Talk:FreeBSD/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

The picture

Is FreeBSD a graphical OS? OK, I didn't read anything in the article, but the pictire leaves an impression that it isn't.

You can run a GUI like X11 on it. But i don't see the point in adding an X11 Desktop Screenshot. Arved 19:37, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the screenshot now, because it it also not system specific. --85.176.164.218 (talk) 14:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Until this comes to an agreement, I've put in the earlier console screenshot – better than leaving it blank. --The Divine Fluffalizer (talk) 02:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the console is good for the main screenshot, but one or two "FreeBSD-running-GNOME/KDE/$otherdesktop" pictures in the rest of the article couldn't do any harm, although I don't see anywhere they would obviously relate to the text. NicM (talk) 19:01, 13 April 2008 (UTC).

If you don't mind database and traffic overhead (for what?), than you are right, of course. But Wikipedia isn't used by modem users at all, so go on and do it. (Find Irony? Keep it.) --85.176.157.78 (talk) 16:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

To improve the page? This article could do with more images, take a look at some of WP:FA if you don't believe me. Better, eh? Anyway, Wikipedia pages are not designed based on some stupid idea of the lowest common viewer or saving a few database accesses. NicM (talk) 05:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC).

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I always thought that improvement would be done by adding useful information. Thank you for enlighten me. --85.176.140.58 (talk) 17:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Improving presentation does not preclude improving content. NicM (talk) 18:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC).

Developers

Just been looking through some of the history for this document and have noticed there is a small edit war going on over who should and should not be named as a devloper. Two names stand out as having ben added and removed as least twice now. Anyone wnat to step in here? Astrolox 01:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

We should draw a line between a developer and a notable developer somewhere, or else we'll end up with a list containing ~300 names. Major contributors (as in committed a lot of stuff or significant parts), project founders and core team members probably counts as notable developers. Also, developers actively trying to promote FreeBSD and are visible on the mailing lists can perhaps be added to the list as well. Let's look at ssouhlal for example[1]: 44 commits to src/sys, 30 commits to src (excluding sys). Not very active on the mailing lists, and has made <10 commits during the past year. No "hats" or project responsibilites[2]. Became a developer in 2004[3]. Is this a notable developer?

[1] http://people.freebsd.org/~peter/commits.html [2] http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/contributors/article.html [3] http://www.freebsd.org/news/newsflash.html

I have removed damien from the "notable past developers" list on the basis that he is a notable OpenBSD developer, but was not a significant contributor to FreeBSD; this is a table of notable FreeBSD developers, and not a list overall interesting people. I think it's reasonable that the definition of "notable" involve a significant and sustained contribution, not a single device driver (or even 2).

Is it notable when someone is run out of the project by another developer? PHK's comments on Damien's work are what made him stop working on FreeBSD development - PHK called into question the legality of Damien's work and that's pretty much pissing where you drink in the open source world. 74.13.36.27 16:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The issue about whether phk drove damien out is not relevant here. What's relevant is how much each contributed to FreeBSD. phk has been one of the most consistent contributers to FreeBSD for over a decade now. damien has not contributed much. Groogle 03:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Article Language

someone like my father would understand absolutely none of this article. 141.211.120.56 18:39, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Tell him he better not quit his day job(s) and go off to be a FreeBSD hacker then. Kstailey 21:19, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good article, thanx. A few parenthetical phrases and short explanations of terms would increase the encyclopedic article's value to readers unfamiliar with the terminology yet interested in learning about FreeBSD (and other Unix/Linux open sourced operating systems) -- like me. thanx. AnFu 00:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Netcraft Uptime Claims

A point: isn't that bit about FreeBSD being the only free OS listed in Netcraft's uptime a wee bit misleading? I had understood that most *nixs reset their uptime counter after 4 years or so. Perhaps that should be added. -marudubshinki

Alright, I've done some reading on Netcraft at http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/accuracy.html , and it clearly states that never seeing Linux and some other unixes is not to be taken as a reflection on their stability, but because their uptime counter wraps after ~400 or ~40 days. So I'm editing that clause to reflect this. - marudubshinki

Also some operating systems don't report uptime. Such as, speaking from experience of running both as servers, OpenBSD. On Netcraft's own site, please look at the long list of "Operating systems that do not provide uptime information include". AlistairMcMillan 12:42, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Alistair, that was the point. It is hardly fair or neutral to tout FreeBSD's stability when no mention is given of its 'unique' situation in uptimes. I could claim I was the fastest runner in the world, but if I only race against little children, such a claim is very misleading, if not outright lying. The claim really should be changed or just dropped. Marudubshinki 12:53 PM Saturday, 19 February 2005

I made an edit to the uptime sentence that I hope makes things a little clearer. Personally I would prefer that we swap out some other source for the "FreeBSD is generally regarded as quite reliable and robust" assertion, however none spring to mind right now. AlistairMcMillan 19:10, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There are now two linux servers listed on that page. This claim is now outdated and should be removed. 67.41.242.252 06:41, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

"HP-UX, Linux, NetApp NetCache, Solaris and recent releases of FreeBSD cycle back to zero after 497 days, exactly as if the machine had been rebooted at that precise point. Thus it is not possible to see a HP-UX, Linux or Solaris system with an uptime measurement above 497 days." [1] So no, it is not outdated. 85.132.161.101 11:35, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

A recent conversation on the freebsd-chat mailing list mentioned uptime, and a recent edit to this article reminded me of it. I consider it wrong to measure reliability in terms of uptime, and the mention of uptime does not belong in the article. The uptime article even goes some way to suggest the measure of uptime is not very useful. For example, an administrator's insistance in keeping a long uptime instead of forcing a reboot after a critical update is issued may actually result in decreased reliability. Another example is the situation where a system may be unreliable in certain circumstances but still reliable enough not to cause a reboot. I was tempted to use a car engine reliability analogy, but this comment is long enough and I think I've made my point. :-) --ozzmosis 11:13, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Uptime has its weaknesses and indeed any admin who avoids patching to chase uptime should be shot, but it is one of the few measures of reliability that does exist, however poor. Even so, Netcraft's measurements are useless since there a good few OSs it doesn't cover, or that are inaccurate in one way or another. NicM 15:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC).

Of course a better measure is proportion of downtime, but I don't know of any project collecting that. NicM 15:54, 3 June 2006 (UTC).

Just an anonymous surfer here, but the netcraft page is fairly useless because it doesn't count any linux system running a 2.6 kernel, which is by far the vast majority of the servers out there, period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.156.238 (talk) 06:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

FreeBSD vs. Linux

It might be valuable for someone to contribute some text discussing the differences between freeBSD and linux (maybe even compare it to Windows as well). I know as a reader, when I checked out this page, I was hoping to identify what differentiates freeBSD from Linux. There is a small comment in here currently, but more detail on that issue would be appreciated. -Ben

Weel there is FreeBSD and Linux that is in the 'See also' section which covers that. I don't think that is appropriate to link to in the intro of the FreeBSD article though, so I think it is best left where it is. - Taxman 23:46, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be better to write a comparison of BSD in general vs. Linux. Only comparing FreeBSD to Linux is limiting and POV. (Not that FreeBSD is the most popular of BSD systems, but it is certainly not the only notable one, and does not represent BSD all by itself.) Armedblowfish 17:19, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Logo

A new logo for FreeBSD has been released. The article ought to be updated. rasmusdf 09:13, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Is there a reason that very 1980's version of beastie/whatever is used rather than the John Lasseter version that most people recognise as being the "FreeBSD Mascot"? --Kiand 28 June 2005 15:55 (UTC)

Copyright reasons? The version listed in the page is a copy of the beastie that is also distributed as part of the system sources under the famous "beer ware" license of Poul-Henning Kamp. We could always mail Kirk McKusick and ask if it's ok to display the 4.3BSD daemon shown at [2]. I think this is the version you're referring to, right? — Keramida 23:39, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Yup. See Kirk McKusick's statement here. Though now that there are a proliferation of licenses like CC that allow retaining copyright, he may be willing to license one of his images under that. In any case we have one so we are ok. - Taxman ^Talk 01:45, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

The FreeBSD logo competition has been ended and the result is planned to be announced within the month of October, 2005. It may be appropriate to use this logo on the wikipedia page as soon as it has been released. Check [3] for updates.

Why does the infobox have logo in place of a screenshot? Is there no screenshot of FreeBSD?

Unless there are objections, I'm going to put a screenshot into the infobox, and move the logo elsewhere. --tyomitch 07:03, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the logo is better. A screenshot will just show whatever desktop environment you happen to have running or the console. You can still do that and place it lower in the article if you want, but the infobox should have the logo because that is more generally representative of the project. - Taxman ^Talk 12:25, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I meant the screenshot of console, because that's what an user sees when he first boots FreeBSD. Something like the layout of MS-DOS: the logo at the top left, and the screenshot in the infobox. --tyomitch 15:10, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that the new logo should be used, not the text screenshot. Other OS pages follow this policy (e.g. OpenBSD, NetBSD, Linux, and Windows (which has a screenshot below the logo)). Having the logo there gives an immediate visual impression, and I for one think the new logo is very slick. The current screenshot, although accurately displaying the text welcome screen, implies that FreeBSD is a text-only/server OS, which clearly it has moved beyond these days. Lavajoe 17:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Generous released?

The article currently mentions "[...] the BSM implementation found in Apple's Open Source Darwin which has been generously released under a BSD-style license" (emphasis added). Since much of OSX's core is itself based on free software, is it really "generous" of them to contribute back? 24.1.63.132 22:16, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, because they were under no obligation to do so. They give of their own free will, which makes them generous in my book. By your reasoning, nobody who benefits from the generosity of others can themselves be generous. (Now, if the question is whether "generous" is appropriate language for Wikipedia, well, I don't know about that.) -- Coneslayer 03:01, 2005 July 25 (UTC)

Right, I know Apple's not obligated to release their changes under the BSD license themselves. Compare the Apple contribution mention to "FreeBSD 5 also has support for encrypted filesystems, through the GBDE system written by Poul-Henning Kamp." Was Kamp's contribution not generous? My point is really just whether or not "generously" is POV. 24.1.63.132 03:57, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it is, so it's gotta go. :) - Taxman ^Talk 04:42, July 26, 2005 (UTC)

The reason this was "generous" is that normally Apple releases source code for original components under APSL, and not under the BSD license. BSM, and especially the kernel audit code, were originally released as APSL, and then released to BSD so that they could be included in FreeBSD. The "generously" language probably derives from the OpenBSM release announcement and description text on the web site.

learning Linux with BSD

I find that starting with BSD then going to Linux is good way to learn Linux. Because BSD is all code, you are forced to learn the code, then when you get to Linux, it is so much easier to operate it, you don't need to think twice before useing a code and it saves a lot of time.

That's one way to look at this. Other users, especially on freebsd-questions or similar mailing lists report the converse is also true, i.e. having worked a bit with Linux, makes things much easier when one moves to FreeBSD. So, if you ask me, this depends highly on the specific route one has taken from one system to the other, and we shouldn't emphasize one of the two ways. What I would probably find nice is something along these lines:

There are many similarities between the various UNIX-like systems. This makes transitions from one system to another much easier. Thus, if you are an experienced Linux user, switching from Linux to FreeBSD is relatively easy. The reverse is also true, since experienced FreeBSD users will, usually, find their way pretty fast around a Linux installation.

This way, we don't favor one of the two choises. — Keramida 22:02, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Live chat support for newbies

the other day i've added a useful link to freebsd users (in my point of view) Just FreeBSD chat rooms, and got this:

(cur) (last) 11:01, 15 October 2005 Echimu (→link spam removed and added bsdguides.org link as it got tutorial on all bsd)

seems that this user has not read the page carefully, because it's showing different FreeBSD IRC channels, not any kind of spam. Wanted to give to other users the help i got joining IRC channels to ask for live support, maybe it's not ok to give live sources to users.

Nope, I'm afraid those sort of links aren't appropriate. Please keep in mind Wikipedia is not a web directory. --fvw* 12:31, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Don't be afraid, i see no difference between giving offline sources (such as tutorials) and online sources, you lose hundreds of experienced users ready to help you with FreeBSD, as offline tutorials, but more specific. - Wikipedia is not a chatroom (feel free to crop this thread about "Live chat support for newbies") - 14:59, 15 October 2005 (GMT+1)

Ah, but the point of this article isn't to help people getting started with FreeBSD, it's to tell people what freeBSD is. We're an encyclopaedia, not a how to guide. --fvw* 13:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Now, you've explained it very well. Last suggestion, denying links not spam, you could put "offtopic" or whatever word but spam, which is very different concept. Good faith users are not spammers

Well, you have been spamming your link to a lot of articles, I don't think "spam" is an inaccurate description here. I've removed your link from the other articles too. --fvw* 13:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

And why is that? you are allowing other sites as netsplit, searchirc, packetnews, ircspy, ircklipper, isohunt... but not gogloom, which are more or less the same. What's wrong? This site has been active for years in IRC world, also referenced by mIRC web site. You are being subjective in banning a site, and not the others

Chances are none of them should be there, but the issue here is the way in which they've been added. Instead of the link being added by people working on the article in question you spammed the link across lots of articles in an effort to promote the site. --fvw* 14:12, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

You're being subjective, you are not going into content, no reason having stats from a site and not from another. Please make users also ignore Gogloom in Chat_room, they might find some useful information. Verify twice before being sure there's no more links to this site, no need to spam it

Linux Compatibility

I have removed part of a recent edit to the Linux Compatibility section that claimed the compatibility layer is being worked on. To the best of my knowledge, very few updates (if any) are being made to the compatibility layer at present. Please include a citation if anyone plans to re-insert this in the future.

It didn't claim a ton of work is being done, only that work is being done. :p ¦ Reisio 23:27, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

In the context given (Cedega on FreeBSD), no work is being done at all as far as I know. I started the project just over a year ago and nothing has changed since, other than success/failure reports. 71.37.175.10 05:41, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the recent edit, which added, "[the linux compatibility layer is] pretty usable", I was wondering if there's any good way to make this statement more objective and quantitative. How many ports are known to work effectively under Linux comp.? Is there an easy way to determine that? That might be nice to report in this section. And, despite the unreliability between benchmarks and real world, it might be nice to simply report some stats. As it stands, the section is fairly qualitative, therefore subjective, and could be considered POV. The language is also overly casual. Another edit that would be nice is to touch up the 2006 SoC project description. In fact, I think I'll do a bit of that right now.... — gogobera (talk) 03:17, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The fact that all of the list of significant Linux applications listed work seems to me to be reasonable evidence it is usable, although the section could probably do with some rephrasing. NicM 20:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

What about Citrus?

What about Citrus added to FreeBSD? It's not mentioned in the article and is very interesting stuff to be mentioned and explained into the article and the relation with FreeBSD. Timofonic 23:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

That's kind of tricky. Will we start adding support for each and every one of the major tools available through Ports then? I had not heard of Cirtus since I read this comment, and I've been using the CURRENT FreeBSD branch since 4.0-CURRENT. Is Citrus really that important, to deserve a special mention in an introductory page about FreeBSD? — Keramida 13:37, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Inferno?

I don't understand why we have a link to inferno on here. It is its own operating system. Yes, it is able to operate within FreeBSD, but I think this is completely irrelevant. 134.48.103.32 13:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no longer a link to Inferno in the article -- Kraenar 14:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

FreeBSD installer issues

I'm not that good at spelling..But I'm going to give this a try.. I have installed This FreeBSD that every one talks about, and says " It's the best OS system that I have ever used." Yeah right to.. I have been reading about the FreeBSD for over 5 years now.. and have not been able to get it to the KDE deskTop.. But installing Redhat Linux is not a prob.. I'm not bashing this OS system.. all I'm saying that is it would be alot better and more people would use it, if that if it had a GUI installer, so that one could get out of the shell and do something on the deskTop. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.37.87.89 (talk • contribs) .

This is a flaw in the user rather than the OS. Try http://www.freebsd.org/docs.html. NicM 08:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC).

It DOES have a GUI installer. A COMPATIBLE GUI installer. Not everybody has a $2000 PC and resources to burn. You should be thankful, if I remember it right OpenBSD has a CLI installer. Since you haved talked about Fedora, I assume that you have at least minimal UNIX knowledge, so for a look at FreeBSD-specific help see the FreeBSD Handbook Kraenar 10:24, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I pity the poor fool who thinks the installer for FreeBSD is good. On the other hand, OpenBSD's installer is quite nice, it takes like 15 minutes to install the system and maybe 10 more to get XFCE up and running. The thing is so simple that anyone can do it, whereas FreeBSD has that awful loop in the installer which I was once caught by. That is what you call a bad installer. Also, experience with Fedora of all things is not UNIX experience, at best it's Redhat experience. 65.94.57.226 16:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this discussion belongs in the talk page unless you believe there is something wrong with the Wikipedia article. If you want to debate the merits of the FreeBSD installer, use one of the mailing lists listed at http://www.freebsd.org/community/mailinglists.html --ozzmosis 19:38, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually it'd be good in a critisism section, though one currently isn't existant it would be well suited for such a section. 65.94.57.226 20:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

<sarcasm>Ok then, lets start criticism sections on ALL operating systems. I'll start on FreeBSD, you do Windows.</sarcasm> Now seriously, ALL software programs have SOME kind of problem. You won't find a piece of software that everybody likes -- it's not possible. What some regard as a feature, others think it's a bug. A criticism section on this or other OS article would most probably be POV. It would not add any useful info adecuate in an encyclopaedia article, other than subjective views better expressed in the mailing lists Ozzmosis mentioned earlier. Kraenar 23:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

No, if done correctly you should have a balanced paragraph mentioning what people often complain about and what, if anything, about that complaint is valid as well as what is invalid. Take my bitch for example, you'd put something along the lines of how a criticism of FreeBSD's installer is that there is a part which can reset all input information and force the person doing the installation to try again, then have it say that there is documentation at whereever explaining all the steps in the installation and how this can be avoided by following them. Sections like this are good for an article because it brings a greater depth and helps to remove some of the inherent positive point of view most articles carry for their subject matter. 65.94.57.226 23:34, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe what you describe is not notable enough to go into a criticism section. Perhaps if it was a serious bug, and a number of people had experienced the same problem, that would make it worthy for inclusion in the article. --ozzmosis 07:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

There are a few problems with the current installer, but most of them are relatively unimportant if one follows the installation process outlined in the first chapters of the Handbook. We could probably add a paragraph about the most common problems people face with the installer, but care should be taken to present both sides of the argument: (a) those who are newcomers to FreeBSD, and find it hard to use an installer they see for the first time, and (b) those who are experienced FreeBSD users, who support that the installer works adequately well for them since it's something they do once and then forget about it (using other methods to update a running system, like CVSup). Both sides have their arguments, and they are right in their own way, but we should be careful not to favor one POV. — Keramida 13:43, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Darwin and OpenDarwin

The most recent edit combined the paragraphs describing Darwin and OpenDarwin a bit too much, if I had to guess. Unfortunately, I no nothing (ok, very very little) about either product, and so I can't say for sure if the last edit was a bit overreaching. I like the first paragraph, though. — vijay 08:45, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, they come from the same place so I don't think two entries in the list is necessary. The article links to both Darwin (operating system) and OpenDarwin which should explain the differences. These "derivatives" lists (like external links) tend to grow to ridiculous lengths as everyone adds their favourite and end up neither that informative or interesting. I'm a little tempted to remove the entire list and expand the prose to one or two paragraphs discussing no more than four or five major or interesting FreeBSD derivatives (OS X/Darwin, DragonFly BSD, the desktop-orientated derivatives, perhaps Debian kFreeBSD or Gentoo's thing), which would be more interesting and would still tell the reader that FreeBSD code appears in a lot of places. NicM 11:53, 12 May 2006 (UTC).

I'm a huge fan of replacing lists with prose throughout wikipedia. That would be fantastic. I am concerned about two things:

1. Does OpenDarwin actually use FreeBSD code for its virtual file system, network stack, and parts of its userspace? If not, the sentence is now incorrect. As you said, OpenDarwin is based on Darwin, and it's probably a safe bet.
2. More importantly, the older version clearly seperates OpenDarwin from Apple. The current version, implies that OpenDarwin is under Apples control/direction. Or, at least, could be confusing. Perhaps wording such as: "Similarly, OpenDarwin, based on the original Darwin code, …" placed after "Apple regularly contributes…." Although the wikilinks will explain the differences, that's no excuse for having misleading text on the FreeBSD page.

Hrm, I think I have a decent remedy: "and the open source, and independent of Apple, OpenDarwin borrow heavilly…." Also, is it fair to say that both projects "regularly [continue] to integrate new code from, and contribute changes to, FreeBSD"? If so, that would be a better closing sentence. — vijay 16:15, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd probably go with something like:

Darwin, the core of Apple's Mac OS X, borrows heavily from FreeBSD, including its virtual file system, network stack and components of its userspace. Apple continues to integrate new code from and contribute changes back to FreeBSD. The open source OpenDarwin, originally derived from Apple's codebase but now a seperate entity, also includes substantial FreeBSD code.

NicM 18:26, 12 May 2006 (UTC).

I like it. I know it's a bit lengthier, but I think it's a also a lot clearer. Perhaps that's justs me? I'll commit it, and see what others think. — vijay 03:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Looking back on it, the new comment almost begs to be split into two bullets! At that point, I feel like it's dangerously close to where it started. Although, without doubt, it's more cleanly expressed. I think I'll stay away from it now; I don't think I know how to improve it anymore. — vijay 03:56, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, after all that, I decided to prosify it. Hope this is better :-). NicM 09:48, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Bravo! For my 2c, that's a job well done. — vijay 20:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The OpenDarwin project has since closed its doors, FYI. Apple has created a new open source project site, MacOSForge, which is the home for a variety of Darwin-derived projects. In the big picture, Darwin is arguably significantly more relevant than OpenDarwin, as Darwin is the foundation of Mac OS X, and OpenDarwin was an open source set of extensions to Darwin. Much of the language describing OpenDarwin really applies to Apple's Darwin, and the two should not be confused.

Similarly, where the page mentions Mac OS X, should it really be referring instead to Darwin? Crowston (talk) 11:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Disputed

DesktopBSD is a fork of FreeBSD

In fact, it is not.

See the following for details:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DesktopBSD

• http://desktopbsd.net/index.php?id=33

--angrykeyboarder 16:06, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, it kind of depends how you define fork but I suppose since it doesn't matter and they actually seem to care we may as well follow their wishes. NicM 16:09, 18 May 2006 (UTC).

DesktopBSD, as with PC-BSD, is most accurately a distribution of FreeBSD in the Linux sense: FreeBSD is relatively unmodified, but wrapped up and packaged with management software, a GUI, etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.111.8.99 (talk) 10:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

Why in the page there is no mention of this? I've modified the page, writing that PC-BSD and DesktopBSD are distributions, but my mods disappear.

Free and Open

So, I'm sure this is a fun and heated debate, but I'm a bit torn on this edit, which changed "open source" to "free".

It seems that the phrase "open source" is much more descriptive than "free" (to me and a lay person, which I am-ish). On the other hand, BSD is free—freedom and $$—so perhaps "free" covers it.

I read the article that Kraenar pointed to. Other than "'OSI' doesn't like it when people use the phrase that they wished they could've trademarked," it didn't really explain, to me, why the change was made. In fact, this phrase:

All free software is open source; therefore free software can be seen as a subset of open source software. Yet open-source software may or may not be "free,"; therefore open-source software can be seen as a subset of free software.

confuses me. It seems to read "free … subset of open source. … open-source … subset free software." Last time I took a math class, $A\subset B\,\,\mathrm {and} \,\,B\subset A\Rightarrow A=B$. Of course it also says outright: "open-source software may or may not be 'free,'" which means that, since free is a subset of open source, that switching FreeBSD from "open source" to "free" is a more descriptive (restrictive) term... ?

Ah well, I'm lost. : ) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vrkaul (talk • contribs) .(oops! sorry — vijay (Talk) 20:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC))

I generally find that to most vaguely knowledgable but not very interested people: "free software" or "Free Software" means associated with the GNU project, or at least meeting their conditions for a "free" license (FreeBSD does the latter but is not the former, although I personally find attempts to bring FreeBSD under the free software banner quite ironic since FreeBSD and the other BSDs (particularly OpenBSD) deliberately try to avoid GNU/FSF's primary license, and the BSD license most certainly doesn't mesh with their goals); "open source" means the source is open, and is a partial superset of free software as you suggest (all free software is open source, not all open source is free software); "Open Source" means it is connected with the OSI. In OpenBSD we compromised in the end with "freely available", which is less descriptive than "open source" but does not get tangled up with alternative definitions and is considerably less ugly than some amalgam like "open source/free software". We do link to both in the article, although neither very prominently (OpenBSD has its own philosophy on licensing and I feel attempts to classify it directly with either movement, which is always going to be mainly done by outsiders, are a little presumptive). NicM 06:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC).

Neither free software and open source software is a subset of the other. They are two sets with 99.9% overlap.

To the lay person, neither free software or open source software leads to understanding. "Free software" has an initial ambiguity that must be resolved. "Open source software" in unambiguously inaccurate (Shared Source is open, but it does not give users freedom).

Neither is attached to Copyleft.

So both refer to the same thing and both have draw backs, I'd judge "open source" as being a bigger problem. Free software has been used since 1983 and was the original term. "Open source" was a "marketing campaign" (says OSI) to "relable" (says ESR) free software.

Should Wikipedia use the result of a marketing campaign, or follow scientific practice of using the first name?

(BTW, I came here because I just nominated FreeBSD to be the next select article on Portal:Free software - when that nomination is confirmed, please don't misread it as an attempt to influence this discussion.)

Gronky 11:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, you appear to be right that they are basically equivalent, I thought there were some licenses that met the OSI definition but not FSF (although "open source" as in "source is open" is a superset of "free software"). Wikipedia convention given terms of equal meaning is generally to prefer the one used by the original author (ie, don't make unnecessary changes of style). Don't forget that both terms are arbitrary marketing labels, so I don't think provence counts for much in this case. If one was clearer than the other, I think it would be best to go for it, but the fact is that both are pretty awful: vague, ambiguous and hard to define simply. Personally, I would either go with the original author's choice, or mention neither (or go with something hand-wavey like "freely available") and discuss the full licensing in longer form later in the text (this article does currently have a Licensing section). On a cursory look, the FreeBSD site itself does not appear to describe the project using either of these terms (it says free as in "free of charge" but not much else), so I'm not really convinced we should do so. NicM 13:01, 23 May 2006 (UTC).

Currently, the "free" in the first sentence links to Free software, which is, of course, the Free Software Foundation's term. This seem rediculous, as the BSD license isn't a Free software license! Usually, I've found that when a single word does not suffice, a simple phrase or short sentence can do the job quite well. Perhaps we can leave "free" out of that first sentence. Later, we could mention that FreeBSD is available at no cost via FTP, etc, and that its code is mainly available under the BSD license with more information available in the License section. We could even say that FreeBSD is commonly referred to as "open source" due to its licensing practices—perhaps linking to some page that discusses these issues more in depth.

Mainly, it seems that an in depth discussion of licensing, free software, open source, and other issues is beyod the scope of this article. Further, the "free" in the lead sentence is inappropriate. — vijay (Talk) 20:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The licence of FreeBSD is indeed a free software licence. That pages says so, and the GNU page says so. An indepth discussion would be lovely, but do we need one on every page about a free software package? Or can we centralise them on the pages about the concept of free software, the licences, and the terminology. Gronky 20:20, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so far we have agreed the terms are interchangable. So I think the arguments are that it should be "open source" since that was what was originally there, or that neither should be mentioned since the FreeBSD project does not seem to claim either officially. Are there any other suggestions? I don't mind using "free software", but I object to just blankly changing it without reason. NicM 22:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC).

Aha, then you'll be pleased to know that actually User:Kraenar was just reverting an anon who blankly changed it without reason (and without an edit summary). See the edit before Kraenar's. Kraenar behaved well and gave an edit summary which alerted us all to what he did, and now we're all discussing it while the anon is laughing in his basement. Gronky 10:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, then that is fine by me, although I don't think discussions like this are entirely pointless: sometimes useful things do come up :-). Well spotted anyway, I don't know how I managed to miss it. NicM 10:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC).

Ah, very good. Sorry 'bout the mix up. I scanned the list-o-licenses and didn't catch modified BSD license, instead I saw the "BSD philosophy" section which seems to focus on the differences between the GPL & BSD camps. If "free" is how it was, "free" is how it shall be, then. No worries. Sorry for the bother. — vijay (Talk) 19:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

On Portal:Free software, FreeBSD is currently the selected article

Just to let you know. The purpose of selecting an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. It will remain on the portal for a week or so. The previous selected article was Rockbox. Gronky 10:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Documentation/Manuals for FreeBSD

The availability of usefull documentation for FreeBSD might be an item to add to this article. At this time, I didn't notice anything about it. Is it well-documented, poorly-documented? AnFu 00:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't make sense to me

Is it just me, or does the following make no sense:

“ Though there are many applications that run flawlessly under the compatibility layer, it should be noted that the layer is not complete, thus rendering some Linux binaries unusable on FreeBSD or limiting their functionality, possibly because this compatibility layer only supports the system calls of Linux Kernel 2.4.2, a historic release. One example of this is Cedega, TransGaming's product to run Microsoft Windows games on Linux. Its usage is largely crippled at this time due to an incomplete compatibility layer. There has, however, been limited success in using it to run games on FreeBSD [4]. A 2006 Summer of Code project to update the compatibility layer and implement missing system calls has been accepted [5]. ”

Why does this have anything to do with WINE? Bawolff 05:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It is an example of one of the programmes which are slightly crippled by a now out of date compatability layer, the Windows compatability depends on the Linux compatability on FreeBSD, which is old, and acts like it's Redhat 9. WINE has moved on since the 2.4 days, the compatability layer has not, thus it does not run right on FreeBSD. Does that clear it up for you? Janizary 00:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

the merge

I figure that since TrustedBSD is a stub of an article it could be folded into the FreeBSD one. Much as the NanoBSD article before it, it's just part of FreeBSD anyways. Janizary 00:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. If the merge is not done before I get to it, I will happily merge it into this article, since the proposal was made on the 18^th, and it is now the 24^th. The silence over the five day period is enough to make it happen, and I am voting yes. —Mike Trausch (fd0man, Talk Page) 02:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a different distribution. I feel that that is reason enough to keep the articles separate. Huwie 21:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Could you elaborate on that? Even the page says that it is a set of extensions for the operating system that are “… destined to make its way back into the base FreeBSD operating system.” It would seem that it should be merged, given that. I did not have time to do it when I expected to, but I can do a little more research, as well. I am open to whatever is the most correct thing to do, and at this point I am inclined to say that it should be merged because of the fact that it seems to be somewhat experimental but targeted at FreeBSD. Donations to the project even go to the FreeBSD Foundation, so it would seem to be unified. —Mike Trausch (fd0man, Talk Page) 05:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't realise they were that closely linked. You've convinced me! Huwie 10:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that works. I will get to it as soon as tomorrow, hopefully. My son has been keeping me quite busy. —Mike Trausch (fd0man, Talk Page) 02:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The merge is completed, and the merge notice has been removed. —Mike Trausch (fd0man, Talk Page) 04:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I think merging these articles was a mistake: the TrustedBSD Project also maintains extensive change sets against the Mac OS X operating system, including a kernel access control framework, which has been adopted by Apple in their upcoming Leopard release. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.8.99 (talk) 06:16, 11 December 2006

cdrom.com

The (former) site http://www.cdrom.com is mentioned but it redirects to the famous http://www.simtel.net . Can someone please investigate and fix (or add info to) the page accordinly?Dr. Who 04:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

POSIX compliance

I see no mention of POSIX compliance; wouldn't this be useful? ppblais 15:23, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Testing for something like that is a giant waste of money, and the FreeBSD foundation wastes enough of it, 20, 000 dollars a year, on lawyers. That's enough useless waste that doesn't benefit the project, no need to spend another 12, 000 to do the test for every release of FreeBSD. It'd be stupid, besides which POSIX has a lot of stupid needs, which cause security problems in any system which do conform. An utter waste. 74.13.36.27 02:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for BSD/FreeBSD artwork (for Portal:Free software)

Hi. Wikipedia rules do not allow "fair use" images on non-article pages, so this means that Portal:Free software cannot use logos, mascots, etc. without explicit permission. I have some usable GNU art, and some usable Tux, but I don't want to add those until I have something else to balance out the GNU+Linux tilt that that art would give to the portal. Portal:Free_software will be applying for Featured portal status soon, and one thing is lacks is art. AFAICT, the only acceptable terms are:

• public domain
• revised-BSD-style permissive licence
• GNU FDL

So, can anyone point me to some BSD or FreeBSD pictures which are under one of those licences? Thanks. Gronky 00:45, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

FreeBSD 7 section

I've reverted the section back to my summary. Wikipedia is not a FreeBSD status report, a short paragraph on significant work is sufficient for something that isn't released yet, certainly better than a boring ugly great list. It now reads similarly to the FreeBSD 6 section, which is in fact far too short. NicM 14:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

I'm still waiting for you to re-add all the pieces of information (superpages, 10Gbps optimization etc) that you removed. I'll revert your changes if I don't see any progress soon. 81.234.214.163 06:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want this information to be included in the article, it is up to you to insert it in an appropriate way. Nobody is obliged to do that work for you. If you add information in an inappropriate way, it will probably be removed. For example, if you add some text about "superpages" and "10Gps optimization", please explain what these things mean, either with a short text or with a wikilink to another article that explains them. Gronky 12:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Gronky, but would also point out that it is not necessary (or even desirable) to include every feature being worked on in FreeBSD 7. Those which are esoteric, overly technical, uninteresting to the general reader, or only in the early stages are most probably best left out. If you care to add further details, it would be good, but particularly as this is a future product please try to limit it to significant changes, work that is certain to appear (I wouldn't mention anything that doesn't work or has not been committed), and write prose rather than using lists. NicM 09:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC).

Excellent. Please have a nice day. 81.234.214.163 17:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

notable developers

IMO, the list of notable developers would be best if it gave a short note for each saying why they're notable. If nothing can be said for a person, then that's a hint that they shouldn't be in a list titled "notable developers" :-) Also, since encyclopedia's have to have a historical perspective, past developers should be eligble too (on the same notability criteria). Just my 2c. Gronky 16:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think the list should go entirely, this kind of list is just boring and unencylopedic. If they were notable enough they would all have a WP page, then Category:FreeBSD developers could do the job. NicM 16:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

That's another good solution. Gronky 14:03, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

+1 Arved 10:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Note that lists can be useful in some cases since they may include additional info that won't be visible in the category. However lists should still only include notable people i.e. people with wikipedia articles (if there is no wikipedia article then the name should be removed as it is likely impossible for the editor to know if that person is noteable and if they are why they are) Nil Einne 13:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the list is helpful as it is. Gwen Gale 23:29, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

NanoBSD

What is NanoBSD ? It's briefly mentioned in the PicoBSD article, but clicking on the link there redirects here to FreeBSD. Currently the FreeBSD article never mentions "NanoBSD". (If it's not notable, I suppose we should avoid mentioning it in the PicoBSD article). --76.209.28.72 03:54, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Well as is written in the PicoBSD article it is the successor. So it is imho more notable than PicoBSD. Arved 12:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

what the hell, aren't Nano and Pico text editors? 24.250.30.155 22:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

They're first and foremost units of measure, that is why they were used. Pico is the pine editor, and nano is the, "free," alternative of that editor, the name was chosen because the link between the two names. PicoBSD was so named due to it's being used on floppy discs, NanoBSD is a new framework for making images like PicoBSD was. 74.13.43.249 20:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Viruses

Do freeBSD users have to worry about any viruses?

All operating systems are susceptible to viruses, worms etc. FreeBSD, and BSDs in general, are not targetted as frequently as other systems, but users of such systems should still take precautions. Mindmatrix 14:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

short answer: no —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.87.239.42 (talk) 15:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Wrong. All operating systems can be targeted. Stop looking for an uninfectable one it doesn-t exists and probably will never exist such OS. Ah and also there are Unix viri that are simple shell scripts (there are also source code viri too) that as a matter of fact can jump to for example Windows given the fact that some shell have been ported to that OS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Waldoalvarez00 (talk • contribs) 08:50, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone said they were looking for an "uninfectable" OS. Meanwhile the pith is not that FreeBSD can't be exploited but rather, as Mindmatrix wrote above, it's very rarely targeted. Nonetheless, as Mindmatrix also noted, precautions should be (and wontedly are) taken with all of the BSDs. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:54, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Every now and then, some vulnerabilities (programming errors like buffer overflows etc.) are detected and fixed in the base system or in the kernel. The FreeBSD security officer then releases a Security Advisory that usually contains a patch, and instructions on how to update one's system. Such vulnerabilites could in theory be exploited by viruses, just like vulnerabilites of other OSes; though some are only exploitable locally, others exploitable remotely. -- Cordula's Web (talk) 20:15, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

8-CURRENT version

See several messages in this list for a source. The Divine Fluffalizer 06:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

UFS journaling in 7.x?

As far as I know, FreeBSD 7.x will not support journaling for UFS. There is a GEOM Journal module, but it's not actually a filesystem level journaling. There is some work on a journaling version of UFS, called BLUFFS (BSD Logging Updated Fast File System), but that's in a very early state, IIRC. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.181.128.135 (talk) 11:27, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Linux implementations

Trying hard to add some reference about linux-like implementation of newer FreeBSD releases. It looks like someone here is not very happy with this. I know most of FreeBSD is BSD style, but the linux-style is more and more present in its implementation. Some developers left the project to start DragonFly. I moved away too from this OS as an user. Please inform the users about this fact, there is no one word about this. I will not add the comments again since they were removed sistematically. Maybe this entry will be removed too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.114.19.86 (talk) 08:47, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Without reliable sources on this, there would be nothing to put in the article. Gwen Gale (talk) 08:49, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Table of information

Regarding release information, can we organize the data into a similar looking table:

Colour	Meaning
Red	Old release; not supported
Yellow	Old release; still supported
Green	Current release
Blue	Future release

Version	Code name	Testing name	Release date	Supported until	Features and Changes
4.10	Warty Warthog	Sounder	2004-10-20	2006-04-30	Initial release; ShipIt
5.04	Hoary Hedgehog	Array	2005-04-08	2006-10-31	Update Manager; Upgrade Notifier; readahead; grepmap; laptop suspend, hibernate and standby; dynamic frequency scaling; Ubuntu hardware database; Kickstart; installation from USB devices; UTF-8 by default; APT authentication
5.10	Breezy Badger	Colony	2005-10-13	2007-04-13	Usplash (graphical boot sequence); "Add/Remove..." application tool; easy language selector; logical volume management support; full Hewlett-Packard printer support; OEM installer support; Launchpad integration
6.06 LTS	Dapper Drake	Flight	2006-06-01	2009-06 (desktops)	Long Term Support (LTS) release; Live CD and Install CD merged onto one disc; Ubiquity graphical installer on Live CD; Usplash on shutdowns; Network Manager for easy switching of multiple wired and wireless connections; 'Humanlooks' theme implemented using Tango guidelines, based on Clearlooks and featuring orange colours instead of brown; LAMP installation option; installation to USB devices; GDebi graphical installer for package files
				2011-06 (servers)
6.10	Edgy Eft	Knot	2006-10-26	2008-04	Ubuntu 'Human' theme heavily modified; Upstart init daemon; automated crash reports (Apport); Tomboy notetaking application; F-spot photo manager; EasyUbuntu merges into Ubuntu via meta-package installs and features
7.04	Feisty Fawn	Herd	2007-04-19	2008-10	Migration assistant; Kernel-based Virtual Machine support; easy codec and restricted drivers installation; Compiz desktop effects; Wi-Fi Protected Access support; PowerPC support dropped; Sudoku and chess games added; disk usage analyser (baobab) added; GNOME Control Center; Zeroconf for many devices
7.10	Gutsy Gibbon	Tribe	2007-10-18	2009-04	Compiz Fusion by default; AppArmor security framework; fast desktop search; fast user switching; some plug-ins for Mozilla Firefox now handled by APT (Ubufox); graphical configuration tool for X.org; a revamped printing system with PDF printing by default; full NTFS support (read/write) via NTFS-3G
8.04 LTS	Hardy Heron	Alpha	2008-04-24	2011-04 (desktops)	Long Term Support (LTS) release;; Better Tango compliance; compiz usability improvements; tracker integration;; Brasero disk burner, Transmission BitTorrent client and Vinagre VNC client by default; PulseAudio by default
				2013-04 (servers)
8.10	Intrepid Ibex	Alpha	2008-10-30	2010-04	Complete interface redesign; improvements to mobile computing and desktop scalability; increased flexibility for Internet connectivity

Altonbr (talk) 03:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Such a table would be very much better than what we have now. If someone can do this, go for it. Jlenthe (talk) 03:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Logical contradiction

Quoting: 'FreeBSD is a Unix-like free operating system descended from AT&T UNIX' and 'It is not a clone of UNIX, but works like UNIX, with UNIX-compliant internals and system APIs'. Whoa! The second excerpt implies that FreeBSD is much less UNIX than a clone (i.e. it is not a re-implementation of UNIX sharing the same interfaces). But the first excerpt claims that FreeBSD is (a descendant of) UNIX. This is a clear logical contradiction. Only possible explanation would be that FreeBSD has changed to the point where it's incompatible with UNIX APIs. But again, the second excerpt claims that it has UNIX-compliant internals and APIs. Okay, I'm confused. Jiri Svoboda (talk) 12:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Underlying code is not the same, behaviour and commands are still way UNIX-like, so no worries about the sourced assertion. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

well, underlying code isn't even the same in Solaris anymore, but it's still some kind of a BSD-fork (aka SunOS). Software evolution did the rest. But the origin is still UNIX. UNIX-like however implies something like Linux and that's not correct. ----olhe (talk) 18:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Since UNIX is still a registered trademark, it's not easy to find a term to call a BSD a UNIX without a muddle with Linux. Unix as a descriptive noun is sometimes seen, but it's still the trademarked name. Gwen Gale (talk) 19:14, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

netcraft

Yep, it's now but yet another way skewed data sample. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Tier 2 architectures.

Under the "Supported platforms" section it states that ARM, PowerPC, ia64 and Sparc64 are supported platforms. These platforms are Tier 2 platforms, and as such aren't fully supported. To quote the FreeBSD committers guide:

"Tier 2 platforms are not supported by the security officer and release engineering teams. Platform maintainers are responsible for toolchain support in the tree."

I'm tempted to make a comment to that effect somewhere within the article (or maybe just a reference/citation in the initial blurb?). Opinions? Legios (talk) 06:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added a section on portability and included a table saying what tiers each of the architectures are. This section is ready to be beefed up with additional pertinent details. Jlenthe (talk) 02:59, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Multics family

Moved to Talk:Mac OS X

 – Subsection is Talk:Mac OS X#Multics Family --Tothwolf (talk) 19:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I propose that we re-classify this article under 'OS family: Multics' in the info box, for the reason that Unix is based on Multics. MFNickster (talk) 03:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Please keep the discussion in the one place. It started in Talk:Mac OS X. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 18:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

2nd Paragraph, linux not operating system

Linux IS not an operating system. Either you are meaning to say GNU/Linux or something.

Linux is a kernel

Why compare it to Linux at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.214.184 (talk) 20:36, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The article text straightforwardly talks about Linux distributions, not Linux (which is itself a general term for operating systems drawn from the Linux kernel). Linux distros are operating systems. Since they are Unix-like, they are strongly linked to both the background and user bases of FreeBSD. Moreover, FreeBSD has widely noted Linux_compatibility, so this is helpful to readers. Gwen Gale (talk) 20:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

'Operating system' is, in my opinion, a question of definition. For example, Andrew S. Tanenbaum states it that way (which is an important opinion): 'The most fundamental system program is the operating system, whose job is to control all the computer's resources and provide a base upon which the application programs can be written' (Tanenbaum/Woodhull Operating Systems Design and Implementation, Third Edition, Pearson Int. Edition). He also clearly states that userland programs such as the bash, gcc, emacs, vi(m), grep, cat, make, groff, tex and so on are not parts of the operating system. And though I personally need at least bash, gcc and nano to work with the operating system, they are programs like every other userland program and they run in protected mode. So far, in my opinion, Linux is an operating system. The GNU Project made some very good programs (which can be found in Linux and BSD including Mac OS X today), but obviously the have problems writing an operating system, as they do not have a usable kernel yet.

By the way, it is very common and natural to compare products to similar ones. And to the user's point of view, Linux and BSD are totally similar. --87.172.182.231 (talk) 16:54, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Compatibility to Linux

In the text, it is stated that most Linux software would run on FreeBSD without compatibility layer. How is that possible? As FreeBSD is based on NetBSD, I assume that it handles syscalls the same way, that arguments are passed via the stack (which actually should be slower as one has to use data bus to transfer data from the RAM), while on Linux, they are passed using the registers (eax/ebx/... or rax/rbx/...). How is then compatibility possible? Except for the POSIX standard and the ELF format, there is not that much similiarity, is it? --87.172.182.231 (talk) 16:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, I was wrong. Of course, it is not based on NetBSD. --79.207.249.42 (talk) 16:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

There is some detail on how this works here. But basically, the kernel detects when its running a Linux binary and sets a pointer to the Linux the compatibility layer instead of the normal FreeBSD system call table. The compatibility layer knows to look for parameters in the registers instead of the stack. Jlenthe (talk) 22:54, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

As it is currently worded, the article states that Linux programs can "run" without the need for a compatibility layer. Then it goes on to say that FreeBSD provides a compatibility layer (an optional component of the OS installation) which allows Linux binaries to run. To me, it seems that the first sentence is contradicted by the second: either the Linux binary runs without any compatibility layer, or else the Linux binary able to run by virtue of the fact that a binary compatibility layer exists. Which is it? According to my understanding, the latter is true: Linux programs run on FreeBSD BECAUSE of the compatibility layer, not WITHOUT it.24.222.2.222 (talk) 20:13, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

That's how I interpret https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/linuxemu.html as well. I'm not sure why User:Incnis_Mrsi reverted your changes. The Crab Who Played With The Sea (talk) 21:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)