Daemon News 199903 : BSD News

BSD News

Copyright © 1999 Louis Bertrand

Old Workstations Never Die

In the Currents column of Unix Review's Performance Computing, Brian Jepson surveys old Unix workstations -- RS/6000, DEC Multia, SGI Indigo just to name a few -- and suggests ways of keeping them running with either the original proprietary OS, or one of the open source OSes: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD or Linux. The appeal is the low price (DEC Multias for $99?) and wide availability of these boxes. But the author gives the standard warning: your mileage may vary!

Gartner Group Rates FreeBSD and Linux For "Thin Servers".

The Gartner Group, IT market researchers and technology advisors, in an article entitled Divorcing Thin Server Software from the Hardware rated FreeBSD and Linux for "thin server" applications -- dedicated servers for Web, intranet or database applications.

The author, J. Staten, recommends that server vendors take the OEM component approach, buying each component from specialised vendors, adding their own expertise only into the middleware. Most of the article focuses on the operating system decision for a thin server product: Internet standards are erasing differences between OSes, and the nonimal price for open source OSes combined with their demonstrated robustness and performance makes them a viable choice of platform.

The article takes a direct potshot at Microsoft: since the choice of OS is no longer crucial, the only advantage to sticking with an expensive single-source OS is market momentum and access to the Win32 developer pool. As for commercial vendors of Unix and real-time kernels, the authors warn that they will have to learn to better packages their OSes so that end-users with little experience can set up and maintain their own thin-server.

FreeBSD 3.1 Released

Jordan K. Hubbard announced the release of FreeBSD 3.1-RELEASE February 15. The release is a follow-on to FreeBSD 3.0 (November 1998). The release includes many bugfixes, added support for new devices, some security enhancements and additions to the userland programs. See the FreeBSD site for the complete announcement and release notes.

The release may be downloaded from ftp.freebsd.org. CD-ROMs can be purchased from Walnut Creek. All profits from the sales of FreeBSD CD-ROMs go to support the FreeBSD project.

Daemon Badges For Your Computer Case

ScotGold designs and manufactures badges and decals for OEMs to enhance the look of computer boxes. They have just added the BSD Daemon logo to their line-up. The badges are offered to suppliers of turnkey systems to help differentiate their product, but individual users can also use them to make a statement. They have Marshall Kirk McKusick's OK to use the logo.

System Administration Manager for FreeBSD 3.x.

Nuno Jardim announces the new release of System Administration Manager v1.6 for FreeBSD 3.0 Systems. Using SAM, "junior" administrators are able to manage users and groups, hardware devices, OS services and security policies. Developed under FreeBSD with Tcl/Tk by HP-UX server support specialists, the manager appears familiar to users of Hewlett-Packard's SAM. FreeBSD SAM v1.7 is to be released in March.

	BSD News Copyright © 1999 Louis Bertrand Old Workstations Never Die In the Currents column of Unix Review's Performance Computing, Brian Jepson surveys old Unix workstations -- RS/6000, DEC Multia, SGI Indigo just to name a few -- and suggests ways of keeping them running with either the original proprietary OS, or one of the open source OSes: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD or Linux. The appeal is the low price (DEC Multias for $99?) and wide availability of these boxes. But the author gives the standard warning: your mileage may vary! Gartner Group Rates FreeBSD and Linux For "Thin Servers". The Gartner Group, IT market researchers and technology advisors, in an article entitled Divorcing Thin Server Software from the Hardware rated FreeBSD and Linux for "thin server" applications -- dedicated servers for Web, intranet or database applications. The author, J. Staten, recommends that server vendors take the OEM component approach, buying each component from specialised vendors, adding their own expertise only into the middleware. Most of the article focuses on the operating system decision for a thin server product: Internet standards are erasing differences between OSes, and the nonimal price for open source OSes combined with their demonstrated robustness and performance makes them a viable choice of platform. The article takes a direct potshot at Microsoft: since the choice of OS is no longer crucial, the only advantage to sticking with an expensive single-source OS is market momentum and access to the Win32 developer pool. As for commercial vendors of Unix and real-time kernels, the authors warn that they will have to learn to better packages their OSes so that end-users with little experience can set up and maintain their own thin-server. FreeBSD 3.1 Released Jordan K. Hubbard announced the release of FreeBSD 3.1-RELEASE February 15. The release is a follow-on to FreeBSD 3.0 (November 1998). The release includes many bugfixes, added support for new devices, some security enhancements and additions to the userland programs. See the FreeBSD site for the complete announcement and release notes. The release may be downloaded from ftp.freebsd.org. CD-ROMs can be purchased from Walnut Creek. All profits from the sales of FreeBSD CD-ROMs go to support the FreeBSD project. Daemon Badges For Your Computer Case ScotGold designs and manufactures badges and decals for OEMs to enhance the look of computer boxes. They have just added the BSD Daemon logo to their line-up. The badges are offered to suppliers of turnkey systems to help differentiate their product, but individual users can also use them to make a statement. They have Marshall Kirk McKusick's OK to use the logo. System Administration Manager for FreeBSD 3.x. Nuno Jardim announces the new release of System Administration Manager v1.6 for FreeBSD 3.0 Systems. Using SAM, "junior" administrators are able to manage users and groups, hardware devices, OS services and security policies. Developed under FreeBSD with Tcl/Tk by HP-UX server support specialists, the manager appears familiar to users of Hewlett-Packard's SAM. FreeBSD SAM v1.7 is to be released in March. Louis Bertrand, louis@signalpath.on.ca