The Ultimate BSD Thread™ - The Devil Wears a Neckbeard

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Ultimate BSD Thread™ - The Devil Wears a Neckbeard

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

I noticed we have a Linux thread, but not a BSD one; that is sacrilege, plain and simple.

So, use this thread to ask questions, bitch, comment, piss, moan, consult, confer, preach, discuss, report, rumor, spiel and/or bombast all things BSD.

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What is BSD?

Wikipedia posted:

Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD, sometimes called Berkeley Unix) is the UNIX operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995.

Historically, BSD has been considered as a branch of UNIX — "BSD UNIX", because it shared the initial codebase and design with the original AT&T UNIX operating system. In the 1980s, BSD was widely adopted by vendors of workstation-class systems in the form of proprietary UNIX variants such as DEC's ULTRIX and Sun Microsystems' SunOS. This can be attributed to the ease with which it could be licensed and the familiarity it found among the founders of many technology companies of this era.

Though these commercial BSD derivatives were largely superseded by the UNIX System V Release 4 and OSF/1 systems in the 1990s (both of which incorporated BSD code), later BSD releases provided a basis for several open source development projects which continue to this day.

Today, the term of "BSD" is often non-specifically used to refer to any of these BSD descendants, e.g. FreeBSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD, which together form a branch of the family of Unix-like operating systems.

Is it better than Linux?

every

No. They each have very valid uses. The right tool for the job, as the saying goes.

Does it have different distributions like Linux?

What are some popular versions of BSD?

FreeBSD is meant for performance and relative ease of use.
NetBSD is meant for working on everything, even your mother, and a toaster.
OpenBSD is meant for security. It is the benchmark for a secure OS, and is generally accepted to be the most secure out of the box, with only two major security issues in the last decade.
DragonFly BSD is basically FreeBSD with different SMP handling.
OS X isn't technically a true BSD operating system, but I'm listing it here anyway. It's a merging of some BSD and some NeXT; so it's like the bastard love child that you don't like because he whines a lot and thinks he's arty and bohemian because he wears a beret and drinks fair trade coffee. It's at best a derivitive, like Solaris.

whetu posted:

DesktopBSD

PC-BSD

DesktopBSD is my preference because it's a lot closer to a standard FreeBSD. PC-BSD has .pbi packages that come with binaries and all dependancies that it installs into /programs, neither of which are FreeBSD standard - so FreeBSD documentation that applies equally for DesktopBSD does not necessarily apply for PC-BSD.

Links

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_{The Ultimate BSD Thread™ is a trademark of TimbCo Enterprises LTD GmbH. All rights reserved.}

HATE TROLL TIM fucked around with this message at 07:51 on Jan 5, 2009

# ¿ Mar 15, 2008 09:05

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 23:01

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

claym001 posted:

Please show your work. I'm not going to dispute that BSD is a good system (I ran it for a couple years on my laptop), but to make a claim this bold I'm going to have to ask you to show some merit for it. Especially if this thread is supposed to drum up interest, this doesn't tell anyone ANY information at all.

I'm interested to hear more about the virtues of Linux vs BSD, but I'm afraid this is off to a poor start.

Take no offense, it was meant as a light hearted joke.

In reality, it's a hotly debated matter of opinion.

Here's my take on it:

The FreeBSD project is managed in a much more structured and organized way than the Linux Kernel.

Wikipedia posted:

The FreeBSD Project is run by FreeBSD committers, or developers who have CVS commit access. There are several kinds of committers, including source committers (base operating system), doc committers (documentation and web site authors) and ports (third party application porting and infrastructure). Every two years the FreeBSD committers select a 9-member FreeBSD Core Team who are responsible for overall project direction, setting and enforcing project rules and approving new "commit bits", or the granting of CVS commit access. A number of responsibilities are officially assigned to other development teams by the FreeBSD Core Team, including responsibility for security advisories (the Security Officer Team), release engineering (the Release Engineering Team) and managing the ports collection (the Port Manager team). Developers may give up their commit rights to retire or for "safe-keeping" after a period of a year or more of inactivity, although commit rights will generally be restored on request. Under rare circumstances commit rights may be removed by Core Team vote as a result of repeated violation of project rules and standards. The FreeBSD Project is unusual among open source projects in having developers who have worked with its source base for over 25 years, owing to the involvement of a number of past University of California developers who worked on BSD at the CSRG.

The FreeBSD team not only writes the kernel, but the entire core operating system. Things are inherently more secure and standardized because it's written that way from the ground up. No Linux distribution can say that.

FreeBSD is a very stable, mature and secure operating system straight out of the box. The downside is you give up a little freedom and speed; you won't be ricing it out like Gentoo.

I would much rather run a web hosting server on FreeBSD than Linux, however, the opposite is true of running a workstation. It really comes down to using the right tool for the job.

If you have any specific questions about Linux vs BSD, I'll be happy to try and answer them.

HATE TROLL TIM fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Mar 15, 2008

# ¿ Mar 15, 2008 10:59

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

The Gay Bean posted:

You can use proc in FreeBSD, it's just not there by default. Add to /etc/fstab:

proc /proc procfs rw 0 0

or for linux-compatible proc:

linproc /compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw 0 0

Don't forget to enable the following in your kernel:

code:

options          PSEUDOFS
options          PROCFS

# ¿ Mar 16, 2008 01:24

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

Krittick posted:

I run a small web server in my apartment for web development between a few people. It currently runs Ubuntu, but I've been considering switching to FreeBSD. One thing is, I use the computer for other things besides the web server. My video card (Radeon X1300) only works properly in Ubuntu with the fglrx driver, and I'm not sure how well it would work in FreeBSD. I really only need it working so it can support a widescreen resolution. The vesa driver will not support it, from what I've read and experienced. It's pretty much the only thing holding me back from switching.

Anyone know if there's some way to get that specific video card working on FreeBSD?

http://www.fglrx-freebsd.com -- Though, the site appears to be down right now.

FreeBSD 7.0 may have better support built in, I'm not entirely sure.

In all honesty, you can blame ATI / AMD for being a bag of cunts.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2008 09:03

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

whetu posted:

For anyone wondering what the differences are

FreeBSD is meant for performance and relative ease of use

NetBSD is meant for working on everything, even your mother, and a toaster

OpenBSD is meant for security. It is THE benchmark for a secure OS, and is generally accepted to be the most secure out of the box, with only two major security issues in the last decade

DragonFly is basically FreeBSD with different SMP handling

I wouldn't list OS-X as a version of BSD. It's a merging of some BSD and some NeXT, so it's like the bastard love child that you don't like because he whines a lot and thinks he's arty and bohemian because he wears a beret and drinks fair trade coffee. It's at best a derivitive, like Solaris.

For desktop use you can choose from two pre-packaged FreeBSD's (i.e. NOT forks, and NOT 'distros' - that's Linux speak):

DesktopBSD

PC-BSD

DesktopBSD is my preference because it's a lot closer to a standard FreeBSD. PC-BSD has .pbi packages that come with binaries and all dependancies that it installs into /programs, neither of which are FreeBSD standard - so FreeBSD documentation that applies equally for DesktopBSD does not necessarily apply for PC-BSD.

Also, read.

I've shamelessly stolen this and incorporated it into the OP.

If anyone else has things they wish to include; links, sections, operating systems, pictures of them making GBS threads their pants, let me know and I'll add it.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2008 22:50

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

Anyone test out ULE under 7.0? I'm seeing reports that it's slower than 4BSD in pretty much everything.

HATE TROLL TIM fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Mar 19, 2008

# ¿ Mar 19, 2008 10:48

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

Got it running under amd64 now, about to run some benchmarks.

One odd thing I did notice since recompiling my kernel, I'm now getting the following in dmesg:

code:

cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
acpi_throttle0: <ACPI CPU Throttling> on cpu0
cpu1: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
acpi_throttle1: <ACPI CPU Throttling> on cpu1
acpi_throttle1: failed to attach P_CNT
device_attach: acpi_throttle1 attach returned 6
cpu2: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
acpi_throttle2: <ACPI CPU Throttling> on cpu2
acpi_throttle2: failed to attach P_CNT
device_attach: acpi_throttle2 attach returned 6
cpu3: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
acpi_throttle3: <ACPI CPU Throttling> on cpu3
acpi_throttle3: failed to attach P_CNT
device_attach: acpi_throttle3 attach returned 6

Google isn't turning up anything on it. All the CPUs do launch, so I'm not sure if I should be concerned about it or not.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2008 01:38

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

whetu posted:

Google turns up plenty for me, with just: acpi_throttle1: failed to attach P_CNT, P_CNT by itself turns up a bunch too.. it seems to be an ACPI register involved with, surprise surprise, CPU throttling

If I was to guess though, I'd say that either the other CPU's/cores are going off cpu0, which doesn't have this problem, or there's some bug in the ACPI/CPU handling that prevents P_CNT from being used on more than one 'device' at once.

Google seems to think that your options are either to disable it:
hint_acpi_throttle.0.disabled="1"

OR to add this to /boot/loader.conf
cpufreq_load="YES"

ref: http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?t=44677

Google turns up plenty for me as well, however most of it is just copies of random dmesg logs and unanswered message list posts.

I realize it had to do with ACPI, but your post made it suddenly clear: I disabled cpufreq in the new kernel. :doh:

Even though it's out of the kernel, it's still trying to throttle the CPUs I guess.

You ever look so hard at something you miss the obvious? Yea. The word throttle just wasn't registering in my brain.

Thanks for the fresh perspective.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2008 07:21

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

Kapser posted:

If any of you happen to be in NYC, or would like to travel, NYCBSDCon will be happening over the weekend of October 11-12, 2008 at Columbia University with a similar format to the 2006 conference.

If you would like to speak at the conference, start thinking about a topic relevant to the *BSD community and send your presentation abstract to cfp@nycbsdcon.org in
text, ps or pdf format by July 15th, 2008. The Full CFP can be found at http://www.nycbsdcon.org/2008/cfp.html

Do not let travel and accommodation concerns get in the way of your submissions; they may have some opportunities to subsidize speakers, but it is too early to guarantee anything at this point.

Cool, glad it's happening this year. I may very well be able to attend.

(Also added this to the events section of the OP.)

# ¿ Mar 27, 2008 00:31

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

timb posted:

Anyone test out ULE under 7.0? I'm seeing reports that it's slower than 4BSD in pretty much everything.

Just wanted to post an update about this. ULE is running, but I noticed performance actually decreased a bit compared to 4BSD. I added IPI_PREEMPTION which seems to have sped things up (but not by much, though).

All in all, ULE is only testing as slightly above 4BSD for me (as far as real world performance goes). It may be my drives bottlenecking me, though. I'll do some more testing when I have time and publish some actual numbers.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2008 06:29

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

Two physical processors both with HTT running under amd64. One of both of those facts may make a difference.

Don't get me wrong, ULE is running stable, it just doesn't seem to be giving the speed boost it has in the past.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2008 11:08

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

Sergeant Hobo posted:

Let me see if I understand this: Slices in FreeBSD are kind of like traditional partitions and FreeBSD partitions are like sub-partitions? This is how I read the Handbook section on allocating disk space.

Yup, more or less.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2008 05:06

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

feld posted:

I challenge you BSDers to a duel. Well, not really, but nobody in #openbsd, #pf, or #freebsd could give me an answer to this question.

Scenario:

Server. Needs the firewall on said server to rewrite packets originating (OUTGOING) from the server. Not passing packets through interfaces. I need packets from the server itself to be rewritten.

rdr inet proto tcp from self to IP -> OTHER_IP

doesnt work.

In Linux:
iptables -A OUTPUT -t nat -d IP -j DNAT --to OTHER_IP

Reason: Internal dev webserver. Going to have developers connect through a SOCKS proxy on the firewall so their traffic to our real webservers gets diverted/rewritten to our internal webserver for mucking about with webserver settings and not messing with production. This is the only way. Hosts file changes, changing DNS servers that points to internal addresses is not viable. Webservers MUST use the hostname/virtualhost or they dont function (heavy Oracle PL/SQL sites, custom site software, requires this to function).

This is the only reasonable way to do it. I currently have it rigged up through a Linux box right now but I'm dying to get this answer for pf.

Have you checked out dummynet?

Basically, you'd add bridged pipes via ipfw to reroute the traffic.

HATE TROLL TIM fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Apr 16, 2008

# ¿ Apr 16, 2008 06:01

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

Sergeant Hobo posted:

Here's a rather subjective question: Do people tend to use the software that's installed in the base more than anything you can get for ports? For example, if I wanted to set up a FTP server, should I bother using the built-in one or should I get something like ProFTPD from ports?

vsftpd

It's amazing.

To answer your question better, I always do "Minimal" installs, which basically means SSH and DNS are the only base services I end up using.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2008 02:53

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

Just a reminder to those wanting an easy upgrade path to 7.1:

FreeBSD Update posted:

The freebsd-update(8) utility supports binary upgrades of i386 and amd64 systems running earlier FreeBSD releases. Systems running 7.0-RELEASE, 7.1-BETA, 7.1-BETA2, 7.1-RC1, or 7.1-RC2 can upgrade as follows:

# freebsd-update upgrade -r 7.1-RELEASE

During this process, FreeBSD Update may ask the user to help by merging some configuration files or by confirming that the automatically performed merging was done correctly.

# freebsd-update install

The system must be rebooted with the newly installed kernel before continuing.

# shutdown -r now

After rebooting, freebsd-update needs to be run again to install the new userland components, and the system needs to be rebooted again:

# freebsd-update install

# shutdown -r now

Users of Intel network interfaces which are changing their name from "em" to "igb" should make necessary changes to configuration files BEFORE running freebsd-update, since otherwise the network interface will not be configured appropriately after rebooting for the first time.

Users of earlier FreeBSD releases (FreeBSD 6.x) can also use freebsd-update to upgrade to FreeBSD 7.1, but will be prompted to rebuild all third-party applications (e.g., anything installed from the ports tree) after the second invocation of "freebsd-update install", in order to handle differences in the system libraries between FreeBSD 6.x and FreeBSD 7.x.

For more information, see:

http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2007-11-11-freebsd-major-version-upgrade.html

# ¿ Jan 5, 2009 07:57

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 23:01

HATE TROLL TIM: Dec 14, 2006

timb posted:

freebsd-update

Yea, they only have one mirror, and it's getting raped. Hard. I'd advise waiting at least a week.

The server that hosts that content is on a 10 Mbps link. Yea.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2009 08:24

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