much any platform that has X. Now someone who has gnome running on a BSD box let me know and prove me right
4.0 feature freeze "Real Soon Now" (Score:3)
4.0-current is starting to look real cool. For the inside scoop, you should check out the -current mailing list archives at FreeBSD.org, but here are a few things:
The new sysinstall will have the CAPABILITY to support X installs. The talk on -current is all for having a fancy dancy configurator, but they don't want to leave the possiblity out. (The sysinstall that exists now is utterly horrible for changing, but it does a whole lot of stuff)
The ata driver is nearing completion and will replace the old wd driver. This means UDMA-66 support and other goodies.
Sound is being wrapped up into a new pcm driver, with support for most PCI sound cards, and work on the mmap support is improving.
A lot of drivers are being turned into KLDs, I'm able to load and unload nfs, msdos, vesa, various ethernet cards, USB (doesn't work too well yet), netgraph, cd9660, yadda yadda yadda.
I also here talk of after 4.0 FreeBSD will get a new ports/packages system. The ports tree is the best part of FreeBSD: cd /usr/ports/type/port && make install clean makes installing software hassle free. I don't know how it could get BETTER but that's what they're saying.
Have you ever used FreeBSD? (Score:1)
---
FreeBSD is to Linux as Linux is to Windows
Re:Super Cool. (Score:1)
I like FreeBSD a lot, don't get me wrong, but some of the FreeBSD Bigots (especially in #freeBSD) turn off would-be users.
--
WorldServe Consulting [worldserve.net]
Re:4.0 feature freeze "Real Soon Now" (Score:3)
Presumably you mean "a lot more drivers"; I've been running with the VFAT and ISO 9660 file systems as loadable modules for a while, under 3.x.
Or just use pkg_add if you don't care about having the source around. (pkg_add -r is nice for installing from the Internet; Debian has a similar mechanism for downloading and installing, I don't know whether any of the RPM-based package installers do.)
Re:some info for those new to FreeBSD (Score:5)
The Complete FreeBSD Manual [cdrom.com] which flat out contains everything you need or want to know about BSD
New FreeBSD Sub.with 3.4 [cdrom.com]. This will not just get you the brand new 3.4 release for the super-low price of $24.95, but will enroll you in the FreeBSD subscription program, where you'll get a new version of the disc automatically at the discounted subscription rate.
:)
For the subscription, they bill your credit card automatically when the new version ships (credit cards are the only payment method possible for our subscriptions). The normal shipping charge applies. You may cancel at any time, just write, call, fax, or email. FYI, there are approximately four releases of FreeBSD [freebsd.org] a year, so it'll cost you approximately $100/yr. But you're supporting great, freely available software development... and a kickass OS!
---------
Question: How do I leverage the power of the internet?
Re:4.0 feature freeze "Real Soon Now" (Score:1)
$ rpm -qlp ftp://updates.redhat.com/6.1/noarch/timetool-2.7.1 -1.noarch.rpm
/etc/X11/applnk/System/timetool.desktop
/usr/bin/timetool
/usr/lib/rhs/control-panel/timetool.init
/usr/lib/rhs/control-panel/timetool.xpm
$
Looks like RPM is in good shape.
A Serious Answer (long though) (Score:5)
I've been using FreeBSD for a few years now, along with most other OS's I can get my hands on.
Currently I have RedHat Linux 6.1 installed on one box, and FreeBSD 3.4-Stable on my gateway machine.
The simple answer is, very similar in most ways, but that really doesn't tell you much. I'll instead mention some of the most obvious differences.
First of all, unlike RedHat, FreeBSD doesn't install and enable everything under the sun. With FreeBSD, if you choose to install "everything", you still have to configure and then enable most added-value type daemons. This is both good & bad, depending upon the user and what they can handle. If you're used to having some sort of defaults set and Samba, Apache, AnonFTP, etc. all startup on your first boot - you may be frustrated that these aren't running the first boot into FreeBSD. Although base defaults are places in
The second difference, and most important to me, is FreeBSD's install lets you choose the base "distribution" you want (Developer, X-Developer, X-User, Minimal, Everything, etc.) BEFORE it fetches anything. This is really important to me since I install via FTP from the Internet. I just replaced RedHat 6.1 with FreeBSD 3.4 on my laptop. Since I have the full 3.4-Stable sources on my gateway machine, I only need a minimal install on the laptop. I can then NFS mount the gateway's fs and compile/install the complete system from there. This cuts down drastically the amount of transfers over my modem. When I installed the minimal RedHat distributing on my laptop it took quite a few hours to complete. FreeBSD was done with the minimal base in about 20 minutes. Then, since I had already compiled the updated source on my gateway, I just had to mount the NFS exports and do a "make installworld" - BAM! Complete install on my laptop within about an hour.
As for technical differences, Linux uses one entire "DOS" extended partition for it's further slicing into swap and fs points. With FreeBSD, this "DOS" partition is created as a primary, not extended. This makes it easier to delete if you're just playing with OS's, since a DOS diskette with fdisk on it can remove the FreeBSD partition. With Linux, you can't remove the extended partition because extended drives exist, but DOS can't read the extended drive, so you're SOL.
The init scripts are also completely different. Many folks may argue that System V scripts are better than BSD scripts, or vis versa. I don't particularly think either is better, they're simply different.
hmmm... Think that's the major things you'll notice right off the bat. The hardware support is pretty much the same, I rarely find a device that one can use and the other can't. Usually, it's either supported by both FreeBSD and Linux, or neither of them at all.
Good luck! Remember, new experiences are opportunities to learn and grow! I have used/still use about 15 different OS's. Most of them Unix or Unix-like variants. They all have strengths, they all have weaknesses, and they all are different in many ways. But then again, they are all mostly the same.
Michael.
Re:What is it with Slashdot? (Score:1)
Matt
Re:What is it with Slashdot? (Score:1)
Need Fast Java VM... (Score:1)
ppp over ethernet (Score:1)
Re:Can't get ISO (Score:2)
ùíù Topic (#freebsd): The 3.4-RELEASE ISO IS READ ONLY BECAUSE ITS FUCKED -- OK?
Re:BSD has lost, Linux won the unix war. READ ON (Score:1)
Re:ppp over ethernet (Score:2)
Currently ethernet supports *NO* kind of user authentication, never was designed to authenticate. This is bad, especially for cable modem users, because cable companies rely on ethernet to network their subscribers with. I dont have a cable modem (sigh), but I have heard that you can access any system on a cable network (if the system is not secure). Point Im trying to make here is that when you send a packet out across an ethernet network, its broadcast to EVERYBODY, and frankly I wouldn't want some script kiddie watch my activities online with a packet sniffer.
Now with PPP, not only do you have authentication, but IIRC it has the ability to route (not sure if thats the best word to describe it) data to specific IP addresses. Once your system is authenticated, the ISPs routers can send data to you and not everybody else, and data you send out is only sent to the router.
Re:ppp over ethernet = for SERVERS ? (Score:2)
#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak
Re:ppp over ethernet (Score:1)
PPPoE does not change the way Ethernet works. It changes the representation of data which is transmitted over Ethernet. So, if you are hooked to an unswitched Ethernet, everyone on the network segment will be able to sniff your data packets, even if you use PPPoE.
Re:BSD has lost, Linux won the unix war. READ ON (Score:1)
Talk to Corel about that :)
Re:BSD has lost, Linux won the unix war. READ ON (Score:2)
From inetd.conf on my OpenBSD 2.6 laptop (recently installed, not yet tweaked):
#telnet stream tcp nowait root ...
Your other points, however, are well taken. Most open source OSen can be made as secure or as insecure as the admin is capable of. In the case of OpenBSD, it simply takes less effort since the emphasis is on security, whereas other OSen seem to be focused on ``gee whiz, look what I can do'' out of the box.
the unkindness of #freebsd (Score:3)
Think about all the fascinating socal factors involved. Who is drawn to irc? Who becomes a regular there? How is pecking order determined? How is it preserved? How does a community age? How does an established power or prestige structure react to new members in that community? How does the lack of face-to-face contact change interactions? Does communication suffer, or is it smoothed? Are we quicker to show kindness if the other person is a person, not lines of type? Are we quicker to do casual harm if all there is on the other side is a line of type? How do we perceive the "us" and "them"? Are strangers always "them", and if not, which ones are "us"? Does the speed of feedback change any of this? What behaviours produce positive reinforcement, what behaviours negative ones? How does the overall friendliness of the group change with time? Do members come and go randomly, or are their entrenched figures? How well do these group dynamics scale as membership increases? Are there regular patterns of behavior that occur only in specific sorts of groups but not in others? Is it long-term helpful to give individual attention to each newcomer's duplicate questions rather than creating a FAQ? What differences and similaries in communications can be found between mailing lists, newsgroups, IRC, and Slashdot? Are these different than the group dynamics you find in a real-time live club devoted to a common interest that meets regularly, or from what you'd find in an informal bunch of pals hanging out at there favorite pub? Is Slashdot really something of a time-delayed webchat?
There's a very interesting paper or three waiting for some budding sociologist to write about interactions in the hacker community's electronic forums.
Linux is Unix (Score:2)
Guess what? The similarities so far outweigh the differences as to render these latter wholly inconsequential. Quite obviously, here we are at most speaking variant dialects of the same common language called Unix, not completely different languages.
Technical merit not bigotry (Score:1)
Re:Yes, there must be a native Java port for FreeB (Score:1)
JDK 1.2 for Linux is available and working on FreeBSD, check the mailing list archives for more info on this. But native support would of course be preferred.
JDK 1.1 on FreeBSD is in excellent condition. Performance is IMHO good. Read mailing list archives on more info and discussion on this.
It's JDK 1.2 and future releases that are requested. Also some of the extensions could be worth having.
Markus
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Re:Runs Linux binaries faster than Linux? (Score:2)
Right now you would have to compare two boxes with the same RIVA or 3dfx card each to test for OS specific differences.
A couple of comments on Yahoo! usage of FreeBSD (Score:3)
David Filo tried an early version of Linux (a Slackware distro I beleive), but didn't have much success in getting it installed. The legend at Yahoo! is that a copy of FreeBSD was passed onto him, and he only gave it a try because it installed first time. A slightly dubious reason for choosing one OS over another, but at the time FreeBSD was certainly more mature than Linux.
Yahoo! use large numbers of uniprocessor machines with each HTTP request marshalled out on a round-robin basis. When the load gets too great, it's simply a case of adding more machines and tweaking the boxes that assign requests. This approach was taken because multiprocessor setups are that much less reliable.
My experience of FreeBSD was that it makes a fantastic server OS, but version 2.2.* didn't cut it as a desktop platform. I have a copy of 3.3 sitting in my desk drawer and I'm keen to see what's changed from a workstation user's perspective, so don't flame me about using an old version.
My major gripe with FreeBSD is that upgrading can be a pain. The ports and packages collection is not the panacea that many FreeBSD users seem to believe. My hard drive soon became full of half-working applications, with little or no control over what was being installed and where.
This may have been an issue with running FreeBSD 2.2.8 when version 3.1 was already available, but the ports and packages I tried came from the 2.2.* branch. Now that I've left Yahoo! I'm back to using Linux on the desktop, and NetBSD on my Sun servers.
There is undeniably an elitism amongst FreeBSD users that I neither liked nor could I understand. One of the regular complaints I heard was that Linux installation and configuration tools were uneccessary bloat. Well, I can hand edit a kernel config file on both Linux and FreeBSD as well as the next guru, but I'd much rather use 'make menuconfig'. This kind of carping was sheer elitism, and underlined that a sea change in FreeBSD users attitudes was required (if not in that of the developers). Otherwise, the OS would become nothing more than a *tiny* niche platform. With the alternative installation programs touted for version 4.0, it looks like this change is coming.
Chris Wareham
On Élitism (Score:3)
It's remarkable how much "technical competence" or "discerning professional judgment" gets branded as élitism. In fact, current usages of "élite", "élitist", and "élistism" are just part of the whole dumbing-down of America theme. Or, if you would, part of the supreme dominance of uninformed consumerism and the mass media's manipulations.
It is not "élitist" to prefer food that doesn't suck, or cars that don't break down, or software that doesn't crash. It is not "élitist" to want a clean, digital CD instead of a scratchy phonograph disc. It is not "élitist" to ask for a senior surgeon instead of an intern. It is not "élitist" to prefer BSD over CP/M.
In short, pay very careful every time you see someone using terms like "élite", "élitist", and "élistism". In almost every case, what you're seeing is a form of bigotry and prejudice that's bashing someone with a politically correct putdown that Joe Bubba can lend his cheerlead to. But it's still a disrespectful and facile insult.
This tred is subtly but seriously dangerous, and it's not just in our schools that it's happening. In recent years, the country as a whole as come to extoll the stupid, the dumb, the intellectually challenged if you would. There is no excellence, no pride, no "going the extra mile". To pretend that everyone is the same, that we are all no different in what we know or *can* know or what we do or *can* do, whether it be from training or education or intelligence or energy or motivation, is a damned lie.
So don't grab a nice little trendy buzzterm like "élitism" and bash down technical and professional competence, any individuality or drive or vision--any personal flare. By condesendingly scoffing at élitism, you're just furthering our current national hobby the Dumbing of America.
(And don't worry, you folks outside of America. Your time, too, is coming.)
One advantage of dpkg... (Score:1)
dpkg has an advantage over RPM (not sure about pkg_add) when it comes to dependencies. If you want to install a new package, you tell apt-get to install it, and it figures out what other packages you need. This vs. RPM, which tells you what _files_ you need...though I suppose you may want to install those library files manually anyway, but probably not in most cases.
Re:The #1 reason to pick FreeBSD over Linux (Score:1)
Oh yeah, you get Theo DeRaadt instead. Hrmmm...I still can't decide.
Linux is Unix (sort of) (Score:1)
IIRC the 'Unix' trademark is now owned by Usenix (spelling?), Novell giving it to them when they sold off their Unix investments. Again, IIRC, Usenix set up a branding program so that Unix-like operating systems could call themselves 'Unix' if they met a series of compatability tests.
I remember dealing with a person from IBM technical sales who said that OS/400 (the AS/400's operating system) could pass the standards needed, but 'IBM doesn't want the AS/400 lowered to the status of a Unix box'.
Has Linux received this branding? I believe that *BSD got it by being grandfathered in, but I could be wrong...
Jeff
Re:A Serious Answer (long though) (Score:1)
Please, don't take me as a Linux Troll, but I really don't understand what you said: the case you cite is just a possibility out of many.
Nothing prevents you to use 2 "DOS" primaries (as you call them), one for the fs, the other for the swap space). Or just one with the swap space in a file mounted via loop device (slower, of course). There's no requirement that Linux (and swap) stays in a particular partition.
Instead, a really nice feature that FreeBSD has and Linux hasn't yet is the layering of multiple filesystems one on top of each other (that is, the result is that in the same subtree you find files/directories belonging to different filesystems, all joined together without the need to do symlinks everywhere).
Tired of "Out of the box" gibberish. (Score:1)
I'm getting very tired of this "out-of-the-box" mentality. What is it that you want? If you want an OS to be totally secure OOTB, then it's impossible (different crypto for US v. other parts of the world). Plus, the idea of something being ready OOTB is so that less clued people can install it? This is a VERY BAD IDEA...you NEED cluefull people to at least set up the machine and put:
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
in a cron job (or install AutoRPM, or whatever), preferably to stay around and admin it, or it's NOT SECURE.
So, OOTB is for desktops then, you say? OK, if I shipped a system to be what I considered secure, it wouldn't have telnet, FTP, etc. enabled (or even present), so a lot of newbies would have a hard time using it. You can either have it be easily usable or secure to start with, take your pick. Desktops run svgalib much of the time anyway, so there goes your security.
Also:
1. The ports system sounds a lot like the Debian package system, which has never let me down. Other than WebGlimpse, I haven't needed to do a single non-package installation (other than compiling SSH, for which I would never use a package)(but it DOES have a Glimpse package! and also htdig!)
2. As Tom said below, linux IS unix; and as YOU said, many linux apps originated in unix.
3. Personal preference: I think that SysV is a much better system than BSD. But that's just me.
The post to which you replied WAS crap, but please get away from this notion of "out of the box"; it really needs to die.
Growl.
Re:The #1 reason to pick FreeBSD over Linux (Score:1)
Re:ppp over ethernet (Score:1)
- Dynamic IP addresses
- Authentication
- Header Compression. Most uses of PPPoE are
applications with much less than 10 Mbit/sec
and even on 10M it may be a win with PIII-500
- Easy switching to backup lines that are not
ethernet.
Note that the snopping another poster mentioned is
nonsense. You usually have your own wire to do
this.
Re:A Serious Answer (long though) (Score:3)
Don't forget some important non-technical features:
For Linux you get without doubt much more commercial support (books, magazines, products) right now than for FreeBSD, so it might be better suited for people who just want to escape Windows or simply want to use the system.
This does not mean that you are on your own with FreeBSD, the contrary is the case, the various (international and national) mailing lists offer great support and there are people who offer contracting.
For developers however, FreeBSD has the advantage of a true free license (you can basically do anything with the source except suing or claiming credit - no strings attached) and a very sane development structure, which covers the system as a whole and not just as kernel plus additions.
Aha, Mr. Christiansen ... (Score:2)
Dare we ask for a bit of professional knowledge?
Yes, but the FreeBSD attitude I encountered was along the lines of ``Why make it easy'' or ``If it is easy it must be crap''. As I noted, I can configure my networking with route and friends. I can configure my kernel by editing a commented text file. But this shouldn't preclude the inclusion of simple to use tools, or make me any less of a `power user' if I use them. Your whole comment just reeks of elitism, and that isn't anything to be proud of. Most people are elitist because they're insecure, not particlularily good in their field. That's why I refrained from lumping FreeBSD's maintainers with the users.
I agree that a trend towards not teaching complex computer subjects is dangerous. I was taught assembler, but program in C or Objective C. My point is that knowing assembler makes my code in C slightly more optimal, but I'm not going to code in assembler if I can avoid it. Perl is often touted as a language that non computer-scientists can benefit from - it gets the job done without necessarily requiring knowledge of what's going on in the guts of the machine. Are you saying that all those people who aren't programmers by trade, yet use Perl for the odd hack should be sneered at? It certainly looks that way judging by your post.
Having most likely burnt my bridges I'll leave it at that.
Chris Wareham
Re:On Élitism (Score:1)
I hope this isn't a direct response to the question of the Linux menuconfig being "bloat" or not. Recompiling a kernel takes a bit of learning no matter how you do it; I'm not sure why using a curses-based interface would mean that the admin in question eschews "professional knowledge".
Bigotry (Score:2)
As for Perl, I strongly resent its mention in every article that addresses me. I would also appreciate it if you would avoid putting words into my mouth I never said.
Server and desktop ... (Score:2)
For the desktop I require something that I can rapidly upgrade and has a wealth of niceties. The typical Linux distro comes with a massive amount of software, and something like RPM make upgrading a doddle.
I found FreeBSD performed poorly on low end hardware, something that Linux excels at. The libraries on FreeBSD 2.2.8 were odd - they deprecated BSD system calls that I had been used to on SunOS. I had much more success coding on the more SVR4 like Linux, and then compiling on FreeBSD for production purposes.
Arguably, you could consider Windows as a good desktop OS. It has lots of simple toys, and you can telnet to your development box. Run an X server and it's like you're on a Unix workstation. The flaw with this logic is if you're developing for a Unix OS, why not run one? This is why I always replace NT with Linux when I arrive at a new contract.
To conclude, I'm not knocking FreeBSD. It is a fine OS, and if you're from a BSD background (as opposed to a System V one) it makes the logical choice. My *personal* choice is Linux for the desktop, and my posts state my *personal* issues with FreeBSD in that environment. And with version 4.0 it looks like most of these will disappear.
As simple as that
Chris Wareham
Re:On Élitism (Score:2)
My posting was a reaction to the disgustingly commonplace use of the term "élitist" as a pejorative. Just like branding someone or something with emotionally-charged terms like "hick" or "Luddite" or "fascist"--or, sadly, even "liberal", resorting to words like "élitism" obscures objective reality by drawing upon subliminal prejudices rather than upon technical accuracy and sound reasoning. It is, in effect, nothing more than obnoxious name-calling, fully deserving of utter condemnation.
Re:A Serious Answer (long though) (Score:1)
Re:Bigotry (Score:1)
You are doing an excellent job of providing them for him.
As an aside, The same sort of thing also happens in linux land. Puffed up individuals like yoursleves make no distinction between "newbie" and "idiot looser", regardless of what OS they happen to espouse.
The posters statement merely points out that it is slightly more prevelent in FreeBSD land then it is in Linux land, which is true. Additionally, the newbie resources are not as complete nor as plentiful, and keeping that as a status quo almost seems to be a priority.
I'm a FreeBSD user. This commentary has nothing to do with my prefference of OS, merely with my preferrence of people. Think before you flame.
-T
Re:Bigotry (Score:1)
Re:Server and desktop ... (Score:2)
Having briefly worked in a Windows NT only environment, I couldn't agree more. However for reasons beyond many people's control they are often lumbered with such systems that they know aren't stable or easy to administer. An irreplacable system may depend on an OS feature, or only be available for a buggy version of that OS.
In an ideal world, I would choose the most suitable system for a given purpose. In the real world I'm often given an existing system, or company politics demands that I use brand X for a new one.
I'm currently working on a system that cries out to be rewritten, (it's a Perl hack thats become unmaintainable, but don't tell Tom). I'm not able to rewrite it though, because I would have to move it from Solaris to NT. Company policy stipulates that all new development is ported to Microsoft operating systems and tools.
As a consequence I'm having to rewrite bits of the system, adhering to the old design, and running it on an out of date version of Solaris.
Chris Wareham
Re:Technical merit not bigotry (Score:1)
Most of the problems I had with OpenBSD regarded the disk partitioning system, and that probably would not have been a problem had I not chosen an old Compaq (with the "maintenance partition") to implement it on. Once I got OpenBSD loaded without blowing away the things I wanted to keep, I had the NAT function working within one day. I was amazed. And pleased. My background on OSs is wide and deep in many spots, but I've still got my water wings on when it comes to Unix.
My OpenBSD box is a 75MHz Pentium with 40M RAM, with exclusively EISA and PCI cards in it. I've managed to download at greater than 400kBytes/sec (rarely, but it happens). (That was in case you were wondering what it took to run a good firewall/NAT/whatever system. I got carried away with the EISA/PCI stuff, but I had it piling up around here. I have to try it on a more modest 486 with ISA cards to see how it compares. Internet access speeds vary so much anyway, I'm not sure how to really test it...)
I agree with your comments regarding "flaming bigots". On the other hand, the Linux flaming bigots that I saw *here* on Slashdot were the reason I started checking out the *BSD OSs. Anything that generated that much negative assault *HAD* to be worth checking out. When people get that negative, it is usually because they are scared and ignorant. A reasonable person who has truly investigated the multiple platforms, when confronted with a question will say something along the lines of "I found x on y works better than w on v", not "x rules always! You are a fool to consider anything else".
You are also right, there is no either-or. It is the results that matter, not the tools used. A master can do more with bad tools than a novice can do with the best tools. Tools not only have to be matched to the task at hand, but to the PERSON or PEOPLE who are implementing the task.
I'm trying to think of some clever saying about closed minds/closed source, open minds/open source, but I'm failing. Besides, I've seen too many closed minds on open source, too.
Nick.
Re:Bigotry (Score:2)
I suppose it would be elitist to point out that inconsistencies like "with my prefference of OS, merely with my preferrence of people" are very frightening to see in a programmer?
Nope. Just pedantic ;-)
Chris Wareham
The Queen's English - getting quite offtopic (Score:2)
The common intpretation of `elitism' is as a pejorative. This could be attributed to a fear of ones peers, but at the close of the twentieth century I link it to something else. Elitism - a belief that something is better than something else - has been one of the most destructive forces in this century. Look at Nazism, Social Darwinism or the Khmer Rouge. Elitism has been adopted as a term for paternal or downright oppressive ideas.
I'm impressed that you still associate it with it's original dictionary meaning, but that doesn't stop others interpreting it differently. The English language evolves, and todays slang will be part of tomorrows codified language. I'm particularily aware of this as a learnt Finnish at university. The codified language is overseen by a government body, and all loan words (foreign words adopted into Finnish) are closely scrutinised. This has lead to a dialect that reflects a certain section of Finnish at best. In fact, no one speaks the language as it is in the dictionary.
The same is true of English. In the UK we have societies that campaign for the `Queen's English', an illusory dialect that scoffs at slang or regional pronunciation. This is `elitist' as in the popular definition of the word, and tries to stop the spoken language evolving.
Some of this is evident in the way ``old school'' Unix people look at Linux and projects like GNOME/KDE. It simply masks their fear of the new, just as Nazism often masked the German middle classes fear of the future.
This is why many people suspect FreeBSD bigots are clinging onto an antiquated set of tools, API's and configuration methods. This attitude is clearly not evident in the FreeBSD developers - but then what incentive is there in maintaining the statis quo?
Chris Wareham
Re:Linux is Unix (sort of) (Score:1)
Thanks for the update on the UNIX branding. I need to get myself back up to date on a couple of things now that my new job uses Unix (instead of NT - wonderful!).
Jeff
Re:Super Cool. (Score:1)
I've been using FreeBSD for a year and a half now.
For a long while it was installed and maintained by someone else who knew what he was doing. If something broke I asked him to fix it.
Eventually, though, he wasn't around. And I still loved FreeBSD. So, I decided to do my own install.
Its easy as pie. It took me a little while because I didn't know what any of my hardware was (the stuff was given to me). But hey...if I can do it, anyone can do it.
I've also installed Caldera something or another, and seen a RH and Suse install. They didn't appear to be any faster or easier.
And in the end, I know I've got a better machine
Lisa
www.grrl.org
Re:The Queen's English - getting quite offtopic (Score:2)
It's probably just a matter of having played enough tabletop games of Napoleonic miniatures as a youth for the word to have found that slot in my brain. You really wanted to have élite troops on hand. It made a tremendous difference in the outcome of the battle. If the other side had élites, and you didn't, you were probably doomed. Doubtless as a result of these childhood impressions, the word élite has for me always held a position of respect and honor.
My disgust with the commonplace use of the word is, however, completely unrelated to the presence of alternate definitions of that particular gloss, and likewise unrelated to the inexorable change that all language undergoes over the passage of the years. Rather, it's about bullying. As I believe I have previously explained, I take issue with the insultingly simplifying attitude with which the word has too often come to be used. This is the same problem as occurs when one stoops to calling someone a "hick", or, if you're in the American South, a "yankee". It's not an objective analysis: it's petty name-calling. The perpetrators should be ashamed of themselves.
The problem with all such name-calling is that it groups together a wildly diverse set of actual circumstances, each with its own individual issues, under an all-encompassing rubric that occludes what you're really saying by enflaming the passions of the listener. Name-calling blurs particulars by turning the specific into the generic, and, moreover, into a particular generic that evokes undisguised contempt, and in the current climate of polical correctness, risks no reproach. It's a bigotted way of bashing down a legitimate issue by diverting attention away from the actual concern by seeking a purely emotional reaction through stereotyping. Taking refuge behind a wholly derogatory ableit politically popular insult is nothing but an artless way to discourage reasoned discourse and true understanding. One should say whatever needs being said without pusillanimous posturing, without cowardly hiding behind belittling smokescreens.
In short, throwing "élitism" around is name-calling, and name-calling is bullying. Let's not encourage it.
Re:Bigotry (Score:1)
is such an important issue.
You could at least attempt a little
subtlety with your ad hominem arguments.
Re:One advantage of dpkg... (Score:2)
...and, presumably, gets, or can be told to get, them for you. (FreeBSD pkg_add does that, at least when run with the -r flag to fetch stuff over the Internet - I've not run it in any other mode; I don't know whether the packaging systems in the other BSDs do so, but they might.)
Which packaging systems, if any, keep track of which installed packages are needed by which other installed packages, so that, at minimum, they can tell you "careful, package XXX depends on that" if you try to un-install some package and, potentially, will automatically uninstall any package if it wasn't explicitly installed and if the last package that caused it to be installed as a dependency has been uninstalled?
Re:Super Cool. (Score:1)
ftp://ftp.iastate.edu/pub/netbsd/FAQ/.
observations follow.
1) out of the "box" I know what has been installed.
2) Many of the network type apps I run, either don't run on linux or run better on Freebsd
3) It is not as "beginner friendly" as Linux but as with any os, get to know it, it becomes easier.
4) installation is generally painfree if you rtfm. Package addition is simple.
5) I am not convinced it is ready for your laptop unless you are prepared to spend time getting the right laptop and the right pc-card.
6) Documented support is not as prevalent as with linux.
7) I am not aware of multilingual availibility - though someone may correct me.
Re:It says a lot about the 'quality' of FreeBSD (Score:1)
Re:Aha, Mr. Christiansen ... (Score:1)
Re:On Élitism (Score:1)
Uh, Tom, I live in Spain and what you say is already true around here for most people, no need to wait. But I think anyone can save (him|her)self by refusing to do what other people think it's appropriate, by plowing ahead regardless, going the extra mile without anyone looking over their shoulders. It's a personal choice, and if only a handful of people chooses to compete with us, so much the better, in a selfish sense.
There is a story about the work of Phidias, the greatest Greek sculptor, that is very relevant today. Phidias was commisioned to make the sculptures on the Parthenon, and he made a beautiful job. When he presented his bill, the Athenians refused to pay in full, claiming that Phidias sculpted the faces of the statues for all to see, and also their butts, which nobody could see. They wanted to pay only for the faces. Phidias countered by saying that they were mistaken, he sculpted the butts because the gods could see them. They finally paid him in full.
Phidias strived for perfection, and only the gods could see it. He surely was a damn good 'élitist'. And still inspiring, milleniums later.
Re:Super Cool. (Score:1)
Re:Bigotry (Score:1)
That's an error of the reader that is independent of the writers errors in spelling.
Re:Negative on that 4.0 thing, its sooner than you (Score:1)
There has been _lots_ of talking about it on the mailinglists, freebsd-current iirc, with a thread similar to: sysinstall: is it at the end of its line?
You probably won't see setup until 5.0
Go search the mailing lists for more, too much to cover here.
Re:Horray. I hate sysinstall (Score:1)
While it could have been friendlier, it certainly isn't "buggy" per-se. More likely a case of operator error, which isn't anything to be ashamed about because it may not have been too clear.
Would be cool.. (Score:1)
Can anyone say rushed release?
..
"We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom."
"Linux Link" (Score:2)
How does Linux relate to this FreeBSD release?
I don't see any BSD links in Linux stories...
Please explain!
ISO available now (Score:1)
Re:Runs Linux binaries faster than Linux? (Score:2)
What graphics cards are they equipped with?
In case of Matrox G200/G400 you can try to build a recent glx version from openprojects.net [openprojects.net] yourself, as it is more advanced in respect to these cards than the version I based the FreeBSD port on. (Lack of a Matrox card and end-of-year-project-craze has prevented me from updating it yet).
Then there seems to be some sort of AGP support added to Linux in the meantime. Don't how know much impact it has there, however.
Whinge, whinge, bloody moan ... (Score:2)
As for my general comments on FreeBSD, I gained all my experience of FreeBSD (as opposed to NetBSD and pre-Solaris SunOS) while at Yahoo!.
Do you see the relevancy there? The logical flow of commentary? Maybe not - in which case I'll just point out that this is Slashdot, and any reasoned comments are a godsend compared to the Natalie Portman or gritsboy posters.
Or maybe you're just bitter that I can see faults in FreeBSD. Well, rest assured I can see the flaws in all the operating systems I use, so unfortunately for you I can't be labeled a Linux/Solaris/whatever bigot.
But there's the rub, had this been an article on a new Linux distro that I use, I may have been posting critiques of Linux. There's your relevancy.
Chris Wareham
Re:It says a lot about the 'quality' of FreeBSD (Score:1)
Re:wrong (Score:1)
Re:BSD pkg, was Re:4.0 feature freeze "Real Soon N (Score:1)
The first solution is to "chflags schg" your SSH config files/key files. You should really do this anyway. Then, "make all deinstall reinstall clean" deletes what it can, and reinstalls everything except respecting the existing configuration files
The second solution is to do a "make -DFORCE_PKG_REGISTER all install clean". That will replace the old (but seemingly current) version correctly.
The actual problem is that OpenSSH doesn't make releases. Since there are no releases, it's rare that there's a time when the version is updated. But, would you rather have to wait months for new versions, or have me continue to update it often?
Re:BSD has lost, Linux won the unix war. READ ON (Score:1)