Re: Is FreeBSD just a sandbox for hackers?

[Database Administrator]

On 10/31/2008 04:22 AM, TomB wrote:
> On 2008-10-30, Andrew Reilly was urged to write the following:
>
>>> The *FreeBSD ports collection* and, or package
>>> management system in its current incarnation *SUCKS*.
>> You're clearly welcome to your opinion, but I don't share it. I've used
>> several package management systems, on several Unix-like platforms. None
>> are perfect, all have their strengths and weaknesses. I happen to like
>> the tradeoffs that the FreeBSD ports system has made. I particularly
>> like the easy visibility of what is going on that comes from storing both
>> the database of available packages and the database of installed files as
>> simple trees of regular text files.
>
> Totally seconded. I'm a Debian user, but whenever I find the time I
> tinker with FreeBSD. Over time I grew very fond of the way the ports
> collection works. The control you've got over how the software will be
> installed is great. I'm even considering a migration to Slackware, as
> I understand they have a similar approach to installing software.

One can easily build, compile and, or fine tune any of the Debian,
Ubuntu and, or Mint distributions and any or all of the apt packages; it
is how Ubuntu and, or other such distributions based Debian were created.

Interestingly, the Nexenta, an OpenSolaris based distribution has been
built on GUN userland and uses apt as a package management and build system.

Please do have a look at ArchLinux too, particularly the
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_vs_Others page and do compare
how much it takes to upgrade and, or update a Debian, Arch and FreeBSD
machine; well I'm serious and talking about a upgrade/update based on
pre-build binary packages.

I extensively use and like the clean, efficient and stable FreeBSD
personally, but I also need to earn as well. So learning, using and, or
recommending the popular one is my need though not a requirement.

Why I'm mentioning all these here in a FreeBSD group, just for a
comparison; definitely do not intend distracting anyone from FreeBSD.

Think about a FreeBSD and, or any other package build and, or management
system where you want to re-build, improve, debug and, or fine-tune only
a particular package and the dependencies and you need not fetch the
whole ports collection, but it retrieves and builds only relevant ports.

Think of configuring and compiling a source package only once, and then
subdivide the same in to sub/meta/virtual packages; Please do have look
at the *FLAW* in current ports collection and build system that how a
same source package QT4 is being *RE*-extracted, *RE*-configured and, or
*RE*-compiled around 34 or more times, just to subdivide it in to
sub-packages.

Think of separating development files -- headers, libs and, or other
tools, which most of the end-users do not need either.

IMHO, the current FreeBSD ports collection, build and package system
needs a complete overhaul.

--
Dr Balwinder S "bsd" Dheeman Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe) Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India Gentoo, Fedora, Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/ Visit: http://counter.li.org/

[Database Administrator]

TomB writes:

> Totally seconded. I'm a Debian user, but whenever I find the time I
> tinker with FreeBSD. Over time I grew very fond of the way the ports
> collection works. The control you've got over how the software will be
> installed is great. I'm even considering a migration to Slackware, as
> I understand they have a similar approach to installing software.


Slackware provides a good but limited number of binary packages. The
rest is up to you. It is however not usually too difficult to create a
Slackware package from source code, and the wonderful Slackbuilds site
has lots of build scripts for commonly used software.


http://slackbuilds.org/

My own machines run FreeBSD because I have fallen in love wih the
system!!, the wife and children get Slackware because it does more of
the multi-media stuff out of the box :-)



Glyn

[Database Administrator]

On 2008-10-31, Giorgos Keramidas was urged to write the following:
> Totally seconded. I'm a Debian user, but whenever I find the time I
>> tinker with FreeBSD. Over time I grew very fond of the way the ports
>> collection works. The control you've got over how the software will be
>> installed is great. I'm even considering a migration to Slackware, as
>> I understand they have a similar approach to installing software.
>
> Why not ``the real thing'', aka FreeBSD?

Mostly because of the lack of a native Flash player. My kids also use
my box, and they like to play on-line flash games. I tried gnash, but
unfortunately it doesn't handle most of the games very well.

Another thing is audio production. I don't understand yet how the FBSD
kernel handles realtime audio processing. I even haven't got to
installing alsa yet on my FBSD install.

> /me ducks and runs...

No need to ;-)

--
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte

[Database Administrator]

Balwinder S Dheeman wrote:
> Think of configuring and compiling a source package only once, and then
> subdivide the same in to sub/meta/virtual packages; Please do have look
> at the *FLAW* in current ports collection and build system that how a
> same source package QT4 is being *RE*-extracted, *RE*-configured and, or
> *RE*-compiled around 34 or more times, just to subdivide it in to
> sub-packages.
>
> Think of separating development files -- headers, libs and, or other
> tools, which most of the end-users do not need either.

While i agree with the rest of your post, i don't agree with that. For
me, one of the good points of FreeBSD is having all the include and
development files present if i want to build a given port from source.
What is the benefit of not having them? some space on disk. This costs
essentially nothing.

>
> IMHO, the current FreeBSD ports collection, build and package system
> needs a complete overhaul.
>

I think it needs some thought, to discover what exactly is needed to
provide a working binary upgrade system, that is, i consider having to
read UPDATING absolutely prohibitive. An upgrade system has to be
completely automatic or it is worth nothing. The system of knobs
provided by FreeBSD packages is insufficient for that, as attested by
the existence of UPDATING. On the other hand there are totally useless
knobs. Once the correct knobs are found (i don't pretend having a clear
idea of this correct set) i am convinced that only very small
adaptations of the ports system are necessary to cope with them. On this
basis, one can then write something like apt-get which, based on these
data does the effective job. This is not very difficult, since examples
abound, notably apt-get written in C++, and more recently the RedHat
system, yum, written in python. To get a quick result, a scripting
language is certainly the best solution, but i think FreeBSD people are
against that.







--

Michel TALON

[Database Administrator]

> Totally seconded. I'm a Debian user, but whenever I find the time I
> tinker with FreeBSD. Over time I grew very fond of the way the ports
> collection works. The control you've got over how the software will be
> installed is great. I'm even considering a migration to Slackware, as I
> understand they have a similar approach to installing software.

Well, I played with FreeBSD again, diving into it now and again and
starting with some version 4. This time I installed it on a laptop and,
after quite a bit of trying I got wifi working. I admit that I learned
something by doing this.
FreeBSD is easy as it is clean. Most settings can be changed in text-
based files. Being a Slackware user this is not new to me and is much
appreciated.
My gripe with FreeBSD is that many applications don't work. Flashplayer
is not there, Realplayer does not compile, even a simple image viewer,
qiv, does not work after it installed apparently correctly. I think this
is the same as with all other package-based distributions, Linux or BSD:
they work fine if they work but if they don't they are a pain to fix. The
method that Slackware is using, simple tar.gz files, is still the best.
Usually I get enough information to add libraries or other software. Up
to now, and this is in the last 13 years, I never failed to get the
software I wanted to work. With BSD I am still trying.
JB

[Database Administrator]

danube wrote:
> My gripe with FreeBSD is that many applications don't work. Flashplayer
> is not there,

Flash 7 has worked on FreeBSD since ages, and apparently new fixes have
been introduced to the Linux emulation, so that Flash 9 now works. Of
course this is with the most recent version of FreeBSD, not with some
dinosaur. In general for me, all applications i want to use work on
FreeBSD.


--

Michel TALON

[Database Administrator]

On 11/03/2008 03:38 AM, Michel Talon wrote:
> danube wrote:
>> My gripe with FreeBSD is that many applications don't work. Flashplayer
>> is not there,
>
> Flash 7 has worked on FreeBSD since ages, and apparently new fixes have
> been introduced to the Linux emulation, so that Flash 9 now works. Of
> course this is with the most recent version of FreeBSD, not with some
> dinosaur. In general for me, all applications i want to use work on
> FreeBSD.

Who cares what you want and, or don't want to use. Please either try
addressing issues the other FreeBSD users face or keep mum if you don't
understand the problem and have a solution.

--
Dr Balwinder S "bsd" Dheeman Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe) Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India Gentoo, Fedora, Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/ Visit: http://counter.li.org/

[Database Administrator]

On 11/03/2008 12:34 AM, danube wrote:
> My gripe with FreeBSD is that many applications don't work. Flashplayer
> is not there, Realplayer does not compile, even a simple image viewer,
> qiv, does not work after it installed apparently correctly. I think this
> is the same as with all other package-based distributions, Linux or BSD:
> they work fine if they work but if they don't they are a pain to fix. The
> method that Slackware is using, simple tar.gz files, is still the best.
> Usually I get enough information to add libraries or other software. Up
> to now, and this is in the last 13 years, I never failed to get the
> software I wanted to work. With BSD I am still trying.

Nothing in this world is perfect not even the God.

Hundreds of thousands of FreeBSD developers and, or contributors are
already trying to make work hundreds of third party packages, some of
which are not portable enough and, or have been written and, or shipped
with a specific target OS in mind.

With that much of your expertize and, or exposure to some flavor of
Linux, I hope you definitely will/can make the flash player work on
FreeBSD too and submit your work and, or port soon.

--
Dr Balwinder S "bsd" Dheeman Registered Linux User: #229709
Anu'z Linux@HOME (Unix Shoppe) Machines: #168573, 170593, 259192
Chandigarh, UT, 160062, India Gentoo, Fedora, Debian/FreeBSD/XP
Home: http://cto.homelinux.net/~bsd/ Visit: http://counter.li.org/

[Database Administrator]

On Sun, 2 Nov 2008 20:04:03 +0100 (CET), danube wrote:
>> Totally seconded. I'm a Debian user, but whenever I find the time I
>> tinker with FreeBSD. Over time I grew very fond of the way the ports
>> collection works. The control you've got over how the software will be
>> installed is great. I'm even considering a migration to Slackware, as I
>> understand they have a similar approach to installing software.
>
> Well, I played with FreeBSD again, diving into it now and again and
> starting with some version 4.

This is a release that is so old that it is no longer supported even by
the security team. It may be worth downloading one of the latest stable
releases, i.e. FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE.

> My gripe with FreeBSD is that many applications don't
> work. Flashplayer is not there, Realplayer does not compile, [...]

With a release as old as 4.X it would be surprising if they _did_ work.
While it was a stable system, it is now anything from three to eight
years old. Please try with one of the newer releases too

You can find a listing of the most recent releases at:

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/

[Database Administrator]

On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:54:36 +0530, Balwinder S Dheeman wrote:
> On 11/03/2008 03:38 AM, Michel Talon wrote:
>> danube wrote:
>>> My gripe with FreeBSD is that many applications don't
>>> work. Flashplayer is not there,
>>
>> Flash 7 has worked on FreeBSD since ages, and apparently new fixes
>> have been introduced to the Linux emulation, so that Flash 9 now
>> works. Of course this is with the most recent version of FreeBSD, not
>> with some dinosaur. In general for me, all applications i want to use
>> work on FreeBSD.
>
> Who cares what you want and, or don't want to use. Please either try
> addressing issues the other FreeBSD users face or keep mum if you
> don't understand the problem and have a solution.

I think Michel's response _was_ helpful. He pointed out that important
and useful changes are under way to support Flash. After all the time
he has spent answering questions in this group, I think he deserves more
than a `dismissive' holier-than-thou comment of this sort.

Can we get back to _really_ answering the user's questions and stop the
personal attack nonsense please?