Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:11:46 +0000 (UTC) From: Isabell Long <issyl0@FreeBSD.org> To: doc-committers@freebsd.org, svn-doc-all@freebsd.org, svn-doc-head@freebsd.org Subject: svn commit: r39033 - head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy Message-ID: <201206121711.q5CHBkL5065521@svn.freebsd.org>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Author: issyl0 Date: Tue Jun 12 17:11:45 2012 New Revision: 39033 URL: http://svn.freebsd.org/changeset/doc/39033 Log: - SGMLify the wiki's 'Why Use FreeBSD?' article into a new article in the advocacy section of the website. - Add the new article to the Makefile. - Add a link to it and some description of it to the advocacy index.sgml. Submitted by: users on -stable, via theraven SGMLified by: issyl0 Reviewed by: gabor Approved by: gabor (mentor) Added: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/whyusefreebsd.sgml (contents, props changed) Modified: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/Makefile head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/index.sgml Modified: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/Makefile ============================================================================== --- head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/Makefile Tue Jun 12 13:31:13 2012 (r39032) +++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/Makefile Tue Jun 12 17:11:45 2012 (r39033) @@ -11,5 +11,5 @@ DOCS= index.sgml DOCS+= myths.sgml - +DOCS+= whyusefreebsd.sgml .include "${DOC_PREFIX}/share/mk/web.site.mk" Modified: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/index.sgml ============================================================================== --- head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/index.sgml Tue Jun 12 13:31:13 2012 (r39032) +++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/index.sgml Tue Jun 12 17:11:45 2012 (r39033) @@ -24,6 +24,12 @@ <h2>Web resources</h2> <ul> + <li><p><a href="whyusefreebsd.html">Why Use FreeBSD?</a></p> + + <p>Explanations given by existing users as to why FreeBSD should + be used.</p></li> + </ul> + <ul> <li><p><a href="myths.html">*BSD Myths</a></p> <p>Describes and debunks some of the myths that surround the *BSD Added: head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/whyusefreebsd.sgml ============================================================================== --- /dev/null 00:00:00 1970 (empty, because file is newly added) +++ head/en_US.ISO8859-1/htdocs/advocacy/whyusefreebsd.sgml Tue Jun 12 17:11:45 2012 (r39033) @@ -0,0 +1,207 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//FreeBSD//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional-Based +Extension//EN" [ +<!ENTITY base CDATA ".."> +<!ENTITY date "$FreeBSD$"> +<!ENTITY title "FreeBSD Advocacy Project"> +<!ENTITY % navinclude.about "INCLUDE"> +<!ENTITY url.articles "../doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles"> +]> + +<html> + &header; + + <h1>Why Choose &os;?</h1> + + <p>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.</p> + + <h2>The Community</h2> + + <p>&os; is a community-driven operating system despite it being + sponsored corporately. &os; has active mailing lists, + forums, and IRC channels where experienced users and + developers are always willing to help the less + experienced.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <h2>Stability</h2> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>Stability in &os; means much more than that. It means that + upgrading the system doesn't 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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <h2>Early Adoption and Collaboration With Other Projects</h2> + + <p>&os; has been one of the first adopters of the LLVM + infrastructure, including the clang compiler and the libc++ + stack. The entire &os; 9.x system, including kernel and + userspace, can build with clang, and from &os; 9.1 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.</p> + + <p>This same collaboration works downstream, with projects like + PC-BSD 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.</p> + + <h2>Simple Configuration</h2> + + <p>&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.</p> + + <p>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.</p> + + <h2>Ports</h2> + + <p>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.</p> + + <p>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 then it's trivial to simply delete all + installed packages and then start installing the ones that you + want.</p> + + <p>The upcoming pkgng 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.</p> + + <h2>Security</h2> + + <p>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:</p> + + <ul> + <li>Jails, allowing you to run applications or entire systems + in a sandbox that can't access the rest of the system. With + tools like ezjail and ZFS you can instantly create a new + jail with a clone of an existing system, using a tiny amount + of disk space, and run untrusted code inside it.</li> + <li>Mandatory Access Control, from the TrustedBSD project, + allowing you to configure access control policies for all + operating system resources.</li> + <li>Capsicum, from &os; 9 onwards, allows developers to easily + implement privilege separation, reducing the impact of + compromised code.</li> + <li>The VuXML system for publishing vulnerabilities in ports, + which integrates with tools such as portaudit, so that your + daily security email tells you about any known + vulnerabilities in ported software.</li> + <li>Security event auditing, using the BSM standard.</li> + </ul> + + <p>And, of course, all of the standard features that you'd + expect from a modern &unix; system including IPSec, SSH, and so + on.</p> + + <h2>ZFS</h2> + + <p>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, then it's trivial to just create a + snapshot and roll back if it didn't work.</p> + + <p>If you're using jails, then ZFS lets you clone an existing + jail in under a second, irrespective of how big the jail + itself is.</p> + + <h2>GEOM</h2> + + <p>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.</p> + + <h2>Working Sound</h2> + + <p>&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.</p> + + <p>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's 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.</p> + + <h2>My System, How I Want It</h2> + + <p>&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's equally easy to install the server tools that you want.</p> + + <p>It's easy to run the &os; installer via a serial port and to + configure the entire system from the terminal. It's 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.</p> + + <p>If you're deploying &os; in a corporate environment, then + it's 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.</p> + + &footer; +</html>
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?201206121711.q5CHBkL5065521>