Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2003 20:04:21 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> To: "Leonard, Harry" <Harry.Leonard@az.ngb.army.mil> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Questions about FreeBSD Versions Message-ID: <20030909190421.GA9017@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <2F335745DF2B9D409FB4D2BAE67F178822562C@az-04010-exch02.az.ngb.army.mil> References: <2F335745DF2B9D409FB4D2BAE67F178822562C@az-04010-exch02.az.ngb.army.mil>
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--azLHFNyN32YCQGCU Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tue, Sep 09, 2003 at 10:49:46AM -0700, Leonard, Harry wrote: > This email is about: Which version of FreeBSD should I be using for > production? I need to set up an in-house web server for our website and > another box for my few intranet applications. In the near future I might > have the opportunity to create a firewall box and I really need to get on > top of things. Today, I'll go back to FreeBSD 5.0 (which I've had the mo= st > success with) and read the errata over again and make sure there's nothing > that I'm missing. I'd appreciate it if you could give me a stamp of > approval on which version I can/should use for my small production needs. > Sorry, if I've gotten a little windy with my explanation but I wanted to > give you some background. I also Thank You for reading this email and for > any help that you can provide me in this matter. Please let me know what > you think? Definitely your first choice should be 4.8-RELEASE on a production system. The only exceptions are when you need to support hardware only covered by 5.x or you need some software capabilities, like nss_ldap/pam_ldap only available on 5.x. =20 "Production" in general means that it's the server that carries your publically visible web presence and not having it running 24x7 is going to cost you money or prestige. having said that, a version from the RELENG_4 branch (ie. at the moment FreeBSD 4.9-PRERELEASE) will be right up in the same ballpark as regards stability and reliability as one of the -RELEASE versions -- it's just that RELENG_4, being a development branch, doesn't absolutely guarrantee that, and it's a moving target: changes and updates are made to RELENG_4 every day, and if you're trying to run a site really professionally, you're going to give yourself a much higher burden of testing by tracking RELENG_4. Now, generally the only other option would be 5-CURRENT (which is the HEAD branch in cvs). That's definitely developers only territory, not guarranteed to work correctly or even boot up at any particular point in time. Certainly not suitable for running a webserver on. However, due to the particular circumstances at the moment, the gap in functionality between 4.x and 5.x is particularly big, and the 4.x branch has had a much longer life than initially expected (compare to the 3.x branch which only reached 3.5-RELEASE), so it was felt that there should be some early releases from the 5.x branch to promote testing on a wider range of equipment. 5.1 is still a "New Technology" release, but many people are running it quite happily on their desktops -- particularly portables for which it has much improved support. Even so, it's not advised to run it on a server system, especially if you are adverse to being paged at 3.00am to come and sort out what broke. See http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.1R/early-adopter.html for an article discussing who might consider running what version. As for your problems with the installer, this mailing list can certainly help you out. Try searching the list archives for someone else who has had similar problems -- either at lists.freebsd.org for stuff in about the last three or four months or at http://www.freebsd.org/search/search.html#mailinglists or there's a new site with a particularly good (IMHO) search interface at http://freebsd.rambler.ru/ Then there's Google (of course), and the http://www.freebsdforums.org/ message board system. Cheers, Matthew --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Marlow Tel: +44 1628 476614 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK --azLHFNyN32YCQGCU Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE/XiQ1dtESqEQa7a0RAmKXAJ498gxKOjaD9TjUt0eLFGfjRyCVIwCfW2Q6 jE6kkz0XvCIrZdJ/hkKGrwI= =0ZVK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --azLHFNyN32YCQGCU--
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