Re: Two questions about kfreebsd
Hi Bret,
On 20/02/13 02:24, Bret Busby wrote:
> The first is; am I correct in my deduction that, at present, a stable
> version of kfreebsd, that runs gnome, has not yet been achieved?
GNOME is probably a mess in the 'current stable' release (squeeze) but
likely to be much better for wheezy. To be honest though, probably very
few people have tried/used it much, and neither have I.
XFCE is the default GNU/kFreeBSD desktop environment since a while ago,
and post-wheezy it is planned to become the default on GNU/Linux too.
> The second is; from what I understand, the current version of kfreebsd,
> that is being worked on for the Debian Linux 7 release [...]
"Debian Linux 7 release" doesn't seem like the right wording... the
Debian 7.0 release (wheezy) will offer GNU/Linux and GNU/kFreeBSD which
are quite separate things, but released at the same time yes.
> is based on the
> FreeBSD kernel 8, which is superseded, rather than the current FreeBSD 9
> stable release?
Actually Wheezy will have kFreeBSD (kernel) versions 8.3 and 9.0, where
9.0 is somewhat preferred, and that will be the default for anyone
upgrading from squeeze.
Offering both is useful because some people may prefer a less-disruptive
upgrade from 8.1->8.3 instead of upgrading to 9.0. Users will likely
have different preferences of "more tested/mature" vs. "better support
for new hardware" etc.
We lag slightly behind upstream FreeBSD, since 9.1 is out, but too
recently for it to ship with wheezy. Upstream has plans for an 8.4
later this year.
It should be straightforward to backport security or particularly
important fixes into our 8.3 and 9.0 kernels. But I'm hopeful
GNU/kFreeBSD systems can enjoy a long working life without having to
upgrade much at all. (I'm using it already on a few production servers).
> I am asking these questions out of curiosity, as I am interested in
> trying kfreebsd (when a stable version that runs gnome, is available),
> [...] I have been as yet, unable to get Debian 6 amd64 Linux running as a
> stable operating system
That is odd, I found Debian 6 GNU/Linux to be a very stable desktop OS
on amd64. And the Linux 3.2 kernel for wheezy has been mostly okay so
far (e.g. some 50+ days continuous running currently, but the nouveau
graphics driver is flaky).
> and I am thinking that the FreeBSD kernel may
> work better on the amd64 architecture, but I am unsure about the status
> of kfreebsd.
Long-term, I also am looking to switch to GNU/kFreeBSD as my desktop OS
for this reason.
Regards,
--
Steven Chamberlain
steven@pyro.eu.org
Reply to: