Re: Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD
On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 07:31:50PM -0700, Freddie Cash wrote: Every other minor release of FreeBSD is supported for 2 full years, with no new features added, just security fixes (aka Extended Releases). And every major release of FreeBSD is supported for at least 4, somtimes 5, years. That's exactly the issue. After 4-5 years, there's nothing. RedHat isn't much better. Sure, they'll support the core OS for 5 years, but you can't install new, up-to-date software on it unless you upgrade the entire OS (been down that road too many times to ever want to try again). We gave up on RedHat after fighting with 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x. Thanks. I appreciate the feedback. FreeBSD isn't perfect (what OS is?), but it's amazing that you can install the newest versions of MySQL, Firefox, KDE, Postfix, etc on 7.4 (until the end of Feb, anyway), or 8.3, or 9.0, or 9.1. And can continue to get security fixes for all those releases (except 7.x now). That's no help at all to a bunch of machines that started life on 4.1 back in 2000 and will continue to run another 10-15 years, is it? What's your suggestion for dealing with that? It's not like anything currently supported is gonna fit on those machines without a rediculous amount of effort. What's missing from FreeBSD support? Having one release supported for an extended time. It would be insane to consider maintaining every release for an extended period but ONE release, supported for an extended period (decades) would really help. We're far enough down the security path that there are not that many security vulnerabilities in base. Ports generally build just fine on older versions. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD
On Mar 29, 2013, at 1:06 PM, Michael Wayne freebs...@wayne47.com wrote: On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 07:31:50PM -0700, Freddie Cash wrote: Every other minor release of FreeBSD is supported for 2 full years, with no new features added, just security fixes (aka Extended Releases). And every major release of FreeBSD is supported for at least 4, somtimes 5, years. That's exactly the issue. After 4-5 years, there's nothing. FreeBSD isn't perfect (what OS is?), but it's amazing that you can install the newest versions of MySQL, Firefox, KDE, Postfix, etc on 7.4 (until the end of Feb, anyway), or 8.3, or 9.0, or 9.1. And can continue to get security fixes for all those releases (except 7.x now). That's no help at all to a bunch of machines that started life on 4.1 back in 2000 and will continue to run another 10-15 years, is it? What's your suggestion for dealing with that? It's not like anything currently supported is gonna fit on those machines without a rediculous amount of effort. What's missing from FreeBSD support? Having one release supported for an extended time. It would be insane to consider maintaining every release for an extended period but ONE release, supported for an extended period (decades) would really help. We're far enough down the security path that there are not that many security vulnerabilities in base. Ports generally build just fine on older versions. We have servers that are currently in production use that we purchased in 2002. They're fully capable of running 9.1-RELEASE, so we keep them updated regularly. FreeBSD 2.x through 9.1 are installable off a single CD - disk space requirements have not increased in any substantial way. Later kernels tend to have more things in modules, so memory usage may be lower just with a GENERIC kernel. Compatibility also isn't really an issue - this isn't like Windows where upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 8 is going to leave you with a bunch of applications that don't work and missing drivers for half your stuff. In most cases support is additive, and backwards compatible. It's very rare for a new version to pull support for hardware that's even slightly commonly used. The only reason things get pulled are that usually there's nobody with hardware anymore to even test it, so trying to maintain compatibility even on an ancient version of FreeBSD is hard because the ability to verify they haven't broken it is gone. You also need to consider power cost v.s. replacing hardware, too. A server that was a beast in 2000 is likely slower than a modern day Atom box, and likely uses 10-30x the power. We obsolete (and donate) old equipment once replacing it pays for itself in 6 months. All of our pre-2002 servers are gone now due to this, and we'll probably be in the 2005 range by the end of the year. And keep in mind that there have been many vulnerabilities in the base system, mostly local but some remote. Just pushing a patch out to FreeBSD 4.1 is going to be a big undertaking because, again, it supported some obscure stuff that got removed because there are no developers who even have that hardware anymore. (ISDN for example) Asking for decades of support is rare for any software product, unless you're talking about enterprise levels of support that basically pay for a few people's salaries to be dedicated on it. To use Microsoft as an example, Windows Server 2003 was released in 2003, and standard support/updates ended in 2010. That's *paid* support that lasts 7 years. You can pay even more gobs of money to get another 5 years of *support* but no updates out of them. If you want security updates to Windows Server 2003 beyond 2010, you installed Server 2008, which is supported until 2015. Their basic policy is they support things for a minimum of 5 years, or 2 years after the next version comes out, whichever is longer. Rather than saying you want a 20-30 year commitment on one specific version, can you go into more detail why updating isn't possible for you? freebsd-update has made updating about as painless as I can imagine it being. Especially if you want to live a little dangerously and skip the last step that removes the old libraries - you don't need to recompile anything if you really can't. If you're operating things that are extremely risk averse where any change needs substantial validation before putting it into production, you're probably better off with a commercial OS that splits out individual changes instead of rolling releases like FreeBSD. We walk a lot of our customers through keeping their systems updated, so I'm always curious to hear why it's unpalatable for some reason. -- Kevin ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD
Again, no-one is going to really complain if vendors/users decide to step up and run longer supported branches. I personally encourage that. I _encourage_ that people who are interested in keeping 6.x and earlier alive (and 7.x soon, and 8.x less soon) to jump in and submit patches to backport fixes and whatnot. The problem isn't that we don't want to - it's that we just don't have the collective time and energy to backport things to branches we're not using. If you're a company with a heavy investment in older branches, please consider what I've said. Participate in FreeBSD development and offer to support branches for longer. But please don't complain to a bunch of volunteers who look after stuff in their spare time, or companies who fund work for FreeBSD branches that they're using. The 'project' does what its users and developers contribute to. Adrian ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD
That's no help at all to a bunch of machines that started life on 4.1 back in 2000 and will continue to run another 10-15 years… So you basically want a group of people to help you maintain FreeBSD 4-STABLE for an indefinite period of time? There seem to be quite a few people still running FreeBSD 4.x-based systems; I'm sure if you ask around you could find a group of people to help you with this. Tim ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD
I'm NOT trying to start a flame war here. I'm trying to find a viable solution to a very frustrating, real problem. It's clear that FreeBSD has absolutely no interest in maintaining an extended maintainence release version of the O/S. The high resource commitment required to keep up with the current incessant FreeBSD release process is beyond quite a number of people. I'm at the point of admitting that FreeBSD is simply too much work for us to continue to use. So, I'm wondering if anyone reading the list is aware of a viable alternative. I'm seeking a BSD-based O/S that is designed to be installed in a server environment and not ever get any feature upgrades or require any noticable additional resources, only security fixes for the O/S and ports. While this concept is clearly in total opposition to the philosophy of the FreeBSD team, I'm hoping that some other, smaller project might exist to fill this need. Any suggestions? ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD
On 28 March 2013 14:29, Michael Wayne freebs...@wayne47.com wrote: I'm NOT trying to start a flame war here. I'm trying to find a viable solution to a very frustrating, real problem. It's clear that FreeBSD has absolutely no interest in maintaining an extended maintainence release version of the O/S. The high resource commitment required to keep up with the current incessant FreeBSD release process is beyond quite a number of people. I'm at the point of admitting that FreeBSD is simply too much work for us to continue to use. Well, the open source project as a whole doesn't have the resources to do this. I think the general consensus is it'd be nice if a commercial company came up and do this. So, I'm wondering if anyone reading the list is aware of a viable alternative. I'm seeking a BSD-based O/S that is designed to be installed in a server environment and not ever get any feature upgrades or require any noticable additional resources, only security fixes for the O/S and ports. I suggest asking ixSystems and looking at PC-BSD. There have been mumblings about a commerically supported PC-BSD distribution. Which is FreeBSD plus their testing and management and install stuff, along with what I hope is some commercial support if you need it. While this concept is clearly in total opposition to the philosophy of the FreeBSD team, I'm hoping that some other, smaller project might exist to fill this need. It's actually in line with our philosophy. If people are willing to pay for it, then grab a company to do it. :) Adrian ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD
On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 04:29:55PM -0500, Michael Wayne wrote:
I'm NOT trying to start a flame war here. I'm trying to find a
viable solution to a very frustrating, real problem.
It's clear that FreeBSD has absolutely no interest in maintaining
an extended maintainence release version of the O/S. The high
resource commitment required to keep up with the current incessant
FreeBSD release process is beyond quite a number of people. I'm at
the point of admitting that FreeBSD is simply too much work for us
to continue to use.
So, I'm wondering if anyone reading the list is aware of a viable
alternative. I'm seeking a BSD-based O/S that is designed to be
installed in a server environment and not ever get any feature
upgrades or require any noticable additional resources, only security
fixes for the O/S and ports.
While this concept is clearly in total opposition to the philosophy
of the FreeBSD team, I'm hoping that some other, smaller project
might exist to fill this need.
Any suggestions?
Many, many [many] years ago I was in favor of a linux+bsd system.
AFAIK, it had some support. you might scout it out.
over a year ago I gave up my FBSD server which ran 7.3 and had
my own DNS and web and mail server side. I tried to upgrade but
there were too many ports that refused to build. nutshell,
someone in the dallas-ft. worth area became my volunteer system
admin. he used centOS-6.3 and fedora-17. the fedora-17 desktop
kept crashing for hardware faults so I finally bought a refurb
h.p. just off lease, put on ubuntu 12.04 LTS. The next version,
13.04 will be out in a few weeks. I now use godaddy.com. they do
my DNS. I use mutt as my mailer. I've got fetchmail working
reasonably well [smirk !]
my web server is on the Centos 6.3. mail goes to godaddy...
and when ubuntu's 13.04 long term support is here, I won't have to
fmess with my desktop for THREE years! dunno anything about
centos. I =do= know that while the Berkeley distros are the BEST,
[in my biased opinion], linux is good-enough {tm}
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Re: Seeking an extended-support O/S similar to FreeBSD
I'm confused. Every other minor release of FreeBSD is supported for 2 full years, with no new features added, just security fixes (aka Extended Releases). And every major release of FreeBSD is supported for at least 4, somtimes 5, years. Canonical just shortened their support for LTS to 3 years, including server releases. And you can't get new versions of software on Ubuntu without upgrading the OS or adding random PPA repos. Sometimes you can get a backports repo, but they aren't officially supported. And only the official repos get security updates (if you're lucky). RedHat isn't much better. Sure, they'll support the core OS for 5 years, but you can't install new, up-to-date software on it unless you upgrade the entire OS (been down that road too many times to ever want to try again). We gave up on RedHat after fighting with 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x. FreeBSD isn't perfect (what OS is?), but it's amazing that you can install the newest versions of MySQL, Firefox, KDE, Postfix, etc on 7.4 (until the end of Feb, anyway), or 8.3, or 9.0, or 9.1. And can continue to get security fixes for all those releases (except 7.x now). Good luck installing any of those onto a Linux release from 2-3 years ago. What's missing from FreeBSD support? ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-hackers-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
