Some Of The Early Ideas For Intel's New FreeBSD Improvement Effort

[UnholyViking]

The ongoing FreeBSD vs Linux arguments on here are sad, pathetic and pointless.

Yup and no one is talking about technical merits. The level of discussion is that of adolescent idiots. No one is backing stuff up with facts or references.

As a user of (primarily) FreeBSD I think the FOSS community ows alot the Linux kernel even though I think the Linux kernel and much of the userland is a mess. And the GPL vs MIT/BSD license BS is pretty much stupid as well "Companies does not give back when they don't use GPL". Well, they do.

https://v4.freshbsd.org/search?q=Netflix&project[]=freebsd&repository[]=src&sort=commit_date

https://v4.freshbsd.org/search?q=Microsoft&project%5B%5D=freebsd&repository%5B%5D=src&sort=commit_date

https://v4.freshbsd.org/search?q=Intel&project%5B%5D=freebsd&repository%5B%5D=src&sort=commit_date

https://v4.freshbsd.org/search?q=Google&project%5B%5D=freebsd&repository%5B%5D=src&sort=commit_date

https://v4.freshbsd.org/search?q=Juniper&project%5B%5D=freebsd&repository%5B%5D=src&sort=commit_date

And the list goes on.


I for one would like to see more talks about technical merits, and if you have a claim, back it up with a benchmark.

[audir8]

The PS4 is a completely locked down platform. It makes total sense to do all peripherals using an ARM SoC (Thanks to AsuMagic 's link) and be able to update the Freebsd running on it (separate from the OS image) any time for any security reasons. I'm sure Nintendo wished they'd done something similar with the Switch to prevent hacks like the one that was found.

Offcourse, they likely couldn't modify Linux in the same way an get away with it without posting patches. Apple probably picked Darwin BSD for similar reasons. Sony is betting they can make a more secure/locked down gaming platform than the average PC, and they would be right over the average life of the console.

Intel is diversifying what they can support, but I wouldn't expect anything major to change because of this.

[starshipeleven]

Memory architecture is different on Playstation, it's not quite x86 hardware-wise

It's an APU running on GDDR ram, nothing particularly strange.

Where it differs is in the "chipset" which is a horrible abomination (basically a Marvell SoC running its own OS and doing a pass-through on peripherals).

Playstation has as much relation to FreeBSD PC than Android device has to Linux PC.

Actually no, Android is significantly different beast where they have their own OS running on top of a Linux kernel.

Playstation is just a BSD with some proprietary additions, nothing as complex as Android, could be compared to RHEL maybe.

[starshipeleven]

The PS4 is surely x86, but nothing like a PC. See fail0verflow's slides on PS4: https://fail0verflow.com/media/33c3-slides/#/22

You're reading that wrong, their definition of PC is not what most people would think a PC is. That's part of their tongue-in-cheek sarcasm.

The PS4 is just a custom APU with a weird southbridge, none gives a fuck that it does not have a 8250 UART at 3f8h, that does not make it "not a PC".

[starshipeleven]

Yup and no one is talking about technical merits. The level of discussion is that of adolescent idiots. No one is backing stuff up with facts or references.

internet discussion protip: don't provide references unless asked for.
If none asks for them probably they don't care about them (possibly because they are adolescent idiots), and you are just wasting your time in searching for links.

[starshipeleven]

The PS4 is a completely locked down platform. It makes total sense to do all peripherals using an ARM SoC (Thanks to AsuMagic 's link) and be able to update the Freebsd running on it (separate from the OS image) any time for any security reasons. I'm sure Nintendo wished they'd done something similar with the Switch to prevent hacks like the one that was found.

No wait, can you explain a bit more on this? can the firmware of the Marvell "chipset" can even be updated at all? Why would it make it more secure than running all on the same system?

I always assumed that it was because of costs, getting an off-the-shelf SoC and doing a PCIe bridge on it with a pass-through would have been massively easier and cheaper than actually designing the chipset or adding these functions to the APU itself.

[audir8]

No wait, can you explain a bit more on this? can the firmware of the Marvell "chipset" can even be updated at all? Why would it make it more secure than running all on the same system?

I always assumed that it was because of costs, getting an off-the-shelf SoC and doing a PCIe bridge on it with a pass-through would have been massively easier and cheaper than actually designing the chipset or adding these functions to the APU itself.

They actually did design their own chipset in FreeBSD kernel modules or userspace applications using SATA/Ethernet/USB and PCIe 4x of the ARM SoC. If the only link to the APU is the PCIe 4x link... then no peripheral is going be reading/writing to main memory directly anytime without the south-bridge explicitly doing the reading/writing as the middle man. If something like the switch hack shows up, just fix the middle man. It's pretty smart. No wonder reverse engineering is a pain, and it's been more secure than the mod-chip friendly PS2 and CFW friendly PS3 (at-least at the end of it's life).

Everything here can be done with a somewhat specialized ARM SoC with a few PLLs/Timers/SATA/USB and C code: https://fail0verflow.com/media/33c3-slides/#/31

The PS4 also has a rest mode, which will only download games/updates and charge USB controllers. This is the Southbridge running with the APU off. 256MB RAM is enough to download to the HD. So, yeah, they most definitely control what is running on the Southbridge and this would be the firewall against anything reading/writing to main memory.

[Guest]

This is good news and I'm happy to see on of the most vital competitors to Linux getting some love from Intel.

On these petty arguments between FreeBSD supporters and Linux supporters I try to just ignore them. Especially after reading Pawlerson's post history I want no part of that.

All I'm for is competition and the status quo being constantly reworked, in particular I'm hoping all of this RedHat-ware that has been hoisted onto the modern Linux desktop, I.e. dbus, gstreamer, polkit etc. Be replaced by something far more cohesive that actually fixes the underlying issues of the Linux kernel, I.e.:

The lack of a good STREAMS protocol implementation rather than trying to put an object-based IPC into an OS concept it doesn't work well in.

The lack of good media and audio libraries as well as poor kernel support (ALSA is rubbish due to its blocking I/O, and Pulse introduces latency and other issues by trying to fix it.)

And application developers and distro devs reinventing the wheel regarding desktop security while essentially chasing their own tails in a circle.

Not to say the BSDs do not have serious issues or that Solaris/illumos or any other OS doesnt have them itself, but a cohesive design philosophy is something the Linux ecosystem lacks.

It's funny bsd fanboys are trying to stay 'neutral', but then they attack Linux and provide no arguments at all or just post personal opinions: 'On these petty arguments between FreeBSD supporters and Linux supporters I try to just ignore them'. Idiots never stop to amaze me.

[Guest]

@kazuro

It's funny bsd fanboys are trying to stay 'neutral', but then they attack Linux and provide no arguments at all or just post personal opinions: 'On these petty arguments between FreeBSD supporters and Linux supporters I try to just ignore them'. Idiots never stop to amaze me. Ps. Linux have far better audio support. This is another prove of your bias. Now tell me: doesn't *BSD use gstreamer and even pulse audio in some cases?

By default, FreeBSD base uses a self-updated and self-maintained version of OSS. Within the package tree you will find applications that require/use OSS from base, OSSv4 from packages, ALSA, PulseAudio, Jack (which does not really work anymore), and SNDIO (from OpenBSD) - many of those with build options to switch between at least 2 or 3 of the options. So depending on which applications you have installed, you may actually have multiple sound systems installed/running on your system

Now, that's a mess!

Oh, and support:

Does SNDIO use the built-in, FreeBSD kernel drivers, or does it use its own drivers like the oss port does? As far as I can tell, there has been no progress in the FreeBSD sound drivers for a while (comparing the HW compatibility list for soundcards between releases, it basically doesn’t change).

[Guest]

@UnholyViking

Yup and no one is talking about technical merits. The level of discussion is that of adolescent idiots. No one is backing stuff up with facts or references.

As a user of (primarily) FreeBSD I think the FOSS community ows alot the Linux kernel even though I think the Linux kernel and much of the userland is a mess. And the GPL vs MIT/BSD license BS is pretty much stupid as well "Companies does not give back when they don't use GPL". Well, they do.

No, you're just denying facts. When comes to technical merits it was mentioned for many times already. There's good article about FreeBSD very poor code quality due to lack of interest and developers. Furthermore, you're making strawman arguments: nobody said companies don't give anything back when comes to *BSD. They don't have to and when they do it's usually some shit. I think this sums up nicely bsd fanboys mentality and lack of connection with real world.