
FreeBSD 8.4 is now available - joshbaptiste
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.4R/relnotes-detailed.html
======
emaste
The release announcement, with links to the mirrors:
[http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-
announce/2013-Jun...](http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-
announce/2013-June/001479.html)

And AWS ami IDs are in the usual spot on cperciva's page:
[http://www.daemonology.net/freebsd-on-
ec2](http://www.daemonology.net/freebsd-on-ec2)

------
rsync
Thank you to everyone at FreeBSD (and some folks behind the scenes at
IXSystems) that made this happen.

A lot of people really appreciate seeing the 8 branch extended in its
lifecycle like this, and it marks a subtle, but important culture change in
FreeBSD development.

~~~
gonzo
What, specifically, did iX Systems do?

------
antonios
There are notable improvements in this version for ZFS, including the LZ4
compression algorithm that is both faster and better than the previous one.
(Benchmark: [http://code.google.com/p/lz4/](http://code.google.com/p/lz4/))

~~~
javanix
What zpool version is it at?

~~~
dmpk2k
If it has LZ4, I don't think it has a zpool version. Versions were deprecated,
and now ZFS uses feature flags instead.

------
alberich
Does someone knows why FreeBSD doesn't offer any virtualization platform based
on Intel VT or AMD-v? Is there any architectural incompatibility or is it just
a case of virtualization not being a high priority?

~~~
microcolonel
They're still working on BHyVe, but it'll probably be a few releases.

They do however have fairly-powerful jails(not as powerful as LXC though), and
I think you can run VirtualBox... Or maybe not.

~~~
bifrost
> fairly-powerful jails(not as powerful as LXC though)

IMHO LXC wishes it were jails with vimage, and if you really wanted some
hillarity you could actually run a linux container-like system under a jail
using the linuxulator.

~~~
nwmcsween
Linux namespaces allows namespacing almost any subsystem, although I don't
know what FreeBSD offers w.r.t that.

~~~
GalacticDomin8r
> Linux namespaces allows namespacing almost any subsystem

Namespacing has nothing to do with it. Not even a decent try.

------
GuiA
Does anyone have a good recommendation for a lightweight laptop (ideally 11",
but 13" is OK I guess) that would run a BSD system out of the box (as much as
possible)?

Trying to slowly start a switch from OS X for basic stuff (internet, writing
LaTeX, writing some elementary code, etc.), something to replace my Macbook
Air would be awesome.

~~~
microcolonel
Not sure if FreeBSD has power management worth a rectal excretion, you
probably wouldn't want to run it on a laptop.

Try GNU/Linux, really.

~~~
i_are_crd
Or OpenBSD. That runs really well on most laptops.

~~~
wolf550e
As long as they're connected to a wall socket. Otherwise, citation needed.
Power Management in hard. Who does the myriad of hardware quirks for OpenBSD?

~~~
adamrt
If you are referring to suspend/resume, then OpenBSD has great support[1]. Its
one of the very few ACPI stacks not derived from Intel's ACPICA reference
code.

[1]
[http://www.openbsd.org/papers/zzz.pdf](http://www.openbsd.org/papers/zzz.pdf)
(older, 2011)

~~~
microcolonel
Suspend and resume are basic features, by power management I mean idle and
active power management, optimizing the race to zero, reclocking...

~~~
dman
Working suspend and resume is not a basic feature as far as linuxen go.

~~~
microcolonel
Would you like to explain that, and maybe cite some references? Suspend and
resume have been stable for me as long as I've had a computer capable of
supporting them. And I'm not aware of any way to make them fail without doing
something obviously intended to disable them.

~~~
msbarnett
Reference: Every time I've tried Linux on a laptop, Suspend, Resume, or Both
has been broken in whatever $FLAVOR_OF_THE_MONTH distro/package/kernel the
community insists is the next big thing.

The BSDs tend to implement these things later but far more reliably.

~~~
microcolonel
Never been broken on Arch, Fedora, Debian... or any of the upstream
distributions I've used, when I've used them.

Your personal exacerbation of whatever imaginary and nonspecific issues you're
talking about is not relevant to a conversation about people other than you.

The world doesn't need your BSD FUD. "The BSDs" is also absolutely silly as
ideas go, there are BSDs which have never supported suspend/resume.

~~~
sbuk
What the world doesn't need is this continuing holy war from a particularly
small but sadly vocal minority of the Linux community. You really don't help
the cause. I find it particularly irononic of you to accuse someone of
spreading "BSD FUD" on a thread about FreeBSD. I'll 'cite' you an example of
real 'FUD';
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5839565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5839565)

