FreeBSD 5.4 is out!

[LuckyTaxi]

Announcement

It's about time, maybe I can now move all my 4.x servers over to the 5.x branch.

 

[kobymu]

hmmm... i tried one of the earlier version(4.2 i think), was very impressed overall (especially about their little resources usage and low overhead), to bad it takes about 3 hours on the internet to find any good /cough finished cough/ apps.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Huh?

everything in the ports directory has all the apps you need.
Unlike linux, I dont have to go searching for apps.

 

[Sunner]

After my experiences with 5.2.1 and 5.3 I'm just a tad hesitant to try the 5 branch again.
Granted, those experiences were with the sparc64 version, but still...

 

[n0cmonkey]

I wouldn't trust FreeBSD on anything but i386. How's the performance on uniprocessor machines? I've heard it's dropped.

 

[djdrastic]

n0c , performance is down a little bit from 4.11 the last time I benched them on 2X Sempron 2800's . The 4 X series to me just feels a little "old" sometimes , ah well


[Happy 5.3 User and currently CVSupping to 5.4 ]

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: djdrastic
n0c , performance is down a little bit from 4.11 the last time I benched them on 2X Sempron 2800's . The 4 X series to me just feels a little "old" sometimes , ah well


[Happy 5.3 User and currently CVSupping to 5.4 ]

"2x sempron 2800's" means dual or just two different boxes?

 

[Nothinman]

Unlike linux, I dont have to go searching for apps.

Not to crap on this thread, but if you have to searching for apps you're using the wrong distro.

 

[wlee]

OK, I have to ask...
What's the diff between "FreeBSD" and "OpenBSD" ? Is it like the diff between, say, UBUNTU and Fedora ? Meaning,will they run the same programs "as is" ? Or do you need to take source and port/re-compile ?

 

[singh]

I've got FreeBSD 4.7 on my cvs server. I should probably reinstall a new release one of these days, but it's been working flawlessly ever since I installed it. Choices, choices...

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: wlee
OK, I have to ask...
What's the diff between "FreeBSD" and "OpenBSD" ? Is it like the diff between, say, UBUNTU and Fedora ? Meaning,will they run the same programs "as is" ? Or do you need to take source and port/re-compile ?

No they're not compatible in the way different Linux distros are.
All Linux distros run the Linux kernel, OpenBSD and FreeBSD use different kernels, though in most ways they're very similar, enough that picking one up after learning the other won't be very difficult.

Traditionally the mantra has been:
FreeBSD for performance(on Alpha and i386)
NetBSD for portability(runs on pretty much everything)
OpenBSD for security(and runs on most anything relevant)

That said, they share a common heritage, and they borrow lots of stuff from each others(drivers, features, etc), and most any program that will compile on one of them will compile on the others.

 

[djdrastic]

n0c , 2 exact clone 2800 Sempron box3n

wlee , although those are common uses of various BSD distros , you can use OpenBSD for a desktop distro if you really wanted [ like I used to with 3.5 ]

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: djdrastic
n0c , 2 exact clone 2800 Sempron box3n

wlee , although those are common uses of various BSD distros , you can use OpenBSD for a desktop distro if you really wanted [ like I used to with 3.5 ]

Thanks for the clarification. :beer:

I use OpenBSD as a desktop when I have a stable home. When I get a thinkpad it's going to be the main OS on it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Unlike linux, I dont have to go searching for apps.

Not to crap on this thread, but if you have to searching for apps you're using the wrong distro.

If he has to search for apps, he probably needs to read the documentation.

 

[kobymu]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Unlike linux, I dont have to go searching for apps.

Not to crap on this thread, but if you have to searching for apps you're using the wrong distro.

If he has to search for apps, he probably needs to read the documentation.

when i tried, it was 1998 or 1999 , had close to zero knowledge in linux/unix, and back then i didnt manege to find a killer application (/edit. that just worked, ie download, unpack, run).

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Unlike linux, I dont have to go searching for apps.

Not to crap on this thread, but if you have to searching for apps you're using the wrong distro.

I'm a little confuse as to what you're trying to imply. What I meant was that say if I was using redhat. I would need to go to sourceforge or some other website to look for a particular piece of software. For example, say I needed mplayer, I needed to go to mplayer's website to download the rpm and what not. With freebsd, I think they are all in port.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: lilcam

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Not to crap on this thread, but if you have to searching for apps you're using the wrong distro.

I'm a little confuse as to what you're trying to imply. What I meant was that say if I was using redhat. I would need to go to sourceforge or some other website to look for a particular piece of software. For example, say I needed mplayer, I needed to go to mplayer's website to download the rpm and what not. With freebsd, I think they are all in port.

Debian's apt would have been great, and now redhat uses yum. You no longer really have to go searching for files in most distros, the packages are provided for you. Often times in binary formats instead of source form like ports.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm a little confuse as to what you're trying to imply. What I meant was that say if I was using redhat. I would need to go to sourceforge or some other website to look for a particular piece of software. For example, say I needed mplayer, I needed to go to mplayer's website to download the rpm and what not. With freebsd, I think they are all in port.

Exactly what n0c said, there's virtually no need to go hunting things down these days. I really dislike yum because it's so slow and you need to rely on 3rd party repositories for many packages, but it's still not what you make it out to be.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Exactly what n0c said, there's virtually no need to go hunting things down these days. I really dislike yum because it's so slow and you need to rely on 3rd party repositories for many packages, but it's still not what you make it out to be.

Basically agreeing with your previous post though, it was a problem for many distros for a long long time.

 

[LuckyTaxi]

Ok - I guess I was referring to know I was running Redhat 8.0.
I've since moved to the BSD family and I'm loving it.

 

[Nothinman]

Might as well say Windows sucks because NT 4 had crap support for PCMCIA devices, even though there's been almost a half-dozen releases since then. And IIRC there was apt and yum for RH8, they were pretty new and I doubt there were too many repositories but they were available. Infact I think I installed apt on a RH73 box at work because I hated up2date.

Now, if you use Debian sid you have access to 16,000 packages without a single 3rd party repository. I only have 1 extra repo on my machine, for mplayer.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Might as well say Windows sucks because NT 4 had crap support for PCMCIA devices, even though there's been almost a half-dozen releases since then. And IIRC there was apt and yum for RH8, they were pretty new and I doubt there were too many repositories but they were available. Infact I think I installed apt on a RH73 box at work because I hated up2date.

Now, if you use Debian sid you have access to 16,000 packages without a single 3rd party repository. I only have 1 extra repo on my machine, for mplayer.

The state of the system when we started playing with it is important. yum and apt weren't part of Red Hat 8, or 7.3, or 5.2. FreeBSD's ports were there though, making it nice and easy.

I don't know about you, but I don't need 16,000 programs. :Q

 

[Nothinman]

I don't know about you, but I don't need 16,000 programs.

Of course not and that numbers a little inflated by programs that are broken up into multiple packages, but it's about choice. For instance sendmail, postfix, exim4, smail, courier, etc are all packaged in Debian so no matter which MTA you like chance are good that you'll have what you want without resorting to compiling crap by hand. I currently have 1070 packages installed on this workstation, for whatever that's worth.