Why are so many people using 4.x?

[Chris]

On 29/03/06, Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 01:30:51PM -0500, Kris Kennaway wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 01:19:30PM -0500, DAve wrote:
> > > Kris Kennaway wrote:
> > > >On Tue, Mar 28, 2006 at 05:11:05PM -0500, DAve wrote:
> > > >
> > > >>>Really you want to use 6.0 or 6.1 on any new system, simply because
> > > >>>that's the modern, supported version of FreeBSD.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>Kris
> > > >>I get frightened when something is no longer "modern" when it is less
> > > >>than a year old. http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.4R/announce.html
> > > >>Good reasons to recommend 6.X would be "bug FOO is fixed", "hardware FOO
> > > >>is now fully supported", "FOO is now a kernel module and can be unloaded
> > > >>or loaded at will", "disk performance is gazillion% better", etc.
> > > >
> > > >If it makes you happy, all of those things are also true.
> > > >
> > > >Kris
> > >
> > > It would be nice to actually tell new users why 6.X is better wouldn't
> > > you think?
> >
> > No, because I have better things to do with my time than to repeat
> > information that is widely available and locatable with a few seconds
> > of searching.
>
> Anyway, I think you kind of misconstrued my emails.  The original
> question was "what version of FreeBSD should a new user run", and it
> was suggested that a new user runs 4.11.
>
> The important questions for new users are not "what new technical
> features does 6.x have that I probably won't understand nor care about
> anyway", but:
>
> * Is it a good release?
>
> * Who can I ask when I need help?
>
> Clearly, 4.11 is a very good release (the 6.x series are also very
> good releases; the 5.x series not so good in comparison).  However,
> 4.11 fails on the second point, because 4.11 is in practise no longer
> completely supported; this is my point.
>
> For example, what if you want to run GNOME, and encounter a problem?
> You'll be told by the GNOME team that running GNOME on 4.11 is no
> longer supported (in fact you may not even be able to compile it).
> Ditto KDE.  What if you run into a FreeBSD bug?  You'll be told that
> 4.11 is no longer supported and to try 6.1 since it's probably fixed
> already anyway.  What if you want to write some PERL code?  The
> version in 4.x is very old and will no longer work with many current
> PERL modules, so you'll have to work out how to replace it.  Ditto the
> C compiler.  etc.
>
> So why is 4.11 is no longer fully supported?  Because the resources of
> the FreeBSD community are finite, and it's our opinion that it's more
> productive to devote our limited resources to the FreeBSD branches
> that are actively being developed.  Yes, 4.11 was only released 14
> months ago - but it's the final release of a branch that is *over 7
> years old* and carrying over 7 years worth of legacy baggage, and
> that's really the key point here.
>
> In about 9 months the FreeBSD 4.x branch will be desupported entirely,
> so things are only going to get worse for any remaining 4.x users who
> need help to run their system.
>
> So when 4.11 is ruled out for your new installation, applying the same
> reasoning tells you that it's smart to install the current "stable"
> release, which is currently 6.0 and soon to be 6.1.  You wouldn't pick
> some random older release like 5.4 unless you have good reason to, in
> which case you don't need to ask.
>
> Kris
>
>
>

Well without a doubt 4.x is the fastest and most stable freebsd out of
the 3.  The comment earlier where it just runs and runs is a good way
of describing it.

The only reason I dont use 4.x on new servers is because it has
limited time left and the upgrade path involves a reinstall.  The only
hardware I think benefits performance wise on 5.x and newer is SMP
hardware for any UP hardware I have used 4.x has always had the best
performance.

5.x had a big performance hit and 6.x is noticeably faster but I have
been experiencing weird lockups with 6.x and have reverted all but one
of my servers back to 5.4 that were running 6.0 and they became stable
again, we have one server running 6.1 prerelease which is more stable
then 6.0 so I would rate 6.0 as a poor release, sorry but it only is
stable under low load on every server I tried it on.  Kris and others
have you been testing 6.0 in server environments with things such as
ddos attacks and thousands of concurrent connections, sustained heavy
traffic ongoing for days etc, these type of things have caused 6.0 to
just die on me.  The todo list for 6.1 seems to indicate their is a
problems with the 6.x branch but I am glad it is delayed rather then
rushed out with a bunch of deffered bugs and hopefully it will be
stable enough to use on production servers.

Chris