Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

some-guy94 · 2010-01-29 02:30:38

Allan wrote:

That is a similar position to where I got "stuck" but I was not feeling persistent...

I did find them, but just patched it out anyway(would cause problems for the cross-compiler), and I am now trying to build (e)glibc using debian's patches.

There is one problem though, Linux doesn't have write support to UFS partitions. I could make it use zfs (through zfs-fuse)...

kolbycrouch · 2010-01-29 02:56:16

Hello everyone, didn't mean to not keep updated on this, I'm about to throw togther a dedicated machine for it, I considered waiting for the actual debian release though, seeing as how it's frustrating to keep up with the changes in the unstable repo, plus we would have a more stable package set to work with. Not trying to put this off, just trying to make it easier to accomplish, because you can't ever count on havin alot of people to work with, even if people say they will, try to work smart not hard, thats all.

sand_man · 2010-01-29 10:01:40

some-guy94 wrote:

Allan wrote:
That is a similar position to where I got "stuck" but I was not feeling persistent...
I did find them, but just patched it out anyway(would cause problems for the cross-compiler), and I am now trying to build (e)glibc using debian's patches.
There is one problem though, Linux doesn't have write support to UFS partitions. I could make it use zfs (through zfs-fuse)...

I don't understand. If you are using FreeBSD kernel then its no longer an issue.
What am I missing here?

Emmett · 2010-01-29 10:13:08

I'm a little confused...are you all suggesting using the freebsd kernel with the arch userland?

Nezmer · 2010-01-29 11:20:23

Emmett wrote:

I'm a little confused...are you all suggesting using the freebsd kernel with the arch userland?

Two project ideas in this thread.

1) Arch/GNU userland with FreeBSD kernel (See the title of this thread). Usually this is done by building a cross compiler then building components using it from scratch.

2) A true FreeBSD OS but with alternative pacman/makepkg management and maybe other aspects coming from Arch.

I'm doing some initial work on (2). The first step is to make sure pacman/makepkg work as expected. I made some minor patches and built a package successful yesterday.

Unfortunately, I only have one laptop running Arch(Linux) most of the day. If I had a dedicated machine for this I would make progress a lot faster.

Anyway, we should respect the author of this thread and keep the discussion about Arch GNU/KFreeBSD. If there is enough interest in (2). Some one should start a dedicated thread for it. Serious project name suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

donallen · 2010-01-29 18:37:26

I just want to address the "buggy-ness" of the FreeBSD kernel issue. I *have* run FreeBSD on my systems, three times, and abandoned it three times. Why? Because of serious bugs in the USB layer and one system-killing bug in the ext2 support (which, in fairness, got fixed very quickly -- I got an email from the guy who found the problem, pointing me at a patch). If you don't use USB a lot, don't bother reading the rest of this. But if you care about USB ....

Prior to Release 8, the USB layer was just hopelessly broken. I found this out because I back up my systems to SATA drives in USB shoeboxes and had FreeBSD 7.1 and 7.2 freeze up repeatedly when trying to back them up. I gave up and ran a combination of Arch and OpenBSD on my systems. With the advent of FreeBSD Release 8, featuring a re-written USB layer, I decided to try again. At this point, the new code does not appear to be a big improvement over the old. There are still serious problems with the support for USB devices. See the FreeBSD forums if you want details. My personal opinion is that they've not only got a USB problem, but a QA/release-engineering problem, and I've said so on their forums, greeted by cat-calls and accusations of trolling. So much for attempts at constructive criticism.

I've run various Linux distributions for years (I first installed Slackware on a circa 1993 Zeos 486 laptop -- I think it had an 80 Mb disk!). I've never encountered the kinds of problems with a major subsystem that I've had with FreeBSD in all those years of Linux use. OpenBSD also is rock-solid in my experience, though it lacks some key features, such as real SMP support, poor support for large amounts of real memory, and no unified buffer cache (unlike Linux, NetBSD and FreeBSD).

/Don Allen

loafer · 2010-01-29 20:19:10

donallen wrote:

See the FreeBSD forums if you want details
/Don Allen

Can you post specific links please.

rusty99 · 2010-01-29 21:20:58

loafer wrote:

donallen wrote:
See the FreeBSD forums if you want details
/Don Allen
Can you post specific links please.

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.ph … t=donallen

I've been using FreeBSD for the last few weks as I had serious stability issues with the 2.6.32.x kernel and so far I've encountered one issue on my first install, which could well have been my fault. USB devices I've connected have all been fine, digi-camera, IPod, mouse, keyboards, mobile etc. What works for some unfortunately doesn't work for everyone, else I'd still be using Linux on my main box.

some-guy94 · 2010-01-29 22:02:07

sand_man wrote:

some-guy94 wrote:
Allan wrote:
That is a similar position to where I got "stuck" but I was not feeling persistent...
I did find them, but just patched it out anyway(would cause problems for the cross-compiler), and I am now trying to build (e)glibc using debian's patches.
There is one problem though, Linux doesn't have write support to UFS partitions. I could make it use zfs (through zfs-fuse)...
I don't understand. If you are using FreeBSD kernel then its no longer an issue.
What am I missing here?

I'm am cross compiling a whole system from scratch on Linux, with a GNU userland.

loafer · 2010-01-29 22:05:07

rusty99 wrote:

I've been using FreeBSD for the last few weks as I had serious stability issues with the 2.6.32.x kernel

But you are saying it's Linux that's unstable not FreeBSD.

perishedinflames · 2010-02-01 11:22:03

i would be delighted to use such kind of a system too .

i was about to propose it when i read the debian anouncement .

tho, isn't there a way to go for OpenBSD rather than FreeBSD?

i mean OpenBSD is a lot closer to ARCH, a lot more secure than FreeBSD and a more general-purpose and faster OS as well as it actually beats almost every linux system in documentation and offers a much more clear code if you see the source-code of the kernel and the rest core files.

cheers!

gtklocker · 2010-02-01 21:13:59

How is the development going some-guy94?

some-guy94 · 2010-02-02 00:13:29

gtklocker wrote:

How is the development going some-guy94?

I haven't had too much time to work on it recently, but this is what I have after hunting down plenty of patches debian applies to get things working:
* A cross binutils
* A cross gcc (first build/pass)

I doesn't seem like much, but getting (e)glibc building is taking a while. Eglibc reports that it cannot be built without optimization, even though I pass -O2 in the CFLAGS for configure...

Once I get a full cross tool-chain building, I'll probably release the build script.

Allan · 2010-02-02 00:43:00

some-guy94 wrote:

I doesn't seem like much, but getting (e)glibc building is taking a while. Eglibc reports that it cannot be built without optimization, even though I pass -O2 in the CFLAGS for configure...

I only discovered glibc requires the same... you also want -march=i686 (or i586, i486) as by default gcc assumes i386 and that causes glibc not to build.

some-guy94 · 2010-02-03 05:01:21

I have not been successful in getting eglibc compiling, it keeps complaining about CFLAGS even though I pass them. Here's my quick build script.
If someone can tell what I am doing wrong, then it'll be greatly appreciated.

The scripts sources the config file, and helpers/funtions, and then sources each helper one by one, and runs it.

Last edited by some-guy94 (2010-02-03 05:01:43)

Emmett · 2010-02-06 06:50:55

Nezmer wrote:

Emmett wrote:
I'm a little confused...are you all suggesting using the freebsd kernel with the arch userland?
Two project ideas in this thread.
1) Arch/GNU userland with FreeBSD kernel (See the title of this thread). Usually this is done by building a cross compiler then building components using it from scratch.
2) A true FreeBSD OS but with alternative pacman/makepkg management and maybe other aspects coming from Arch.

Thanks for clearing that up. I was really lost! lol.
Ok, so:

Option 1. Arch/Gnu userland with freebsd kernel. Why? I'm afraid I don't understand the point. If you're going to use the freebsd kernel, why not use the freebsd userland? Will not most linux programs run on freebsd through the compatibility thing, assuming that freebsd doesn't have a native port of the programs?

Option 2. Freebsd with pacman/makepkg management. Why? Although I think this option makes a little more sense than option 1, because freebsd pushes the use of ports, you can use freebsd packages. Like many Gentoo users are finding out, it's much easier to simply install packages, and many (not flame bait, just saying) or at least some are moving to distributions like Arch, where things are already packaged and optimized for their system. So is your thinking that Arch's packman management system handles dependencies better than freebsd's packages? And when you talk of porting packman over to freebsd, are you wanting to use it just for the freebsd packages, or for all Arch packages as well? Because if you are doing the latter, isn't that really just doing Option 1?

perishedinflames wrote:

tho, isn't there a way to go for OpenBSD rather than FreeBSD?
i mean OpenBSD is a lot closer to ARCH, a lot more secure than FreeBSD and a more general-purpose and faster OS as well as it actually beats almost every linux system in documentation and offers a much more clear code if you see the source-code of the kernel and the rest core files.

Freebsd is the better choice. Arch is not focused on security, it's focused on performance being on the cutting edge. Of the bsd's, that is what freebsd is focused on, perhaps with the exception of Drangonflybsd. So, if there is to be any porting/sharing going on, freebsd is the logical choice. Openbsd would be the logical choice if one were aiming for porting a linux distribution that focused more on security. In addition, freebsd runs circles around openbsd due to the SMP threading work done here recently. Furthermore, freebsd is designed to be optimized (or at least intended) for intel processors, just like arch is. So, freebsd just fits arch's philosophy better.

some-guy94 · 2010-02-06 16:51:52

Emmett wrote:

Thanks for clearing that up. I was really lost! lol.
Ok, so:
Option 1. Arch/Gnu userland with freebsd kernel. Why? I'm afraid I don't understand the point. If you're going to use the freebsd kernel, why not use the freebsd userland? Will not most linux programs run on freebsd through the compatibility thing, assuming that freebsd doesn't have a native port of the programs?
Option 2. Freebsd with pacman/makepkg management. Why? Although I think this option makes a little more sense than option 1, because freebsd pushes the use of ports, you can use freebsd packages. Like many Gentoo users are finding out, it's much easier to simply install packages, and many (not flame bait, just saying) or at least some are moving to distributions like Arch, where things are already packaged and optimized for their system. So is your thinking that Arch's packman management system handles dependencies better than freebsd's packages? And when you talk of porting packman over to freebsd, are you wanting to use it just for the freebsd packages, or for all Arch packages as well? Because if you are doing the latter, isn't that really just doing Option 1?

Then there is no reason for an Arch GNU/kFreeBSD, just use FreeBSD.

gtklocker · 2010-04-06 19:27:57

Is anything going on? I'd like to help!

Some-guy, could you post the script you used for this (you mention it before)?

some-guy94 · 2010-04-06 21:40:38

gtklocker wrote:

Is anything going on? I'd like to help!
Some-guy, could you post the script you used for this (you mention it before)?

eglibc was giving me headaches, so I stopped working on this.
Here's the build script I was using.

Look at Debian GNU/kFreeBSD if you need a guide.

Last edited by Misfit138 (2010-04-07 01:13:10)

Misfit138 · 2010-04-07 01:13:22

Fixed link for you^

Gullible Jones · 2010-04-07 03:42:46

some-guy94 wrote:

What I would like to see is a BSD userland on a linux kernel (BSD/Linux).

Amen. BSD userland rocks, but BSD hardware support is... not so great, at least for laptops and netbooks.

MP2E · 2010-04-07 04:11:56

Gullible Jones wrote:

some-guy94 wrote:
What I would like to see is a BSD userland on a linux kernel (BSD/Linux).
Amen. BSD userland rocks, but BSD hardware support is... not so great, at least for laptops and netbooks.

I'd be interested in this too, it's why I'm watching Stali at the moment

gtklocker · 2010-04-08 11:21:37

Thanks some-guy, will try.

gtklocker · 2010-04-08 15:52:43

some-guy94 wrote:

gtklocker wrote:
Is anything going on? I'd like to help!
Some-guy, could you post the script you used for this (you mention it before)?
eglibc was giving me headaches, so I stopped working on this.
Here's the build script I was using.
Look at Debian GNU/kFreeBSD if you need a guide.

DONT USE THIS SCRIPT. IT'S POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS.

It deleted all my /home, and my whole data partition! Shame. Shame. Shame.

some-guy94 · 2010-04-08 16:07:06

gtklocker wrote:

DONT USE THIS SCRIPT. IT'S POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS.
It deleted all my /home, and my whole data partition! Shame. Shame. Shame.

Did you edit the config file?
I don't where it would actually do that even if $root leads to a nonexistant directory.
The only remove command is

rm -rf $build $cross $kfreebsd/*

And those are by default

build=$HOME/crosskfreebsd/build
cross=$HOME/crosskfreebsd/cross
kfreebsd=$HOME/crosskfreebsd/kfreebsd

Arch Linux

#26 2010-01-29 02:30:38

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#27 2010-01-29 02:56:16

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#28 2010-01-29 10:01:40

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#29 2010-01-29 10:13:08

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#30 2010-01-29 11:20:23

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#31 2010-01-29 18:37:26

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#32 2010-01-29 20:19:10

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#33 2010-01-29 21:20:58

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#34 2010-01-29 22:02:07

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#35 2010-01-29 22:05:07

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#36 2010-02-01 11:22:03

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#37 2010-02-01 21:13:59

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#38 2010-02-02 00:13:29

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#39 2010-02-02 00:43:00

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#40 2010-02-03 05:01:21

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#41 2010-02-06 06:50:55

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#42 2010-02-06 16:51:52

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#43 2010-04-06 19:27:57

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#44 2010-04-06 21:40:38

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#45 2010-04-07 01:13:22

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#46 2010-04-07 03:42:46

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#47 2010-04-07 04:11:56

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#48 2010-04-08 11:21:37

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

#49 2010-04-08 15:52:43

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#50 2010-04-08 16:07:06

Re: Arch GNU/KFreeBSD: A more informed opinion.

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