FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available... • Hacker News Board

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#11

Post by Schmidt » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 7:28 PM UTC

isocpprar wrote: post #7

clarkevans wrote: post #4

As of this year, I'm no longer a FreeBSD user. I've been a hold-out... finally converting over to Linux this year after years of denial. It was a very hard move for me. The problem is that FreeBSD developers are still fighting wars of the 90's. By and large, with the welcome exception of Colin Percival (of http://www.tarsnap.com/ fame), they have not embraced virtualization. The only saving grace of FreeBSD is that i…

Have you ever used FreeBSD jails? I wish there was something as easy to use and flexible as that on Linux. The fact that each jail has minimal overhead and with dedupe on ZFS I can easily give every user their own "machine" while spending a lot less on hardware then a linux solution would require. Having said that I also wish I could run FreeBSD on EC2 however I haven't put my money where my mouth is. I'm sure if you…

How does OpenVZ or Linux Containers stack up to BSD's jails ?

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#12

Post by clarkevans » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 7:55 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #9

clarkevans wrote: post #4

As of this year, I'm no longer a FreeBSD user. I've been a hold-out... finally converting over to Linux this year after years of denial. It was a very hard move for me. The problem is that FreeBSD developers are still fighting wars of the 90's. By and large, with the welcome exception of Colin Percival (of http://www.tarsnap.com/ fame), they have not embraced virtualization. The only saving grace of FreeBSD is that i…

For those who, like me, wonder why FreeBSD should embrace visualization (what's wrong with a 80x24 tty?): from the answers, I think clarkevans meant to write "virtualization". Maybe his spelling checker 'improved' that word?

oh dear, thank you (fixed)

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#13

Post by wilsaj » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 7:56 PM UTC

Schmidt wrote: post #11

isocpprar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever used FreeBSD jails? I wish there was something as easy to use and flexible as that on Linux. The fact that each jail has minimal overhead and with dedupe on ZFS I can easily give every user their own "machine" while spending a lot less on hardware then a linux solution would require. Having said that I also wish I could run FreeBSD on EC2 however I haven't put my money where my mouth is. I'm sure if you…

How does OpenVZ or Linux Containers stack up to BSD's jails ?

The idea is very similar: you create a set of jails that behave as independent systems. Then every process started from a jail is tagged with a jail ID corresponding to the jail that the process was started from. All processes run in the same kernel and the jail ID gives the kernel just enough information to tell whether or not a process should have access to a given resource when sys calls are made.

I've never used OpenVZ so I don't know how they compare in practice but I can say that FreeBSD jails worked beautifully when I was using them heavily (about 2 years ago). They are super easy to manage and were as stable as you'd expect in FreeBSD (you'd have to be trying really hard to knock them down).

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#14

Post by clarkevans » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 8:05 PM UTC

isocpprar wrote: post #7

clarkevans wrote: post #4

As of this year, I'm no longer a FreeBSD user. I've been a hold-out... finally converting over to Linux this year after years of denial. It was a very hard move for me. The problem is that FreeBSD developers are still fighting wars of the 90's. By and large, with the welcome exception of Colin Percival (of http://www.tarsnap.com/ fame), they have not embraced virtualization. The only saving grace of FreeBSD is that i…

Have you ever used FreeBSD jails? I wish there was something as easy to use and flexible as that on Linux. The fact that each jail has minimal overhead and with dedupe on ZFS I can easily give every user their own "machine" while spending a lot less on hardware then a linux solution would require. Having said that I also wish I could run FreeBSD on EC2 however I haven't put my money where my mouth is. I'm sure if you…

Absolute goodness of jails and the simplicity of making a small bootable readonly CDROM image made FreeBSD a clear winner for me in the late 1990's & early 2000's. In the 2010's... the world moves forward, now it's about having a standard virtual image.

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#15

Post by Getahobby » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 8:37 PM UTC

I have used FreeBSD since 2.2. I used to laugh at the slashdot trolls saying BSD is dying but I really think it is dying. The commercial support is just not there.

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#16

Post by sgt » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 8:53 PM UTC

Getahobby wrote: post #15

I have used FreeBSD since 2.2. I used to laugh at the slashdot trolls saying BSD is dying but I really think it is dying. The commercial support is just not there.

"Commercial support" as a selling point is really overrated. You can always get commercial support in any case, from FreeBSD specialists for hire. Apart from that, normal users will always be able to get support from the mailing lists, forums and so on. I'm happy with FreeBSD and there's nothing stopping me from using it both personally and for my businesses. I am not interested in FreeBSD on the desktop, however.

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#17

Post by dfc » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 9:01 PM UTC

clarkevans wrote: post #4

As of this year, I'm no longer a FreeBSD user. I've been a hold-out... finally converting over to Linux this year after years of denial. It was a very hard move for me. The problem is that FreeBSD developers are still fighting wars of the 90's. By and large, with the welcome exception of Colin Percival (of http://www.tarsnap.com/ fame), they have not embraced virtualization. The only saving grace of FreeBSD is that i…

What are some of the wars of the 90s?

Everytime I wanted to install FBSD on an old box I would always run into awful issues wioth acpi/acpm. All of the boxes I tried to install it on recently ran linux without a quirk.

I really want to get a fbsd box up and running so I can run phk's ntpns

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#18

Post by msbarnett » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 9:12 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #3

The last version of BSD I used regularly was 3.2, and I've missed it since. Although, I've somewhat gotten my fix by installing via ports on MacOS. Perhaps with this release, I'll try my hand at getting it to run on Ec2. Alternatively, does anyone know of a good cheap vps that runs BSD?

Tilaa.nl is probably the best one I've found. Very well supported and professional.

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#19

Post by getsat » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 9:27 PM UTC

clarkevans wrote: post #5

jedberg wrote: post #3

The last version of BSD I used regularly was 3.2, and I've missed it since. Although, I've somewhat gotten my fix by installing via ports on MacOS. Perhaps with this release, I'll try my hand at getting it to run on Ec2. Alternatively, does anyone know of a good cheap vps that runs BSD?

I think RootBSD is the Linode of the FreeBSD community.

Not being able to provision on demand is a deal breaker, though.

Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RC1 Available...

#20

Post by SkyMarshal » Sun, Oct 23, 2011, 10:43 PM UTC

btw0 wrote: post #10

Fewer and fewer people are using FreeBSD, and it's starting to cause real problems. Bugs in ports can't get enough notice. Right now, `htop', an essential tool for me, has been malfunctioning for months: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=ports/159728 At the moment, the built-in GPU in newer CPU (core i3/i5/i7) simply doesn't work in FreeBSD, people have to buy discrete older cards for graphics. Yes, they are…

Is this problem due to fewer people using it, or fewer people contributing? I know there's a lot of overlap in open source, but the latter could be a real problem.