Re: Looking at giving DF a go... advice?

["Mark Cullen" <mark.cullen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Matthew Dillon" <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:200410092034.i99KYrMJ073304@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>     Hi Mark.  What I recommend is that you track the DragonFly_Stable
>     tag.  There is a cvsup file available (see the download section of
>     the main site) that tracks that tag.  Then you won't be exposed to
>     the VFS work being done in HEAD.
>
>     For ports, what we recommend is that you use 'pkg_add -r' to install
>     the prebuilt packages from gobsd.  e.g.
>
>     pkg_add -r XFree86
>     pkg_add -r kde
>
>     And not try to build things from ports.  We have a set of override
ports
>     but you need both /usr/ports from FreeBSD and /usr/dfports from
DragonFly
>     (which isn't a big deal, just more automated cvsup'ing), but we've
only
>     worked on the most aggregious ports issues as a stopgap until we have
our
>     own ports and packaging system.  Other then those quibbles, DFly
should
>     look mostly like FreeBSD.
>
>     We are still trying to decide on how we are going to design the new
>     packages/ports system.  Actually, David Rhodus and I have been talking
>     about it recently and I think I may have finally come up with a method
>     that is satisfactory, which I will propose to the lists as soon as we
>     iron at a few details.
>

Alright. I am guessing the performance difference between packages and
source compiled stuff isn't all that noticable anyway? I've never really
tried packages before (because ports are so easy to use :), but I always
read how compiling from source is better because it's faster and optimised.

I look forward to reading about the new package/port system! Seems like
there's lots of interesting things going on in DragonFly land :-)

Regarding you other post, I'll give it 5 gigs and see how it goes. On 5.x I
think it uses about 60 meg swap when doing a buildworld, the laptop has
128meg of RAM.. so I think it should be "enough". I read a post of yours, I
think, saying how 5.x relies on more L1/L2 cache and this laptop has a
Celeron CPU in it, so maybe I would see some sort of performance improvement
installing 4.x or DF on it anyway :-)

Cheers!

> -Matt
> Matthew Dillon
> <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>
> :Hi all
> :
> :At the moment I am using FreeBSD 6.0-CURRENT on my Laptop. It generally
> :works rather well. ndis seems to have broken over the last few days and
ath
> :still doesn't want to work, but other than that it seems to be pretty
> :useable. I have downloaded an ISO of DF which had a date of 13th of
> :September, I believe this to be because of the instability after this
date.
> :It seemed to boot alright, which has got my hopes up as I have to install
> :FreeBSD 5/6 by running safe mode and then patching agp_ali.c otherwise it
> :hangs and panics.
> :
> :I guess what I am really asking is, is the massive instability stuff
fixed
> :up now? If I update to CURRENT am I likely to get a system that is stable
> :for atleast 3 days usage? I'll need to update to CURRENT in order to get
> :ndis support I think, it didn't seem to be included in the 13th September
> :release. Another thing I have heard is the whole lots of ports broken
thing.
> :I have quite alot of ports installed.. kde.. gnome... java etc etc etc...
> :enough to be a rather nice general purpose desktop/light programmers
system.
> :Am I likely going to be able to achieve this with DF in it's current
state?
> :Is there anything that's going to catch me out or is it all still very
much
> :like using FreeBSD?
> :
> :I've read through all of the website now I think, the work you're doing
> :sounds really interesting (even though I don't really understand much of
it
> ::-)
> :
> :Anyway, are there any pointers you could offer me?
> :
> :Thanks in advance.
>