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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Ultimate BSD Thread™ - The Devil Wears a Neckbeard
 
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whetu
Dec 22, 2006
don't copy that floppy

timb posted:

What are some popular versions of BSD?

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 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.

whetu fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Mar 16, 2008

* # ¿ Mar 16, 2008 19:56
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# ¿ May 15, 2024 00:43
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whetu
Dec 22, 2006
don't copy that floppy

Lukano posted:

Better yet, is there a live-cd with a gui and some tools?

DesktopBSD has been Frenzy-based Live capable for some time, PC-BSD only recently. Both use KDE and come with all manner of tools, depending on what tools specifically that you're after...

* # ¿ Mar 17, 2008 08:28
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whetu
Dec 22, 2006
don't copy that floppy

timb posted:

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.

No problem :) There's also more links than you can throw a stick at here:
http://desktopbsd.net/wiki/doku.php?id=doc:useful_information

Also: http://www.freebsd.org/projects/newbies.html

* # ¿ Mar 17, 2008 08:32
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whetu
Dec 22, 2006
don't copy that floppy

Requested username posted:

Since ZFS is both a new filesystem and a new filesystem to FreeBSD, my gut says "not as stable as FFS" but they've been working on it for quite some time. The fact that they've been making so much noise about finally enabling it by default in the 7.0 release makes me think that it's stable enough for real world testing and use.

The BSDs tend to be much more conservative about adding new features, OpenBSD in particular. If something is enabled in the GENERIC kernel it must be stable enough to be considered production worthy. New drivers and features generally start out as a patch on the mailing lists that's thrown around until someone decides it's good enough to be imported into the tree. When that happens it's usually not connected to the build in the case of a userland program, or commented out in GENERIC in the case of a kernel change. Only when the developers consider a feature to be ready for wider testing and real world usage is it enabled by default.

Just keep in mind that this is the first release that supports ZFS. AKA FreeBSD-ZFS 1.0, and we all know how 1.0 releases are. If you're planning on doing some major, mission-critical stuff for a multi-million dollar corporation you might want to wait for FreeBSD 7.1 just in case.

Apparently FBSD ZFS is equivilent to Solaris ZFS v2, whereas Solaris ZFS is up to v7. However, FBSD ZFS has been said by many early adopters to be definately production quality - and now that there's a solid foundation, porting extra features across from Solaris and building on it will be a lot faster. By 7.1 I expect a lot of catching up will be done, maybe by 7.2 FBSD will be doing the innovating...

no_fuse posted:

My only complaint with using FreeBSD as a desktop is that the Flash 9 plugin for linux hangs. I switched the Flash 7 and things work for sites that are 7 compatible like YouTube but won't work for any site that uses the features in Flash 9. My solution is to just install Firefox in Wine. That's easy enough for me.

Yup, that's an obvious problem, however Flash-9 on Linux isn't 100% rock solid either. I have a feeling it might be to do with the linux compat layer that you use - FBSD tends towards the Fedora libs whereas NBSD tends towards OpenSUSE - apparently you'll get a better time with the OpenSUSE libs. Though the most reliable way is WINE + Win32 version of your browser of choice + Win32 version of Flash 9. Especially in FBSD 7 where it has been patched to deal with Wine's lovely threading

whetu fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Mar 17, 2008

* # ¿ Mar 17, 2008 19:59
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whetu
Dec 22, 2006
don't copy that floppy

Toiletbrush posted:

Solaris Nevada ZFS is up to version 10.

D'oh. I stand corrected. I'm a Solaris and Linux admin professionally and an avid BSD guy personally. I've been jumpstarting some v120's for the last few weeks for some of our devs to do some testing, I must be getting confused with the blur of information shaking around inside my head :(

SmirkingJack posted:

Here is something that I have been wondering for a little while now. Why is Sendmail the default mail server? My impression has been that people generally don't like it and replace it with Postfix or Qmail or something else. Is it a matter of ubiquity and Sendmail really still is king, or is there just not enough interest in switching to something else? Or do most people prefer to use Sendmail and my impression is wrong?

Probably more a mentality thing. BSD is an actual, proper, UNIX derivitive. Linux OTOH is "UNIX-like." There's some saying about "BSD is what happens when you get a bunch of UNIX hackers together to write an OS for PC hardware, Linux is what you get when you get a bunch of PC hackers together to write a UNIX."

That's why a lot of people who are ingrained with the Linux way (tm) struggle to wrap their heads around why BSD folk aren't falling head over heels to have absolutely the latest kernel and the latest version of X and the latest version of KDE and the latest version of xyz. FBSD-7 is out as well as KDE4 and I'm running neither - blasphemy according to some of the more rabid Linux folk who believe that bleeding edge is the only way to be. That and the comparative lack of zealotry in the BSD community is like a deafening silence ;)

One of the things I really like about BSD is that it's about taking your time, doing things right and sticking with mature solutions. So that could probably well be it: Sendmail is a) mature, solid, reliable and conservative b) maybe closer to the "UNIX way" of doing things. Postfix is simply a lot easier to setup, that's why it's popular.

whetu fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Mar 18, 2008

* # ¿ Mar 18, 2008 19:49
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# ¿ May 15, 2024 00:43
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whetu
Dec 22, 2006
don't copy that floppy

timb posted:

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.

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

* # ¿ Mar 20, 2008 06:38
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Ultimate BSD Thread™ - The Devil Wears a Neckbeard