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David Chisnall | 30 May 2012 20:20
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Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi Everyone,

This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it will
reach a largish number of users.  

I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?  

David_______________________________________________
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http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
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Pierre-Luc Drouin | 30 May 2012 20:52

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 2:20 PM, David Chisnall <theraven <at> freebsd.org>wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it
> to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish number of users.
>
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which
> advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before I do I'd
> like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
> you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would
> you pick?  Are they the same as when you first started using it?
>
> David_______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable <at> freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe <at> freebsd.org"
>

For me it is:

-Stability
-Well-structured OS (i.e. filesystem, kernel and its config, etc)
-The ports system

These are also the elements that made me start using FreeBSD about a decade
ago. So these are mainly consequences of the development strategy of
FreeBSD, as opposed to the free for all approach of Linux. Personally, what
makes me choose Linux over FreeBSD for laptop usage is the very limited
acpi support of FreeBSD (suspend and resume) compared to Linux.
(Continue reading)

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Prabhpal -Mailing-List | 31 May 2012 11:28

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/30/12 6:52 PM, Pierre-Luc Drouin wrote:
> On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 2:20 PM, David Chisnall<theraven <at> freebsd.org>wrote:
>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it
>> to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish number of users.
>>
>> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which
>> advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before I do I'd
>> like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
>> you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would
>> you pick?  Are they the same as when you first started using it?

> Hi, i would not say very much different than the guys have said. FreeBSD system is know as heavy duty system
and chooice of admins where solid rock performace is required, such as telecom industries, extremly
large environment, any individual can also use FreeBSD for same purpose. There are many meaningfull
reason those can prove FreeBSD is best system.
1.) I use FreeBSD because it is extremely robust System.
2.) Stability / Reliability / it's ability
3.) FreeBSD known for its ability to handle heavy network traffic with 
high performance and rock solid reliability
4.) Resource management is very good for FreeBSD, such as Memory, 
processor use. (I maintain 218 Linux / Unix Server) therefor i know of.
5.) FreeBSD is the system of choice for high performance network 
applications.
6.) pf is better than iptables.
7.) many many more

Thanks / Nath NK
(Continue reading)

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Jason Leschnik | 31 May 2012 13:03
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

I've only been using FreeBSD for about ~2 years, the thing i really
like about FreeBSD is the stability of the configuration system.
Placement of configuration files and startup scripts make life easier
in daily administration.

The things i'm using FreeBSD for?

# Gateway Router
# Squid Proxy cache
# Web Server (Apache 2.2)
#> Wordpress Blog
# Primary/Secondary DNS (Bind)
# DHCP
# PXE Boot machine
# Syslog Server
# Firewall (very much in love with PF)

I'm not really confident with updates yet, still learning so yet to
push a FreeBSD machine into production.

Thanks.

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 4:52 AM, Pierre-Luc Drouin
<pldrouin <at> pldrouin.net> wrote:
> On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 2:20 PM, David Chisnall <theraven <at> freebsd.org>wrote:
>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it
>> to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish number of users.
(Continue reading)

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Chris Nehren | 30 May 2012 20:59

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 19:20:31 +0100 , David Chisnall wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> This is off-topic, 

... and not wrapped at <80 characters.

> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material
> (which advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before
> I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
> FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about
> FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when you first
> started using it?  

1. Solaris features without being beholden to Oracle.
2. The FreeBSD community focuses more on tech than on licensing and
political activism like a certain freeware Unix "alike".
3. The ports system does a far better job of balancing tracking recent
software releases and stability than other systems of the same sort
(most typically exemplified by certain popular Unix "alikes").

Bonus round, something subjective:
4. Everything "feels right" and "makes sense" on a very deep level for
me, in a way that never happened with the other Unix and Unix "alike"
OSs I've used.

The first item is not the same as when I started using FreeBSD, because
those features didn't exist in FreeBSD at the time. The third reason is
what actually brought me to FreeBSD, after I became frustrated at the
seeming inability of Unix "alike" maintainers to maintain that balance
(Continue reading)

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Mark Felder | 30 May 2012 22:15
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Wed, 30 May 2012 13:59:01 -0500, Chris Nehren  
<apeiron+freebsd-stable <at> isuckatdomains.net> wrote:

> 4. Everything "feels right" and "makes sense" on a very deep level for
> me, in a way that never happened with the other Unix and Unix "alike"
> OSs I've used.

Bingo.

For me:

1) Integration. The OS is integrated very well all around. How many  
utilities on Linux are required to replace the full functionality of the  
BSD "ifconfig" ?
2) Ports. We have customers with very different requirements; we don't  
have to run different Linux distros to meet their needs in a way that is  
supported by the package management system. This makes the job as a  
sysadmin and our infrastructure very consistent.
3) Features. PF is indispensable, and ZFS is a great bonus. System   
utilities, too: sockstat, systat, gstat, BSD's top, etc.
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Vitaly Magerya | 30 May 2012 21:06
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

David Chisnall <theraven <at> freebsd.org> wrote:
> If you had
> to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?

1. Large number of ports, including obscure programs other package
system don't have.
2. Relatively straightforward system configuration (i.e. rc.conf), as
opposed to options scattered across multiple files and tools.
3. Port options. I don't want to run HAL and friends for example; on
FreeBSD I can skip them.

Why don't you ask about top 3 things we hate about FreeBSD?
Listing negative sides in advocacy materials would be a refreshing change.

> Are they the same as when you first started using it?

Nope. It was mostly blind chance.
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Johan Hendriks | 30 May 2012 21:11
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

David Chisnall schreef:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.
>
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?
>
> David_______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable <at> freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe <at> freebsd.org"

Why i use and still use FreeBSD
1) stability
2) ease of use
3) ZFS
4) Community
5) I does the things i need.

The first encounter with FreeBSD was with FreeBSD 4.5 if i recall correct.
I did try a lot of Linux distro's in that time, and could not find a 
distro that suits me well.
I did use redhat 6 to 7 and Suse also tried Slackware, and gentoo that 
was new at that time.
But each distro had it quircks, redhat and dependency hell, suse had 
yast which was horrible back then.
(Continue reading)

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Josh Beard | 30 May 2012 21:06
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 05/30/2012 12:20 PM, David Chisnall wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.
>
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?
>
> David_______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable <at> freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe <at> freebsd.org"

For us, stability is the biggest reason.

Stability in terms of not only reliability, but also the design 
philosophy and consistency.

I really appreciate the "cleanliness" of FreeBSD, and what seems to be a 
well thought out and well deployed base.

To me, FreeBSD seems conservative in that a lot of design is "tried and 
true", but also progressive at the same time where it counts (e.g. 
ZFS).  I don't get the feeling of hasty implementations that I have with 
other systems.

We replaced a Linux file server (which replaced several Mac Xserves)
(Continue reading)

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Adam Strohl | 30 May 2012 21:12
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/2012 1:20, David Chisnall wrote:
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?

1. High performance with security and stability focus -- truly makes it 
the ideal server platform
2. The ports system (and supporting tools like portupgrade, portaudit, etc)
3. The OS "makes sense" (as Chris N. mentioned).  The file system 
layout, tools, etc are consistent.

There is so much other stuff too.  Like PF and CARP, ZFS and more ...  a 
kick-ass combo of features and very server-focused.

As a professional admin FreeBSD is a pleasure to work with day in and 
day out.  I've never heard a admins of "other" OSes say that :P

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Oliver Pinter | 30 May 2012 22:26
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/30/12, David Chisnall <theraven <at> freebsd.org> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it
> to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish number of users.
>
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which
> advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before I do I'd like
> to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If you had
> to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?
> Are they the same as when you first started using it?

Hi!

Likes (sorry, not only 3 item):
----------------------------------------------------------
1) FreeBSD is NOT Linux = FreeBSD is stable, reliable, simple (there
are no automated brainfucks... like udev, hal and dbus in base system)
2) has a clean source, and FreeBSD is maintainable: if there are a
working driver in N+2 version, I have a much bigger chance, that
working in N too
3) is highly configurable (~ 1) ), I like rc.conf and sysctl (linux's
procfs and sysfs is a chaos ...)
4) FreeBSD has a ports system, that contained KDE3
5) well documented
6) not fragmented as Linux, (relation to many distro, that not have idea/goal)
7) not GPL
8) FreeBSD is a complete system, and not just a kernel + random thing
from everywhere, and not hackish
(Continue reading)

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Brian | 31 May 2012 06:24

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/30/2012 1:26 PM, Oliver Pinter wrote:
> On 5/30/12, David Chisnall<theraven <at> freebsd.org>  wrote:
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it
>> to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish number of users.
>>
>> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which
>> advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before I do I'd like
>> to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If you had
>> to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?
>> Are they the same as when you first started using it?
> Hi!
>
> Likes (sorry, not only 3 item):
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> 1) FreeBSD is NOT Linux = FreeBSD is stable, reliable, simple (there
> are no automated brainfucks... like udev, hal and dbus in base system)
> 2) has a clean source, and FreeBSD is maintainable: if there are a
> working driver in N+2 version, I have a much bigger chance, that
> working in N too
> 3) is highly configurable (~ 1) ), I like rc.conf and sysctl (linux's
> procfs and sysfs is a chaos ...)
> 4) FreeBSD has a ports system, that contained KDE3
> 5) well documented
> 6) not fragmented as Linux, (relation to many distro, that not have idea/goal)
> 7) not GPL
> 8) FreeBSD is a complete system, and not just a kernel + random thing
> from everywhere, and not hackish
>
(Continue reading)

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Chris Rees | 30 May 2012 22:30
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 30 May 2012 19:20, David Chisnall <theraven <at> freebsd.org> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.
>
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as
when you first started using it?
>

You might not have wanted opinions from developers... but

1) Complete base system-- if I mess up badly with ports I can delete
them all and still have a usable system to recover from

2) Simplicity of configuration-- mostly configured with flat text
files rather than directories full of conf files

3) Friendly community; easy to get support from people who really know
what they're doing.

Chris
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Christopher J. Ruwe | 30 May 2012 23:21
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Wed, 30 May 2012 19:20:31 +0100
David Chisnall <theraven <at> FreeBSD.org> wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
> 
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm
> sending it to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish
> number of users.  
> 
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material
> (which advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before
> I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
> FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about
> FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when you first
> started using it?  
> 
> David_______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable <at> freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to
> "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe <at> freebsd.org"

1) Stability in the meaning of "does not break config semantics from one
second to the other without mentioning".

2) Help from the list which not only solves your problem, but teaches!
also.  

3) Features like ZFS, PF, periodic, ZFS ...
(Continue reading)

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Steven Hartland | 31 May 2012 01:02
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

1. The community - Unlike Linux which is very fragmented by all the different flavours and hence individual
communities, FreeBSD 
has one community who are always happy to help with hints tips and advice. This simply cant be beaten!

2. Stability - There's always issue with any OS but in our many years of using FreeBSD, we've never had any
issues which haven't 
been able to fix quickly with the help of the community.

3. Easy and quick to install servers - No other OS comes close with regards to simplicity of install to get a
"server" up and 
running. Initially we used the standard sysinstall, which while had its quirks was still many times faster
and easier to use than 
any Linux installer I've tried. Recently we've been using a small custom version of mfsBSD
(http://mfsbsd.vx.sk/) which enables us 
to do base machine install on any hardware we run in minutes.

If you want a 4th I'd have to say ZFS support, the flexibility and simplicity this has brought to the
management of storage under 
FreeBSD has been a godsend! This is the big new one for us :)

    Regard
    Steve

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Chisnall" <theraven <at> FreeBSD.org>
To: <freebsd-stable <at> FreeBSD.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 7:20 PM
Subject: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi Everyone,
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Jakub Lach | 31 May 2012 02:02
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

- You can (change how to) compile 
/tailor almost everything, yet whole OS 
doesn't feel fragmented. 
- Provided you have massive ;)
WITHOUT_* stack in make.conf
you can have pretty frugal system. 
(hal, dbus etc.)
- Native Opera support, yes it 
really mattered to me, and still
matters. Web browser is usually single most 
used application.
- Compiling base system from source 
and customising e.g. kernel is actually 
supported (not like in OpenBSD, which 
(for valid reasons!) is rather discouraged). 
- You can actually have all (ports & base) binaries 
on particular system compiled from source 
on the same machine, not only it's supported, it's
popular route. 
- Huge ports system, mostly simple & sane 
(vanilla sources, clear structure).
- Portmaster.
- Good Thinkpad support usually.
- STABLE branch, every day is release 
day ;)

--
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Jakub Lach | 31 May 2012 02:17
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

- Actually somewhat caring about performance too... (not
like OpenBSD).
- True unix pedigree, in mostly still retained philosophically.

P.S. I'm not bashing OpenBSD, in fact, it's one of my favorite 
systems, just FreeBSD in it's default form/ src update 
route is closer to how I would like this system to work/ at 
this moment. 

Fully binary system with uniform packages/configuration has 
it's non disputable merits. Add to this no particular emphasis 
on performance and OpenBSD could have upper hand for me
in that scenario.

--
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Lars Eighner | 31 May 2012 02:35
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Wed, 30 May 2012, David Chisnall wrote:

> Hi Everyone,

I came to FreeBSD nearly 20 years ago because it had text-mode (aka command
line, console, etc.) apps and I wanted to avoid GUIs for applications that
are not essentially graphic in nature.  The ability to switch for
applications essentially graphic (paint, image manipulation, etc.) and back
for everything else (writing) without rebooting was very attractive.

There is not any graphics font that can put 2000 characters (80x25) on one
screen legibly - and that has not changed.  The native editors on BSD (vi,
emacs) are pretty horrible -- imagine the Frankenstein that thought "I'll
just write an editor in Lisp!"  But once I discovered Joe, it was smooth
sailing.  There is no GUI file manager as good as lynx ./ .

This is still why I use FreeBSD.  I tried linuxes, but found keyboard
mapping really opaque.  Now, I won't use linuxes because they have abandoned
text-mode for rasterized text -- which is just as horrible as GUIs -- and
the linux distributions just assume you are trying to run Gnome, completely
ignoring formerly text-mode, now rasterized applications.

Unfortunately FreeBSD seems to be headed this way and I will have to hop off
the upgrade cycle at some version and hope that I die before it becomes
orphaned.

--

-- 
Lars Eighner
http://www.larseighner.com/index.html
8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266
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Brian | 31 May 2012 03:14

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/30/2012 11:20 AM, David Chisnall wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.
>
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?
>
> David_______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable <at> freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe <at> freebsd.org"
SMP support (pause) new (longer pause)  I spent as little time as 
possible in version 5.x.

For me there are a few reasons I like FreeBSD. I was first introduced to 
FreeBSD by a coworker in 1997 or so. I had tried a bit of Linux before 
that. I was working for a SunOS/Solaris using ISP at the time; so when I 
tried FreeBSD it did seem to make more sense to me.  The keys are these.

The filesystem layout just makes much more intuitive sense to me.
If I want a barebones system where I just add what I want to it, that is 
easily available. Minimal install + packages/ports I need has been my 
approach for awhile.
Although I have gotten in trouble with the FreeBSD ports/packages 
system, the tools that FreeBSD includes make it much easier to recover 
from package dependency messes than the Linux version so lovingly called
(Continue reading)

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Andrew Reilly | 31 May 2012 06:13
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 07:20:31PM +0100, David Chisnall wrote:
> If you had to list
> the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you
> pick?  Are they the same as when you first started using it?

1) Using it doesn't require changing me (well, at least change
is gradual and continuous.) (BSD since '86, even though the
hardware dies every few years.)

2) Incremental updates from source are easy.  (What's running
corresponds to the source on the system, so I can fix breakage
as I find it.  Not that that's common.)

3) ZFS turns out to be very cool, and seems to work really well.

(3) is new, but (1) and (2) have been there since the beginning
(since it was the patchkit.)

[Another change, not listed among the three most-liked things,
but still something that I like equivocally, is that I've
stopped fighting GUIs, and relegated my FreeBSD boxes to
servers.  GUI work I've delegated to Macs.  That could yet
change back/again, if Macs keep getting worse...]

Cheers,

--

-- 
Andrew
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David Chisnall | 31 May 2012 10:58
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Thanks to all who replied, both on and off list.  I've attempted to distill the replies that I got into a
coherent summary.  I've put the draft on the wiki here:

http://wiki.freebsd.org/WhyUseFreeBSD

Feedback welcome!

David

On 30 May 2012, at 19:20, David Chisnall wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
> 
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.  
> 
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?  
> 
> David

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Matthew Seaman | 31 May 2012 11:59
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 31/05/2012 09:58, David Chisnall wrote:

> http://wiki.freebsd.org/WhyUseFreeBSD

> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material
> (which advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before
> I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
> FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about
> FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when you first
> started using it?

Heh.  My original reason for ever trying out FreeBSD was that I could
install it by downloading only one floppy-disk image.  I'll bet that
dates me.

Anyhow, one point about the ports you don't mention but which I think is
a real win, and a real distinguishing feature is the marvellous
flexibility it allows.

For instance: ever tried to install memcached on various linuxen?  When
you specifically want memcached-1.4 with the repcached patches?  Not
easy.  It's just an OPTION setting in ports.  Easy.

I've seen it said by very competent admins that "if you're running
software package X as the primary engine of your business then you
really should be compiling it yourself from source with your own
configuration choices rather than relying on the packages supplied with
your distro."  Which is quite true.  Except, with the ports, you can not
only do that, but you don't have to give up on the benefits of using the
OS packaging system.
(Continue reading)

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Vitaly Magerya | 31 May 2012 15:32
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

David Chisnall wrote:
> http://wiki.freebsd.org/WhyUseFreeBSD
> 
> Feedback welcome!

Quote:
> The RCng system that reads this file [rc.conf] understands
> dependencies between services and so can automatically launch
> them in parallel [...]

Can it? There have been patches in the lists, was one of them
committed?
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Allen | 16 Jun 2012 00:28
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/2012 4:58 AM, David Chisnall wrote:
> Thanks to all who replied, both on and off list.  I've attempted to
> distill the replies that I got into a coherent summary.  I've put the
> draft on the wiki here:
> http://wiki.freebsd.org/WhyUseFreeBSD
> 
> Feedback welcome!

I thought it was nice :) I personally have liked the way that both
FreeBSD and Slackware Linux have handled the Advocacy of the OS compared
to some others. Not sure why, I just do.

But it's nice to have this as well, because it's one thing to wear a
FreeBSD tee shirt under a FreeBSD hoodie while wearing FreeBSD Boxers
and using a Laptop covered in BSD stickers (Yea, I've done this), but
it's probably easiest when someone asks why you use it, to simply say
"Well, read this and see if you'd like it too, and it's free so you
don't have to pay if you don't want to, and you can install it very
easily, and configure every single aspect of it"

I think we all have our reasons that we use it, and it's nice to see
them kind of distilled into one place where you can send someone to
look, or, just see what other people are using it with, and why, and
what for, and maybe even get new ideas of your own.

For whatever it's worth; GREAT job!

-Allen / gore
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Jozef Baum | 16 Jun 2012 04:55
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AW: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

I prefer FreeBSD for 4 reasons:

- FreeBSD has true Unix roots, it's not just a new implementation of Unix, 
like Linux.
- FreeBSD is a complete operating system, not just a kernel with third party 
utilities, like Linux.
- FreeBSD has a development concept which guarantees a much more homogeneous 
quality of the overall system than Linux.
- FreeBSD has a license agreement which offers much more freedom than the 
GPL, which applies to Linux.

However, there is much more documentatíon availabe to start with Linux than 
with FreeBSD.

The problem of FreeBSD is not its technical quality, but the complete lack 
of any efficient marketing.

FreeBSD people seem to think that, because FreeBSD is a superior product, 
people will use it. However, society doesn't work this way.

FreeBSD has to convince users of its benefits they can appreciate (not 
extremely technical onces), and to make the transition to FreeBSD as easy 
and smooth as possible for them.

This is definitely not something that can be done by people with a sticker 
"Intel inside" on their back, and who take it for granted that newcomers to 
FreeBSD know UNIX.

At present, FreeBSD positions itself as a system to which Linux user can 
switch.
(Continue reading)

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Julian H. Stacey | 16 Jun 2012 16:33
Favicon

Re: AW: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

> FreeBSD should position itself as the best product for newcomers to the 
> UNIX-world.

No. It could damage FreeBSD.  At present we largely just need to
educate newcomers from eg Linux etc (who already know some Unix),

We don't need to be swamped with noise from lots of clueless Microsoft
zeroes, who don't / can't / won't think & will not read manuals, &
won't even in desperation occasionaly look at source code for a clue.

Clueless mouse clicking, lazy loosers are served (*) by Microsoft.  
(* `Served': As cows are, by a bull ;-) 

Cheers,
Julian
--

-- 
Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
 Reply below not above, cumulative like a play script, & indent with "> ".
 Format: Plain text. Not HTML, multipart/alternative, base64, quoted-printable.
	Mail from  <at> yahoo dumped  <at> berklix.  http://berklix.org/yahoo/
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Frank Mitchell | 17 Jun 2012 13:30
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Using FreeBSD - Or Debian kFreeBSD

Hi:

I started using FreeBSD because I wanted to develop an independent CD/DVD 
Writing utility. FreeBSD had its ATAPI Interface sorted when Linux was still 
struggling with the old IDE-SCSI Driver. So I got started using FreeBSD, and 
developed "Spiegel" (the thing with the Wildebeest License, which you'll find 
on the Web) and a couple of other utilities. But then the FreeBSD Interface 
changed and my programs crashed for reasons which I couldn't understand. 
Meanwhile Linux got their SG Interface sorted, so I switched to Linux, which 
then worked better anyway.

Another point which may be relevant: I like trying different Unix flavours, 
so my habit is always to install new versions from scratch, never upgrading. 
As a FreeBSD Desktop User I get problems which don't seem to bother other 
people, and this could be the reason why. Possibly Debian kFreeBSD will 
resolve these issues when it reaches Production form.

Yours truly: Frank Mitchell

On Saturday 16 June 2012 03:55:19 Jozef Baum wrote:
> I prefer FreeBSD for 4 reasons:
> 
> - FreeBSD has true Unix roots, it's not just a new implementation of Unix,
> like Linux.
> - FreeBSD is a complete operating system, not just a kernel with third
> party utilities, like Linux.
> - FreeBSD has a development concept which guarantees a much more
> homogeneous quality of the overall system than Linux.
> - FreeBSD has a license agreement which offers much more freedom than the
> GPL, which applies to Linux.
(Continue reading)

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Daniel Kalchev | 31 May 2012 12:01
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

1) Been with BSD/OS since it's inception. Great OS and good example to 
follow. But BSD/OS was eventually killed and FreeBSD sort of inherited 
it's legacy. Both follow the simplicity and good architecture models, 
with FreeBSD improving on modularity.
2) The BSD license. Contrary to popular belief, it has brought a lot of 
high quality development to FreeBSD.
3) Universal toolkit. It scales easily from the thinnest embedded 
system, to various desktops to huge servers -- all with the same 
familiar tools and environment.

Sure, for consumption there are "easier" systems, such as PC-BSD 
(FreeBSD again), Ubuntu and, of course OS X. But there is no better 
platform, or kit to build whatever you need around.

Daniel
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Reko Turja | 31 May 2012 12:32

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

-----Original Message----- 
From: Daniel Kalchev
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2012 1:01 PM

2) The BSD license. Contrary to popular belief, it has brought a lot of
high quality development to FreeBSD.

The salient point is that BSD license (and alike licenses)seem to bring in 
more talented people than GPL. Postgres vs. MySQL, BSD's vs. Loonix, 
Postfix, Apache etc... It's funny that talented people are pleased to see 
their code freely distributed, where mediocritys try their best to put it 
under viral licensing.

-Reko 

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Jerome Herman | 31 May 2012 12:03
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Wed, 30 May 2012 19:20:31 +0100, David Chisnall
<theraven <at> FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm
> sending it to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish
> number of users.
> 
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material
> (which advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before
> I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
> FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about
> FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when you first
> started using it?
> 
> David_______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable <at> freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe <at> freebsd.org"

There are lots of reasons but in my mind the top three are : 

1 - It works
2 - It works everytime
3 - It works everytime the way I expected it to work.

I would like to be able to say this about any other OS, the closest I
ever got to this level of reliability and reproductibility in behaviour
was with VAX-VMS.
(Continue reading)

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Damien Fleuriot | 31 May 2012 12:06

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 5/30/12 8:20 PM, David Chisnall wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.  
> 
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?  
> 
> David

We're using FreeBSD here only for firewall boxes.

Reasons for using FBSD for firewalls:
- CARP
- relayd
- PF
- pfsync

Reasons I can't get management to use FBSD for regular servers (web,
haproxy, db...):
- "hard" to use
- update process is "hard", time-consuming and annoying (as opposed to
debian's for example)

A regular debian update is 5 minutes + reboot
A regular FBSD update is about 1.5 hour + 3 reboots (after
(Continue reading)

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Lars Engels | 31 May 2012 12:21

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 12:06:55PM +0200, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> 
> On 5/30/12 8:20 PM, David Chisnall wrote:
> > Hi Everyone,
> > 
> > This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.  
> > 
> > I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new
features like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the
same as when you first started using it?  
> > 
> > David
> 
> 
> We're using FreeBSD here only for firewall boxes.
> 
> 
> Reasons for using FBSD for firewalls:
> - CARP
> - relayd
> - PF
> - pfsync
> 
> Reasons I can't get management to use FBSD for regular servers (web,
> haproxy, db...):
> - "hard" to use
> - update process is "hard", time-consuming and annoying (as opposed to
> debian's for example)
(Continue reading)

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Holger Kipp | 31 May 2012 12:32

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

Am 31.05.2012 um 12:24 schrieb "Lars Engels" <lars.engels <at> 0x20.net>:

> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 12:06:55PM +0200, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>>
>> On 5/30/12 8:20 PM, David Chisnall wrote:
>>> Hi Everyone,
>>>
>>> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.
>>>
>>> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new
features like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the
same as when you first started using it?
>>>
>>> David
>>
>>
>> We're using FreeBSD here only for firewall boxes.
>>
>>
>> Reasons for using FBSD for firewalls:
>> - CARP
>> - relayd
>> - PF
>> - pfsync
>>
>> Reasons I can't get management to use FBSD for regular servers (web,
(Continue reading)

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Frank Razenberg | 31 May 2012 12:37

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

In no specific order, for me they are:

- Rock solid stability, not only in base-system but also in ports.
- The completeness of the ports system and helpfulness of the maintainers.
- ZFS

Frank

On 5/31/2012 12:32 PM, Holger Kipp wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Am 31.05.2012 um 12:24 schrieb "Lars Engels"<lars.engels <at> 0x20.net>:
>
>> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 12:06:55PM +0200, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>>>
>>> On 5/30/12 8:20 PM, David Chisnall wrote:
>>>> Hi Everyone,
>>>>
>>>> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.
>>>>
>>>> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new
features like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the
same as when you first started using it?
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>> We're using FreeBSD here only for firewall boxes.
(Continue reading)

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Damien Fleuriot | 31 May 2012 15:33

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/12 12:32 PM, Holger Kipp wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Am 31.05.2012 um 12:24 schrieb "Lars Engels" <lars.engels <at> 0x20.net>:
> 
>> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 12:06:55PM +0200, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>>>
>>> On 5/30/12 8:20 PM, David Chisnall wrote:
>>>> Hi Everyone,
>>>>
>>>> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.
>>>>
>>>> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new
features like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the
same as when you first started using it?
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>> We're using FreeBSD here only for firewall boxes.
>>>
>>>
>>> Reasons for using FBSD for firewalls:
>>> - CARP
>>> - relayd
>>> - PF
>>> - pfsync
>>>
(Continue reading)

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Damien Fleuriot | 31 May 2012 13:14

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 31 May 2012, at 12:21, Lars Engels <lars.engels <at> 0x20.net> wrote:

> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 12:06:55PM +0200, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>> 
>> On 5/30/12 8:20 PM, David Chisnall wrote:
>>> Hi Everyone,
>>> 
>>> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.  
>>> 
>>> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new
features like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the
same as when you first started using it?  
>>> 
>>> David
>> 
>> 
>> We're using FreeBSD here only for firewall boxes.
>> 
>> 
>> Reasons for using FBSD for firewalls:
>> - CARP
>> - relayd
>> - PF
>> - pfsync
>> 
>> Reasons I can't get management to use FBSD for regular servers (web,
>> haproxy, db...):
>> - "hard" to use
(Continue reading)

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Claus Guttesen | 31 May 2012 13:20
Picon

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

>>> A regular debian update is 5 minutes + reboot
>>> A regular FBSD update is about 1.5 hour + 3 reboots (after
>>> installkernel, installworld, rebuild of ports)
>>
>> But how often do you need to
>
> As a matter of fact, too often, that's te problem.
>
> We have > 800 servers and I can't argue that debian's update process is much simpler and faster.

Take a look at freebsd-update:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/updating-upgrading-freebsdupdate.html.
This tracks release.

--

-- 
regards
Claus

When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom,
the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

Shakespeare

twitter.com/kometen
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Damien Fleuriot | 31 May 2012 15:35

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 5/31/12 1:20 PM, Claus Guttesen wrote:
>>>> A regular debian update is 5 minutes + reboot
>>>> A regular FBSD update is about 1.5 hour + 3 reboots (after
>>>> installkernel, installworld, rebuild of ports)
>>>
>>> But how often do you need to
>>
>> As a matter of fact, too often, that's te problem.
>>
>> We have > 800 servers and I can't argue that debian's update process is much simpler and faster.
> 
> Take a look at freebsd-update:
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/updating-upgrading-freebsdupdate.html.
> This tracks release.
> 

As I just replied to an off-list mail, we can't use binary upgrades because:

1/ we use custom kernels with a lot of the stuff stripped

2/ we pass custom options to ports, which excludes pre-compiled packages

3/ we don't track release, I'm trying to move our boxes away from it so
we can get faster patches, we track 8-STABLE on most boxes
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Kevin Oberman | 1 Jun 2012 00:38
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 6:35 AM, Damien Fleuriot <ml <at> my.gd> wrote:
>
>
> On 5/31/12 1:20 PM, Claus Guttesen wrote:
>>>>> A regular debian update is 5 minutes + reboot
>>>>> A regular FBSD update is about 1.5 hour + 3 reboots (after
>>>>> installkernel, installworld, rebuild of ports)
>>>>
>>>> But how often do you need to
>>>
>>> As a matter of fact, too often, that's te problem.
>>>
>>> We have > 800 servers and I can't argue that debian's update process is much simpler and faster.
>>
>> Take a look at freebsd-update:
>> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/updating-upgrading-freebsdupdate.html.
>> This tracks release.
>>
>
> As I just replied to an off-list mail, we can't use binary upgrades because:
>
>
> 1/ we use custom kernels with a lot of the stuff stripped
>
> 2/ we pass custom options to ports, which excludes pre-compiled packages
>
> 3/ we don't track release, I'm trying to move our boxes away from it so
> we can get faster patches, we track 8-STABLE on most boxes

Make your own freebsd-update server and build whatever custom system
(Continue reading)

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Jason Leschnik | 31 May 2012 14:09
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Gravatar

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

A freebsd-update + portsnap + portupgrade is really quick...

I even wrote this little script to check for pkg_updating info:
http://leschnik.me/blog/?p=79

Thanks.

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 9:14 PM, Damien Fleuriot <ml <at> my.gd> wrote:
> On 31 May 2012, at 12:21, Lars Engels <lars.engels <at> 0x20.net> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 12:06:55PM +0200, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>>>
>>> On 5/30/12 8:20 PM, David Chisnall wrote:
>>>> Hi Everyone,
>>>>
>>>> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.
>>>>
>>>> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new
features like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they
the same as when you first started using it?
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>> We're using FreeBSD here only for firewall boxes.
>>>
>>>
>>> Reasons for using FBSD for firewalls:
(Continue reading)

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Nikos Vassiliadis | 31 May 2012 15:02
Picon
Favicon

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/2012 2:09 PM, Jason Leschnik wrote:
> A freebsd-update + portsnap + portupgrade is really quick...

ah, ok!

> I even wrote this little script to check for pkg_updating info:
> http://leschnik.me/blog/?p=79

> Note that if you have many out of date ports this script can take a while to finish it’s run… Please be patient!!!

Huh??

These comments are a bit contradictory, don't you think?

Couldn't resist, sorry:p

Nikos
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Jason Leschnik | 31 May 2012 15:27
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Gravatar

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

"a while" isn't an S.I. unit, so it actually might be "pretty quick" :P

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 11:02 PM, Nikos Vassiliadis <nvass <at> gmx.com> wrote:
> On 5/31/2012 2:09 PM, Jason Leschnik wrote:
>>
>> A freebsd-update + portsnap + portupgrade is really quick...
>
>
> ah, ok!
>
>
>> I even wrote this little script to check for pkg_updating info:
>> http://leschnik.me/blog/?p=79
>
>
>> Note that if you have many out of date ports this script can take a while
>> to finish it’s run… Please be patient!!!
>
>
> Huh??
>
> These comments are a bit contradictory, don't you think?
>
> Couldn't resist, sorry:p
>
> Nikos

--

-- 
Regards,
Jason Leschnik.
(Continue reading)

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Jim Ohlstein | 31 May 2012 16:01
Picon

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/30/12 2:20 PM, David Chisnall wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.  
> 
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?  
> 
> 

These have been said before but I'll reiterate.

1. Stability. It's a well thought out, designed from the ground up,
operating system. It is not a collection of "chosen for you" packages
attached to a kernel.

2. Ease of configuration

3. Ports

Having used various Linux distos for quite awhile, the above are all so
much of an improvement, and are still why I use FreeBSD.

To add others, in no particular order:

Ease of upgrade. While some have noted that binary upgrades are easier
on Debian, it's far and away superior, IMMHO, to have a locally compiled
(Continue reading)

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Damien Fleuriot | 31 May 2012 16:22

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/12 4:01 PM, Jim Ohlstein wrote:
> To add others, in no particular order:
> 
> Ease of upgrade. While some have noted that binary upgrades are easier
> on Debian, it's far and away superior, IMMHO, to have a locally compiled
> system. Many Linux distros have no upgrade path short of a wipe and
> re-install.
> 

Far superior, check, FAR MORE TIME CONSUMING, check as well !

Also, I don't get your "linux distros have no upgrade path short of a
full reinstall" bit ?
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Adam Strohl | 31 May 2012 16:30
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/2012 21:22, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> On 5/31/12 4:01 PM, Jim Ohlstein wrote:
>> To add others, in no particular order:
>>
>> Ease of upgrade. While some have noted that binary upgrades are easier
>> on Debian, it's far and away superior, IMMHO, to have a locally compiled
>> system. Many Linux distros have no upgrade path short of a wipe and
>> re-install.
>>
> Far superior, check, FAR MORE TIME CONSUMING, check as well !

This brings up another point: Repair is always possible with FreeBSD.

You can back out all packages or types of packages easily (and 
re-compile or reinstall them if needed).  You can recompile/reinstall 
the OS if needed (somewhere else too and copy it over).  Or just copy 
pieces from a live cd or restore tarball.  And it's pretty 
straightforward to do even for a non-admin person.

You can even restore over a live running system with tar, which I do 
occasionally when cloning machines or restoring them with dump/restore.  
Very slick.
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Damien Fleuriot | 31 May 2012 16:47

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 5/31/12 4:30 PM, Adam Strohl wrote:
> On 5/31/2012 21:22, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>> On 5/31/12 4:01 PM, Jim Ohlstein wrote:
>>> To add others, in no particular order:
>>>
>>> Ease of upgrade. While some have noted that binary upgrades are easier
>>> on Debian, it's far and away superior, IMMHO, to have a locally compiled
>>> system. Many Linux distros have no upgrade path short of a wipe and
>>> re-install.
>>>
>> Far superior, check, FAR MORE TIME CONSUMING, check as well !
> 
> This brings up another point: Repair is always possible with FreeBSD.
> 
> You can back out all packages or types of packages easily (and
> re-compile or reinstall them if needed).  You can recompile/reinstall
> the OS if needed (somewhere else too and copy it over).  Or just copy
> pieces from a live cd or restore tarball.  And it's pretty
> straightforward to do even for a non-admin person.
> 
> You can even restore over a live running system with tar, which I do
> occasionally when cloning machines or restoring them with dump/restore. 
> Very slick.

Regarding recovering from blunders, and dump/restore for restoration or
even cloning purposes, I also use them and I can advocate the efficiency
and usefulness.

Regarding packages, I've never really explored it, would you detail a bit ?
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Adam Strohl | 31 May 2012 16:53
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 5/31/2012 21:47, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> Regarding packages, I've never really explored it, would you detail a bit ?

Well, I really mean the resulting pkg info from a port.  A good example 
is PHP, sometimes you have to say "everyone out of the pool" because of 
an upgrade:

cd /var/db/pkg && PKGS=`ls | egrep "^(php|pear|pecl)"`; for PKG in 
$PKGS; do echo "---- $PKG"; pkg_delete "$PKG"; done;

Running that a few times until it stops picking things up, then its a 
few commands to re-install PHP and its extensions (because of the 
extensions roll-up port).

You can of course script it further, which is part of why I like FreeBSD 
so much.
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Mark Felder | 31 May 2012 17:15
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Thu, 31 May 2012 09:30:31 -0500, Adam Strohl  
<adams-freebsd <at> ateamsystems.com> wrote:

> This brings up another point: Repair is always possible with FreeBSD.
>

Quick tip for you guys -- create your own mtree file for /usr/local,  
/usr/home, and /var via cron nightly. With that data and the ones provided  
for the base system you can fix a machine that someone accidentally "chown  
-R /" within minutes. The fact that Linux has nothing equivalent is  
frightening. Mtree has saved me a lot of time when customers have broken  
their servers.
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Gary Palmer | 31 May 2012 16:52
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 04:22:37PM +0200, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> On 5/31/12 4:01 PM, Jim Ohlstein wrote:
> > To add others, in no particular order:
> > 
> > Ease of upgrade. While some have noted that binary upgrades are easier
> > on Debian, it's far and away superior, IMMHO, to have a locally compiled
> > system. Many Linux distros have no upgrade path short of a wipe and
> > re-install.
> > 
> 
> Far superior, check, FAR MORE TIME CONSUMING, check as well !
> 
> 
> Also, I don't get your "linux distros have no upgrade path short of a
> full reinstall" bit ?

I don't know about "many", but RHEL specifically states that upgrading
from RHEL4.x to 5.x, or 5.x to 6.x, is not supported and that you should
wipe and reinstall the system.

Gary
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Jim Ohlstein | 31 May 2012 17:13
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/12 10:22 AM, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> On 5/31/12 4:01 PM, Jim Ohlstein wrote:
>> To add others, in no particular order:
>>
>> Ease of upgrade. While some have noted that binary upgrades are easier
>> on Debian, it's far and away superior, IMMHO, to have a locally compiled
>> system. Many Linux distros have no upgrade path short of a wipe and
>> re-install.
>>
> 
> Far superior, check, FAR MORE TIME CONSUMING, check as well !

No need to yell. Good things take time. That's life. The thing that
takes the most time is building world. My boxes stay online during that
time, and I am usually doing other things, so who cares if it takes an
hour or so? I only take the system offline after I've installed the new
kernel. I boot into single user mode, install world and reboot. Cleaning
up configuration files takes a few minutes, then I'm good to go.

While I do rebuild all ports, I have only had *one* occasion where a
binary built on an older system croaked on a new kernel. I have about
500 ports installed so maybe that's not that many.

I upgrade my systems once or twice a year. It's not really a lot of time
for me.

Linux distros all certainly require a reboot for a new kernel and some
likely require editing of config files. So where is the "far more time
consuming"? In the compiling? Sorry, but I'm not one to sit and watch
the lines go by on the terminal. I have better things to do and I do
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Damien Fleuriot | 31 May 2012 17:41

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 5/31/12 5:13 PM, Jim Ohlstein wrote:
> On 5/31/12 10:22 AM, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>> On 5/31/12 4:01 PM, Jim Ohlstein wrote:
>>> To add others, in no particular order:
>>>
>>> Ease of upgrade. While some have noted that binary upgrades are easier
>>> on Debian, it's far and away superior, IMMHO, to have a locally compiled
>>> system. Many Linux distros have no upgrade path short of a wipe and
>>> re-install.
>>>
>>
>> Far superior, check, FAR MORE TIME CONSUMING, check as well !
> 
> No need to yell. Good things take time. That's life. The thing that
> takes the most time is building world. My boxes stay online during that
> time, and I am usually doing other things, so who cares if it takes an
> hour or so? I only take the system offline after I've installed the new
> kernel. I boot into single user mode, install world and reboot. Cleaning
> up configuration files takes a few minutes, then I'm good to go.
> 
> While I do rebuild all ports, I have only had *one* occasion where a
> binary built on an older system croaked on a new kernel. I have about
> 500 ports installed so maybe that's not that many.
> 
> I upgrade my systems once or twice a year. It's not really a lot of time
> for me.
> 

We upgrade them when vulnerabilities and bug fixes show up, which is
(Continue reading)

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Flemming Jacobsen | 31 May 2012 17:51
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> You missed the bit about 3 reboots, while these don't take 15 mins each,
> they're still time consuming and disruptive.
> 1/ reboot after installing new kernel
> 2/ reboot after installing new world
> 3/ reboot after rebuilding ports

Or ... use sysbuild (/usr/src/tools/tools/sysbuild) and just boot
once.

	Hyg'
	Flemming

--

-- 
Flemming Jacobsen                                  Email: fj <at> batmule.dk

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll
kill you."  -- Oscar Wilde
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Dave Hayes | 1 Jun 2012 04:59

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Flemming Jacobsen <fj <at> batmule.dk> writes:
> Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>> You missed the bit about 3 reboots, while these don't take 15 mins each,
>> they're still time consuming and disruptive.
>> 1/ reboot after installing new kernel
>> 2/ reboot after installing new world
>> 3/ reboot after rebuilding ports
> Or ... use sysbuild (/usr/src/tools/tools/sysbuild) and just boot
> once.

I respectfully disagree here. Sysbuild makes some assumptions about the
partition layout which you'd need to factor in before you created your
server. For the average layout (single disk, single partition), sysbuild
won't be easy to make work.

More generally, it's best not to clutter this interesting thread with
delusions of rapidity. Given ports/packages/rpms/etc ... I claim it does
not matter what system you use: There's just too much software out there
that all has to work together to expect a simple upgrade to take 5
minutes on a well managed production server.

I believe the more cogent solution is along these lines:

Kevin Oberman <kob6558 <at> gmail.com> writes:
> Make your own freebsd-update server and build whatever custom system
> you need. It does not need to be a GENERIC kernel. It does not need to
> be RELEASE.Then use freebsd-update to update all of your production
> systems with a single reboot and about 15 minutes (depending on system
> and disk speed and I have not actually timed it).and it can be done
> without console access or a single-user boot.
(Continue reading)

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Nikos Vassiliadis | 31 May 2012 18:37
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/2012 5:41 PM, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> Furthermore, when upgrading the CARP Master firewall, we need to plan
> with the Project Manager a failover to the CARP Backup firewall.
> Yes, I know about pfsync, yes, we use it, no, it doesn't *instantly*
> sync sessions for PF.

A bit offtopic on this thread, but isn't pfsync designed to do just 
that? instantly?

With instantly I really mean:
Communicate every change to the stable table to the other firewall
in order to let the stateful connections survive a firewall failover.
Obviously, some packets will be lost, but TCP connections should
survive, right?

I am not arguing, I ask.

Nikos
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Damien Fleuriot | 31 May 2012 18:52

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/12 6:37 PM, Nikos Vassiliadis wrote:
> On 5/31/2012 5:41 PM, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>> Furthermore, when upgrading the CARP Master firewall, we need to plan
>> with the Project Manager a failover to the CARP Backup firewall.
>> Yes, I know about pfsync, yes, we use it, no, it doesn't *instantly*
>> sync sessions for PF.
> 
> A bit offtopic on this thread, but isn't pfsync designed to do just
> that? instantly?
> 
> With instantly I really mean:
> Communicate every change to the stable table to the other firewall
> in order to let the stateful connections survive a firewall failover.
> Obviously, some packets will be lost, but TCP connections should
> survive, right?
> 
> I am not arguing, I ask.
> 
> Nikos

Updates aren't instantaneous, they're sent in bundles.

This means that when you failover, you lose the connections that have
completed a SYN/SYNACK/ACK sequence on your main firewall but which
aren't synched on your backup.

These connections will continue with the peer sending regular non-syn
packets, which your backup-now-master PF will drop.

On topic, if anyone has an awesome idea around this, I'm all ears, this
(Continue reading)

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Nick Gustas | 31 May 2012 21:51

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 5/31/2012 12:52 PM, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> On 5/31/12 6:37 PM, Nikos Vassiliadis wrote:
>> On 5/31/2012 5:41 PM, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>>> Furthermore, when upgrading the CARP Master firewall, we need to plan
>>> with the Project Manager a failover to the CARP Backup firewall.
>>> Yes, I know about pfsync, yes, we use it, no, it doesn't *instantly*
>>> sync sessions for PF.
>> A bit offtopic on this thread, but isn't pfsync designed to do just
>> that? instantly?
>>
>> With instantly I really mean:
>> Communicate every change to the stable table to the other firewall
>> in order to let the stateful connections survive a firewall failover.
>> Obviously, some packets will be lost, but TCP connections should
>> survive, right?
>>
>> I am not arguing, I ask.
>>
>> Nikos
> Updates aren't instantaneous, they're sent in bundles.
>
> This means that when you failover, you lose the connections that have
> completed a SYN/SYNACK/ACK sequence on your main firewall but which
> aren't synched on your backup.
>
> These connections will continue with the peer sending regular non-syn
> packets, which your backup-now-master PF will drop.
>
>
> On topic, if anyone has an awesome idea around this, I'm all ears, this
(Continue reading)

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Damien Fleuriot | 1 Jun 2012 10:10

PFsync firewall states updates (was: Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?)

On 5/31/12 9:51 PM, Nick Gustas wrote:
> On 5/31/2012 12:52 PM, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>> On 5/31/12 6:37 PM, Nikos Vassiliadis wrote:
>>> On 5/31/2012 5:41 PM, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>>>> Furthermore, when upgrading the CARP Master firewall, we need to plan
>>>> with the Project Manager a failover to the CARP Backup firewall.
>>>> Yes, I know about pfsync, yes, we use it, no, it doesn't *instantly*
>>>> sync sessions for PF.
>>> A bit offtopic on this thread, but isn't pfsync designed to do just
>>> that? instantly?
>>>
>>> With instantly I really mean:
>>> Communicate every change to the stable table to the other firewall
>>> in order to let the stateful connections survive a firewall failover.
>>> Obviously, some packets will be lost, but TCP connections should
>>> survive, right?
>>>
>>> I am not arguing, I ask.
>>>
>>> Nikos
>> Updates aren't instantaneous, they're sent in bundles.
>>
>> This means that when you failover, you lose the connections that have
>> completed a SYN/SYNACK/ACK sequence on your main firewall but which
>> aren't synched on your backup.
>>
>> These connections will continue with the peer sending regular non-syn
>> packets, which your backup-now-master PF will drop.
>>
>>
(Continue reading)

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Matthew Seaman | 31 May 2012 20:13
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 31/05/2012 16:41, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> You missed the bit about 3 reboots, while these don't take 15 mins each,
> they're still time consuming and disruptive.
> 1/ reboot after installing new kernel
> 2/ reboot after installing new world
> 3/ reboot after rebuilding ports

If you rebuilt the ports first, then you'ld only have two reboots.

Also, while the cautious approach detailed in /usr/src/UPDATING is never
wrong, much of the time you can do the upgrade perfectly well by
installing world+kernel together and just rebooting once.  Obviously
this is not a good idea if your machines are in a datacenter many miles
away and you don't have console-equivalent access or if you're upgrading
over a large delta in versions, or you're making major changes to the
kernel config.

This sort of operation is something that ZFS boot environment support
(recently committed to HEAD, due for MFC within the month) makes much,
much safer and easier to deal with.  You don't need to do a separate
reboot to test the kernel as you've still got an entire kernel+world in
the previous BE to fall back on.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

--

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey
(Continue reading)

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Chris Nehren | 31 May 2012 22:45

Solaris features in FreeBSD (was: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?)

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 17:20:04 +0200 , Oliver Fromme wrote:
> But there's one thing that hasn't been mentioned so far,
> I think:  jails.  The jails feature was the most important
> reason why one of our largest customers chose FreeBSD for
> its server farm instead of Linux.  I also use this feature
> quite a lot on my own boxes to easily confine services and
> applications into sandboxes, without having to use a full-
> blown virtualization system with all of its disadvantages.

I did mention "Solaris features" in my list reply, which sort of
includes jails in a circuitous way--there's a video somewhere on the
tubes where one of the Solaris devs describes zones as jails on steroids
or the like.

And speaking of Solaris features...

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 19:13:32 +0100 , Matthew Seaman wrote:
> This sort of operation is something that ZFS boot environment support
> (recently committed to HEAD, due for MFC within the month) makes much,
> much safer and easier to deal with.  You don't need to do a separate
> reboot to test the kernel as you've still got an entire kernel+world in
> the previous BE to fall back on.

This is *awesome*. /me removes yet another item from the "reasons to use
Solaris" list. I cannot wait to try this out.

--

-- 
Thanks and best regards,
Chris Nehren
_______________________________________________
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Bryan Drewery | 3 Jun 2012 16:56
Gravatar

Re: Solaris features in FreeBSD


On 5/31/2012 3:45 PM, Chris Nehren wrote:
> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 17:20:04 +0200 , Oliver Fromme wrote:
> And speaking of Solaris features...
> 
> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 19:13:32 +0100 , Matthew Seaman wrote:
>> This sort of operation is something that ZFS boot environment support
>> (recently committed to HEAD, due for MFC within the month) makes much,
>> much safer and easier to deal with.  You don't need to do a separate
>> reboot to test the kernel as you've still got an entire kernel+world in
>> the previous BE to fall back on.
> 
> This is *awesome*. /me removes yet another item from the "reasons to use
> Solaris" list. I cannot wait to try this out.
> 

ZFS Boot Environments are supported even without the HEAD changes.

Some ports/scripts to assist:

beadm Solaris-like script:
sysutils/beadm (see http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=31662)

Another:
manageBE (http://anonsvn.h3q.com/projects/freebsd-patches/wiki/manageBE)

Regards,
Bryan Drewery
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Chris Nehren | 3 Jun 2012 21:25

Re: Solaris features in FreeBSD

On Sun, Jun 03, 2012 at 09:56:00 -0500 , Bryan Drewery wrote:
> ZFS Boot Environments are supported even without the HEAD changes.
> 
> Some ports/scripts to assist:
> 
> beadm Solaris-like script:
> sysutils/beadm (see http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=31662)
> 
> Another:
> manageBE (http://anonsvn.h3q.com/projects/freebsd-patches/wiki/manageBE)

Ooh, very cool. This makes me wonder how the work in HEAD compares to
the existing tools and whether it's derived from it. Shall have to look.
Too many cool things to research, not enough hours in the day.

--

-- 
Thanks and best regards,
Chris Nehren
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Andriy Gapon | 3 Jun 2012 23:21
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Re: Solaris features in FreeBSD

on 03/06/2012 17:56 Bryan Drewery said the following:
> 
> 
> On 5/31/2012 3:45 PM, Chris Nehren wrote:
>> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 17:20:04 +0200 , Oliver Fromme wrote: And
>> speaking of Solaris features...
> 
>> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 19:13:32 +0100 , Matthew Seaman wrote:
>>> This sort of operation is something that ZFS boot environment support 
>>> (recently committed to HEAD, due for MFC within the month) makes much, 
>>> much safer and easier to deal with.  You don't need to do a separate 
>>> reboot to test the kernel as you've still got an entire kernel+world
>>> in the previous BE to fall back on.
> 
>> This is *awesome*. /me removes yet another item from the "reasons to use 
>> Solaris" list. I cannot wait to try this out.
> 
> 
> ZFS Boot Environments are supported even without the HEAD changes.
> 
> Some ports/scripts to assist:
> 
> beadm Solaris-like script: sysutils/beadm (see
> http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=31662)
> 
> Another: manageBE
> (http://anonsvn.h3q.com/projects/freebsd-patches/wiki/manageBE)

Let's avoid confusion here.
(Continue reading)

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Damien Fleuriot | 1 Jun 2012 10:16

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 5/31/12 8:13 PM, Matthew Seaman wrote:
> On 31/05/2012 16:41, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>> You missed the bit about 3 reboots, while these don't take 15 mins each,
>> they're still time consuming and disruptive.
>> 1/ reboot after installing new kernel
>> 2/ reboot after installing new world
>> 3/ reboot after rebuilding ports
> 
> If you rebuilt the ports first, then you'ld only have two reboots.
> 
> Also, while the cautious approach detailed in /usr/src/UPDATING is never
> wrong, much of the time you can do the upgrade perfectly well by
> installing world+kernel together and just rebooting once.  Obviously
> this is not a good idea if your machines are in a datacenter many miles
> away and you don't have console-equivalent access or if you're upgrading
> over a large delta in versions, or you're making major changes to the
> kernel config.
> 
> This sort of operation is something that ZFS boot environment support
> (recently committed to HEAD, due for MFC within the month) makes much,
> much safer and easier to deal with.  You don't need to do a separate
> reboot to test the kernel as you've still got an entire kernel+world in
> the previous BE to fall back on.
> 
> 	Cheers,
> 
> 	Matthew
>
(Continue reading)

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Matthew Seaman | 1 Jun 2012 11:15
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 01/06/2012 09:16, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> The reason I rebuild the ports last is because, unless I'm wrong, any
> port that's statically linked to a system library would be linked to the
> old library from the old world.

Uh -- if it's statically linked, then the object code is copied from the
library into the executable image.  There's no dependency between the
static library and the executable once the executable has been produced.

However, ports very rarely use static linkage, and even more rarely use
static linkage against system libraries.  Even if the system library did
change, that wouldn't trigger a rebuild of the port, as there's no
version number to trigger it.  You could, I suppose, rebuild every port
for every system update, but this would be a huge waste of time and CPU
power.

There have been occasions where eg. there has been a security update to
one of the OpenSSL libraries in base, and the security advisory has
recommended rebuilding statically linked binaries, but that only
happened once in about 10 years.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

--

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey
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Katinka | 1 Jun 2012 12:19

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

There's a nice discussion going on, over at Phoronix. 
<http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?71263>
For some reason, they don't seem to like us very much.

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Adam Strohl | 1 Jun 2012 13:01
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 6/1/2012 17:19, Katinka wrote:
> There's a nice discussion going on, over at Phoronix. 
> <http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?71263>
> For some reason, they don't seem to like us very much. 

Lots of the comments remind me about Linux vs. Windows in the late 90s, 
and taken with a grain of salt are fairly amusing because of how 
ignorant a lot of them are.

I found this particularly fitting comment at the very end:

"If you'd ask me for the biggest difference between Linux and BSD users: 
We know all about Linux - They know nothing about BSD. "

Which is sad really, their lives could be so much easier if only they 
knew how much better it could be ;D  (My opinion of course, I'm sure 
lots of people think Windows Server administration is easier than any 
UNIX -- just not on this list).  To each their own, and arguing about it 
is counter-productive.

I do think that forum post underscores the need for advocacy though -- 
we need to get the message out as to why FreeBSD is better than any OS 
in a lot of applications (which is different than arguing it out on 
Linux forums).  We need them to try it out and expose them to the things 
that make it great so they see it first hand.  Because it is clear most 
of these posters are very ignorant about FreeBSD -- that's really "our" 
collective fault.

Trolls and fanbois aside there is probably a huge number of Linux admins 
out there who just use it "because that is what they use" .. in the same
(Continue reading)

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Jason Leschnik | 1 Jun 2012 13:03
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

I think this iterates my point on the Forums.. To gain critical mass
FreeBSD needs to start showing some benchmarks and numbers to back up
the advocacy claims. I think this will also give the dev team
technical direction to get back into grind of tweaking for performance
and not just features.

I may be totally incorrect with my above ideas, but it's what i would
like to see from FreeBSD *again*... This is the reason in the first
place most people used FreeBSD, stability/scalability/performance are
the hallmarks of FreeBSD. If we have these hard hitting numbers
released frequently it gives the dev team a good indication of how
changes reflect on performance.

I would be willing to help with benchmarking.

Thanks.

On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 8:19 PM, Katinka <katinka <at> lavabit.com> wrote:
> There's a nice discussion going on, over at Phoronix.
> <http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?71263>
> For some reason, they don't seem to like us very much.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable <at> freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe <at> freebsd.org"
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Adam Strohl | 1 Jun 2012 13:09
Favicon

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 6/1/2012 18:03, Jason Leschnik wrote:
> I may be totally incorrect with my above ideas, but it's what i would
> like to see from FreeBSD *again*... This is the reason in the first
> place most people used FreeBSD, stability/scalability/performance are
> the hallmarks of FreeBSD. If we have these hard hitting numbers
> released frequently it gives the dev team a good indication of how
> changes reflect on performance.

This is a good point and the kind of stuff that would make a, for 
example, great Slashdot post once finished.

Of course there would be arguments but I think it would be good 
exposure.  It certainly would be nice to have a place to point to these 
things vs. just saying "its more better and stabler", too.  And if its 
not at least its acknowledged so it can be fixed.

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Daniel Kalchev | 1 Jun 2012 13:39
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 01.06.12 13:19, Katinka wrote:
> There's a nice discussion going on, over at Phoronix. 
> <http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?71263>
> For some reason, they don't seem to like us very much.
>

Do we really care?

The number of really bright people, or even people who are able to 
reasonably comprehend and understand things is very, very small and more 
or less constant over the years. The "rest" will always be more and 
there is really no point to convince them opf anything. Evangelizing 
those ignorant people to FreeBSD is just creating new (FreeBSD) 
religion, which is not what the bright minds are concerned. Attract the 
masses and you will definitely lose the leaders.

Instead, lead by example. Showcase. Demonstrate how superior FreeBSD is 
because the people who keep it going are not interested to be the Jack 
of All Trades (and master of none). Showcase implementations that are 
hard to do with any other OS.

Don't even complete on benchmarks. This is one thing I learned years ago 
working closely with Cisco: your competitor could always outspec you or 
win the benchmark, with system specifically designed for the task. Or 
tuned to the task. Just like with Linux.

This is not to say we should ignore opportunities to improve FreeBSD. 
Just don't slip for the popularity vote and stay within the framework 
and principles (even when you are seemingly outpaced) that made FreeBSD
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Thomas Steen Rasmussen | 1 Jun 2012 14:30
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 01-06-2012 13:39, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
>
> Instead, lead by example. Showcase. Demonstrate how superior FreeBSD
> is because the people who keep it going are not interested to be the
> Jack of All Trades (and master of none). Showcase implementations that
> are hard to do with any other OS.

This.

When we (the Danish BSD usergroup BSD-DK) go to opensource
conferences we always have running FreeBSD systems in our
booth doing live demos of what FreeBSD can do. This is fun for
us and very popular with visitors.

- 2010 was pf-pfsync-carp failover firewalls. People get
impressed when you pull the plug on one node and stuff keeps
running.

- 2011 was a HAST/ZFS failover system with a virtualbox VM
running on the shared storage. Again, pulling the plug on
one node and showing that the VM keeps running has a big
'wow-factor'.

- 2012 was the 'year of the jail' for us. We demonstrated
jail management with ezjail, recursive jails, ressource
control with rctl and lots more.

All these have been major successes in the sense that people
are impressed, grab a cd and go home to try it out. We often
hear that people didn't know that FreeBSD was capable of this
(Continue reading)

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Fritz Wuehler | 1 Jun 2012 20:15

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

> There's a nice discussion going on, over at Phoronix. 
> <http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?71263>
> For some reason, they don't seem to like us very much.

ALL of the PC performance weenies run Windows. They're totally stupid when
it comes to software and all they care about is the Windows benchmarking
apps and how many FPS they can get out of their new whizbang graphics
card. And they're just as zealous about Windows as Linux lemmings are about
Linux or GPL fanbois are about Stallman and the FSF. Really, they're
overglorified game appliance users. Is it any wonder they bash every OS that
doesn't let them play video games?

You can't discuss software or the OS rationally with 99.9% of overclockers. 
Once you realize how much they know about software is inversely proportional
to how much they (think) they know about hardware, all these articles and
discussions cease to become relevant.

PLONK!!!

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Daniel Kalchev | 1 Jun 2012 08:54
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 31.05.12 18:41, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> You missed the bit about 3 reboots, while these don't take 15 mins each,
> they're still time consuming and disruptive.
> 1/ reboot after installing new kernel
> 2/ reboot after installing new world
> 3/ reboot after rebuilding ports

About the only time I ever do that is when moving from very distant 
versions, like from 6.4 to 9.0...

Upgrading from say, 8-stable from year ago, to today's 8-stable usually 
requires just one reboot: rebuild world, kernel, reinstall kernel, 
world, update configuration files, rebuild ports, reboot.
There are many cases where I do rebuild/reinstall kernel and world but 
do not reboot for one reason or other. Cases, where the kernel is 
incompatible with userspace are extremely rare and typically documented.

So yes, for example during port rebuild there might be glitches with 
services. You are better to shut down these services that will be 
affected, like web server. (Although usually say, apache would load all 
modules at startup time and replacing them under its feet will only be 
noticed after it is restarted). Most of the time however is spent just 
compiling... and unless your server is really underpowered or overloaded 
it does not impact anything. This again, is especially true for the OS. 
I wish ports could be rebuilt and reinstalled on a single step like FreeBSD.

In any case, if you have 'server farms', or like you said firewalls with 
CARP etc, you can usually shut down any of the members for as long as 
necessary and not impact any services. If you rebuild things on
(Continue reading)

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Damien Fleuriot | 1 Jun 2012 10:19

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 6/1/12 8:54 AM, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> 
> 
> On 31.05.12 18:41, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>> You missed the bit about 3 reboots, while these don't take 15 mins each,
>> they're still time consuming and disruptive.
>> 1/ reboot after installing new kernel
>> 2/ reboot after installing new world
>> 3/ reboot after rebuilding ports
> 
> About the only time I ever do that is when moving from very distant
> versions, like from 6.4 to 9.0...
> 
> Upgrading from say, 8-stable from year ago, to today's 8-stable usually
> requires just one reboot: rebuild world, kernel, reinstall kernel,
> world, update configuration files, rebuild ports, reboot.
> There are many cases where I do rebuild/reinstall kernel and world but
> do not reboot for one reason or other. Cases, where the kernel is
> incompatible with userspace are extremely rare and typically documented.
> 
> So yes, for example during port rebuild there might be glitches with
> services. You are better to shut down these services that will be
> affected, like web server. (Although usually say, apache would load all
> modules at startup time and replacing them under its feet will only be
> noticed after it is restarted). Most of the time however is spent just
> compiling... and unless your server is really underpowered or overloaded
> it does not impact anything. This again, is especially true for the OS.
> I wish ports could be rebuilt and reinstalled on a single step like
> FreeBSD.
>
(Continue reading)

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Oliver Fromme | 31 May 2012 17:20
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

David Chisnall wrote:
 > I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material
 > (which advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before
 > I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
 > FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about
 > FreeBSD, which would you pick?

I agree with what many others already wrote:  Ports, ZFS,
stability, consistency, ...

But there's one thing that hasn't been mentioned so far,
I think:  jails.  The jails feature was the most important
reason why one of our largest customers chose FreeBSD for
its server farm instead of Linux.  I also use this feature
quite a lot on my own boxes to easily confine services and
applications into sandboxes, without having to use a full-
blown virtualization system with all of its disadvantages.

I also like the fact that there's a manual page for pretty
much *everything*.  If you come across an unknown system
binary, configuration file, library function, system call
or whatever, typing "man <name>" is almost guaranteed to
enlighten you.

Another thing worth mentioning is the FreeBSD policy that
any change should try hard not to violate "POLA", i.e. the
"principle of least astonishment".  This improves users
experience a lot.

And finally, I like the way FreeBSD enables you to perform
(Continue reading)

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Per olof Ljungmark | 31 May 2012 18:46
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Favicon

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 05/30/12 20:20, David Chisnall wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm
> sending it to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish
> number of users.
>
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material
> (which advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before
> I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
> FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about
> FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when you first
> started using it?

Without going into detail,BSD has served our company extremely well for 
over fifteen years for all server purposes we need. File server, mail, 
MX, web, routing/firewalls you name it. Never let us down, the stability 
is just out of this world, the docs are excellent and the people great.

So,

1. Stability
2. Ease of upgrades
3. The community and developers

A big thank you to all that keeps us running!

//per
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Luiz Eduardo Roncato Cordeiro | 31 May 2012 23:44
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Favicon

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Because I really like it! ;-)

I've been using FreeBSD since the RELEASE-1.0(.5)?, as far as I remember...

But, the first BSD I had installed was a 386BSD, on a old 386 computer. 
Yeah! Version 0.0 or 0.1... God! I'm getting old!

Cordeiro

Em quarta-feira, 30 de maio de 2012, às 19:20:31, David Chisnall escreveu:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it
> to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish number of users.
> 
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which
> advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before I do I'd
> like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
> you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would
> you pick?  Are they the same as when you first started using it?
> 
> David_______________________________________________
> freebsd-stable <at> freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe <at> freebsd.org"
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Erich Dollansky | 2 Jun 2012 04:56
Favicon

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 30 May 2012 PM 7:20:31 David Chisnall wrote:
> 
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.  
> 
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?  
> 

I must say that it is a long time ago when I sat at the first BSD machine. The most important feature is the
configuration and the update procedure. Things rarely change in a way that users have to relearn.

It is also important that it is possible to use a machine and upgrade it only every six or twelve months
without facing fundamental problems. What helps there that the user can define a branch (8.x or 9.x) and
stick with it as long it is supported. The users are not forced to move to the next version which might
introduces some changes the user is not used to it.

This allows users to skip one main branch. While it is possible to stick with 8 until 10 is released, it is also
possible to move to 9 or even 10. Sticking with 8 reduces the risk to get caught with some problems during the
upgrade by some 50%

But I have to mention one disadvantage. The ports are in no way linked to the releases. This leads to
situations in which a small change in a basic library will result in a complete update of the installed
ports. I expressed this already many time here. It would be of advantage if the ports tree would also have
tags like the base system itself.
(Continue reading)

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Chris Rees | 2 Jun 2012 10:14
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Jun 2, 2012 4:04 AM, "Erich Dollansky" <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com>
wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 30 May 2012 PM 7:20:31 David Chisnall wrote:
> >
> > This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending
it to this list in the hope that it will reach a largish number of users.
> >
> > I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which
advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before I do I'd
like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would
you pick?  Are they the same as when you first started using it?
> >
>
> I must say that it is a long time ago when I sat at the first BSD
machine. The most important feature is the configuration and the update
procedure. Things rarely change in a way that users have to relearn.
>
> It is also important that it is possible to use a machine and upgrade it
only every six or twelve months without facing fundamental problems. What
helps there that the user can define a branch (8.x or 9.x) and stick with
it as long it is supported. The users are not forced to move to the next
version which might introduces some changes the user is not used to it.
>
> This allows users to skip one main branch. While it is possible to stick
with 8 until 10 is released, it is also possible to move to 9 or even 10.
Sticking with 8 reduces the risk to get caught with some problems during
(Continue reading)

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Erich Dollansky | 2 Jun 2012 11:42
Favicon

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 AM 9:14:28 Chris Rees wrote:
> On Jun 2, 2012 4:04 AM, "Erich Dollansky" <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > But I have to mention one disadvantage. The ports are in no way linked to
> the releases. This leads to situations in which a small change in a basic
> library will result in a complete update of the installed ports. I
> expressed this already many time here. It would be of advantage if the
> ports tree would also have tags like the base system itself.
> >
> 
> Unfortunately this is a massive amount of extra work - we only just keep up
> with updates as it is.

I do not think so. At least not for the first step as I see it. Just make snapshots of the ports tree when the
release comes out. These snapshots are with the releases anyway.

What I did was very simple. I got the ports tree that comes with the release and installed the system back to
the release status. Ok, it was some work for me - maybe not for others - to find this tree.

A simple link could help here.

I do not know if this is just an opinion which is too optimistic.

What I know is that all the security fixes which appeared since the release are not in there. If I have the
choice between three days or more of compiling and known security holes, I will take the security holes,
make the client happy and upgrade after the work for the client is finished.
(Continue reading)

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Daniel Kalchev | 2 Jun 2012 13:53
Picon

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 02.06.12 12:42, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> On 02 June 2012 AM 9:14:28 Chris Rees wrote:
>> On Jun 2, 2012 4:04 AM, "Erich Dollansky"<erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com>
>> wrote:
>>> But I have to mention one disadvantage. The ports are in no way linked to
>> the releases. This leads to situations in which a small change in a basic
>> library will result in a complete update of the installed ports. I
>> expressed this already many time here. It would be of advantage if the
>> ports tree would also have tags like the base system itself.
>> Unfortunately this is a massive amount of extra work - we only just keep up
>> with updates as it is.
> I do not think so. At least not for the first step as I see it. Just make snapshots of the ports tree when the
release comes out. These snapshots are with the releases anyway.
>
> What I did was very simple. I got the ports tree that comes with the release and installed the system back to
the release status. Ok, it was some work for me - maybe not for others - to find this tree.
>
> A simple link could help here.
>
> I do not know if this is just an opinion which is too optimistic.
>

But this functionality is already here. As I mentioned earlier, FreeBSD 
is not an end-user product, but rather a software platform and a kit 
that you can use to assemble pretty much what you can imagine.

Here is one example, how to handle the 'port problem'. The example is 
with BSDRP: http://bsdrp.net/
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 2 Jun 2012 14:32

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 PM 2:53:48 Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> 

> You don't have to use the (arguable old) 'release' ports tree. Ports get 
> fixed/adapted for the new version usually months after release.
> 
I think we are talking here about two totally different problems. Your hint with sysinstall would do the
same when the CD is available.

Very, very simple and only for things went wrong.

You are thinking of a much more complex solution.

I know that the ports tree is a moving target. But it stops moving during the release period. This could be
used to give a fall back solution.

Or do I see this really too simple?

Erich
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Daniel Kalchev | 2 Jun 2012 14:47
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?


On 02.06.12 15:32, Erich wrote:
> I know that the ports tree is a moving target. But it stops moving during the release period. This could be
used to give a fall back solution.
>
> Or do I see this really too simple?

The ports tree is a moving target during release periods still, although 
there are efforts to make movements smaller. This is why, after a 
release it suddenly moves more :)

Daniel
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O. Hartmann | 2 Jun 2012 16:18
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Picon
Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 06/02/12 14:47, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> 
> 
> On 02.06.12 15:32, Erich wrote:
>> I know that the ports tree is a moving target. But it stops moving
>> during the release period. This could be used to give a fall back
>> solution.
>>
>> Or do I see this really too simple?
> 
> The ports tree is a moving target during release periods still, although
> there are efforts to make movements smaller. This is why, after a
> release it suddenly moves more :)
> 
> Daniel

Even IF the ports tree IS a moving target, updating of UPDATING, for
instance, follows most times AFTER the critical ports has been
changed/updated and folks started updating their ports without realizing
that they have shot themselfs into the foot!

Since I'm with FreeBSD, StarOffice, OpenOffice and even now LibreOffice
is a MESS! If you need to keep up with STABLE, in most cases due to
modern hardware (*), binary packages are NOT provided or if so, they
won't work due to some incompatibilities.
I witnessed those cases several times and at this moment, our four
remaining FreeBSD servers and my personal desktop as well as my private
box are rendered "unusable" in terms of having no LibreOffice since it
doesn't compile anymore on FreeBSD 9-STABLE/amd64 and 10-CURRENT/amd64.
At the moment, this mess is introduced with a new PNG library. And we
(Continue reading)

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Pedro Giffuni | 2 Jun 2012 19:28
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Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


--- Sab 2/6/12, O. Hartmann <ohartman <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de> ha scritto:

> 
> Since I'm with FreeBSD, StarOffice, OpenOffice and even now
> LibreOffice is a MESS! ...

Can you be more specific about what is wrong with
Apache OpenOffice?

best regards,

Pedro.

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Chris Rees | 2 Jun 2012 19:31
Picon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Jun 2, 2012 3:19 PM, "O. Hartmann" <ohartman <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>
> On 06/02/12 14:47, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 02.06.12 15:32, Erich wrote:
> >> I know that the ports tree is a moving target. But it stops moving
> >> during the release period. This could be used to give a fall back
> >> solution.
> >>
> >> Or do I see this really too simple?
> >
> > The ports tree is a moving target during release periods still, although
> > there are efforts to make movements smaller. This is why, after a
> > release it suddenly moves more :)
> >
> > Daniel
>
> Even IF the ports tree IS a moving target, updating of UPDATING, for
> instance, follows most times AFTER the critical ports has been
> changed/updated and folks started updating their ports without realizing
> that they have shot themselfs into the foot!
>

Not reading UPDATING until there are problems is not the fault of the ports
tree; it should be checked every time you update.

Of course, many of us forget, but that still doesn't make it anyone else's
problem when we do!
(Continue reading)

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Paul Mather | 2 Jun 2012 20:11
Picon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Jun 2, 2012, at 1:31 PM, Chris Rees wrote:

> On Jun 2, 2012 3:19 PM, "O. Hartmann" <ohartman <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>> 
>> On 06/02/12 14:47, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 02.06.12 15:32, Erich wrote:
>>>> I know that the ports tree is a moving target. But it stops moving
>>>> during the release period. This could be used to give a fall back
>>>> solution.
>>>> 
>>>> Or do I see this really too simple?
>>> 
>>> The ports tree is a moving target during release periods still, although
>>> there are efforts to make movements smaller. This is why, after a
>>> release it suddenly moves more :)
>>> 
>>> Daniel
>> 
>> Even IF the ports tree IS a moving target, updating of UPDATING, for
>> instance, follows most times AFTER the critical ports has been
>> changed/updated and folks started updating their ports without realizing
>> that they have shot themselfs into the foot!
>> 
> 
> Not reading UPDATING until there are problems is not the fault of the ports
> tree; it should be checked every time you update.
> 
> Of course, many of us forget, but that still doesn't make it anyone else's
(Continue reading)

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Chris Nehren | 2 Jun 2012 20:56

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Sat, Jun 02, 2012 at 14:11:06 -0400 , Paul Mather wrote:
> I'm not sure what the solution is for the end user.  I know I get
> somewhat leery of updating my ports if I see a large number of changes
> coming via portsnap (like the 4000+ that accompanied the recent libpng
> upgrade) and there is nothing new in UPDATING (which, happily wasn't
> the case with the libpng upgrade).  Usually, I wait a while for the
> dust to clear and an UPDATING entry potentially to appear.

If you're concerned about things breaking, don't follow the bleeding
edge. This seems to be common sense.

> Maybe the solution is to track the freebsd-ports mailing list get get
> advanced warning of large changes, but that would mean following
> another high-volume list. :-(

And any decent mailer setup can filter those messages for you, leaving
only the messages relevant to ports you're interested in. There are also
systems like gmane which provide an NNTP feed for mailing lists.
Combined with a newsreader with good killfile / scoring features, it
shouldn't be hard to keep up.

--

-- 
Thanks and best regards,
Chris Nehren
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Erich | 3 Jun 2012 06:22

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 PM 2:56:01 Chris Nehren wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 02, 2012 at 14:11:06 -0400 , Paul Mather wrote:
> > I'm not sure what the solution is for the end user.  I know I get
> > somewhat leery of updating my ports if I see a large number of changes
> > coming via portsnap (like the 4000+ that accompanied the recent libpng
> > upgrade) and there is nothing new in UPDATING (which, happily wasn't
> > the case with the libpng upgrade).  Usually, I wait a while for the
> > dust to clear and an UPDATING entry potentially to appear.
> 
> If you're concerned about things breaking, don't follow the bleeding
> edge. This seems to be common sense.

is there a second version of the ports tree available?

What is the response of the list if you want to install a new package with you old ports tree?

Erich
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Chris Rees | 3 Jun 2012 10:15
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Jun 3, 2012 5:26 AM, "Erich" <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 02 June 2012 PM 2:56:01 Chris Nehren wrote:
> > On Sat, Jun 02, 2012 at 14:11:06 -0400 , Paul Mather wrote:
> > > I'm not sure what the solution is for the end user.  I know I get
> > > somewhat leery of updating my ports if I see a large number of changes
> > > coming via portsnap (like the 4000+ that accompanied the recent libpng
> > > upgrade) and there is nothing new in UPDATING (which, happily wasn't
> > > the case with the libpng upgrade).  Usually, I wait a while for the
> > > dust to clear and an UPDATING entry potentially to appear.
> >
> > If you're concerned about things breaking, don't follow the bleeding
> > edge. This seems to be common sense.
>
> is there a second version of the ports tree available?
>
> What is the response of the list if you want to install a new package
with you old ports tree?
>

The response is "Don't ask for support if you do that", I'm afraid.

No major OS I can think of allows you to mix and match like that (though I
could be wrong).

Chris
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Erich | 3 Jun 2012 14:43

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 AM 9:15:14 Chris Rees wrote:
> On Jun 3, 2012 5:26 AM, "Erich" <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > On 02 June 2012 PM 2:56:01 Chris Nehren wrote:
> > > On Sat, Jun 02, 2012 at 14:11:06 -0400 , Paul Mather wrote:
> > > > I'm not sure what the solution is for the end user.  I know I get
> > > > somewhat leery of updating my ports if I see a large number of changes
> > > > coming via portsnap (like the 4000+ that accompanied the recent libpng
> > > > upgrade) and there is nothing new in UPDATING (which, happily wasn't
> > > > the case with the libpng upgrade).  Usually, I wait a while for the
> > > > dust to clear and an UPDATING entry potentially to appear.
> > >
> > > If you're concerned about things breaking, don't follow the bleeding
> > > edge. This seems to be common sense.
> >
> > is there a second version of the ports tree available?
> >
> > What is the response of the list if you want to install a new package
> with you old ports tree?
> >
> 
> The response is "Don't ask for support if you do that", I'm afraid.
> 
> No major OS I can think of allows you to mix and match like that (though I
> could be wrong).
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Doug Barton | 4 Jun 2012 00:19
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 06/03/2012 05:43, Erich wrote:
> it is new to me that Microsoft asks for a Windows update when a new
> Office version appears at the scene.

Actually it's very common for Windows applications to specify a minimum
OS service pack level. To stretch the analogy a bit, you're also not
going to find any modern Windows application that will run on Windows
98, for example.

> Microsoft also does not ask to update all other applications before
> the latest Office can be installed.

I commonly get prompted to update the .Net I have installed, and/or to
install a newer version altogether when installing the latest and
greatest Windows applications.

As with all things computery, your mileage may vary.

Doug

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Erich | 4 Jun 2012 02:49

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 3:19:14 Doug Barton wrote:
> On 06/03/2012 05:43, Erich wrote:
> > it is new to me that Microsoft asks for a Windows update when a new
> > Office version appears at the scene.
> 
> Actually it's very common for Windows applications to specify a minimum
> OS service pack level. To stretch the analogy a bit, you're also not
> going to find any modern Windows application that will run on Windows
> 98, for example.
> 
can you still install the ports tree and its applications on a FreeBSD 4.4?

> > Microsoft also does not ask to update all other applications before
> > the latest Office can be installed.
> 
> I commonly get prompted to update the .Net I have installed, and/or to
> install a newer version altogether when installing the latest and
> greatest Windows applications.
> 
I am not one of the unlucky Windows users. I only see many XP machines at the client side running the latest
Office applications.

By the concept of FreeBSD, .Net can be compare with Mono and is as such in the ports tree.

> As with all things computery, your mileage may vary.

Especially with low octane fuel.
(Continue reading)

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Mark Andrews | 4 Jun 2012 03:21

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


In message <7199276.kar7U8DLF4 <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> Hi,
> 
> On 03 June 2012 PM 3:19:14 Doug Barton wrote:
> > On 06/03/2012 05:43, Erich wrote:
> > > it is new to me that Microsoft asks for a Windows update when a new
> > > Office version appears at the scene.
> > 
> > Actually it's very common for Windows applications to specify a minimum
> > OS service pack level. To stretch the analogy a bit, you're also not
> > going to find any modern Windows application that will run on Windows
> > 98, for example.
> > 
> can you still install the ports tree and its applications on a FreeBSD 4.4?

The ports system was deliberately broken once support for FreeBSD
4.x was dropped.  You need a more up-to-date make than that which
ships with FreeBSD 4.x and some other tools to be upgraded all of
which were in FreeBSD 5.x.

If someone had added a compatible make to ports and a couple of
other tools used by the ports sub-system itself, those that wanted
to continue using FreeBSD 4.x with ports could of.  Instead the
whole ports framework was updated to use incompatible Makefiles and
tools without providing the necessary tools.  It's not like make
from FreeBSD 5.x or even FreeBSD 8.x doesn't compile on FreeBSD
4.x.

Mark
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Mark Linimon | 4 Jun 2012 07:19

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Mon, Jun 04, 2012 at 07:49:02AM +0700, Erich wrote:
> can you still install the ports tree and its applications on a FreeBSD 4.4?

No.  When 4.11 finally went EOL on 01/31/2007 we removed all the compatiblity
code, because by that time supporting both was increasing the maintenance
burden on our port maintainers (probably in the range of 25%-50%).  This
was due to how much that the src and ports infrastructure had changed
between 4.X and 5.X: different patches had to be kept for each branch, for
instance.  (This has been much less the case since then; 5.X had some very
disruptive changes.)

FWIW, according to my research, 4.4 was released 09/19/2001 and probably
went EOL sometime in 2003:

  http://people.freebsd.org/~linimon/schedule/milestones.html

The current status is that we support 8.x and 9.x well.  Ports support
for 7.x is starting to fade over time as new upstream releases rely
on newer APIs.  6.x went EOL 11/30/2010 and we no longer claim to
support it in ports.

> I only see many XP machines at the client side running the latest
> Office applications.

Not to disagree that this is possible, but my own experience (with
Quicken) is that I was finally forced to move off 2K/XP to be able to
continue running their software the way I expect to run it.  Without
doing any research to back up my claims, I think 2K is from the same
timeframe as 4.4.
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Oliver Fromme | 5 Jun 2012 16:52
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Mark Linimon <linimon <at> lonesome.com> wrote:
 > The current status is that we support 8.x and 9.x well.  Ports support
 > for 7.x is starting to fade over time as new upstream releases rely
 > on newer APIs.  6.x went EOL 11/30/2010 and we no longer claim to
 > support it in ports.

FWIW ...  In fact, I can confirm that the ports don't support
6.x anymore since last week.  :-)

# cd /usr/ports/dns/bind96
# make
No closing parenthesis in archive specification
"/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.options.mk", line 177: Error in archive specification: "WITH_"
No closing parenthesis in archive specification
"/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.options.mk", line 177: Error in archive specification: "WITH_"
make: fatal errors encountered -- cannot continue

Best regards
   Oliver

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Mark Andrews | 4 Jun 2012 01:30

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


In message <2156532.vx6SHRoqL8 <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> Hi,
> 
> On 03 June 2012 AM 9:15:14 Chris Rees wrote:
> > On Jun 3, 2012 5:26 AM, "Erich" <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > On 02 June 2012 PM 2:56:01 Chris Nehren wrote:
> > > > On Sat, Jun 02, 2012 at 14:11:06 -0400 , Paul Mather wrote:
> > > > > I'm not sure what the solution is for the end user.  I know I get
> > > > > somewhat leery of updating my ports if I see a large number of change
> s
> > > > > coming via portsnap (like the 4000+ that accompanied the recent libpn
> g
> > > > > upgrade) and there is nothing new in UPDATING (which, happily wasn't
> > > > > the case with the libpng upgrade).  Usually, I wait a while for the
> > > > > dust to clear and an UPDATING entry potentially to appear.
> > > >
> > > > If you're concerned about things breaking, don't follow the bleeding
> > > > edge. This seems to be common sense.
> > >
> > > is there a second version of the ports tree available?
> > >
> > > What is the response of the list if you want to install a new package
> > with you old ports tree?
> > >
> > 
> > The response is "Don't ask for support if you do that", I'm afraid.
(Continue reading)

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Matthew Seaman | 4 Jun 2012 08:17
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Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 04/06/2012 00:30, Mark Andrews wrote:
> The ports system defaults are to use a common build/runtime tree
> but at the cost of a little more disk space each major application
> could have its own build/runtime tree.  This is a tradeoff.  Most
> of the time having a shared set of libraries is a win, but just
> occasionally, it is a big pain.

That's PC-BSD .pbi format in a nutshell.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

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Paul Mather | 4 Jun 2012 00:32
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Jun 2, 2012, at 2:56 PM, Chris Nehren wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 02, 2012 at 14:11:06 -0400 , Paul Mather wrote:
>> I'm not sure what the solution is for the end user.  I know I get
>> somewhat leery of updating my ports if I see a large number of changes
>> coming via portsnap (like the 4000+ that accompanied the recent libpng
>> upgrade) and there is nothing new in UPDATING (which, happily wasn't
>> the case with the libpng upgrade).  Usually, I wait a while for the
>> dust to clear and an UPDATING entry potentially to appear.
> 
> If you're concerned about things breaking, don't follow the bleeding
> edge. This seems to be common sense.

Unfortunately, unlike the base operating system, which has -CURRENT, -STABLE, and -RELEASE, there is no
well-defined "bleeding edge" in the case of ports.  (Although there is a strong case to be made that it is
analogous to -CURRENT.)  So, as I said above, you have to fall back on heuristics to determine when it is best
to update (with the caveat that waiting too long to update can also be as troublesome as updating too
quickly).  Certainly, it's far from a case of "read UPDATING and you'll be okay," as someone in this thread
was seeming to imply.

NetBSD's pkgsrc has a nice feature: the quarterly package branches.  These follow a quarterly release
cycle and receive only security updates.  It makes pkgsrc more akin to -CURRENT and -STABLE (or -RELEASE)
instead of just -CURRENT.

>> Maybe the solution is to track the freebsd-ports mailing list get get
>> advanced warning of large changes, but that would mean following
>> another high-volume list. :-(
> 
> And any decent mailer setup can filter those messages for you, leaving
> only the messages relevant to ports you're interested in. There are also
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Kurt Jaeger | 2 Jun 2012 21:50
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi!

> The point he made was actually not a matter of people not reading
> UPDATING but that UPDATING is oftentimes not updated until after
> the disruptive/potentially dangerous change has already hit the
> ports tree.
> 
> I'm not sure what the solution is for the end user.

We have our reference hosts, do daily portupgrades and on those days
where all looks fine, pkg_create the whole collection and pkg_delete/pkg_add
to production hosts.

Still not perfect, but 'good enough'.

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Erich | 3 Jun 2012 06:24

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 PM 9:50:22 Kurt Jaeger wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > The point he made was actually not a matter of people not reading
> > UPDATING but that UPDATING is oftentimes not updated until after
> > the disruptive/potentially dangerous change has already hit the
> > ports tree.
> > 
> > I'm not sure what the solution is for the end user.
> 
> We have our reference hosts, do daily portupgrades and on those days
> where all looks fine, pkg_create the whole collection and pkg_delete/pkg_add
> to production hosts.
> 
> Still not perfect, but 'good enough'.
> 
> 
isn't this what I just suggested to be done by the team? Give the ports tree a new version number and people can
fall back to this then.

Isn't this solution too simple to be done?

Erich
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Mehmet Erol Sanliturk | 3 Jun 2012 12:07
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 9:24 PM, Erich <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 02 June 2012 PM 9:50:22 Kurt Jaeger wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > > The point he made was actually not a matter of people not reading
> > > UPDATING but that UPDATING is oftentimes not updated until after
> > > the disruptive/potentially dangerous change has already hit the
> > > ports tree.
> > >
> > > I'm not sure what the solution is for the end user.
> >
> > We have our reference hosts, do daily portupgrades and on those days
> > where all looks fine, pkg_create the whole collection and
> pkg_delete/pkg_add
> > to production hosts.
> >
> > Still not perfect, but 'good enough'.
> >
> >
> isn't this what I just suggested to be done by the team? Give the ports
> tree a new version number and people can fall back to this then.
>
> Isn't this solution too simple to be done?
>
> Erich
>
(Continue reading)

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Daniel Kalchev | 4 Jun 2012 12:09
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 03.06.12 07:24, Erich wrote:
>
> isn't this what I just suggested to be done by the team? Give the ports tree a new version number and people
can fall back to this then.
>
> Isn't this solution too simple to be done?

As was mentioned earlier in this discussion, by virtue of the ports tree 
being hosted on CVS, you are able to get a version of the ports there at 
any date you chose. Just set

PORTS_DATE="date=2012.06.01.00.00.00"

to get the ports tree as it was on midnight 1st of June 2012. You can 
specify hours, minutes, seconds if you need. Way more powerful than any 
"version number" thing.

As you can see, this is already available with FreeBSD. A lot more 
"hidden gems" are available with FreeBSD. People are just lazy and for 
the most part, refuse to learn. This is one aspect FreeBSD could benefit 
greatly from more education of the 'users' -- just because it has way 
more hidden gems than anything else around.

Daniel
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C. P. Ghost | 4 Jun 2012 12:23
Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 12:09 PM, Daniel Kalchev <daniel <at> digsys.bg> wrote:
> On 03.06.12 07:24, Erich wrote:
>> isn't this what I just suggested to be done by the team? Give the ports
>> tree a new version number and people can fall back to this then.
>>
>> Isn't this solution too simple to be done?
>
> As was mentioned earlier in this discussion, by virtue of the ports tree
> being hosted on CVS, you are able to get a version of the ports there at any
> date you chose. Just set
>
> PORTS_DATE="date=2012.06.01.00.00.00"
>
> to get the ports tree as it was on midnight 1st of June 2012. You can
> specify hours, minutes, seconds if you need. Way more powerful than any
> "version number" thing.
>
> As you can see, this is already available with FreeBSD. A lot more "hidden
> gems" are available with FreeBSD. People are just lazy and for the most
> part, refuse to learn. This is one aspect FreeBSD could benefit greatly from
> more education of the 'users' -- just because it has way more hidden gems
> than anything else around.

Indeed. And educating users means providing them with appropriate
documentation. So how about adding a section to the Handbook
with a list of hidden gems? Something like Dru Lavigne's "BSD Hacks"
perhaps?

> Daniel
(Continue reading)

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Jakub Lach | 3 Jun 2012 01:03
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hmm... Speaking of libreoffice

ERROR: error 65280 occurred while making
/usr/obj/usr/ports/editors/libreoffice/work/libreoffice-core-3.5.2.2/vcl/prj

?

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Baptiste Daroussin | 3 Jun 2012 02:58
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Sat, Jun 02, 2012 at 04:03:49PM -0700, Jakub Lach wrote:
> Hmm... Speaking of libreoffice
> 
> ERROR: error 65280 occurred while making
> /usr/obj/usr/ports/editors/libreoffice/work/libreoffice-core-3.5.2.2/vcl/prj
> 
> ?
> 
> --
> View this message in context: http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.com/Re-Why-Are-You-NOT-Using-FreeBSD-tp5714253p5714383.html
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Yeah libreoffice definitly needs some love, and have a fragile build system.

Sorry I don't have time/motivation to work on it recently.

regards,
Bapt
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Daniel Kalchev | 3 Jun 2012 19:58
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

I had few troubles compiling OpenOffice, until closer inspection, that revealed I had forgotten to remove
the redirection of libs to gcc4.6 in /etc/libmap.conf -- left from my experiments to like it for compiling
ports… (with the pipe dream software will run faster)

After cleaning my system of this junk completely, OpenOffice built just fine from the first try. Needless
to say, this wasted few days for me -- but it was entirely my fault.

Daniel

On Jun 3, 2012, at 2:03 AM, Jakub Lach wrote:

> Hmm... Speaking of libreoffice
> 
> ERROR: error 65280 occurred while making
> /usr/obj/usr/ports/editors/libreoffice/work/libreoffice-core-3.5.2.2/vcl/prj
> 
> ?
> 
> --
> View this message in context: http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.com/Re-Why-Are-You-NOT-Using-FreeBSD-tp5714253p5714383.html
> Sent from the freebsd-current mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-current <at> freebsd.org mailing list
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Erich | 3 Jun 2012 06:14

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 PM 4:18:45 O. Hartmann wrote:
> On 06/02/12 14:47, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> > On 02.06.12 15:32, Erich wrote:
> >> I know that the ports tree is a moving target. But it stops moving
> >> during the release period. This could be used to give a fall back
> >> solution.
> >>
> >> Or do I see this really too simple?
> > 
> > The ports tree is a moving target during release periods still, although
> > there are efforts to make movements smaller. This is why, after a
> > release it suddenly moves more :)
> > 
> > Daniel
> 
> Even IF the ports tree IS a moving target, updating of UPDATING, for
> instance, follows most times AFTER the critical ports has been
> changed/updated and folks started updating their ports without realizing
> that they have shot themselfs into the foot!
> 
it is worse when people suddenly need something they did not install before.

> Since I'm with FreeBSD, StarOffice, OpenOffice and even now LibreOffice
> is a MESS! If you need to keep up with STABLE, in most cases due to

StarOffice a mess? Not compared to OpenOffice! I cannot remember that I have had such problems with StarOffice.

As I used StarOffice to write cheques those days, people getting money from me would have made a lot of noise.
(Continue reading)

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Nicolas Braud-Santoni | 3 Jun 2012 10:11
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

2012/6/3 Erich <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com>:
> [...]
>> I witnessed those cases several times and at this moment, our four
>> remaining FreeBSD servers and my personal desktop as well as my private
>> box are rendered "unusable" in terms of having no LibreOffice since it
>> doesn't compile anymore on FreeBSD 9-STABLE/amd64 and 10-CURRENT/amd64.
>
> Can I recommend jails to you? I compile ports in a jail. When everything went through, I move this outside
and install it. If something does not compile, I keep normally the old ports tree.

poudriere + pkgng is especially nice for that kind of things :-)

>> At the moment, this mess is introduced with a new PNG library. And we
>> are updating on "life" machines, that means, they are not freshly
>
> Have fun with it. I have a running FreeBSD and will not touch the ports tree before this all has settled.

I didn't have any special trouble switching my "production" boxes
(mostly website hosting, and backup handling) to pkgng.
What kind of trouble did you run into ?

> [...]
>> Well, one may argue with me about "server" and "desktop". Comparing
>> Linux (several distros) with FreeBSd and Windows makes the limited
>> adavntages of FreeBSD getting rendered neglegible. We need PowerPoint or
>> a similar office product for presentations, I'm getting strangled by
>> students when using LaTeX and "beamer" or "PowerDot". The pressure from
>> the Windows world is large.
(Continue reading)

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Adam Strohl | 3 Jun 2012 12:14
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
> What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very simple. Is it just a few people who run into
problems like this or is this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
>
> I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port tree would solve many of these
problems. All I get as an answer is that it is not possible.
>
> I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that older versions do not have security
fixes. Yes, but of what help is a security fix if there is no running port for the fix?

I feel like I'm missing something.  Why would you ever want to go back 
to an old version of the ports tree?  You're ignoring tons of security 
issues!

And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that 
is the solution.

I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying 
"need" for this is misguided (and dangerous from a security perspective).
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Etienne Robillard | 3 Jun 2012 12:24
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 06/03/2012 06:14 AM, Adam Strohl wrote:
> On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
>> What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very
>> simple. Is it just a few people who run into problems like this or is
>> this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
>>
>> I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port
>> tree would solve many of these problems. All I get as an answer is
>> that it is not possible.
>>
>> I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that
>> older versions do not have security fixes. Yes, but of what help is a
>> security fix if there is no running port for the fix?
>
> I feel like I'm missing something. Why would you ever want to go back to
> an old version of the ports tree? You're ignoring tons of security issues!
>
> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that
> is the solution.
>
> I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying
> "need" for this is misguided (and dangerous from a security perspective).
> _______________________________________________
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> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable
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>
>

Technical debt perhaps counts when upstream vendor "new versions" breaks
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Adam Strohl | 3 Jun 2012 12:42
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6/3/2012 17:24, Etienne Robillard wrote:
> Technical debt perhaps counts when upstream vendor "new versions" breaks
> things unexpectingly ?

For this to happen though that means one of two things:

1. The port maintainer has updated the port to grab this new version, 
and tested it (and it worked) then committed the change.  And now it 
doesn't work for some people/setups.  They need to know and fix it.

2. Then the upstream vendor, behind everyone's back, changes the code 
inside the distro file(s).  This then breaks the MD5/SHA256 check.   The 
port maintainer needs to know so they can fix it.

For #1 I see it as delaying the fix ("I won't report my problem, I'll 
just use an old version").

For #2 Having an old version of the ports tree wouldn't solve this issue 
since it was prompted by a change by the vendor to begin with.

I feel like this thread is grossly overstating how often ports are 
broken which is super rare in my experience. Proposing a version'd ports 
tree seems like a bad-practice-encouraging-solution to a problem that 
doesn't really exist [in my experience].

And it is bad practice.  There is a constant stream of security issues 
being discovered and ignoring them is totally inappropriate.

Yes there are rare situations where you have to make a trade off on 
security to fit some highly specialized need but I wouldn't want that to
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Erich Dollansky | 3 Jun 2012 14:19
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 5:42:55 Adam Strohl wrote:
> On 6/3/2012 17:24, Etienne Robillard wrote:
> I feel like this thread is grossly overstating how often ports are 
> broken which is super rare in my experience. Proposing a version'd ports 
> tree seems like a bad-practice-encouraging-solution to a problem that 
> doesn't really exist [in my experience].
> 
do a simple thing. Install a naked 8.3, 9.0 or 10.0 on a fresh hard disk. Get then the ports tree and start
compiling X.

I did not get a running system since at least 2007 when I did this. There was always at least one manual
intervention needed.

I did this the last time in the first week of May.

Yes, I know how to fix this. Yes, I reported things like this at the beginning. After getting always the
answer that it is working on my machine, I stopped reporting it.

Erich
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Adam Strohl | 3 Jun 2012 18:41
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6/3/2012 19:19, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> do a simple thing. Install a naked 8.3, 9.0 or 10.0 on a fresh hard disk. Get then the ports tree and start
compiling X.
>
> I did not get a running system since at least 2007 when I did this. There was always at least one manual
intervention needed.
>
> I did this the last time in the first week of May.
>
> Yes, I know how to fix this. Yes, I reported things like this at the beginning. After getting always the
answer that it is working on my machine, I stopped reporting it.

Just built a VM and installed 9.0-R from the ISO.

Installed gnu-screen and bash (from ports).

Built and installed xorg-server from ports without issue:

===>   Compressing manual pages for xorg-server-1.7.7_5,1
===>   Registering installation for xorg-server-1.7.7_5,1
===> SECURITY REPORT:
       This port has installed the following binaries which execute with
       increased privileges.
/usr/local/bin/Xorg

       This port has installed the following files which may act as network
       servers and may therefore pose a remote security risk to the system.
/usr/local/bin/Xorg

       If there are vulnerabilities in these programs there may be a
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Erich Dollansky | 3 Jun 2012 23:23
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 11:41:12 Adam Strohl wrote:
> On 6/3/2012 19:19, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> > do a simple thing. Install a naked 8.3, 9.0 or 10.0 on a fresh hard disk. Get then the ports tree and start
compiling X.
> >
> > I did not get a running system since at least 2007 when I did this. There was always at least one manual
intervention needed.
> >
> > I did this the last time in the first week of May.
> >
> > Yes, I know how to fix this. Yes, I reported things like this at the beginning. After getting always the
answer that it is working on my machine, I stopped reporting it.
> 
> Just built a VM and installed 9.0-R from the ISO.
> 
> Installed gnu-screen and bash (from ports).
> 
you did not compile it as the first item. 

> Built and installed xorg-server from ports without issue:

building is not the problem.

Start it.

I do not remember what was wrong this time.

Erich
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Adam Strohl | 4 Jun 2012 07:08
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6/4/2012 4:23, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 03 June 2012 PM 11:41:12 Adam Strohl wrote:
>> On 6/3/2012 19:19, Erich Dollansky wrote:
>>> do a simple thing. Install a naked 8.3, 9.0 or 10.0 on a fresh hard disk. Get then the ports tree and start
compiling X.
>>>
>>> I did not get a running system since at least 2007 when I did this. There was always at least one manual
intervention needed.
>>>
>>> I did this the last time in the first week of May.
>>>
>>> Yes, I know how to fix this. Yes, I reported things like this at the beginning. After getting always the
answer that it is working on my machine, I stopped reporting it.
>>
>> Just built a VM and installed 9.0-R from the ISO.
>>
>> Installed gnu-screen and bash (from ports).
>>
> you did not compile it as the first item.

I don't understand what you are saying.

I did a 'make install' on a clean system with only bash and screen 
installed (I did update ports first).

It compiled and installed fine without any intervention.

>
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Erich | 4 Jun 2012 13:07

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 04 June 2012 12:08:14 Adam Strohl wrote:
> On 6/4/2012 4:23, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> > On 03 June 2012 PM 11:41:12 Adam Strohl wrote:
> >> On 6/3/2012 19:19, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> >>> do a simple thing. Install a naked 8.3, 9.0 or 10.0 on a fresh hard disk. Get then the ports tree and start
compiling X.
> >>>
> >>> I did not get a running system since at least 2007 when I did this. There was always at least one manual
intervention needed.
> >>>
> >>> I did this the last time in the first week of May.
> >>>
> >>> Yes, I know how to fix this. Yes, I reported things like this at the beginning. After getting always the
answer that it is working on my machine, I stopped reporting it.
> >>
> >> Just built a VM and installed 9.0-R from the ISO.
> >>
> >> Installed gnu-screen and bash (from ports).
> >>
> > you did not compile it as the first item.
> 
> I don't understand what you are saying.
> 
> I did a 'make install' on a clean system with only bash and screen 
> installed (I did update ports first).

yes, you installed bash and screen first.
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Adam Strohl | 4 Jun 2012 13:36
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6/4/2012 18:07, Erich wrote:
> yes, you installed bash and screen first.
>
> Can you try it without?

Doesn't tinderbox do this every night?

>
> I really try to install X as the first thing after I finished installation.
 >
> I wonder why you need bash from the ports at that stage?

Because that is what I use as my shell, and I use GNU Screen so if my 
connection terminates I can reattach.
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Michael Scheidell | 4 Jun 2012 13:53
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 6/4/12 7:36 AM, Adam Strohl wrote:
> Doesn't tinderbox do this every night?
And, as a committer, here is the point.
We get reports of 'this doesn't build'.  (no fixed attached, no logs, no 
indication of what was installed first, what options taken), we try to 
get information on what happended and just get 'I am just trying to tel 
lyou its broken, and I don't have time to tell you why, its your os, you 
fix it') want a link to a recient pr where that happened?

So, we run it up in a tinderbox (for the newbie who wants this to work 
like windoes or linx , I will explain:
A tinderbox is a special virtual chrooted (jail) envirnoment. The 
tinderbox creates a blank tree, with a free copy of FreeBSD  (x), copies 
a free ports tree to it, and creates packages.
(pkg_create).  /generically/ it builds these with default options (since 
this is a batch process, that is all we can do).
If the system can fetch the source, apply the patches, compile the 
program, package it, pulls in all the necessary LIB and BUILD depends 
and then deletes the packages without leaving any leftovers, we consider 
the package fine /with default options/
This is why we ask that the luser tell us what strange things they have 
in make.conf, recommend that they update their ports tree (since we are 
running with a free ports tree), and tell us what non standard options 
were selected.

If we can't reproduce it, we can't fix it.

Many times we find that the user did not update the ports according to 
the instructions in /usr/ports/UPDATING, which, for all language ports
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Mark Linimon | 5 Jun 2012 05:07

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Mon, Jun 04, 2012 at 07:53:52AM -0400, Michael Scheidell wrote:
> On 6/4/12 7:36 AM, Adam Strohl wrote:
> >Doesn't tinderbox do this every night?

> And, as a committer, here is the point.
> We get reports of 'this doesn't build'.  (no fixed attached, no
> logs, no indication of what was installed first, what options
> taken), [...] So, we run it up in a tinderbox

People who want to understand port failures should be first checking
to see if the port builds in a completely clean environment.  The
best way to do this is to see if it has built on our build cluster
(where a clean environment is forced), and the quickest way to do that
is to use portsmon as a summary of the port across the various buildenvs.
For example:

  http://portsmon.freebsd.org/portoverview.py?category=www&portname=chromium

We can see that chromium is currently having a number of build problems.
It also has a number of PRs filed against it.

On the overview page for each port are links to both CVSWeb, as well
as the information FreshPorts displays for the port:

  http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/www/chromium/
  http://www.freshports.org/www/chromium

So I recommend that we suggest to people who are having problems with a
particular port use portsmon as a "start here" resource.
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Adam Strohl | 4 Jun 2012 16:10
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6/4/2012 18:36, Adam Strohl wrote:
> On 6/4/2012 18:07, Erich wrote:
>> yes, you installed bash and screen first.
>>
>> Can you try it without?
>

 From a 100% clean install:

- portsnap fetch extract update
- compiled x-org + VMware driver

No issues, works fine.
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Erich | 4 Jun 2012 16:59

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 04 June 2012 21:10:31 Adam Strohl wrote:
> On 6/4/2012 18:36, Adam Strohl wrote:
> > On 6/4/2012 18:07, Erich wrote:
> >> yes, you installed bash and screen first.
> >>
> >> Can you try it without?
> >
> 
>  From a 100% clean install:
> 
> - portsnap fetch extract update
> - compiled x-org + VMware driver
> 
> No issues, works fine.
> 
> 
I was not that lucky. For 8.0, it was with the NVidea driver, in the first week of my, it was with 9.0 and the
Intel driver.

Let me arrive back home to have another try.

Erich
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Adam Strohl | 4 Jun 2012 17:02
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6/4/2012 21:59, Erich wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 04 June 2012 21:10:31 Adam Strohl wrote:
>> On 6/4/2012 18:36, Adam Strohl wrote:
>>> On 6/4/2012 18:07, Erich wrote:
>>>> yes, you installed bash and screen first.
>>>>
>>>> Can you try it without?
>>    From a 100% clean install:
>>
>> - portsnap fetch extract update
>> - compiled x-org + VMware driver
>>
>> No issues, works fine.
>>
>>
> I was not that lucky. For 8.0, it was with the NVidea driver, in the first week of my, it was with 9.0 and the
Intel driver.
>
> Let me arrive back home to have another try.

Sure, and if you do have issues post what the specific error and port is 
where it happened.
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Erich | 3 Jun 2012 14:24

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 5:14:10 Adam Strohl wrote:
> On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
> > What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very simple. Is it just a few people who run into
problems like this or is this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
> >
> > I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port tree would solve many of these
problems. All I get as an answer is that it is not possible.
> >
> > I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that older versions do not have security
fixes. Yes, but of what help is a security fix if there is no running port for the fix?
> 
> I feel like I'm missing something.  Why would you ever want to go back 
> to an old version of the ports tree?  You're ignoring tons of security 
> issues!
> 
> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that 
> is the solution.
> 
> I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying 
> "need" for this is misguided (and dangerous from a security perspective).

yes, you miss a very simple thing. Updated this morning your ports tree. Your client asks for something for
Monday morning for which you need now a program which needs some kind of PNG but you did not install it.

Do you have a machine that is fast enough to upgrade all your ports and still finish what your client needs
Monday morning?

The ports tree is not broken as such. Only the installation gets broken in some sense. Have a version number
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Adam Strohl | 3 Jun 2012 18:38
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 6/3/2012 19:24, Erich wrote:
> yes, you miss a very simple thing. Updated this morning your ports tree. Your client asks for something for
Monday morning for which you need now a program which needs some kind of PNG but you did not install it.
>
> Do you have a machine that is fast enough to upgrade all your ports and still finish what your client needs
Monday morning?

All I'd need to do is compile and install the libpng and then compile 
the program.   There is no need to "upgrade all my ports".

>
> The ports tree is not broken as such. Only the installation gets broken in some sense. Have a version number
there would allow people to go back to the last known working ports tree, install the software - or whatever
has to be done - with a working system.
>
> Of course, the next step will be an upgrade. But only after the work which brings in the money is done.

I don't understand what you are saying here, sorry.  Or why you'd 
upgrade all your ports to install 1 new one.

>
> You do not face this problem on Windows. You can run a 10 year old 'kernel' and still install modern software.

Not true at all.  Lots of Windows software requires minimum service pack 
and KB patch levels.

>
> Erich
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Erich | 3 Jun 2012 15:29

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 5:14:10 Adam Strohl wrote:
> On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
> > What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very simple. Is it just a few people who run into
problems like this or is this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
> >
> > I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port tree would solve many of these
problems. All I get as an answer is that it is not possible.
> >
> > I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that older versions do not have security
fixes. Yes, but of what help is a security fix if there is no running port for the fix?
> 
> I feel like I'm missing something.  Why would you ever want to go back 
> to an old version of the ports tree?  You're ignoring tons of security 
> issues!
> 
> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that 
> is the solution.
> 
> I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying 
> "need" for this is misguided (and dangerous from a security perspective).

yes, you miss a very simple thing. Updated this morning your ports tree. Your client asks for something for
Monday morning for which you need now a program which needs some kind of PNG but you did not install it.

Do you have a machine that is fast enough to upgrade all your ports and still finish what your client needs
Monday morning?

The ports tree is not broken as such. Only the installation gets broken in some sense. Have a version number
(Continue reading)

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Super Bisquit | 3 Jun 2012 16:00
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 9:29 AM, Erich <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 03 June 2012 PM 5:14:10 Adam Strohl wrote:
>> On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
>> > What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very simple. Is it just a few people who run
into problems like this or is this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
>> >
>> > I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port tree would solve many of these
problems. All I get as an answer is that it is not possible.
>> >
>> > I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that older versions do not have security
fixes. Yes, but of what help is a security fix if there is no running port for the fix?
>>
>> I feel like I'm missing something.  Why would you ever want to go back
>> to an old version of the ports tree?  You're ignoring tons of security
>> issues!
>>
>> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that
>> is the solution.
>>
>> I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying
>> "need" for this is misguided (and dangerous from a security perspective).
>
> yes, you miss a very simple thing. Updated this morning your ports tree. Your client asks for something for
Monday morning for which you need now a program which needs some kind of PNG but you did not install it.
>
> Do you have a machine that is fast enough to upgrade all your ports and still finish what your client needs
Monday morning?
>
(Continue reading)

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O. Hartmann | 3 Jun 2012 22:55
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 06/03/12 15:29, Erich wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 03 June 2012 PM 5:14:10 Adam Strohl wrote:
>> On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
>>> What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very simple. Is it just a few people who run
into problems like this or is this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
>>>
>>> I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port tree would solve many of these
problems. All I get as an answer is that it is not possible.
>>>
>>> I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that older versions do not have security
fixes. Yes, but of what help is a security fix if there is no running port for the fix?
>>
>> I feel like I'm missing something.  Why would you ever want to go back 
>> to an old version of the ports tree?  You're ignoring tons of security 
>> issues!

... I think the PNG update isn't a security issue. And for not being a
security issue, it triggered an inadequate  mess!

>>
>> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that 
>> is the solution.

Look at the comment of the maintainer of LibreOffice ...
>>
>> I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying 
>> "need" for this is misguided (and dangerous from a security perspective).
>
(Continue reading)

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Super Bisquit | 3 Jun 2012 23:16
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 4:55 PM, O. Hartmann <ohartman <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> On 06/03/12 15:29, Erich wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 03 June 2012 PM 5:14:10 Adam Strohl wrote:
>>> On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
>>>> What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very simple. Is it just a few people who run
into problems like this or is this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
>>>>
>>>> I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port tree would solve many of these
problems. All I get as an answer is that it is not possible.
>>>>
>>>> I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that older versions do not have
security fixes. Yes, but of what help is a security fix if there is no running port for the fix?
>>>
>>> I feel like I'm missing something.  Why would you ever want to go back
>>> to an old version of the ports tree?  You're ignoring tons of security
>>> issues!
>
> ... I think the PNG update isn't a security issue. And for not being a
> security issue, it triggered an inadequate  mess!
>
>>>
>>> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that
>>> is the solution.
>
> Look at the comment of the maintainer of LibreOffice ...
>>>
>>> I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying
>>> "need" for this is misguided (and dangerous from a security perspective).
(Continue reading)

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Jakub Lach | 4 Jun 2012 01:46
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

> just the base system is 
> the only part that needs to be unified, everything else can be 
> installed from source.

You really don't know what you are talking about, do you?

--
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Erich Dollansky | 4 Jun 2012 02:57
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 4:46:40 Jakub Lach wrote:
> > just the base system is 
> > the only part that needs to be unified, everything else can be 
> > installed from source.
> 
> You really don't know what you are talking about, do you?

the chicken and the egg

Erich
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Super Bisquit | 4 Jun 2012 23:48
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 7:46 PM, Jakub Lach <jakub_lach <at> mailplus.pl> wrote:
>> just the base system is
>> the only part that needs to be unified, everything else can be
>> installed from source.
>
> You really don't know what you are talking about, do you?
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.com/Re-Why-Are-You-NOT-Using-FreeBSD-tp5714253p5714654.html
> Sent from the freebsd-current mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-current <at> freebsd.org mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe <at> freebsd.org"

The base system is usually the kernel and binaries plus configuration
files. Everything from gcc to Xorg can be downloaded and built from
original source files. Ports provide a framework for the system to be
stable during an upgrade; however, although suggestede, it is not
required nor are the standard port settings for each application.
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Daniel Kalchev | 4 Jun 2012 12:31
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 03.06.12 23:55, O. Hartmann wrote:
> On 06/03/12 15:29, Erich wrote:
>> yes, you miss a very simple thing. Updated this morning your ports tree. Your client asks for something
for Monday morning for which you need now a program which needs some kind of PNG but you did not install it.
> ... I spent now two complete days watching my boxes updating their
> ports. Several ports do not compile anymore (inkscape, libreoffice,
> libxul, to name some of the very hurting ones!).

Someone forced you to recompile your ports? :)

Just for the record, I too saw a lot of re-compilation necessary because 
of this PNG library update and for the most part, this was not 
necessary, but unfortunately this is how the ports dependencies are 
described by their maintainers - the upgrade tools like portmaster or 
portupgrade can hardly help much here.

Anyway, I am rebuilding on occasions like this just for the fun of it. 
Always have spare/backup system to work on while my primary desktop 
rebuilds because it breaks from time to time. By the way, this rebuild 
didn't give my lowly dual-core core2 6300 at 1.86 GHz much trouble.

In any case, suppose a customer comes and asks for an application that 
uses PNG, you just updated your ports tree and then you either:

1. Have already libpng installed.
Then you just don't rebuild libpng, just install the new software. You 
do this by going to the ports directory like 
/usr/ports/cathegory/greatstuff and type "make install". This will use 
the existing libpng on your system. No trouble.
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Baptiste Daroussin | 4 Jun 2012 17:24
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Sun, Jun 03, 2012 at 10:55:37PM +0200, O. Hartmann wrote:
> On 06/03/12 15:29, Erich wrote:
> >>
> >> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that 
> >> is the solution.
> 
> Look at the comment of the maintainer of LibreOffice ...

LibreOffice is not a small port, I managed to make 3.5.x work  until the
boost upgrade indirectly broke it. LibreOffice is quite complicated to work on
and I am only working on it to maintain it alive. Other projects like pkgng and some
huge changes on the port infrastructure are taking all my free time right now.

Remember this is a volunteer work, I already sent request for people to be
help on LibreOffice. I got some help from time to time, but noone really come to take the
hard work on LibreOffice, so yes my replies are still the same I'm just trying to
keep it alive I missed 3.5.3 and now we are at 3.5.4 and I don't know when I'll
start to work.

The work on it is not that complicated but it requires a huge amount of time
which I currently don't have, and upstream is really nice to help porting.

Sorry,
Bapt
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Jakub Lach | 4 Jun 2012 17:53
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

I'm not (only) pointing finger and whining, but
maybe PC-BSD could relegate someone permanently
to help you with libreoffice, if indeed desktop is
so important to them? 

I'm not sure how exactly PC-BSD and iXsystems are
related (I know that iXystems provided you with build
system at some point), but from my point of view
*office port should be at least as important to
PC-BSD as KDE infrastructure. 

Apart from that other idea, that I brought up on
-office and nobody responded (libreoffice volunteer 
fund).

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Baptiste Daroussin | 4 Jun 2012 18:30
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Mon, Jun 04, 2012 at 08:53:58AM -0700, Jakub Lach wrote:
> I'm not (only) pointing finger and whining, but
> maybe PC-BSD could relegate someone permanently
> to help you with libreoffice, if indeed desktop is
> so important to them? 
> 
> I'm not sure how exactly PC-BSD and iXsystems are
> related (I know that iXystems provided you with build
> system at some point), but from my point of view
> *office port should be at least as important to
> PC-BSD as KDE infrastructure. 
> 
> Apart from that other idea, that I brought up on
> -office and nobody responded (libreoffice volunteer 
> fund).
> 
> --
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> freebsd-current <at> freebsd.org mailing list
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iXsystem is providing a build box for libreoffice (thanks to them).

regards,
Bapt
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Pedro Giffuni | 4 Jun 2012 18:47
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

FWIW;

--- Lun 4/6/12, Jakub Lach <jakub_lach <at> mailplus.pl> ha scritto:

> I'm not (only) pointing finger and whining, but
> maybe PC-BSD could relegate someone permanently
> to help you with libreoffice, if indeed desktop is
> so important to them? 
> 

I am aware that PC-BSD has been indeed providing
build resources to our LibreOffice maintainer so
you cant really blame them.

I personally enjoy working on Apache OpenOffice's
FreeBSD port and I am glad about having both suites
available, but eevn though they are very similar I
am not interested in maintaining LibreOffice; not
even if I got paid to do it.

What people should realize is that maintaining
such big packages is difficult and the issue
is ultimately not money: if there is no interest
from developers and porters to spend (a lot of)
time on it no one will do it.

Pedro.
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Jakub Lach | 4 Jun 2012 19:03
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

I saw LibreOffice as "cleaning-up" *office effort, maybe my hopes
were displaced, maybe not. 

I personally do not care if it will be LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice 
as long as it's working and not pulling in KDE4/QT4/GTK (most people/linux
distros are abandoning OO for Libre though it appears), but if human 
resources are scarce, shouldn't we (who?) decide that one big editor 
(tm) is plenty?

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Jakub Lach | 4 Jun 2012 19:28
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

*misplaced :)

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Matthias Apitz | 4 Jun 2012 19:49
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


Hi,

Could you please stop this thread and go wining elsewhere, but not to
freebsd-current.

Thanks

	matthias (running 10-CURRENT on a netbook)
--

-- 
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e <guru <at> unixarea.de> - w http://www.unixarea.de/
UNIX since V7 on PDP-11, UNIX on mainframe since ESER 1055 (IBM /370)
UNIX on x86 since SVR4.2 UnixWare 2.1.2, FreeBSD since 2.2.5
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Pedro Giffuni | 4 Jun 2012 20:42
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


--- Lun 4/6/12, Jakub Lach <jakub_lach <at> mailplus.pl> ha scritto:
...

> 
> I personally do not care if it will be LibreOffice or Apache
> OpenOffice as long as it's working and not pulling in
> KDE4/QT4/GTK (most people/linux distros are abandoning OO
> for Libre though it appears), but if human 
> resources are scarce, shouldn't we (who?) decide that one
> big editor (tm) is plenty?
>

I am not meaning you should use one or the other, I
really don't care. I am saying that if you want to
see LibreOffice or Chrome or anything working well
then *you* have to do your part and not assume it's
PC-BSD or whomever else's fault when it fails.

If you really think the issue is money then perhaps
you should draw your hand in your pocket and send
a targeted donation to our current port maintainer.

I also think this thread doesn't belong in
-current, maybe in -advocacy or -chat.

Pedro.

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Erich | 5 Jun 2012 02:49

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 04 June 2012 17:24:31 Baptiste Daroussin wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 03, 2012 at 10:55:37PM +0200, O. Hartmann wrote:
> > On 06/03/12 15:29, Erich wrote:
> > >>
> > >> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that 
> > >> is the solution.
> > 
> > Look at the comment of the maintainer of LibreOffice ...
> 
> LibreOffice is not a small port, I managed to make 3.5.x work  until the
> 
> The work on it is not that complicated but it requires a huge amount of time
> which I currently don't have, and upstream is really nice to help porting.
> 
I hope that this is all just a misunderstanding.

I read the tread as such that LibreOffice is just an example of what can go wrong. Of course, it is your time and
your work and nobody has the right to criticise you for your efforts.

I hope that it is ok for you to use 'your' port as an example here for what can go wrong.

Erich
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Chris Rees | 4 Jun 2012 17:24
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 3 June 2012 21:55, O. Hartmann <ohartman <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> On 06/03/12 15:29, Erich wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 03 June 2012 PM 5:14:10 Adam Strohl wrote:
>>> On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
>>>> What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very simple. Is it just a few people who run
into problems like this or is this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
>>>>
>>>> I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port tree would solve many of these
problems. All I get as an answer is that it is not possible.
>>>>
>>>> I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that older versions do not have
security fixes. Yes, but of what help is a security fix if there is no running port for the fix?
>>>
>>> I feel like I'm missing something.  Why would you ever want to go back
>>> to an old version of the ports tree?  You're ignoring tons of security
>>> issues!
>
> ... I think the PNG update isn't a security issue. And for not being a
> security issue, it triggered an inadequate  mess!
>
>>>
>>> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that
>>> is the solution.
>
> Look at the comment of the maintainer of LibreOffice ...
>>>
>>> I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying
>>> "need" for this is misguided (and dangerous from a security perspective).
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O. Hartmann | 4 Jun 2012 23:09
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 06/04/12 17:24, Chris Rees wrote:
> On 3 June 2012 21:55, O. Hartmann <ohartman <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>> On 06/03/12 15:29, Erich wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On 03 June 2012 PM 5:14:10 Adam Strohl wrote:
>>>> On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
>>>>> What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very simple. Is it just a few people who run
into problems like this or is this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
>>>>>
>>>>> I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port tree would solve many of these
problems. All I get as an answer is that it is not possible.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that older versions do not have
security fixes. Yes, but of what help is a security fix if there is no running port for the fix?
>>>>
>>>> I feel like I'm missing something.  Why would you ever want to go back
>>>> to an old version of the ports tree?  You're ignoring tons of security
>>>> issues!
>>
>> ... I think the PNG update isn't a security issue. And for not being a
>> security issue, it triggered an inadequate  mess!
>>
>>>>
>>>> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that
>>>> is the solution.
>>
>> Look at the comment of the maintainer of LibreOffice ...
>>>>
>>>> I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying
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Mark Andrews | 5 Jun 2012 03:24

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


In message <4FCD23FE.20906 <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de>, "O. Hartmann" writes:
> Well, and repeatedly (no offense!) I will point out in this case, that I
> was FORCED having the latest software by the ports system!
> That it a difference in having running FreeBSD CURRENT on my own risk,
> or FreeBSD-STABLE due to new hardware and new drivers only supported by
> those and having a regular port update, which blows up the system
> because of the newest software!

You were not forced to use the latest.  You can quite easily use
years old ports trees if you want to.  I just installed a port using
a tree from October 2011.  I could have upgraded the ports tree to the
latest and greatest but I choose not to.

> I take the burden of having not an easy life, but this, what is expected
> from so many "users" of FreeBSD, is simply beyond ...

There are also binary packages available.

> > Either stick to releases, or put up with lots of compiling etc-- you
> > should not complain because of self-inflicted problems.
> 
> As I repeatedly have to point out in this case - the issue is not with
> STABLE and CURRENT, it is also with RELEASE. And as it has been pointed
> out herein so many times: FreeBSD ports lack in a version tagging.

Version tagging is just a convient way to get a snapshot at a
particular point in time unless you create branches that are them
made stable by doing a release engineering process on the branch.
This would require rules like "don't make a change unless it is to
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Erich | 5 Jun 2012 04:07

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 11:24:25 Mark Andrews wrote:
> 

> Version tagging is just a convient way to get a snapshot at a
> particular point in time unless you create branches that are them

we do not ask for more. There should be only one difference to a snapshot. As snapshot has a date. No matter in
what state the ports tree was, it is in that state in the ports tree. If user - especially the one not so fit in
this aspect - want to use a snapshot, it will be difficult to impossible to figure out which one they need.

If version numbers would be introduced, it would be ok to use the version number of the FreeBSD and have only
version available which reflect the release version of the ports tree.

People here want to make always a perfect system. People like me want to have some small things in there
available with a click.

As the ports trees are there anyway, only the direct link to the snapshot of that day or a version number in the
ports tree would be needed to make this available for people who just want to use FreeBSD.

Please note, I do not want any extra work spend here to make this perfect. I only want a simple way to fall back
to a big net which is not that old from which the user can restart.

You can add a huge note to the links stating the risks. This is all fine.

There is another reason why I ask for this. I noticed a long time ago that the ports are in a better shape around
the release date of a new version. So, I try to get it always around the release dates. But, some times - you
know how life is - I miss this date. It does not kill me but it leads some times to extra work steps I can do but I
see the problems people will face who know FreeBSD not that well.
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Mark Andrews | 5 Jun 2012 04:48

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


In message <3506767.Fvm2KmtnYf <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> Hi,
> 
> On 05 June 2012 11:24:25 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > 
> 
> > Version tagging is just a convient way to get a snapshot at a
> > particular point in time unless you create branches that are them
> 
> we do not ask for more. There should be only one difference to a snapshot. As
> snapshot has a date. No matter in what state the ports tree was, it is in th
> at state in the ports tree. If user - especially the one not so fit in this a
> spect - want to use a snapshot, it will be difficult to impossible to figure 
> out which one they need.
> 
> If version numbers would be introduced, it would be ok to use the version num
> ber of the FreeBSD and have only version available which reflect the release 
> version of the ports tree.

It's already there.  If you want the ports as of FreeBSD 4.x EOL
then the tag is "RELEASE_4_EOL".  If you want ports as of FreeBSD
9.0 then the tag is "RELEASE_9_9_0".

> People here want to make always a perfect system. People like me want to have
> some small things in there available with a click.
>
> As the ports trees are there anyway, only the direct link to the snapshot of 
> that day or a version number in the ports tree would be needed to make this a
> vailable for people who just want to use FreeBSD.
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Erich | 5 Jun 2012 07:18

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 12:48:20 Mark Andrews wrote:
> 
> In message <3506767.Fvm2KmtnYf <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> > 
> > On 05 June 2012 11:24:25 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > > 
> > 
> 
> It's already there.  If you want the ports as of FreeBSD 4.x EOL
> then the tag is "RELEASE_4_EOL".  If you want ports as of FreeBSD
> 9.0 then the tag is "RELEASE_9_9_0".
> 
I did not know this. Do you have a link for this? I never read about it.

Erich
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Mark Andrews | 5 Jun 2012 07:33

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


In message <2490439.EC638TI0j3 <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> Hi,
> 
> On 05 June 2012 12:48:20 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > 
> > In message <3506767.Fvm2KmtnYf <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> > > 
> > > On 05 June 2012 11:24:25 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > It's already there.  If you want the ports as of FreeBSD 4.x EOL
> > then the tag is "RELEASE_4_EOL".  If you want ports as of FreeBSD
> > 9.0 then the tag is "RELEASE_9_9_0".
> > 
> I did not know this. Do you have a link for this? I never read about it.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvs-tags.html

If you wander around in http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ you can
see all the possible tags.

> Erich
--

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Erich | 5 Jun 2012 08:00

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 15:33:16 Mark Andrews wrote:
> 
> In message <2490439.EC638TI0j3 <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On 05 June 2012 12:48:20 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > > 
> > > In message <3506767.Fvm2KmtnYf <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> > > > 
> > > > On 05 June 2012 11:24:25 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > It's already there.  If you want the ports as of FreeBSD 4.x EOL
> > > then the tag is "RELEASE_4_EOL".  If you want ports as of FreeBSD
> > > 9.0 then the tag is "RELEASE_9_9_0".
> > > 
> > I did not know this. Do you have a link for this? I never read about it.
> 
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvs-tags.html

All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag), only apply to the src/ tree. The
ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not branched.

I understand this that I can use these tags on the FreeBSD sources but not on the ports.

I never tried this on the ports.
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Mark Linimon | 5 Jun 2012 08:09

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 01:00:45PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag),
> only apply to the src/ tree. The ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not
> branched.

If you create a branch, you must create a tag for that branch.

However, you can create a tag without creating a branch.  That is what
is done for the ports tree.

It's not particularly easy to see this on cvsweb.  But let's take a look
at a random Mk/bsd.*.mk file via 'cvs log':

  RCS file: /home/FreeBSD/pcvs/ports/Mk/bsd.apache.mk,v
  Working file: bsd.apache.mk
  head: 1.36
  branch:
  locks: strict
  access list:
  symbolic names:
          RELEASE_8_3_0: 1.35
          RELEASE_9_0_0: 1.33
          RELEASE_7_4_0: 1.26
          RELEASE_8_2_0: 1.26
          RELEASE_6_EOL: 1.26
  [...]
          RELEASE_6_1_0: 1.9
          RELEASE_5_5_0: 1.9
  keyword substitution: kv
  total revisions: 36;    selected revisions: 36
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Erich | 5 Jun 2012 10:23

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 1:09:50 Mark Linimon wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 01:00:45PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag),
> > only apply to the src/ tree. The ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not
> > branched.
> 
> If you create a branch, you must create a tag for that branch.
> 
> However, you can create a tag without creating a branch.  That is what
> is done for the ports tree.
> 
> It's not particularly easy to see this on cvsweb.  But let's take a look
> at a random Mk/bsd.*.mk file via 'cvs log':

here we are. I never found this.

> 
>   RCS file: /home/FreeBSD/pcvs/ports/Mk/bsd.apache.mk,v
>   Working file: bsd.apache.mk
>   head: 1.36
>   branch:
>   locks: strict
>   access list:
>   symbolic names:
>           RELEASE_8_3_0: 1.35
>           RELEASE_9_0_0: 1.33
>           RELEASE_7_4_0: 1.26
>           RELEASE_8_2_0: 1.26
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Mark Linimon | 5 Jun 2012 14:13

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 03:23:01PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> But is this true for apache only or for the whole ports tree?

Entire tree.

mcl
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Erich | 6 Jun 2012 04:35

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 7:13:47 Mark Linimon wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 03:23:01PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> > But is this true for apache only or for the whole ports tree?
> 
> Entire tree.

my problem with this is that the documentation states something very different:

>From the handbook at the location where beginners will look for it:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html

'Which version(s) of them do you want?

With CVSup, you can receive virtually any version of the sources that ever existed. That is possible
because the cvsupd server works directly from the CVS repository, which contains all of the versions. You
specify which one of them you want using the tag= and date= value fields.

Warning: Be very careful to specify any tag= fields correctly. Some tags are valid only for certain
collections of files. If you specify an incorrect or misspelled tag, CVSup will delete files which you
probably do not want deleted. In particular, use only tag=. for the ports-* collections.'

I think that this states very clearly that there are no tags.

So, after we learned that every thing I am asking is there anyway in an official and supported way, only the
documentation has to be changed.

Erich
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Daniel Kalchev | 6 Jun 2012 09:32
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 06.06.12 05:35, Erich wrote:
> Warning: Be very careful to specify any tag= fields correctly. Some tags are valid only for certain
collections of files. If you specify an incorrect or misspelled tag, CVSup will delete files which you
probably do not want deleted. In particular, use only tag=. for the ports-* collections.'
>
> I think that this states very clearly that there are no tags.
>
> So, after we learned that every thing I am asking is there anyway in an official and supported way, only the
documentation has to be changed.

It does not state, that there are not tags. It states, that you should 
be using tag=.
Unless, you know exactly what are you doing and unless you know what an 
particular tag that exists in the ports tree means.

In your language: normal users of the ports tree should use tag=. as 
anything else is not official and not supported.
Normal users can specify date=<somedate> to get the version of the ports 
tree as it was on that date (and time, up to a second).

The documentation is correct.

Daniel
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Chris Rees | 6 Jun 2012 09:48
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Jun 6, 2012 3:38 AM, "Erich" <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 05 June 2012 7:13:47 Mark Linimon wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 03:23:01PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> > > But is this true for apache only or for the whole ports tree?
> >
> > Entire tree.
>
> my problem with this is that the documentation states something very
different:
>
> From the handbook at the location where beginners will look for it:
>
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvsup.html
>
> 'Which version(s) of them do you want?
>
> With CVSup, you can receive virtually any version of the sources that
ever existed. That is possible because the cvsupd server works directly
from the CVS repository, which contains all of the versions. You specify
which one of them you want using the tag= and date= value fields.
>
> Warning: Be very careful to specify any tag= fields correctly. Some tags
are valid only for certain collections of files. If you specify an
incorrect or misspelled tag, CVSup will delete files which you probably do
not want deleted. In particular, use only tag=. for the ports-*
collections.'
>
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 6 Jun 2012 15:12

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 06 June 2012 8:48:10 Chris Rees wrote:
> On Jun 6, 2012 3:38 AM, "Erich" <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
> >

> No it doesn't. It states clearly that you shouldn't use tags unless you
> know what you are doing, as several of us have explained more than once.
> 
is my English really this bad?

>From the handbook:

'. In particular, use only tag=. for the ports-* collections.'

Erich
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Chris Rees | 6 Jun 2012 16:16
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6 June 2012 14:12, Erich <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 06 June 2012 8:48:10 Chris Rees wrote:
>> On Jun 6, 2012 3:38 AM, "Erich" <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
>> >
>
>> No it doesn't. It states clearly that you shouldn't use tags unless you
>> know what you are doing, as several of us have explained more than once.
>>
> is my English really this bad?
>
> From the handbook:
>
> '. In particular, use only tag=. for the ports-* collections.'

Your English is fine, but "being told to use tag=." != "tag=. is the
only tag that exists".

Chris
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grenville armitage | 6 Jun 2012 23:10
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Ports from a particular date in the past... Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 06/07/2012 00:16, Chris Rees wrote:
> On 6 June 2012 14:12, Erich<erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com>  wrote:
	[..]

>> is my English really this bad?
>>
>>  From the handbook:
>>
>> '. In particular, use only tag=. for the ports-* collections.'
>
> Your English is fine, but "being told to use tag=." != "tag=. is the
> only tag that exists".

Another data point:

In Erich's defense, I'd say his interpretation is quite understandable.
"...use only tag=. for the ports-* collections" also left me with the
distinct impression (some many moons in the past) that there are no
other meaningful (or safe) tags when csup'ing the Ports tree.

In 12 years of using FreeBSD I've never really sought out Erich's use
case (viz. roll back /usr/ports to some past known-good version), I
just assumed it wasn't possible. So this thread has taught at least one
person (me) a new thing -- I never fully grokked that adding "date="
to the supfile could achieve this desired result when csup'ing the
Ports tree. Now I know, and I've changed the Subject line of this email
in the hope it helps some future soul googling for the answer.

cheers,
(Continue reading)

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Rick Miller | 6 Jun 2012 23:40

Re: Ports from a particular date in the past... Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

I, for one, appreciate you changing the subject because I didn't know
this either and its an important function in my use case where point
in time snapshots are important to the architects and ops folks!

On 6/6/12, grenville armitage <garmitage <at> swin.edu.au> wrote:
>
>
> On 06/07/2012 00:16, Chris Rees wrote:
>> On 6 June 2012 14:12, Erich<erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com>  wrote:
> 	[..]
>
>>> is my English really this bad?
>>>
>>>  From the handbook:
>>>
>>> '. In particular, use only tag=. for the ports-* collections.'
>>
>> Your English is fine, but "being told to use tag=." != "tag=. is the
>> only tag that exists".
>
> Another data point:
>
> In Erich's defense, I'd say his interpretation is quite understandable.
> "...use only tag=. for the ports-* collections" also left me with the
> distinct impression (some many moons in the past) that there are no
> other meaningful (or safe) tags when csup'ing the Ports tree.
>
> In 12 years of using FreeBSD I've never really sought out Erich's use
> case (viz. roll back /usr/ports to some past known-good version), I
> just assumed it wasn't possible. So this thread has taught at least one
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 7 Jun 2012 01:15

Re: Ports from a particular date in the past... Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 06 June 2012 17:40:28 Rick Miller wrote:

> I, for one, appreciate you changing the subject because I didn't know
> this either and its an important function in my use case where point
> in time snapshots are important to the architects and ops folks!
> 
and it should be mentioned in the hand book.

I did not get any response for this on the proper mailing list.

> On 6/6/12, grenville armitage <garmitage <at> swin.edu.au> wrote:
>
> > In Erich's defense, I'd say his interpretation is quite understandable.
> > "...use only tag=. for the ports-* collections" also left me with the
> > distinct impression (some many moons in the past) that there are no
> > other meaningful (or safe) tags when csup'ing the Ports tree.
> >
This is why I tried then to get the ports tree from the release by hand or by synchronising with the release and
store it.

> > In 12 years of using FreeBSD I've never really sought out Erich's use
> > case (viz. roll back /usr/ports to some past known-good version), I
> > just assumed it wasn't possible. So this thread has taught at least one
> > person (me) a new thing -- I never fully grokked that adding "date="
> > to the supfile could achieve this desired result when csup'ing the
> > Ports tree. Now I know, and I've changed the Subject line of this email
> > in the hope it helps some future soul googling for the answer.
(Continue reading)

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Damien Fleuriot | 6 Jun 2012 23:48

Re: Ports from a particular date in the past... Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 6 Jun 2012, at 23:10, grenville armitage <garmitage <at> swin.edu.au> wrote:

> 
> 
> On 06/07/2012 00:16, Chris Rees wrote:
>> On 6 June 2012 14:12, Erich<erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
>    [..]
> 
>>> is my English really this bad?
>>> 
>>> From the handbook:
>>> 
>>> '. In particular, use only tag=. for the ports-* collections.'
>> 
>> Your English is fine, but "being told to use tag=." != "tag=. is the
>> only tag that exists".
> 
> Another data point:
> 
> In Erich's defense, I'd say his interpretation is quite understandable.
> "...use only tag=. for the ports-* collections" also left me with the
> distinct impression (some many moons in the past) that there are no
> other meaningful (or safe) tags when csup'ing the Ports tree.
> 
> In 12 years of using FreeBSD I've never really sought out Erich's use
> case (viz. roll back /usr/ports to some past known-good version), I
> just assumed it wasn't possible. So this thread has taught at least one
> person (me) a new thing -- I never fully grokked that adding "date="
> to the supfile could achieve this desired result when csup'ing the
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 5 Jun 2012 14:31

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 1:09:50 Mark Linimon wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 01:00:45PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag),
> > only apply to the src/ tree. The ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not
> > branched.
> 
> If you create a branch, you must create a tag for that branch.
> 
> However, you can create a tag without creating a branch.  That is what
> is done for the ports tree.
> 
I found now the location where this information is missing for beginners.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.html

I simply cannot believe that beginners would expect this information to find this in the section for
updating the kernel.

Erich
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Mark Andrews | 5 Jun 2012 16:42

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


In message <1541214.ZfRdXxb0Qe <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> Hi,
> 
> On 05 June 2012 1:09:50 Mark Linimon wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 01:00:45PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> > > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag),
> > > only apply to the src/ tree. The ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not
> > > branched.
> > 
> > If you create a branch, you must create a tag for that branch.
> > 
> > However, you can create a tag without creating a branch.  That is what
> > is done for the ports tree.
> > 
> I found now the location where this information is missing for beginners.
> 
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.html
> 
> I simply cannot believe that beginners would expect this information to find 
> this in the section for updating the kernel.
> 
> Erich

Because, while you believe it is better to roll back to the release
point it really isn't.  The ports tree is rarely broken for long.
When it is broken people will tell you to roll back to a good date
and give you the date to use.  I've had to roll back a couple of
times in 11+ years of updating and never to a release point.
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 6 Jun 2012 04:47

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 06 June 2012 0:42:47 Mark Andrews wrote:
> 
> In message <1541214.ZfRdXxb0Qe <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On 05 June 2012 1:09:50 Mark Linimon wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 01:00:45PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> > > > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag),
> > > > only apply to the src/ tree. The ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not
> > > > branched.
> > > 
> > > If you create a branch, you must create a tag for that branch.
> > > 
> > > However, you can create a tag without creating a branch.  That is what
> > > is done for the ports tree.
> > > 
> > I found now the location where this information is missing for beginners.
> > 
> > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.html
> > 
> > I simply cannot believe that beginners would expect this information to find 
> > this in the section for updating the kernel.
> > 
> > Erich
> 
> Because, while you believe it is better to roll back to the release
> point it really isn't.  The ports tree is rarely broken for long.
> When it is broken people will tell you to roll back to a good date
(Continue reading)

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Mark Andrews | 6 Jun 2012 08:45

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


In message <1805884.WJzBQIFnSm <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> Hi,
> 
> On 06 June 2012 0:42:47 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > 
> > In message <1541214.ZfRdXxb0Qe <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > On 05 June 2012 1:09:50 Mark Linimon wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 01:00:45PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> > > > > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag
> ),
> > > > > only apply to the src/ tree. The ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not
> > > > > branched.
> > > > 
> > > > If you create a branch, you must create a tag for that branch.
> > > > 
> > > > However, you can create a tag without creating a branch.  That is what
> > > > is done for the ports tree.
> > > > 
> > > I found now the location where this information is missing for beginners.
> > > 
> > > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.htm
> l
> > > 
> > > I simply cannot believe that beginners would expect this information to f
> ind 
> > > this in the section for updating the kernel.
> > >
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 6 Jun 2012 15:08

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

let me rite the answer on top before my mouse scrolling down.

I am fully aware of what you are writing. I am saying this from the point of view people have when they start
with FreeBSD.

This little help would make them feel much much saver.

I know that it would not change much in real life.

Erich

On 06 June 2012 16:45:03 Mark Andrews wrote:
> 
> In message <1805884.WJzBQIFnSm <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:

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Erich | 6 Jun 2012 04:28

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 1:09:50 Mark Linimon wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 01:00:45PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag),
> > only apply to the src/ tree. The ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not
> > branched.
> 
> If you create a branch, you must create a tag for that branch.
> 
> However, you can create a tag without creating a branch.  That is what
> is done for the ports tree.
> 
I found now the point in which all normal users will give up:

The handbook states this:

Which version(s) of them do you want?

'With CVSup, you can receive virtually any version of the sources that ever existed. That is possible
because the cvsupd server works directly from the CVS repository, which contains all of the versions. You
specify which one of them you want using the tag= and date= value fields.

Warning: Be very careful to specify any tag= fields correctly. Some tags are valid only for certain
collections of files. If you specify an incorrect or misspelled tag, CVSup will delete files which you
probably do not want deleted. In particular, use only tag=. for the ports-* collections.'

Why should a normal user continue to search for a tag when the handbook is so clear on this?

Erich
(Continue reading)

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Daniel Kalchev | 6 Jun 2012 09:26
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 06.06.12 05:28, Erich wrote:
> Why should a normal user continue to search for a tag when the 
> handbook is so clear on this? Erich

I continue to wonder, why are you searching for tags on the ports tree, 
when you were told on a number of occasions that those who depend on 
particular state of the ports tree use DATE.

There is not much point in tagging the ports tree, because it is never 
'released' as such. You will end up with millions of tags and sorting 
out which one you need will become difficult. Further, you are not 
advised to use an not-current ports tree, unless you know exactly what 
you are doing. If you know what you are doing, you are not likely to ask 
questions like these. (*)

The ports tree is a collection of instructions how to compile and 
install particular software on FreeBSD. Don't think of the ports tree in 
any other way.

Daniel

(*) I gave earlier the example of how BSDRP builds. It's build script 
pulls a version of the ports tree at certain date. Then compiles and 
installs a number of ports from there. The project uses a bunch of 
networking tools and nobody cares if the version of KDE, LibreOffice or 
the PNG library is broken in that particular version of the ports tree. 
They do care, great deal, if the version of net/quagga for example, in 
that particular ports tree version is broken. In any case, when pulling 
the ports tree, they do not care about any particular tag, but specify
(Continue reading)

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Graham Todd | 6 Jun 2012 22:31
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On Tue, 5 Jun 2012, Mark Linimon wrote:

> It's not particularly easy to see this on cvsweb.  But let's take a look
> at a random Mk/bsd.*.mk file via 'cvs log':
>
>  RCS file: /home/FreeBSD/pcvs/ports/Mk/bsd.apache.mk,v
>  Working file: bsd.apache.mk
>  head: 1.36
>  branch:
>  locks: strict
>  access list:
>  symbolic names:
>          RELEASE_8_3_0: 1.35
>          RELEASE_9_0_0: 1.33
>          RELEASE_7_4_0: 1.26
>          RELEASE_8_2_0: 1.26
>          RELEASE_6_EOL: 1.26
>  [...]
>          RELEASE_6_1_0: 1.9
>          RELEASE_5_5_0: 1.9
>  [...]
>
> and so forth.
>
> The line "RELEASE_8_3_0: 1.35" tells you "the version of this file
> as of tag RELEASE_8_3_0 was r1.35."  So that's what's on the 8.3R
> distribution media.

Is there any way to access this information using tools like pkg_* pkgng
(Continue reading)

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Mark Linimon | 5 Jun 2012 08:01

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 12:18:33PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> I did not know this. Do you have a link for this? I never read about it.

The EOL announcements have them.  I don't think the release announcements
do, however.

mcl
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Erich | 5 Jun 2012 10:17

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 1:01:37 Mark Linimon wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 12:18:33PM +0700, Erich wrote:
> > I did not know this. Do you have a link for this? I never read about it.
> 
> The EOL announcements have them.  I don't think the release announcements
> do, however.
> 
this is the problem. I would like to be able to go back to the last release in case of a problem and restart from there.

When it is possible to tag the EOL, it should be as easy to tag the SOL (start of life).

This would save a lot of time for many people.

Erich
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Chris Rees | 5 Jun 2012 11:41
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On Jun 5, 2012 3:07 AM, "Erich" <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 05 June 2012 11:24:25 Mark Andrews wrote:
> >
>
> > Version tagging is just a convient way to get a snapshot at a
> > particular point in time unless you create branches that are them
>
> we do not ask for more. There should be only one difference to a
snapshot. As snapshot has a date. No matter in what state the ports tree
was, it is in that state in the ports tree. If user - especially the one
not so fit in this aspect - want to use a snapshot, it will be difficult to
impossible to figure out which one they need.
>
> If version numbers would be introduced, it would be ok to use the version
number of the FreeBSD and have only version available which reflect the
release version of the ports tree.
>
> People here want to make always a perfect system. People like me want to
have some small things in there available with a click.
>
> As the ports trees are there anyway, only the direct link to the snapshot
of that day or a version number in the ports tree would be needed to make
this available for people who just want to use FreeBSD.
>
> Please note, I do not want any extra work spend here to make this
perfect. I only want a simple way to fall back to a big net which is not
that old from which the user can restart.
(Continue reading)

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Mark Linimon | 5 Jun 2012 04:55

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

> One doesn't have to live at the bleeding edge with ports if one
> doesn't want to even when compiling.  One can live a day, a week,
> a month behind the bleeding edge and allow other to hit problems
> and report them.

To be pedantic, there's a lot of difference between reporting problems,
and supplying fixes.

Sometimes figuring out the fixes is beyond the capabilities of our
maintainers, of course.  People should feel free to ask for help on
the mailing lists or forums in those cases.

But our general problem won't be solved merely by tagging.  There
have to be people willing to test based only on whatever tree, or
branch, or whatever, has been tagged.  This is on reason why the tree
at release time is _somewhat_ more stable: we are asking people to
test, test, test.  (The fact that we slow down the rate of major changes
to the tree accounts for the rest.)

mcl
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Erich | 5 Jun 2012 03:01

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 04 June 2012 16:24:56 Chris Rees wrote:
> On 3 June 2012 21:55, O. Hartmann <ohartman <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> > On 06/03/12 15:29, Erich wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> On 03 June 2012 PM 5:14:10 Adam Strohl wrote:
> >>> On 6/3/2012 11:14, Erich wrote:
> >>>> What I really do not understand in this whole discussion is very simple. Is it just a few people who run
into problems like this or is this simply ignored by the people who set the strategy for FreeBSD?
> >>>>
> >>>> I mention since yeares here that putting version numbers onto the port tree would solve many of these
problems. All I get as an answer is that it is not possible.
> >>>>
> >>>> I think that this should be easily possible with the limitation that older versions do not have
security fixes. Yes, but of what help is a security fix if there is no running port for the fix?
> >>>
> >>> I feel like I'm missing something.  Why would you ever want to go back
> >>> to an old version of the ports tree?  You're ignoring tons of security
> >>> issues!
> >
> > ... I think the PNG update isn't a security issue. And for not being a
> > security issue, it triggered an inadequate  mess!
> >
> >>>
> >>> And if a port build is broken then the maintainer needs to fix it, that
> >>> is the solution.
> >
> > Look at the comment of the maintainer of LibreOffice ...
> >>>
> >>> I must be missing something else here, it just seems like the underlying
(Continue reading)

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Baptiste Daroussin | 5 Jun 2012 17:39
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

> Look at the comment of the maintainer of LibreOffice ...

btw I tested and libreoffice is still working as expected.

Most of the time the libreoffice failures is from people tuning their system
without knowing the impact/risk of doing such, for example building some c++
libraries with g++47 let's imagine cppunit or anyother library depended on by
libreoffice, and building libreoffice with clang (which is default) and using
the libstdc++ from base (which also is default) and the mix of libstdc++ is
producing tons of problems.

problem i can't fix.

regards,
Bapt
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Nicolas Rachinsky | 6 Jun 2012 10:41

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

* "O. Hartmann" <ohartman <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de> [2012-06-03 22:55 +0200]:
> ... I spent now two complete days watching my boxes updating their
> ports. Several ports do not compile anymore (inkscape, libreoffice,
> libxul, to name some of the very hurting ones!).

Do you have graphics/libwpg01 installed? After deinstalling this, I
was able to compile inkscape again.

Nicolas
--

-- 
http://www.rachinsky.de/nicolas
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Hartmann, O. | 6 Jun 2012 14:29
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port graphics/inkscape: not compiling anymore WAS: Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 06/06/12 10:41, Nicolas Rachinsky wrote:
> * "O. Hartmann" <ohartman <at> zedat.fu-berlin.de> [2012-06-03 22:55 +0200]:
>> ... I spent now two complete days watching my boxes updating their
>> ports. Several ports do not compile anymore (inkscape, libreoffice,
>> libxul, to name some of the very hurting ones!).
> 
> Do you have graphics/libwpg01 installed? After deinstalling this, I
> was able to compile inkscape again.
> 
> Nicolas

Yes, this port is installed and it is required by a lot of ports I have
installed.
I will not deinstall this port since I fear it will not be able to be
reinstalled after that and increase the mess as it is already.
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Poul-Henning Kamp | 4 Jun 2012 08:03
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Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

In message <3851080.JQJobqxLc8 <at> x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:

>yes, you miss a very simple thing. Updated this morning your ports
>tree. Your client asks for something for Monday morning for which
>you need now a program which needs some kind of PNG but you did not
>install it.

It seems to me that you are missing a number of aspects and options
of how you do configuration control on a system, if you think the
ports collection is your only tool.

Take a peek at src/tools/tools/sysbuild for instance.

--

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk <at> FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
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b. f. | 3 Jun 2012 19:12

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

> On 03 June 2012 PM 5:42:55 Adam Strohl wrote:
> > On 6/3/2012 17:24, Etienne Robillard wrote:
> > I feel like this thread is grossly overstating how often ports are
> > broken which is super rare in my experience. Proposing a version'd ports
> > tree seems like a bad-practice-encouraging-solution to a problem that
> > doesn't really exist [in my experience].
> >
> do a simple thing. Install a naked 8.3, 9.0 or 10.0 on a fresh hard disk. Get then the ports tree and start
compiling X.
>
> I did not get a running system since at least 2007 when I did this. There was always at least one manual
intervention needed.
>
> I did this the last time in the first week of May.
>
> Yes, I know how to fix this. Yes, I reported things like this at the beginning. After getting always the
answer that it is working on my machine, I stopped reporting it.
>

It is difficult to know how to respond to these anecdotes -- we don't
know how many and what kind of problems you encountered, what you did
when you performed these builds, and how you went about reporting the
problems -- all of which can make a big difference in the outcome.  I
will only say that, apart from occasional disruptions, it is usually
possible now to build commonly-used ports with default options on
amd64 and i386 in controlled builds without incident.  And the numbers
from the FreeBSD package-building cluster support this:

http://pointyhat.freebsd.org/errorlogs/packagestats.html
http://portsmon.FreeBSD.org/chartsandgraphs/brokenpercents.html
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 3 Jun 2012 23:40

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 1:12:38 b. f. wrote:
> > On 03 June 2012 PM 5:42:55 Adam Strohl wrote:
> > > On 6/3/2012 17:24, Etienne Robillard wrote:
> > > I feel like this thread is grossly overstating how often ports are
> > > broken which is super rare in my experience. Proposing a version'd ports
> > > tree seems like a bad-practice-encouraging-solution to a problem that
> > > doesn't really exist [in my experience].
> > >
> > do a simple thing. Install a naked 8.3, 9.0 or 10.0 on a fresh hard disk. Get then the ports tree and start
compiling X.
> >
> > I did not get a running system since at least 2007 when I did this. There was always at least one manual
intervention needed.
> >
> > I did this the last time in the first week of May.
> >
> > Yes, I know how to fix this. Yes, I reported things like this at the beginning. After getting always the
answer that it is working on my machine, I stopped reporting it.
> >
> 
> It is difficult to know how to respond to these anecdotes -- we don't
> know how many and what kind of problems you encountered, what you did

I know. It was always something simple. Like building a port by hand which was needed by X.

> when you performed these builds, and how you went about reporting the
> problems -- all of which can make a big difference in the outcome.  I
> will only say that, apart from occasional disruptions, it is usually
(Continue reading)

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Janketh Jay | 4 Jun 2012 01:33
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


Hi Erich,

	FreeBSD is in no way intended to be used by computer newcomers. If
they're comfortable with Windows, then they should use it. If someone
wants to try using FreeBSD and runs into issues, that is what the
forums, mailing lists, FreeBSD Handbook, and many other resources are for.

	That being said, there is no reason for FreeBSD to be more
user-friendly when it comes to installing older ports. That just
sounds ridiculous in itself. If someone wants to use an older port,
they can download it manually or using something like "portdowngrade".
Of course, this becomes a serious security risk (depending on the
port) but FreeBSD will still "allow" anyone to do this. If this simply
isn't good enough, then perhaps the user should think about trying to
use a different OS.

Regards,
Janky Jay, III
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Erich Dollansky | 4 Jun 2012 02:56
Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 5:33:16 Janketh Jay wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Hi Erich,
> 
> 	FreeBSD is in no way intended to be used by computer newcomers. If
> they're comfortable with Windows, then they should use it. If someone
> wants to try using FreeBSD and runs into issues, that is what the
> forums, mailing lists, FreeBSD Handbook, and many other resources are for.
> 
a person who operated Windows for some years does not see him/herself as a newcomer but still fails on
FreeBSD. The word goes around then that FreeBSD is bad.

> 	That being said, there is no reason for FreeBSD to be more
> user-friendly when it comes to installing older ports. That just
> sounds ridiculous in itself. If someone wants to use an older port,
> they can download it manually or using something like "portdowngrade".
> Of course, this becomes a serious security risk (depending on the
> port) but FreeBSD will still "allow" anyone to do this. If this simply
> isn't good enough, then perhaps the user should think about trying to
> use a different OS.
> 
You are really working hard to keep the FreeBSD installations low. It does not help FreeBSD if it is believed
to be an elite operating system.

Linux is by no way less complex and still many more people us it.
(Continue reading)

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Janketh Jay | 4 Jun 2012 03:54
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


Hi Erich,

On 06/03/2012 06:56 PM, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 03 June 2012 PM 5:33:16 Janketh Jay wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
>> 
>> Hi Erich,
>> 
>> FreeBSD is in no way intended to be used by computer newcomers.
>> If they're comfortable with Windows, then they should use it. If
>> someone wants to try using FreeBSD and runs into issues, that is
>> what the forums, mailing lists, FreeBSD Handbook, and many other
>> resources are for.
>> 
> a person who operated Windows for some years does not see
> him/herself as a newcomer but still fails on FreeBSD. The word goes
> around then that FreeBSD is bad.
> 
	This is fine, actually. As mentioned, it's not intended for
individuals that want everything handed to them on a silver platter.
Anyone who labels FreeBSD as "bad" because they aren't familiar with
it is an idiot, IMO. This isn't Microsoft, no matter how much people
might want it to be. And, it never will be. Use this list if you have
questions about ports. Is that really so difficult for people to do?
If so, no big deal. The FreeBSD developers, contributors and
maintainers are not here to hold people's hands. We're here to help
people help themselves...
(Continue reading)

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Erich Dollansky | 4 Jun 2012 04:50
Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 7:54:46 Janketh Jay wrote:
> >> 
> > a person who operated Windows for some years does not see
> > him/herself as a newcomer but still fails on FreeBSD. The word goes
> > around then that FreeBSD is bad.
> > 
> 	This is fine, actually. As mentioned, it's not intended for
> individuals that want everything handed to them on a silver platter.
> Anyone who labels FreeBSD as "bad" because they aren't familiar with
> it is an idiot, IMO. This isn't Microsoft, no matter how much people
> might want it to be. And, it never will be. Use this list if you have
> questions about ports. Is that really so difficult for people to do?
> If so, no big deal. The FreeBSD developers, contributors and
> maintainers are not here to hold people's hands. We're here to help
> people help themselves...
> 
how will you ever get newcomers to FreeBSD if not via Linux?

Why should people running Linux switch to FreeBSD?

This is a dangerous route.

Did you forget how you started with FreeBSD?

> > You are really working hard to keep the FreeBSD installations low.
> > It does not help FreeBSD if it is believed to be an elite operating
> > system.
> >
(Continue reading)

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Janketh Jay | 4 Jun 2012 07:03
Picon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


Hi Erich,

On 06/03/2012 08:50 PM, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 03 June 2012 PM 7:54:46 Janketh Jay wrote:
>>>> 
>>> a person who operated Windows for some years does not see 
>>> him/herself as a newcomer but still fails on FreeBSD. The word
>>> goes around then that FreeBSD is bad.
>>> 
>> This is fine, actually. As mentioned, it's not intended for 
>> individuals that want everything handed to them on a silver
>> platter. Anyone who labels FreeBSD as "bad" because they aren't
>> familiar with it is an idiot, IMO. This isn't Microsoft, no
>> matter how much people might want it to be. And, it never will
>> be. Use this list if you have questions about ports. Is that
>> really so difficult for people to do? If so, no big deal. The
>> FreeBSD developers, contributors and maintainers are not here to
>> hold people's hands. We're here to help people help
>> themselves...
>> 
> how will you ever get newcomers to FreeBSD if not via Linux?
> 
> Why should people running Linux switch to FreeBSD?
> 
> This is a dangerous route.
> 
> Did you forget how you started with FreeBSD?
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 4 Jun 2012 14:13

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 23:03:47 Janketh Jay wrote:
> On 06/03/2012 08:50 PM, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> > On 03 June 2012 PM 7:54:46 Janketh Jay wrote:
> >>>> 
> >>> a person who operated Windows for some years does not see 
> >>> him/herself as a newcomer but still fails on FreeBSD. The word
> >>> goes around then that FreeBSD is bad.
> >>> 
> >> This is fine, actually. As mentioned, it's not intended for 
> >> individuals that want everything handed to them on a silver
> >> platter. Anyone who labels FreeBSD as "bad" because they aren't
> >> familiar with it is an idiot, IMO. This isn't Microsoft, no
> >> matter how much people might want it to be. And, it never will
> >> be. Use this list if you have questions about ports. Is that
> >> really so difficult for people to do? If so, no big deal. The
> >> FreeBSD developers, contributors and maintainers are not here to
> >> hold people's hands. We're here to help people help
> >> themselves...
> >> 
> > how will you ever get newcomers to FreeBSD if not via Linux?
> > 
> > Why should people running Linux switch to FreeBSD?
> > 
> > This is a dangerous route.
> > 
> > Did you forget how you started with FreeBSD?
> > 
> 	We don't need people from Linux to migrate to FreeBSD. There are
(Continue reading)

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b. f. | 4 Jun 2012 12:14

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6/3/12, Erich <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:

...

> On 03 June 2012 PM 1:12:38 b. f. wrote:
>> > On 03 June 2012 PM 5:42:55 Adam Strohl wrote:
>> > > On 6/3/2012 17:24, Etienne Robillard wrote:

...

>> With regard to your request for a versioned Ports trees -- well, we
>> have had that for about 18 years, since the Ports tree is kept under
>> version control in CVS, and you are free to check out snapshots using
>> anonymous CVS or CVSup -- all you have to do is specify a tag or date
>
> I would not know for what tag I would have to go to solve a specific
> Problem.

Here we encounter a problem with your argument: it is unlikely that
your hypothetical helpless beginner would know what to do with a
versioned ports tree, even if he or she knew that it does in fact
exist.  Any such person who requires reliability should really be
using binary packages and binary base-system updates prepared by
someone else, and not compiling from source.  There have been
considerable improvements on this front, with freebsd-update and pkgng
(

http://wiki.freebsd.org/pkgng

).  If you want to help, you should become familiar with these, and
(Continue reading)

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Alexander Pyhalov | 4 Jun 2012 08:22
Picon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hello.
I wish we could use FreeBSD as basic platform, but it is not possible.

We met several problems which led to mass migration to Debian.
First of all, hardware support. EMC multipath was not supported by 
FreeBSD 8, and it was a necessary thing in our environment. We tried to 
use custom patches, but  met wired boot0 behavior - it randomly hung. We 
were interested in VNET jails to have separate network stack for a jail, 
but they were not stable enough. And the last thing - there were no 
means of resource control to prevent malfunctioning jail to influence 
badly the whole system.

So, we moved our infrastructure to OpenVZ/Debian and got all this plus 
possibility of live migration for containers and easy binary package 
management.
--

-- 
Best regards,
Alexander Pyhalov,
system administrator of Computer Center of Southern Federal University
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b. f. | 4 Jun 2012 16:02

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

...
> In any case, suppose a customer comes and asks for an application that
> uses PNG, you just updated your ports tree and then you either:
>
> 1. Have already libpng installed.
> Then you just don't rebuild libpng, just install the new software. You
> do this by going to the ports directory like
> /usr/ports/cathegory/greatstuff and type "make install". This will use
> the existing libpng on your system. No trouble.

... except the name of the libpng shared library changed, so the
builds of many ports will fail because they'll look for libpng15
instead of libpng.  Problem.  You could use local modifications to
your tree, or symlinks and libmap.conf(5) settings, to work around
this in many cases, but it would be a nuisance. Also, some other ports
may have been patched to work with the new shared library.  In this
case, it won't make much difference, but, speaking more generally
about updates of this kind, there may be problems.

>
> 2. Don't have libpng installed yet.
> You install the new port any way you like. Since you have no libpng on
> your system, you have no dependencies to upgrade (and wait). You will
> end up with the new libpng on your system. No trouble.
>

... except that it usually takes a few days for some of the bugs to be
found and fixed, and the dust to settle, even for major updates that
have undergone routine testing.  So if you have a tight deadline,
there could be a problem, because some of your builds may fail due to
(Continue reading)

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Darren Reed | 4 Jun 2012 18:37
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Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

I'm NOT using FreeBSD because it doesn't ship with /bin/ksh.

WTF?!

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b. f. | 5 Jun 2012 09:08

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

> On 05 June 2012 15:33:16 Mark Andrews wrote:
> >
> > In message <2490439.EC638TI0j3 at x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > On 05 June 2012 12:48:20 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > > >
> > > > In message <3506767.Fvm2KmtnYf at x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> > > > >
> > > > > On 05 June 2012 11:24:25 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > It's already there.  If you want the ports as of FreeBSD 4.x EOL
> > > > then the tag is "RELEASE_4_EOL".  If you want ports as of FreeBSD
> > > > 9.0 then the tag is "RELEASE_9_9_0".
> > > >
> > > I did not know this. Do you have a link for this? I never read about it.
> >
> > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/cvs-tags.html
>
> All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag), only apply to the src/ tree. The
ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not branched.
>
> I understand this that I can use these tags on the FreeBSD sources but not on the ports.
>
> I never tried this on the ports.

I sent a long reply to your earlier message on freebsd-ports
explaining exactly this -- how each Ports tree snapshot has a version
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 5 Jun 2012 10:25

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 3:08:17 b. f. wrote:
> > On 05 June 2012 15:33:16 Mark Andrews wrote:
> > >
> > > In message <2490439.EC638TI0j3 at x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag), only apply to the src/ tree. The
ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not branched.
> >
> > I understand this that I can use these tags on the FreeBSD sources but not on the ports.
> >
> > I never tried this on the ports.
> 
> I sent a long reply to your earlier message on freebsd-ports
> explaining exactly this -- how each Ports tree snapshot has a version
> number: the date spec.  Also, how a few special snapshots also have a
> second version number: the release tag.  I also explained how to find
> and use these, with and without cvs.  Am I wasting my time by trying
> to answer your questions, E.?

I think that you missed my point. The point is that this has to be made available for beginners. As long as the
handbook states that this does not apply to the ports tree, at least beginners will stop there.

Erich
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b. f. | 5 Jun 2012 11:29

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6/5/12, Erich <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 05 June 2012 3:08:17 b. f. wrote:
>> > On 05 June 2012 15:33:16 Mark Andrews wrote:
>> > >
>> > > In message <2490439.EC638TI0j3 at x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
>> > > > Hi,
>> > > >
>> > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag),
>> > only apply to the src/ tree. The ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not
>> > branched.
>> >
>> > I understand this that I can use these tags on the FreeBSD sources but
>> > not on the ports.
>> >
>> > I never tried this on the ports.
>>
>> I sent a long reply to your earlier message on freebsd-ports
>> explaining exactly this -- how each Ports tree snapshot has a version
>> number: the date spec.  Also, how a few special snapshots also have a
>> second version number: the release tag.  I also explained how to find
>> and use these, with and without cvs.  Am I wasting my time by trying
>> to answer your questions, E.?
>
> I think that you missed my point. The point is that this has to be made
> available for beginners. As long as the handbook states that this does not
> apply to the ports tree, at least beginners will stop there.

If you had hoped to make your point by feigning ignorance of something
(Continue reading)

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Chris Rees | 5 Jun 2012 11:55
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Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 5 June 2012 09:25, Erich <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 05 June 2012 3:08:17 b. f. wrote:
>> > On 05 June 2012 15:33:16 Mark Andrews wrote:
>> > >
>> > > In message <2490439.EC638TI0j3 at x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
>> > > > Hi,
>> > > >
>> > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag), only apply to the src/ tree. The
ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not branched.
>> >
>> > I understand this that I can use these tags on the FreeBSD sources but not on the ports.
>> >
>> > I never tried this on the ports.
>>
>> I sent a long reply to your earlier message on freebsd-ports
>> explaining exactly this -- how each Ports tree snapshot has a version
>> number: the date spec.  Also, how a few special snapshots also have a
>> second version number: the release tag.  I also explained how to find
>> and use these, with and without cvs.  Am I wasting my time by trying
>> to answer your questions, E.?
>
> I think that you missed my point. The point is that this has to be made available for beginners. As long as the
handbook states that this does not apply to the ports tree, at least beginners will stop there.

"Beginners" should be using packages anyway.

It is absolutely a bad idea for "beginners" to be using tagged/dated
ports trees-- they are not supported and will lead to many complaints
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 6 Jun 2012 04:31

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 05 June 2012 10:55:57 Chris Rees wrote:
> On 5 June 2012 09:25, Erich <erichfreebsdlist <at> ovitrap.com> wrote:
> > On 05 June 2012 3:08:17 b. f. wrote:
> >> > On 05 June 2012 15:33:16 Mark Andrews wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > In message <2490439.EC638TI0j3 at x220.ovitrap.com>, Erich writes:
> >> > > > Hi,
> >> > > >
> >> > All of these, with the exception of HEAD (which is always a valid tag), only apply to the src/ tree. The
ports/, doc/, and www/ trees are not branched.
> >> >
> >> > I understand this that I can use these tags on the FreeBSD sources but not on the ports.
> >> >
> >> > I never tried this on the ports.
> >>
> >> I sent a long reply to your earlier message on freebsd-ports
> >> explaining exactly this -- how each Ports tree snapshot has a version
> >> number: the date spec.  Also, how a few special snapshots also have a
> >> second version number: the release tag.  I also explained how to find
> >> and use these, with and without cvs.  Am I wasting my time by trying
> >> to answer your questions, E.?
> >
> > I think that you missed my point. The point is that this has to be made available for beginners. As long as
the handbook states that this does not apply to the ports tree, at least beginners will stop there.
> 
> "Beginners" should be using packages anyway.

when are then allowed to use the ports?
(Continue reading)

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Daniel Kalchev | 6 Jun 2012 08:46
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 06.06.12 05:31, Erich wrote:
> On 05 June 2012 10:55:57 Chris Rees wrote:
>> It is absolutely a bad idea for "beginners" to be using tagged/dated
>> ports trees-- they are not supported and will lead to many complaints
>> about problems that were solved since the tag.
> How do they fall back when things went wrong?
>
> The handbook states that there is no fall back option.
>
> Their fall back option has a name: Windows.

No need for Windows propaganda here. We have had enough of this already. 
Thanks.

By the way, for those who tried FreeBSD and found it "too much", there 
is another, way better alternative: OS X
Someone else does the packaging, testing etc. for you and you still 
don't run Windows :)

This, of course, if the person, unlike you, does not ignore the advice 
to use PC-BSD. The same FreeBSD, with someone else taking care of 
watching the ports tree, configuring, compiling, packaging etc.

Daniel
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Sean Cavanaugh | 6 Jun 2012 15:21
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Favicon

RE: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-current <at> freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
> current <at> freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Kalchev
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 2:46 AM
> To: freebsd-current <at> freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?
> 
> 
> 
> On 06.06.12 05:31, Erich wrote:
> > On 05 June 2012 10:55:57 Chris Rees wrote:
> >> It is absolutely a bad idea for "beginners" to be using tagged/dated
> >> ports trees-- they are not supported and will lead to many complaints
> >> about problems that were solved since the tag.
> > How do they fall back when things went wrong?
> >
> > The handbook states that there is no fall back option.
> >
> > Their fall back option has a name: Windows.
> 
> No need for Windows propaganda here. We have had enough of this
> already.
> Thanks.
> 
> By the way, for those who tried FreeBSD and found it "too much", there is
> another, way better alternative: OS X Someone else does the packaging,
> testing etc. for you and you still don't run Windows :)
> 
> This, of course, if the person, unlike you, does not ignore the advice to
(Continue reading)

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Erich Dollansky | 6 Jun 2012 15:48
Favicon

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 06 June 2012 9:21:22 Sean Cavanaugh wrote:
> 
> Overall I see it as packages are flat stable at the cost of being out of
> date, and ports are current but not guaranteed to compile without
> intervention. The Maintainers do give a very good shot to make them stable
> but sometimes one person cannot maintain millions of lines of code and not
> make a glitch occasionally, or make it out on time when a dependency
> changes.

isn't the date of the packages the date of the last release of the branch? Aren't the chances high then to get a
working ports tree?

You can follow the discussion about this subject for at least 10 years back. The result is always the same.

In parallel is the discussion why so little people are using FreeBSD.

Do you understand what I want to say?

Erich
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Chris Rees | 6 Jun 2012 16:15
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 6 June 2012 14:48, Erich Dollansky <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 06 June 2012 9:21:22 Sean Cavanaugh wrote:
>>
>> Overall I see it as packages are flat stable at the cost of being out of
>> date, and ports are current but not guaranteed to compile without
>> intervention. The Maintainers do give a very good shot to make them stable
>> but sometimes one person cannot maintain millions of lines of code and not
>> make a glitch occasionally, or make it out on time when a dependency
>> changes.
>
> isn't the date of the packages the date of the last release of the branch? Aren't the chances high then to get
a working ports tree?
>
> You can follow the discussion about this subject for at least 10 years back. The result is always the same.
>
> In parallel is the discussion why so little people are using FreeBSD.
>
> Do you understand what I want to say?

I do understand it, but you don't seem to understand that we *do*
understand what you're saying.

- Tagged ports trees contain out of date software.

- Security fixes cannot be backported to tagged trees- we *do* *not*
*have* *resources* for this.

- Occasionally you may see minor issues when following the latest
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Erich | 6 Jun 2012 16:37

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 06 June 2012 15:15:24 Chris Rees wrote:
> On 6 June 2012 14:48, Erich Dollansky <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > On 06 June 2012 9:21:22 Sean Cavanaugh wrote:
> >>
> >> Overall I see it as packages are flat stable at the cost of being out of
> >> date, and ports are current but not guaranteed to compile without
> >> intervention. The Maintainers do give a very good shot to make them stable
> >> but sometimes one person cannot maintain millions of lines of code and not
> >> make a glitch occasionally, or make it out on time when a dependency
> >> changes.
> >
> > isn't the date of the packages the date of the last release of the branch? Aren't the chances high then to
get a working ports tree?
> >
> > You can follow the discussion about this subject for at least 10 years back. The result is always the same.
> >
> > In parallel is the discussion why so little people are using FreeBSD.
> >
> > Do you understand what I want to say?
> 
> I do understand it, but you don't seem to understand that we *do*
> understand what you're saying.
> 
> - Tagged ports trees contain out of date software.
> 
that is the idea.
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O. Hartmann | 6 Jun 2012 21:59
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 06/06/12 16:15, Chris Rees wrote:
> On 6 June 2012 14:48, Erich Dollansky <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 06 June 2012 9:21:22 Sean Cavanaugh wrote:
>>>
>>> Overall I see it as packages are flat stable at the cost of being out of
>>> date, and ports are current but not guaranteed to compile without
>>> intervention. The Maintainers do give a very good shot to make them stable
>>> but sometimes one person cannot maintain millions of lines of code and not
>>> make a glitch occasionally, or make it out on time when a dependency
>>> changes.
>>
>> isn't the date of the packages the date of the last release of the branch? Aren't the chances high then to
get a working ports tree?
>>
>> You can follow the discussion about this subject for at least 10 years back. The result is always the same.
>>
>> In parallel is the discussion why so little people are using FreeBSD.
>>
>> Do you understand what I want to say?
> 
> I do understand it, but you don't seem to understand that we *do*
> understand what you're saying.
> 
> - Tagged ports trees contain out of date software.

This is the implicite nature of a tag and - I presume - intended.

>
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Erich | 7 Jun 2012 01:09

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 06 June 2012 21:59:49 O. Hartmann wrote:
> On 06/06/12 16:15, Chris Rees wrote:
> > On 6 June 2012 14:48, Erich Dollansky <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com> wrote:

> Those "minor" issues are, having the recent mess in front of my eyes, a
> simple "negative exaggeration". What is that "price worth", if the
> system is faulting and rendered useless or partially useless?
> 
just do what was recommended in this thread: wait.

Tell this ones to a commercial client. They will use words on you for which use you get a life ban on this list.

And then they wonder:

>       one thing ive been doing is de-selection most  of the
>       options..  the box is my server. we [freebsders] have lost
>       the desktop 'market' ....  

>From an e-mail titled 'how can I fix this'.

Erich
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Daniel Kalchev | 7 Jun 2012 11:17
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 07.06.12 02:09, Erich wrote:
>> Those "minor" issues are, having the recent mess in front of my eyes, a
>> simple "negative exaggeration". What is that "price worth", if the
>> system is faulting and rendered useless or partially useless?
>>
> just do what was recommended in this thread: wait.
>
> Tell this ones to a commercial client. They will use words on you for which use you get a life ban on this list.

If you are not qualified enough to handle issues like this, you would be 
better to avoid offering your "integration services" to anyone. Or, of 
you dare to -- you fully deserve those people yelling at you, or worse..

Those who use FreeBSD to offer integration services and are qualified do 
not whine, neither they wait. Those people do what the promised to do: 
provide the customer with the requested solution.

No, you are not born with prior knowledge of how ports work on FreeBSD, 
it takes lots of time, effort and discipline to learn. You either invest 
in learning the basic skills required to offer your services to others, 
or you go play elsewhere.

Daniel
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Erich | 7 Jun 2012 11:30

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 07 June 2012 12:17:14 Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> 
> On 07.06.12 02:09, Erich wrote:
> >> Those "minor" issues are, having the recent mess in front of my eyes, a
> >> simple "negative exaggeration". What is that "price worth", if the
> >> system is faulting and rendered useless or partially useless?
> >>
> > just do what was recommended in this thread: wait.
> >
> > Tell this ones to a commercial client. They will use words on you for which use you get a life ban on this list.
> 
> If you are not qualified enough to handle issues like this, you would be 
> better to avoid offering your "integration services" to anyone. Or, of 
> you dare to -- you fully deserve those people yelling at you, or worse..
> 
> Those who use FreeBSD to offer integration services and are qualified do 
> not whine, neither they wait. Those people do what the promised to do: 
> provide the customer with the requested solution.
> 
> No, you are not born with prior knowledge of how ports work on FreeBSD, 
> it takes lots of time, effort and discipline to learn. You either invest 
> in learning the basic skills required to offer your services to others, 
> or you go play elsewhere.
> 
this is precisely the kind of answer which stops people from using FreeBSD.

Thank you for repelling more people and keeping the user base small.
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Daniel Kalchev | 7 Jun 2012 11:58
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?


On 07.06.12 12:30, Erich wrote:
> On 07 June 2012 12:17:14 Daniel Kalchev wrote:
>>> just do what was recommended in this thread: wait. Tell this ones to 
>>> a commercial client. They will use words on you for which use you 
>>> get a life ban on this list. 
>> If you are not qualified enough to handle issues like this, you would be
>> better to avoid offering your "integration services" to anyone. Or, of
>> you dare to -- you fully deserve those people yelling at you, or worse..
>>
>> Those who use FreeBSD to offer integration services and are qualified do
>> not whine, neither they wait. Those people do what the promised to do:
>> provide the customer with the requested solution.
>>
>> No, you are not born with prior knowledge of how ports work on FreeBSD,
>> it takes lots of time, effort and discipline to learn. You either invest
>> in learning the basic skills required to offer your services to others,
>> or you go play elsewhere.
>>
> this is precisely the kind of answer which stops people from using FreeBSD.
>
> Thank you for repelling more people and keeping the user base small.

None of this is unique to FreeBSD. It is exactly the same no matter what 
OS or other tool you use. Either you know your tools and do your job for 
the benefit of your customers. Or you don't know your tools, to the 
detriment of those who trusted your claims otherwise.

As expected, you got the last sentence wrong. I wasn't referring to 
FreeBSD, but to consulting and integration services :)
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Erich | 7 Jun 2012 12:11

Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 07 June 2012 12:58:14 Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> 
> On 07.06.12 12:30, Erich wrote:
> > On 07 June 2012 12:17:14 Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> >>
> > this is precisely the kind of answer which stops people from using FreeBSD.
> >
> > Thank you for repelling more people and keeping the user base small.
> 
> None of this is unique to FreeBSD. It is exactly the same no matter what 
> OS or other tool you use. Either you know your tools and do your job for 
> the benefit of your customers. Or you don't know your tools, to the 
> detriment of those who trusted your claims otherwise.
> 
> As expected, you got the last sentence wrong. I wasn't referring to 
> FreeBSD, but to consulting and integration services :)
> English is apparently not native to both of us.
> 
you imply here several things which are totally wrong. I was joining this saying a small change would help
newcomers to make their life easier.

Did you ever notice this?

I am also in a totally different field meanwhile.

Erich
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Hartmann, O. | 7 Jun 2012 12:58
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 06/07/12 11:17, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> 
> 
> On 07.06.12 02:09, Erich wrote:
>>> Those "minor" issues are, having the recent mess in front of my eyes, a
>>> simple "negative exaggeration". What is that "price worth", if the
>>> system is faulting and rendered useless or partially useless?
>>>
>> just do what was recommended in this thread: wait.

... well, I will pass this to those who fund my research. Wait. Yes ...
the right answer.

>>
>> Tell this ones to a commercial client. They will use words on you for
>> which use you get a life ban on this list.

Not even commercial clients ... I have the impression that the people
who are using FreeBSD MUST be professionals in any way - or just
adventurers. This impression can be emphazized by picking up some of the
comments made here.

> 
> If you are not qualified enough to handle issues like this, you would be
> better to avoid offering your "integration services" to anyone. Or, of
> you dare to -- you fully deserve those people yelling at you, or worse..
> 
> Those who use FreeBSD to offer integration services and are qualified do
> not whine, neither they wait. Those people do what the promised to do:
> provide the customer with the requested solution.
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Erich Dollansky | 7 Jun 2012 14:29
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 07 June 2012 12:58:59 Hartmann, O. wrote:
> On 06/07/12 11:17, Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > On 07.06.12 02:09, Erich wrote:
> >>> Those "minor" issues are, having the recent mess in front of my eyes, a
> >>> simple "negative exaggeration". What is that "price worth", if the
> >>> system is faulting and rendered useless or partially useless?
> >>>
> >> just do what was recommended in this thread: wait.
> 
> ... well, I will pass this to those who fund my research. Wait. Yes ...
> the right answer.

to make them ban FreeBSD from all of their projects?
> 
> >>
> >> Tell this ones to a commercial client. They will use words on you for
> >> which use you get a life ban on this list.
> 
> Not even commercial clients ... I have the impression that the people
> who are using FreeBSD MUST be professionals in any way - or just
> adventurers. This impression can be emphazized by picking up some of the
> comments made here.
> 
I am back to BSD since around ten years. I never really left Unix since I started with it during the last days of
the Seventies. It amazes me most that this kind of people always have been there.
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Daniel Kalchev | 7 Jun 2012 14:09
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Re: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

On 07.06.12 13:58, Hartmann, O. wrote:
> ... in some cases this needs the deep knowledge of all ports/software
> provided and used and this is simply impossible, or at least null
> convergent probability.

Only God is required to know and be able to do everything. We humans can 
be imperfect.

> In some cases I see a dicrepancy between what is reality and what is
> predicated. If it comes to the evidence, that something has been
> mismanaged, then there is always this allmighty excuse: FreeBSD is a
> volunteer system developed by volunteers blabla. I'm also a volunteer
> using FreeBSD! And I spend a lot of time trying to help.

There was recently an very nice short announcement on how/why Netflix 
has decided to use FreeBSD as the base for their delivery infrastructure 
platform. You understand, that Netflix are serious about this. According 
to them, they have identified where the current state of FreeBSD needs 
help and contributed their fixes back to the community voluntarily (they 
are not required by the BSD license, unlike with GPL).

I didn't read any excuse on part of Netflix why they can't use FreeBSD.

> But at some points this gets very frustrating! Totally corrupted ports
> (not FreeBSD itself!), and so a corrupted system, no fallback mechanism
> although the problem is there for decades by now (as stated in this thread).

Why the whining?

I too am sometimes frustrated that the ports tree gets broken from time
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Sean Cavanaugh | 6 Jun 2012 16:23
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RE: Why Are You NOT Using FreeBSD?

> In parallel is the discussion why so little people are using FreeBSD.
> 
> Do you understand what I want to say?
> 
> Erich

I would say there are 3 main things.

1) the 3rd party apps, which has already been covered of how overpowering it
can appear to newbies. Not going into depth anymore

2) lack of advertising the name. If you ask most IT professionals to name as
many OSes as they can that they hear about, usually boils down to Windows,
Linux, Solaris, AIX,OSX and then the oddball IBM ones like Z, I, etc. not
many people hear about FreeBSD or what systems they use on a regular basis
that are based on it.

>From my understanding Hotmail was originally a BSD based system before they
were gobbled by Microsoft. Most newer websites are either IIS or a LAMP
stack as far as people know. The one new addition to the list of systems
that uses FreeBSD is Netflix as they advertise that is what their
OpenConnect system runs on (FreeBSD 9.0)
https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/software

In general though there is not the huge "My system is so stable because it's
based on (Free)BSD" out in the wild. The "in the know" techs know about it
but not Joe CIO at XYZ company

3) Most of the support for FreeBSD is provided by the community and a couple
of shops that cater to it like iX. There is not the same level of direct
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Erich | 3 Jun 2012 03:05

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 PM 3:47:27 Daniel Kalchev wrote:
> 
> On 02.06.12 15:32, Erich wrote:
> > I know that the ports tree is a moving target. But it stops moving during the release period. This could be
used to give a fall back solution.
> >
> > Or do I see this really too simple?
> 
> The ports tree is a moving target during release periods still, although 
> there are efforts to make movements smaller. This is why, after a 
> release it suddenly moves more :)

I know. I save me as many versions as possible during a release just as a fall back.

I did not do this before and got hit several times when I believed that all I need is the installation of a small program.

Anyway, the team knows the version of the tree used for the release they are working on. Making this ports
tree easily available could help to overcome some problems.

Erich
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Chris Rees | 2 Jun 2012 23:52
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 2 June 2012 10:42, Erich Dollansky <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 02 June 2012 AM 9:14:28 Chris Rees wrote:
>> On Jun 2, 2012 4:04 AM, "Erich Dollansky" <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > But I have to mention one disadvantage. The ports are in no way linked to
>> the releases. This leads to situations in which a small change in a basic
>> library will result in a complete update of the installed ports. I
>> expressed this already many time here. It would be of advantage if the
>> ports tree would also have tags like the base system itself.
>> >
>>
>> Unfortunately this is a massive amount of extra work - we only just keep up
>> with updates as it is.
>
> I do not think so. At least not for the first step as I see it. Just make snapshots of the ports tree when the
release comes out. These snapshots are with the releases anyway.
>
> What I did was very simple. I got the ports tree that comes with the release and installed the system back to
the release status. Ok, it was some work for me - maybe not for others - to find this tree.
>
> A simple link could help here.
>
> I do not know if this is just an opinion which is too optimistic.
>
> What I know is that all the security fixes which appeared since the release are not in there. If I have the
choice between three days or more of compiling and known security holes, I will take the security holes,
make the client happy and upgrade after the work for the client is finished.
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Erich | 3 Jun 2012 06:26

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 PM 10:52:48 Chris Rees wrote:
> On 2 June 2012 10:42, Erich Dollansky <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com> wrote:
> > On 02 June 2012 AM 9:14:28 Chris Rees wrote:
> >> On Jun 2, 2012 4:04 AM, "Erich Dollansky" <erich <at> alogreentechnologies.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > But I have to mention one disadvantage. The ports are in no way linked to
> >> the releases. This leads to situations in which a small change in a basic
> >> library will result in a complete update of the installed ports. I
> >> expressed this already many time here. It would be of advantage if the
> >> ports tree would also have tags like the base system itself.
> >> >
> >>
> >> Unfortunately this is a massive amount of extra work - we only just keep up
> >> with updates as it is.
> >
> > I do not think so. At least not for the first step as I see it. Just make snapshots of the ports tree when the
release comes out. These snapshots are with the releases anyway.
> >
> > What I did was very simple. I got the ports tree that comes with the release and installed the system back to
the release status. Ok, it was some work for me - maybe not for others - to find this tree.
> >
> > A simple link could help here.
> >
> > I do not know if this is just an opinion which is too optimistic.
> >
> > What I know is that all the security fixes which appeared since the release are not in there. If I have the
choice between three days or more of compiling and known security holes, I will take the security holes,
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David Chisnall | 2 Jun 2012 12:39
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 2 Jun 2012, at 03:56, Erich Dollansky wrote:

> But I have to mention one disadvantage. The ports are in no way linked to the releases. This leads to
situations in which a small change in a basic library will result in a complete update of the installed
ports. I expressed this already many time here. It would be of advantage if the ports tree would also have
tags like the base system itself.

OpenBSD did this for a while, but they gave up because they weren't doing it well enough to recommend it and it
did more harm to users to do it badly than not at all.

Ideally, you want to get security fixes for all installed applications, but nothing else, in this model. 
There are two ways of doing this:

- Back-port security fixes to the version shipped with the base system
- Import the security-fixed version into the stable set.

The second option has the problem that you identified: if the new version depends on a newer library, then
this cascades and you end up needing to import a new version of hundreds of ports.  

The first option has a much simpler disadvantage: it requires a huge amount of manpower.  Companies like Red
Hat can do this because they charge their users a lot for this service.  We could probably do this if we had
enough users willing to pay for the service, or if we restrict it to a set of packages that do their own
security backports upstream.

The problem with the second option can be alleviated if we make it easier to have multiple versions of
libraries installed at the same time (this is something that the PBI system in PC-BSD does, albeit in an
ugly hackish way that could be improved significantly with a bit of assistance from rtld).  

David_______________________________________________
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Erich | 2 Jun 2012 13:01

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 AM 11:39:16 David Chisnall wrote:
> On 2 Jun 2012, at 03:56, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> 
> > But I have to mention one disadvantage. The ports are in no way linked to the releases. This leads to
situations in which a small change in a basic library will result in a complete update of the installed
ports. I expressed this already many time here. It would be of advantage if the ports tree would also have
tags like the base system itself.
> 
> OpenBSD did this for a while, but they gave up because they weren't doing it well enough to recommend it and
it did more harm to users to do it badly than not at all.
> 
> Ideally, you want to get security fixes for all installed applications, but nothing else, in this model. 
There are two ways of doing this:
> 
I would even accept to get the 'release' ports tree without security fixes just to have a system which is up
and running fast after I tried an upgrade like what is happening at the moment with PNG dependent ports.

As situations like this are rarely needed, I would not push for a fully secured system.

Do not see it too complicated what I want. It is really just a system I can fall back at the spot if things got
complicated with with a csup the new ports tree just to get something installed.

A user who really wants to run a totally outdated system should know what he/she is doing and not complain
when things go wrong.

> - Back-port security fixes to the version shipped with the base system
> - Import the security-fixed version into the stable set.
>
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David Chisnall | 2 Jun 2012 13:04
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 2 Jun 2012, at 12:01, Erich wrote:

> I would even accept to get the 'release' ports tree without security fixes just to have a system which is up
and running fast after I tried an upgrade like what is happening at the moment with PNG dependent ports.

You have this already.  Just install the ports tree snapshot from the release...

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Erich | 2 Jun 2012 13:19

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 PM 12:04:26 David Chisnall wrote:
> On 2 Jun 2012, at 12:01, Erich wrote:
> 
> > I would even accept to get the 'release' ports tree without security fixes just to have a system which is up
and running fast after I tried an upgrade like what is happening at the moment with PNG dependent ports.
> 
> You have this already.  Just install the ports tree snapshot from the release...

I know. I just what I would like to get is a direct method also people who are just basic users can use it without
many problems.

Erich
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David Chisnall | 2 Jun 2012 13:50
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On 2 Jun 2012, at 12:19, Erich wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On 02 June 2012 PM 12:04:26 David Chisnall wrote:
>> On 2 Jun 2012, at 12:01, Erich wrote:
>> 
>>> I would even accept to get the 'release' ports tree without security fixes just to have a system which is
up and running fast after I tried an upgrade like what is happening at the moment with PNG dependent ports.
>> 
>> You have this already.  Just install the ports tree snapshot from the release...
> 
> I know. I just what I would like to get is a direct method also people who are just basic users can use it
without many problems.

Run sysinstall, point it at the release CD / DVD, say 'install ports tree'...

Encouraging basic users to run insecure versions of applications, however, is something that I would
strongly object to.

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Erich | 2 Jun 2012 14:26

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 02 June 2012 PM 12:50:16 David Chisnall wrote:
> On 2 Jun 2012, at 12:19, Erich wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On 02 June 2012 PM 12:04:26 David Chisnall wrote:
> >> On 2 Jun 2012, at 12:01, Erich wrote:
> >> 
> >>> I would even accept to get the 'release' ports tree without security fixes just to have a system which is
up and running fast after I tried an upgrade like what is happening at the moment with PNG dependent ports.
> >> 
> >> You have this already.  Just install the ports tree snapshot from the release...
> > 
> > I know. I just what I would like to get is a direct method also people who are just basic users can use it
without many problems.
> 
> Run sysinstall, point it at the release CD / DVD, say 'install ports tree'...

how old will the last tree then be?

All I want to suggest that this can be downloaded directly via the Internet.
> 
> Encouraging basic users to run insecure versions of applications, however, is something that I would
strongly object to.
> 
What will a new user do when faced with this situation? Just go back to what ever system was installed before
and keep the fingers off FreeBSD as it seemed too difficult to find a solution for a small problem.
(Continue reading)

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Erich | 4 Jun 2012 03:28

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 30 May 2012 PM 7:20:31 David Chisnall wrote:
> 
> This is off-topic, so please feel free to disregard it, but I'm sending it to this list in the hope that it
will reach a largish number of users.  
> 
> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material (which advertises exciting new features
like SMP support), and before I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using FreeBSD.  If
you had to list the three things you most like about FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when
you first started using it?  

one thing which cannot be stressed enough is the responsiveness of FreeBSD under all load conditions. I am
surprised how slow Fedora feels occasionally. FreeBSD does not show this behaviour until the load
average is double the number of CPUs in a system.

I also noticed meanwhile that another big advantage of FreeBSD is the fact they it does not even try to give
you the feeling that all is possible with just a click without being able to work on the low level.

Fedora gives you this feeling but makes you feel totally lost when the click does not work.

This leads to the clear structure of FreeBSD and its configuration. There are not several different
systems which might even change from release to release. It is just /etc/.

The clear separation of the base system and the applications (ports) is another clear advantage.

I would not like to see things which are happening now with Fedora 17 happening with FreeBSD.

As I have said before, the only real reason for me not to use FreeBSD on a machine is hardware support.
(Continue reading)

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Stephen Montgomery-Smith | 4 Jun 2012 03:45
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

I use FreeBSD because it was the first Intel based unix I tried.  A 
friend of mine suggested I try FreeBSD instead of Linux.

More recently I have had to start using Linux because FreeBSD doesn't 
have very good laptop support.  (All I ask for is a way to configure the 
mouse pad so that I can switch off "tap to click.")

My main application is to write my own mathematics code.  From time to 
time I try running it under both FreeBSD and Linux to see which is 
fastest.  It seems the two OS's take turns in which is fastest, 
depending upon which has had more recent development work done on it.

Another reason I am forced to use Linux is because I sometimes use 
Mathematica 8.  I haven't got this to work with Linux emulation under 
FreeBSD yet.

When I use Linux, I use Ubuntu.  I like very much how things just 
"work."  For example, to use a flash drive, I just plug it in.  I am 
sure I could configure FreeBSD to do the same thing, but it just becomes 
easier to type "mount_msdos /dev/da0s1 /tmp" as root rather than climb 
the learning curve.

On the other hand Ubuntu recently switched their Window manager, and I 
hated it on their early versions.  They also offered gnome3, and it just 
wasn't working.  So I dare not go beyond Ubuntu 10.04, and I fear the 
day 10.04 becomes EOL.

Having started with FreeBSD before Linux, I feel I understand FreeBSD a 
lot better.
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Erich | 4 Jun 2012 04:38

Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

Hi,

On 03 June 2012 PM 8:45:59 Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:

> On the other hand Ubuntu recently switched their Window manager, and I 
> hated it on their early versions.  They also offered gnome3, and it just 
> wasn't working.  So I dare not go beyond Ubuntu 10.04, and I fear the 
> day 10.04 becomes EOL.
> 
while Ubuntu is certified to run on my laptop, it doesn't do so. So, I installed Fedora and it works.

This might be an escape route for you if things go real bad.

Erich
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Mark Felder | 5 Jun 2012 16:41
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Re: Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 20:45:59 -0500, Stephen Montgomery-Smith  
<stephen <at> missouri.edu> wrote:

> More recently I have had to start using Linux because FreeBSD doesn't  
> have very good laptop support.  (All I ask for is a way to configure the  
> mouse pad so that I can switch off "tap to click.")

See, this isn't very obvious to most people. It took me forever to figure  
it out.

On every other OS you use the Xorg synaptics driver, but on FreeBSD there  
is synaptics support built-in with the rest of the mouse driver.

man 4 psm:

      Tap and drag gestures can be disabled by setting hw.psm.tap_enabled  
to 0
      at boot-time.  Currently, this is only supported on Synaptics  
touchpads
      with Extended support disabled. The behaviour may be changed after  
boot
      by setting the sysctl with the same name and by restarting moused(8)
      using /etc/rc.d/moused.
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Gmane