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FreeBSD 6.0 Released 289

Posted by Zonk from the friday-downloading dept.
Reyad Attiyat writes FreeBSD 6.0 is ready for release! New features, and there are lots, can be reviewed at the official site. One of the biggest and most anticipated features (mentioned before on Slashdot) is wireless support, which has been greatly improved upon. This includes support for a lot more cards, WAP support, and integration into the dhcpd client. This release comes only mere days off NetBSD's release and an OpenBSD release. Version 6.0 was intended to be released way back in August but due to a number of factors it had to be delayed till now. Aside from this major release the FreeBSD project has also had some major changes, including most recently a new logo and also a brand new website."
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FreeBSD 6.0 Released More

FreeBSD 6.0 Released

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  • ... and I am still back in good ol' 4.4 I think. I guess if it aint broke, dont upgrade till it does!
    • "... and I am still back in good ol' 4.4 I think. I guess if it aint broke, dont upgrade till it does!"

      Doesn't that have a bunch of security bugs? 4.11 is pretty nice.
  • I'd think about trying the BSDs if they had live-cd versions of recent releases.
    • I'd just like to see a single-DVD iso. Ah, well, the FTP install aint so bad.

    • Re:Live-CD? (Score:3, Informative)

      by FunWithKnives ( 775464 )

      Alright, can't you google for your own info?

      http://www.freesbie.org/ [freesbie.org] - Latest release is based on FreeBSD 5.3.

      It's harder to find LiveCDs of Open/NetBSD, but you can create your own -

      http://ezunix.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sect ions&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=88&page=1 [ezunix.org]

      http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2005/07/14/openbsd _live.html [onlamp.com]

      Gee golly, and all of that was on the first results page after searching for "Open/Net/FreeBSD LiveCD".. Whooda thunkit?

      • I believe the link you're looking for is Just Fucking Google It! [justfuckinggoogleit.com].

        I'm still amazed by the number of people whose first reaction is to ask, rather than search. Christ, I'd be embarrassed to ask a question whose answer was on the first page of a simple search...

    • Re:Live-CD? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by misleb ( 129952 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @02:55PM (#13952041)
      What do you think you are going to learn from a Live CD of FreeBSD? Whether or not it supports your hardware? I assume you've run Linux or some kind of unix variant. It'll have a shell and maybe a desktop like KDE or GNOME. What's to see? You can get that on just about any Unixy system. IMO, you don't really know what an OS or distribution is like until you have to actually manage a box.

      Unless, of course, you've never run a unix-like system before. Then by all means, try Freesbie.

      -matthew

      • Re:Live-CD? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mnmn ( 145599 )
        LiveCDs make for quick evaluations. I dont have the partition for openbsd, so I installed it in vmware to check out the ospfd, how to start it and what can it do. I'll continue to spend time on it, to see if I can port ospfd to other unixen, and even cygwin, my eventual goal.

        Now if I had a livecd, I'd use that instead to get full CPU on my side.

        Now before you call me a newbie, search my name on google, and maybe visit me sometimes. I have stacks of sparc, hp, rs6000 and alpha machines in my room to play wit

  • BSD is dead? (Score:4, Funny)

    by eric2hill ( 33085 ) <eric@[ ]ck.net ['ija' in gap]> on Friday November 04, 2005 @12:42PM (#13950897) Homepage
    Looks like BSD lives to die another day :)

  • Variants. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04, 2005 @12:43PM (#13950913)
    Is there a Dead-CD version of FreeBSD that I can boot on my machine, just to try out?
  • Oh hell yes. Anyone know if there's a torrent available? I'd really rather not contribute to the annihilation of the FreeBSD mirrors if I can avoid it . . . . . .

  • Real improvement over 5.x (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Just Some Guy ( 3352 ) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Friday November 04, 2005 @12:44PM (#13950919) Homepage Journal
    I've been comfortable enough with the release candidates to upgrade my production servers from 5.x to 6 a while back. I really have nothing but good to say about it: it's faster, more stable, and more worthy of the FreeBSD name than 5 ever seemed to be.

    Congratulations, Release Engineering team! You've turned out a great product.

    And as a side note, we've seen big releases from each of the major BSDs within the last week. Dying, my foot.

    • Re:Real improvement over 5.x (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:12PM (#13951190)
      Please don't take this as criticism, because it's not meant in that spirit, but I really wish we'd stop even acknowledging the whole "dying" joke. The problem is, I've run into one stupid manager who, amazingly, bought it. Yes, oh yes, he was stupid, but somehow he got the job and I wish that I could say that he's the only guy I've ever met who was in a position he shouldn't have had.

      Of course BSD isn't dying. Either that, or it's the longest death in history. Some Linux-based asswads -- and please understand that I'm not equating Linux usage with being an asswad, heck, I use Linux every day and I wouldn't want to incriminate myself; no, I'm just specifying asswads who somehow have found Linux -- just can't shut up. They're like the annoying nerd in the back of the room who has found an expert mix of geekness and insufferable rudeness that, for some reason, he mistakes for wit. Think "Malvin" in WarGames, and you get the idea. They're the guys who think they're experts because they've managed to install Debian and, oh, Gnome maybe, but they only use Synaptic for package management and they're afraid of cron even though they talk about how they use it all the time, even for personal tasks(!).

      God.

      They're *dying* to appear knowledgable, so they perpetuate this dying joke without ever really knowing what situations the BSDs are best suited for or the philosophies behind them. I mean, the BSD Web sites, have you seen them? That have all that *text*, I mean, God, you have to read and stuff.

      FreeBSD has its issues, I'm aware of them. But I've used it for many, many moons now, and honestly, it rocks my world as a server system. I might use something else, but I'd have to have a really, really good reason. My mail servers run on fairly close-to-stock OpenBSD systems, and they're rock solid. Package management and upgrades are a breeze.

      Bottom line, the BSDs make my job easy.
    • Since you mentioned upgrading from 5.x...

      I have a 5.4 server that I recently installed and I want to upgrade to 6.0. It isn't in production yet, but it does have some custom configuration and many ports installed (as well as a system disk mirrored with geom). I've never really run FreeBSD before. Do I need to recompile all the ports I installed against the 6.0 system? How do I go about doing that? I'm concerned about running ports built against old libraries. I'm used to running Debian where everything get
      • Do I need to recompile all the ports I installed against the 6.0 system?

        You probably don't need to, but it's a good idea. Here's how I do it:

        Use "find" to find and delete all files in /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /lib, /usr/lib, /usr/libexec, and /usr/include that are older than the day I upgraded the machine. At this point, I have a 99% "pure" base system, but almost all ports on the machine are temporarily broken. Note that FreeBSD 7 has this feature built-in.

        Is portupgrade installed?

        - If

        • aren't all port files usually in /usr/local?
    • Can you tell me a little more about any issues you had when upgrading? I just installed my first production FreeBSD box (using 5.4) a month ago.

      So far I've had a great experience with FreeBSD. Before that my only experience was GNU/Linux (mostly on Debian).

      Any useful resources you have would be nice too. I'm still relatively new to FreeBSD, and I'm not familiar with everything about it. If it's not in the handbook, I don't know it.

      • It was a pretty simple upgrade. I followed the instructions in /usr/src/UPDATING under "To upgrade in-place from 5.x-stable to current" and it all worked out OK. Then, I ran the steps mentioned to the previous poster for the sake of thoroughness and having a "pure 6.x" system.

        As far as resources, I highly recommend joining one of the official FreeBSD mailing lists ("-questions" and "-stable" would be appropriate for this). The people on there are really friendly and helpful. That's the first place I t

  • WAP? oh yeah... (Score:3, Informative)

    by FlashBuster3000 ( 319616 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @12:44PM (#13950921) Homepage
    Uhm, i don't think that WAP (like html for mobiles) has something to do with wifi,
    most probably the article means this sentence:
    "In addition to architectural changes, it includes completed 802.11g, WPA [...]"
    WPA = security standard (stay back from WEP, guys!)
  • Does anyone know what is the current status of Java on BSD today? Last time I looked there were no recent native ports, best you could do was run a Linux version of java. BSD makes a good argument that Java should be free as in freedom.

    • FreeBSD Java(TM) Project (Score:5, Informative)

      by KlaymenDK ( 713149 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @12:59PM (#13951074) Journal
      http://www.freebsd.org/java/ [freebsd.org] !

      There are several ports, one of them being native. Google! :o)
    • There is a native port of JDK 1.5.x. Even if it isn't listed as the current release, it still works very well.

      http://www.freebsd.org/java/dists/15.html [freebsd.org]

    • Re:Java on BSD (Score:3, Informative)

      by bcrowell ( 177657 )
      You can supposedly build the compiler and runtime from source using the FreeBSD ports system. However, due to licensing issues, you have to download a bunch of the files by hand yourself -- when I tried it, it took up basically a whole afternoon of clicking around on Sun's web site, jumping through hoops, and downloading 100-Mb tarballs. After all that, it failed to compile :-)

      Gcj is becoming more and more capable, however. I believe it's now possible to build OOo with gcj as your compiler for the java bit

      • GCJ is most likely unsuitable. Classpath, its Java class library implementation, lacks a serious Swing and AWT implementation. Thus it is basically useless for non-SWT GUI applications written in Java.

        Then again, in previous discussion it was stated that Java caused a lot of the startup performance problems noted with OpenOffice.org. So a better idea may to be avoid the use of Java with OO.o.

      • I had a similar experience. Failed to compile. I didn't have time to tinker with it either. Oh well. I had to use an OS that had a JDK because I needed a system for Java development.
         
        Jeremy
    • Yes Java is available for FreeBSD natively, however it seems like you have to compile it. I am not going to waste however long it takes for that beast to compile. I have to use the Linux binary, which works on FreeBSD fine it would seem, thank goodness. i know this is not FreeBSDs fault. Its Suns fault. Why dont they (Sun) allow a release of a binary copy? And all of this patching is pretty crazy as well. Why does Sun make people jump through hoops to use their language, and furthermore, why do people use t

    • Re:Java on BSD (Score:2, Interesting)

      by EvilTwinkie ( 928545 )
      Ive had to build java from the ports several times, and while yes its fairly painful the first time, with the login and accounts with Sun, its always worked like a charm. Outside of the compile time, and the hoop jumping, its stable, and works perfectly. I dont care much for precompiled binaries as thats the lame way of building a box. Personally, its always from source, and from the ground up. I've gone as far as to roll my flavor of bsd which is *exactly* what I want. It starts at 5MB... Shame Sun has to

  • Oh man .... (Score:5, Funny)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @12:50PM (#13950980) Homepage
    I just burned my 5.4 discs so I could upgrade from 4.8 two days ago.

    Bah.
    • Nothing wrong with sticking with 5.4 for a while, waiting for a point release in 6. It's less of an issue with FBSD than with some software packages, but still not a bad idea. 5.4 is a good release, and you can migrate to 6 easily enough.
  • been running 6.0 since I updated from 5.4 -> SNAP004 back in August and I've had no problems. Just updated my system last week (hard drive failure) so I'm now running 6.0-rc1 and the improvements in that time are just polish. I am very comfortable in fbsd now, and can recommend it to ANYONE who wants to run a server. Back in the day I'd point to Slackware, but now it's all fbsd. The idea that 6.0 has even more for desktop focus is interesting to me, but I think that is covered better by Linux, and Ub
    • Are you running ATA disks? Its crashing here unless I turn off DMA.

      • Re:FreeBSD 6.0 = good (Score:3, Informative)

        by fak3r ( 917687 )
        from dmesg:

        atapci0: <VIA 82C686B UDMA100 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xd000-0xd00f at device 7.1 on pci0
        atapci0: Correcting VIA config for southbridge data corruption bug
        ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
        ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
        ad0: 39266MB <IC35L040AVVN07 0 VA2OAF0C> at ata0-master UDMA100
        ad1: 114473MB <WDC WD1200JB-00EVA0 15.05R15> at ata0-slave UDMA100

        I haven't had any problems with this setup for months on pre-6.0, so I don't think it's an i

  • A new release of DFBSD. (Score:4, Informative)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:07PM (#13951148)
    Unfortunately, we probably won't see a new release of DragonFly BSD until after the new year.

    http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/mailarchive/kernel/20 05-10/msg00030.html [dragonflybsd.org]

    For those who are unaware, DragonFly BSD is a heavily modified continuation of FreeBSD 4.x. It is done by Matt Dillon and many others who are/were prime FreeBSD developers in the past, but disagreed with the current FreeBSD development path.

  • OK, correct me if I'm remembering a lot of this incorrectly, but...

    <IIRC>
    The 4.x->5.x transition made some major changes in the scheduler and memory management. It was a rough transition, and personally I had some problems with some of the early 5.x releases (e.g., processes hogging 100% of cpu when they shouldn't have). There were complaints that only a couple of the kernel developers actually understood the new code, there were doubts about whether bugs could actually be fixed, and the 5.x seri

    • Re:memory management and scheduler? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      5.x didn't retreat from those goals, and as the releases progressed from 5.2 onwards, the code matured and became faster/more stable. 6.0 is arguably a refinement of that work: now it has seen a few years of deployment, the developers have significantly optimized it, applied the refined approach to more components (VFS), etc. Whereas 5.x was about introducing the new architecture, 6.x is all about making it blindingly fast and stable.

  • New logo on web site? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bhirsch ( 785803 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:09PM (#13951166) Homepage
    I thought the web site was going to reflect the new logo...

  • I386 Support Removed? (Score:5, Informative)

    by HighOrbit ( 631451 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:17PM (#13951232)
    From the Kernel Changes part of the release notes:
    Support for 80386 processors (the I386_CPU kernel configuration option) has been removed. Users running this class of CPU should use FreeBSD 5.X or earlier.

    I sorta find that astounding (not that I have a 386 around myself). Oh well, the world has moved on.
    • I sorta find that astounding

      Out of curiosity, why? This version's big features are increased performance on big systems (where big means "expensive new desktop and above"). I have a hard time imagining an intersection between 386 systems and the new target audience.

      • >386BSD (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tverbeek ( 457094 )
        This is something of a landmark, kind of like when Mac OS stopped supporting 68000 processors. These are the CPUs that these OSes were built for, and whose consistent feature set made it possible to engineer software to run on "any" computer of that kind. The idea of 386BSD not running on a 386 is a bit... eye-opening.
      • Because
        • embedded systems - there are still some around that are based on 386
        • history - it was a 386 based os in the first place
        • backwards compatability - it has been standard (well, sorta) to have a backwards compatability based on the basic i386 instruction set with everything else either an extension or optimization option.

        I think this represents a true break with past where they are going for "modern" and fast versus the historical roots of the OS (now if only we could get rid of csh on bsd systems.

    • So now I can have a cool new project where I port FreeBSD to the 386!!

      I'll setup a sourceforge webpage including full toolchains and a weblog on how I did it.

      And of course, I'll sell the mandatory T-shirts.

  • Vast performance improvements. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:17PM (#13951239)
    Earlier today a client came to me, requesting that a FreeBSD 6.0 demo box be set up as a potential replacement for their current OpenBSD mail server. Indeed, 6.0 may be the release we have all been waiting for. The performance is vastly improved, and the stability is fantastic.

    We found that the server was able to process about 60% more mail when running FreeBSD 6.0, as compared to OpenBSD. That's not to suggest that OpenBSD is bad, but performance wise, FreeBSD has taken the lead. And that was without significant tuning, and running a GENERIC kernel.

    I'm not certain yet if it is improvements in the network stack, the filesystem subsystem, or in the scheduling. It may be a combination of all three. Some more time will be needed to determine exactly where the benefits are coming from.

    • Re:Vast performance improvements. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Just Some Guy ( 3352 ) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Friday November 04, 2005 @01:41PM (#13951465) Homepage Journal
      That's not to suggest that OpenBSD is bad, but performance wise, FreeBSD has taken the lead.

      Erm, has OpenBSD ever had the lead in performance? I really doubt it; that's not what it was designed for. All of those little niceties like ultra-paranoid memory protection, cryptographically random process IDs, etc. take resources. Basically, it's tuned for security and correctness with a nod toward performance, while FreeBSD emphasizes raw performance over watertight security.

      That doesn't mean that FreeBSD has bad security, or that OpenBSD doesn't incorporate performance enhancements when they can safely do so. All of the BSDs are heavily cross-pollinated, and the best ideas tend to get broad support from all of them.

      Still, it's pretty reasonable to say that OpenBSD is more secure and FreeBSD is faster. I wouldn't be the least surprised that FreeBSD can process more email or web hits, especially when you through SMP or HTT systems into the mix.

      • This was on uniprocessor, non-hyperthreaded servers.

        What astounded me most was the massive performance boost over OpenBSD. 60% isn't a small amount, by any means. That's nearly getting the capabilities of another physical server, without actually having to get any new hardware.

    • The performance is vastly improved, and the stability is fantastic.

      You judge stability after half a day?

    • We found that the server was able to process about 60% more mail when running FreeBSD 6.0, as compared to OpenBSD.

      Measured how? What were the bottlenecks?
  • The ULE scheduler has been fixed, but is it enabled by default?
    Could anyone explain the benefits of the ULE vs. 4BSD schedulers?
    Are there real performance benefits?
    Thanks.
  • I can't wait for this to hit m0n0wall [m0n0.ch]'s stable release. 6.0's unstable branch was used on the beta for a while, but was then pulled. I need it for wireless so I can eliminate another embedded system, consolidating my network further. (and create a single point of failure ;)
    • Correction! They were using FreeBSD 5.3 in the beta, and are now using FreeBSD 4.11-RELEASE-p11 in the (now merged with beta) stable release. Man, I should be a slashdot editor for my professional fact checking.

  • Digging up grandma? (Score:3, Funny)

    by GooberToo ( 74388 ) on Friday November 04, 2005 @02:00PM (#13951622)
    Isn't this announcement like digging up grandma and throwing her a birthday party?

    For the humor impaired, this was a joke!

    Glad to hear that BSD keeps on chugging along...Linux has a reputation for taking some excellent ideas and even implementation from the BSD guys....BSD improvements often translate into Linux improvements too.

    Good job guys!
  • I was stunned to see this. After waiting forever in 4.x on a 5.x stable release, the release if 6 seems like it came much much quicker. I wasn't expexting 6 so soon.
  • I've been trying get ANY FreeBSD to work on the Supermicro 5013C-MT server plaform. It wedgies at the bootscreen. I've offered a server to the one that fixes it, no takers. (offer valid to submitters only ;)

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