I have read many OS/distribution reviews in the last couple of years, but it always seems like it is distros like Red Hat, SuSe and Mandrake (and the fairly new distro, Lindows) that get all the attention. The light has sometimes moved towards other less “user friendly” distros as Slackware, Debian and so forth, but the main concern of the authors has always been the distros meant to be used by Joe User.
This is all well and good, but lately there has been an overflow of reviews written by total beginners and their experiences with the main distributions. So then I decided to write a review of FreeBSD 5.0, “a victim of isolation and Linux’s hype,” as Eugenia Loli-Queru well put it. The way I see it, FreeBSD will gain ground faster each day without any hype, but why not contribute?
That said, I would like to tell you about myself. I am not a complete beginner in the Linux/Unix world, but I’m not a guru either. I’ve been sniffing on different Linux distros since I received a PC Format CD with SuSe on it. For several years I have used Windows as my main OS, but I’ve always had a partition free to be occupied by another OS (QNX, BeOS, BSD, Linux).
I’ve had no rush changing my main OS, Windows has always given me the possibility to do whatever I wanted, which is pretty much programming, listen to music, browse the Internet and checking my mail. Since I gave myself unlimited time to choose and experiment with several operative systems and distributions, I found it easy to change it when I first decided on doing it. Linux has never really been my favorite, I’ve always liked QNX and BeOS much better because of the clean GUI and the easy-to-configure set up. (I can’t wait until OpenBeOS is released.) It was not until fall 2001 I discovered the BSD tree. A friend and colleague told me about his good experiences he had with OpenBSD at his own company. I read more about it, and found FreeBSD to be a very good choice, with the biggest package system available and all. At this point I had used Linux distributions as Slackware, Trustix and JBLinux on my private home server, so FreeBSD seemed perfect on my server and on my workstation as well. And it was. Ports/Pkg is nothing but smooth. Problems rarely occurred, and the dependencies are always getting installed without any problems. Speed and stability are two keywords that describe FreeBSD with great accuracy.
After nothing but good experiences with FreeBSD over the past year and a half, I decided that I’ve found the main OS for me at the desktop as well. FreeBSD 5.0 got released and I had to try it out.
Computer:
Processor: AMD Duron 650MHz
Motherboard: ASUS 133
Memory: 192 MB SDRAM
Graphics: nVIDIA GeForce 2MX
Sound: Creative SB Live! 1024
Disks: 80 GB WD, 13 GB WD and 4 GB Quantum
Network: 3Com 10/100Mbit TP
CD/DVD: Creative PC-DVD 6x/24x, Philips 4x/4x/24x
Installation
I downloaded a mini-install from FreeBSD.org, burned it on a CD, put it in my cup holder and rebooted. The installation was familiar, identical to older versions. FreeBSDs installation UI (Sysinstall) is one of the best out there. It has no graphical installation like Red Hat/Mandrake, and is more similar to Slackware/Debian. The installation is easy to follow by everyone, even for a first time OS installer. The only thing that can be tricky for beginners is fdisk. Although, if you only have one disk and you wish to use the entire disk for FBSD, press A to get an automatic set up of the partitions you need.
I deleted my BeOS 5 partition and split it up in two parts:
1. ufs at /
2. SWAP
I chose the Express installation, because I prefer to set up everything myself. The only thing I added was ports. As installation media I chose an FTP server nearby. A couple of minutes later, the few needed packages were installed and I was told to reboot. As expected, everything worked well.
Development
If it is one thing I need, it is a text editor for development. I need to be completely comfortable when I’m programming, or else shit hits the fan. In Windows, I used EditPlus with a great smile on my face. The closest thing I found was Glimmer. I also tried out jEdit, which is a full featured editor with a pleasant user interface, but it is extremely slow compared to other editors. What else to expect from a big project like jEdit using Swing as GUI? Anyway, I ended up with Glimmer. The user can change highlight colors, and now they are identical with EditPlus. I couldn’t be happier.
Customizing
I forgot to include the CVS under the installation, so installing this was the first thing I did.
When installing a port, you have two options:
1.pkg_add -r ‘application’
2.cd /usr/ports/’category’/’application’/ && make install clean
I always try the pkg_add command, but not all ports are packaged, therefore sometimes the second option is used. They install the same thing, but option two compiles the application, first option does not.
Time for mounting. I created my directories in /mnt and added the disks in /etc/fstab. All the partitions that needed mounting were FAT32. Works perfectly.
I started with the GUI. KDE/Gnome/Explorer has never been a choice of mine, I’ve been using Litestep since my 386. Not surprisingly, I installed the WindowManager fluxbox. X got installed without problems as a dependency. Then I used xf86cfg to set up input devices and graphic card. Afterwards I opened XF86Config and changed some Hz details, and also enabled mouse scrolling by adding Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5” in the input device section. TrueType fonts are mandatory, so xfstt got installed pretty fast. I copied my fonts from my font directory from my FAT32 partition into my new TrueType folder, and added FontPath “unix/:7101” in XF86Config.
All the packages/portsdescribed underneath got installed without any trouble. Ditto with dependencies.
Internet
– A graphical browser is a must-have, so I installed Opera 6.11 and Phoenix 0.5. I copied my Opera bookmarks from my Windows partition, edited the look and layout in Prefences, and I was set to go.
– I do not need a fancy mail client like Outlook or Evolution, so I installed Sylpheed. It supports unlimited mail accounts, and also majordomo mailinglists. And it’s fast.
– I’m on IRC at a daily basis, and KVirc is a full featured client that fits my needs.
– Friends use MSN, so I had to be on that network too. Gaim 0.60 was not yet ported when I installed FBSD 5.0, so I used aMSN until Gaim 0.60 got up and running.
– I also needed an FTP client, and gFTP did the trick.
Multimedia
– It should be no surprise that I installed XMMS as my audio player. I copied my favorite skin from my WinAmp 2.x folder and loaded up a playlist from my record collection.
As video player I installed MPlayer. It supports all of the formats I need, like mov, mpeg and avi.
– To get sound to work I needed to recompile the kernel after adding “device pcm” in the kernel configuration. No sweat.
Misc
– OpenOffice.org 1.0 got installed through pkg_add, it would have taken days to compile that one. It works fine.
– I needed an archive manager with a GUI. I browsed FreshMeat and stopped my quest on File Roller.
Conclusion:
Everything is fast and stable, minus File Roller, which has a habit of crashing. I haven’t missed my old OS at all.
Likes:
– Stability and speed
– A lot of applications to choose from the stable and fast growing package system.
– Very good documentation at freebsd.org (Handbook) Although I haven’t used it during this install and configuration of FreeBSD, it still remains one of the best documentation out there.
– There’s not a thousand distributions of FreeBSD, that way it’s much easier to solve problems by a little search on the WWW or in the handbook. You don’t have to search Google to find a solution compatible with your distro, as you would in Linux
– Thin /root folder 😉
Dislikes:
– Winex is not yet ported. That one is a big drawback for many gamers.
– Nothing yet. Some might say that a dislike can be that FreeBSD doesn’t have a default full featured GUI set up like many Linux distributions. But FreeBSDs goal has never been to advance in the desktop war. I like it just the way it is.
Do you want to use FreeBSD, but you’re not sure about the applications to use?
Install some of the mainstream distros and write down which applications in the different categories you like. When you think you’ve got it all, check if they’ve been ported to FreeBSD. Most likely they’re all there.
What are you waiting for?
About the Author:
Carl G. Mathisen is 20 years old, lives in Norway, studies Information Systems and works as a system developer.
I am pretty agnostic myself, mixing the BSDs, Linuxes, and Solaris throughout my systems as needed. One thing that I really like about FreeBSD, though, is how it so far has seemed to escape mobs of people trying to turn it into Windows, or a Windows replacement that has lost any of the charms that make many people choose Unix in the first place.
I think FreeBSD still captures the Unix Way, if there is such a thing. Not to say one shouldn’t take a free OS in any direction that is fitting to the task at hand, but there is something really nice about having a modern, free, clean Unix to work with in the year 2003.
To get sound to work I needed to recompile the kernel after adding “device pcm” in the kernel configuration. No sweat.
You could have added snd_load=”YES” to /boot/loader.conf – no recompile needed.
>>>
But FreeBSDs goal has never been to advance in the desktop war.
>>>
Very true, but your article is about using and promoting FreeBSD as a desktop! Why are you bothering?
I would say that FreeBSD is an example of excellent technology that has badly packaged and needlessly rendered inaccessible. Its been around for a goody number of years, and it has all these wonderful people working on it, but it doesn’t have even a good text installer! You would have to be a core geek, no kidding, to appreciate the value of that OS. Even as a server OS, FreeBSD is needlessly intimidating to any but the most adventurous souls. Why bother with a muscular OS when you can choose Windows or OS X servers? That’s how most folks are going to look at it.
… is support for my hardware.
No drivers for my DVB TV card. Don’t want to boot another system for watching tv. And my ISDN card. Can’t fax to anyone…
Btw, Linux (Slackware 9.0, like 8.1 8.0 7.x…) is as stable as FreeBSD for your needs (and in others too).
And not overbloated. And more compatible to sources.
Why the hard way when it’s so easy?
I really like FreeBSD. Only at a company computer where all drivers are available.
Graphic, mouse and a network card…
But I love Linux 🙂
…is it a review, an introductory article, a rant or something?
> Even as a server OS, FreeBSD is needlessly intimidating
> to any but the most adventurous souls.
Ever tried installing Solaris? 😛
FreeBSD install is quite logical, you just have to read and think. It’s different from average linux install, thats true. Just as for windows users linux install may be “complicated”, for linux users FreeBSD install may at first be “intimidating”. It’s not once you understand what you’re dealing with.
I don’t think FreeBSD needs more publicity and it certainly doesn’t need to be pushed as desktop OS. FreeBSD gathers its followers differently. You have to be determined to learn something new to try it out and if you are, there’s a chance you’ll love it. I did. Never looked back at linux after I got over the growing pains with my FreeBSD server.
FreeBSD is a server OS, end of story. We use it as our internet gateway over here and it has never let us down for the 1 year we use it. Solid.
Seems that one reason linux is gaining more mindshare and press exposure alike is that there are seemingly much quicker to market/users advances for hardware. Look at how quickly many commercial hardware vendors have come out with official driver support for linux whereas FreeBSD might just get you a “who?” response to queries.
“Dislikes:
No WineX
Everything else is perfect, so no other dislikes”
I find this extremely hard to believe. Doesn’t the lack of graphical configuration tools count as a dislike? Who _really_ enjoys screwing with network scripts when they could just click a few things and make it all work?
How about the fact that there’s no GUI installer? “I don’t need it” is not a valid reason for not including one. You might not use them, but others do. RedHat and many other linux distros include both, so make no doubt about it: FreeBSD is behind the curve (along with Debian, if it makes you feel better).
What about having to manually add your disks to /etc/fstab? I know exactly how that works, yet I find it quite annoying to do so. Wouldn’t you like FreeBSD to automatically do this?
Either the reviewer is a master system admin, or he doesn’t consider making things easy to configure as a bonus. I do note that this “review” _doesn’t_ seem to cover configuration past “download software”, which makes me suspicious. Also, there seems to be a lack of comparison against other operating systems – even if he had compared it against OpenBSD, it would have been more interesting. Anything’s perfect if you stand it by itself.
This may as well have been an essay called “FreeBSD software tips”. It’s amazing what kind of stuff gets labelled a “review” nowadays.
-Erwos
but it doesn’t have even a good text installer!
It’s installer is ever nice when setting up your partions. It does not drop you to fdisk and expect you to know how big your swap needs to be.
You would have to be a core geek, no kidding, to appreciate the value of that OS.
Not really, take an example:
I have an ide cd burner, to get this thing to work under linux I have to trick this OS in to thinking that it is a scsi drive by passing the kernel boot parameters. I do not have to do this with freebsd. You don’t need to be geek to appreciate the fact that it just worked.
Aab: “Ever tried installing Solaris? :-P”
The Web Start installer for Solaris rivals Windows in its simplicity.
anonymous: “What I’m waiting for… is support for my hardware.
No drivers for my DVB TV card. Don’t want to boot another system for watching tv. And my ISDN card. Can’t fax to anyone…”
Once again, if you’re looking for a desktop operating system with good hardware support, might I suggest Windows?
“And not overbloated.”
In what possible sense of the word could FreeBSD be “bloated” and Linux not be? The base install of FreeBSD is a few hundred megs. Your typical Linux distribution comes with several gigabytes of cruft.
“And more compatible to sources.”
I think you’ll be hard pressed to find something that’s not in the ports collection. Provided you find it, it should build on FreeBSD without hassle.
linux_baby: “I would say that FreeBSD is an example of excellent technology that has badly packaged and needlessly rendered inaccessible. Its been around for a goody number of years, and it has all these wonderful people working on it, but it doesn’t have even a good text installer!”
Jordan Hubbard would certainly agree with you. For this very reason FreeBSD started the sysintall2/libh project. See: http://rtp1.slowblink.com/~libh/sysinstall2/aboutlibh.html
The idea is to make an interface agnostic installer which any sort of front end can be tacked onto, be it text-based or graphical. This also calls for a much more powerful packaging system.
Like all FreeBSD projects, it suffers from a lack of developers.
“You would have to be a core geek, no kidding, to appreciate the value of that OS.”
Fortunately you’re describing a large segment of the system administrator market.
“Even as a server OS, FreeBSD is needlessly intimidating to any but the most adventurous souls.”
FreeBSD’s model is targeted towards those who already have a mental model of a Unix system and how it works. It’s certainly not intended to be “My First Unix Operating System”
“Why bother with a muscular OS when you can choose Windows or OS X servers?”
I run qmail atop FreeBSD (for one group, and Solaris for the other), as well as UW IMAP which provides SSL IMAP service for all users here. This is not an ideal role for a Windows machine (especially when you don’t want to be patching it every few weeks for security vulnerabilities) and OS X would require purchasing new hardware.
Aab: “I don’t think FreeBSD needs more publicity and it certainly doesn’t need to be pushed as desktop OS. FreeBSD gathers its followers differently.”
Most FreeBSD users I know got their start on some other Unix operating system, be it Solaris, Irix, AIX, or in my case, NCR.
>> FreeBSD is a server OS, end of story.
Yeah, I agree, but if you are talking about market share, FreeBSD isn’t exactly a successul server OS. Not when compared to Windows Servers, for example. Why is that? A solid OS like that ought to be more widely deployed.
> You have to be determined to learn
> something new to try it out
No kidding, you are very right. Does it have to be that way? This is 2003, and easy-to-use Windows is threatening to overrun the server space as well.
>FreeBSD isn’t exactly a successul server OS. Why is that?
Because FreeBSD does not have the hype Linux has.
> A solid OS like that ought to be more widely deployed.
Not when not many people hear about it as much as Linux.
– Winex is not yet ported. That one is a big drawback for many gamers.
You can download, compile and install it yourself. I have wine going on my FreeBSD 5.0 box (under KDE 3.1) at home.
I have nothing against FreeBSD it is quite simple and easy to use. But what I noticed is that whenever I install it I spend a while to make it feel like my Slackware. You know making bash default shell, symlinking mc, and so on.
Since I am pretty happy with my slack why would I change to FreeBSD?
Yeah, I agree, but if you are talking about market share, FreeBSD isn’t exactly a successul server OS. Not when compared to Windows Servers, for example. Why is that? A solid OS like that ought to be more widely deployed.
It’s called mindshare, and FreeBSD has none.
With Linux having completed its next generation threading, it will be several months (if not years… it’s been discussed that if KSE support isn’t added to the POSIX threads library by 5.2 it won’t go in until the next generation of FreeBSD) before FreeBSD is on-par with Linux again for multithreaded applications (although it’s nice to see FreeBSD’s 1:1 implemenentation outperforming Linux’s much heralded M:N implementation, and least for libkse-enabled applications)
FreeBSD is in a transitory time at the moment. FreeBSD 4 is essentially antequated, and for the time being Linux has many features which make it a more tempting choice.
We’ll have to see where things stand after FreeBSD 5.2
>Since I am pretty happy with my slack why would I change to FreeBSD?
I don’t think you need to. Slack is pretty good too. FreeBSD is just an alternative, and it is even more “unix-y” in its ways. For unix purists, FreeBSD is a good free alternative. If you are already happy with Linux though (notably with Debian or Slackware), there is no reason to switch.
*
Doesn’t the lack of a graphical configuration tools count as a dislike?
*
Well, besides several gnu/linux and freebsd machines I am also stuck having to take care of several windows 2000 machines, and, when working with those, I by heart miss the ease and clarity of system configuration just by telling the system what I want it to do / to be like rather than having to click right through hundreds and thousands of cascading menus, windows and tabs just to find the tiny check box where I have to say, for example, which DNS suffix to use on my box – putting “search <whatever>” into resolv.conf works a lot faster even messing with ed or emacs.
I have to say, for example, which DNS suffix to use on my box – putting “search <whatever>” into resolv.conf works a lot faster even messing with ed or emacs.
I think this stands out most prominently with BSD-style init. Having a centralized location from which to control standard system services (/etc/rc.conf) makes configuration so much easier than wading through directories of symlinks (for SysV init)
How about the fact that there’s no GUI installer?
you should only need to install once anyway, so what’s the big deal. if you don’t want to install from a text installer, then I guess you won’t use FreeBSD. there’s not really a marketer trying to stuff it down anyone’s throat as a desktop OS, so I doubt it really matters all that much to the FreeBSD project.
What about having to manually add your disks to /etc/fstab?
he could have defined mount points for his other partitions when he created his partitions.
he doesn’t consider making things easy to configure as a bonus.
is it? and who determines easy? a poor X configuration makes a lot of users think linux is slow, but to this day I’ve never seen anything but a workable X configuration from any of the distros that automatically configure X. my poor laptop only boots every third distro because of some misconfiguration by Linux installers.
I do note that this “review” _doesn’t_ seem to cover configuration past “download software”, which makes me suspicious.
it’s all in the handbook. there is absolutely nothing wrong with people being required to learn how to use an OS. in fact, in the end I would say it makes the user more satisfied with the outcome and more proficient with their computers.
if you have a fast processor, you can compile from scratch. if you don’t you can download packages via ftp from the installer. all that’s really left after you’ve installed everything is what would be left after you’ve installed any distro.
This may as well have been an essay called “FreeBSD software tips”. It’s amazing what kind of stuff gets labelled a “review” nowadays.
I tend to agree, it doesn’t really shed any light on FreeBSD’s nice points or bad points. just seems to be a rough sketch of a quick install.
I think this article was very good. For everyone who thinks freebsd needs a gui installer and should be turned into redhat, I really don’t think that you understand what unix is about. It seems to me like you would be better off using windows. I mean the person who said that they didnt like that with freebsd they’d have to edit /etc/fstab is ridiculous. I started out my *nix adventure with mandrake, and used diskdrake to “mount my disks” and so forth at first. I mean what a piece of crap that tool was. Then I learned about the fstab file. It’s sooooooooo much easier to just “vi /etc/fstab” and change what you need, save it and your done. This hand holding that so many distros does actually makes things a lot more diffiult in the long run.
I think the biggest problem with watered down distros is that they almost seem to be made for windows converts, and they really don’t make you switch to the unix mindset from the windows mindset. You find ways of doing things that are very similar to windows, and in the end you’re only worse off. If you go from disto x to distro y, it’s most likely that distro y isn’t going to have that nice comfy gui config tool that held your hand through MOUNTING A DISK. I’m sorry but if you can’t manually mount a disk you shouldn’t be using any form of *nix. “FreeBSD is made for people who love unix, not those who hate windows.” Sorry I stole that off someone, but I think its really true.
BTW, I have yet to try FreeBSD, but I plan to in the near future, and I have already read pretty much all of the Handbook to prepare for my venture into FreeBSD. FreeBSD has such great documentation, I wish linux had something half as good. Anyways…good article.
When installing a port, you have two options:
1.pkg_add -r
2.cd /usr/ports/// && make install clean
You omitted the best alternative: portupgrade. It lets you install via either ports or packages and handles dependencies and upgrades. Very nice.
So summarizing what people said here is
BSD has more speed and is more reliable
Linux is more graphical and has better driver support…
Sounds like a Windows/Linux comparison almost ;P Wher Linux take the role of Windows and BSD the one of Linux…
Without any more rant, here it comes. BSD is for the person who really want power and has enough skill to handle it and Linux is it’s little brother aimed for the apprentice.
Neat aye!
is the ports system. I switched to FreeBSD several years ago after struggling with various RPM-based Linux distros. Trying to maintain a RedHat or Mandrake system back then was a nightmare, and Debian was hopelessly out of date (and don’t ask me to run a distro named ‘Unstable’). In FreeBSD I found what I had been looking for: an easy to install and maintain system with excellent documentation and a great community. And all my favorite applications were there (except Java, no joy). The situation is rapidly changing, however, with the combination of RedHat + apt or yum. I feel I will probably switch back to Linux someday, but I hope that FreeBSD 5.x will be a great system that can keep up with the best Linux has to offer, and if so, I’ll stick with it.
Btw, FreeBSD 5.0 is not ready for prime time. 4.8 just came out and I’ll be upgrading this weekend.
The beauty of FreeBSD is the community, plain and simple. The type of people who are drawn to FreeBSD tend to be nice, helpful individuals who have a love for technology. They tend not to be zealots or extremists about their OS or the tools they use. They (we!) tend to just go about our business, doing the things that we’re interested in and using FreeBSD for whatever suits our purposes, having a lot of fun and being extremely productive in the process. The BSD license is also a great benefit, allowing the best of both worlds when developing software. If the GPL/Linux community was even 10% as polite and non-fanatical as the BSD community, the world would be a much calmer place.
If you like FreeBSD or would like to try it… Go for it.. the installer isn’t bad and the FreeBSD Documentation project (FreeBSD Handbook, etc) has written the best documentation and man pages of any project I have ever seen. If you don’t like FreeBSD, that’s ok too, as frankly we’re just having fun.
http://www.freebsd.org is a good place to start.
A lot of people were complaining about the lack of GUI tools. When will you learn that there are people, like me, who really _hate_ GUI tools that screw up everything all the time, and offer little flexibility (you can’t beat the power of a shell script with a GUI!).
GUI’s are fine for beginners, or lazy users. But please_ leave us power users alone, and don’t push those **** GUI’s down our throats
It would be easier to switch to FreeBSD if it could run VMWare.
wasn’t this supposed to be a freebsd 5 review… i didn’t hear the author talk about the differences between 5 and 4.x at anytime… i was just expecting the author to have said something to make me excited about the next version of the operating system
derache
FreeBSD can run VMWare through it’s Linux Emulator.
He says he don’t like Linux because it doesn’t have a clean GUI, yet he defends Fluxbox on FreeBSD. Well, Fluxbox has been easily available for every Linux distro I have seen. Seems to me he’s just trying to be 3l33t.
…GUI installer…
If you’re installing FreeBSD onto a bare drive, the ability to use a mouse to install FreeBSD doesn’t really make the installation process any better. FreeBSD’s install utility works pretty well, it just isn’t graphical.
Now look at Xandros’ graphical installer. It works great unless you want to do any repartitioning. Then you might as well use a command line.
And then look at Gentoo’s installation process. You basically have to print out their web site and pass the A+ certification to get it installed.
I think only Windows and BeOS have got the installation part right. Xandros and ELX Linux come close (FreeBSD’s isn’t far behind), but I haven’t tried Red Hat or Mandrake.
linux_baby: it doesn’t have even a good text installer
Have you tried FreeBSD, yet? FreeBSD has very good text installer and it just looks like ‘DOS’ GUI. I fail to see what’s the difference with ‘3D’ GUI and ‘DOS’ GUI, when it’s just a installtion. All you have to do is selecting the options, answer yes or no, fill out stuff and etc.
FreeBSD’s FDISK is ten times better than Slackware, Gentoo Linux and few other Linux distro’s CFDISK and FDISK. FreeBSD’s FDISK is very easy to use.
linux_baby: You would have to be a core geek, no kidding, to appreciate the value of that OS.
It’s funny that I think to use Linux is more core geek than to use BSD, because BSD is easier to use and admin.
linux_baby: Why bother with a muscular OS when you can choose Windows or OS X servers?
Nonesense, looks like you need to open the eyes. Quit troll. Not everybody has the very same prefers and options. I find BSD is a lot easier to admin than Windows, Linux and others. Also, BSD has prove me the reliablity, stability (damn solid), secure, speed, superuior and etc than other OSs as server/workstation. Therefore, I chose BSD, but you chose Windows or OS X.
Eugenia: FreeBSD is a server OS, end of story.
FreeBSD, also, can be a desktop, but you just have to work harder. There have very lastest version of XFree86, KDE, Gnome, Blacbox and many more. To play MPlayer in Linux (old 2.4 kernel) on my cheap machine and it chokes, when it runs very smooth in FreeBSD.
Erwos: What about having to manually add your disks to /etc/fstab? I know exactly how that works, yet I find it quite annoying to do so. Wouldn’t you like FreeBSD to automatically do this?
You don’t have to edit the /etc/fstab, unless you want to add anything fancy such as auto mount, mount FAT32 or so. You still have to do it by manual in Linux either.
viki: Since I am pretty happy with my slack why would I change to FreeBSD?
Do you have another toy box to play with? If you do, then it would be good idea for you to install FreeBSD on this toy box and learn more about FreeBSD. Slackware is one of best Linux distro that I have tried, but BSD blows Linux out of water. 🙂
FreeBSD is a lot more easier to update (upgrade), admin and etc than Slackware does.
How can you even compare Glimmer to Editplus? Sure it looks pretty much the same, but the damn thing can’t even recognize a single-quoted string. Thus, all the syntax highlighting in all my php scripts looks like crap.
Regarding FreeBSD, I actually found that installing and using it (ver 4.x) was infinitely easier than any linux distro I have tried (RH, mandrake, debian).
Using Linux as a desktop OS is bad enough, but using FreeBSD with X should be a crime!
FreeBSD – The Power to SERVER, not to play your MP3s
Im a very satisfied FreeBSD5.0 user.
My first experience with unix was FreeBSD4.4.
I have tried to switch to linux several times, but
all the time I just thought: FreeBSD has solved that
issue way smarter than linux.
I’ve tried debian3, redhat6, redhat8.
This has finaly got me convinced that BSD is good!
I don’t really need a server, and I’m not a sysadmin. When I installed FreeBSD 4.2 and tried it out, I rather enjoyed it. FreeBSD may not be easier than Linux, but it doesn’t go out of its way to make things complicated or confusing, either.
And it’s just as good on the desktop as Linux, too, especially with its Linux emulation to help even things up.
Finally, the overall user experience is difficult to describe, but FreeBSD just seemed more solid and professional to me than most Linux distros.
I’ll probably wait for 5.x to mature, but I guess it’s time to upgrade to 4.8.
Someone asked me why I prefer FreeBSD over Linux, specifically Red Hat. This is what I said:
I prefer FreeBSD to Linux because I get more control. Linux distributions usually install thousands of applications that you’ll never use. FreeBSD will just give you the basics and you add what you want so you always know what you have. Also, FreeBSD uses more standard Unix ways of doing things. Linux people feel like they always have to “improve” the standard utilities, so they install something you don’t know how to configure. The biggest problems in Red Hat is that it uses xinetd instead of the standard inetd and CUPS for printing instead of the standard BSD lpr. I know how to configure inetd, I don’t want to learn a completely different way of doing the same thing with xinetd. CUPS isn’t as bad since Red Hat gives you a GUI to setup a printer. FreeBSD man pages are well-maintained and up-to-date. Some Linux man pages are a mess. FreeBSD has its own versions of standard utilities (eg ls) so they don’t have to use a GNU version, thus the man page is authorative and you don’t have use stupid GNU Info. Installing third-party software is easier using FreeBSD’s packages or ports systems (which are integrated with each other). If you want to install something from RPM (Red Hat Package Manager) that was not included on the distribution CD-ROMs you have to make sure the rpm file is for your exact distribution and version, or else it may depend on libraries (or versions of libraries) you do not have installed. FreeBSD packages are pre-compiled binary files for applications, and will tell you exactly which other packages are required. Packages are built directly from ports which are source distributions of applications. If you want to install say tcsh, go “cd /usr/ports/shells/tcsh; make install clean” which will download the source tar from the Internet, un-tar it, apply any FreeBSD-specific patches, build it, (and also do this for any other required ports), install it, clean out the build files and register it in the package database. Thus you can install any application from either source or binary and it will do all that’s required to get it working. Any software built for Linux can be built on FreeBSD if the source is available. Even if the source isn’t available FreeBSD can do Linux Emulation and so can run any Linux binary, and not really slower either. One problem with FreeBSD is its native Java SDK is kinda behind, but with Linux Emulation you can run the Linux Java SDK. Also there isn’t a native Flash plug-in or RealPlayer plug-in for FreeBSD, but you might be able to get the Linux version working.
I prefer FreeBSD to Linux because I get more control. Linux distributions usually install thousands of applications that you’ll never use.
Well…. Gentoo Linux and other small Linux distro give the more control than FreeBSD by default. Sendmail, BIND (named) and inetd are include FreeBSD by default, which I don’t want them. They aren’t easy to delete and etc, but you can replace with the other daemons. I want to see someone to create barebone of BSD and replace system logs to print on text file instead mail (to root).
I’m willing to give FreeBSD 5 a try. I have a server that is running mandrake now but I would like to try this beast. I’m new to BSD so I need recomendations on tutorials/gui tools to install/manage samba, apache, mysql and php as well as a firewall to share/protect my broadband connection. Any pointers?
“””Using Linux as a desktop OS is bad enough, but using FreeBSD with X should be a crime!”””
That’s a rather poor argument, it’s equivalent to someone arguing that NTor a Solaris workstation isn’t suitable for use.
wtf are you smokin
Most distro (redhat, mandrake, slackware, debian….) has an option to install the bare minimum. Stop this bullshit.
(inetd || xinetd) == a super server that starts most of the well know services without using excessive system resources.
inetd and xinetd are pretty much the same. Also, stop this bullshit
Not every package is in portage tree
So you need to install it manually..
my freebsd 4.6 has been running fine along side linux and windows.
linux and freebsd is about the same and one knowledge will transfer to the other. Please, stop this bullshit
I’m willing to give FreeBSD 5 a try. I have a server that is running mandrake now but I would like to try this beast. I’m new to BSD so I need recomendations on tutorials/gui tools to install/manage samba, apache, mysql and php as well as a firewall to share/protect my broadband connection. Any pointers?
Check at http://www.freebsd.org , there have handbook, newbie and etc links. They are very helpful.
GUI? I have no idea, edit from text files give more flexible and power to tweak. But, there have plenty of stuff in the ports tree for you to take a look.
Oh btw: Check at http://www.freshports.org to surf the ports tree, before you install FreeBSD.
I saw that freebsd 4.7 has four iso files, but the newer versions have only 2. Does anyone know why freebsd 4.7 comes with more packages?
Here are some links for good BSD info that I have found useful:
http://www.freebsd.org
http://onlamp.com/bsd
http://www.freebsdforums.org
http://www.bsdvault.net
http://www.freebsddiary.org
http://www.daemonnews.org
To better answer your question, the Onlamp Site’s FreeBSD Basics and Big Scary Daemons columns are the best I have found for learning FreeBSD and configuring software outside of the official handbook.
Also, if you still like Linux but hate distros then check out the following:
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org
This site is a great tutorial for anyone tired of being handheld by distribution makers. If you have an old pentium with nothing better to do it is a great learning experience.
FWIW I run FreeBSD 4.8 PIII 500mhz Dell Latitude. I switched from Mandrake two years ago and haven’t looked back.
I’ll chime in, what the hell. I’ve bounced my desktop between Linux and FreeBSD for the last few years. I’ve gone though various Linuxes: Slackware, Redhat (solely to use SGI XFS before is was mainstream), and gentoo. Right now, I use gentoo, a poor copy of FreeBSD, but a poor copy of FreeBSD is better than any of the other distros I’ve found. Why is Gentoo just a poor copy? Installing stuff in /usr as opposed to /use/local. Not having a real alternative to mergemaster (I know etc-update is making progress). But, I admit Linux has better support for my hardware (nvidia + DVI, mostly). For my all-signing, all-dancing, multimedia extravaganza desktop, it’s easier to use Linux, only because everyone else is.
My real machine, a gateway, web server, mail, etc is freebsd. I just installed 5.0. The last time I did a full install was Freebsd 4.2 in November 2000, and the last before that was Freebsd 3.2 in August of 1999 (I think). That’s 2.5 years and without having to blow it away and start over. I track STABLE regularily, and keep up with security updates, I think it rebuilt (make update, make world) the system 20 times (secutiry updates, mostly) in that 2.5 years. I never had trouble. That’s what matters to me, not GUI installers. If you only install once every couple years, I’d rather they spend more time on the system itself.
Oh yeah, creds: I started Linux with Slackware 3.2 (1.2 kernels, I think, in 1995-6), FreeBSD with 3.2 in 1999. The last 4 years I’ve been a UNIX (IRIX, Solaris, AIX) admin.
with 3 carpenter, you can build a house
with 3 carpenter with time, you can build a mansion.
with 1000s of workers, you can build a town
with 1000s of workers with time, you can build a city.
so while bsd forks build that mansion, linux will build a city around it.
FreeBSD is a server OS, end of story.
I was always under the impression that NetBSD was geared towards server functions, while FreeBSD was geared towards desktop/workstation functionality. Did I hear incorrectly?
I’d like to direct you to an excellent book by Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month
More developers does not reduce development time, nor does it lead to a better product.
Linux can’t really decide where it’s going. A great number of alterations to the kernel (the low latency patch and the kernel preempt patch, as well as the “fair” I/O scheduler) have done a great deal to harm the system’s overall throughput. (bad for databases or other high performance servers)
So, what’s good for the desktop isn’t good for the server. Look at Solaris, it has terrible latency. It certainly “feels” slow, but its scalability and load handling are astronomical.
Furthermore, Linux’s locking granularity leaves a lot to be desired, compared with FreeBSD 5.0.
Finally, there’s Linux’s nightmarish VM. You know, the one Linus replaced in the middle of a stable kernel series. FreeBSD’s VM has been fine tuned over the years. Linux still can’t decide which VM to use.
I’ve heard good stuff about what will happen to the VM in the 2.6 series. I’d love to run my VM/heap performance test suite (HeapMark) on it, but unfortunately the last time I tried to boot a 2.5 kernel it paniced mid-boot.
After playing around with Redhate, SuSE, and Mandrake a bit I tried to install FreeBSD. The install wasn’t at all complicated; however, I was nowhere near prepared enough to get X up and working on my own.
Needless to say, that didn’t last long. I put off installing gentoo for a long time because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get X going on my own. Then I realized there were pretty good instructions in the documentation. I am sure I could get FreeBSD going now if I wanted too.
Maybe when I get a little server box I’ll throw it on there.
I was always under the impression that NetBSD was geared towards server functions, while FreeBSD was geared towards desktop/workstation functionality. Did I hear incorrectly?
Yes, FreeBSD is primarily a server operating system. Its motto is “The Power to Serve.” See http://www.freebsd.org/
> FreeBSD, also, can be a desktop
Really? Not only some video and audioplayers make my/a desktop…
> FreeBSD can run VMWare through it’s Linux Emulator
He asked about VMWare 3.2. But FreeBSD can only run VMWare 2.x as I know…
> Once again, if you’re looking for a desktop operating
> system with good hardware support, might I suggest
> Windows?
Why windows? Linux supports 95% of all Windows compatible hardware. And the software market is really growing.
And no, I don’t want to hope for every app I need that it runs with the FreeBSD Linux emulation. Can’t trust that this one supports glibc2.3.x/gcc3.x compiled applications. And if I mix something where no sources are available…
>> “And more compatible to sources.”
> I think you’ll be hard pressed to find something that’s
> not in the ports collection.
I’m the writer of “more compatible”. Hmm, at FreeBSD 4.4 or 4.3 times, I spent some hours to compile KDE 2.x from ports collection. After some hours I got a compile error. This was the first and one of the last times to think the ports collection is usuable and works as it should do. And this was a port from original series. Deleted FreeBSD and compiled myself KDE2.x on Slackware without problems. No, I don’t really need some patched port collections where I must hope that it works.
And Linux is stable as every Unix with stable hardware plus without alpha/beta drivers and apps…
to begin with, the title alone is so typical of a Linux user that I forced to reply. shouldn’t you be telling Windows users why Linux is “better” than Windows? or couldn’t your time be better spent explaining to Mandrake users that Slackware is clearly superior?
with 3 carpenter, you can build a house
with 3 carpenter with time, you can build a mansion.
aye. but, a carpenter knowing that he’ll be building a mansion with relatively little help will be a damn good carpenter. the fact that his mansion can be compared to the city next door would tend to make one wonder if it’s really a slum.
with 1000s of workers, you can build a town
with 1000s of workers with time, you can build a city.
of course, only 100 of the workers will be building the city, another 100 will knocking down buildings that they didn’t like then putting up new buidlings in there place, another 300 will be trying their best to clean up after the other two crews, and another 500 are trying to advance their own agendas.
so while bsd forks build that mansion, linux will build a city around it.
and some of us will sit back and enjoy the beauty and craftsmanship of the mansion, while trying not to remember the slum that sprung up next door.
And Linux is stable as every Unix with stable hardware plus without alpha/beta drivers and apps…
It’s funny you should insult the FreeBSD drivers. Some of the oldest (and what all logic should dictate should be the most mature) drivers in Linux are horrible, horrible hacks. Case in point is the eepro100 driver for Intel PRO 100-based NICs. I remember having terrible problems with this driver simply dying and spewing debugging information to the console. Looking at the code showed a tight loop the code entered to wait for messages to come from the driver, with a comment along the lines of “This should only take 200 cycles” Apparently my card was exceeding this, and the error handler had only been stubbed out. Consequently, the driver simply died.
Here’s some quick results from google on the subject:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=eepro100…
Despite this chipset’s prevelance, this driver remained unusable until I eliminated the last of my Linux based systems. In recent history, Intel has noticed the failing of this driver too, and has consequently provided its own “e100” driver in place of the community developed one. Unfortunately, this driver is also riddled with bugs. To this date there isn’t a usable driver for these cards.
As for “stability” that’s not much of a claim. Any reputable operating system these days is extremely stable, including Windows. FreeBSD’s claim to fame has always been server performance, specifically on VM intensive applications like databases. (distributed.net uses Sybase on FreeBSD through Linux compatibility)
Which platform is the best to run Apache on? Well, http://www.apache.org is a FreeBSD system, if that means anything to you…
Why windows? Linux supports 95% of all Windows compatible hardware. And the software market is really growing
Here are a few reasons why you should have a Windows (or OS X) system:
http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/main.html
http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/Plasma/default.asp
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html
http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/main.html
http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/
I’m the writer of “more compatible”. Hmm, at FreeBSD 4.4 or 4.3 times, I spent some hours to compile KDE 2.x from ports collection.
For something as large as KDE, perhaps you should have considered installing from packages instead.
I’ve successfully compiled KDE a number of times from the ports collection, however. Perhaps you didn’t check out the ports tree properly, or tried to build from an out-of-date tree?
Well, after being a Slackware user for years, I switched to RedHat 9. Why? Am I mad? No. It was just apealing at the moment. I got somewhat tired of compiling from source or downloading Half broken slack packages from the net. I just don’t have time for it. In the mean time I’ve tryed FreeBSD. A couple of year ago actually, but its not appealing on the desktop. Windows neither for me. So I keep using Linux for the desktop. Maybe I’ll go back to Slackware, but for now I’ll stay with Red Hat.
1. There is no appreciable difference between the stability of Linux and FreeBSD on good hardware. If you’re running either a freebsd release/stable branch, or a 2.4.x kernel (with the exception of the one that corrupts fs’s), the machine won’t crash.
2. There is virtually no difference in performance between the two. FreeBSD networking is marginally faster. Linux threading and DRI performance is faster. This is where you might make a choice regarding a desktop machine versus a server.
3. Linux has XFS, FreeBSD doesn’t. The last two servers I’ve put together have been Linux because I’ve been really impressed with XFS. UFS is old and slow. UFS2 is better, but I haven’t found many people who use it in a production environment yet. XFS has years of use because of Irix.
4. Installer. The FreeBSD installer has a couple of quirks that make it frustrating to use (if your mirror craps out, you start *all* the downloads again). There are Linux installers that are worse; Gentoo immediately comes to mind. So do the rpm-based distros with their dependency hell. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to get Mandrake installed in under a gig. Both FreeBSD and Debian I’ve been able to get in under 100M.
So, other than those few differences, it comes down to two real issues…
– Personal preference. Some people like the way that BSD puts its system together — I don’t. I like SysV init, and you don’t have that choice on FreeBSD. kill -HUP some bs like that.
– Freedom. Well, we’ve been over this many times. I support GNU software. Don’t get me wrong, a BSD license is better than Microsoft’s, but it’s not as good.
BTW, although I’ve used both on the desktop, neither one of them is ready for prime-time there. They’re both old true-to-form Unixes, which don’t work on the desktop. Maybe something based on Darwin. Maybe the Hurd. It’ll happen sometime…..
Actually WineX runs well in CURRENT using the linux translation layer.
I’m getting tired of people suggesting people to use the open source version of winex. There are differences other than the copy protection stuff, if you buy the application (like any good gamer would) you will be presented with a list of software used in the binary version which cannot be released open source.
Things I liked (and not mentioned previously) since I installed FreeBSD were:
-The text mode screensaver (you have several choices too);
-The text mode mouse pointer (cursor) is shaped (class mathers).
</end of not mentioned by others>
The text mode admin panel (/stand/sysinstall) is very logical, but a new panel with Python and tcl/Tk would be a nice improvement.
The packaging system and ports usage;
The way the directories and files are positioned;
The documentation is of high quality and aimed at new users (unlike Linux distro documentation (excluding SuSE documentation, maybe);
The kernel compiles, 98% of the times, cleanly if you make it according to the handbook (unlike the Linux kernel compilation) and the kernel config file is easy to configure;
The comunnity is very helpfull and polite.
The *RAM memory management* is much better than Linux when you have the system running for more than 10 hours (if it’s a server you start to appreciate this feature after the first week.
“Linux can’t really decide where it’s going. A great number of alterations to the kernel (the low latency patch and the kernel preempt patch, as well as the “fair” I/O scheduler) have done a great deal to harm the system’s overall throughput. (bad for databases or other high performance servers) ”
The low latency patch can be turned on and off whenever you like..
echo “0” > /proc/sys/kernel/lowlatency if you don’t want it.
Preempt is optional when you compile the kernel. Will be switchable at run time eventually too.
I’ve not seen enough benchmarks of the fair IO sched to comment, but those I have do not show big throughput degradation. Contest here… http://www.kerneltrap.org/node.php?id=612
Having all these as optional mean that the Linux kernel can be optimised for a fast responding desktop, or for the server. You will eventually be able to switch between the two every couple of seconds if you like.
I gave up on Linux 1 year ago,switched to FreeBSD and never looked back. All Linux distros are a mess compared to the consistency and elegance of FreeBSD. Its fast,properly documented,clean,consistent and stable.
I got sick of all the damn problems with Linux. Niggling hardware compatibility problems were the worst. I had several machines on which i was able to install win2k and FreeBSD without problems but Linux refused to install on these machines.
Linux is a overhyped hacked together mess.
>> I saw that freebsd 4.7 has four iso files, but the newer
>> versions have only 2. Does anyone know why freebsd 4.7
>> comes with more packages?
This is only a guess, but I think the other two CD’s are not really necessary. I’ve been running FreeBSD for two years, and I’ve always only used the first CD for the install. I mounted the CD with the live filesystem once when I thought my system had been cracked and I wanted to compare checksums. You really only need the first ISO.
This argument has generated some of the stupidest arguments I have ever seen. First of all increased interest in BSD is good for linux. Increased interest in linux is good for BSD. Because of similar architecture native linux apps have a much better chance of simple BSD parts and the inverse is also true. More users using BSD and linux and any other unix means more users who may take part in coding open source unix apps which are easily ported to other unix platforms. It means more interest in KDE, more interest in GNOME, more interest in (insert your favorite DE, WM, application, etc.).
Quit bickering and drink a beer. You’ll feel better.
I can’t agree more this bickering is totally stupid. It was a fairly good review and then people start slagging each others OS.
As a linux user I am appalled at the Linux zealot(s) slagging BSD here. Why oh why do you do it?
For example
Why linux is “better” than bsd by GetOutofHere
Why post such a thing in a thread based on a BSD review? What is the purpose of writing such flamebait?
Even as a server OS, FreeBSD is needlessly intimidating to any but the most adventurous souls.
FreeBSD is intimidating to anyone that isn’t a Unix admin (amazingly enough). It’s not out there trying to win “Unix for dummies switchers” or publicity, it’s out there doing a job.
Or, to put it another way, “FreeBSD is for people who love Unix. Linux is for people who hate Microsoft”.
Why bother with a muscular OS when you can choose Windows or OS X servers?
Because if you’re a Unix sysadmin, switching to Windows or OS X – both of which differ wildly in their administrative methods, is a Bit Bloody Stupid, isn’t it ?
It’s a bit like asking “why bother with Windows or OS X when you can choose Solaris or FreeBSD ?”
Yeah, I agree, but if you are talking about market share, FreeBSD isn’t exactly a successul server OS. Not when compared to Windows Servers, for example. Why is that? A solid OS like that ought to be more widely deployed.
It is a very successful server OS and is widely deployed – it’s just that you don’t read about it on the news because it doesn’t get hyped. Heck, IIRC the back end of Hotmail is still running on FreeBSD machines.
Go to academic institutions and start looking around for FreeBSD machines (don’t forget firewalls). You might be surprised.
TrueType fonts are mandatory, so xfstt got installed pretty fast. I copied my fonts from my font directory from my FAT32 partition into my new TrueType folder, and added FontPath “unix/:7101” in XF86Config.
Totally unnecessary, as XFree86 nowadays has TrueType support built-in, and for easier font management and client-side rendering there’s fontconfig & Xft2. All you had to do is copy those fonts to ~/.fonts and maybe run ‘fc-cache’.
what, do I have to spell everything out… Or are u Australians that dumb
Linux is not technically better than BSD as I stated in the first post.
Linux is “better” than BSD in that there are more developer working on it because as eugenia pointed out more hype for linux.
but someone made the statement that more does not mean better using kind of the standard software engineering methodology:
“if it takes a woman 9 months to produce a baby, then 9 woman should produce 9 baby a month.”
granted this is true is some circumstances but more often than not, more developers are better.
Before mouthing off, you should spend more time reading the thread; not bits and piece and getting your ass all worked up.
peace
But why did you need to point it out in the way that you did? Why did you leave off the clarifiers? It seems to have been written in such a way as to flame BSD. That is the problem. In the middle of a BSD article you choose to say something inflammatory. You post a comment that is obviously your opinion and made it look like a fact for what purpose?
I mean if I compare you the average American idiot in some stupid way it might be truthful but it also is inflammatory.
You are doing the same thing here.
The documentation for FreeBSD is by far the best aspect of it. And one of the only reasons I even use it, the only problems I did have with FreeBSD is, packages are not updated fast enough, second my sound didn’t run so well, it would cut off sometimes and back on, but the point was the quaility wasn’t great for sound, the last problem I had was with having to compile the kernel a lot. I compiled the kernel for NAT, then last I read you have to compile the kernel for audio, then this , and that.
Uhm… if it’s the amount of people who are working on something that is important rathar than what it can do? Why are you not on Windows then?
> or tried to build from an out-of-date tree?
No, it was a original installation out of the box and port collection failed “wonderfull”… nothing more to say…
I will just ignore previous arguing stuffs (or comments).
I think the point of the article was that there were not much of other OS reviews whereas there were heaps of GNU/Linux distro reviews you could face in this site. I agree with that.
I guess that this was a good article for a starting point not to concerntrate on just one specific OS(that is GNU/Linux, of course) for the choice of OS reviews. Rather please make this site generalised on OSes as this is OSNews!
So go for *BSD! go for BeOS! go for MacOS! go for QNX! go for AtheOS/Syllable! go for SkyOS etc etc.
Well.. in my own humble opinion I think GNU/Linux is a way over-hyped in the market.
Just saying it is superior to Windows isn’t good statement for non-technical people. They may ask ‘Oh yeah? then my favourite Quake/Diablo2/Warcraft/etc runs better on Linux?’
mmmmm but that makes me laugh in this horrible and dried(no laugh, no smile on faces) world…
I’m using FreeBSD both as server and as desktop OS (in conjunction with KDE). The reasons I love it are the following:
– Stability. It simply runs, and after 2 weeks it feels as fresh as it feels after a reboot.
– Consistency. Everything is set up in a very logical fashion. Ports get installed the same way, in the same dirs etc. There’s complete and up to date man pages for all system commands.
– Documentation. The FreeBSD handbook is simply excellent, there’s loads ofs how-to’s out there and the community is helpful.
– No Handholding. I like to know what my computer is doing. I want my computer to do what I tell it to do, not some GUI guessing what I’m intending to do. If you’ve only ever used the GUI to configure some stuff, you’ll have no idea what to do when it breaks or when you switch to a different *nix that does things in a different way.
– Ports. It just works.
– Clean Base install. A comment from a friend brings this to the point. He said “I like SuSE, because I know what to turn off after the install to make it secure”. With the BSDs you don’t turn off stuff after the install, you turn on the things you need.
I’ve seen other people try FreeBSD, and fail miserably. I suppose I’m in the crowd that simply fell in love with it. For people that don’t like the command line, I suppose it’s an excersize in frustration.
I started using FreeBSD only last year, although I have heard of it since 1993, the year I got into University. I have used Linux (starting with the famous Slackware 3.0) and after I started using BSD I was stunned!!! That thing is fast. I can compile mozilla on a Celeron 1300MHz (P3 core) 512MB SDRAM PC100 in just 45 mins, compared to 55 on a Celeron 1700MHz 512MB DDR SDRAM PC2700 (P4 core), using Linux. I can agree with you all that say that FreeBSD is not for the beginner. You have to have lots of experience in Unix to be able to appreciate and use BSD. The ports system is simply the best software management system in existance, IMHO. Also, the fact that you can build a full featured Internet router with just a few hundred megs install. I study and work at the Department of Computer Science in Coimbra, Portugal, and we even replaced some of the 10Mbps links on our Cisco 7000 with 100Mbps links on a FreeBSD machine and it is working flawlessly for more than a year now… Here we have several Linux and BSD machines, and I can tell you that BSD is much more stable than Linux in evey aspect.
Of course the hardware support is not as complete as in Linux, but using BSD as a investigation/development/server platform is better than using Linux for the job.
> linux_baby:
> Very true, but your article is about using and promoting
> FreeBSD as a desktop! Why are you bothering?
Because FreeBSD is fully functional as a desktopsystem.
> Traal:
> You can download, compile and install it yourself. I have
> wine going on my FreeBSD 5.0 box (under KDE 3.1) at home.
Wine is ported. WineX however, is not. I suppose you meant WineX. I agree, you can compile the linux version because of the Linux-base support in FreeBSD. But I like to use ports/packages only, which i think most FBSD users do too.
> viki:
> Since I am pretty happy with my slack why would I
> change to FreeBSD?
If you’re happy with your distro, why ever change? The only thing I can think of is ports/pkg system.
> Doesn’t the lack of a graphical configuration tools count as a dislike?
I bet there is tools in the package system you could install and use.
> wasn’t this supposed to be a freebsd 5 review… i didn’t
> hear the author talk about the differences between 5 and
> 4.x at anytime… i was just expecting the author to have
> said something to make me excited about the next version
> of the operating system
I don’t have the deep knowlegde of FreeBSDs core to write that kind of review. I agree it would be interesting, indeed. I just wanted to make people aware of FreeBSDs possibilites to work as a successful workstation with the advantages of FreeBSDs stability, fastness and package system.
> He says he don’t like Linux because it doesn’t have a
> clean GUI, yet he defends Fluxbox on FreeBSD. Well,
> Fluxbox has been easily available for every Linux distro
> I have seen.
I didn’t say that. I just said that I’ve always liked Litestep in Windows and that was why I chose Fluxbox instead of the other GUIs. It has nothing to do with Linux.
> Seems to me he’s just trying to be 3l33t.
…
“What about having to manually add your disks to /etc/fstab? I know exactly how that works, yet I find it quite annoying to do so. Wouldn’t you like FreeBSD to automatically do this?”
This is exactly one of the reasons why FreeBSD is more stable than mainstream Linux distros that try to do everything for you. It makes no assumptions and won’t incorrectly detect hardware. This is because it assumes that its users will know and set everything up correctly. Honestly though, how hard is:
/dev/acd0c /cdromX iso9660 noauto 0 0
or the like. Configuring X is trivial when done with the xf86config -textmode tool. The installer will set up most if not all network interfaces for you. If you want dialup, its just a matter of changing the <PUT PASSWORD HERE>, <PUT PHONE NUMBER HERE> to the appropriate values in /etc/ppp/ppp.config. Why do people find this so difficult?
“FreeBSD can run VMWare through it’s Linux Emulator.”
No it can’t, it requires the use of Linux specific kernel modules.
“after I started using BSD I was stunned!!! That thing is fast. I can compile mozilla on a Celeron 1300MHz (P3 core) 512MB SDRAM PC100 in just 45 mins, compared to 55 on a Celeron 1700MHz 512MB DDR SDRAM PC2700 (P4 core), using Linux.”
Probably you used gcc 2.95.4 on FreeBSD and gcc 3.x on Linux? Because gcc3 is really much slower than 2.9x. That could explain the speedup you observe
I’d like to direct you to an excellent book by Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month
I’ve read it.
More developers does not reduce development time, nor does it lead to a better product.
The Linux development model is a _heck of lot different_ than the IBM environment described by Fred Brooks.
Linux can’t really decide where it’s going.
Linus doesn’t _want_ to decide where it’s going. Linux will go where people are willing to take it. It’s a very simple philosophy that has taken it where it is today.
In the FreeBSD-camp, we have projects like SMPng and KSE as examples of the this-is-where-we-are-going-to-go philosophy. And where has it taken them? Not very far. Both projects have been years in the making, and not only are neither project close to being finished, but even what kind of performance they will be able to deliver when the finally get there is _still_ up in the air. Is this the kind of forward thinking that impresses you so?
A great number of alterations to the kernel (the low latency patch and the kernel preempt patch, as well as the “fair” I/O scheduler) have done a great deal to harm the system’s overall throughput. (bad for databases or other high performance servers)
Forgetting about the anticipatory scheduler, are we? Anyway, in stark contrast to the *BSD world, comparative benchmarks are _regularly_ posted on the Linux Kernel mailing list. Regressions and optimizations are being closely monitored.
Furthermore, Linux’s locking granularity leaves a lot to be desired, compared with FreeBSD 5.0.
Really?
FreeBSD’s FDISK is ten times better than Slackware, Gentoo Linux and few other Linux distro’s CFDISK and FDISK. FreeBSD’s FDISK is very easy to use.
Why are you making things up? The FreeBSD fdisk is crap which hasn’t been updated for ages. And you don’t have to take my word for it:
http://www.google.com/groups?q=fdisk+Linux+group:*.freebsd.*+author…
http://www.google.com/groups?q=fdisk+Linux+group:*.freebsd.*+author…
He says he don’t like Linux because it doesn’t have a clean GUI, yet he defends Fluxbox on FreeBSD. Well, Fluxbox has been easily available for every Linux distro I have seen. Seems to me he’s just trying to be 3l33t.
Spot on. The notion that running Linux somehow _forces_ you to use graphical tools to achieve mundane administrative tasks is utter and complete nonsense spouted by people who don’t really know the first thing about neither Linux nor *BSD, but are mainly concerned about being more alternative than thou. FreeBSD seems to attract a lot of these.
“No it can’t, it requires the use of Linux specific kernel modules.”
Port: vmware2-2.0.4.1142
Path: /usr/ports/emulators/vmware2
Info: A virtual machine emulator – a full PC in a window
I wonder what that is ? I admit it isn’t VMWare 3.2, but that is being worked on (for FreeBSD) and it already works under NetBSD.
In what possible sense of the word could FreeBSD be “bloated” and Linux not be? The base install of FreeBSD is a few hundred megs. Your typical Linux distribution comes with several gigabytes of cruft.
What mainstream Linux distribution pushes ‘gigabytes of cruft’ on users without their consent? Does even Red Hat force sendmail and bind down their users throat?
Without any more rant, here it comes. BSD is for the person who really want power and has enough skill to handle it and Linux is it’s little brother aimed for the apprentice.
Uhu.
http://www.top500.org/top5/2002/11/five/
The problem with linux is that there is no standard.
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD are more standard together and they are really powerfull.
I use FreeBSD for many servers at home, at work.
Secure system.
Ho and the Handbook is really really nice.
>What about having to manually add your disks to /etc/fstab?
You don’t. He did, probably ‘cuz he started with Linux…
:p
>Wouldn’t you like FreeBSD to automatically do this?
It does, if you bother to partition correctly in the first place….
RTFM….
I would switch to BSD in a second if it had SGI XFS support. Like an earlier poster said, UFS is slow and old. And, aside from being a journalling filesystem, XFS has dynamic inode creation, which UFS, UFS2, and ext2 lack. So, whereas those filesystems can use up to 1GB and more just for the inode table on a 120GB drive (of which I have 3), XFS uses only a max of 30MB for superblock/group descriptors, and other metadata info, including the journal. That’s what makes XFS appealing, I couldn’t care less that it’s journalled, since I have a UPS, and the 2.4.18 kernel has been exceptionally stable for me, I’ve been using it since it came out with only 1 or 2 crashes, due to hardware failure or my stupidity (upgraded to X 4.3.0 w/o unloading the DRI module). Dynamic inode creation is the key to a modern filesystem imho.
Webmin is fairly easy to use, for those who like GUI configs. It runs on FreeBSD.
When I first tried to take a stab at this whole open source/unix thing, I naturally went to Linux because it was all I had heard of. I had disappointing results. Then I tried FreeBSD and was astounded as to how much easier it was to get stuff to work. That’s the point of it. Stuff just works like it’s supposed to. Read the docs, follow the instructions, and “bam!” it works. Recently for my job I tried to get an apache web server set up using Linux so that we could run PHPGroupWare. After trying for a very long time to get it to work on RedHat, I found out that there was a bug in the RedHat installer that caused MySQL to not install properly. At that point I gave up on RedHat and tried FreeBSD. Within a few hours everything was working like it was supposed to. This was after spending days on RedHat without any luck.
Uhu.
http://www.top500.org/top5/2002/11/five/
An infinite number of monkeys…err…I mean Linux systems can write
Shakespeare…umm…I mean produce a gigaflop.
When I first tried to take a stab at this whole open source/unix thing, I naturally went to Linux because it was all I had heard of. I had disappointing results. Then I tried FreeBSD and was astounded as to how much easier it was to get stuff to work. That’s the point of it. Stuff just works like it’s supposed to. Read the docs, follow the instructions, and “bam!” it works.
After trying for a very long time to get it to work on RedHat, I found out that there was a bug in the RedHat installer that caused MySQL to not install properly. At that point I gave up on RedHat and tried FreeBSD. Within a few hours everything was working like it was supposed to.
Steve, can you make a valid point about “user friendlyness”?
Because I usually just use “installpkg apache*tgz php*tgz mysql*tgz” to install apache+php+mysql that just work.
And installing from source also about just reading the manual and typing it into console.
One bug made you think a whole OS (including all distros) just not user friendly?
Come on …. are you trolling?
Jonny, surf on over to freshports.com and you’ll find Flash and RealPlayer ports. RealPlayer has to be downloaded directly from the Real website for legal reasons, but Flash is downloadedable right from freshports.
Oh, by the way, there’s a QNX install that’s been running with a zero mean failure rate of 13 years. Food for thought.
…
Not freshports.com but freshports.org
I’ve tried freshports.com and it shows a blackish homepage says cheapbyte.
====================================================
hmmm anyway.. ppl seem too embarrassing.
I wonder if I am reading comments on a GNU/Linux review, where Windows ppl posted comments like.. for example, Windows is better than GNU/Linux or Windows can do that too or something like that.
THE ARTICLE IS JUST ONE OF OS REVIEWS POSTED ON THIS FINE OSNEWS SITE.
..and may be just a fine beginning of reviews about other OSes rather than just one specific OS, GNU/Linux.
Please do not expect a perfect review at the first place.
Other GNU/Linux reviews are neither perfert, ain’t they?
C’mon guys..
Please don’t compare two different OSes (even though both are *nixes).. just please please respect for the article writer prefers BSD. It is just like you prefer GNU/Linux.
Please be nice.
Heck.. What am I doing now? I just thought I became a Kindergarden teacher or something… Sorry if the word was embarrassing but I felt that way.. ppl are wasting their times.
I want to see someone to create barebone of BSD and replace system logs to print on text file instead mail (to root).
well you can change where the logs go … it’s in the periodic.conf. You can specify email address or filename.
-Christian (I *LOVE* FreeBSD)
Without any more rant, here it comes. BSD is for the person who really want power and has enough skill to handle it and Linux is it’s little brother aimed for the apprentice.
Uhu.
http://www.top500.org/top5/2002/11/five/
So the reason for you using Linux is because someone can build a macho mucho owerpowered box with it? That box ain’t made for every day needs… and assuming BSD would run on the same box, which one would you assume outperforms the other?
On an average UP PC, Linux and FreeBSD should be more or less equal. FreeBSD used to have an edge (be more responsive) under heavy load due to a superior VM. This might still be true to a very small degree compared to 2.4 (I find 2.4.19+preempt patch very responsive), but probably not true at all compared to 2.6. But I’m sure that will be repeated ad nausum for the next few years anyway, just as some people still bring up TCP/IP networking, where Linux was sub-par pre 2.0 (2.0 came out in june 1996). Why does this happen? Because most people just repeat other people’s claims, with no actual knowledge or personal experience to back it up with. Just like you have done.
However, if you want to scale up (SMP), or if long-ass fscks are not tolerable, FreeBSD is not really an alternative. The lack of a log based file system in particular is going to hurt FreeBSD a whole lot as disks just keep getting bigger.
I run Debian GNU/Linux because it provides me with a system that is consistent and easy to maintain and keep up to date. I use fvwm as my window manager because it allows me to tweak just about any detail of my desktop experience.
Why do you run FreeBSD? No wait, no need to make up an answer for that one! Because you don’t.
and assuming BSD would run on the same box, which one would you assume outperforms the other?
Linux, obviously, because this is an environment that a lot of people have tweaked Linux to behave and perform well in. Where are those FreeBSD-clusters (don’t just say BSD, because neither NetBSD nor OpenBSD are anywhere on the performance radar)?
All you bloated Windows geeks go and eat some glass when your windows system brokes at the next day from a stupid worm from 1980 :-)))).
Me: i prefer All *BSD and Slackware linux all of this distros are rock solid and never got me into problems at all.So desktop or server OS it’s all the same stable/fast/rock solid.Can;t say that to the EASY distros like Windows eXtreme Problems :-)))).I’m just lucky i don;t have to use that OS for a server 🙂
However, if you want to scale up (SMP), or if long-ass fscks are not
tolerable, FreeBSD is not really an alternative. The lack of a log based file
system in particular is going to hurt FreeBSD a whole lot as disks just keep
getting bigger.
Have you benchmarked or even tried FreeBSD v5 vs. Linux v2.4? I personally
would rather have faster performance and a slower fsck with a lower chance of
lost data. As background fsck’s use snapshots and those take the same amount of
time regardless of the FS size, I do not see recovery time increasing with
larger drives.
Where are those FreeBSD-clusters (don’t just say BSD, because neither NetBSD
nor OpenBSD are anywhere on the performance radar)?
Try ACME: http://acme.ecn.purdue.edu/
Have you benchmarked or even tried FreeBSD v5 vs. Linux v2.4?
No, I haven’t, and if anyone in the FreeBSD camp have, they sure haven’t told anyone. However, you might want what John Baldwin, perhaps the developer who has put in the most effort on this front, had to say on the subject a few months back:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=smpng+group:*.freebsd.advocacy+au…
I personally would rather have faster performance and a slower fsck with a lower chance of lost data. As background fsck’s use snapshots and those take the same amount of time regardless of the FS size, I do not see recovery time increasing with larger drives.
Nonsense. I suggest you read the following thread:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&frame=r…
About the comment by John Baldwin, his statement was a blanket statement. It
did not explain what would be slower. Also, it spoke about 5.0. We need to see
how 5.1 or 5.2 handles when the threading stabilizes. I have already heard
that the ATA driver has seen significant speed increases within CURRENT.
As for the fsck topic, the link you posted showed a foreground fsck. He was not
using background fsck’s. A good paper concerning background fsck’s in
combination with snapshots–I need to learn more about that–is here:
http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/bsdcon02/mck…
.
WineX does work on FreeBSD, just search google for the required patches for the CVS.
You can also use the binary version if you have linux compatbility installed, and all the right ports (I can’t remember which at this time).
I currently have both the binary and CVS version working on my FreeBSD desktop.