FreeBSD Oct-Dec 2005 Status Report Available

An anonymous reader writes "The latest FreeBSD Status Report is available, covering updates for the last quarter of 2005. A quiet time, for the most part, but some interesting news on the TCP Optimization, and Xen, fronts."

Useful improvements

[iMaple]

1. Optimizing the FreeBSD IP and TCP Stack (if you are using it as a server)

2. Sound subsystem improvements (if you like to listen to songs once a while on your server , use it as a dedicated server cum audio only media center )

There arent too many other significant changes (except maybe the IPv6 , but who uses that )

Re:Useful improvements

[CoolVibe]

Server? I use it as a workstation. KDE [kde.org] runs like a charm on it.

Re:Useful improvements

[Ded Bob]

I use it as a desktop/workstation. Neverwinter Nights [freshports.org] runs very well on it with Nvidia's driver.

Re:Useful improvements

[Arandir]

Ditto! FreeBSD/KDE is my desktop at home. It used to be my workstation at work as well, until I was forcibly migrated over to Explorer/Outlook by company policy.

Re:Useful improvements

[Fweeky]

"1. Sound subsystem improvements (if you like to listen to songs once a while on your server , use it as a dedicated server cum audio only media center )"

Audio only? mplayer works fine on my FreeBSD workstation.

Other generally notable changes:

New dhclient with privsep imported from OpenBSD. I'm sure other OS's would appreciate ports.

Variant symlinks; again, being able to have context-sensitive symlinks isn't a feature only of interest to a few BSD users. What uses can you think of for variable interpolat

BSD at SCALE 4x

[Anonymous Coward]

NetBSD and FreeBSD will have an exhibit at SCALE 4x [socallinuxexpo.org]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Why do I care about FreeBSD?

[value_added]

From a FreeBSD mailing list post:

Windows: "Where do you want to go today?"
Linux: "Where do you want to go tomorrow?"
FreeBSD: "Are you guys coming or what?"

People who like UNIX

[r00t]

People who like UNIX use UNIX, not BSD. OpenSolaris [opensolaris.org] qualifies.

The next closest thing would indeed be Linux.

FreeBSD? Eh, no, FreeBSD is rather incompatible with UNIX. Try ignoring SIGCHLD (actually SIGCLD); a real UNIX will automatically reap any dead children so you don't get zombies. Try a basic UNIX command like "ps -ef". Look at signal() behavior. Look at the commands used to control printing.

Re:People who like UNIX

[MrCoke]

That's what POSIX is all about: semantics.

Re:Why do I care about FreeBSD?

[6*7]

"Why do we need FreeBSD?"
It's for the people who hate Linux.

Re:Why do I care about FreeBSD?

[arivanov]

Why do we need FreeBSD?

As a reference model on how things are supposed to be done by the book with professionally commented and written source and properly written documentation.

What does it do that Linux doesn't?

Correct integration of statefull firewall and QoS framework, full integration of NTP into the kernel, multiple alternative timer sources across the entire kernel not just parts of the network stack, full realtime posix timers, possibility to alter HZ above 2500 without bastardizing the kernel to hell, so on so fourth

Who actually uses FreeBSD?

Anyone who needs a proper working R&D platform with predictable and well documented behaviour. For example I do most of my R&D on BSD because it is written by the book and I can compare what I do with the actual articles and papers written by people. Once I got working what I want I move it to linux because this is what people tend to use. This is also the moment I usually start cursing.

Re:Why do I care about FreeBSD?

[FudRucker]

i switched to Linux from Windows when i got tired of the crashes & BSODs, malware & the usual kludge that windows tends to have, of all the distros i tryed i stuck with slackware, it seems the most stable and smoothest running, from what i read around the internet is that slackware is the most similar to unix (bsd) of all the linux distros, someday when Patrick Volkerding retires from keeping slackware developed i will probably switch to either OpenBSD or PC-BSD

Re:Why do I care about FreeBSD?

[Arandir]

Who actually uses FreeBSD?

I do, and that's all that matters to me. Why the hell do you care what other people are using? Find your own operating system and be content with it.

Re:Why do I care about FreeBSD?

[smash]

Many people (myself included) use FreeBSD (myself since 2000 or so).

Why? Here are my reasons (and note, I've been a Linux user since 1996 as well):

• More consistent documentation, and more cohesive "feel". FreeBSD feels like a complete OS, not a cobbled together collection of kernel and various userpsace utilities written by entirely different people. Hard to describe, but it just "feels" more professionally done
• More consistent kernel/boot messages (eg, generally "device: info", exactly formatted tha

BSD Section

[Anonymous Coward]

For the life of me, I can't get the BSD section to display in the "Sections" sidebar. Nor Apache for that matter. What the hell's up with that?
 

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I wish I could use BSD

[John Nowak]

Unfortunately, I am on the PPC platform (I own a Powerbook).

BSDs do not support the following for my Powebook:
* Sleep/suspend
* Firewire
* Airport Extreme (linux barely does, but it is getting there)
* Bluetooth
* Processor scaling
* Internal modem (not that I care)

Unfortunately, for a laptop to be useful for me, it needs to be able to go to sleep. For it not to eat batteries, I need to be able to adjust the processor speed. Right now, I'm running Ubuntu (I did a server install -- it is basically Debian with an up to date kernel that supports sleep and all other non-wifi functions out of the box as far as I'm concerned), and I'm quite happy.

Re:I wish I could use BSD

[Shanep]

I wish I could use BSD. Unfortunately, I am on the PPC platform (I own a Powerbook).

Don't like OSX?

Re:I wish I could use BSD

[John Nowak]

I do. However, I really enjoy using wmii [wmii.de] and a few other tools which only really make sense in an all-X environment.

Re:I wish I could use BSD

[TheRaven64]

The PowerPC port of FreeBSD is quite immature. It's still officially a Tier 2 platform, and so not necessarily everything is working.

Re:I wish I could use BSD

[Ekarderif]

FreeBSD was designed to run smoothly on the i386 platform (but it recently terminated support on the 386). Beyond that and maybe the DEC Alpha, the support is lackluster.

NetBSD and even OpenBSD handles cross-platforms much better. I'm not too aware of the compatibility of NetBSD and PPC (since I don't use either), but it should be worth looking into.

Re:I wish I could use BSD

[John Nowak]

NetBSD and OpenBSD were the platforms I was talking about. I assume, if anything, FreeBSD is even worse on PPC given how immature the port is.

Re:I wish I could use BSD

[CoolVibe]

Don't rule out FreeBSD on sparc64. sparc64 is a tier 1 platform nowadays.

Re:I wish I could use BSD

[Billly Gates]

Thank you

I just wrote on various livejournal communities a question about using Linux on powerpc. I planned to buy a powerbook.

Linux is a required unix to learn at class so macosx is out of the question. What surprissed me is that Linus now uses a mac as his main linux workstation so I assumed linux would be alot better on it now.

I think Opensolaris has a beta that works on powerpc that supports sleep but I am not too sure on that.

Are you sure Linux doesn't support it? That sucks dude.

Re:I wish I could use BSD

[John Nowak]

Eh? Linux doesn't support what? Linux supports Firewire, sleep, cpu scaling, special function keys, sounds, and everything else you'd want about your Powerbook. The only thing *not* supported is Airport Extreme, but things are very close now as far as getting this to work -- Some people already have this working. I'd suggest the next version of Ubuntu (come April?) will have this working out of the box. You might be able to do so now if you're particularly eager, but if you time is worth anything to you and

slightly offtopic

[kv9]

the netbsd status report for q3/q4 2005 [netbsd.org] is also available.