[Linux-Anyway] Re: FreeBSD version and installation disks
- From: Scott Robbins <srobbins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Linux-Anyway@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 15:46:28 -0400
On Thu, Apr 29, 2004 at 09:15:51PM +0200, Horror Vacui wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 06:31:32 -0400
> Scott wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Apr 29, 2004 at 12:12:26PM +0200, Horror Vacui wrote:
> > > On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 07:07:25 -0400
> > > Scott wrote:
> > >
> >
> > echo $INTUITIVE
> > what_you_are_used_to_using
> >
> > I would have to say the install is a) far quicker and b) far simpler
> > than Gentoo's. Like Gentoo, or other source based O/S, however, disk
> > space as you mention below, can quickly become a problem. I usually do
> >
> > make install clean
>
> Seems like a good practice, thanks. That'd be another pit you've shown
> me the way around, as I'd have assumed that the ports subdirs are
> cleaned automatically, similar to what portage is doing (it leaves only
> the downloaded distfiles on the disk).
Make deinstall automatically cleans, but not make install. Whether this
is a bug or feature, I wouldn't presume to guess. :) I sometimes wish
to have my work directories kicking around for various reasons.
>
> I feel I've inadvertently offended your pet OS, so I'll have to clarify
> here ;)
Heh, well, as long as you don't also put down ArchLinux, it's ok. :)
Like Gentoo, FreeBSD has helpful forums as well (I think I've mentioned
that>)
> while with Gentoo I'm an intermediate-to-experienced user. You're
> right, of course - a newbie could install FreeBSD rather easily, whereas
> there's no chance in hell he'd get past booting the Gentoo liveCD,
> unless we're speaking of the noob-out-of-your-dreams and he's doing a
> lot of RTFM.
It's hard, after being very used to something, to figure out is it
intuitive or are you simply used to using it.
>
> > >
> > > newer HD as storage - but FreeBSD won't do reiser, at least at my
> > > current level of expertise.
> >
> > No it doesn't--it only does (and then, only if you add it to the
> > kernel) ext2fs and ext3fs. You get a somewhat meanspirited warning
> > when you do config afterwards, something like contaminated GPL code
> > included.
>
> Heh, bast*ards ;o) "Contaminated GPL", right. I should flame them with
> an inquiry on how much code has flown back to them from the MacOSX, and
> congratulate them on their licence. Or was that NetBSD?
Nope, that's them, and they get a lot of it back. :)
>
> >
> >
> > Another pitfall is that for some reason the
> > > install process doesn't create an /etc/resolv.conf.
> >
> > That's odd. It should have, assuming you chose DHCP configuration of
> > the interface during post installation.
>
> I did. Well, doesn't matter, it's probably something I did anyway. I'll
> be reinstalling, so if you're interested I can follow up on this.
Please do--mostly, I use it at work with static addies--I only have one
running it on DHCP at home, and for all I know, I created
/etc/resolv.conf--that one's been around awhile.
>
> > >
> > > Also, the UFS seems to be very lame. To be fair, it's running on an
> > > old&lame disc, but I still have the impression that it's slower than
> > > the Linux filesystems.
> >
> > With soft updates? Also, 5.x is slow due to debugging that is in the
> > kernel. You want to turn that off. Not sure how to do it without a
> > recompile (btw, their kernel config is much quicker and simpler than
> > Linux's).
>
> No, I'm talking about moving a directory between partitions, therefore,
> pure fs I/O. As I said, the disk is old and lame, but it took
> considerably longer to move a ~80 MB dir between UFS partitions than it
> took to move a full ~700 MB iso image between two reiser partitions -
> which I believe is a bit too much to explain by differences in hardware
> speeds only.
This is beyond my experties. As I think I've said, subjectively
speaking, I've always found BSD to be faster.
> I've already compiled OpenBSD kernels, and they're probably not much
> different (by the way, are the *BSD varieties different in the way
> GNU/Linux distros differ from each other, or are they kernel-level
> forks?) I think that sysconfig can do some tuning of the filesystem
> handling (there's a section on it in the handbook, I only haven't read
> it yet).
I think kernel level forks, but a bit beyond my expertise again. I'm
not an expert on Net or Open (not that I am on Free). However, I think
they're close enough so that you'll have no trouble--with NetBSD, almost
everything in its kernel was clear to me.
>
> > >
> > > The only thing negative that I can say about it is that there seems
> > > to be no easy way to remove packages. I installed too many, and
> > > currently I don't see any possibilities to remove some except for
> > > removing manually(which I won't be bothered to do) or reinstalling
> > > the whole thing.
> >
> > pkg_delete.
> >
> > ls /var/db/pkg | grep foo
> >
> > foo-<somenumbers>
> > pkg_delete foo-<somenumbers>
>
> Thanks, noted. I should have that in my $INTUITIVE from my brief
> adventure with Debian, where apt<tab><tab> usually got one further than
> hours of RTFM. (Of course, I'll have to install something better than
> the default-distributed sh for pkg<tab><tab> to work).
If you liked Deb, you'll like Arch. :) Deb on steroids, i686 optimized,
but of course, far fewer packages.
>
>
> I'm not comparing. That'd mean comparing a stage-1 Gentoo (which being
> entirely compiled from sources and optimised for the hardware is
> probably about the fastest among GNU/linuxes) vs. a FreeBSD installed
> off pre-compiled packages, running off a lame disk. With all these
> factors taken into account, you're probably right. Given the
> circumstances, it's surprisingly fast.
There's a thing, beaver challenge, going on at present. It will
compare, with several benchmarks, various Linux Distro's, Free and
NetBSD and some others.
>
> for. Once I'm done fooling around with it, I'll probably clean up a
> partition on a new disk for a permanent FreeBSD install and install as
> much as I can from sources - then I can compare.
Sounds good--like Gentoo, compiling from source can often take a great
deal of disk space. That's why with some packages, such as OpenOffice,
I just use the binaries--otherwise, you run into garbage about having to
manually download java, then manually download a patch, etc.
>
--
Scott
GPG KeyID EB3467D6
( 1B848 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 D575 EB34 67D6)
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6
Buffy: Every time you show up like this, you risk all your parts,
you know that?
Spike: I wouldn't be here if I didn't have a good reason. As
usual, I'm here to help you and I... are you naked under there?
Buffy: Get out.
Spike: No, I'm serious. I mean, not about the naked part...
To unsubcribe send e-mail with the word unsubscribe in the body to:
Linux-Anyway-Request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?body=unsubscribe
Other related posts:
