FreeBSD 9.0 RC2 Arrives Late, Pushes Back Final

[XorEaxEax]

http://openbox.org/wiki/Image:FreeBS..._1680x1050.png

... oh no, here's my FreeBSD Desktop. Be nice now.

Heh, my Linux desktop is Openbox, Tint2, Conky and Cairo-Compmgr, not far from yours it seems

[XorEaxEax]

I don't understand the need some Linux advocates have to kick at the BSD's due to them having less users, it's some weird 'kick downwards' attitude I find appalling and given Linux own underdog history it just makes no sense. At the same time I can't understand the 'f**king Linux ate our lunch' mentality which also exists among some of the BSD advocates. All in all there's no reason why Linux and BSD fans shouldn't be able to get along. Both are open source, both are unix descendants and even though their respective licences certainly differ in terms they both promote the use and development of open source.

BSD isn't going to disappear. While the developers are fewer and the community is smaller than that of Linux, BSD is still going strong after all these years. And here's the thing, you don't have to conquer the market to justify your existance, there's room for smaller players in pretty much all segments (heck, even in the desktop market where Windows has a stranglehold).

And obviously Linux won't disappear either, I don't see it ever becoming a desktop OS for the masses but that doesn't prevent me from using it as my day-to-day OS, meanwhile it's it remains strong in the server/embedded and of late in the mobile space markets (due to Android).

Due to a higher level of developer support (much of which through corporate backing) Linux is developing faster and 'broader' than that of the BSD's, however the BSD's seem more focused on their niche targets and thus are likely very competitive in those particular areas.

They are both great unix-based systems with alot more in common than that which separates them, so can't we just get along?

[kraftman]

http://openbox.org/wiki/Image:FreeBS..._1680x1050.png

... oh no, here's my FreeBSD Desktop. Be nice now.

One desktop to rule them all - KDE, Gnome, XFCE settings in Openbox. Nice.

[scjet]

http://openbox.org/wiki/Image:FreeBSD8.2_Openbox_1680x1050.png

... oh no, here's my FreeBSD Desktop. Be nice now.

[DaemonFC]

Ahh yes, "MINIX" -aka The Basturdized Unix

My problem with MINIX is not that it exists. My problem with MINIX is HOW it exists and that the attitude of Andrew Tanenbaum in most ways is more cantankerous and caustic than what I'm used to seeing out of FreeBSD developers and promoters.

Not only does he have something that probably wouldn't exist in a free market, he tries to claim it is superior to what the free market has produced. The free market has produced and made popular Linux and the BSDs. No matter what side of that fence you're on, they have succeeded where they have succeeded on their own merit without the assistance of monopolies or government welfare.The European Union giving Tanenbaum a grant is the high tech equivalent of paying someone to dig ditches and fill them back in when they're done.

I would say Tanenbaum probably fits the bill for a "small government for thee and not for me" conservative. Those types tend to blast the government for corporate welfare and bailouts that don't improve the economy, but only when they're not the ones benefiting from the handout.

[Ansla]

Random example: Juniper's JUNOS is FreeBSD-derived, and to the best of my knowledge they sync up with the FreeBSD fairly often. They also contribute a decent amount of code back.

BSD derived, yes, everyone loves taking and not giving back, there are many companies hostile to free source (and their own customers) that use BSD code in their products: Apple, Sony, Microsoft. If you say Juniper does contribute back, then that's a minority, as most of the companies that intend to give back code have no problem with GPL so they go the Linux way.

[scjet]

Cranky old man who didn't foresee a lawsuit coming with BSDi trying to pass itself off as UNIX while AT&T (the Microsoft the government eventually did do something about) was still trying to hang onto UNIX.

Every other line in that interview was sour grapes against Linux.

I'm glad the European Union has decided in its wisdom to waste taxpayer money on MINIX, because it is one of those things that just wouldn't float without some government cheese.

Ahh yes, "MINIX" -aka The Basturdized Unix

[DaemonFC]

Andrew have missed the train and not so long ago there was article at lwn.net about this:

http://lwn.net/Articles/467852/

Cranky old man who didn't foresee a lawsuit coming with BSDi trying to pass itself off as UNIX while AT&T (the Microsoft the government eventually did do something about) was still trying to hang onto UNIX.

Every other line in that interview was sour grapes against Linux.

I'm glad the European Union has decided in its wisdom to waste taxpayer money on MINIX, because it is one of those things that just wouldn't float without some government cheese.

[dnebdal]

It's well documented that the BSDs have lousy video card support.

A lot of wifi adapters are only usable once you install a Windows XP driver into FreeBSD's Microsoft NDIS compatibility layer. Linux has NDISwrapper which is seldom needed and a GPL violation. FreeBSD sleeps with dogs and brags about the fleas.

The video support isn't that great, no. The nvidia binary side is in sync with the linux releases; noveau is being ported but isn't as far along as on linux. There's a modern intel driver on its way, vaguely hoped to be done before next summer. The ati/amd side doesn't have the binary driver, but I believe the OSS driver is in a usable state.

Network cards are mostly fine, though; there's a fair bit of sharing between the *BSDs on wifi drivers, and the NIC drivers are in good shape. Sure, NDISwrap exists - but it's just an option.

[kraftman]

1. I wouldn't consider myself a "kid".

Me neither, but it wasn't written for serious.

2. You have to quantify what is "Linux". The kernel itself without all of the terrible drivers is written pretty well. The major companies that use Linux typically modify it heavily and gut it out completely.

That's simply not true, but you probably meant they don't use unneeded drivers which is something obvious. If there are some unstable drivers they don't affect kernel at all, unless you compile them in.

The very large quantity of less-than-stellar drivers brings the overall code quality down. FreeBSD has less of a problem with that and ZFS is used far more than something like Btrfs probably ever will be, and Solaris is slow. All that said, second posters accusations are false.

What drivers are you talking about? Many of the stable Linux drivers are better and more complete than FreeBSD ones. If you were talking about staging area they're just not stable yet and aren't recommended. Oracle plans to use btrfs in their enterprise distribution, so there's a chance it won't take too long to btrfs become stable.

3. I'm not going to go into BSD v. GPL...that's a breeding ground for disaster.

There's no point in discussing this, because they're made for different purposes.

On a slightly different note (Rather than comparing crap with less crappier crap, whichever one people side with) word on the street is that MINIX is receiving large amounts of funding the European Research Council. Say what you want about the others but if people start taking on MINIX it'll become quite useful in enterprise. I'm hoping for that. There are a few people that I'm very fond of in the *nix scene and chief among them is Andrew Tanenbaum.

Andrew have missed the train and not so long ago there was article at lwn.net about this:

http://lwn.net/Articles/467852/

The reason MINIX 3 didn't dominate the world has to do with one mistake I made about 1992. At that time I thought BSD was going to take over the world. It was a mature and stable system. I didn't see any point in competing with it, so I focused MINIX on education.