Submitted by “FreeBSD is back to its incredible performance and now can take advantage of multi-core/CPUs systems very well… So well that some benchmarks on both Intel and AMD systems showed release 7.0 being faster than Linux 2.6 when running PostreSQL or MySQL. Federico Biancuzzi interviewed two dozen developers to discuss all the cool details of FreeBSD 7.0: networking and SMP performance, SCTP support, the new IPSEC stack, virtualization, monitoring frameworks, ports, storage limits and a new journaling facility, what changed in the accounting file format, jemalloc(), ULE, and more.”
KoDus to all FreeBSD devs on this fantastic JOB! I must say that I have never been happier to use FreeBSD. This released is just solid as a rock
I am already using it in production and it is fast, stable, and easy to manage 
I urge anyone who hasn’t tried FreeBSD before to give it a shot
I think your post can be summed up with
. I concur.
Edited 2008-02-26 23:55 UTC
The main reason for me to try FreeBSD would be ZFS. The question remains: how solid and mature is ZFS support in FreeBSD?
It’s their first production version with ZFS support. Would it be a better choice to try a OpenSolaris distro or not? Most OpenSolaris distros are not mature in other respects.
Comments from people with some experience in this field would be welcome!
My experience with ZFS on FreeBSD has been really really good. I haven’t found any problems as of yet. I recommend trying it out.
FreeBSD 7 has introduced a huge number of improvements. You really can’t appreciate it until you install it on your system and watch it work for yourself. It’s truly a big step forward.
Awesome work to FreeBSD Team.
The article is really informative, I recommend reading it to anyone who is interested in the development of FreeBSD, bot also to users wo would ask: “Why should I try it?”
I’m interested in how can ZFS data be accessed in cases of emergency (rescue system, maintenance operations); with UFS storage partitions, I didn’t have any problems using linve system CDs (based upon FreeBSD) or the rescue system on the / partition. The features of ZFS are really cool and would be an improvement over the traditional way of partitioning in FreeBSD.
NB: While everything works, it’s okay. But only in the case of a failure you can see how valueable your tools are.
I fear I’m note brave enough to try it on my production systems…
Whenever FreeBSD offers a new release, I’m happy that it is my main OS (next to Solaris), I use it on servers and desktops since the days of 4.0. Every release gives a speed improvement on the same (!) hardware, something that I’m really missing on non-BSD OSes. Stability, easyness of use, userfriendlyness, the tidy system architecture and of course the excellent documentation (manpages, handbook, comments in sources) are really appealing to me.
Many thanks, FreeBSD developers, you saved me from complete madness.
As soon as 7.0-RELEASE is out, I’m sure I’ll install permanent systems to replace older (but flawlessly working) 5.x and 6.x systems.
ZFS is an experimental feature in FreeBSD 7.0R.
I don’t think that Solaris XDE http://developers.sun.com/sxde/ is immature.
It isn’t marked “experimental” for fun. Only a handful of people have tested it, and there are plenty of problems that they run into and have to work around. If you want to be an experimental/alpha tester, go for it.
But if you want to try a ZFS that is known to be pretty stable, try Nexenta Core or the OpenSolaris Project Indiana Developer Preview 2 LiveCD.
You could also try Solaris.
Solaris 10 is way out of date compared to the latest OpenSolaris code which my two suggestions are based on.
>Nexenta Core
Yes because of 1.0 it’s mature. There is some difference between hype and honesty. The latter you’ll find with *BSD. Furthermore it’s no secret, that even in Solaris ZFS has got some problems, especially with pools. Last not least ZFS _is_ a WIP project at Sun.
ZFS is marked as an experimental feature in 7.0. There were reports of having to tune up ZFS configuration on i386, otherwise kernel may run out of memory and panic. A general recommendation was to use amd64 platform (with enough memory) rather than i386.
I really am starting to see a lot more interest in FreeBSD from enterprises. Both NetApp and Juniper have recently made very large donations to FreeBSD when earlier there were a lot of rumors that they were ready to dump FreeBSD. Also, I am starting to hear rumors that Cisco, who suffers Not Invented Here Syndrome, is doing something big with FreeBSD and has put engineers on helping enhance it. And then there are a whole bunch of new products for the enterprise that are coming out that are secretly based on FreeBSD. All these changes have come through the hard work of FreeBSD volunteers. There have been so much enhancements in stability, scalability, and performance, it is becoming harder and harder to ignore the “Free as in Free” OS. I really think that the FreeBSD team has done a tremendous job in turning things around and really see a bright future for the project as a whole.
The kernel enhancements are just part of the exciting things happening in the BSD world. The Operating System as a whole is also seeing a lot of enhancements making it a much better fit for enterprises. Want binary security updates? Want easy upgrades? Want to maintain your ports? It is all easy now and just requires a few commands. How long will a branch be supported? How long until a new release? It is all properly defined.
I think all these enhancements will lead us to see more and more enterprises take the kernel/userland and create solutions based on FreeBSD and I think we will see more and more companies start deploying it as part of their infrastructure. My suggestion to new admins is learn FreeBSD, it will teach you Unix done right and then you can pollute your mind with Linux and Solaris. My suggestion to programmers, learn the FreeBSD kernel. You will see more and more enterprises developing solutions based off of it and less based on Linux.
Interesting: like Linux they went from “M to N” threading to “1 to 1” threading for the default library..
I wonder if there are benchmarks which compare the new malloc and the one in glibc..
Yes you should ask the Firefox devs, they are using FreeBSD malloc for Firefox 3, because of the better performance.
http://ventnorsblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/beta-3.html
I hope the live CD follows soon
how does it perform as a guest in a vmware esx environment?
Is there anything like LVM for UFS?
thanks
FreeBSD is designed for the real world.
FreeBSD is supported by ESX. They even have a VMwareTools installer.
As for being for the ‘real’ world, I run production FreeBSD VMs here at work. It doesn’t get much more real world than that.
I can’t personally speak to ESX, but VMware Server’s release of vmware-tools doesn’t work under FreeBSD 7. Rather, it doesn’t *install* under FreeBSD 7– the installer core-dumps before its able to make any progress.
You can, however, take a copy of vmware-tools that was installed on FreeBSD 6 and drop it on FreeBSD 7, and at that point the vmware-guestd program will run as normal if the 6.x compat libs are installed. I don’t know about the vmxnet or vmmemctl modules though, as I don’t use them on my VMware Server install.
One thing to note– with the new release of VMware Server 2 beta, FreeBSD has been entirely removed from the list of supported guest OS’s. I’m saddened by this as ~60% of the VMs on my VMWare Server 1.0.4 install are FreeBSD. I’m hoping FreeBSD support is added again as Server 2 beta nears release.
Yeah nice, but as always there are different opinions toward the usefulness of virtualization – foremost in the real world, those with productiveness in mind.
vinum(8)
FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT is ready for download since yesterday !
RELEASE seems to be out =D
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 35276800 Feb 25 00:34 7.0-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 534177792 Feb 25 00:35 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 728487936 Feb 25 00:35 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 368592896 Feb 25 00:36 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc3.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 248350720 Feb 25 00:37 7.0-RELEASE-i386-docs.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 224655360 Feb 25 00:38 7.0-RELEASE-i386-livefs.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 411 Feb 25 00:38 CHECKSUM.MD5
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 621 Feb 25 00:40 CHECKSUM.SHA256
Yes! Yes! Yes! =^_^=
Before I continue being happy… erm… which FTP path did you take the listing from? The FreeBSD project’s main web site does not mention 7.0-RELEASE yet.
LATEST RELEASES
Production Release 6.3
Upcoming Release 7.0 – RC2
Hmmm…
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/7.0/
% ftp ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/7.0/
Connected to http://ftp.freebsd.org.
421 Too many users are already logged on. Please try again in 10 minutes.
ftp: Can’t connect or login to host `ftp.freebsd.org’
My local FTP mirror, http://ftp.de.freebsd.org, doesn’t have them yet… So I have to wait. I’m just preparing some testing hardware…
I’m actually downloading :s
[gonzalo@cecie16 FreeBSD7]$ ftp http://ftp.freebsd.org
Connected to http://ftp.freebsd.org.
220 Welcome to freebsd.isc.org.
530 Please login with USER and PASS.
Name (ftp.freebsd.org:gonzalo): anonymous
331 Please specify the password.
Password:
230 Login successful.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> cd pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/7.0/
250 Directory successfully changed.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Here comes the directory listing.
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 35276800 Feb 25 00:34 7.0-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 534177792 Feb 25 00:35 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 728487936 Feb 25 00:35 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 368592896 Feb 25 00:36 7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc3.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 248350720 Feb 25 00:37 7.0-RELEASE-i386-docs.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 224655360 Feb 25 00:38 7.0-RELEASE-i386-livefs.iso
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 411 Feb 25 00:38 CHECKSUM.MD5
-rw-r–r– 1 110 1002 621 Feb 25 00:40 CHECKSUM.SHA256
226 Directory send OK.
ftp>
Edited 2008-02-27 20:45 UTC
you have a free slot now
happy downloading =)
[gonzalo@cecie16 FreeBSD7]$ md5sum -c CHECKSUM.MD5
7.0-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc3.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-docs.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-livefs.iso: La suma coincide
[gonzalo@cecie16 FreeBSD7]$ sha256sum -c CHECKSUM.SHA256
7.0-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-disc3.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-docs.iso: La suma coincide
7.0-RELEASE-i386-livefs.iso: La suma coincide
[gonzalo@cecie16 FreeBSD7]$
Oh happy, oh joy, oh market share.
32% |*********** ____________________ | 166 MB 115.42 KB/s 50:45 ETA
The spare disk 300 GB is already waiting to accept some input.
Try downloading with bittorrent from their oficial tracker
http://torrents.freebsd.org:8080/
Enjoy!
I’ve got no torrent client program installed (don’t have much use for this), this will possibly take place on the new 7.0 system. Installation disc has been downloaded and recorded onto CD-R.
Il surely will – this is going to be a great weekend. Happy make install. =^_^=
Good morning BSD,
I got a feeling that it’s gonna be a wonderful day.
The Sun in the sky has a smile on its face
and it’s shining to salute to the SGI’s in place.
*takes newspaper* FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE available for download!
Oh boy, it’s well to say:
“Good norning BSD.”
Good morning BSD!
I needed to sing this.
Edited 2008-02-27 22:46 UTC
Will personally take the opportunity to highly recommend you “rtorrent” and publicly commend rtorrent’s author for his excellent work =)
http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/
http://www.freshports.org/net-p2p/rtorrent
have fun =D
Has the binary package management system changed that much?
1) Can the system be updated/upgraded with binary only packages like “apt-get dist-upgrade”
2) Can applications be upgraded with binary only packages?
The lst time I used FreeBSD the binary packge system and availability of binary packes was the killer for me. I would install a binary package but I could not upgrade via binary packages due to unavailability.
FreeBSD needs to ensure that binary packages are treated as first class citizens as source ports else this is going to be an on going issue.
You can point variable PACKAGESITE to the stable (instead of release) packages repository and upgrade packages by running
portupgrade -aPP
Ports still will contain newer stuff though.
>FreeBSD needs to ensure that binary packages are treated as first class citizens as source ports else this is going to be an on going issue.
Why – because lower quality is better? C’mon it’s of course nice to have something like apt-get/aptitude in Debian, but in the end you have to live with sometimes broken packages or packages compiled without essential features (“mature” maintainer). Therefore people like the sourcecode as base and compiling from sourcecode isn’t anything alien to a UNIX or free UNIX derivative.
One other reason for this circumstance is the fact that certain programs need to be compiled if options are to be set at compile time. For example, in order to put all the features and codecs you want into mplayer, you usually edit Makefile.local and add your stuff. There is no binary package for every imaginable combination of make options (e. g. WITH_SDL, WITH_VORBIS, WITHOUT_RUNTIME_CPUDETECTION). The same reason applies if you need to install software on lower end hardware (e. g. CFLAGS+= -O3 -pipe -mfpmath=sse -ffast-math). Often, compile time options give you the “speed boost” you need in order to make the application usable. Another important reason is to get hardware working the way you want, if the developers consider your hardware “nonstandard” or the behaviour you’re expecting as “not usual” (e. g. support of three button mouse in X: middle mouse button + vertical movement = wheel emulation, but middle mouse button click = middle mouse button click without entering wheel emulation mode – this requires patching mouse.c from X.org and recompilation).
*BSD and gentoo people keep trying to claim that compling from source on the machine that will run the binary is somehow ‘better’, yet I’ve never seen any solid argument as to why this should be so.
Compiling from source takes a lot of CPU cycles and memory. Doing so on a heavyly loaded server is generally a bad idea. Being able to update your server without having to crunch away for hours is probably something you want.
Just add the applications via pkg_add, you don’t have to compile it again and again. Servers tend to be not bleeding edge.
Furthermore using things like ccache helps a lot if you have to compile *something* from source (bug, security etc.). So nothing to worry about, there are a lot of big companies which are using FreeBSD (Yahoo etc.) and they do not whine all day long. Because they _know_ how to use FreeBSD!
I know how to use FreeBSD, I’m just pointing out that always compiling everything from source isn’t that great a solution.
> “Why – because lower quality is better?”
How do you say this is lower quality? All Linux/Windows/OS X applications are not source based buy yet some how they seems to have made their users productive without having to wait 8 hours for the damn OpenOffice distro to compile. Even if I compile from source its not like I am goign to get 50% better performance, even if I set all the options before compiling, I might get 1-3% improvement. I’ll take the binary package any day for that.
> “C’mon it’s of course nice to have something like apt-get/aptitude in Debian, but in the end you have to live with sometimes broken packages or packages compiled without essential features (“mature” maintainer). ”
I am not sure what Linux distribution you have used but I have never experienced any package issues with apt-get. For that matter, I have encountered upteen broken ports. Ever experience compiling and you come back the next morning to find a compile error and then you start all over again.
Don’t even get me started on mixing ports and packages. Have enough experience into “package X require version a.b.c or package Y but version a.b.d is installed” stuff. Eventually have to create symb links to get it to work.
> “Therefore people like the sourcecode as base and compiling from sourcecode isn’t anything alien to a UNIX or free UNIX derivative.”
Yes. I can see it clearly now. Ubuntu started about 10+ years after FreeBSD and garnered thousands of users many time over simply catering to all those people who wanted a non-optimized lower quality system that would be slow as hell and short on features and very unstable.
Windows gathered even more users and it _is_ to some degree ‘crap’. So what? Do you want a frequency discount for the quantity of users? The low quality of Ubuntu packages isn’t a secret, maybe this low quality is enough for the desktop but not for really productive work (people really don’t see the difference to Windows anymore). And if you don’t like it’s a wide spread experience among _exerienced_ users.
So why do you think big companies like Yahoo are using FreeBSD? Because they _know_ how to use it efficiently.
Apart from FreeBSD I’m using Debian since potato and Slack since the middle of the 90s.
Last not least you don’t have to use FreeBSD if you don’t like it. Therefore we have opensource, the freedom of choice. Something for the professional user and something for the shiny desktop with lot of glimmer.
This old argument has been pushed over and over and I’m getting seriously tired of it.
You can argue to death that compiling from source is a better alternative, but you can’t argue against the facts that it:
1) is more resource intensive in a given time span
2) takes longer time
3) isn’t inheritly more secure
4) doesn’t by definition/design mean more options
5) is in at least 99% of the cases done for the same 2
architectures (i386, x86-64/amd64)
6) of those 2 architectures generally is optimized to
run on i686, or it does not run faster
7) does not by definition/design run faster
8) does not by definition/design allow for better
optimization
9) ad infinitum ad nausseum…
In other words, it’s not the holy grail of anything, except for the few that understand and _actually read_ the source code, which I bet you don’t (because statistically I’ll be right), and in the _specific_ case where the developers didn’t bother to write the software with an interface that allows for a similar level of configurability.
FreeBSD is great, stable, useful and all kinds of other nice things, but the reason Yahoo isn’t complaining has nothing to do with their having troubles with it or not. A large corporation doesn’t tell its customers (and the world) that they’re having troubles; they solve them internally or hire more people to solve the problems at hand, or – in one particular case I can think of – they silently ignore and publicly deny the existence of such problems and rename “security holes repair” to “service pack”.
int=0000000d err=00000000 efl=00010046 eip=000090d8
eax=00000011 ebx=00000046 ecx=c0a273c4 edx=00004000
esi=00000000 edi=00210e6b ebp=00215b8b esp=00001800
cs:eip=0f 01 15 00 97 00 00 66-ea e5 90 18 00 b1 28 8e
ss:esp=d1 8e d9 8e c1 8e e1 8e-e9 48 0f 22 c8 ea fa 65
72 72 3d 30 30 30 30 30-30 30 30 20 20 65 66 6c
BTX halted
Install CD doesn’t boot on my HP DV6000z. Linux, Solaris, Windows work just fine.
Have you submitted a bug report? [1]
– Gilboa
[1] http://www.freebsd.org/support/bugreports.html
If you want to try out ZFS, use the Solaris Express builds, either Developer or Community editions, depending how bleeding edge you want be.
And Solaris isn’t so backwards, slowlaris and what not like a lot of folks want to make you think.