From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Sep 3 09:59:29 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D06F1106566C for ; Sat, 3 Sep 2011 09:59:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: from smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (smtp6.infracaninophile.co.uk [IPv6:2001:8b0:151:1:3fd3:cd67:fafa:3d78]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 411268FC19 for ; Sat, 3 Sep 2011 09:59:29 +0000 (UTC) Received: from seedling.black-earth.co.uk (seedling.black-earth.co.uk [81.187.76.163]) (authenticated bits=0) by smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id p839xBjq007799 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Sat, 3 Sep 2011 10:59:17 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) X-DKIM: Sendmail DKIM Filter v2.8.3 smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk p839xBjq007799 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=infracaninophile.co.uk; s=201001-infracaninophile; t=1315043957; bh=kFgykxfPC25DH0NrRP8C5bQCduUAOdF9GuN1a+FWKWk=; h=Message-ID:Date:From:MIME-Version:To:CC:Subject:References: In-Reply-To:Content-Type:Cc:Content-Type:Date:From:In-Reply-To: Message-ID:Mime-Version:References:To; z=Message-ID:=20<4E61FA68.1050808@infracaninophile.co.uk>|Date:=20S at,=2003=20Sep=202011=2010:59:04=20+0100|From:=20Matthew=20Seaman= 20|User-Agent:=20Mozilla/5.0=20(M acintosh=3B=20Intel=20Mac=20OS=20X=2010.6=3B=20rv:6.0.1)=20Gecko/2 0110830=20Thunderbird/6.0.1|MIME-Version:=201.0|To:=20Allen=20|CC:=20freebsd-questions@freebsd.org|Subject: =20Re:=20A=20quality=20operating=20system|References:=20<86wre8inm i.fsf@gmail.com>=20=20 =20<4E61F0BF.9030403@comcast.net>|In-Reply-To:=20<4E61F0BF.9030403 @comcast.net>|X-Enigmail-Version:=201.3.1|OpenPGP:=20id=3D60AE908C |Content-Type:=20multipart/signed=3B=20micalg=3Dpgp-sha1=3B=0D=0A= 20protocol=3D"application/pgp-signature"=3B=0D=0A=20boundary=3D"-- ----------enigE632C5D181CCA0C48428852E"; b=Bq5LFdarC8AZmlNVDJAliEvwPJvwwOV6r2zTyiVl/Nc1QvvgluTCT1TIV10BnYl1H 5yXRCBO2tHpoKXyq2CCzklCDuUxGeh5dd2RZC+izyoNqnVME18Snb4/lZekjUIN1MJ wqmoN49MJTtkXxkjY9qOR4XltpCj2ZsxkjYLdJNc= Message-ID: <4E61FA68.1050808@infracaninophile.co.uk> Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2011 10:59:04 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:6.0.1) Gecko/20110830 Thunderbird/6.0.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Allen References: <86wre8inmi.fsf@gmail.com> <4E61F0BF.9030403@comcast.net> In-Reply-To: <4E61F0BF.9030403@comcast.net> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.3.1 OpenPGP: id=60AE908C Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enigE632C5D181CCA0C48428852E" X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.97.2 at lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,DKIM_SIGNED, DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,SPF_FAIL autolearn=no version=3.3.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A quality operating system 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: Sat, 03 Sep 2011 09:59:29 -0000 This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enigE632C5D181CCA0C48428852E Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 03/09/2011 10:17, Allen wrote: > Try that on any version of BSD before PC-BSD came around. I get that a > lot of BSD people are programmers and like looking at source code, but > personally, not being a coder, I don't CARE what flags something uses..= =2E. However, I, as a systems administrator that has to herd a bunch of servers and get maximum performance out of them care very much indeed exactly what flags and so forth are used to compile software. Even in these days of multi-gigabyte RAM and terabyte disk, keeping application memory usage as slim as possible and stripping out pointless processes is important for good performance. I saw a comment once on -- I think is was the BIND mailing list -- where an admin said that anyone using software to provide a commercial service really should be compiling it themselves, rather than using the default packages that come with their OS precisely because it gives you this control. What struck me was that he clearly wasn't a FreeBSD user. With the FreeBSD ports you can tune everything to your requirements, and still benefit from the advantages of using the OSes package management system. Linux distros that tout themselves as Server OSes I find frustrating. Really they pretty much all come out of the box setup for desktop use. Who cares about wireless networking on a server that's going to be wired into a rack for its entire life? Or automounting removable media? Or GUIs? Stripping out the pointless fluff and turning off all the software that defaults to on really does negate the convenience of their packaging. > I think if FreeBSD had an all purpose patching tool, it would be a lot > better. I mean sure, you use freebsd-update and it updates the base > system, but anything you use on the machine is usually a port of some > sort, and doing those.... When I first started using FreeBSD, I was > looking at how to install patches for security, and I was like WTF I > have to do what? I'm not quite sure why no one has ever made a tool tha= t > grabs all security patches and installs them for you, but they should. >=20 > It would be REALLY nice if FreeBSD had freebsd-update that worked on > ports too, because the process of updating those, it IS a little much. > I've been using FreeBSD since 4.0 and to be 100% Honest, I've never onc= e > managed to actually upgrade a system. And that's while sitting with the= > FreeBSD.org Docs sitting open on another machine going down the list of= > what I was supposed to do. It was time consuming, and compiling > things.... Again, not a programmer. Yeah. Ports and base being distinct is a big deal in FreeBSD-land. But you are right to the extent that it would be useful to be able to use much the same tools to manage both. There's been fairly regular mutterings over the years about making the base system install something like pkgs, but nothing has ever come of it. There's also an interesting thread over on the freebsd-ports@ mailing list about going in almost completely the other direction -- making a software packaging system that is OS agnostic, so (for instance) all of *BSD could effectively use the same "ports" tree. Oh, and have much better capabilities for dealing with binary packages, and are which in which FreeBSD is really quite weak. Cheers, Matthew --=20 Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard Flat 3 PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate JID: matthew@infracaninophile.co.uk Kent, CT11 9PW --------------enigE632C5D181CCA0C48428852E Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.16 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk5h+m8ACgkQ8Mjk52CukIy53wCfbxCTvvYToaKeLhTzoL3zKbwy HL0AniXulR1LToUkRic5V9+Vz/SFA70V =t+yK -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enigE632C5D181CCA0C48428852E--