Linux vs. FreeBSD
Sridhar Krishnan
Can somebody point me to comparison of development tools available for
Linux vs. FreeBSD for:
1. C++ development
2. Internet tools
3. Java Development Kit
Thanks,
Sri
Jon Skeet
In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.960425...@lint.cisco.com>,
Although I can't remember the exact address, I know you can get a
port of the JDK from somewhere. You can get the address from Sun's
Java pages, click on External Ports (or something like that). Sorry
this sounds a bit vague : it's not really as hard as it sounds. You
need the latest versions of libc and various other things though;
this may mean getting a new make as well.
Jon, who did this (or got someone else to) yesterday
steve farrell
In article <4lpu01$m...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Jon Skeet <jl...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.960425...@lint.cisco.com>,
>Sridhar Krishnan <skri...@cisco.com> wrote:
>>
>>Can somebody point me to comparison of development tools available for
>>Linux vs. FreeBSD for:
>>
>>1. C++ development
>>2. Internet tools
>>3. Java Development Kit
well, for 1 & 2 they are on par. #3 linux has a bit of an advantage b/c
there is a port of sun's JDK for linux (http://www.blackdown.org). however,
with FreeBSD (& linux, incidentally), you can use netscape 2.0+ to compile
java code (check out the port collection at http://www.freebsd.org).
furthermore, kaffe, a JIT in alpha development, works on both platforms.
(another sidenote, generally FreeBSD can run linux binaries, but i guess
the JDK is "too ELF" for the FreeBSD emulator, so it doesn't happen...
presumably it might at some later date, but by that time there will
probably be more interesting alternatives.)
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Farrell http://gorgias.uchicago.edu/~spfarrel
Finger me at spfa...@quads.uchicago.edu for my PGP public key block.
Randy Chapman
steve farrell (spfa...@gorgias.uchicago.edu) wrote:
: (another sidenote, generally FreeBSD can run linux binaries, but i guess
: the JDK is "too ELF" for the FreeBSD emulator, so it doesn't happen...
: presumably it might at some later date, but by that time there will
: probably be more interesting alternatives.)
Interesting. I know that FreeBSD ran older versions of the Linux JDK.
I'd be very curious as to why new ones won't, and what I could do to
fix it.
--randy
: --
Paul Chakravarti
steve farrell wrote:
>
> In article <4lpu01$m...@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>, Jon Skeet <jl...@cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> >In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.960425...@lint.cisco.com>,
> >Sridhar Krishnan <skri...@cisco.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>Can somebody point me to comparison of development tools available for
> >>Linux vs. FreeBSD for:
> >>
> >>1. C++ development
> >>2. Internet tools
> >>3. Java Development Kit
>
> well, for 1 & 2 they are on par. #3 linux has a bit of an advantage b/c
> there is a port of sun's JDK for linux (http://www.blackdown.org). however,
> with FreeBSD (& linux, incidentally), you can use netscape 2.0+ to compile
> java code (check out the port collection at http://www.freebsd.org).
> furthermore, kaffe, a JIT in alpha development, works on both platforms.
>
> the JDK is "too ELF" for the FreeBSD emulator, so it doesn't happen...
> presumably it might at some later date, but by that time there will
> probably be more interesting alternatives.)
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Steve Farrell http://gorgias.uchicago.edu/~spfarrel
> Finger me at spfa...@quads.uchicago.edu for my PGP public key block.
There is a native port of JDK1.0 for FreeBSD - see
http://toody.sicc.co.kr/~sjwhang/java/fbsdjdk1.htm
--
Paul Chakravarti
pa...@jagunet.com
David R. Beck
I'm trying to decide between Linux and FreeBSD 2.1. What are the
differences, advantages/disadvantages of each? Does one make a better
Web server than the other.
It's obvious to me now that Linux has a wider (if not more public)
following. I tried to pick up a copy of FreeBSD in the Dallas, Tx. area
today (called, called and drove). No luck! I found Linux everywhere. I
know I can order FreeBSD, but that's just the impatient person I am ;>
The main reason I am considering FreeBSD is that I was very disappointed
with the lack of (or my inability to find) ppp connectivity in the
Slackware 2.2 with the 1.2.1 kernel.
Any comparison of Linux to FreeBSD would help.
Bryan J. Smith, E.I.
Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
Currently, I've been exiled to FreeBSD because Adaptec doesn't support Linux.
This is really the only advantage to FreeBSD -- they are a controlled
distribution who can sign non-disclosure agreements with companies like
Adaptec. My Adaptec AHA-2842VL (an older VLB SCSI-2 Fast Host Adapter) craps
out on boot since I changed my motherboard/CPU from a HSB i486sx66 to a
Alaris Nx586P90.
FreeBSD CAN run Linux binaries (including DOOM for X) with little
modification and has a nice system of packages for download and ease of
installation. FreeBSD also runs nearly all binaries for BSDI's BSD/OS. It
also has the iBCS module for running SCO binaries (as does Linux). But
hence, because it is a controlled distribution, it does not have the number
of pre-compiled binaries as Linux does.
Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code). And FreeBSD v2.1 is
a little dated (late '94) and the current test version is still quite buggy.
FreeBSD is only available on CD-ROM from Walnut Creek CD-ROM for $50. Linux
can be found on a endless number of vendors CDs for a low as $10.
Downloading a complete FreeBSD system along with a good number of packages
took me 16 hours @ 28.8Kbaud (saving me the CD-cost and the agony of messing
with an alpha-quality IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM driver) and takes up only about 150MB.
If your looking for a ready-to-go package, check out Caldera's (co-founded by
former-CEO Ray Noorda) Caldera Network Desktop (CND) for a mere $99. If
you're a student or work for an academic institution, you can get it for $65
(not much more than the cost of a regular Linux CD set). The CND is so good,
it was reviewed in the May 1st edtition of Network Computing where it was
compared against Integraph's NT solution (w/hardware for $15000), Sun's
Solaris solution (w/hardware for $12000), and BSDI BSD/OS ($995-2995). The
CND came out on top in cost (of course), documentation, features and LAN/WAN
connectivity. The CND is an excellent solution in NOVELL NETWARE enviroment
since it comes with adminstrative tools (even for NDS/Netware 4.x)! CND also
features XInside's Accelerated X which cost $99 on its own!!! AccelX is a
much better X-server than the default XFree86 (X-Windows) that comes with
Linux and FreeBSD. You can get more info from Caldera @ www.caldera.com.
In essence, Linux has the latest and greatest software and drivers (only a
few companies won't release information, like Adaptec, without the signing of
a non-disclosure agreement -- which is impossible in a OS who included the
source code in its distribution). Quite a few hardware (and even software
vendors) are supporting Linux (Buslogic has an excellent PCI SCSI-2
Ultra-Wide adapter for $250 and AdvanSys owners claim theirs to be the
fastest PCI SCSI-2 Fast HA for a measly $99 -- both support Linux).
If you can run Linux, it's the better choice unless your going to run a lot
of BSD and SCO software. Try downloading the boot disk for FreeBSD and
Linux. FreeBSD boot disk is on a single image file/disk from ftp.freebsd.com
(it's really ftp.cdrom.com -- Walnut Creek CD-ROM). Try either Slackware 3.0
distribution (which is really dated about 6+ months) or RedHat Commerical
Linux v3.03 distribution (ftp.redhat.com -- the distribution Caldera CND
uses -- Caldera's mirror of redhat is faster too!), both which come on a boot
and root disk (some require 2 root disks). You'll need either "rawrite.exe"
for DOS, or use "dd" under UNIX to create the boot disks. The boot/root
disks for Linux are in many flavors for many different configurations
whereas the BSD boot disk is a single disk for all configurations.
I hope this helped and FEEL COMPLETELY FREE to contact me (via voice or
email) if you have ANY OTHER QUESTIONS/CONCERNS!!!
In article <3188C1...@onramp.net>, drb...@onramp.net says...
--
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"I am Pentium of Borg. Precision is futile, you will be
approximated." -- Stan "The Man" Buchanan, Jr.
==========================================================
BRYAN J. SMITH, E.I. b.j....@ieee.org
Systems Engineer http://www.sundial.net/~bjsmith/
----------------------------------------------------------
- NSPE/FLBPR Certified Engineering Intern (E.I.)
- IEEE Central FL Branch Secretary
----------------------------------------------------------
1006 Teague Court Home: (407) 366-4620
Oviedo, FL 32765-7002 or: (407) 365-4693
==========================================================
Soren Dayton
Our friend, b.j....@ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith, E.I.), wrote:
> Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
> than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
> a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code).
You are going to have to explain this causal relationship to my little
mind
> And FreeBSD v2.1 is
> a little dated (late '94)
Funny. My 2.1 has system binaries from November 95.
> and the current test version is still quite buggy.
>
wow, test version that say *ONLY HACKERS USE THIS* are not stable. I
think I might just die from shock.
Soren
Sean Eric Fagan
In article <4mnsc5$6...@sundial.sundial.net>,
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. <b.j....@ieee.org> wrote:
just too much disinformation for me to not speak up (as I expect others to).
>Currently, I've been exiled to FreeBSD because Adaptec doesn't support Linux.
> This is really the only advantage to FreeBSD -- they are a controlled
>distribution who can sign non-disclosure agreements with companies like
>Adaptec. My Adaptec AHA-2842VL (an older VLB SCSI-2 Fast Host Adapter) craps
>out on boot since I changed my motherboard/CPU from a HSB i486sx66 to a
>Alaris Nx586P90.
FreeBSD and Linux should support the same Adaptec controllers, since the
support originally came from Linux! (It has since, I think, been pounded on
more on the FreeBSD side, but they should still related.)
The FreeBSD team has not signed a non-disclosure agreement with Adaptec; if
they did, they wouldn't be able to give out the sources! (That is what the
"non-disclosure" part means, you know.)
>But
>hence, because it is a controlled distribution, it does not have the number
>of pre-compiled binaries as Linux does.
You lost me on that one. I don't see how one leads to the other. Also,
just checking on the latest snapshot CD-ROM for FreeBSD, there are 367
pre-compiled packages for it -- all you have to do is type
pkg_add /cdrom/packages/All/<name>
and add that package.
There are also several hundred (403, I think?) "ports" -- the binaries
aren't included, but you can do
cd /cdrom/ports/<wwherever>
make
and it will build the binary. Some of these "ports" are binaries that
cannot be distributed as sources -- netscape, for example, is available as a
"port." (Admittedly, it's the Linux binary 8-).)
>Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
>than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
>a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code). And FreeBSD v2.1 is
>a little dated (late '94) and the current test version is still quite buggy.
While I will not argue that linux, being written from scratch, takes a
totally different approach to being "unix" than FreeBSD does, that doesn't
necessarily make it more efficient. I believe that, based on the work done
by several of the FreeBSD members (John Dyson and David Greenman spring to
mind for their work on the VM subsystem, but others have done tons of work
as well!), FreeBSD may actualy be considerably more "efficient" than most
other operating systems -- including linux. (It is telling to note that
wcarchive.cdrom.com runs FreeBSD, and seems to be the single busiest Web and
FTP machine on the internet.)
To the best of my knowledge, there has never, ever been a threat of a
lawsuit from BSDi about FreeBSD; the closest was, perhaps, an issue
regarding the fact that BSDi now owns the trademark for "BSD." You are,
presumably, confusing the fact that USL sued BSDi and the University of
California over BSD/OS and the Net/2 distribution (which FreeBSD-1.* was
based on). Currently, however, FreeBSD-2.* has no Net/2 files in it.
I do not recall when FreeBSD-2.1 came out; it may have been late '94, but I
thought it was closer to early '95. No matter either way. As for the
"current test version" being "quite buggy" -- uhm... there's a reason it's a
*test* version. It's still under active development. It is "pre-alpha"
code (assuming you mean -current; -stable is probably closer to pre-beta
code).
>FreeBSD is only available on CD-ROM from Walnut Creek CD-ROM for $50. Linux
>can be found on a endless number of vendors CDs for a low as $10.
>Downloading a complete FreeBSD system along with a good number of packages
>took me 16 hours @ 28.8Kbaud (saving me the CD-cost and the agony of messing
>with an alpha-quality IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM driver) and takes up only about 150MB.
There are a couple of other people who make FreeBSD CD-ROMs; they are
typically behind Walnut Creek's distributions, which isn't terribly
surprising. However, last time I checked, the FreeBSD CD-ROM from WC cost
only $25 or so, from Walnut Creek -- and I've been able to get it for less
than $20 at retail stores.
There are more vendors offering Linux on CD-ROM, and that is true. I think
that is a pity for the FreeBSD distribution, however -- the FreeBSD CD-ROM
from Walnut Creek is *nice*. I like it a lot. It is a very
nicely-integrated package, and installation is quite pleasant. Is that true
for all of the linux CD-ROMs?
>In essence, Linux has the latest and greatest software and drivers
Do you have any facts to back this up? I do know that there are very few
ports of software explicitly to FreeBSD -- I think a lot of that is due to
the fact that a port takes considerable effort by a vendor, and since
FreeBSD can run BSD/OS, Linux, and iBCS2 binaries, there's not a whole lot
of need for a FreeBSD-specific version. I *do* expect this to change, by
the way, in the future.
>(only a
>few companies won't release information, like Adaptec, without the signing of
>a non-disclosure agreement -- which is impossible in a OS who included the
>source code in its distribution).
Given that FreeBSD includes complete source code in its distribution, don't
you think that your facts may be a bit wrong, here?
>Quite a few hardware (and even software
>vendors) are supporting Linux
There is, as I said, no doubt that the vendor support for Linux is
considerably superior to the vendor support for *any* of the BSD's --
NetBSD, 386BSD, FreeBSD, BSD/OS, OpenBSD. Why is this? I don't know the
answer fully; a lot of it is due to the fact that Linux was out first, and
spread like wildfire very quickly. (BSD development and acceptance was a
bit slower, partially because BSD was not written explicitly for the PC.
This has meant that the people working on *BSD have had less expertise with
the PC, and a harder time fitting existing tools to the PC. That is my
opinion, however. I will almost certainly be told I am wrong by Bruce ;).)
>If you can run Linux, it's the better choice unless your going to run a lot
>of BSD and SCO software.
What OS is "the better choice" is so highly subjective that there is no
possible way anyone can really answer it for someone else. For me, *BSD is
"the better choice" becauyse I already have it -- and I started out with it
because Linux' networking support when I got my PC was flaky. This has
since changed, but I have not changed my OS.
For other people, they started out with Linux, either because it was more
readily available, or because it had some features the others didn't (Linux
DOS emulation, for example, is better than FreeBSD's [which is just in
development now!]).
>Try downloading the boot disk for FreeBSD and
>Linux.
The best advice anyone could possibly give.
A lot of your facts are disputable, or simply *wrong*, and you really should
find out more about something before you try to declare what it is.
Terry Lambert
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. wrote:
]
] Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
]
] Currently, I've been exiled to FreeBSD because Adaptec doesn't
] support Linux. This is really the only advantage to FreeBSD
] -- they are a controlled distribution who can sign non-disclosure
] agreements with companies like Adaptec.
Not to imply anything or anything, but you're insane. 8-).
The FreeBSD and Linux Adaptec drivers are derived from the
same initial scratch rewrite of the sequencer code.
If Linux isn't supporting your particular card, this is a
maintenance problem for the Linux driver.
It's *not* a result of someone in the FreeBSD camp having
signed non-disclosure and distributing binary-only drivers.
There is nothing in FreeBSD that would prevent that from
happenning, but it hasn't happened.
Linux, too, could do this, to some extent, at least as long
as they could provide a BIOS-based driver to get up to load
the binary only driver as a kernel module (GPL would prevent
statically linking the thing to make a bootable kernel with
it built in, but a fallback driver plus a binary demand loaded
kernel module -- assuming they could do demand loading without
a user space helper program -- would provide the same function).
Linus *specifically* excepted kernel modules in his license
terms, over RMS's objections, to allow people (like Caldera)
to distribute binary-only kernel modules and treat the
exported kernel insterface as an LGPL library.
But they don't need to do this because they have seperate
AIC-77x0 SCSI sequencer download code -- the same code as
BSD.
] FreeBSD CAN run Linux binaries (including DOOM for X) with
] little modification and has a nice system of packages for
] download and ease of installation. FreeBSD also runs nearly
] all binaries for BSDI's BSD/OS. It also has the iBCS module
] for running SCO binaries (as does Linux). But hence, because
] it is a controlled distribution, it does not have the number
] of pre-compiled binaries as Linux does.
Again, you're insane. 8-).
FreeBSD isn't a controlled distribution, per se. Informagic
also sells a FreeBSD CDROM -- it's not just Walnut Creek. There
just isn't significant value add in making a bunch of different
distributions (without adding, for instance, Motif or CDE or
some other value-add like Caldera does for Linux) because
FreeBSD is a coherent whole -- not just a kernel.
I'd argue that since FreeBSD can run Linux programs, it has
the same number of pre-compiles binaries it can run as Linux
does -- since it has all of the pre-compiled binaries for
Linux.
It *also* can run BSDI binaries, and there are serveral things,
like IPhone servers, which are available for FreeBSD, but not
for Linux.
So in "the battle of the binaries" FreeBSD wins. But in
winning, it loses because emulated binaries haven't undergone
vendor certification on FreeBSD itself -- only on those
platformas where they were ported -- the ones FreeBSD is
emulating.
Linux has exactly this same problem with running IBCS2 binaries,
which are certified to run on the platform they were ported
to (usually SCO, but sometimes SVR3), and *not* on Linux. And
*not* on BSD. The user assumes some risk here.
] Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much
] more efficient OS than FreeBSD (which has been written
] somewhat from the ground up, to prevent a lawsuit from
] BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code).
Both are "differently abled" in this regard. Linux has some
good ideas, just as FreeBSD has some good ideas, but that
doesn't make for an overall judgement of "more efficient".
Linux has faster interactive response, at great expense in
multitasking and server capability. BSD has better loading
characteristics, but soffers some one-user-on-console-using-bash
interactive response because of that. Still, no room for
claims of "more efficient".
] And FreeBSD v2.1 is a little dated (late '94)
As are Linux releases on the 1.2.x kernel base.
] and the current test version is still quite buggy.
As is Linux 1.3.x.
] FreeBSD is only available on CD-ROM from Walnut Creek
] CD-ROM for $50.
Infomagic. FTP. Mirrors. Private CDROM distributions, like
University of Virginia CS Dept., etc.). You could cut a CDROM
if you wanted. And the WC CDROM price you quote is inflated
by 20% at the suggested retail proves and closer to %50 at the
actual retail price.
] Linux can be found on a endless number of vendors CDs for a
] low as $10.
Generally with a $39.95 book accompanying it... 8-).
] Downloading a complete FreeBSD system along with a good
] number of packages took me 16 hours @ 28.8Kbaud (saving me
] the CD-cost and the agony of messing with an alpha-quality
] IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM driver) and takes up only about 150MB.
Your choice on the download. And you probably really meant to
say "saving me the agony of messing with an alpha-quality
IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive". The driver works perfectly if your
vendor didn't violate the ATAPI specification, one way or the
other, or if you don't have one of the buggy (3 out of 5 of all
available cards) IDE controllers.
Again, your choice to buy the hardware.
] If your looking for a ready-to-go package, check out
] Caldera's (co-founded by former-CEO Ray Noorda) Caldera
] Network Desktop (CND) for a mere $99.
Actually, Brian Sparks (who at one time worked two offices
away from me in the Novell Sandy facility) was the primary
motivator of Caldera. Ray is a venture capitolist in their
equation... actually, I believe it's the "Noorda Family Trust"
which supplied the capitol that Brian and others didn't
come up with themselves, without any help, and at great
personal cost. Don't denigrate Brian's efforts by painting
him as a "cash-flunkee".
] In essence, Linux has the latest and greatest software and
] drivers (only a few companies won't release information,
] like Adaptec, without the signing of a non-disclosure
] agreement -- which is impossible in a OS who included the
] source code in its distribution).
Not impossible, certainly. Politically inconvenient, maybe,
if you are a devout supporter of "GPL everything that touches
GPL'ed code".
] Try downloading the boot disk for FreeBSD and Linux. FreeBSD
] boot disk is on a single image file/disk from ftp.freebsd.com
] (it's really ftp.cdrom.com -- Walnut Creek CD-ROM).
Actually, ftp.cdrom.com is a FreeBSD box, and FreeBSD is seperately
incorporated (see www.freebsd.org).
] Try either Slackware 3.0 distribution
Yes, good comparison. Download it also from ftp.cdrom.com, the
FreeBSD box from which you download the most popular Linux
distribution.
] RedHat Commerical Linux v3.03 distribution (ftp.redhat.com --
] the distribution Caldera CND uses
And which is still not a 1.3.x kernel -- it's the "dated" 1.2.x
kernel; the only thing that's changed is the user space code).
] The boot/root disks for Linux are in many flavors for many
] different configurations whereas the BSD boot disk is a
] single disk for all configurations.
So be sure you know what hardware is in your machine before you
make the Linux boot disk, or you will have to reboot to DOS and
make another version and another version until you guess correctly.
] I hope this helped and FEEL COMPLETELY FREE to contact me
] (via voice or email) if you have ANY OTHER QUESTIONS/CONCERNS!!!
It certainly helped me know where you were coming from in this
Linux advocacy article you posed *only* in the non-advocacy
group comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc.
Terry Lambert
te...@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
Ron Echeverri
In article <4mouan$c...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <318FD68B...@lambert.org>,>That's not much consolation to a user who happens to have a non-working
>(under FreeBSD) CD-ROM drive that they can get easially working under
>Linux.
If an operating system allows me to use hardware that is broken, that makes
the operating system suspect in my book.
rone
--
Ron Echeverri Best Internet Technical Support ro...@best.net
===============================================================================
"Blast. Bugger. Damn. Felching heck." - John Constantine
Nick Kralevich
>] low as $10.
>
>Generally with a $39.95 book accompanying it... 8-).
Linux CD-ROMs can be gotten for free. Check out the "Linux CD
and Support Giveaway" at http://emile.math.ucsb.edu:8000/giveaway.html
In addition, there are one or two complete Linux books online.
Check out the Linux documentation project at
http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/
>And you probably really meant to
>say "saving me the agony of messing with an alpha-quality
>IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive". The driver works perfectly if your
>vendor didn't violate the ATAPI specification, one way or the
>other, or if you don't have one of the buggy (3 out of 5 of all
>available cards) IDE controllers.
Are you saying that FreeBSD doesn't work on 3 out of 5 IDE CD-ROMS?
Ouch! Or perhaps I've misunderstood you...
Has FreeBSD fixed their broken DOS FS support yet? Does
FreeBSD have VFAT (Win 95) support yet?
>Again, your choice to buy the hardware.
That's not much consolation to a user who happens to have a non-working
(under FreeBSD) CD-ROM drive that they can get easially working under
Linux.
*sigh*
Take care,
-- Nick Kralevich
nick...@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu
Adrian Filipi-Martin
| and it will build the binary. Some of these "ports" are binaries that
| cannot be distributed as sources -- netscape, for example, is available as a
| "port." (Admittedly, it's the Linux binary 8-).)
Nope. It's always been the BSDI version. Some people ran
linux-netscape during the brief interim before the BSDI version had
java support. Here's a few lines form the port Makefile:
> DISTNAME= netscape-3.0b2
> CATEGORIES+= www
> MASTER_SITES= ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/navigator/atlas/pr1/unix/standard/
> DISTFILES= netscape-vAtlas_b2-export.i386-unknown-bsd.tar.gz
Adrian
--
adr...@virginia.edu ---->>>>| Support your local programmer,
http://uvacs.cs.virginia.edu/~atf3r/ --->>>| STOP Software Patent Abuses NOW!
Member: The League for -->>| info at ftp.uu.net:/doc/lpf, print
Programming Freedom ->| "join.ps.Z" for an application
Adrian Filipi-Martin
In article <4mnsc5$6...@sundial.sundial.net> b.j....@ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith, E.I.) writes:
From: b.j....@ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith, E.I.)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Date: 7 May 1996 16:05:25 GMT
Organization: IEEE, Inc.
|Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
|Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
|than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
What can a fresh rewite accompilsh? Not much untill it's been
rewritten several times. 20 years of rewritting accounts for the
intial and sustained lead in BSD networking capabilities.
|a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code). And FreeBSD v2.1 is
|a little dated (late '94) and the current test version is still quite buggy.
What?! I have neaver heard the results of research described
as a 'legacy' before. 4.4BSD is hardly 4.3BSD warmed over.
Furthermore, CHECK you FACTS! From the release list on
www.freebsd.org:
2.0 (November 22, 1994)
2.0.5 ALPHA (May 30, 1995)
Release 2.0.5 RELEASE (June 10, 1995)
Release 2.1.0 RELEASE (November 19, 1995)
|FreeBSD is only available on CD-ROM from Walnut Creek CD-ROM for $50. Linux
|can be found on a endless number of vendors CDs for a low as $10.
Again CHECK you FACTS! From www.cdrom.com:
FreeBSD 2.1 Release Berkeley BSD 32-bit O/S for PC, w/GNU & X11.
Sources, $39.95
FreeBSD Subscription (from NEXT edition) Berkeley BSD 32-bit O/S for PC,
w/GNU & X11. Sources, $24.95
I see no mention of $50! Furthermore, it now includes
"Installing and Running FreeBSD" book (also sold separately.)
|Downloading a complete FreeBSD system along with a good number of packages
|took me 16 hours @ 28.8Kbaud (saving me the CD-cost and the agony of messing
|with an alpha-quality IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM driver) and takes up only about 150MB.
The CD-ROM for may people is an issue of convenience. You
pick and pay for your delivery bandwidth/throughput/latency. If you
can get real internet access for an hour or two, you can use the
internet as your install media. That's what I do. (Of course, I
still subscribe to the CD for those times I am not so well connected.)
The choice is yours. You could also shop around. Infomagic as well
as others sell *BSD's on cd-rom.
|features XInside's Accelerated X which cost $99 on its own!!! AccelX is a
|much better X-server than the default XFree86 (X-Windows) that comes with
|Linux and FreeBSD. You can get more info from Caldera @ www.caldera.com.
If you want to buy it, AccelX is also available for FreeBSD.
In fact, it is beta-tested by some of the core team members.
|In essence, Linux has the latest and greatest software and drivers (only a
|few companies won't release information, like Adaptec, without the signing of
|a non-disclosure agreement -- which is impossible in a OS who included the
|source code in its distribution). Quite a few hardware (and even software
Bull! No one who distributes source code drivers to devices
such as Adaptec controllers has signed a non-disclosure agreement!
FreeBSD ships the COMPLETE sources to the system. Hence, NO ONE in
the FreeBSD core team has signed a non-disclosure agreement and
included either binaries or sources.
If linux doesn't support your hardware, go cry to the linux
community about their indolence. What do you think the words
"non-disclosure" mean? Furthermore, not too many hardware vendors are
supporting linux in the way you mean. It would be pretty futile to
distribute device drivers. Which version of the kernel would they
support? Which distribution would it seamlessly mesh with?
As to "latest and greatest software and drivers", have you
tried to do any serious networked multi-media under linux? Have you
tried to make a linux box crash by using a duplex sound card (GUX
MAX)? Have you ever wondered why FreeBSD has has working, efficient
drivers for devices such as the Martox Meteor, whilst the linux
developers have a broken, theoretically less functional driver for
months on end? They have the FreeBSD sources at their disposal, yet
it still took many months to support in any usable manner.
In summary, you have provided a misleading response to an
innocent question. Given that you may actaully know something about
linux and claim to be using FreeBSD, I suspect this was a malicious
attempt at spreading disinformation. I've been ignoring the "freebsd
v. linux" flame-bait for several years; today I was weak. This kind
of irritating drivel is what makes this subject shuch an uninformative
one.
Tim Smith
Really? The Walnut Creek CD-ROM is $34 at the little CD-ROM store near the
Computer Literacy that is near a Togos near Highway 101 in Silicon Valley.
And a few miles away, at NCA, it was around $25. Also, there's an InfoMagic
CD that contains *both* FreeBSD and NetBSD, also for $20-$35 dollars.
Are you sure you have the faintest idea what you are talking about?
--Tim Smith
Richard Steiner
Here in comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc, nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU
(Nick Kralevich) spake unto us, saying:
>>And you probably really meant to
>>say "saving me the agony of messing with an alpha-quality
>>IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive". The driver works perfectly if your
>>vendor didn't violate the ATAPI specification, one way or the
>>other, or if you don't have one of the buggy (3 out of 5 of all
>>available cards) IDE controllers.
>
>Are you saying that FreeBSD doesn't work on 3 out of 5 IDE CD-ROMS?
>Ouch! Or perhaps I've misunderstood you...
In a nutshell, you've misunderstood him.
To clarify: I'm a total newbie to this group (being a Warp user who is
on his first week of exploring FreeBSD and Linux both in an attempt to
gain some element of computing wisdom <g>), but I can provide a bit of
insight into this problem.
The CMD-640 chipset and the ("infamous") RZ-1000 chipset from Intel
have some very serious problems related to concurrent disk activity
that can result in random data loss on one's hard drive.
Details are provided in the file at the bottom of this posting.
We were quite interested in this over in the comp.os.os2.* hierarchy,
since we were not members of the set {Microsoft, PC-Tech, Intel}, and
were using a semi-advanced OS (flames and giggles > /dev/null, plz)
whose creators/maintainers hadn't been let in on the little secret
about the EIDE chipset bug(s) and thus hadn't taken them into account.
As such, we were potentially vulnerable to a number of Very Bad Things
caused by the above two chipsets on a fairly large number of common PCI
mommyboards. Random bytes disappearing from areas on one's hard disk
(such as an MBR or the partition table) tend to be a bit unsettling.
Queries about the string "RZ1000" in a news database search engine
such as DejaNews will likely uncover a rather lively past discussion
about the matter in comp.os.os2.bugs and elsewhere. :-)
The URL:
http://www.intel.com/procs/support/rz1000
is one resource that still exists which describes (in Intel's words,
and somewhat imcompletely IMhO) the nature of the flaw in the RZ-1000
EIDE chipset on PCI mommyboards.
I don't know where Roedy's FAQ is currently living, though I believe
this was his last one:
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/diskutil/eidete19.zip
I downloaded it to verify that it contains what I thunk it did <g>, and
I think you'll find it to be most interesting reading, particularly the
relatively lengthy file called EIDEFLAW.TXT.
FWIW, I believe both Linux and FreeBSD were affected by this, as were
OS/2, some flavors of Windows/NT pre-3.51, and many other OS's as well.
Whether or not it's fixed in any of these I don't frankly care, since
I Use SCSI As God Intended(tm), but it may still be of some concern to
readers in this newsgroup who are using machines more than six months
old which possess EIDE+PCI technology.
--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> rste...@skypoint.com >>>---> Bloomington, MN
Written offline using PC Yarn + Yes + TDE in a Warp VDM
You cannot enter the same river once.
Nick Kralevich
In article <4mpch5$9...@ennui.ops.best.com>,
Ron Echeverri <ro...@ennui.ops.best.com> wrote:
>>(under FreeBSD) CD-ROM drive that they can get easially working under
>>Linux.
>the operating system suspect in my book.
There is a distinction between hardware BUGS and BROKEN hardware.
I am not talking about broken hardware (such as bad SIMMS), but rather,
I am talking about are BUGS in hardware, such as the [1] RZ1000 chipset
bug, the CMD640 chipset bug, or the Pentium bug [2], which affect a wide
number of people.
[1] RZ1000 bug: http://pentium.intel.com/procs/support/rz1000/rztest.htm
[2] Linux software patches for these two chipsets and the pentium bug have
been incorporated into the main Linux kernel. Are patches available
for FreeBSD?
Hardware BUGS can be considered "environment problems", and if they can
be worked around, they should.
According to Terry, 3 out of 5 EIDE interfaces have bugs. If the
FreeBSD core team is going to take the moral high ground and not try to
work around those bugs ("it's a hardware problem, let the hardware guys
fix it"), then I'm sure the Linux community would be more than happy to
help out those users.
Of course, if they DO work around those bugs, then, by your definition,
they are a "suspect" operating system.
Oh well. I guess it's a no win situation. *sigh* In that case,
I'll stick with the "suspect" operating system. I would rather have
somthing that works then listen to people make excuses for somthing that
doesn't work.
I am not saying that it is OK for hardware to have bugs, but rather,
that an operating system should try to help out the unfortunate user
who gets stuck with the buggy hardware. The answer "[it was]
your choice to buy the hardware" isn't exactly encouraging when
the operating system can (and should) work around the problem.
Nick Kralevich
In article <dZDkxoHp...@skypoint.com>,
Richard Steiner <rste...@skypoint.com> wrote:
>>Are you saying that FreeBSD doesn't work on 3 out of 5 IDE CD-ROMS?
>>Ouch! Or perhaps I've misunderstood you...
>
>In a nutshell, you've misunderstood him.
Thank you for the clarification. I stand corrected.
Is it fair to say FreeBSD doesn't work reliably on 3 out of 5
EIDE cards, due to the bugs (RZ1000 and CMD640) you described,
in addition to FreeBSD EIDE driver problems?
>FWIW, I believe both Linux and FreeBSD were affected by this, as were
>OS/2, some flavors of Windows/NT pre-3.51, and many other OS's as well.
>Whether or not it's fixed in any of these I don't frankly care, ...
For those who care:
The RZ1000 and CMD640 patches have been incorporated into the Linux
kernel.
The RZ1000 and CMD640 patches are available for OS/2 from
http://www.teamos2.org/hvm/HVMindex.borris.patches.html as pj19409.zip.
It is also available as:
ftp://boris.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/Hobbes/patches/pj19409.zip
I do not know if FreeBSD has a patch available. Anyone from the
FreeBSD core team care to clarify this?
>since
>I Use SCSI As God Intended(tm),
:-)
Tony Porczyk
b.j....@ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith, E.I.) writes:
>Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
>than FreeBSD
Your assumption that code which is developed over the years is less
efficient than one which is written from scratch is rather fascinating.
Would you mind proving it?
From my tests of heavy network loads (that's all I'm interested in),
FreeBSD beats Linux hands down. Nevertheless, I use them both and like
them. I also recommend them to others depending on the projected use.
>than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
>a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code).
By "legacy", you mean UNIX? :-)
t.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Porczyk * tpor...@netcom.com * San Jose, California
GIT/ED d++$(!d) s++:++ a? C++++ USLB++++$ P+ E--- W(--) N++ !k w-- M- V? b-
PS+++@ PE++ O X-- Y++@ PGP-- t+@ 5++ R* D---- e* V-- h* y** r+++(*)+++(*)>?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
John S. Dyson
In article <4mouan$c...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
>>say "saving me the agony of messing with an alpha-quality
>>IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive". The driver works perfectly if your
>>vendor didn't violate the ATAPI specification, one way or the
>>other, or if you don't have one of the buggy (3 out of 5 of all
>>available cards) IDE controllers.
>
>Ouch! Or perhaps I've misunderstood you...
>
>
>Has FreeBSD fixed their broken DOS FS support yet? Does
>FreeBSD have VFAT (Win 95) support yet?
>
Well, one of the contributors is working on it. The emphasis for
FreeBSD has been to do U**X right. That obviously isn't the
emphasis on Linux. If you need U**X to work the best that it can,
use FreeBSD. If you need to run DOS, run DOS. Linux doesn't do
either as well.
>>Again, your choice to buy the hardware.
>
>That's not much consolation to a user who happens to have a non-working
>(under FreeBSD) CD-ROM drive that they can get easially working under
>Linux.
>
Again, I have heard that Linux has similar problems.
John
John S. Dyson
In article <4mnsc5$6...@sundial.sundial.net>,
>
>Currently, I've been exiled to FreeBSD because Adaptec doesn't support Linux.
>
>
> This is really the only advantage to FreeBSD -- they are a controlled
>distribution who can sign non-disclosure agreements with companies like
>Adaptec.
>
This is getting wierder and wierder. FreeBSD is a very open consortium
of developers. We have 3-5 developers actively committing to the kernel,
for example. Linux is the closed (controlled) development.
>
> My Adaptec AHA-2842VL (an older VLB SCSI-2 Fast Host Adapter) craps
>out on boot since I changed my motherboard/CPU from a HSB i486sx66 to a
>Alaris Nx586P90.
>
Sounds like a broken Linux driver to me!!!
>
>FreeBSD CAN run Linux binaries (including DOOM for X) with little
>modification and has a nice system of packages for download and ease of
>installation. FreeBSD also runs nearly all binaries for BSDI's BSD/OS. It
>also has the iBCS module for running SCO binaries (as does Linux). But
>hence, because it is a controlled distribution, it does not have the number
>of pre-compiled binaries as Linux does.
>
FreeBSD is primarily a U**X clone. That means that we want to support as
many U**X platforms as possible.
>
>Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
>than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
>a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code). And FreeBSD v2.1 is
>a little dated (late '94) and the current test version is still quite buggy.
>
Actually, my latest current vs. a very recent Linux shows that we perform
about 10% faster at one of our previously worst performance numbers: fork
time. We used to be 3x slower at that. Even then, our paging performance
was still about 2-3x better at paging in programs and about 50% better at
paging out pages than recent (1.3.9x) vintage Linux kernels. Our networking
is *still* faster, etc. Seems to be a fallacious argument to me. Much of
our stuff has been redone significantly, with little regard to legacy code.
>
>FreeBSD is only available on CD-ROM from Walnut Creek CD-ROM for $50. Linux
>can be found on a endless number of vendors CDs for a low as $10.
>
FreeBSD is available from vendors other than WC in Japan, US, and Europe.
>
>Downloading a complete FreeBSD system along with a good number of packages
>took me 16 hours @ 28.8Kbaud (saving me the CD-cost and the agony of messing
>with an alpha-quality IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM driver) and takes up only about 150MB.
>
Yep, our IDE/ATAPI support is a little rough. That is one of the legit
problems with FreeBSD right now.
>
>In essence, Linux has the latest and greatest software and drivers (only a
>few companies won't release information, like Adaptec, without the signing of
>a non-disclosure agreement -- which is impossible in a OS who included the
>source code in its distribution).
>
Actually Linux has slower buffered disk I/O, so it has the best drivers and
support??? B*LLHOCKY!!! If you want to compare the system you must
mount the FreeBSD disks using the dangerous (like Linux) -o async option.
We just don't think that it is taking care of people supporting default
behavior that can lead to unnecessary data loss. We default to conservative
behavior.
>
>Quite a few hardware (and even software
>vendors) are supporting Linux (Buslogic has an excellent PCI SCSI-2
>Ultra-Wide adapter for $250 and AdvanSys owners claim theirs to be the
>fastest PCI SCSI-2 Fast HA for a measly $99 -- both support Linux).
>
If you are talking about the BusLogic adapters with the processors on-board?
Hmmm... don't they have pretty high command overheads??? This is really
interesting -- in light of the small blocksize filesystems on Linux. This
must exact a signficant performance toll. My benchmarks do show that the
I/O subsystem on Linux is slower. On FreeBSD we have pretty advanced clustering
that takes care of the command overhead. (BTW, if you try to upgrade your
a.out Linux system to a nice (but wasteful) blocksize for ext2fs -- many of
your binaries won't run.) Of course, FreeBSD with it's efficient 4K/8K/16K
blocksize can handle the binaries just fine.
>
>If you can run Linux, it's the better choice unless your going to run a lot
>of BSD and SCO software. Try downloading the boot disk for FreeBSD and
>Linux.
>
Actually, it is best to say:
If you can run FreeBSD (which most people can), then use it, because
it has much more U**X type flexibility, and runs Linux binaries much of the
time as well or better than Linux.
In fact, I run my linux lmbench binaries often to benchmark FreeBSD. It is
just easier to compare.
>FreeBSD boot disk is on a single image file/disk from ftp.freebsd.com
>(it's really ftp.cdrom.com -- Walnut Creek CD-ROM). Try either Slackware 3.0
>distribution (which is really dated about 6+ months) or RedHat Commerical
>Linux v3.03 distribution (ftp.redhat.com -- the distribution Caldera CND
>uses -- Caldera's mirror of redhat is faster too!), both which come on a boot
>and root disk (some require 2 root disks). You'll need either "rawrite.exe"
>for DOS, or use "dd" under UNIX to create the boot disks. The boot/root
>disks for Linux are in many flavors for many different configurations
>whereas the BSD boot disk is a single disk for all configurations.
>
Of course, Linux isn't up to being the biggest FTP site is it? (Like
FreeBSD's main site, ftp.freebsd.org is??)
>
>I hope this helped and FEEL COMPLETELY FREE to contact me (via voice or
>email) if you have ANY OTHER QUESTIONS/CONCERNS!!!
>
I am sure that your information is *slightly* wrong (to say the least.)
FreeBSD is an extremely open development, and is targeting the U**X market,
period. FreeBSD does a very fast workstation also. Under load, not much
else competes with it including Linux. Under light duty, both Linux and
FreeBSD have their advantages -- but I notice performance problems most
when loading becomes an issue, don't you???
>>
>>I'm trying to decide between Linux and FreeBSD 2.1. What are the
>>differences, advantages/disadvantages of each? Does one make a better
>>Web server than the other.
>>
>
FreeBSD's network code is vastly superior, and is being used as the
reference port for much networking research. Linux is just barely getting
there -- and still has broken "features."
>
>>It's obvious to me now that Linux has a wider (if not more public)
>>following. I tried to pick up a copy of FreeBSD in the Dallas, Tx. area
>>today (called, called and drove). No luck! I found Linux everywhere. I
>>know I can order FreeBSD, but that's just the impatient person I am ;>
>
Unfortunately, many people are stuck in the Linux/Microsoft black-hole, like
a bunch of sheep :-). FreeBSD is simply a better U**X.
John
Jordan K. Hubbard
> > than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
> > a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code).
>
> mind
Indeed, this is quite simply completely and utterly wrong (and shows
that Mr Smith honestly doesn't know what the heck he's talking about).
First off, being written from "the ground up" is hardly a guarantee of
*anything* for those who actually understand software engineering.
Sometimes this results in better code and sometimes not. In the case of
Linux's networking code, I think _not_ is a fair assessment. There are
literally thousands of weird interoperability issues with TCP/IP and
these *take time* to find and fix. The BSD networking code has had some
10 years of very careful testing and tuning whereas the Linux folks have
a fair ways to go. Will they get there? Sure, I've little doubt of
that. Are they there now? No. Even the most die-hard Linux devotee
will generally admit that one.
To give Linux its due, in other areas, like dynamic loading of kernel
objects, re-engineering things certainly didn't hurt and they were able
to escape certain historical warts that BSD inheirited. Those are being
worked on now, of course, and BOTH operating systems are making progress
on their respective shortcomings. I'm not out to slander Linux here,
simply to point out that pat summaries like Bryan's are simply laughably
naive.
It's also more than fair to point out that 4.4 BSD, upon which FreeBSD
is now based, was hardly a mouldy pile of antiquated code. A *lot* of
new stuff (like stackable filesystems, portals, LFS, etc) has been
implemented "from the ground up" in BSD 4.4, and it is, in fact, much of
that new code which is going to require the most polishing work for us.
Yet another argument against "ground up superiority", I think. :-) This
is not to say that the new 4.4 code is bad, far from it, but the oldest
code from the CSRG is actually some of the most refined. Take Kirk
McKusick's operating systems class someday (which uses FreeBSD) and
you'll see that it's pretty damn difficult to catch him out on anything
during the code review. Every time I've thought I spotted a flaw and
raised my hand, there has turned out to be a very good reason for it.
:-) The CSRG people were no dummies, that's for sure, and very
experienced indeed in the art of creating operating systems.
Second, there was NO lawsuit or threat thereof from BSDI. Bryan's got
it almost exactly backwards. BSDI was the one who got sued by USL over
what they claimed to be system V proprietary code in BSD, and it was
their long-running refusal to knuckle under that finally led to a
resolution of the matter when Novell (who'd aquired USL in the meantime)
decided to "bless" 4.4 Lite as unencumbered on the condition that folks,
from BSDI on down, stopped using the Net/2 release code.
Finally, FreeBSD 2.1 was released in January of 1996 (check the CD!) so
I don't know how Bryan can possibly assert that "it's a little dated" or
was released in "late '94."
One is left wondering whether Bryan actually spells his name "Brian", a
final error which would give him a 100% failure rate from the top of the
header to the bottom of the signature and thus ensuring him a place in
the USENET hall of fame for "most inaccurate posting of 1996." :-)
--
- Jordan Hubbard
President, FreeBSD Project
Jordan K. Hubbard
Sean Eric Fagan wrote:
>
> In article <4mnsc5$6...@sundial.sundial.net>,
> Bryan J. Smith, E.I. <b.j....@ieee.org> wrote:
>
> just too much disinformation for me to not speak up (as I expect others to).
Yeah, no kidding. Bryan's posting had me floored, it was such a masterpiece
of disinformation. Sort of like listening to Daffy Duck trying to explain
the workings of a nuclear reactor. :-)
> FreeBSD and Linux should support the same Adaptec controllers, since the
> support originally came from Linux! (It has since, I think, been pounded on
> more on the FreeBSD side, but they should still related.)
Actually, the information stream has reversed. From what I understand
in talking to Justin Gibbs, the maintainer of FreeBSD's Adaptec driver,
the Linux folks now take his work from FreeBSD and adapt it back to Linux.
Unless someone's slacking seriously in the Linux dept, support should be
very close to parity for both OSs.
> The FreeBSD team has not signed a non-disclosure agreement with Adaptec; if
> they did, they wouldn't be able to give out the sources! (That is what the
> "non-disclosure" part means, you know.)
Thanks for correcting this. We *can't* sign such things, in fact, having
neither the desire nor the legal presence to do so. Bryan is just wrong
wrong wrong (did I mention that already? :-).
> and it will build the binary. Some of these "ports" are binaries that
> cannot be distributed as sources -- netscape, for example, is available as a
> "port." (Admittedly, it's the Linux binary 8-).)>
Heh? It's the BSDI binary, Sean! Always has been.. :-)
> I do not recall when FreeBSD-2.1 came out; it may have been late '94, but I
> thought it was closer to early '95. No matter either way. As for the
December 1995 / January 1996.
> >FreeBSD is only available on CD-ROM from Walnut Creek CD-ROM for $50. Linux
$39.95 for a single unit, $24.95 for a subscription, anywhere from $18 - $24
on the street. We sell at deliberately higher prices direct so as to not
undercut our own distributors (who wouldn't be our distributors for very long
if we did). Admittedly it's a little higher than then $10 "linux big gulp"
packs I've been seeing, but most of those are of such poor quality that frankly
I'd have no desire whatsoever to see FreeBSD competing at that level. Down in
the dregs I'd really rather not go.
> There are a couple of other people who make FreeBSD CD-ROMs; they are
> typically behind Walnut Creek's distributions, which isn't terribly
Actually, the DISCNet product (sold by Infomagic) is getting closer to
releasing around the same time as the WC product. Infomagic doesn't have
the benefit of me working for them on the CD as well as the net release,
but they still do a pretty good job, considering. Not that I'd recommend
their release over WC's, of course! :-)
> There are more vendors offering Linux on CD-ROM, and that is true. I think
> that is a pity for the FreeBSD distribution, however -- the FreeBSD CD-ROM
To a point, yes. I'm happy to see the users get a reasonable selection of
choices, that's certainly true, but I'm not all that sure if a rabid
proliferation of products is in anybody's best interests either. I looked
at a recent pack called the "Linux hacker's 10", for example, and "padded
out" does not even attempt to describe it. A CD full of MPEG files?
Another of wallpaper backgrounds? The GNU CD? [most of which is utterly
redundant considering that it's already part of Linux!] I won't even go into
amount of redundancy involved in their multiple-CD dumps of TSX-11 and
Sunsite. Suffice it to say that there's such a thing as simply inundating
the user with data in hopes they'll think they're getting some sort of
super deal. More is not always better.
Frank Durda IV
Nick Kralevich (nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
:[2]According to Terry, 3 out of 5 EIDE interfaces have bugs. If the
:[2]FreeBSD core team is going to take the moral high ground and not try to
:[2]work around those bugs ("it's a hardware problem, let the hardware guys
:[2]fix it"), then I'm sure the Linux community would be more than happy to
:[2]help out those users.
Well, since Intels own erattas say there is no way to work-around
this problem OTHER than to not use the EIDE modes at all (they say to
simply run the chip in IDE mode), I am sure Intel and everyone else
(including Microsoft) would be delighted if you can come up with a
software correction for this data-corrupting bug. I guarantee Microsoft
will hold the next Service Pack for Windows '95 for your correction.
Now whether you can fix the PCI/EIDE signal cross-talk flaw associated
with the CMD chip in software another matter...
We do read the erattas. They say these modes are broken and to not use
them unless you want to risk data corruption. End of song. If that
is considered "taking the high ground", then perhaps that is a good thing.
I like my data intact.
At least Intel was a bit more forthcoming about admitting that 70%+ of
their commodity MLBs have this defective chip than they were about the
Pentium math flaws. Now, they haven't done much in the way of offering
to replace the defective CMD part or to completely stop making boards with
it. Now it we could only get SMC to confess (and fix) the
can't-work-around flaws in the Super I/O chip family 16550 implementations.
Frank Durda IV <uhc...@nemesis.lonestar.org>|"The Knights who say "LETNi"
or uhclem%nem...@rwsystr.nkn.net | demand... A SEGMENT REGISTER!!!"
|"A what?"
or ...letni!rwsys!nemesis!uhclem |"LETNi! LETNi! LETNi!" - 1983
David E. O'Brien
Terry Lambert (te...@lambert.org) wrote:
: ] FreeBSD is only available on CD-ROM from Walnut Creek
: ] CD-ROM for $50.
:
: Infomagic. FTP. Mirrors. Private CDROM distributions, like
: University of Virginia CS Dept., etc.). You could cut a CDROM
Just a little correction.
That should be Virginia Tech (aka VPI - Virginia Polytechnic Insitute) CS
Dept. UVa (Univ of Virginia) is our (I'm a Tech alumni) biggest rival
(thus the reason I HAD to correct this :-)).
--
-- David (obr...@cs.ucdavis.edu)
Matthew Dillon
:In article <3191679E...@lambert.org>,
:Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org> wrote:
:>Nick Kralevich wrote:
:>] Is it fair to say FreeBSD doesn't work reliably on 3 out of 5
:>] EIDE cards, due to the bugs (RZ1000 and CMD640) you described,
:>] in addition to FreeBSD EIDE driver problems?
:>No.
:>
:>It is fair to say that some IDE CDROM drives won't work because
:>they suck, and they suck because the entire idea of IDE CDROM
Actually, more to the point: It's an amazing commentary on the lack
of capability of DOS, Windows (3.1, 95, NT) ... that these operating
systems barely exercise the capabilities of the hardware they run
on top of to not hit many of the hardware bugs that Linux, *BSD, and
even OS2 kernels hit.
You'd think that motherboard and card manufacturers would test,
test, test. 'Gee, it works under Windows 95 running a couple of
16 bit apps, it *must* be perfect!'. Pah!
(Duck!)
-Matt
Rahul Dhesi
In <3191B103...@FreeBSD.org> "Jordan K. Hubbard" <j...@FreeBSD.org> writes:
>Actually, the information stream has reversed. From what I understand
>in talking to Justin Gibbs, the maintainer of FreeBSD's Adaptec driver,
>the Linux folks now take his work from FreeBSD and adapt it back to Linux.
A generic question:
Given that the hardest thing about maintaining two parallel operating
systems is the device support,
How hard would it be for both Linux and FreeBSD teams to revise their
respective oeprating systems to accept virtually identical device
driver code?
It would be so nice if either could grab a device driver from the other
and just plug it in.
Maybe through a generous set of macros that allow for low-level
differences? Or a little device-driver writing language that translates
high-level code into C?
--
Rahul Dhesi <dh...@rahul.net>
"please ignore Dhesi" -- Mark Crispin <m...@CAC.Washington.EDU>
Stephen Fisher
On 8 May 1996, Nick Kralevich wrote:
> In article <318FD68B...@lambert.org>,
> Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org> wrote:
> >] Linux can be found on a endless number of vendors CDs for a
> >] low as $10.
> >
> >Generally with a $39.95 book accompanying it... 8-).
>
> Linux CD-ROMs can be gotten for free. Check out the "Linux CD
> and Support Giveaway" at http://emile.math.ucsb.edu:8000/giveaway.html
That's sad when you have to give away CD's with your software on them. :)
> In addition, there are one or two complete Linux books online.
> Check out the Linux documentation project at
> http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/
>
> >And you probably really meant to
> >say "saving me the agony of messing with an alpha-quality
> >IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM drive". The driver works perfectly if your
> >vendor didn't violate the ATAPI specification, one way or the
> >other, or if you don't have one of the buggy (3 out of 5 of all
> >available cards) IDE controllers.
>
> Are you saying that FreeBSD doesn't work on 3 out of 5 IDE CD-ROMS?
> Ouch! Or perhaps I've misunderstood you...
Hmm I've seen SCSI and ATAPI cdroms work great under fbsd..
> Has FreeBSD fixed their broken DOS FS support yet? Does
> FreeBSD have VFAT (Win 95) support yet?
I'm not very familar with this problem but I've never had a problem with
FBSD's msdos fs..
> >Again, your choice to buy the hardware.
>
> That's not much consolation to a user who happens to have a non-working
> (under FreeBSD) CD-ROM drive that they can get easially working under
> Linux.
- Steve
- Systems Manager
Stephen Fisher
On Tue, 7 May 1996, Soren Dayton wrote:
> Our friend, b.j....@ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith, E.I.), wrote:
>
> > Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
> > than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
> > a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code).
Huh? That means Linux has a while to mature still, FreeBSD is based on a
project which has been worked on and revised since the earily 80's.
> You are going to have to explain this causal relationship to my little
> mind
>
> > And FreeBSD v2.1 is
> > a little dated (late '94)
>
> Funny. My 2.1 has system binaries from November 95.
>
> > and the current test version is still quite buggy.
> >
>
> wow, test version that say *ONLY HACKERS USE THIS* are not stable. I
> think I might just die from shock.
Linux users aren't used to different levels of stability. They have one
ongoing kernel that is going to get up to 1.3.150 before they finally
release a stable one (no I didn't say one that has worked great on your
machine for 20 hours so far.. I mean STABLE). Linux users shouldn't be
talking about our latest SNAPshots being unstable - what about their
1.3.x kernels.. :)
- Steve
J Wunsch
ma...@pixar.com (Mark VandeWettering) wrote:
> As for efficiency, well, I am sure some of the authors of FreeBSD will
> come on and say something about it.
Don't expect us to do this. We generally keep away from religous
threads, and it's only an incident that this one didn't already go
into my kill file. :)
We do only give one recommendation: try both, decide yourself.
--
cheers, J"org
joerg_...@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
Sander Vesik
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. (b.j....@ieee.org) wrote:
What a piece of utter crap!
Sander
: Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
John S. Dyson
In article <4mplph$n...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
>There is a distinction between hardware BUGS and BROKEN hardware.
>I am not talking about broken hardware (such as bad SIMMS), but rather,
>I am talking about are BUGS in hardware, such as the [1] RZ1000 chipset
>bug, the CMD640 chipset bug, or the Pentium bug [2], which affect a wide
>number of people.
>
> [1] RZ1000 bug: http://pentium.intel.com/procs/support/rz1000/rztest.htm
> [2] Linux software patches for these two chipsets and the pentium bug have
> been incorporated into the main Linux kernel. Are patches available
> for FreeBSD?
>
thing can be done by a compiler hack.
>
>Hardware BUGS can be considered "environment problems", and if they can
>be worked around, they should.
>
We do.
>
>According to Terry, 3 out of 5 EIDE interfaces have bugs. If the
>FreeBSD core team is going to take the moral high ground and not try to
>work around those bugs ("it's a hardware problem, let the hardware guys
>fix it"), then I'm sure the Linux community would be more than happy to
>help out those users.
>
Actually, again some people really on the outside who don't know what they are
talking about, like you, Nick, don't appear to realize that the FreeBSD-core
team doesn't make all of the decisions or do all of the work. Unlike Linux,
we have an open development, with multiple people making changes to the
master sources. BTW, Terry is a cherished, respected and wordy :-) contributor,
but NOT a core team member. Why do you think that all people who are
pro-FreeBSD are in the -core team -- if you think so, you are very wrong.
>
>Of course, if they DO work around those bugs, then, by your definition,
>they are a "suspect" operating system.
>
The whole matter of this argument is suspect.
>
>Oh well. I guess it's a no win situation. *sigh* In that case,
>I'll stick with the "suspect" operating system. I would rather have
>somthing that works then listen to people make excuses for somthing that
>doesn't work.
>
Well, the FreeBSD IDE-CDROM support is not stellar, and probably the worst part
of the system. However, I regularly get 8.5MBytes/sec read perf on my
WD IDE drive through the filesystem (I can coerce 9.2-9.5 in ideal conditions.)
-- how does Linux do? I guess we don't have EIDE support, do we :-). We
(FreeBSD) just do server things better.
>
>I am not saying that it is OK for hardware to have bugs, but rather,
>that an operating system should try to help out the unfortunate user
>who gets stuck with the buggy hardware. The answer "[it was]
>your choice to buy the hardware" isn't exactly encouraging when
>the operating system can (and should) work around the problem.
>
We do work around bugs. FreeBSD should have better IDE CDROM drivers,
but we don't -- sorry!!! We focus primarily on the serious server market,
with workstations being a bonus. Some Linux people have delusions of
overtaking Microsoft in the marketplace -- because Linux is superior to
NT... Silly argument -- the OSes are different, with different capabilities.
NT has everything that I need for my OA stuff -- Linux doesn't... Bzzzt,
wrong market. Even when Linux gets Wordperfect (which runs on FreeBSD
already), it doesn't solve the lack of compatibility with the rest of
the OA tools.
FreeBSD is focusing on the server market, and serious workstations... I
guess Linux is striving to replace DOS :-). It might succeed -- maybe...
John
Stephane Russell
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. wrote:
>
>
> Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
> than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
> a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code). And FreeBSD v2.1 is
> a little dated (late '94) and the current test version is still quite buggy.
>
> Downloading a complete FreeBSD system along with a good number of packages
> took me 16 hours @ 28.8Kbaud (saving me the CD-cost and the agony of messing
> with an alpha-quality IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM driver) and takes up only about 150MB.
>
> In essence, Linux has the latest and greatest software and drivers (only a
> If you can run Linux, it's the better choice unless your going to run a lot
When I read this and all the other news articles alike, I
understand more why Windows is selling better than Unices. It's
amazing to see how every Unix groups are fighting against each
others all the time.
I'm a DOS/Windows programmer that have turned to Unix. I don't
understand how such a small market can allow itself to fight like
that instead of teaming up. The only true winner in all of this
will be Microsoft.
I have FreeBSD, and I'm very happy with it. And I would bet that
any Linux/NetBSD and other free Unices users feels the same about
their own OS. What's the problem?
Every time another Unix user wan't to make me feel I've chosen the
wrong operating system, it makes me feel bad. In Windows, at
least, you always have the feeling you're working in the same side
than the others Windows users. Fustrated together, but working
together!
Windows is not that a bad operating system, and I know for sure
that if the Unix world don't stop their internal unuseful fights,
they won't have a bright futur when Windows NT will be a more
competing and lower cost product.
Don't forget that Microsoft target is to see one day Windows NT on
every desktop computers of the world. And Microsoft certainly have
the resources to do so.
To really take the pulse of the market, I recommend the reading of
the may Byte issue (http://www.byte.com). The article «Unix vs
Windows NT» really shows the weaknesses (and strongness) that ALL
Unices are stuck with. Division, Lack of graphical, available,
tools of any kind, lack of strong Unix standards, especially for
the GUI apps integration, and the like:
« NT is winning more mind share among users. It's new, it's
hot, it's from Microsoft, and it has "Windows" in its name.
Unix suffers from discrimination against old age and from
disunity among vendors. People who cut their teeth on
Windows are moving into authority and will increasingly
look toward Microsoft for solutions. »
[...]
« Microsoft has strong tools strategy with Visual Basic, VB
for Applications, VB Script, Visual C++, and OLE. However,
as users become more Internet-savvy and
multiplatform-minded, that strategy must become less
proprietary and Window-based. Sun has blazed a path with
Java that Microsoft needs to follow.»
Mike Nash, the group product manager for Windows NT Server, is
shortly pointing the specific division problem very well in the
«Unix vs Windows NT: The (Edited) Vendors' View» article (May
Byte, p. 44-45):
« All attempts have failed to deliver the promised Unix
integration. These efforts will continue to fail. Giving
customers the freedom to switch between Unix systems would
eliminate the competitive edge these companies have over
each other. »
This holds also for the free Unices, it seems.
And what about Windows 95, OS/2 and MAC computers? Are they
leaving room for those fights? All of them have strong features
that Unices have to compete with.
Why fighting then? After all, the multiplicity of Unices is
probably it's best asset. Every kind of Unix exist for every kind
of needs. BSDI is compatible with FreeBSD? Good! Corporate users
who wan't business support will prefer BSDI and home computer
users will love FreeBSD for it's low cost. Those who need wide
hardware support will take Linux while those who needs protability
will take NetBSD. In Windows NT, your stuck with Windows NT.
That's it, that's all! And even there, isn't Microsoft now
offering 3 different versions of former unique Windows product?
Multiplicity is not necessarly a market killer.
Every new Unix user is, before all, a new Unix user. It always
have been more easy to port a program from SCO to FreeBSD than
from Windows to FreeBSD. It always have been more easy to switch
from one Unix to another than from Windows to Unix. That's why I
don't care if there is more Linux users than FreeBSD users. Each
of them are on the same side, but have different needs.
Above all, I am sure that Free Unices are originating from a group
of people (makers and users) who have fun with what their doing.
That's probably why free Unices are the right product for all of
us. The day the fun will be over, free Unices will be history. So,
let's not make it a more serious thing than it should be with
those argues.
Let's continue to have fun! :-)))
Stef
--
# Place your signature information here
Name <us...@my.domain> | Joke
City, Country |
Rahul Dhesi
> You'd think that motherboard and card manufacturers would test,
> test, test. 'Gee, it works under Windows 95 running a couple of
> 16 bit apps, it *must* be perfect!'. Pah!
If I Microsoft Windows understand correctly, it escapes into real
processor mode for all I/O. Hence its painfully slow speed,
multitasking-with-10-second-pauses, and of course failure to exercise
the hardware. The BIOS does most of the I/O, and vendor-supplied
drivers do the rest.
Hanns B. Wetzel
Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
>
> Sean Eric Fagan wrote:
> >
> > In article <4mnsc5$6...@sundial.sundial.net>,
> > Bryan J. Smith, E.I. <b.j....@ieee.org> wrote:
> >
> > just too much disinformation for me to not speak up (as I expect others to).
>
> Yeah, no kidding. Bryan's posting had me floored, it was such a masterpiece
> of disinformation. Sort of like listening to Daffy Duck trying to explain
> the workings of a nuclear reactor. :-)
>
> > FreeBSD and Linux should support the same Adaptec controllers, since the
> > support originally came from Linux! (It has since, I think, been pounded on
> > more on the FreeBSD side, but they should still related.)
>
> in talking to Justin Gibbs, the maintainer of FreeBSD's Adaptec driver,
> the Linux folks now take his work from FreeBSD and adapt it back to Linux.
> very close to parity for both OSs.
>
> > The FreeBSD team has not signed a non-disclosure agreement with Adaptec; if
> > they did, they wouldn't be able to give out the sources! (That is what the
> > "non-disclosure" part means, you know.)
>
> Thanks for correcting this. We *can't* sign such things, in fact, having
> neither the desire nor the legal presence to do so. Bryan is just wrong
> wrong wrong (did I mention that already? :-).
>
> > and it will build the binary. Some of these "ports" are binaries that
> > cannot be distributed as sources -- netscape, for example, is available as a
> > "port." (Admittedly, it's the Linux binary 8-).)>
>
> Heh? It's the BSDI binary, Sean! Always has been.. :-)
>
> > I do not recall when FreeBSD-2.1 came out; it may have been late '94, but I
> > thought it was closer to early '95. No matter either way. As for the
>
> December 1995 / January 1996.
>
>
Good stuff Jordan,
It never ceases to amaze me just how much utter garbage is published on
the usenet by some otherwise apparently intelligent people. Are they
mostly under age college kids with a surplus of education and a
deficiency of common sense??
Btw, J"oerg Wunsch asked me why I was using the iso-2022-jp charset.
Seems his elm has trouble handling it. I gave him a long explanation
which in short is that I need to be able to view our Japanese
translations etc.. Here is part of his response:
"Well, the newsreader did only warn me, with some red-printed header,
that it doesn't understand iso-2022-jp, but continued to display it in
iso-8859-1. Anyway, as you can see above, elm even refuses to display
it... i had to save it in a file. I think elm should do a better job,
and at least offer to pipe it through some program from within the
MIME directory, perhaps i will modify it some day."
Are you having any trouble displaying this message?
Hanns
--
_____________________________________________________________________
Hanns B. Wetzel (h...@interbay.net.au) Hervey Bay Qeensland, Australia
Tel (071) 25 2872___________________________________Fax (071) 28 1877
jaeger
Stephen Fisher (lit...@cia-g.com) wrote:
: On 8 May 1996, Nick Kralevich wrote:
[SNIP]
: > Has FreeBSD fixed their broken DOS FS support yet? Does
: > FreeBSD have VFAT (Win 95) support yet?
Ha, supporting something like VFAT would be useful to only a small
percentage of FreeBSD users. If it's done at all, it should go to the very
bottom of the TODO.
: I'm not very familar with this problem but I've never had a problem with
: FBSD's msdos fs..
On the contrary, the when I last installed Linux (Duncecap^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
RedHat 2.1) I found the msdos->unix test file conversion (option conv= ) to
be horribly broken. I assume the Linux camp has it's act more together in
3.0.3? What, you're running a year-old kernel? Didn't someone just accuse
FreeBSD 2.1.0R of being dated....?
-j.
Nick Kralevich
In article <4mr1pk$c...@dyson.iquest.net>,
blah, blah, blah.
Hey John, is there any reason why you added comp.os.linux.misc to the
newsgroup line? It's off topic and unwanted in comp.os.linux.misc.
Brian Wheeler
In article <4mr1pk$c...@dyson.iquest.net>,
ro...@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson) writes:
>In article <4mnsc5$6...@sundial.sundial.net>,
>Bryan J. Smith, E.I. <b.j....@ieee.org> wrote:
>>
>> This is really the only advantage to FreeBSD -- they are a controlled
>>distribution who can sign non-disclosure agreements with companies like
>>Adaptec.
>>
>This is getting wierder and wierder. FreeBSD is a very open consortium
>of developers. We have 3-5 developers actively committing to the kernel,
>for example. Linux is the closed (controlled) development.
>
What do you consider closed development? If I were so inclined, I
could write kernel code and get it included (providing it wasn't crap or
something), either in the official kernel, or as a patch.
Could I just hop over and write code for the FreeBSD kernel if I had
an Idea I wanted to implement?
>>
>> My Adaptec AHA-2842VL (an older VLB SCSI-2 Fast Host Adapter) craps
>>out on boot since I changed my motherboard/CPU from a HSB i486sx66 to a
>>Alaris Nx586P90.
>>
>Sounds like a broken Linux driver to me!!!
It sounds more like a hardware problem, if the card was working before
the motherboard switch.
>>In essence, Linux has the latest and greatest software and drivers (only a
>>few companies won't release information, like Adaptec, without the signing of
>>a non-disclosure agreement -- which is impossible in a OS who included the
>>source code in its distribution).
>>
>Actually Linux has slower buffered disk I/O, so it has the best drivers and
>support??? B*LLHOCKY!!!
Huh? What does this have to do with support? Its unrelated to the
original poster's comment.
>(BTW, if you try to upgrade your
>a.out Linux system to a nice (but wasteful) blocksize for ext2fs -- many of
>your binaries won't run.) Of course, FreeBSD with it's efficient 4K/8K/16K
>blocksize can handle the binaries just fine.
Maybe I just don't know, but what does filesystem blocksize have to
do with programs running? Seems like nothing, really.
>>
>>If you can run Linux, it's the better choice unless your going to run a lot
>>of BSD and SCO software. Try downloading the boot disk for FreeBSD and
>>Linux.
>>
>Actually, it is best to say:
> If you can run FreeBSD (which most people can), then use it, because
>it has much more U**X type flexibility, and runs Linux binaries much of the
>time as well or better than Linux.
Most people can run Linux as well. I've yet to hear of anyone
who has not been able to run linux...with the exception of some of the MCA
people.
>>FreeBSD boot disk is on a single image file/disk from ftp.freebsd.com
>>(it's really ftp.cdrom.com -- Walnut Creek CD-ROM). Try either Slackware 3.0
>>distribution (which is really dated about 6+ months) or RedHat Commerical
>>Linux v3.03 distribution (ftp.redhat.com -- the distribution Caldera CND
>>uses -- Caldera's mirror of redhat is faster too!), both which come on a boot
>>and root disk (some require 2 root disks). You'll need either "rawrite.exe"
>>for DOS, or use "dd" under UNIX to create the boot disks. The boot/root
>>disks for Linux are in many flavors for many different configurations
>>whereas the BSD boot disk is a single disk for all configurations.
>>
>Of course, Linux isn't up to being the biggest FTP site is it? (Like
>FreeBSD's main site, ftp.freebsd.org is??)
What does ftp capacity have to do with "where to get xxx"? Seems
like you're just trying to troll.
>>
>>I hope this helped and FEEL COMPLETELY FREE to contact me (via voice or
>>email) if you have ANY OTHER QUESTIONS/CONCERNS!!!
>>
>I am sure that your information is *slightly* wrong (to say the least.)
>FreeBSD is an extremely open development, and is targeting the U**X market,
>period. FreeBSD does a very fast workstation also. Under load, not much
>else competes with it including Linux. Under light duty, both Linux and
>FreeBSD have their advantages -- but I notice performance problems most
>when loading becomes an issue, don't you???
I'd be curious to hear the problems you have with linux under load that
you don't have under FreeBSD. I've been running my Linux box under pretty
heavy compiler loads for a while now, and Its not so much as hiccupped.
>>>It's obvious to me now that Linux has a wider (if not more public)
>>>following. I tried to pick up a copy of FreeBSD in the Dallas, Tx. area
>>>today (called, called and drove). No luck! I found Linux everywhere. I
>>>know I can order FreeBSD, but that's just the impatient person I am ;>
>>
>
>Unfortunately, many people are stuck in the Linux/Microsoft black-hole, like
>a bunch of sheep :-). FreeBSD is simply a better U**X.
In your opinion it may be. However after trying FreeBSD, NetBSD, and
Linux (both RedHat & Slackware) I think that Linux is a better OS, and that
RedHat is a great distribution.
Its also easier to find linux, it seems.
Brian Wheeler
bdwh...@indiana.edu
Nick Kralevich
Oh, by the way, I removed comp.os.linux.misc from the newsgroup line,
since your flamebait is off topic there.
In article <4mr1pk$c...@dyson.iquest.net>,
John S. Dyson <ro...@dyson.iquest.net> wrote:
>This is getting wierder and wierder. FreeBSD is a very open consortium
>of developers. We have 3-5 developers actively committing to the kernel,
>for example. Linux is the closed (controlled) development.
Yep, Linux is closed, which is why you see hundreds of people
actively hacking on the kernel, vs FreeBSD, which has much
fewer.
The difference is that, for good or bad, FreeBSD is more centralized,
where Linux is more distributed. To many people, a more distributed
development environment provides more freedom. Both systems have
their advantages and disadvantages.
>> My Adaptec AHA-2842VL (an older VLB SCSI-2 Fast Host Adapter) craps
>Sounds like a broken Linux driver to me!!!
Unless you have some evidence to back that up, it would be wise of
you not to post such FUD (fear, uncertanty, doubt). However,
if it's a broken Linux driver, than prove it.
>FreeBSD is primarily a U**X clone. That means that we want to support as
>many U**X platforms as possible.
Hmmm, is FreeBSD available on the Alpha, 680x0, power PC, Sparc, etc?
Linux is.
It might be better if you said that FreeBSD wants to support as many
U**X platforms on the Intel architecture as possible.
The reason why no one on the Linux side has written FreeBSD support
is because, quite frankly, no one is that interested in it. There has
been support for the BSD UFS to be added, but until someone finds a need
to run *BSD binaries, it's not likely to happen.
>Actually, my latest current vs. a very recent Linux shows that we perform
>about 10% faster at one of our previously worst performance numbers: fork
Can you please provide the actual numbers, the testing methodology,
software and hardware used, etc... so we can make an informed decision.
>Yep, our IDE/ATAPI support is a little rough. That is one of the legit
>problems with FreeBSD right now.
Linux IDE/ATAPI support has been called one of the best around.
>Actually Linux has slower buffered disk I/O, so it has the best drivers and
>support??? B*LLHOCKY!!!
Again, try posting some facts, like numbers, that show your position
to be correct.
>If you want to compare the system you must
>mount the FreeBSD disks using the dangerous (like Linux) -o async option.
Dangerous, huh? LOTS of people run Linux daily, and never have the
problems you are describing. You are, quite frankly, full of it.
>(BTW, if you try to upgrade your
>a.out Linux system to a nice (but wasteful) blocksize for ext2fs -- many of
>your binaries won't run.) Of course, FreeBSD with it's efficient 4K/8K/16K
>blocksize can handle the binaries just fine.
Again, more FUD. If you think this is true, provide examples!
Otherwise, stop spreading your misinformation.
I did the upgrade myself, from a Linux a.out system to a Linux ELF
system, without reformating the filesystem, and had none of the problems
you've described. I've never even heard of ANYONE having this problem,
and I follow the Linux newsgroups pretty closely. Again, prove it.
Anyway, John, you are the 9th person to followup to the original
poster. You crossposted your message in an inappropriate forum,
and you included deliberate flame bait. *sigh*. Well, I hope your
attitude doesn't represent all FreeBSDers.
Oh, one more quick question for FreeBSDers. Does FreeBSD support
POSIX 1b realtime extentions yet? Is anyone working on it? This
is a serious question.
Terry Lambert
Brian Wheeler wrote:
] What do you consider closed development? If I were
] so inclined, I could write kernel code and get it included
] (providing it wasn't crap or something), either in the
] official kernel, or as a patch.
]
] Could I just hop over and write code for the FreeBSD
] kernel if I had an Idea I wanted to implement?
Yes.
Assuming your changes didn't stand in the way of in progress
integration work or conflict with changes by other programmers,
in which case their integration would be delayed (not prevented).
Terry Lambert
te...@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
Terry Lambert
Nick Kralevich wrote:
] >FreeBSD is primarily a U**X clone. That means that we want
] >to support as many U**X platforms as possible.
] Hmmm, is FreeBSD available on the Alpha, 680x0, power PC, Sparc,
] etc? Linux is.
Ran on my loaner Alpha, Jack Vogel's SPARC, and is limping on
my loaner PPC.
Since we are talking only kernels here (you *did* say Linux),
a better comparison would be NetBSD... which runs more places
than Linux.
] The reason why no one on the Linux side has written FreeBSD support
] is because, quite frankly, no one is that interested in it. There
] has been support for the BSD UFS to be added, but until someone
] finds a need to run *BSD binaries, it's not likely to happen.
NetScape Commerce Server. 8-).
] Linux IDE/ATAPI support has been called one of the best around.
It still doesn't cover every drive because even the "best around"
can't cover all of the crap hardware out there. IDE/ATAPI is
not a compelling argument; you should just drop it.
] >If you want to compare the system you must mount the
] >FreeBSD disks using the dangerous (like Linux) -o async
] >option.
]
] Dangerous, huh? LOTS of people run Linux daily, and never have the
] problems you are describing. You are, quite frankly, full of it.
I have argued the danger of async writes at length in other
threads. People's inability to accept the implications of
"the completeness theorem" speaks only to their qualifications
as scientists. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. I would
suggest that anyone believing that async writes are "as safe
as sync writes" needs to take some classes in basic logic
and read a CS text book on finite state automatons followed
by a Mathematics text book on group theory, set theory, and
reversability of set operations.
People who do not understand this are at best, ignorant, and
at worst, Luddites.
] Oh, one more quick question for FreeBSDers. Does FreeBSD support
] POSIX 1b realtime extentions yet? Is anyone working on it? This
] is a serious question.
Yes. Patches available on request to the author on the
FreeBSD RealTime list.
Does Linux support v10 of the POSIX threading, or only v4 of
1001.3b? This is a serious question.
Terry Lambert
Rahul Dhesi wrote:
] A generic question:
]
] Given that the hardest thing about maintaining two parallel
] operating systems is the device support,
]
] How hard would it be for both Linux and FreeBSD teams to
] revise their respective oeprating systems to accept
] virtually identical device driver code?
]
] It would be so nice if either could grab a device driver
] from the other and just plug it in.
]
] Maybe through a generous set of macros that allow for low-level
] differences? Or a little device-driver writing language that
] translates high-level code into C?
Device drivers, per se, are quite close in architecture. Form
follows function.
There are several issues to resolve:
1) FreeBSD is evolving to a full devfs-based /dev for
device interfaces. This means that device nodes
will be artifacts of device driver instantiation
rather than requiring a user to make the connection
on behalf of the kernel with "mknod" or "MAKEDEV",
etc..
This is, in fact, "high magic". There are serious
implications for device implementations, although
most differences will be able to be isolated to
the init/probe/attach/detach/deinit code... which
if it is correctly written is a small portion of
the code.
Someone will need to do a similar feat for Linux,
or will need to maintain the unshared code
seperately (Linux could also benefit from a full
devfs implementation, FWIW).
2) Linux Licensing is antithetical to code reuse in
binary distributions.
This is not flame bait. Linux does this on purpose;
the idea is conformant with the spirit of the GPL
and the intent of the FSF.
Specifically, the device drivers, if they aren't
"UCB'ed", need to be "LGPL'ed". Currently, they
are "GPL'ed" in Linux, which means that an LKM
based soloution to driver loading for any non
boot-critical devices won't work. Loading via
LKM *will*, however, satisfy the LGPL relink
clause. If the drivers are LGPL'ed instead of
GPL'ed, then the licensing porblems go away.
I've actually been asking for this change for over
2 years now (I wrote LKM's for BSD in March of
1994). About the same amount of time I've been
asking for LGPL recognition of BSD-style shared
libraries in the LGPL relink clause. Since LKM's
are fully stand-alone modules consumed by the
kernel, there is no conflict with the LGPL, as
there is with UCB style shared library technology
(note Linux ELF shared library technology has this
same potential risk).
3) Any boot-critical drivers -- like the console or a
disk controller driver for a particular controller
-- must be released under both licenses. Until such
time as VM86() fallback driver support for boot
devices exists (the x86 moral equivalent of the
OpenFirmware objective), boot-critical drivers must
be statically linked into the kernel. To fit the
requirements of both camps, either dual licensing
is required, or the GPL must be relaxed on the
Linux kernel as a whole, and it must treat devices
as seperate agregations.
This is an extremely dangerous step for the BSD
camp to take, since the exposure risk is that
changes to the drivers will be GPL'ed and thus
can not be reintegrated into the BSD coude base,
even if a similar driver exists.
In my opinion, it is unlikely that an agreement
could be reached on boot-critical devices until
such time as it became possile to demand-load them
-- ie: they, if fact, became no longer boot-critical.
Also in my opinion, it would be unwise to enter into
such an agreement for boot-critical devices until
that time, as well.
Regards,
J Wunsch
Rahul Dhesi <dh...@rahul.net> wrote:
> Given that the hardest thing about maintaining two parallel operating
> systems is the device support,
>
> How hard would it be for both Linux and FreeBSD teams to revise their
> respective oeprating systems to accept virtually identical device
> driver code?
Basically impossible. The underlying concepts are simply too
different. I've loosely followed a series in a German Unix magazine
about Linux kernel programming, and i must say they are simply
different.
I think if you care to design a driver for both systems from ground
up, it might be workable, but it's still hard to maintain.
Bradley W Mazurek
Brian Wheeler (ro...@fms.indiana.edu) wrote:
: In article <4mr1pk$c...@dyson.iquest.net>,: >FreeBSD does a very fast workstation also. Under load, not much
: >else competes with it including Linux. Under light duty, both Linux and
: >FreeBSD have their advantages -- but I notice performance problems most
: >when loading becomes an issue, don't you???
: I'd be curious to hear the problems you have with linux under load that
: you don't have under FreeBSD. I've been running my Linux box under pretty
: heavy compiler loads for a while now, and Its not so much as hiccupped.
Out of curiosity, I would like to know what other peoples experiences
are with heavy loads under both FreeBSD and Linux.
Under FreeBSD (2.1R? or was it 2.0.5?) I had my machine (P5-90 16MB
RAM) up to a load average in the low 200's. Why? Just to see if I
could crash it and to see how high it would go. The OS was fine
(sluggish, of course) until about 230-240, when it had to start
swapping. That basically killed the machines performance (EIDE Hard
Drive). Can you say "thrashing"?
:)
Take Care,
Brad Mazurek
--
bwm...@cs.usask.ca
Yun-Ching (Allen) Lee
This is a real life test report from a user of both operating systems.
Hope this will inject more facts to the discussion.
I used to run Linux from August, 1995, to March, 1996, and now I am a
firm supporter in FreeBSD since March, 1996. All of the comparisions
below are made between FreeBSD-2.1-RELEASE/STABLE and Red Hat Linux
3.0.3 kernel 1.2.13.
First of all, I prefer FreeBSD's one-disk network installation method
over Red Hat's 3-disk installation. Red Hat's installation also
requires 8 MB RAM for network installation (quoted from a Red Hat
representative on the net). It wouldn't install on my friend's 486 with
6 MB RAM. FreeBSD was fine.
The only problem I had with FreeBSD installation was it conflicted with
my Promise EIDE MAX's BIOS. As I was troubleshooting the problem, I
found out I really didn't need the card to get maximum performance out
of my 1 GB drive, so it didn't matter to me.
Partitioning: I like the BSD slice with sub-partitions a whole lot
better than Linux's. I understand Linux can achieve similar results
with a DOS-like extended partition, whereas BSD's approach is better
integrated. Linux doesn't seem to be able to handle bad blocks on my
hard disk at all. I did mkfs.ext2 with the blocks check option, yet it
didn't prevent Linux from accessing the blocks, and the system crashes
when it does. FreeBSD's bad144 marked the blocks bad on the first test.
Also, Linux doesn't advise the user to follow safe partitioning
practices, i.e. have separate root and usr partitions. FreeBSD does and
warns the user if the partitions are not set up that way. Once, Linux
crashed on me. I resetted and the superblock of the main partition was
corrupted, and the kernel wouldn't mount the root device at all. If
this had happened to FreeBSD, the only partition that gets damaged will
likely be /usr, so I will still be able to go to single-user mode, mount
/ and fsck all partitions. I have not found a way to go into
single-user mode at will in Linux.
FreeBSD's boot/kernel loader combination is far more advanced than Linux
Loader (LILO). FreeBSD has a visual mode configuration editor that
allows the user to configure the drivers before they are loaded. It is
due to this feature that FreeBSD was able to have
one-disk-for-everything installation, versus 71 flavors of RedHat 3.0.3
boot disk images. FreeBSD's EasyBoot is simple and straightforward to
use. LILO requires some complicated setup and passing obscure
parameters if the hardware is non-standard. LILO is also sensitive to
change in drive configuration that if the drive setup should change,
LILO will hang with the "LI" prompt, leaving the novice user stranded.
As for me, my boot loader is OS-BS, which is roboust and yet simple to
operate and configure. All boot loaders require the kernel to be in the
BIOS accessible region of the IDE hard disk.
Package Management: Both FreeBSD and Red Hat installation process are
comprised of sucking packages off the ftp site and install them. Red
Hat uses RPM's, which is supposedly better than straight .tar.gz files.
However, I cannot figure out the way to list installed packages with the
"rpm" command line utility! FreeBSD uses .tar.gz files with special
files to describe the packages, and store them in a very logical place
(/var/db/pkg). I can always peek into there and quickly see which
packages and ports are installed.
Currently, FreeBSD does not have the recognition by the commercial
software companies like Linux does, but FreeBSD can run more different
OS's binaries, including Linux.
A merit of FreeBSD's centralized development, it is far easier to obtain
the source to FreeBSD system files than hunting for source code to
programs that came pre-compiled on a system. I have used SUP to update
my /usr/src tree, and boy, nothing can be easier than this.
Performance: Since I only have a 486DX 33 with 20 MB of RAM, I want to
squeeze every last bit of performance out of it. When I was using Linux
with 35 MB of swap, I have never let the swap usage go above 20 MB when
running X. Because, around that number, the disk swapping becomes
horrendously slow. When using FreeBSD, I can hardly feel the lag caused
by swapping, but the processes take more real and swap memory. I have
had times was 35 MB was not enough swap space for me. Right now I'm
running XF86_Mach32 in 16 bpp with a lot of windows open and a lot of
daemons running. The current swap usage is 34 MB out of 60 MB, and I am
still zipping along.
My problems right now are:
1. There is no packaged/ported X cd players that works with my SONY
EIDE/ATAPI CD-ROM. The kernel works with the drive perfectly, and
cdplay works. Neither xcdplayer or workman work, though.
2. Too many wd interrupts can kill the %cpu functionality in ps and
top, and causes systat -vmstat not work. Is it a libkvm problem?
3. Some quirkyness in packages-2.1... jp-ptex + jp-platex + jp-xdvi
doesn't work. tex + latex + xdvi doesn't work. jp-ptex + jp-platex +
xdvi works. It was some problem with the font path.
The extent of foreign language support in Red Hat Linux 3.0.3 ends with
Kterm and pre-installed X11 fonts. FreeBSD has a whole packages section
devoted to Japanese programs.
So my recommendation is, if the user wants good performance, multiuser
system, and possible experimentation with the OS, get FreeBSD. If the
user is only going to use the system as a personal workstation, either
OS is sufficient.
Any constructive comments welcomed. (And if you can solve any of my
problem above, I'll be very happy. :) )
--
Yun-Ching (Allen) Lee (yunc...@Ami-chan.res.cmu.edu), CMU SCS
http://Ami-chan.res.cmu.edu/~yunching/home.html
Nick Kralevich
In article <31940EC3...@lambert.org>,
Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org> wrote:
>] The reason why no one on the Linux side has written FreeBSD support
>] is because, quite frankly, no one is that interested in it. There
>] has been support for the BSD UFS to be added, but until someone
>] finds a need to run *BSD binaries, it's not likely to happen.
>
>NetScape Commerce Server. 8-).
Ya, I had thought about that, but I dismissed it because of the number
of comparible freely available products that do the same thing.
Examples include Apache-SSL-US and Apache-SSL, both of which are
(arguably) compariable to the Netscape Commerce Server in that they
both support encrypted traffic between two sites (they
don't have the nifty GUI configuration utility, though). Of course,
Apache-SSL works on both Linux and FreeBSD.
And the Netscape Commerce server isn't officially supported by
Netscape under FreeBSD. If your going to be paying $800+ for the
commerce server, and not get any support, then that's your choice.
>I have argued the danger of async writes at length in other
>threads. People's inability to accept the implications of
>"the completeness theorem" speaks only to their qualifications
>as scientists.
(oh no, not the sync vs async metadata argument again. Ahhhhh!!!)
Perhaps that's the difference between scientists and engineers. This
is just another example of the risk/rewards payoff. For volumes
mounted async, there is approximately 10X increase in speed vs async for
operations which do a lot of metadata update (such as untaring a file),
with a minimal (some would say non-existant) increase in risk.
There are lots of areas where this risk/reward payoff works. Examples
include GCC with it's compiler flag "-ffast-math".
As you've pointed out, FreeBSD supports async writes. As you didn't
point out, Linux supports sync writes. Both options are available
on both systems.
FreeBSD comes with sync writes on by default, where Linux has async
writes by default. I would argue that the Linux default is more
flexable than the FreeBSD default. Under the default Linux setup,
applications requiring sync access to the disk can always call
"fsync()", "fdatasync()", or "msync()", or open the file with the
"O_SYNC" option.
However, with FreeBSD defaulting to sync updates, it is impossible
to get async write behavior out of the filesystem. The Linux
default is more flexable and offers higher performance at a minor
(insignificant?) increase in risk.
It's up to the individual user to make the choice to take or reject
the risk vs reward of async updates. Lots of users take risks that
are much worse than this, such as running without a UPS or not making
backups.
Both Linux and FreeBSD support sync and async updates, so there really
isn't anything to argue about.
>] Oh, one more quick question for FreeBSDers. Does FreeBSD support
>] POSIX 1b realtime extentions yet? Is anyone working on it? This
>] is a serious question.
>Yes. Patches available on request to the author on the
>FreeBSD RealTime list.
Boy, you folks don't go out of your way to advertise this list, do
you? The list is not searchable in the FreeBSD search page
(http://www.freebsd.org/search.html), is not described in the
FreeBSD handbook under "mailing lists"
(http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/handbook251.html#459), nor is it
described anywhere on the FreeBSD WWW site.
But thank you for the information. I have an application I'm
developing (a parallel MPEG encoder), that would benefit from the
"aio_read()" and "aio_write()" syscalls, and I would like to see
how (or if) FreeBSD impliments them. I've sent e-mail to the realtime
list asking them to send me the location of the patches. Thanks
for your help.
>Does Linux support v10 of the POSIX threading, or only v4 of
>1001.3b? This is a serious question.
I'll do some research and get back to you on this.
J Wunsch
nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich) wrote:
> Yep, Linux is closed, which is why you see hundreds of people
> actively hacking on the kernel, vs FreeBSD, which has much
> fewer.
You have to get the blessing of Your God for each part that should go
into the kernel. This is different from FreeBSD, where we've got more
than 50 people who can decide based on their own experience and
knowledge about which change might go in unseen, which change should
better be reviewed by somebody else, or what to better leave out.
That's why Terry Lambert and John Dyson call the Linux development
`closed'; they could never become active commiters for Linux' CVS tree
(if something like this would even exist).
> There has
> been support for the BSD UFS to be added, but until someone finds a need
> to run *BSD binaries, it's not likely to happen.
The file system is transparent for the applications, so what the heck
are you arguing here??? You can run Linux binaries on FreeBSD with
either ext2fs or ufs, what's the concern of the application with it?
J Wunsch
Stephane Russell <ss...@sprynet.com> wrote:
> When I read this and all the other news articles alike, I
> understand more why Windows is selling better than Unices. It's
> amazing to see how every Unix groups are fighting against each
> others all the time.
The problem is: it's basically okay to start a *technical* argument-
ation about the relative merits of this or that approach to solve some
technical problem. Since we are free Unices here, this argumentation
happens in public. For Windows or other commercial systems, this
argumentation happens behind closed doors, so you can't follow it that
easily.
The only sad thing is that it regularly turns into some sort of flame
war since some of the "contributors" pop up with half-baked technical
knowledge, and replace the other half with religion (mainly to justify
for themselves that their own choice of the operating system was
right). You can, however, not really stop this, since it's basically
human (or human instinct to defend something you've decided or done).
> Don't forget that Microsoft target is to see one day Windows NT on
> every desktop computers of the world. And Microsoft certainly have
> the resources to do so.
No, at least not with _exactly_ this attitude. :) If there are N
desktop computers in the world, there will always be at most N - M
of them running Microsloth systems, with M >= 3. (The three in the
last expression are the desktop computers i own myself, the actual
M will be higher since i think there are more people like me.) ;-)
Jim Sloan
Well, I know that M will be at least 10 then :) since I have 7 systems that
will never see mucro$loth on them, currently of which 5 are running FreeBSD, 1
BSD/OS, and one linux. I do have 3 other machines running MS garbage, only
because of the need to support customers and develop software for their
desktops.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Sloan jsl...@livenet.net
Vice President
LiveNet, Inc.
413 Davis St. Suite 106 Full Service Internet Provider
Virginia Beach VA 23462 Dialup and dedicated connections
Ph: 804-499-9328 Virtual Web, Email, and FTP hosting
http://www.livenet.net in...@livenet.net webm...@livenet.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nick Kralevich
In article <3194622D...@Ami-chan.res.cmu.edu>,
Yun-Ching (Allen) Lee <yunc...@Ami-chan.res.cmu.edu> wrote:
>Also, Linux doesn't advise the user to follow safe partitioning
>practices, i.e. have separate root and usr partitions. FreeBSD does and
>warns the user if the partitions are not set up that way.
This is just an installation issue.
The RedHat install program does allow you to have and format multiple
partitions. It just doesn't warn you that it's a good idea to do so.
However, in the Linux Install and Getting Started guide
(http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/LDP/gs/gs.html) it recommends that you
install on multiple partitions (check out section 2.2.3 titled
"Linux Partitioning Requirements").
>Once, Linux
>crashed on me. I resetted and the superblock of the main partition was
>corrupted, and the kernel wouldn't mount the root device at all.
I'm not sure what you mean by "resetted". If everything is on one
partition, the recommended course of action is to boot up off an
emergency floppy that is created during the install. You can also
download a generic emergency floppy from
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/Recovery/rescue02.zip .
The one time I tried it out, it was excellent, and is somthing
that you should keep around if you are running Linux.
>I have not found a way to go into
>single-user mode at will in Linux.
At the LILO boot prompt, type your kernel name then the word "single".
For example, if you told the lilo install progam that your
kernel was named "linux", then you would type in "linux single".
This is documented in the Linux Install and Getting Started guide
(http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/LDP/gs/gs.html) on
>However, I cannot figure out the way to list installed packages with the
>"rpm" command line utility!
"rpm -qa" (stands for: rpm query all)
If you have a specific file, say /bin/echo, and you want to know what
package it came from, then you can type "rpm -qf /bin/echo". All this
is documented in the RPM-HOWTO which is available on the RedHat
WWW site (http://www.redhat.com).
>FreeBSD uses .tar.gz files with special
>files to describe the packages, and store them in a very logical place
>(/var/db/pkg).
The problem comes up when you upgrade. With RedHat, it's a simple matter
to buy a new CD-ROM and type "upgrade" (literally). Because the RPM
format is so flexable, doing this type of upgrade is easy.
With FreeBSD, the recommended thing to do is to do a complete reinstall
from scratch. There is no feature in FreeBSD to do easy upgrades.
(other than downloading the source and doing a "make world", and you
better have LOTS of disk space if you want to do that). With Linux,
upgrades are as easy as typing "upgrade". (actually, it would be
pretty cool for FreeBSD to upgrade to an intelligent packaging system.
I did a search for "upgrade" on the FreeBSD WWW site, and you should see
all those poor people on the mailing lists who never had their question
answred about upgrading. Perhaps FreeBSD could update their distributions
to RPM or the Debian package manager instead of their modified .tar.gz
format. It would make upgrading as easy for FreeBSD as it is for Linux.)
>A merit of FreeBSD's centralized development, it is far easier to obtain
>the source to FreeBSD system files than hunting for source code to
>programs that came pre-compiled on a system.
I'm not sure what your talking about. For preinstalled binaries from
a distribution, all you have to do is look in that distributions
source directory. For Slackware, that
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware/source/ . For RedHat,
check out ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/current/i386/RedHat/SRPMS/ .
All the source code you need for all the packages you installed can be
found there.
>The extent of foreign language support in Red Hat Linux 3.0.3 ends with
>Kterm and pre-installed X11 fonts. FreeBSD has a whole packages section
>devoted to Japanese programs.
Check out the Japanese HOWTO at
http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/JE-HOWTO.html
All of these resources can be found at the Linux Documentation Project
home page, http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/ , or by following the links
from the Linux home site, http://www.linux.org/
Nick Kralevich
In article <4n1t38$r...@uriah.heep.sax.de>,
J Wunsch <joerg_...@uriah.heep.sax.de> wrote:
>You have to get the blessing of Your God for each part that should go
>into the kernel.
Actually, in Linux, there is a hierarchy of people responsible
for kernel code maintance, not just one person. Check out
/usr/src/linux/MAINTAINERS for the proper person to contact regarding
your kernel feature.
Of course, this only applies to kernel code. Under Linux, anyone can
submit user level code, and have it incorporated into a Linux
distribution. The kernel is just a small (but important!) part of the
entire Linux project.
>> There has
>> been support for the BSD UFS to be added, but until someone finds a need
>> to run *BSD binaries, it's not likely to happen.
>
>The file system is transparent for the applications, so what the heck
>are you arguing here??? You can run Linux binaries on FreeBSD with
>either ext2fs or ufs, what's the concern of the application with it?
I'm sorry you didn't understand what I was trying to say.
Linux people have found it useful to have the BSD UFS filesystem
usable under Linux. Therefore, they incorporated the code.
On the other hand, no one in the Linux community has found it useful
to be able to run *BSD binaries, so support hasn't been added. If
someone finds running *BSD binaries useful, then someone will work
on the support.
There wasn't meant to be any relation between the BSD UFS filesystem
and the need to run *BSD binaries. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Rahul Dhesi
In <3194622D...@Ami-chan.res.cmu.edu> "Yun-Ching (Allen) Lee"
<yunc...@Ami-chan.res.cmu.edu> writes:
>The only problem I had with FreeBSD installation was it conflicted with
>my Promise EIDE MAX's BIOS. As I was troubleshooting the problem, I
>found out I really didn't need the card to get maximum performance out
>of my 1 GB drive, so it didn't matter to me.
FYI, I added the EIDE MAX card from Promise to my 386 box so I could
attach a CD-ROM drive to it. After this FreeBSD would no longer boot
directly, even after rebuilding an ATAPI kernel. HOWEVER this has not
proven to be a problem for me: I just boot MS-DOS and then boot FreeBSD
via the FBSDBOOT.EXE command. Works nicely.
Terry Lambert
Nick Kralevich wrote:
] >NetScape Commerce Server. 8-).
]
] Ya, I had thought about that, but I dismissed it because of the number
] of comparible freely available products that do the same thing.
And because it was a point of the curve you were trying to
prove. Remember that if you want a straight-line fit, you
should only take two data points. 8-)
] And the Netscape Commerce server isn't officially supported by
] Netscape under FreeBSD. If your going to be paying $800+ for the
] commerce server, and not get any support, then that's your choice.
None of the IBCS2 code is "officially supported" on Linux
either. What's your point... that it will run but it's a
bad moral decision to run it?
] (oh no, not the sync vs async metadata argument again. Ahhhhh!!!)
]
] Perhaps that's the difference between scientists and engineers. This
] is just another example of the risk/rewards payoff. For volumes
] mounted async, there is approximately 10X increase in speed vs
] async for operations which do a lot of metadata update (such
] as untaring a file), with a minimal (some would say non-existant)
] increase in risk.
1) It's "doing a lot of directory manipulations" that speeds
up, not "untarring a file".
2) It's "some idiots would claim non-existant", not "some
would say non-existant". It's on the order of salemen
making technical claims on sound cards.
] As you've pointed out, FreeBSD supports async writes. As you didn't
] point out, Linux supports sync writes. Both options are available
] on both systems.
This point has been (over) made before. It's the defaults that
exist without user intervention that are an important indicator
of philosophy.
] FreeBSD comes with sync writes on by default, where Linux has async
] writes by default. I would argue that the Linux default is more
] flexable than the FreeBSD default. Under the default Linux setup,
] applications requiring sync access to the disk can always call
] "fsync()", "fdatasync()", or "msync()", or open the file with the
] "O_SYNC" option.
]
] However, with FreeBSD defaulting to sync updates, it is impossible
] to get async write behavior out of the filesystem. The Linux
] default is more flexable and offers higher performance at a minor
] (insignificant?) increase in risk.
Clearly you do not understand the issue. Rather than correct you
at length, I will simply note that "fsync()", "fdatasync()",
"msync()", and the "O_SYNC" option do not affect handling of
metadata, and so are irrelevant to any discussion of the subject.
Your statement about FreeBSD, that "it is impossible to get async
write behavior out of the filesystem", is simply false.
] It's up to the individual user to make the choice to take or reject
] the risk vs reward of async updates. Lots of users take risks that
] are much worse than this, such as running without a UPS or not making
] backups.
The risks should not be accepted on their behalf by default.
] >] Oh, one more quick question for FreeBSDers. Does FreeBSD support
] >] POSIX 1b realtime extentions yet? Is anyone working on it? This
] >] is a serious question.
] >
] >Yes. Patches available on request to the author on the
] >FreeBSD RealTime list.
]
] Boy, you folks don't go out of your way to advertise this list, do
] you? The list is not searchable in the FreeBSD search page
] (http://www.freebsd.org/search.html),
It's not archived. Only archived lists are searchable.
] is not described in the FreeBSD handbook under "mailing lists"
] (http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/handbook251.html#459), nor is
] it described anywhere on the FreeBSD WWW site.
This is incorrect. I leave it to you to find where, however.
Note that it is one of the lists returned as available by
majordomo; read the FAQ.
] But thank you for the information. I have an application I'm
] developing (a parallel MPEG encoder), that would benefit from the
] "aio_read()" and "aio_write()" syscalls, and I would like to see
] how (or if) FreeBSD impliments them. I've sent e-mail to the
] realtime list asking them to send me the location of the patches.
aio_read/aio_write are not RealTime extensions.
] >Does Linux support v10 of the POSIX threading, or only v4 of
] >1001.3b? This is a serious question.
]
] I'll do some research and get back to you on this.
I'll save you the trouble; it's v4.
Terry Lambert
Nick Kralevich wrote:
]
] In article <3194622D...@Ami-chan.res.cmu.edu>,
] Yun-Ching (Allen) Lee <yunc...@Ami-chan.res.cmu.edu> wrote:
[ ... ]
] >Once, Linux crashed on me. I resetted and the superblock of
] >the main partition was corrupted, and the kernel wouldn't
] >mount the root device at all.
]
] I'm not sure what you mean by "resetted".
He means "hit the red button labelled 'reset'".
] >FreeBSD uses .tar.gz files with special
] >files to describe the packages, and store them in a very
] >logical place (/var/db/pkg).
]
] The problem comes up when you upgrade.
[ ... ]
] With FreeBSD, the recommended thing to do is to do a
] complete reinstall from scratch.
Only if Nick is doing the recommending, and he's biased.
] There is no feature in FreeBSD to do easy upgrades.
Incorrect. You really haven't used FreeBSD in a while, have
you? In place upgrade went in more than a year ago.
Terry Lambert
J Wunsch wrote:
] That's why Terry Lambert and John Dyson call the Linux development
] `closed'; they could never become active commiters for Linux' CVS
] tree (if something like this would even exist).
Actually, I haven't gone so far as to call it closed. I've even
submitted patches (through Linux friends) for their FS code and
had them integrated.
It *is* a monarchy rather than a democracy, however. BSD would
be in the same boat had BSD's king not abdicated.
John S. Dyson
>Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
> To a point, yes. I'm happy to see the users get a reasonable selection of
> choices, that's certainly true, but I'm not all that sure if a rabid
> proliferation of products is in anybody's best interests either. I looked
> at a recent pack called the "Linux hacker's 10", for example, and "padded
> out" does not even attempt to describe it. A CD full of MPEG files?
> Another of wallpaper backgrounds? The GNU CD? [most of which is utterly
> redundant considering that it's already part of Linux!] I won't even go into
> amount of redundancy involved in their multiple-CD dumps of TSX-11 and
> Sunsite. Suffice it to say that there's such a thing as simply inundating
> the user with data in hopes they'll think they're getting some sort of
> super deal. More is not always better.
> --
> - Jordan Hubbard
> President, FreeBSD Project
Looking at this again, kind of reminds me of the Poly-Pak's of the '60s
and '70s. They sold lots of transistors, surplus parts, etc. It was
so entertaining to see their paper that they sent out periodically. They
would sell you a bag of transistors, LED's or somesuch... U-Test'EM... :-).
Kind-of sounds like the "Linux hacker's 10". Can't wait until the hacker's
20 comes out, because I need 18 CDROM's of junk (maybe two of them
have good stuff on 'em). :-).
John
John S. Dyson
In article <4n0b6c$k...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>,
Brian Wheeler <bdwh...@indiana.edu> wrote:
>
> What do you consider closed development? If I were so inclined, I
>could write kernel code and get it included (providing it wasn't crap or
>something), either in the official kernel, or as a patch.
> Could I just hop over and write code for the FreeBSD kernel if I had
>an Idea I wanted to implement?
>
FreeBSD actively recruits additional developers who will potentially be allowed
to commit to the CVS tree. You start contributing significantly, and
your stuff is good -- you most likely will be given access to the FreeBSD
tree. FreeBSD is as open as it can get, without anarchy. What you have
asked for is anarchy... QC comes to mind as being important.
>>>In essence, Linux has the latest and greatest software and drivers (only a
>>>few companies won't release information, like Adaptec, without the signing of
>>>a non-disclosure agreement -- which is impossible in a OS who included the
>>>source code in its distribution).
>>>
>>Actually Linux has slower buffered disk I/O, so it has the best drivers and
>>support??? B*LLHOCKY!!!
> Huh? What does this have to do with support? Its unrelated to the
>original poster's comment.
>
Huh? I was responding to a bogus response. It is valid to do so.
>>(BTW, if you try to upgrade your
>>a.out Linux system to a nice (but wasteful) blocksize for ext2fs -- many of
>>your binaries won't run.) Of course, FreeBSD with it's efficient 4K/8K/16K
>>blocksize can handle the binaries just fine.
> Maybe I just don't know, but what does filesystem blocksize have to
>do with programs running? Seems like nothing, really.
>
Alot -- if you don't understand the brokeness of the 1K offset in the
Linux a.out format... Please be careful before you comment... We can
run the broken binaries with our 4K,8K,16K filesystems. And boy do the
large block filesystems make a difference (except on news-spools.)
>>Actually, it is best to say:
>> If you can run FreeBSD (which most people can), then use it, because
>>it has much more U**X type flexibility, and runs Linux binaries much of the
>>time as well or better than Linux.
> Most people can run Linux as well. I've yet to hear of anyone
>who has not been able to run linux...with the exception of some of the MCA
>people.
>
FreeBSD is generally faster, and more robust -- in growth applications.
>
>>Of course, Linux isn't up to being the biggest FTP site is it? (Like
>>FreeBSD's main site, ftp.freebsd.org is??)
> What does ftp capacity have to do with "where to get xxx"? Seems
>like you're just trying to troll.
>
If it is your judgement that it is so, it is best to be silent to a troll
isn't it? I am not trolling -- sorry that I hurt your feelings...
>
> I'd be curious to hear the problems you have with linux under load that
>you don't have under FreeBSD. I've been running my Linux box under pretty
>heavy compiler loads for a while now, and Its not so much as hiccupped.
>
It isn't necessarily problems that I have had in the real world -- I have
tested the performance under load, and Linux falls behind. In the "real
world", we have people switching to FreeBSD all of the time, due to the
light-load only friendly nature of Linux.
>
>>Unfortunately, many people are stuck in the Linux/Microsoft black-hole, like
>>a bunch of sheep :-). FreeBSD is simply a better U**X.
>
> In your opinion it may be. However after trying FreeBSD, NetBSD, and
>Linux (both RedHat & Slackware) I think that Linux is a better OS, and that
>RedHat is a great distribution.
>
Actually, I have installed many versions of U**X over the last 15years, and
RedHat and Slakware have taken more time to install than the latest versions
of FreeBSD. The FreeBSD install has it's nits though. I have installed
and run Linux many times (reinstalling on my benchmark partition), so I do know
what I am talking about.
>
> Its also easier to find linux, it seems.
>
True. It is also easier to find Win3.11, Win95, WinNT than Linux.
John S. Dyson
In article <4n0bh1$b...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>>>
>
>blah, blah, blah.
>
look into correcting your position? Your judgement is so much in
question that I have to reply in public to answer your charges. You
simply changed the distribution to do damage only in the FreeBSD
groups... You are playing games...
>
>Hey John, is there any reason why you added comp.os.linux.misc to the
>newsgroup line? It's off topic and unwanted in comp.os.linux.misc.
>
It was important due to the subject matter (Linux). Your comments are always
unwanted in the FreeBSD groups, and often so inaccurate that they show
total ignorance of FreeBSD (of course I run Linux regularly and read the
mailing lists and newsgroups -- I DO know what is going on there.)
BTW, what have you contributed to any free U**X lately, other than dissent?
You are not helping Linux or FreeBSD by your sniping in the FreeBSD groups,
or sniping in the Linux groups about FreeBSD.
John
John S. Dyson
In article <4n0dhd$c...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>Oh, by the way, I removed comp.os.linux.misc from the newsgroup line,
>since your flamebait is off topic there.
>
>>of developers. We have 3-5 developers actively committing to the kernel,
>>for example. Linux is the closed (controlled) development.
>
>actively hacking on the kernel, vs FreeBSD, which has much
>fewer.
>
everything. We have many people hacking on the FreeBSD kernel (CVS tree.)
There might be alot of contributors getting their modifications included,
but Linus reserves the right.
>
>The difference is that, for good or bad, FreeBSD is more centralized,
>where Linux is more distributed. To many people, a more distributed
>development environment provides more freedom. Both systems have
>their advantages and disadvantages.
>
Depends on what you define the terms to be, I guess. Linus controls
*everything* in Linux and has the final say-so. The distributions are more
diverse though. FreeBSD is a full OS -- Linux is a kernel with various
distributions that might or might not be compatible. FreeBSD has over
50 people who can commit *directly* to the CVS-tree. How many can commit
to the Linux source code control tree??? Hmmm.... Oh, it doesn't have
one? I guess that is what you mean by free and open... Sure doesn't sound
like a professional development either...
>>> My Adaptec AHA-2842VL (an older VLB SCSI-2 Fast Host Adapter) craps
>>Sounds like a broken Linux driver to me!!!
>
>Unless you have some evidence to back that up, it would be wise of
>you not to post such FUD (fear, uncertanty, doubt). However,
>if it's a broken Linux driver, than prove it.
>
Remember, the Linux driver tracks the FreeBSD driver now... You know,
it is in catch-up mode all of the time...
>
>>FreeBSD is primarily a U**X clone. That means that we want to support as
>>many U**X platforms as possible.
>
>Hmmm, is FreeBSD available on the Alpha, 680x0, power PC, Sparc, etc?
>Linux is.
>
NetBSD is available on many more than Linux, so Linux doesn't have that
yet either.
>
>It might be better if you said that FreeBSD wants to support as many
>U**X platforms on the Intel architecture as possible.
>
Right now that is true, and I stand corrected on that. FreeBSD will probably
never support more than the 2-3 predominant platforms.
>
>The reason why no one on the Linux side has written FreeBSD support
>is because, quite frankly, no one is that interested in it. There has
>been support for the BSD UFS to be added, but until someone finds a need
>to run *BSD binaries, it's not likely to happen.
>
That is sad for Linux users, because the original simplication of FFS/UFS
into EXT2FS dropped fragments...
>>Actually, my latest current vs. a very recent Linux shows that we perform
>>about 10% faster at one of our previously worst performance numbers: fork
>
>Can you please provide the actual numbers, the testing methodology,
>software and hardware used, etc... so we can make an informed decision.
>
lmbench -- lat_proc... P5-166, ASUS TP4N, Linux 1.3.9x, FreeBSD-current.
Note that Linux is probably much closer to release than FreeBSD-current, so I
expect the FreeBSD release to be faster than the -current version.
>>Yep, our IDE/ATAPI support is a little rough. That is one of the legit
>>problems with FreeBSD right now.
>
>Linux IDE/ATAPI support has been called one of the best around.
>
So? You are not disagreeing with me, are you -- Are you trying to sell
Linux here??? Wrong newsgroup...
>
>Again, try posting some facts, like numbers, that show your position
>to be correct.
>
Do iozone -- I get 13-15MBytes/sec max cached on Linux 1.3.9x ... -current on
FreeBSD gives me about 35MBytes/sec and our experimental code is
approaching 40-60MBytes/sec. Other benchmarks like Bonnie, etc show
similar results. Nick, if you don't believe it, and since you know
so much about FreeBSD, please try running and benchmarking it, before
you try to question my credibility. The differences are clear...
>
>>If you want to compare the system you must
>>mount the FreeBSD disks using the dangerous (like Linux) -o async option.
>
>Dangerous, huh? LOTS of people run Linux daily, and never have the
>problems you are describing. You are, quite frankly, full of it.
>
Not true, you WILL loose more data -- period. If you don't write the
data, IT WILL BE LOST!!! You are, truely silly if you don't
understand that.
>>(BTW, if you try to upgrade your
>>a.out Linux system to a nice (but wasteful) blocksize for ext2fs -- many of
>>your binaries won't run.) Of course, FreeBSD with it's efficient 4K/8K/16K
>>blocksize can handle the binaries just fine.
>
>Again, more FUD. If you think this is true, provide examples!
>Otherwise, stop spreading your misinformation.
>
Do the upgrade to 4K or 8K ext2fs -- you simply don't know. 1K offset
a.outs haven't worked on various versions of Linux. I have noted that
complaint recently on a Linux newsgroup.
>I did the upgrade myself, from a Linux a.out system to a Linux ELF
>system, without reformating the filesystem, and had none of the problems
>you've described. I've never even heard of ANYONE having this problem,
>and I follow the Linux newsgroups pretty closely. Again, prove it.
>
That is not the upgrade that I am talking about -- non-sequiter... You
must be confused. The ELF binaries have the correct offset, and don't cause
the problems above. Those binaries work well on FreeBSD also. In fact,
I run the Linux-ELF lmbench suite. Kind-of eliminates variables in my
benchmark runs.
You accuse me of FUD -- you are the pot calling the kettle black. Your
ignorance of FreeBSD is so complete and you make so many statements without
running or testing FreeBSD, that you can only be accused of disinformation.
I do read the Linux newsgroups and run Linux on the same machine
that I run or benchmark FreeBSD on, so how much space have you dedicated
to FreeBSD to become such an expert?
John
John S. Dyson
In article <3191ADA0...@sprynet.com>,
Stephane Russell <ss...@sprynet.com> wrote:
>
>When I read this and all the other news articles alike, I
>understand more why Windows is selling better than Unices. It's
>amazing to see how every Unix groups are fighting against each
>others all the time.
>
the FreeBSD newsgroups. Their methodology is to spread negative and
incorrect information, and then make the FreeBSD people who deny the
misinformation look mean-spirited... ANY disinformation is bad, and
you'll find very little of it in these groups except from those
certain individuals. You'll notice that good people will generally
correct themselves when corrected with the facts.
It is sad that there are a few individuals that try to rain
on other's parade, this isn't even an advocacy newsgroup :-(.
Your comments about Microsoft are sad but true. I am in the position
of having to specify NT in certain apps, unless U**X is much better.
Luckily, U**X still has a foot-in-the-door in the large scale server
market and it's new market of embedded controllers. Microsoft has built so
much cruft and inefficiency into NT (I have to program the NT beast), it is
likely we can keep the big-server market until we make inroads into the
workstation area. But near term, servers and embedded controllers are
probably the best market for the likes of FreeBSD. If I could get
a real -- document compatible copy of Microsoft Office for FreeBSD, I
could use it for OA applications. That isn't in Microsoft's interest
though :-(.
John S. Dyson
In article <4n0bh1$b...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <4mr1pk$c...@dyson.iquest.net>,
>John S. Dyson <ro...@dyson.iquest.net> wrote:
>>>
>
>blah, blah, blah.
>
>newsgroup line? It's off topic and unwanted in comp.os.linux.misc.
>
your messages, Nick... Sorry to everyone for responding to Nick's
garbage...
John
Richard Tobin
In article <4mnsc5$6...@sundial.sundial.net> b.j....@ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith, E.I.) writes:
.. a whole lot of nonsense.
Most of this has been addressed in other articles, so I'll just correct
one point:
>Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
>than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
>a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code).
The FreeBSD people (and other BSD users) were afraid of lawsuits from
USL, not BSDI. FreeBSD 2.0 switched from being based on Net-2 to
4.4-lite, in order to ensure that it didn't contain any code claimed
by USL. It was USL who were trying to prevent BSDI distributing their
system, not BSDI trying to stop anyone.
Incidentally, USL looked like they were going to lose their lawsuit
anyway, but they could have kept BSDI tied up in court for years, so
BSDI (and UCB) agreed to a settlement that allowed USL to save a
little face without in fact gaining anything significant. Essentially
the forces of truth and justice won, and USL lost.
-- Richard
--
"Hither turn thy steps, hither come to thy death and for Camilla
receive due guerdon! Shalt thou, even thou, die by Diana's darts?"
[Virgil, Aeneid X1 855-7]
J Wunsch
nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Nick Kralevich) wrote:
> With FreeBSD, the recommended thing to do is to do a complete reinstall
> from scratch. There is no feature in FreeBSD to do easy upgrades.
Except the "U)pgrade" menu item from the main menu of the installer,
you'd like to say???
Stop posting things where you've been replacing knowledge by religion!
Btw., the weak point of all your argumentation chain about where
everything for your Linux examples can be found is that it's
exclusively ``http://...'', ``ftp://...'' etc. This implies to me
that it cannot be found bundled alltogether in a consistent state on a
CD-ROM -- but that's what the posting you've been following up to was
praising on the FreeBSD distribution! (Not all the world's Internet.
Not all the Internet participiants have a bandwidth available that
allows them to suck several Megabytes per day.)
J Wunsch
Rahul Dhesi <dh...@rahul.net> wrote:
> FYI, I added the EIDE MAX card from Promise to my 386 box so I could
> attach a CD-ROM drive to it. After this FreeBSD would no longer boot
> directly, even after rebuilding an ATAPI kernel.
It's a known problem. Disable the Promise's BIOS. (FreeBSD doesn't
use it anyway.)
J Wunsch
Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org> wrote:
> It *is* a monarchy rather than a democracy, however. BSD would
> be in the same boat had BSD's king not abdicated.
No doubt. So we should feel lucky that Bill disappeared. :)
Jordan K. Hubbard
In article <4n2obr$f...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>With FreeBSD, the recommended thing to do is to do a complete reinstall
>from scratch. There is no feature in FreeBSD to do easy upgrades.
There has been an `upgrade' option available since FreeBSD 2.1R.
>>A merit of FreeBSD's centralized development, it is far easier to obtain
>>the source to FreeBSD system files than hunting for source code to
>>programs that came pre-compiled on a system.
>
>I'm not sure what your talking about. For preinstalled binaries from
>a distribution, all you have to do is look in that distributions
He's talking about _staying in sync_ once you have the base distribution,
e.g. you just want something to automagically keep /usr/src on "upgrade
path" status without having to mess around with FTP or knowing when
something has changed. Both sup and CTM handle this.
>Check out the Japanese HOWTO at
>http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/JE-HOWTO.html
Not really a substitute to a set of `fire and forget' wrappers, now
is it?
Jordan
Yun-Ching (Allen) Lee
Nick Kralevich wrote:
> If everything is on one partition, the recommended course of action is
> to boot up off an emergency floppy that is created during the install.
It seems like Red Hat forgot this step in the installation process.
> With FreeBSD, the recommended thing to do is to do a complete
> reinstall from scratch. There is no feature in FreeBSD to do easy
> upgrades.
There is an "Upgrade from 2.0.5" menu choice on the 2.1.0 installation
disk. I have not tried this option yet. I will give it a try when
2.1.1-RELEASE or 2.2-RELEASE is available. But will this necessary if I
decide to stay current with the STABLE source tree?
> Perhaps FreeBSD could update their distributions to RPM or the Debian
> package manager instead of their modified .tar.gz format. It would
> make upgrading as easy for FreeBSD as it is for Linux.)
How did you conclude that FreeBSD's package format is less advanced
because it uses tar.gz format? After all, the RPM format also needs to
compress a number of files into one (which tar.gz does fairly well)
while packing instruction files for installation/upgrade (equivalent to
+files on FreeBSD.)
> >A merit of FreeBSD's centralized development, it is far easier to
> >obtain the source to FreeBSD system files than hunting for source
> >code to programs that came pre-compiled on a system.
>
> I'm not sure what your talking about.
My thanks to Mr. Hubbard who stepped in and answered this question for
me. The sup and CTM mechanism saves the administrator the trouble of
downloading a huge tar.gz file just to find it's not necessary.
> Check out the Japanese HOWTO at
> http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/JE-HOWTO.html
This only works for the Slackware/SLS distributions. For a Red Hat
user, it might mean hunting down the Slackware pkgtool program and
packages, and when he or she installs it, it may not work because of
different path configuration or versions of dynamic libraries. I had
the latter problem happen to me when I tried to install JE packages on
my Slackware 3.0 system. I solved the problem by finding all the JE
binaries, list the dynamic libraries each uses, and create symlinks from
older libraries to newer (installed) libraries. What a pain.
More anecdotes from me... I have few classmates who claims Linux is the
greatest OS ever, and the only other OS's they have ever used were
DOS/Windows/Windows 95. And they can't even pronounce Linux correctly.
In IPA: [la'j n{schwa}ks] instead of the correct one [lI' nuwks].
{schwa} is the upside-down 'e'.
John S. Dyson
In article <4n1hs2$s...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <31940EC3...@lambert.org>,
>Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org> wrote:
>
>>I have argued the danger of async writes at length in other
>>threads. People's inability to accept the implications of
>>"the completeness theorem" speaks only to their qualifications
>>as scientists.
>
>
>Perhaps that's the difference between scientists and engineers. This
>is just another example of the risk/rewards payoff. For volumes
>mounted async, there is approximately 10X increase in speed vs async for
>operations which do a lot of metadata update (such as untaring a file),
>with a minimal (some would say non-existant) increase in risk.
>
used by Linux. I think that you are describing the difference between
"(scientists and engineers) vs. cowboys." Whenever I use a filesystem
that I am just playing with, I do use async metadata updates... That
is appropriate for "playing" on FreeBSD or Linux.
>
>As you've pointed out, FreeBSD supports async writes. As you didn't
>point out, Linux supports sync writes. Both options are available
>on both systems.
>
Again, it is the default *broken* behaviour of Linux. Makes benchmarks
look better, and you don't care if you crash during a benchmark, don't you?
>
>FreeBSD comes with sync writes on by default, where Linux has async
>writes by default. I would argue that the Linux default is more
>flexable than the FreeBSD default. Under the default Linux setup,
>applications requiring sync access to the disk can always call
>"fsync()", "fdatasync()", or "msync()", or open the file with the
>"O_SYNC" option.
>
So, you are admitting that the Linux behaviour is more dangerous? Programs
then have to do system calls to fix the broken behavior? The correct
fix for the problem in many cases (but not always) is to use an J/LFS. You
can still loose data though.
>
>It's up to the individual user to make the choice to take or reject
>the risk vs reward of async updates. Lots of users take risks that
>are much worse than this, such as running without a UPS or not making
>backups.
>
Sure is, and I hope the user base makes the right decision. Remember,
the correct decision is not necessarily always the fastest (especially when
you have a system failure.) An equivalent argument is "why do backups --
they slow your system down?".
>
>Boy, you folks don't go out of your way to advertise this list, do
>you? The list is not searchable in the FreeBSD search page
>(http://www.freebsd.org/search.html), is not described in the
>FreeBSD handbook under "mailing lists"
>(http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/handbook251.html#459), nor is it
>described anywhere on the FreeBSD WWW site.
>
Please refer to our mailing lists. Netnews is not our primary support
mechanism (as we have stated over and over again -- being ignored by
you.) Our primary support mechanism is not the handbook either.
The MAILING LISTS ARE. Please redirect your questions to the appropriate
forum -- you know how to do it. It is okay for new or casual users
to use the net, but considering the questions that you are asking, and
knowing what I know that you know, the mailing lists are obviously the
best forum.
>
>>Does Linux support v10 of the POSIX threading, or only v4 of
>>1001.3b? This is a serious question.
>
>I'll do some research and get back to you on this.
>
And tell me which release that it is in...
Thanks
John
John S. Dyson
In article <4n2psu$f...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
>I'm sorry you didn't understand what I was trying to say.
>Linux people have found it useful to have the BSD UFS filesystem
>usable under Linux. Therefore, they incorporated the code.
>On the other hand, no one in the Linux community has found it useful
>to be able to run *BSD binaries, so support hasn't been added. If
>someone finds running *BSD binaries useful, then someone will work
>on the support.
>
for EXT2FS?
John
John S. Dyson
>J Wunsch <joerg_...@uriah.heep.sax.de> wrote:
>>You have to get the blessing of Your God for each part that should go
>>into the kernel.
>
>Actually, in Linux, there is a hierarchy of people responsible
>for kernel code maintance, not just one person. Check out
>/usr/src/linux/MAINTAINERS for the proper person to contact regarding
>your kernel feature.
>
John
Wilson MacGyver
John S. Dyson wrote:
> Your comments about Microsoft are sad but true. I am in the position
> of having to specify NT in certain apps, unless U**X is much better.
> Luckily, U**X still has a foot-in-the-door in the large scale server
> market and it's new market of embedded controllers. Microsoft has built so
> much cruft and inefficiency into NT (I have to program the NT beast), it is
> likely we can keep the big-server market until we make inroads into the
> workstation area. But near term, servers and embedded controllers are
> probably the best market for the likes of FreeBSD. If I could get
> a real -- document compatible copy of Microsoft Office for FreeBSD, I
> could use it for OA applications. That isn't in Microsoft's interest
> though :-(.
I couldn't agree more. I too have to use NT for work and various projects.
I've been wanting to write a Word Processor with both character based interface
and X-windows GUI for sometime, but I'm having a really tough time trying to
get a hold of the file formats for Word. Yes, I know it's available from Microsoft
with a signed license, but I don't know what type of restictions they would
place on me. (probably quite a bit given their record. :) )
Martin Nisshagen
Stephane Russell wrote:
>
> When I read this and all the other news articles alike, I
> understand more why Windows is selling better than Unices. It's
> amazing to see how every Unix groups are fighting against each
> others all the time.
That's mostley not *fighting*. Most people on this newsgroup prefers
dicussions.
> Don't forget that Microsoft target is to see one day Windows NT on
> every desktop computers of the world. And Microsoft certainly have
> the resources to do so.
MS doesn't have any such holey mission. They only wants to make as
much money as possible, selling software that they think their target
customers wants. I can assure you that even MS knows that Unix, and
many other OSes, always will continue to exist regardless how much
advertising they will do. And I can also assure you that users of
free OSes (like FreeBSD, Linux etc) is *not* MS target as they wouldn't
like to give their products away for free, and much less the source
code of them. NT only competes agianst some commercial Unix developers
(like SCO and Sun), but only is some limited applications. Even in some
of those cases NT isn't able to replace Unix as it still lacks many
important concepts to do so (like native multiuser support etc).
> And what about Windows 95, OS/2 and MAC computers? Are they
> leaving room for those fights? All of them have strong features
> that Unices have to compete with.
FreeBSD's mission is *not* to kill MS or Apple or any such things. Not
even commercial and supported (non-free) unices like BSDI, Solaris,
SCO is any 'enemies' to FreeBSD. I actually think the best thing with
FreeBSD is that it's goal is not to replace every PC or Mac OSes.
The mission is simply to make the best possible free Unix. If people
want to use it is simply up to them. I like that attitude!
If you want the best free Unix; use FreeBSD.
If you don't want Unix at all; don't use FreeBSD.
> will take NetBSD. In Windows NT, your stuck with Windows NT.
That's not different than from other commercial OSes (like VMS,
NextStep, MacOS, Solaris, MVS, OS/2 etc etc). If you want no
reliance on a commercial developer you should indeed use a free
Unix (like FreeBSD or Linux) wich has the source fully avaible
to you. Commercial OS also have their place in the world (with
their controlled sourcecode and support).
Enjoy Unix (and FreeBSD especially), but don't make it into a
mission into replacing everyone elses OSes.
Best regards,
m a r t i n n - User of several free and commercial OSes
(FreeBSD, OS/2, Solaris, NT, VMS).
--
Martin Nisshagen mar...@mts.se (MIME 1.0) "verdi + callas =
MTS Technology, Sweden http://www.mts.se/martin 100% pleasure..."
Terry Lambert
Wilson MacGyver wrote:
]
With respect: has anyone *asked* Microsoft what it would take
to get them to port Word, et. al.?
They've obviously been willing to port it once (MacOS), so
there has got to be some threshold where they are willing
to undertake a port to a non-Microsoft OS.
I would find it hard to believe that the MacOS port is nothing
more than avoiding the Sherman antitrust acts.
Microsoft runs as seperate business units. Make a business
case, and I bet they will port.
Con Sultant
>] John S. Dyson wrote:
>] > of FreeBSD. If I could get a real -- document compatible
>] > copy of Microsoft Office for FreeBSD, I could use it for
>] > OA applications. That isn't in Microsoft's interest
>] > though :-(.
I don't use it, so this is just an idea, but what about WINE and running
the Windows Office package? Is WINE up to the task yet, or are there
still some bugs that make it unusable?
I can see myself using it in the future, but for now, I have the
privilage of having a machine for each OS. It really does make life much
easier.
-Jeff Kane mailto:jk...@execpc.com http://www.execpc.com/~jkane
Sean T. Lamont
In article <319683...@mts.se>, Martin Nisshagen <mar...@mts.se> wrote:
>MS doesn't have any such holey mission. They only wants to make as
>much money as possible, selling software that they think their target
>customers wants. I can assure you that even MS knows that Unix, and
>many other OSes, always will continue to exist regardless how much
>advertising they will do. And I can also assure you that users of
>free OSes (like FreeBSD, Linux etc) is *not* MS target as they wouldn't
>like to give their products away for free, and much less the source
>code of them. NT only competes agianst some commercial Unix developers
>(like SCO and Sun), but only is some limited applications. Even in some
>of those cases NT isn't able to replace Unix as it still lacks many
>important concepts to do so (like native multiuser support etc).
Personally, I'd still be using FreeBSD even if it were priced in, say,
the range of BSDI OS, so long as it had all those other features such
as kernel sources.
--
Sean T. Lamont, President / CEO, Abstract Software (ServNet)
- Internet access * WWW hosting * TCP/IP * UNIX * NEXTSTEP * WWW Development -
email: lam...@abstractsoft.com WWW: http://www.serv.net
"...There's no moral, it's just a lot of stuff that happens". - H. Simpson
James Raynard
In article <4n0bh1$b...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
>Hey John, is there any reason why you added comp.os.linux.misc to the
What makes you think this kind of discussion is any more welcome in
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc?
^^^^
--
James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland
jray...@dial.pipex.com
ja...@jraynard.demon.co.uk
Stephane Russell
Martin Nisshagen wrote:
>
> Stephane Russell wrote:
>>
>> And what about Windows 95, OS/2 and MAC computers? Are they
>> leaving room for those fights? All of them have strong features
>> that Unices have to compete with.
>
> FreeBSD's mission is *not* to kill MS or Apple or any such things. Not
> even commercial and supported (non-free) unices like BSDI, Solaris,
> SCO is any 'enemies' to FreeBSD. I actually think the best thing with
> FreeBSD is that it's goal is not to replace every PC or Mac OSes.
of them have strong features that Unices have to compete with". I
was not meaning "compete to take over the enemies" but "compete to
keep its place among the others". And I was talking of all Unices,
not just Free ones.
I never wanted FreeBSD or any other OS to take over the PC market
or anything. This would be short view thinking. Even if I now use
FreeBSD most of the time, I still love and use DOS and Windows
3.1. All my first steps on PCs have been made on MS-DOS and I
consider Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 as an interesting evolution of
it.
My intention was more to point out that the disunity of the Unix
world was not helping Unix users. Everybody have the right to be
proud if his Unix and to think it's the best in the world (like
mine ;-), as long as it dosn't mean for that person that everybody
should be using the same.
I wanted to say also that Unix users should always consider any
Unix user as a Unix user before a
FreeBSD/Linux/SCO/UnixWare/DellUnix/BSDI/WhoCares user first of
all. Unix will probably remain a small "niche" market. For that
reason, it seems to me that this world should be tighter than
that.
FreeBSD users should be thanking Linux users for using a Unix, and
vice-versa. Instead, a lot of Linux/FreeBSD users are trying to
convince the others side that, too bad for them, they *are* using
the wrong operating system.
Anyhow, I guess we'll have to live with it. Maybe, long ago, I was
too impressed by the SVR4.2 attempt to unify Unix over one binary
standard.
>
> m a r t i n n - User of several free and commercial OSes
> (FreeBSD, OS/2, Solaris, NT, VMS).
>
> --
> Martin Nisshagen mar...@mts.se (MIME 1.0) "verdi + callas =
> MTS Technology, Sweden http://www.mts.se/martin 100% pleasure..."
stef
--
# Place your signature information here
Name <us...@my.domain> | Joke
City, Country |
Nick Kralevich
In article <4n7mp1$2...@jraynard.demon.co.uk>,
James Raynard <ja...@jraynard.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>What makes you think this kind of discussion is any more welcome in
>comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc?
> ^^^^
The purpose of a *.misc group is to cover any topic that isn't
directly covered by another newsgroup.
John posted an advocacy issue to comp.os.linux.misc, when
comp.os.linux.advocacy already exists. John was off topic in the
newsgroup he added.
There are only two newsgroup is the comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.* hierarchy.
They are comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc and comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce.
This topic is not appropriate for the announce newsgroup, so the only
other newsgroup left is comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc.
It may be unwelcomed, but it's not off topic.
Killfiles are useful for this reason.
My apologizes to those who don't want to hear advocacy in the FreeBSD
newsgroup.
Take care,
-- Nick Kralevich
nick...@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu
Ingo Molnar
Terry Lambert (te...@lambert.org) wrote:
: But if no one returns the hardware, how will the vendor of the
: hardware ever be punished for producing crappy hardware so as
: to disincent them from making their next hardware crappy as well?
you can "punish" vendors if you have market share. But nor FreeBSD,
nor Linux has real market share. So both have to "go with the tide",
supporting broken hardware, fight against NDAs and implementing bad
APIs, to balance the missing market share.
no, no. Linux/FreeBSD doesnt need "success", in the economical sense.
It needs "beta testers", and beta testers have bad CDROMs :)
"Any working code is inherently better than any non working code",
hmmm, who wrote this? :)
-- mingo
John S. Dyson
In article <4n8jin$h...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
>The purpose of a *.misc group is to cover any topic that isn't
>directly covered by another newsgroup.
>
>John posted an advocacy issue to comp.os.linux.misc, when
>comp.os.linux.advocacy already exists. John was off topic in the
>newsgroup he added.
>
>
>It may be unwelcomed, but it's not off topic.
>
Nick, many of your statements are not truthful or accurate.
>
>My apologizes to those who don't want to hear advocacy in the FreeBSD
>newsgroup.
>
I sure wouldn't mind if some of the advocacy in this group would be truthful
then :-).
John
John S. Dyson
In article <DrD1B...@deere.com>, Con Sultant <jk...@execpc.com> wrote:
>>] John S. Dyson wrote:
>
>>] > of FreeBSD. If I could get a real -- document compatible
>>] > copy of Microsoft Office for FreeBSD, I could use it for
>>] > OA applications. That isn't in Microsoft's interest
>>] > though :-(.
>
>I don't use it, so this is just an idea, but what about WINE and running
>the Windows Office package? Is WINE up to the task yet, or are there
>still some bugs that make it unusable?
>
in the works.
John
Chris
On 14 May 1996 19:04:47 GMT, dy...@inuxs.inh.att.com (John S. Dyson) wrote:
>In article <4n8jin$h...@agate.berkeley.edu>,
>Nick Kralevich <nick...@america.CS.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>>
>>The purpose of a *.misc group is to cover any topic that isn't
>>directly covered by another newsgroup.
>>My apologizes to those who don't want to hear advocacy in the FreeBSD
>>newsgroup.
>>
>I sure wouldn't mind if some of the advocacy in this group would be truthful
>then :-).
>
>John
It's obvious Nick here has nothing better to do than go around and advocate
Linux while slandering other OS'. Nick: find something better to do with your
time, we don't need your waste of bandwidth. Just on a whim, I went to
Altavista and searched everywhere this character has posted to, read the
subject lines and where he posts to:
20.Mar comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Don't try this at home
20.Mar comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Don't try this at home
21.Mar comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: compiling xosview with
20.Mar comp.os.linux.setup nickkral@america L B Re: Don't try this at home
21.Mar comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: compiling xosview with
22.Mar comp.os.linux.network nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs FreeBSD ???
22.Mar comp.infosystems.www. nickkral@america L B Re: Using expect to retriev
21.Mar comp.os.ms-windows.pr nickkral@america L B Re: NTFS partitions visible
21.Mar comp.os.ms-windows.nt nickkral@america L B Re: NTFS partitions visible
29.Mar comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: /usr-Part. keeps on shu
30.Mar comp.infosystems.www. nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. Win95 (was: w
30.Mar comp.os.linux.network nickkral@america L B Re: XNTP3.3 w/ Linux ?
30.Mar comp.os.ms-windows.nt nickkral@america L B Re: Why do WINDOZE 95 users
30.Mar comp.os.ms-windows.nt nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. Win95 (was: w
30.Mar comp.os.os2.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Why do WINDOZE 95 users
30.Mar comp.os.ms-windows.wi nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. Win95 (was: w
30.Mar comp.os.os2.advocacy nickkral@america L B Re: Why do WINDOZE 95 users
30.Mar comp.os.os2.advocacy nickkral@america L B Re: Why do WINDOZE 95 users
30.Mar comp.os.os2.advocacy nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. Win95 (was: w
30.Mar comp.protocols.time.n nickkral@america L B Re: XNTP3.3 w/ Linux ?
30.Mar comp.os.linux.advocac nickkral@america L B Re: spontaneous huge find j
30.Mar alt.fan.bill-gates nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. Win95 (was: w
30.Mar alt.fan.bill-gates madscientist@dar L B Re: Why do WINDOZE 95 users
30.Mar comp.unix.questions nickkral@america L B Re: Unix or Linux
31.Mar comp.infosystems.www. nickkral@america L B Looking for a *SLOW* WWW (p
30.Mar comp.os.os2.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. Win95 (was: w
30.Mar comp.os.os2.misc madscientist@dar L B Re: Why do WINDOZE 95 users
31.Mar comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Looking for a *SLOW* WWW (p
31.Mar comp.os.linux.develop nickkral@america L B Re: [Help] Problem with pcs
31.Mar comp.infosystems.www. pa...@jagunet.co L B Re: Looking for a *SLOW* WW
01.Apr comp.os.linux.develop nickkral@america L B Re: What's a race condition
01.Apr comp.os.linux.develop nickkral@america L B Re: What's a race condition
01.Apr comp.os.linux.setup nickkral@america L B Re: VIRUS!! HELP URGENT!
01.Apr comp.os.os2.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Why do WINDOZE 95 users
01.Apr comp.periphs.scsi gfi...@zk3.dec.c L B SCSI FAQ part1 of 2
02.Apr comp.os.os2.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. Win95 (was: w
02.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: FreeBSD vs Linux
03.Apr comp.arch.embedded nickkral@america L B Re: Computer in my Car
03.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: FreeBSD vs Linux
03.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: virus checkers for Linu
02.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd gcla...@main.gb L B Re: FreeBSD vs Linux
04.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: FreeBSD vs Linux
04.Apr comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardw nickkral@america L B Re: Why do WINDOZE 95 users
05.Apr comp.os.ms-windows.nt nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. Win95 (was: w
05.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: virus checkers for Linu
06.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: FreeBSD vs Linux
07.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Linux and UNICODE?
07.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd j...@FreeBSD.org L B Re: FreeBSD vs Linux
07.Apr comp.unix.questions nickkral@america L B Re: Windows 95 partition mo
08.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: interesting? ext2fs pro
08.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: where is 'chop' & '
07.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd to...@dyson.iques L B Re: FreeBSD vs Linux
10.Apr comp.os.linux.develop nickkral@america L B Re: Do we still run out of
08.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd c23...@eng.delco L B Re: FreeBSD vs Linux
12.Apr comp.unix.bsd.netbsd. nickkral@america L B Linux is POSIX complient (w
14.Apr comp.os.linux.advocac nickkral@america L B Re: Linux lacks of Multipro
14.Apr comp.graphics.renderi nickkral@america L B Re: Rendering speed in Linu
14.Apr comp.os.ms-windows.ne nickkral@america L B Re: Multiple users on a sin
15.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: lpr: : copy file is too
17.Apr comp.os.os2.advocacy nickkral@america L B Re: The Microsoft conspirac
17.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: lpr: copy file too larg
17.Apr comp.graphics.renderi k...@dde.dk L B Re: Rendering speed in Linu
17.Apr comp.os.ms-windows.pr oseberg@folpen.s L B Re: The Microsoft conspirac
21.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Howto automatically reb
21.Apr comp.os.linux.develop nick...@po.EECS L B Re: checking if file is wri
21.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: SUN moving away from BS
23.Apr comp.os.linux.advocac nickkral@america L B Re: OS/2 or Linux...which i
23.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Sites for Linux binarie
23.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Info, Please ?
23.Apr comp.unix.questions nickkral@america L B Re: more space for swap
23.Apr alt.os.linux nickkral@america L B Re: Any prog for Accessing
23.Apr comp.lang.perl.misc nickkral@america L B Quotes in pattern matching
23.Apr comp.lang.perl.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Quotes in pattern match
25.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Swap file v/s swap part
25.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: virus software?
26.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Symmetric Multi-Process
27.Apr comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Symmetric Multi-Process
28.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Linux for PowerMac -- When?
29.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: LINUX: WHAT A MESS!!!
29.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Anonymous FTP not showi
29.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Upgrading to ELF
30.Apr comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Anonymous FTP not showi
30.Apr comp.os.linux.misc lampas@alexlam.c L B Re: Upgrading to ELF
30.Apr comp.os.linux.misc Alex.Butcher@bri L B Re: Upgrading to ELF
29.Apr comp.os.linux.develop nickkral@america L B "make xconfig" WO
30.Apr comp.os.linux.develop ble...@netcom.co L B Re: "make xconfig"
02.May comp.unix.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Linux on PowerPC
02.May comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD
02.May comp.os.ms-windows.nt nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. Win95 (was: w
02.May sci.space.shuttle str...@acm.rpi. L B Re: Shuttle abort procedure
03.May comp.os.linux.setup nick...@apus.EE L B Re: Free Beer!
05.May comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Anything I should bewar
05.May comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Userfs module and undefined
05.May ucb.os.linux nickkral@america L B Re: Undelete in Linux?
05.May ucb.os.linux nickkral@america L B Re: [HELP] Lilo problems
06.May comp.os.linux.advocac nickkral@america L B Re: Linux SMP?
07.May comp.os.linux.advocac pit...@nrv.net L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD
07.May comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD
07.May comp.os.linux.advocac nickkral@america L B Re: Linux without Java = de
08.May comp.os.linux.hardwar nickkral@parker. L B Re: Iomega Ditto drive for
08.May comp.os.linux.hardwar nickkral@parker. L B Re: Iomega Ditto drive for
08.May comp.os.ms-windows.nt nickkral@parker. L B Re: Backoffice vs. Unix Web
08.May comp.graphics.misc nickkral@parker. L B Re: Q: automated BMP to GIF
08.May comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
08.May comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
08.May comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
08.May comp.unix.questions nickkral@parker. L B Re: Backoffice vs. Unix Web
08.May comp.unix.questions nickkral@parker. L B Re: Q: automated BMP to GIF
08.May comp.os.linux.advocac nickkral@america L B Re: ELKS (was: Cancel my su
10.May comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
10.May comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
11.May comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
11.May comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
11.May comp.os.linux.setup nickkral@america L B Re: I messed up my librarie
12.May comp.os.linux.setup nickkral@america L B Re: /dev/cua1
12.May comp.os.linux.develop nickkral@america L B Problem with vixie cron
12.May sci.space.shuttle nickkral@america L B Re: Space Suit.
12.May comp.os.linux.advocac nickkral@america L B Re: Giving away 400 Linux C
12.May alt.consumers.free-st nickkral@america L B Giving away 400 Linux CDs f
13.May comp.os.linux.misc rfisher@zilker.n L B Re: Linux for PowerMac -- W
14.May comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
14.May comp.os.linux.hardwar nickkral@america L B Re: HELP! Newbie would like
14.May comp.os.linux.misc nickkral@america L B Re: COMMERCIAL: Linux World
14.May alt.os.linux nickkral@america L B Re: How many partitions do
14.May alt.os.linux nickkral@america L B Re: How many partitions do
14.May comp.os.linux.develop nickkral@america L B Re: Is Linux the OS for me?
14.May comp.os.linux.setup nickkral@america L B Re: HELP! Newbie would like
14.May comp.sys.mac.misc nickkral@america L B Re: Is the Macintosh going
14.May comp.unix.bsd.freebsd nickkral@america L B Re: Word processor type app
You be the judge of what Nick spends his free time doing.
GM
"Yun-Ching (Allen) Lee" <yunc...@Ami-chan.res.cmu.edu> writes:
>First of all, I prefer FreeBSD's one-disk network installation method
>over Red Hat's 3-disk installation. Red Hat's installation also
>requires 8 MB RAM for network installation (quoted from a Red Hat
>representative on the net). It wouldn't install on my friend's 486 with
>6 MB RAM. FreeBSD was fine.
Uhmm thats one distribution package of Linux , there are more than a few.
>Also, Linux doesn't advise the user to follow safe partitioning
>practices, i.e. have separate root and usr partitions. FreeBSD does and
>warns the user if the partitions are not set up that way. Once, Linux
>crashed on me. I resetted and the superblock of the main partition was
>corrupted, and the kernel wouldn't mount the root device at all. If
>this had happened to FreeBSD, the only partition that gets damaged will
>likely be /usr, so I will still be able to go to single-user mode, mount
>/ and fsck all partitions. I have not found a way to go into
>single-user mode at will in Linux.
Uhmm well I think there is enough documentation about file system structure
at the file system level for most people to get by. I will admit to not
creating seperate /var/spool/mail and the like but humm probably a good idea
for all users to get a good Un*x admin reference before launching into an
installation. The Oreilly series are always handy no matter how long one has
been fiddling with Un*x.
>FreeBSD's boot/kernel loader combination is far more advanced than Linux
>Loader (LILO). FreeBSD has a visual mode configuration editor that
>allows the user to configure the drivers before they are loaded. It is
>due to this feature that FreeBSD was able to have
>one-disk-for-everything installation, versus 71 flavors of RedHat 3.0.3
>boot disk images. FreeBSD's EasyBoot is simple and straightforward to
>use. LILO requires some complicated setup and passing obscure
>parameters if the hardware is non-standard. LILO is also sensitive to
>change in drive configuration that if the drive setup should change,
>LILO will hang with the "LI" prompt, leaving the novice user stranded.
>As for me, my boot loader is OS-BS, which is roboust and yet simple to
>operate and configure. All boot loaders require the kernel to be in the
>BIOS accessible region of the IDE hard disk.
Humm yes LILO can be a little tricky . There are other loaders as well and
humm novice users should be aware of how boot loaders work , so again its a
RTFM issue. Agreed , LILO can be improved.
>Currently, FreeBSD does not have the recognition by the commercial
>software companies like Linux does, but FreeBSD can run more different
>OS's binaries, including Linux.
Humm MULTICS was also a great idea way back but lacked support. OS2 had/has
advantages to other desktop OS's but seems to be viewed as lacking an
application base. *shrug* Great ideas without support remain just that.
Lets hope developers can develope for both Linux , FreeBSD and other OS's
to give users a choice.
>A merit of FreeBSD's centralized development, it is far easier to obtain
>the source to FreeBSD system files than hunting for source code to
>programs that came pre-compiled on a system. I have used SUP to update
>my /usr/src tree, and boy, nothing can be easier than this.
Humm I have always been able to get source for Linux and most other pd apps.
>So my recommendation is, if the user wants good performance, multiuser
>system, and possible experimentation with the OS, get FreeBSD. If the
>user is only going to use the system as a personal workstation, either
>OS is sufficient.
>Any constructive comments welcomed. (And if you can solve any of my
>problem above, I'll be very happy. :) )
Humm well I can't say one OS is better than the other myself. Each has merits.
I recommend users try out all their options and definitely RTFM and buy a
good reference for BSD and SYS V. Regardless of OS choice a good fundemantal
knowledge of Unix will help squeeze performance out of any Un*x OS.
--
_____________________________________________________________
Guy Matchett gu...@infomatch.com
"Unix has everything"
Nick Kralevich
In article <319b6e30.396869685@news>, Chris <core...@nervosa.com> wrote:
>It's obvious Nick here has nothing better to do than go around and advocate
>Linux while slandering other OS'.
Of the articles you posted:
55 were _responses_ to help requests on a newsgroup (usually linux)
20 were Linux vs Windows threads
--> 16 were not written by me. (who knows why they were included)
14 were Linux vs FreeBSD
7 were just clarifications of issues (non-advocacy)
5 were threads I started myself and responded to.
3 were unrelated to computers. (space shuttle, free stuff, etc)
1 was Linux vs OS/2
The threads that involved advocacy issues just generate a lot of
followups, but I DO spend most of my time responding to people who
are having help, not, as you claim, trying to post advocacy issues.
But because the advocacy issues generate many more followups, they
are represented in greater numbers.
The advocacy issues pop up a lot because they are much different than
responding to people's requests for help. Advocacy issues are usually
long drawn out conversations that involve lots of points and counterpoints,
where responses to help are more of a one time thing.
>Nick: find something better to do with your
>time, we don't need your waste of bandwidth.
If you don't like the advocacy issues, there are kill files. Use them.
If you are going to attack me personally, then you are off topic, so
respond to me via e-mail instead. It's easy to attack a person, but
more difficult to attack the argument.
As for bandwidth -- Let's assume the average length of an article is 8K
(WAY over estimate). Then all my advocacy posts combined took up 264K.
264K doesn't take up that much bandwidth. What are probably meant to say
was signal to noise ratio. And if you are worried about that, then I
highly suggest that you use a kill file.
>Just on a whim, I went to
>Altavista and searched everywhere this character has posted to,
Big brother is watching. :)
(followups redirected to poster).
Rohan Oberoi
>Stephane Russell <ss...@sprynet.com> wrote:
>> When I read this and all the other news articles alike, I
>> understand more why Windows is selling better than Unices. It's
>> amazing to see how every Unix groups are fighting against each
>> others all the time.
This makes you understand why Windows is selling better than Unix ?
What a monumentally clueless person you must be. Rather more than
90% of the people who will ratchet up Bill Gates's bank account this
month have no clue that anyone is fighting about anything on this
newsgroup. We could be making appointments to meet in the parking
lot behind Walgreen's wearing red bandannas to settle the FreeBSD vs
Linux question once and for all with switchblades and hockey sticks
and the vast majority of Windoze users wouldn't know or care.
Having installed Windows, FreeBSD and Linux, I have reluctantly
come to the conclusion that Windows sells better primarily because,
while it is a lousy operating system, Joe Q. English Major doesn't
have to plumb the depths of hardware configuration hell in order
to get it up and running, or to do a few useful things with it
without bursting a blood vessel.
As to why Windows sells better than the Mac, now, that's just marketing...
Regards,
Rohan.
John F Clark
Can anyone help me? Im trying to install Inn1.4 on a box that has Free BSD
installed on it. I succesfully managed to install Inn1.4 (after a lot of
tweaking) on a Linux Box. The problem is I cant even get it to compile!
After editing the config.fata file and running either of make world/
make/make install in the main news directory it complains about a syntax
error in {newsdir}/config/subst (which came w/the tar file!) and
conflicting types in the include files for `lseek' and `sys_errlist'.
I know its probably incorrect settings in {newsdir}/config/config.data
- so does anyone know where I can download/view a known working config.data
file for INN1.4 on Free BSD. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.
John Clark
Terry Lambert
Nick Kralevich wrote:
] In article <4n7mp1$2...@jraynard.demon.co.uk>,
] James Raynard <ja...@jraynard.demon.co.uk> wrote:
] >What makes you think this kind of discussion is any more welcome in
] >comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc?
] > ^^^^
] The purpose of a *.misc group is to cover any topic that isn't
] directly covered by another newsgroup.
No. The purpose of a "misc" group is to avoid the intermediate
hierarchy naming, where something higher up in the hierarchy
could contain articles.
There's really no reason for this, other than the so-called
"Usenet Cabal" is apparently unutterably anal about organizational
lexicography.
The purpose of comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc is *NOT* to "cover any
topic that isn't directly covered by another newsgroup. Read
the UVV posted charter for the group. It is not an advocacy
group.
NB: it's the same anal lexicography which resulted in the
group being named "comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc" instead of
"comp.bsd.free.misc" or "comp.bsd.freebsd.misc". If you want
to wheedle about "os" being in there, fine: it should be
"comp.os.unix.admin" and "comp.os.unix.internals", but I
don't see the weenies renaming those. Alternately, it should
be "comp.unix.linux.misc" or "comp.os.unix.linux.misc".
Terry Lambert
Ingo Molnar wrote:
] Terry Lambert (te...@lambert.org) wrote:
]
] : But if no one returns the hardware, how will the vendor of the
] : hardware ever be punished for producing crappy hardware so as
] : to disincent them from making their next hardware crappy as well?
]
] you can "punish" vendors if you have market share. But nor FreeBSD,
] nor Linux has real market share. So both have to "go with the tide",
] supporting broken hardware, fight against NDAs and implementing bad
] APIs, to balance the missing market share.
You used "the tide analogy"; I will respond with "the open door
analogy":
The door must be kept open... but there is a distinction to be
drawn between "unlatched" and "unhinged".
] no, no. Linux/FreeBSD doesnt need "success", in the economical
] sense. It needs "beta testers", and beta testers have bad CDROMs :)
]
] "Any working code is inherently better than any non working code",
] hmmm, who wrote this? :)
I did; it is yet another restatement of my favorite maxim, Occam's
Razor.
Note that replacing "code" with "hardware" renders the statement
no less valid.
Hack drivers will not render bad hardware good. Bad hardware
is bad, independent of whether or not there are hack drivers
for it.
Making bad hardware run does not ennoble hack drivers. Hack
drivers are bad, independent of whether or not they cause bad
hardware to function.
Nick Kralevich
In article <319BD8E3...@lambert.org>,
Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org> wrote:
>] The purpose of a *.misc group is to cover any topic that isn't
>] directly covered by another newsgroup.
>
>topic that isn't directly covered by another newsgroup. Read
>the UVV posted charter for the group. It is not an advocacy
>group.
The following is taken from
ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/comp.unix.bsd-reorg
It is heavily edited to bring out the important points.
----- Begin -----
From: Kaleb Keithley <ka...@x.org>
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.os.386bsd.apps,comp.os.386bsd.bugs,comp.os.386bsd.development,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: RFD: comp.unix.bsd reorganization
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: 23 Nov 1994 15:10:48 -0500
SUMMARY:
Create fourth levels in comp.unix.bsd: c.u.b.{386bsd,bsdi,freebsd,netbsd}
Create topic groups: comp.unix.bsd.*
After a transition period: delete comp.os.386bsd
NEW GROUPS:
The proposal is to create nine new groups. They are:
comp.unix.bsd.misc
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce -- moderated by Jordan Hubbard
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce -- moderated by Chris Demetriou
*.386bsd.announce and *.bsdi.announce groups need moderators. In the
event that no volunteers step forward during the RFD the announce
groups will be withdrawn from the RFD and CFV.
Jordan Hubbard -- j...@freefall.cdrom.com
Chris Demetriou -- c...@alpha.bostic.com or c...@agate.berkeley.edu
RATIONALE:
There are now at least four independent variations of operating
systems derived from UC Berkeley's BSD Net2 and/or 4.4lite UNIX source
distributions. Currently discussion of these four fall into either
comp.unix.bsd or one of the comp.os.386bsd groups. c.o.386bsd.* was
originally intended for discussion about Bill and Lynn Jolitz'
particular derivative, known as 386BSD. Over the past two years two
splinter groups have spun off variations of 386BSD known as FreeBSD
and NetBSD; and BSDI, Inc. has a commercial offering known as BSD/OS,
formerly known as BSD/386.
Discussion specific to 386BSD has tapered off to near nil as the
original authors have apparently ceased to support it. Most traffic
in the existing comp.os.386bsd groups centers around either FreeBSD
or NetBSD and occasionally BSDI's BSD/OS.
It seems that the BSD user community might be better served by having
groups specifically related to the variation that they are using.
Despite their common ancestry, the differences between the goals and
feature sets are quite wide, and it is often confusing to differentiate
between them when discussion is all lumped into the same group.
Furthermore, NetBSD has, and FreeBSD will soon have, support for other
architectures, so grouping them in a hierarchy whose name suggests
that it is devoted to the Intel x86 family is definitely inappropriate.
While comp.os.386bsd currently has several groups in its hierarchy, the
current level of 386BSD specific traffic in them doesn't seem to warrant
replicating those groups under this proposal. Additional groups can be
added in the future as needs dictate.
CHARTERS:
[deleted]
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce:
This newsgroup is for announcements relating to the FreeBSD
operating system. Things appropriate for the .announce group
would include announcements of new versions of FreeBSD,
announcements of major software releases (both commercial
and freely redistributable) for FreeBSD (e.g. new version of
X11 for FreeBSD), announcements of fixes for major bugs, and
the like. FAQs relating to FreeBSD should also be cross-posted
to this group.
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:
Discussion about FreeBSD which does not fall into the area
of coverage of any of the other freebsd groups. Things posted
here should not be crossposted to the other freebsd groups.
[deleted]
From: ikl...@amdahl.com (Ian Kluft)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.386bsd.apps,comp.os.386bsd.bugs,comp.os.386bsd.development,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: CFV: comp.unix.bsd reorganization
Date: 26 Jan 1995 18:02:23 -0500
Organization: UVV - UseNet Volunteer Votetakers
FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
COMP.UNIX.BSD REORGANIZATION
unmoderated group comp.unix.bsd.misc
- replaces comp.unix.bsd
unmoderated group comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc
- replaces comp.os.386bsd.{apps|bugs|development|misc|questions}
moderated group comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce
- replaces comp.os.386bsd.announce
unmoderated group comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
moderated group comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce
unmoderated group comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
moderated group comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce
unmoderated group comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
moderated group comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce
Newsgroups lines:
comp.unix.bsd.misc BSD operating systems
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc 386BSD operating system
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce announcements pertaining to 386BSD
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc BSD/OS operating system
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce announcements pertaining to BSD/OS
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc FreeBSD operating system
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce announcements pertaining to FreeBSD
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc NetBSD operating system
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce announcements pertaining to NetBSD
Votes must be received by 23:59:59 GMT, 16 February 1995.
This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. For voting
questions only contact Ian Kluft (ikl...@amdahl.com). For questions about
the proposed groups contact Kaleb Keithley (ka...@x.org).
OFFICIAL SOURCES OF THE CFV
The only official sources for copies of this CFV are the UseNet newsgroups
to which it is posted including news.announce.newgroups and the e-mail server
at bsd-cfv...@amdahl.com.
CHARTERS
[deleted]
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce:
Moderated by Jordan Hubbard <j...@freefall.cdrom.com>
This newsgroup is for announcements relating to the FreeBSD
operating system. Things appropriate for the .announce group
would include announcements of new versions of FreeBSD,
announcements of major software releases (both commercial
and freely redistributable) for FreeBSD (e.g. new version of
X11 for FreeBSD), announcements of fixes for major bugs, and
the like. FAQs relating to FreeBSD should also be cross-posted
to this group.
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:
Discussion about FreeBSD which does not fall into the area
of coverage of any of the other freebsd groups. Things posted
here should not be crossposted to the other freebsd groups.
[deleted]
From: ikl...@amdahl.com (Ian Kluft)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,comp.os.386bsd.announce,comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.386bsd.apps,comp.os.386bsd.bugs,comp.os.386bsd.development,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: RESULT: comp.unix.bsd reorganization passes
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: 20 Feb 1995 14:56:42 -0500
Organization: UVV - UseNet Volunteer Votetakers
RESULT
COMP.UNIX.BSD REORGANIZATION
Voting for the comp.unix.bsd reorganization vote ended 23:59:59 GMT,
16 February 1995. This vote was conducted by a neutral third party. For
questions about voting procedures only contact Ian Kluft <ikl...@amdahl.com>.
For questions about the newsgroups contact Kaleb Keithley <ka...@x.org>.
There were 426 valid votes submitted during the voting period. Each proposed
newsgroup, in order to pass, must have at least 2/3 YES votes and at least
100 more YES than NO votes. The results are as follows:
comp.unix.bsd reorganization results - 426 valid votes
Yes No : 2/3? >100? : Pass? : Group
---- ---- : ---- ----- : ----- : -------------------------------------------
341 64 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.unix.bsd.misc
285 87 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc
291 84 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce
305 69 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
312 70 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce
334 68 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
338 69 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce
332 67 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
332 70 : Yes Yes : Yes : comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce
10 invalid votes
All parts of the proposal passed.
There is a five day discussion period after these results are posted. If no
serious allegations of voting irregularities are raised, the moderator of
news.announce.newgroups will create the newsgroups shortly thereafter.
The following newsgroups will be removed on 22 May 1995.
comp.unix.bsd (replaced by comp.unix.bsd.misc)
comp.os.386bsd.apps (replaced by comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc)
comp.os.386bsd.bugs (replaced by comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc)
comp.os.386bsd.development (replaced by comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc)
comp.os.386bsd.misc (replaced by comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc)
comp.os.386bsd.questions (replaced by comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc)
comp.os.386bsd.announce (replaced by comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce)
The remainder of the results contains
Newsgroups Lines
Charters
Final Voting Acknowledgements
Voting Analysis
NEWSGROUPS LINES
comp.unix.bsd.misc BSD operating systems.
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc 386BSD operating system.
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce announcements pertaining to 386BSD.
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc BSD/OS operating system.
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce announcements pertaining to BSD/OS.
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc FreeBSD operating system.
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce announcements pertaining to FreeBSD.
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc NetBSD operating system.
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce announcements pertaining to NetBSD.
CHARTERS
[deleted]
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce:
Moderated by Jordan Hubbard <j...@freefall.cdrom.com>
This newsgroup is for announcements relating to the FreeBSD
operating system. Things appropriate for the .announce group
would include announcements of new versions of FreeBSD,
announcements of major software releases (both commercial
and freely redistributable) for FreeBSD (e.g. new version of
X11 for FreeBSD), announcements of fixes for major bugs, and
the like. FAQs relating to FreeBSD should also be cross-posted
to this group.
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:
Discussion about FreeBSD which does not fall into the area
of coverage of any of the other freebsd groups. Things posted
here should not be crossposted to the other freebsd groups.
[deleted]
comp.unix.bsd reorganization Final Vote Ack
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce -----------+
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc ----------+|
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce ---------+||
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc --------+|||
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce -------+||||
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc ------+|||||
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce -----+||||||
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc ----+|||||||
comp.unix.bsd.misc ---+||||||||
|||||||||
[deleted]
te...@cs.weber.edu Terry Lambert NNNNNNNNN
[deleted]
VOTING ANALYSIS
All dates and times in this section are in US Pacific Time.
The first vote arrived Thu Jan 26 15:12:15 1995.
comp.unix.bsd.misc passed on Sun Jan 29 13:33:52 1995
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc passed on Mon Jan 30 17:57:24 1995
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce passed on Mon Jan 30 08:44:38 1995
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc passed on Mon Jan 30 01:36:09 1995
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce passed on Mon Jan 30 02:19:38 1995
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc passed on Sun Jan 29 13:43:31 1995
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce passed on Sun Jan 29 13:43:31 1995
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc passed on Sun Jan 29 13:43:31 1995
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce passed on Sun Jan 29 13:46:10 1995
The daily vote arrival rates are shown below with notes on factors which
could possibly or probably have affected them. Also shown are the dates
>from above when each group crossed the threshold of passing.
26 Jan 27 1st CFV posted
27 Jan 75
28 Jan 40 weekend
29 Jan 44 weekend
comp.unix.bsd.misc passes
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc passes
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce passes
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc passes
comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce passes
30 Jan 61 2nd CFV posted
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc passes
comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce passes
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc passes
comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce passes
31 Jan 42
1 Feb 34
2 Feb 21
3 Feb 14
4 Feb 8 weekend
5 Feb 9 weekend
6 Feb 18
7 Feb 14
8 Feb 13
9 Feb 10
10 Feb 6
11 Feb 5 weekend
12 Feb 7 weekend
13 Feb 9
14 Feb 6
15 Feb 4
16 Feb 2 voting ends
This vote was handled by a neutral third-party votetaker from the UseNet
Volunteer Votetakers (UVV). http://www.amdahl.com/ext/uvv/
----- End -----
J Wunsch
John F Clark <cl...@knox.net> wrote:
(I wonder how you managed it to send this posting as a followup to
Nick Kralevich's advocacy posting... I've drastically shortened the
References: header.)
> Can anyone help me? Im trying to install Inn1.4 on a box that has Free BSD
> installed on it.
It's perhaps the best for you to use the version from the ports. It
has all the necessary tweaks for you. (Some of the problems you
describe are really trivial, and are covered by the `Porting software'
section of the handbook.)
Terry Lambert
Nick Kralevich wrote:
] In article <319BD8E3...@lambert.org>,
] Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org> wrote:
] >] The purpose of a *.misc group is to cover any topic that isn't
] >] directly covered by another newsgroup.
] >
] >The purpose of comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc is *NOT* to "cover any
] >topic that isn't directly covered by another newsgroup. Read
] >the UVV posted charter for the group. It is not an advocacy
] >group.
]
] The following is taken from
]ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/comp.unix.bsd-reorg
] It is heavily edited to bring out the important points.
[ ... ]
] CHARTERS
[ ... ]
] comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:
]
] Discussion about FreeBSD which does not fall into the area
^^^^^^^^^^^^^--------------------
] of coverage of any of the other freebsd groups. Things posted
] here should not be crossposted to the other freebsd groups.
As in "*NOT* about Linux".
Robin Birch
John F Clark (cl...@knox.net) wrote:
: make/make install in the main news directory it complains about a syntax
: error in {newsdir}/config/subst (which came w/the tar file!) and
: conflicting types in the include files for `lseek' and `sys_errlist'.
Ok, yes that error happens when you try to do this on FreeBSD. Step 1.
Print off the install ms script. Just the first one. Remeber to put it
through nroff - appologies if this is teaching grandmothers etc.
Read the first sections, there is a set of different methods on how to
build subst depending on your system. The last variant works on BSD so
long as you ignore the errors. The ones you get are nasties and so I should
use another method of building it.
Another tip is to go through the separate stages rather than go for broke,
again this is well documented in the install pages. This way you get
to see the bugs as they happen.
Cheers
Robin
PS, wait till you get to the config files, then the fun really starts.
despite all of this INN 1.4 is great, its what I use, together with slurp
and tin, and it is a really wizzo system. If you have any snags get back
and I'll try to help. No guarrantees though :-))
Faried Nawaz
Can anyone help me? Im trying to install Inn1.4 on a box that has Free BSD
installed on it. I succesfully managed to install Inn1.4 (after a lot of
tweaking) on a Linux Box. The problem is I cant even get it to compile!
After editing the config.fata file and running either of make world/
make/make install in the main news directory it complains about a syntax
error in {newsdir}/config/subst (which came w/the tar file!) and
conflicting types in the include files for `lseek' and `sys_errlist'.
I know its probably incorrect settings in {newsdir}/config/config.data
- so does anyone know where I can download/view a known working config.data
file for INN1.4 on Free BSD. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.
John Clark
Use the inn port. If you installed all the ports, it should be in
/usr/ports/news/inn; if not, grab it out of the FreeBSD 2.1 ports area.
Do
cd /usr/ports/news/inn
make fetch extract patch configure # should grab and untar the inn src
vi work/inn1.4unoff3/config/config.data # if you need to manaully set things
make all install # compiled and installs
and you're mostly done. Now you need to configure inn...which is different
from compiling.
Use the ports whenever you can. Even if you don't want to use the port
defaults, at least go through the port patch files and use what you need.
Ken Robinson
On Thu, 16 May 1996 20:38:58 -0400, John F Clark <cl...@knox.net>
wrote:
>
>Can anyone help me? Im trying to install Inn1.4 on a box that has Free BSD
>installed on it. I succesfully managed to install Inn1.4 (after a lot of
>- so does anyone know where I can download/view a known working config.data
>file for INN1.4 on Free BSD. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.
Check out http://www.math.psu.edu/barr/INN.html
You can get inn1.4unoff4 there. I built this on FreeBSD 2.1 about 6
weeks ago with minimal fuss.
If you did build Inn 1.4 and none of the newer versions (eg. 1.4
Unoff4 or at least the 1.4 sec2 release) then you should definately
install the Unoff4 release for security, ease of installation and
features improvements.
If I remember right, you may also find an INN Package at
ftp.freebsd.org.
Ingo Molnar
Terry Lambert (te...@lambert.org) wrote:
[ should buggy (non-working) hardware be supported ]
: Hack drivers will not render bad hardware good. Bad hardware
: is bad, independent of whether or not there are hack drivers
: for it.
:
: Making bad hardware run does not ennoble hack drivers. Hack
: drivers are bad, independent of whether or not they cause bad
: hardware to function.
device drivers have a secondary role, from the point of view of
source code quality. They are of course the "salt" in any OS.
but it really doesnt render your OS useless or less clean ...
there are alot of device drivers with code quality ranging from
"perfect" to "poor".
i would agree with you if we .... had to support 100000 buggy MMUs,
which ... make it impossible to support 2 levels of paging ... this
would be a compromise "right in the heart of the OS", which would
be inacceptable.
but device drivers come and go ... and people >depend< on drivers,
and they only see: "FreeBSD doesnt work with my CDROM" or "Linux
doesnt work with my drive".
If you were a hard-core purist, then you would have never touched
any PC keyboard ...
-- mingo
Lars Koeller
In article <4o13i3$t...@news.siemens.at>,
mi...@pc5829.hil.siemens.co.at (Ingo Molnar) writes:
>Terry Lambert (te...@lambert.org) wrote:
>
>[ should buggy (non-working) hardware be supported ]
>
>: Hack drivers will not render bad hardware good. Bad hardware
>: is bad, independent of whether or not there are hack drivers
>: for it.
>:
>: Making bad hardware run does not ennoble hack drivers. Hack
>: drivers are bad, independent of whether or not they cause bad
>: hardware to function.
>
[ ... snip ...]
>but device drivers come and go ... and people >depend< on drivers,
>and they only see: "FreeBSD doesnt work with my CDROM" or "Linux
>doesnt work with my drive".
Yes, and thinking in this way is the reason LINUX never become as
stable as FreeBSD and never reaches such a good code quality. Linux is a
HACKER OS.
--
___________________________________________________________________________
Lars Köller Phone: +49 381/498-1665, Fax: -1667
Universität Rostock E-Mail:
Fachbereich Physik Lars_K...@odie.physik2.Uni-Rostock.DE
Universitätsplatz 3 Anonymous ftp:
18051 Rostock (Germany) ftp://odie.physik2.uni-rostock.de/pub
Sean Reifschneider
In article <319D5A48...@lambert.org>,
Terry Lambert <te...@lambert.org> wrote:
>] Discussion about FreeBSD which does not fall into the area
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^--------------------
>As in "*NOT* about Linux".
Several months ago when I loaded FreeBSD onto one of my machines here
(after having run Linux for about 8 months) and said "Hey, COOL
feature". I thought about starting a thread discussing what the Linux
and FreeBSD camps could learn from each other. I finally decided that
people most likely would turn it into a flame war.
So would a discussion about FreeBSD and Linux go in a Linux group or
a FreeBSD group, or would you rather not hear it at all? Personally
I think both camps can learn something interesting from the other.
Sean
--
"We just wanted to give the band a little more thrust than most other bands."
- Donald Fagen's reply to why they chose the band name 'Steely Dan'
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <ja...@tummy.com>
URL: <http://www.tummy.com/xvscan> HP-UX/Linux/FreeBSD X11 scanning software.
Terry Lambert
Ingo Molnar wrote:
] device drivers have a secondary role, from the point of view of
] source code quality. They are of course the "salt" in any OS.
With respect, "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link".
] but it really doesnt render your OS useless or less clean ...
] there are alot of device drivers with code quality ranging from
] "perfect" to "poor".
A hack driver may, in fact, render your kernel unbootable on
a large amount of hardware.
Major examples include ATAPI CDROM drives, Lance ethernet, and
Floppy tapes (QIC 40/80/120 devices), and the PS/2 style mouse
(which hook to the keyboard controller, which is a notoriously
unstable interface anyway), all of which must be intrusively
probed.
Intrusive probing is inherently evil.
Any hardware that requires intrusive probing to identify it
is "hack hardware".
Drivers for "hack hardware" are *immediately* and *irrevocably*
"hack drivers".
If your drive can screw up in *any* way other than to not drive
the device for which it was intended, then it's broken.
There are only a *few* broken drivers in the FreeBSD kernel,
and you must explicitly go off and enable them by using the
-c argument at the boot prompt.
] i would agree with you if we .... had to support 100000 buggy MMUs,
] which ... make it impossible to support 2 levels of paging ... this
] would be a compromise "right in the heart of the OS", which would
] be inacceptable.
The problem is not in providing a driver for crappy hardware;
that's actually very easy. The problem is in using that driver
when the crappy hardware isn't present, and it causing perfectly
good hardware to not operate.
You can only take care of so much of this by ordering device
probes to make sure the good hardware is found first so that
the crappy hardware driver "doesn't try there".
] but device drivers come and go ... and people >depend< on drivers,
] and they only see: "FreeBSD doesnt work with my CDROM" or "Linux
] doesnt work with my drive".
Whereas, the alternative is to break good hardware in order to
make bad hardware work. No thank you. There are standards.
] If you were a hard-core purist, then you would have never touched
] any PC keyboard ...
I'm not a hard core purist; I'm a quality control purist.
Damian Reeves
Yun-Ching (Allen) Lee wrote:
>
> Performance: Since I only have a 486DX 33 with 20 MB of RAM, I want >
> to squeeze every last bit of performance out of it. When I was using
> Linux with 35 MB of swap, I have never let the swap usage go above 20
> MB when running X. Because, around that number, the disk swapping
> becomes horrendously slow. When using FreeBSD, I can hardly feel the > lag caused by swapping, but the processes take more real and swap
> memory.
Your damm right they do! I think the FreeBSD developer's are subsidised
by ram and harddrive manufactures.
We took a 32mb machine here which was running Linux and converted it to
running FreeBSD 2.1 for porting purposes. On the Linux box, after
booting up, running X11R6, opening a few xterms, xbiff etc., a 'top'
would show that about 10mb of memory was in use, and around 18Mb was
used for buffer cache, an no swap space in use.
On replacing with BSD, and copying over the .xsession files etc., by the
time the Xserver and xterms have started, 50MB of swap is in use!!!
I had to increase the swap space upto 250Mb just so we could actually
compile our server code. At the moment, the machine is sitting there
with 1 user logged in, emacs, netscape and a couple of shells. top
reports that 59% of the swap space is in use! top also reports that
only 860k is available for buffer cache, in fact I've never seen it go
over 1200k. This is extremely different to under linux, where it used
to stay around 12Mb-15Mb under use.
Now, one has to ask WHY? The Linux box could have all these apps in and
more with less than a couple of Mb in swap if any. Another related
issue is that FreeBSD seems a lot more swap-happy than Linux. If I
leave the emacs alone for a couple of minutes, when I return to it I
have to wait a good few seconds of hard-drive thrashing before it will
response to my keystrokes. This paging also seems to lock the entire
machine at lot more than under linux (EIDE drive subsystem).
However, on saying that, the server does actually compile marginally
faster than under Linux, although this might be due to the slightly
older version of GCC (2.6.3 as opposed to 2.7.2 - related note: does
anyone have a gcc/g++ 2.7.2 working properly yet or do FreeBSD people
not care?)
In summary then, its fast, but resource hungry in the extreme. I guess
the default malloc() behaviour is different than in Linux, where a
malloc() doesn't actually reserve the memory until you actually dirty
the pages. I'd say there is probably a memory leak in the system libc
as well. One more thing, using tmpfs really eats VM, and I'm not sure
if it actually returns it to the system on deleting files in there.
Damian
--
Damian Reeves, <dam...@zeus.co.uk> Zeus Technology Ltd.
Download the world's fastest webserver today! http://www.zeus.co.uk
Brian Tao
In article <31A52667...@zeus.co.uk>, Damian Reeves <dam...@zeus.co.uk> wrote:
>
>On replacing with BSD, and copying over the .xsession files etc., by the
>time the Xserver and xterms have started, 50MB of swap is in use!!!
One has to ask about your server setup, the version of XFree86,
use of memory filesystems, kernel configuration, etc. Running X with
a few xterms and xbiff (as you describe) will run on an 8MB machine
and about an equal amount of swap.
Our X server is a 486DX4/100 with 64MB and provides rarp,
bootparamd, NFS, X and xfs services to 5 Sun X terminals. Peak usage
usually consists of about 40 xterm windows, a handful of Netscape
3.0's along with all the shells, telnet/rlogins, mail and news readers
fired up inside the xterm windows. Swap allocation usually hovers
around 60 to 70MB, although swapping activity itself is low or non-
existent.
--
Brian Tao (BT300, ta...@io.org, ta...@ican.net)
Systems and Network Administrator, Internet Canada Corp.
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't"