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FreeBSD, Serving the World 21

Posted by Nik from the NP:-Walk-Like-an-Egyptian dept.
In another indication that those advertising dollars made available by the BSDI merger are being put to good use, OS Opinion is running an article explaining FreeBSD. Nothing new if you're already a BSD afficionado, but it does explain most of FreeBSD's salient points in a easy-to-understand way. Perfect for trying to convince the boss that this "three dee bee ess" stuff you're using to keep the company running is up to the task.
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FreeBSD, Serving the World

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  • Quick question - not intended to be flamebait - don't start a holy war!

    Is FreeBSD reasonably easy to install and try out in the same way that Linux is?
  • It's pretty easy to install, but not having installed Linux for several years, I can't give a comparisom.
  • Perfect for trying to convince the boss that this "three dee bee ess" stuff you're using to keep the company running is up to the task.

    Excellent, I wrote it with one of my old PHBs in mind. :)
  • Ah. The man himself.

    Nice article there, Howard - i really must have a play with FreeBSD sometime.

    BTW, do you happen to know when the record at ftp.cdrom.com was set? Presumably it coincided with some new software release - i'm just wondering what could prompt 1.3tb of downloads in a single day.

  • Re:Excellent (Score:3)

    by howardjp ( 5458 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @06:55AM (#1054295) Homepage
    It's been set several times and I just threw out the paper copy of the press release. Let me look for a minute...ahh, here [cdrom.com] it is. Unfortunetly, I do not recall the exact circumstances and they are not listed here. But, I think it was a new release of Red Hat, or a new release of Slackware, or a new release of FreeBSD. Possibly a combination of them. I wish I could be more help. Emailing one of the FreeBSD lists should get a response.
  • I thought it was about the same. My only problem was that the installer bombed out if you tried to add packages from within it, so you have to had packages afterwards.

    Now OpenBSD, that was easy to install. Seriously, I mean that -- just because it's secure doesn't mean it's hard to install. The only difficulty is in the fdisk/disklabel setup, which is relatively straightforward (although very different!) if you've used Linux fdisk before.

    The biggest difference between Linux and BSD installs is that BSD doesn't install the kitchen sink by default (hint: if you ever try a commercial UNIX system, they don't either). OpenBSD is moving towards 'install all the sysadmin utilities a person could want, and then let the sysadmin install the user utilities' -- nc, ssh, a decent ftp client, etc. -- but it doesn't install any editor but vi :)
  • I definitely agree with that. OpenBSD was the easiest install of any OS i've used. It doesnt do much handholding if something goes wrong, but for a competant person who knows how to search mailling lists or read FAQs in an emergency, the install is a blessing.

    In addition, my PCMCIA network card had support on the standard boot disk (thats right, *one* boot disk.. none of this boot/root disk crap)... and my soundcard worked right out of the box which, to some extent scares me.

    ^Z
  • It was merely idle curiosity. Interesting press release, though - 1.39tb from a single server is pretty impressive. I'd assumed that was through a little 'server farm' or cluster.

    10,000 simultaneous downloads? I wonder how many IIS handles before it leaks all it's memory away and falls over...
  • >Is FreeBSD reasonably easy to install and try out
    >in the same way that Linux is?

    Yeah, the installation is comparable to the Slackware install, i.e. character based menus and keyboard navigation.
  • What's this about BSDi dollars being put to good use? I thought osOpinion didn't pay their authors...

  • Re:Easy to Install? (Score:3)

    by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Wednesday May 24, 2000 @10:21AM (#1054301) Homepage Journal
    "My only problem was that the installer bombed out if you tried to add packages from within it..."

    This was a bug in the initial cut of 3.4. If you read the errata at www.freebsd.org, they explain it, and how to get around it. 4.0 does not have this problem.
  • It seems to me that he's saying that the money is being well-spent in advertising for people to write about it and OSOpinion to accept it. That's what my impression was.

    Chris Hagar
  • Hey, you mean I could get paid to do this? Wow, Walnut Creek has been holding out on me :)
  • No money changed hands in the production of this article.
  • Whoops, I thought I mentioned that. It didn't bother me so I didn't bother getting a new CD...

    Either way, it points out the reason why tracking FreeBSD-stable for 'QA' purposes -- as was recently suggested on "BSD Today" -- is pointless -- bugs happen even in releases.
  • The install for FreeBSD is relatively painless, there is a gui interface (no mouse though) for it, plus you can wathc the progress on another terminal or even do some stuff while it installs.

    The setup afterwards sometimes takes some effort, mostly getting used to the differences between Linux and Freebsd(if your coming from the Linux world). Also only a few things are on by default.

    Your best bet is to goto www.freebsd.org there is a HOWTO about linux to FreeBSD changes
  • Uhm, if I remember correctly, actually serving this from a single machine was the impressive part of the record. And, if you look at the number 1.39 TB/day, you see that on average it boils down to 16.9 MB/sec. Taking a few peaks now and then into consideration, I don't see why bus bandwidth would be a problem. As for the 10,000 simultanoues connections, I am not sure how stressfull this is for the OS. You have to remember that long lived FTP connections are generally a lot more easy on the OS than all these annoying short lived HTTP connections.
  • Got proof that you have to pay the osopinion people to post a story there?

    Oh, no proof?

  • Now, if such a thing was said about Linux on /., the comment would be now at -1 flamebait.

  • So there's no confusion, all I meant was that BSDI are doubtless spending some of their money on more advertising, talking to the press, and so on. The recent upswing in positive BSD publicity is a testament to that. I didn't mean that BSDI forked over some cash to someone to get this article written and/or printed.

    OK?

    N

  • Correct. In fact, this article was written before the merger took place. As proof, here is an early version [freebsd.org] of the article I sent to -advocacy for comments on January 27th.

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