FreeBSD 9: awesome and made of win - Page 2

**wblock@** · #26 May 28th, 2012, 14:48

Nathan Whitehead said it was to end the problem of people running out of space on /.

#27 May 28th, 2012, 20:23

How does somebody run out of space on / if /usr, /var, and /tmp are separate partitions? With that setup nothing on / should ever change except for the settings in config files and updating the base system.
It's really annoying that considering the algorithm is so simple and was already in the installer's code that it was even removed. Now instead of 1 single button press I have to go through some tedious partition creator dialog. That is a step back not a step forward.

Quote:

that having all of those separate partitions is of little value on most systems.

If some attacker uses a botnet to flood your log files or database, or if a bug causes a process to enter an endless loop writing to disk, do you think it should be on the same partition as the OS?

I still think the new installer is perfect in every other way and this is kind of a minor flaw to me (the live shell and cleaner look more than make up for it). Still this feature should be added back in and I would be happy to write the patch myself is it was likely to be included.

**wblock@** · #28 May 28th, 2012, 20:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by mharvey87

How does somebody run out of space on / if /usr, /var, and /tmp are separate partitions? With that setup nothing on / should ever change except for changing settings in config files and updating the base system.

True. But it's only recently that the base size for / was increased. Before then, building a new kernel could overfill that filesystem with symbol files. My hope is that pc-sysinstall will be integrated, because it does a lot of things the right way.

freebuser · #29 May 29th, 2012, 02:35

It is interesting to see when you are in a linux forum you will come across Windows/Linux advantage/disadvantage arguments, and on *BSD forums it's Linux/*BSD Windows/*BSD argument.

For me, I think it is always good to have options, if you don't have options you are stuck with just 'one', whether it suits you or not.

I see *BSD as any other Linux distribution (like Debian/Ubuntu), but only with simplicity and consistency.

Again I like to see 'options' as everyone uses the computers in different ways for different things, not a single OS, I believe, will fullfil everyone's requirements.

Cheers,

Seeker · #30 June 3rd, 2012, 12:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by mharvey87

How does somebody run out of space on / if /usr, /var, and /tmp are separate partitions? With that setup nothing on / should ever change except for the settings in config files and updating the base system.

What is the size of /? 0.5 GB (old) or 1 GB (new)? Do you know that the amd64 custom kernel with debug symbols takes ~320 MB? Now as GENERIC kernel is already in /, installation of a new custom kernel will fail for the 0.5 GB (old) case! In 1 GB (new) you can have at most two extra custom kernels! That is why I even further separate / and /boot, each on their own bsdlabel.

akil · #31 June 3rd, 2012, 13:22

Great to hear.

FreeBSD 9 is great as a server, nevertheless, I use FreeBSD as desktop for a long time.

c_stjago · #32 June 6th, 2012, 22:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by mharvey87

It's really annoying that considering the algorithm is so simple and was already in the installer's code that it was even removed. Now instead of 1 single button press I have to go through some tedious partition creator dialog. That is a step back not a step forward.

I for one would very much disagree. In all my computing years (both windows and *nix), I have never come across one partitioning algorithm that I liked. Systems are personal: partitioning your hard drive is personal and depends on the intended usage or the default in ones company. My default partitioning is not your default partitioning. So why bother making it so fancy in the installer?

At least with this move, which some linux distros also have taken, if you want a different partition layout, there's just the one to remove. In the old days, I had to remove /, /var, /tmp, /usr and for the more adventurous ones: /boot, /opt, /srv. So I for one, welcome simplicity.

SR_Ind · #33 June 16th, 2012, 21:00

Default partitioning schema creating 4 or 5 partitions was useless. 4GB swap when I'm running a desktop with 4GB RAM?

However the downside with the FreeBSD 9's default partitioning is that with everything in one partition means system slowdown once disk fragmentation sets in.

jwele · #34 August 17th, 2012, 17:58

I agree with the OP. This is simply the best release I have ever seen. I have been on and off using freebsd since 8.1. It seems that FreeBSD is getting wifi support faster and faster now to where my newish laptops have all drivers they need without porting winxp drivers over. I have always felt that FreeBSD philosophically was the OS for me but now it seems there is more to love about it than ever before. You know what they say, once you have tasted the best there is no room for the rest.

jwele · #35 August 17th, 2012, 18:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreenMeanie

No, FreeBSD would take off if you could stop people in these forums telling others it is a server software only. I stopped using it when I couldn't even get Gnome to automount a USB Stick and external HDDs. Yes, it needs to be easier to use for the masses.

That is why I personally still use DEBIAN and CENTOS. Ease of use and not wanting to remember 100's of commands to get something to work that I can do with a GUI. Nevermind the installer still sucks copy UBUNTU's.

FreeBSD has and always will be a fantastic vanilla OS. Your right that its not solely server software. I believe that PC-BSD will be the one effort to gain the casual user and give FreeBSD a lot more attention.

nslay · #36 August 18th, 2012, 01:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by wblock@

True. But it's only recently that the base size for / was increased. Before then, building a new kernel could overfill that filesystem with symbol files. My hope is that pc-sysinstall will be integrated, because it does a lot of things the right way.

If you're building your own kernels, you're more than likely partitioning your system by hand anyway. This is only a barrier to new users wishing to expand their horizons by building their first kernel.

The old default was good enough for GENERIC by itself. However, I'm not sure if freebsd-update copies the current kernel to kernel.old like the usual procedure of building your own kernel. You would definitely run into problems updating the system if that were the case.

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