DragonFlyBSD 6.4 Released With Many Fixes

[phoronix]

Phoronix: DragonFlyBSD 6.4 Released With Many Fixes

DragonFlyBSD 6.4 is now available as the newest version of this open-source BSD operating system forked long ago from FreeBSD...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/DragonFlyBSD-6.4-Released

[Classical]

I've been wanting to test this system for a long time, but I have Nvidia graphics so I'm tied to FreeBSD at the moment.

Normally I'm going to have a new build in a few months, then maybe I could test DragonFlyBSD if it supports the new Intel/AMD CPU/APU.

[Steffo]

Not sure how such a project can survive for so long. I don't think, that any company uses this for serious tasks.
The performance claims are at least outdated, like Phoronix benchmarks are showing. So why not just contribute to other OS?

[drjohnnyfever]

Not sure how such a project can survive for so long. I don't think, that any company uses this for serious tasks.
The performance claims are at least outdated, like Phoronix benchmarks are showing. So why not just contribute to other OS?

What is the point of this commen? Do you just go around telling people they are wasting their time because you don't see the value in what they're working on?

[asgardbsd]

Its just sad to see DragonflyBSD to have slower and slower release cycle, the energy of the project have slowed down in the last few years.

Innovation come from people trying / experimenting new idea, outside of the mainstream way of doing thing. Everytime people try out new idea, be it in FreeBSD, or DragonflyBSD, it also help other project, like linux, or BTRFS. As we discover better way to do thing.

[evert_mouw]

I'm not sure (yet) DragonflyBSD is slowing down. HAMMER2 remote mounts & fs fixes could have huge impact. Also an earlier performance test is still relevant:

https://www.phoronix.com/review/corei9-freebsd13-dfly6

[evert_mouw]

This interview might be interesting:

https://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2022/258/Distro-Walk-DragonFly-BSD

[Classical]

Not sure how such a project can survive for so long. I don't think, that any company uses this for serious tasks.
The performance claims are at least outdated, like Phoronix benchmarks are showing. So why not just contribute to other OS?

Isn't 'what everyone uses' largely determined by compatibility with old software and by 'the skills' of the staff?

Ubuntu is probably still the most popular Linux distro in the cloud. But tell me one area where Ubuntu is better than average? Isn't Snaps the slowest of them all? Isn't Ubuntu's systemd boot time much slower than many other Linux systems? In fact, Ubuntu's overall performance is slower than most Linux systems in almost all popular apps for desktop users. Isn't the stability of Ubuntu the least of all Linux systems?

In my experience I can say that what becomes popular in these times often has the lowest quality of all things that exist.

The performance claims are at least outdated, like Phoronix benchmarks are showing. So why not just contribute to other OS?

And Phoronix is pretty much the only person producing DragonFlyBSD benchmarks. Although he himself does not use this system and has little knowledge of it. He also sometimes makes mistakes in his benchmarks that are noticed by users. I'm talking about very basic mistakes.

The most popular technologies at the moment are JavaScript, CSS and HTML, shell, SQL and increasingly NoSQL. Do you see that Phoronix has tested these technologies extensively and in the most correct way in its DragonFlyBSD benchmarks?

[Estranged1906]

I know that everyone is entitled to work on whatever they want, but I do wonder where DragonflyBSD will be in 5, 10, 20 years. I can see FreeBSD and OpenBSD still around, NetBSD maybe (I've never really "got" it's raison d'etre beyond supporting ancient hardware), but DragonflyBSD seems to depend a lot on one man and doesn't really have a vision beyond "general computing Unix with supposedly faster kernel and a new filesystem". Is there anyone who uses it in production, whether on a server or a desktop?

[Classical]

I know that everyone is entitled to work on whatever they want, but I do wonder where DragonflyBSD will be in 5, 10, 20 years. I can see FreeBSD and OpenBSD still around, NetBSD maybe (I've never really "got" it's raison d'etre beyond supporting ancient hardware), but DragonflyBSD seems to depend a lot on one man and doesn't really have a vision beyond "general computing Unix with supposedly faster kernel and a new filesystem". Is there anyone who uses it in production, whether on a server or a desktop?

That is always the case with smaller projects. Think about how it went with Crunchbang and Antergos. Those projects were still quite popular. I think DragonFly BSD can stand out from the rest of the systems more than what you see in a lot of Linux distros.

I think it also depends in part on chance. Are there some good developers who will join the project in the future or not. Coincidences like this can help DragonFly's existence. What I especially regret is that BSD systems are generally not used more often in startups that grow into large companies. For most startups, it is really easy to adopt a BSD system, and they are usually the most reliable in production.

I don't know if there are any larger companies that use DragonFly BSD in production, but there are certainly people who use it for individual projects in production:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13970858

https://www.unitedbsd.com/u/JuvenalUrbino

https://www.lenpayne.ca/learning/2018/02/19/b-DragonFly-BSD-First-Impressions.html

https://umbriel.fr/blog/Upgrading_DragonFly_BSD_hosts_with_a_central_build_server.html

Etc.