I may actually consider dumping Debian for FreeBSD 10.
I've never been totally happy with Linux after moving off "proper" UNIX machines. I had a FreeBSD 4.4 machine floating around for years which I was rather happy with but drifted off to Linux-land primarily due to convenience when it came to Flash and audio.
So many compelling reasons to switch back to FreeBSD now.
I ask because Debian has a FreeBSD "port". That is, it offers the Debian userland on top of the FreeBSD kernel.
So, depending on what you're looking for, you might be able to gain access to the best of both worlds.
If you're after the FreeBSD experience (i.e. the community, the BSD command line utils, ports, and the preference for permissive licenses), then I guess Debian/kFreeBSD really isn't of any interest to you.
I've used FreeBSD and before that Gentoo (which has a package manager, portage, influenced by BSDs ports system) for more than a decade, and I've never understood the appeal of apt or the other Debian tools. In my experience, they just don't work as well as ports, constantly require adding additional repositories (because the official repository is missing some relatively popular package for who knows what reason) - which may or may not conflict with others I have -, and in general, are just more work than ports, portage, or MacPorts.
Inflicting apt on a system with a superior package management system seems like a sysadmin's bright idea - having no experience with ports or other package managers.
I've used apt on several systems - Maemo, Debian, Ubuntu, OS X (as fink), and always found it to be one of the weakest package managers (I've even had better experience with yum/RPM).
So how do you use ports in practice? Do you use sources or binary packages? Which management solution do you use, or do you just use the make files? I am constantly thinking about revisiting BSD, but in contrast to your experience I found the apt package solution to work very well and just be better.
I install everything from source. Except for thing like desktop environments, building from source is a non-issue on modern hardware. It also gives me some confidence in the binary compatibility of the packages I have installed.
For installing:
pushd /usr/ports/*/$PACKAGE ; sudo make install clean && popd
I use FreeBSD on a desktop at home and for a personal web server. I'm not performing large scale deployments (but if I were, I'd probably write a port for my application, define my dependencies, and install it just like anything else).
You can also use parentheses to create a scope for the current directory and environment variables (the shell forks a subprocess to run parenthesized commands).
(cd /usr/ports/*/$PACKAGE ; sudo make install clean)
In your example, however, the failure of `make install clean` will put you back in the original directory and not in the port's directory where you probably want to be to debug the failure. My original example keeps you in the port's directory in the event of installation failure.
Personally, I couldn't anymore handle the way ports asks for configuration options for every package that has configurable options. I'm spoiled by the "sane defaults" stance of better Linux distros like Arch.
which runs `make config` on the package and all dependencies before installing. It's the best of both worlds IMO -- the port will build unattended and you still have a chance up-front to skim the available options for things you need.
Either set BATCH env variable or use portupgrade/portinstall with -c or -C flags. The latter gathers all the dependencies of a given port and let's you configure them up front, and then the compilation and installation goes without any interruptions.
-c
--config
Run "make config-conditional" before everything for all tasks.
-C
--force-config
Run "make config" before everything for all tasks.
I use poudriere and pkgng - the former for building my own package repository, the latter for installing and upgrading. The pkgng side is comparable to apt: `pkg install vim`, `pkg upgrade`, `pkg autoremove` etc; the poudriere side isn't much worse: https://fossil.etoilebsd.net/poudriere/doc/trunk/doc/pkgng_r...
I admit I had some level of apt-envy back when I was using portupgrade. pkgng has nicely eliminated that.
From my perspective (I'm not the GP), I will be using a custom configuration management system that I wrote back in 1999. It's. Like puppet but ssh based, written in sh and standard Unix tooling. It doesn't use a DAG so you have to order dependencies carefully.
That will pull binary packages from ports builds on another machine and install and configure them.
I use debian/kfreebsd on my server so I can use zfs. Had Freebsd previously, but the lack of a Stable ports tree meant updating broke things often.
Although many things don't work on debian/kfreebsd, and searching for help is tricky, do I go the debian way or the freebsd way, it's always updated with few problems.
Port updates are a lot nicer now we have poudriere and pkgng - I haven't had a "pkg upgrade" break anything in months, and that was prior to automatic shared library tracking and just needed a "pkg install -Rf lang/perl" to fix.
e.g. the latest entry in UPDATING is for any port depending on converters/libiconv. Using portmaster or portupgrade requires querying the package database for the list of depending ports, force-deleting libiconv and then force-rebuilding from the previously saved list. With pkgng it's a case of "pkg upgrade && pkg autoremove".
I have been using ZFS on Linux[1] for about six months now, on both Debian and Ubuntu. Installation is trivial and it seems to work quite well, though I do not stress it very much.
I've heard Debian/kFreeBSD has poor multithreading support because it's built against glibc/libpthread rather than the native freebsd libc (which has an NPTL-equivalent).
What the hell? The M7 is a marketing label for some COTS silicon they licensed from some IP company somewhere (probably ARM/Broadcom or one of their associates).
It doesn't make unicorns shit rainbows or defy the laws of physics.
Your comment isn't only disrespectful, but also misses the point. It doesn't matter if the M7 is a custom design or bought off the shelf. As long as it needs less power than the application processor to sample the sensors at some frequency, it fulfills its purpose.
BBC did this 15 years ago on tiny computers compared to now. They uploaded static HTML onto Sun boxes and served them.
If you did a submission somewhere, it'd do offline processing and upload new static pages.
Most of this was C and perl.
No Scala, no Java, no Ruby.
iOS does HTML too you know.
I agree with the OP - most of this new technology doesn't really solve any problems. All it does is create an ecosystem you can feel superior being a member of.
Even better, it's a new ecosystem that interviewers will use as a screen to keep out people who don't know the new ecosystem, and so will require people to learn it, and then in 4 years it will be thrown away because no one does that any more. See, they've moved onto the even newer ecosystem.
Glue: technology shared with a $1000 and a $5 device but none in between.
I've just replaced the battery on my Lumia 820 after 9 months. They don't last forever. Glue is inexcusable. If they had a half decent mechanical design, foam pads would secure it in place when the device was assembled and allow replacement.
I'd probably buy new Apple products if they weren't held together with glue. I'm not investing lots of money in something intended to be disposable. My last MBP (2010) was at least servicable. Now replaced with Lenovo kit as it's possible to strip it down and replace anything.
"replaced with Lenovo kit as it's possible to strip it down and replace anything."
Spoiler Alert: Lenovo Ultrabooks have glued in batteries. In fact the Ultrabooks from almost every company (HP, Samsung, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo, Acer) have glued in batteries. This is because glued in batteries are a useful innovation.
They're not a useful innovation - they are an abhorrent consumerist "disposalism" decision to pump sales, a safety nightmare (isolate it? nope), purely a cost cutting exercise for the manufacturer and make it even harder to recycle the nasty chemicals.
Don't give me the shit about it allowing smaller devices to be made either. You can make smaller devices with removable batteries fine.
Just playing Devil's advocate... (because I happen to agree with you that batteries should be user-replaceable, especially with phone battery life as bad as it is)
> I've just replaced the battery on my Lumia 820 after 9 months.
If your Lumia's battery needed to be replaced after 9 months, it was already under warranty and should have been replaced by the manufacturer.
> a safety nightmare
You know what's also a safety nightmare? Batteries. Which is why stopping third-parties from replacing certified batteries with random bought-off-eBay batteries is definitely a good idea.
> purely a cost cutting exercise for the manufacturer and make it even harder to recycle the nasty chemicals
Apple does have a recycling programme where you can bring your old electronics for free (and they'll even pay you for it with some products). http://www.apple.com/recycling/
As for the glue itself, I imagine it's trivially removable by qualified techs (there's probably a solvent that brings it right up?). And the excessive amount we're seeing now could be equally due to initial assembly issues (c.f. thermal paste a few years back) as much as any conscious decision.
I would definitely be interested in hearing more about why glue is bad though!
> If your Lumia's battery needed to be replaced after 9 months, it was already under warranty and should have been replaced by the manufacturer.
It was. Nokia service sent me a new one out for nothing after a 5 minute phone call.
> You know what's also a safety nightmare? Batteries. Which is why stopping third-parties from replacing certified batteries with random bought-off-eBay batteries is definitely a good idea.
The problem is more power isolation. If you get a short when you damage the device etc (compression/impact/waterlogging), your typical LiPoly cell is going to catch fire or at least knock out extremes of heat. This is very hazardous. Removal batteries at least have a chance of power isolation.
My specific example here is my 2010 MBP which the battery was not glued (but inaccessible). This got waterlogged after a drink was spilled on the table. Turning it upside down revealed that capillary action around the base plate had sucked up the water. It rained on the logic board. About 30 seconds later, it caught fire. My only resort was to throw it in the garden and watch my £1249 investment burn up.
> Apple does have a recycling programme where you can bring your old electronics for free
Yes they do but perhaps if you could replace the battery out of warranty, you wouldn't need to recycle it :)
Apple will replace the battery out of warranty no problem. Their laptop batteries are competitively priced (no idea about the iPhones), i.e. replacing the rMBP battery costs $199 (including labor), a comparable battery from Lenovo for T-series laptops costs $179.
Well since you're in the UK EU law applies and you get a 2 year warranty on all the Apple stuff you buy. They just keep it on the down-low. Two years is a reasonable life for a device now I reckon before trading up.
My main machine is a Lenovo T61 manufactured in 2006. My backup machine is a T400 from 2009. I have an HP48 manufactured in the mid 1990's still. All work perfectly.
2 years is taking the piss. Seriously. I feel people have been programmed into thinking this is acceptable.
I still have a MacBook from 2006 that's still ticking along fine, naturally it's no longer my main machine. Stuff is gonna fail, and as it ages it's more likely to fail. You could increase the length of warranties but all you end up doing is passing the cost to the end user any way with bumped up prices. I think two years is acceptable. After three years spares for stuff like iPhones/iPads and MacBooks are cheap as dirt on eBay anyway. So repairs are usually easy (people have learned how to do it) and cheap. Also usually if it fails after 2 years I reckon that's probably more down to abuse any way. I know plenty of people who have more money than sense when it comes to looking after their equipment, I had an ex kill a plastic MacBook my continually using it on her bed, it blocked the vents and the thing would cook.
Will that work for the iPhone 5? My guess would be "yes". If not, someone will have to find another solution (I guess this knowledge leaks from Apple's repair technicians). I would try cold before I started messing with chemicals.
If it turns out to be not that hard to remove the battery, once you know how, the root of the complaint is "Apple does not tell us how to take apart their stuff, and puts stuff together really tight." The latter is one of the reasons people buy Apple stuff; the former is not something Apple is unique in.
I respect your preferences but the bottom line is this:
When Apple dropped the MacBook Air to $999 in 2010 to match the price point of the MacBook, they gave users a clear choice: the thin, light, and un-upgradeable MacBook Air or the heavier, longer lasting, more rugged, and more powerful MacBook. Same price, two very different products. At the time, I wasn’t very happy with the non-upgradeable RAM on the MacBook Air, but I respected that Apple had given their users a choice. It was up to us: Did we want a machine that would be stuck with 2GB of RAM forever? Would we support laptops that required replacement every year or two as applications required more memory and batteries atrophied?
Apple has presented the market with a choice. They have two professional laptops: one that is serviceable and upgradeable, and one that is not.
Consumers overwhelmingly voted yes, and the Air grew to take 40 percent of Apple’s notebook sales by the end of 2010.
"not a useful innovation ... Don't give me the shit about it allowing smaller devices ... I'm a qualified EE for ref."
I'm certainly not an EE but I'm sure some of the people that design Ultrabooks for Apple, HP, Samsung, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo and Acer are. The guy from iFixit above certainly doesn't question that the glue and solder allow for thinner devices to be made.
I've just replaced the battery on my Lumia 820 after 9 months. They don't last forever. Glue is inexcusable. If they had a half decent mechanical design, foam pads would secure it in place when the device was assembled and allow replacement.
I've had a 4S for two years and have not noticed any problems with battery.
Perhaps the problem is the crap battery that goes bad after 9 months, rather than the way it's attached.
Glue is perfectly fine by me - and by most people apparently.
You can actually do most of that with vanilla PowerShell and Excel believe it or not but it's much fuglier and you spend most of your way working around edge cases.
The only thing that scares me about this though is that JSON is a terrible format for storing numbers in. There is no way of specifying a decimal type for example so aggregations and calculations have no implied precision past floating point values.
I may actually consider dumping Debian for FreeBSD 10.
I've never been totally happy with Linux after moving off "proper" UNIX machines. I had a FreeBSD 4.4 machine floating around for years which I was rather happy with but drifted off to Linux-land primarily due to convenience when it came to Flash and audio.
So many compelling reasons to switch back to FreeBSD now.