[TriLUG] BSD users?

[Aaron Joyner]

Ken Wahl wrote:

>...
>I found FreeBSD to be very stable, fast and friendly as long as you
>stuck with the pre-compiled packages from pkg_add. Once you start
>upgrading your ports tree by following CURRENT things got flakey and
>there would be fairly frequent breakage and hours of frustration after
>compiling a huge port to only have it exit "error 1." This flakiness
>drove me, along with my interest in its security aspects, to OpenBSD...
>  
>
Okay, I can't restrain myself.  :)  This is exactly the behavior you 
should expect when following the CURRENT branch.  To quote the 
freebsd.org web page, "...keep in mind that FreeBSD-CURRENT is the 
bleeding edge of FreeBSD development.  FreeBSD-CURRENT users are 
expected to have a high degree of technical skill, and should be capable 
of solving difficult system problems on their own. If you are new to 
FreeBSD, think twice before installing it."  They go on to say, "whether 
or not FreeBSD-CURRENT brings disaster or greatly desired functionality 
can be a matter of which exact moment you grabbed the source code in!" [1]

What you probably wanted, to get the desired  functionality, would be 
FreeBSD's -STABLE.  Note that even tracking -STABLE (RELENG_5, 
technically) is not considered the ultimate in system stability, for 
that consider tracking a particular release, such as RELENG_5_4, which 
is generally reserved for servers which have little to no interest in 
new functionality, only in preserving a running system with security 
updates and as little disruption as possible.

Yes, FreeBSD can be just as stable as OpenBSD.  Yes, OpenBSD has a 
marginally better security track record.  Yes, pf has now been 
integrated into FreeBSD, and you can have your favorite packet filter on 
your BSD of choice.  :)  Yes, FreeBSD has something like half an order 
of magnitude more packages than OpenBSD or NetBSD.

That's the end of my rant,
Aaron S. Joyner

[1]  
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/current-stable.html#CURRENT