As the BSD projects (including DragonFlyBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD) have grown in size, a number of persistent myths have grown up around them. Some of these are perpetuated by well meaning but misguided individuals, others by people pursuing their own agendas.
This page aims to dispel those myths while remaining as dispassionate as possible.
Note: Throughout this page, ``*BSD'' refers to all of the BSD Projects. Where a myth or response is specific to a particular project it is indicated as such.
If you are aware of an omission or error on this page, please let the FreeBSD documentation project mailing list know.
Eric Raymond wrote an influential paper, ``The Cathedral and the Bazaar'' in which the Linux development model (and the model Eric used for fetchmail) is held up as an example of how to do ``open'' development. By contrast, the model employed by *BSD is often characterized as closed.
The implicit value judgment is that ``bazaar'' (open) is good, and ``cathedral'' (closed) is bad.
If anything, *BSD's development model is probably more akin to the ``bazaar'' that Eric describes than either Linux or fetchmail.
Consider the following;
All the *BSD projects: The current, bleeding edge source code for FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD is available for anyone to download from the Internet, 24 hours a day. You don't need to wait for someone else to roll a release.
FreeBSD: An installable snapshot of the current progress is made weekly. These snapshots can be installed exactly like an ordinary release, and do not require installation over an existing system.
OpenBSD: Installable snapshots are generated daily and if Theo thinks they are good enough, he uploads them to the mirrors.
Contrast this with Linux, where new kernel distributions are made available on an ad-hoc basis, and where the frequency of each Linux distribution release is at the whim of the individual vendor.
There's none of the Linux fanfare every time a new kernel is released, simply because for most *BSD users it is an every day event.
Anyone can submit patches, bug reports, documentation, and other contributions. They can do this by using a web based interface.
Pointers to this system litter the documentation.
Not everyone can commit code changes to the *BSD code. You need to be a committer first. Typically, people are offered ``commit privs'' after they have made a few well-thought out submissions to the project using Bugzilla or similar.
This is identical to the Linux mechanism. Only one person is (notionally) allowed to change the Kernel, Linus. But specific areas (such as the networking code) are delegated to other people.
Aside: Nik (nik@FreeBSD.org) is a case in point. After making several submissions to the FreeBSD Documentation Project and web pages, he was offered ``commit privs'' so that he did not have to keep bothering other committers to commit the changes. He never had to ask for them, they were freely given.
You can. You just need to say in the documentation and source files where the code is derived from. Multiple derivative projects exist:
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is a port of the Debian GNU userland tools to the &os; kernel. It takes advantage of the devfs(8) implementation (versus three discordant Linux interfaces), security features (like jails, ipfw, and pf), and ZFS, among other things.
DesktopBSD is another FreeBSD based operating system customized for desktop usability.
DragonflyBSD started as a code fork from FreeBSD 4.X, but it has since its own user community and development goals.
Frenzy is another live-CD distribution, but customized for administering tasks. It contains software for hardware tests, file system checks, security checks, network setup and analysis.
Gentoo/FreeBSD is an effort by the Gentoo Project to port their complete administration facilities to take advantage of the reliable FreeBSD kernel and userland. This project is purely incomplete and experimental.
NanoBSD is another project to produce reduced versions of FreeBSD to put it on a Compact Flash card or other mass storage. It is also a part of the FreeBSD source tree, see /usr/src/tools/tools/nanobsd.
TrueOS is a desktop - oriented FreeBSD derivative. It is - intended to be easy to install and well-supported by its - community.
FuryBSD is a + brand new, open source $os; desktop. FuryBSD pays home to + desktop BSD projects of the past PC-BSD and TrueOS with its + graphical interface and adds additional tools like a live, + hybrid USB/DVD image. FuryBSD is completely free to use and + distributed under the BSD license.
GhostBSD is derived + from &os;, uses the GTK environment to provide a beautiful + looks and comfortable experience on the modern BSD platform + offering a natural and native &unix; work + environment.
MidnightBSD + is a &os; derived operating system developed with desktop + users in mind. It includes all the software you'd expect + for your daily tasks: mail, web browsing, word processing, + gaming, and much more.
PicoBSD is a tailored distribution of FreeBSD that fits on a floppy. It is great for turning diskless 386 PC into a router or a network print server. It is a part of the FreeBSD source tree, see /usr/src/release/picobsd.
TinyBSD is a set of tools made up of shell scripts designed to allow easy development of Embedded Systems based on FreeBSD.
TrustedBSD provides a set of trusted operating system extensions to the FreeBSD operating system, targeting the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CC). This project is still under development, and much of the code is destined to make its way back into the base FreeBSD operating system, but the development takes place separately.
pfSense is an open source firewall derived from the m0n0wall firewall system with several different goals and features, such as OpenBSD's Packet Filter (PF), FreeBSD 6.1, ALTQ support for excellent packet queuing and finally an integrated package management system for extending the environment with new features.
Similarly to DragonflyBSD, OpenBSD was not a standalone project, it started as a spinoff from the NetBSD project, and has since evolved its own distinctive approach.
*BSD makes a great server. It also makes a great desktop. Many of the requirements for a server (responsiveness under load, stability, effective use of system resources) are the same requirements as for a desktop machine.
*BSD has access to the same desktop tools (KDE, GNOME, Firefox, windowmanagers) as Linux. And ``office'' applications such as OpenOffice suite work under *BSD too.
While the BSD codebase may be more than 20 years old, it is neither outdated nor dying. Many professional users like the stability that years of testing has provided FreeBSD.
Technological enhancements continue to be added to *BSD.
No. While occasional advocacy may get a touch heated, the *BSD flavors continue to work with one another. FreeBSD's Alpha port was initially heavily based on the work done by the NetBSD team. Both NetBSD and OpenBSD used the FreeBSD ports collection to bootstrap their own port sets. FreeBSD and NetBSD both integrate security fixes first discovered by the OpenBSD team.
The FreeBSD and NetBSD projects separated more than twenty years ago. OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD are the only new BSD projects to split off in the last twenty years.
The following URLs should disprove this;
Note, that freebsd-cluster mailing list is available for further discussion about clustering of FreeBSD.
FreeBSD: The FreeBSD Commercial Vendors Page lists companies that offer commercial support for FreeBSD.
The FreeBSD Mall also offer commercial support, along with shirts, hats, books, software, and promotional items.
OpenBSD: The OpenBSD Commercial Consulting Page lists companies that offer commercial support for OpenBSD.
The free software community started running on predominantly BSD systems (SunOS and similar). *BSD users can generally compile software written for these systems without needing to make any changes.
In addition, each *BSD project uses a ``ports'' system to make the building of ported software much easier.
FreeBSD: There are currently more than 26,000 applications ready to download and install in the FreeBSD ports collection. On i386 and AMD64, the Linux emulation layer will also run the vast majority of Linux applications. On the AMD64 architectures there is a compatibility layer to run 32-bit FreeBSD binaries.
NetBSD: The Linux emulation layer will run the vast majority of i386 Linux applications, and the majority of SunOS4 applications can be run on a SPARCStation.
OpenBSD: There are currently more than 3700 applications ready to download and install in the OpenBSD ports collection. The Linux emulation layer will also run the vast majority of i386 Linux applications, and the majority of SunOS4 applications can be run on a SPARCStation.
Both NetBSD and OpenBSD are able to use applications in FreeBSD's ports collection with minimal effort. Their lower number of ported applications reflects this.
It is true that most companies when porting to PC Unix will choose Linux first. Fortunately, *BSD's Linux emulation layer will run these programs (Acrobat, StarOffice, Mathematica, WordPerfect, Quake, Intel ICC compiler, Compaq's Alpha compiler ...) with few, if any, problems.
As a historical note, the first version of Netscape Navigator that ran on FreeBSD with Java support was the Linux version. These day you can also use a native FreeBSD version of Mozilla with a native Java plugin, all compiled conveniently from ports.
This is user opinion only.
This is user opinion only.
Members of the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD projects have contributed to this page;
| Nik Clayton <nik@FreeBSD.org> |
| Jordan Hubbard <jkh@FreeBSD.org> |
| Ian F. Darwin <ian@DarwinSys.com> |
| Adrian Filipi-Martin <adrian@ubergeeks.com> |
| Tom Rhodes <trhodes@FreeBSD.org> |
Why would you consider using &os;? We think that there are lots of reasons. Here is a selection of reasons that some of our existing users gave for their choice of operating system.
&os; is a community-driven operating system despite it being to a partial degree sponsored corporately. &os; has active mailing lists, forums, and IRC channels where experienced users and developers are always willing to help the less experienced.
The community is largely driven by technology, not ideology, and is focused on building the best possible system and making &os; as widely used as possible, not on pushing any other agendas.
There is no dictator—benevolent or otherwise—for the project. The Core Team is elected and is nominally responsible for overseeing the goals of the project, but this is a very light touch. Core mediates disputes between developers, but rarely needs to take an active role in development, beyond their separate contributions as individual developers.
Stability means many different things. &os; very rarely crashes (and when it does it is usually due to hardware faults), but while that was a great boast a decade ago, now it is an expected feature for any operating system.
Stability in &os; means much more than that. It means that upgrading the system does not require upgrading the user. Configuration interfaces do change over time, but only when there is a good reason. If you learned how to use &os; in 2000, most of your knowledge would still be relevant.
Backwards compatibility is very important to the &os; team, and any release in a major release series is expected to be able to run any code—including kernel modules—that ran on an earlier version. The entire base system is developed together, including the kernel, the core utilities, and the configuration system, so upgrades are usually painless. Included tools like mergemaster help update configuration files with little or no manual intervention.
&os; has been one of the first adopters of the LLVM infrastructure, including the clang compiler and the libc++ stack. The entire &os; system, including kernel and userspace, can build with clang, and from &os; both clang and the permissively-licensed libc++ are included, giving a modern, BSD-licensed C++ stack. Several &os; developers are also active contributors to LLVM, ensuring that both projects thrive together.
This same collaboration works downstream, with projects like - TrueOS and pfSense building on top of the &os; base to provide - desktop and firewall oriented distributions, respectively. - These projects are not forks, they base their work on the - latest version of &os; and customize the system for specific - uses.
+ FuryBSD, GhostBSD, MidnightBSD and pfSense building on top of + the &os; base to provide desktop and firewall oriented + distributions, respectively. These projects are not forks, + they base their work on the latest version of &os; and + customize the system for specific uses.&os; service initialization is very simple. Each service, whether part of the base system or installed from a port, comes with a script that is responsible for starting and stopping it (and often some other options). The /etc/rc.conf file contains a list of variables for enabling and configuring services. Want to enable ssh? Just add sshd_enable="YES" to your rc.conf file. This system makes it easy to see at a glance everything that will be started when your system boots.
The rc system that reads this file understands dependencies between services and so can automatically launch them in parallel, or wait until one is finished before starting the things that it needs. You get all of the benefits of a modern configuration system, without a complex interface.
The ports tree contains a large collection of third-party software, including older versions of some things where the userbase is divided about the benefits of upgrading, and a lot of niche programs. The chances are that anything you want to run which works on &os; will be there.
Unlike some other systems, &os; maintains a clean division between the base system and third-party ports and packages. All third-party software goes in /usr/local, so if you want to repurpose a machine, it is trivial to simply delete all installed packages and then start installing the ones that you want.
The pkg(8) tool makes working with binary packages even easier, although source installs are still supported for people who want the level of configurability that this implies.
Security is vital in any network-connected machine. &os; provides a number of tools for ensuring that you can maintain a secure system, such as:
And, of course, all of the standard features that are expected from a modern &unix; system including IPSec, SSH, and so on.
Cheap snapshots, clones, end-to-end checksums, deduplication, compression, and no need to decide partition sizes on install. Using ZFS for a few days makes going back to a more traditional volume manager painful. If you want to test something with ZFS, it is trivial to just create a snapshot and roll back if it didn't work.
ZFS lets you clone an existing jail in under a second, no matter how big the jail itself is.
Even without ZFS, &os; comes with a rich storage system. GEOM layers providers and consumers in arbitrary ways, allowing you to use two networked machines for high-availability storage, use your choice of RAID level, or add features like compression or encryption.
&os; 4.x introduced in-kernel sound mixing, so that multiple applications could play sound at the same time even with cheap sound cards with no hardware mixing support. &os; 5.x automatically allocated new channels to applications, without any configuration.
Now, &os; has low-latency sound mixing with per-application volume controls and full support for the OSS 4 APIs out of the box. There is no need to configure a userspace sound daemon. The same audio APIs that were used a decade ago still work on &os;, including some compatibility modes to allow applications that try to manipulate the global volume to only change their own. If you want to watch DVDs with 5.1 surround sound, just install your favourite media player and press play.
&os; gives you an easy-to-use, working, &unix;-like system. This base system can then be extended easily. If you want to run KDE or GNOME, then just install the metapackage for the version that you prefer. If you want a headless server, then it is equally easy to install the server tools that you want.
It is easy to run the &os; installer via a serial port and to configure the entire system from the terminal. It is also easy to install and use an existing desktop environment. The decisions about the kind of system you want to use are left to you.
If you are deploying &os; in a corporate environment, then it is very easy to customise both the base system and the set of installed packages for your specific requirements. The build system provides numerous tuneable variables allowing you to build exactly the base system that meets your needs.
Index: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/projects/newbies.xml =================================================================== --- head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/projects/newbies.xml (revision 53714) +++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/projects/newbies.xml (revision 53715) @@ -1,123 +1,137 @@ ]>The latest &os; releases are available here. Before you begin, please carefully read the installation instructions.
The &os; Handbook and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) are the main documents for &os;. Essential reading, they contain a lot of material for newbies as well as advanced users. For users interested in installing a GUI, see the X Windows chapter.
Manual pages are good for reference but not always the best introduction for a novice. They generally provide information on a specific command, driver or service.
Join the &os;-Questions mailing list to see the questions you were too afraid to ask, and their answers. Subscribe by filling out the following form: http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions. You can look up old questions and answers via the search page.
The &os; Forums offer another support channel. Many users have written various tutorials and lots of new users receive help there.
You can search the Handbook and FAQ, the whole web site, or the &os; mailing list archives.
The Support page contains a wealth of information about &os;, including mailing lists, user groups, web and FTP sites, release information, and links to some sources of &unix; information.
&os; is widely used as a building block for other commercial and open-source operating systems. Some of the most widely used and publicly available systems are listed below.
FreeNAS is a storage solution that can be installed on virtually any hardware platform to share data over a network. It uses ZFS to protect, store, backup, all of your data.
TrueOS is a &os; - derivative with a graphical installer and impressive desktop - tools aimed at ease of use for the casual computer - user.
FuryBSD is a brand + new, open source &os; desktop. FuryBSD pays home to desktop + BSD projects of the past PC-BSD and TrueOS with its graphical + interface and adds additional tools like a live, hybrid + USB/DVD image. FuryBSD is completely free to use and + distributed under the BSD license.
GhostBSD is derived + from &os;, GhostBSD uses the GTK environment to provide a + beautiful looks and comfortable experience on the modern BSD + platform offering a natural and native &unix; work + environment.
MidnightBSD is + a BSD-derived operating system developed with desktop users + in mind. It includes all the software you'd expect for your + daily tasks: mail, web browsing, word processing, gaming, + and much more.
pfSense is a &os; based network security solution. pfSense software, with the help of the package system, is able to provide the same functionality or more of common commercial firewalls, without any of the artificial limitations. It has successfully replaced every big name commercial firewall you can imagine in numerous installations around the world.
Everyone has something to contribute to the &os; community, even newbies! Some are busy working with the new advocacy group and some have become involved with the Documentation Project as reviewers. Other &os; newbies might have particular skills and experiences to share, either computer related or not, or just want to meet new newbies and make them feel welcome. There are always people around who help others simply because they like to.
Friends who run &os; are a great resource. No book can replace chatting on the phone or across a pizza with someone who has the same interests, enjoys similar accomplishments, and faces the same challenges. If you do not have many friends who use &os;, consider using your old &os; CDs to create some more.
User groups are good places to meet other &os; users. If there is no one nearby, you might consider starting one!
For more information on getting involved in the community, see the Contributing to &os; article.
Index: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/where.xml =================================================================== --- head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/where.xml (revision 53714) +++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/where.xml (revision 53715) @@ -1,646 +1,657 @@ ]>Most users of &os; will have hardware for either the amd64, i386, or armv6 architectures.
Modern PCs use the amd64 architecture, including those with Intel® branded processors. Computers with more than 3 GB of memory should use amd64. If the computer is an older, 32-bit only model, use i386. For embedded devices and single-board computers (SBC) such as the Raspberry Pi, Beagle Bone Black, Panda Board, and Zed Board, use the armv6 SD card image which supports ARMv6 and ARMv7 processors.
All other users should reference the complete list of supported &os; platforms.
The &os; installer can be downloaded in a number of different formats including CD (disc1), DVD (dvd1), and Network Install (bootonly) sized ISO Disc Images, as well as regular and mini USB memory stick images. Recent versions of &os; are also offered as prebuilt expandable Virtual Machine images, and as SD Card images for embedded platforms.
While &os; does not gather deployment statistics, having statistical information available is essential. Please consider installing the sysutils/bsdstats package, which collects hardware and software statistics, helping developers understand how to best focus their efforts. The information collected is available at the bsdstats.org website.
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If you are interested in a purely experimental snapshot release of &os;-CURRENT (AKA &rel.head;-CURRENT), aimed at developers and bleeding-edge testers only, then please see the &os; Snapshot Releases page. For more information about past, present and future releases in general, please visit the release information page.
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If you plan on getting &os; via HTTP or FTP, please check the listing of mirror sites in the Handbook to see if there is a site closer to you.
There are many options for installing &os;, including installation from CD-ROM, DVD, USB Memory Stick or even directly using anonymous FTP, HTTP, or NFS. Please read through the &os; installation guide before downloading the entire &os; distribution.
&os; can be acquired on CD-ROM or DVD from FreeBSD Mall, or one of the other CD-ROM and DVD Publishers.
For downloading past releases, please visit the FTP archive.
&os; is widely used as a building block for other commercial and open-source operating systems. The projects below are widely used and of particular interest to &os; users.
FreeNAS is an open +
FreeNAS is an open source storage platform based on &os; and supports sharing across Windows, Apple, and UNIX-like systems.
TrueOS (formerly - PC-BSD) is a &os; - derivative with a graphical installer. The desktop option installs - The Lumina Desktop Environment, - a fully BSD Licensed desktop, with - impressive desktop tools aimed at ease of use for the casual computer - user.
FuryBSD is a brand + new, open source &os; desktop. FuryBSD pays home to desktop + BSD projects of the past PC-BSD and TrueOS with its graphical + interface and adds additional tools like a live, hybrid + USB/DVD image. FuryBSD is completely free to use and + distributed under the BSD license.
GhostBSD is derived + from &os;, GhostBSD uses the GTK environment to provide a + beautiful looks and comfortable experience on the modern BSD + platform offering a natural and native &unix; work + environment.
MidnightBSD is + a BSD-derived operating system developed with desktop users in + mind. It includes all the software you'd expect for your + daily tasks: mail, web browsing, word processing, gaming, + and much more.
pfSense is a &os; based customized distribution tailored for use as a firewall and router.
The &os; Ports Collection is a diverse collection of utility and application software that has been ported to &os;.
See Installing Applications: Packages and Ports in the Handbook.
For information about how you can contribute your favorite piece of software to the Ports Collection, have a look at The Porter's Handbook and the article Contributing to &os;.