From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 29 19:48:09 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE27216A422 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:48:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from chrcoluk@gmail.com) Received: from pproxy.gmail.com (pproxy.gmail.com [64.233.166.181]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E9E0943D55 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:48:08 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from chrcoluk@gmail.com) Received: by pproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id i49so274387pye for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:48:07 -0800 (PST) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=BLlVaC/pKaPu42ncTcpcPExqqCax0JNDxhJ5QX808URTpQPrk1nhyxr87OVMjPuwnAAT091etjQSpZr9EEPogYBo53b+Ac301xol6QLWGWbJTaSIRofHc5KynSj9f3gK2bzmP2hsCxxVZaGfXOpef8f8f0OZdvxsc2Fp4NcfGP0= Received: by 10.35.91.10 with SMTP id t10mr1574627pyl; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:48:07 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.35.36.18 with HTTP; Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:48:07 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <3aaaa3a0603291148y5065754ag178e4dc7c9ee7986@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:48:07 +0100 From: Chris To: "Kris Kennaway" In-Reply-To: <20060329190517.GA79103@xor.obsecurity.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <200603281234.11850.satyam@sklinks.com> <4429A37D.2020500@pixelhammer.com> <20060328213953.GA2682@xor.obsecurity.org> <4429B479.7000408@pixelhammer.com> <20060328224340.GA4063@xor.obsecurity.org> <442ACFB2.70108@pixelhammer.com> <20060329183051.GA78889@xor.obsecurity.org> <20060329190517.GA79103@xor.obsecurity.org> Cc: DAve , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why are so many people using 4.x? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:48:10 -0000 On 29/03/06, Kris Kennaway wrote: > On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 01:30:51PM -0500, Kris Kennaway wrote: > > On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 01:19:30PM -0500, DAve wrote: > > > Kris Kennaway wrote: > > > >On Tue, Mar 28, 2006 at 05:11:05PM -0500, DAve wrote: > > > > > > > >>>Really you want to use 6.0 or 6.1 on any new system, simply becaus= e > > > >>>that's the modern, supported version of FreeBSD. > > > >>> > > > >>>Kris > > > >>I get frightened when something is no longer "modern" when it is le= ss > > > >>than a year old. http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.4R/announce.html > > > >>Good reasons to recommend 6.X would be "bug FOO is fixed", "hardwar= e FOO > > > >>is now fully supported", "FOO is now a kernel module and can be unl= oaded > > > >>or loaded at will", "disk performance is gazillion% better", etc. > > > > > > > >If it makes you happy, all of those things are also true. > > > > > > > >Kris > > > > > > It would be nice to actually tell new users why 6.X is better wouldn'= t > > > you think? > > > > No, because I have better things to do with my time than to repeat > > information that is widely available and locatable with a few seconds > > of searching. > > Anyway, I think you kind of misconstrued my emails. The original > question was "what version of FreeBSD should a new user run", and it > was suggested that a new user runs 4.11. > > The important questions for new users are not "what new technical > features does 6.x have that I probably won't understand nor care about > anyway", but: > > * Is it a good release? > > * Who can I ask when I need help? > > Clearly, 4.11 is a very good release (the 6.x series are also very > good releases; the 5.x series not so good in comparison). However, > 4.11 fails on the second point, because 4.11 is in practise no longer > completely supported; this is my point. > > For example, what if you want to run GNOME, and encounter a problem? > You'll be told by the GNOME team that running GNOME on 4.11 is no > longer supported (in fact you may not even be able to compile it). > Ditto KDE. What if you run into a FreeBSD bug? You'll be told that > 4.11 is no longer supported and to try 6.1 since it's probably fixed > already anyway. What if you want to write some PERL code? The > version in 4.x is very old and will no longer work with many current > PERL modules, so you'll have to work out how to replace it. Ditto the > C compiler. etc. > > So why is 4.11 is no longer fully supported? Because the resources of > the FreeBSD community are finite, and it's our opinion that it's more > productive to devote our limited resources to the FreeBSD branches > that are actively being developed. Yes, 4.11 was only released 14 > months ago - but it's the final release of a branch that is *over 7 > years old* and carrying over 7 years worth of legacy baggage, and > that's really the key point here. > > In about 9 months the FreeBSD 4.x branch will be desupported entirely, > so things are only going to get worse for any remaining 4.x users who > need help to run their system. > > So when 4.11 is ruled out for your new installation, applying the same > reasoning tells you that it's smart to install the current "stable" > release, which is currently 6.0 and soon to be 6.1. You wouldn't pick > some random older release like 5.4 unless you have good reason to, in > which case you don't need to ask. > > Kris > > > Well without a doubt 4.x is the fastest and most stable freebsd out of the 3. The comment earlier where it just runs and runs is a good way of describing it. The only reason I dont use 4.x on new servers is because it has limited time left and the upgrade path involves a reinstall. The only hardware I think benefits performance wise on 5.x and newer is SMP hardware for any UP hardware I have used 4.x has always had the best performance. 5.x had a big performance hit and 6.x is noticeably faster but I have been experiencing weird lockups with 6.x and have reverted all but one of my servers back to 5.4 that were running 6.0 and they became stable again, we have one server running 6.1 prerelease which is more stable then 6.0 so I would rate 6.0 as a poor release, sorry but it only is stable under low load on every server I tried it on. Kris and others have you been testing 6.0 in server environments with things such as ddos attacks and thousands of concurrent connections, sustained heavy traffic ongoing for days etc, these type of things have caused 6.0 to just die on me. The todo list for 6.1 seems to indicate their is a problems with the 6.x branch but I am glad it is delayed rather then rushed out with a bunch of deffered bugs and hopefully it will be stable enough to use on production servers. Chris