5 ms·

2020 OS Migration

80 points by protomyth 7y ago

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
Money quote: "Project Trident will rebasing with Void Linux." Which is... fascinating. Switching out upstreams is one thing, but they're switching kernels in the process! EDIT: more comments from finishing reading: Looks like they do broadly intend to work with the Void upstream, so I'm quite pleased (as a Void user) that there will hopefully be more people contributing, especially on the musl branch. > We will not be creating a migration path from the FreeBSD-based Project Trident to the new Void-based version. Please be prepared to copy your user data (/home/*) to a temporary location like a removable drive before installing the new version and copying the data back. That's quite unfortunate. In particular, if they do integrate ZFS into Void including boot environments, there shouldn't be any reason they can't do it in place; just install into new filesystems and mount the old `tank/usr/home` as though nothing had happened. Unfortunately you would still lose direct binary compatibility, since Linux doesn't have a FreeBSD personality to use, but I don't see why you should need a new pool or home.
- turndown 7y ago
  IMO a migration path between kernels would be expecting too much out of an OSS project, but maybe I just have lower expectations for these things.
  - mysterydip 7y ago
    It's probably not a matter of technical capability to implement, rather lacking the support staff to handle all the requests they get when edge case users have a failed migration.
    - red_phone 7y ago
      I think they’re trying to get around this by explicitly saying there will be no migration path, but it’ll be interesting to see whether they actually get away with that.
      - cwyers 7y ago
        They are a niche distribution of a niche distribution of one of the BSDs. They are moving to being a downstream of the 40th most popular Linux distribution by DistroWatch's measures. What is there to get away with? I suspect most of the people using this are the ones making this decision. https://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity https://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
  - bitwize 7y ago
    Meanwhile, Microsoft provided the ability to migrate between kernels in the early 90s.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      Money is the magic that makes everything possible:) The true irony to me is that they probably could support it if they were going the other direction, since FreeBSD does have a Linux-compatible personality. Actually, you might still be able to leverage that going the other way... release X is based on FreeBSD, release X+1 uses the FreeBSD kernel but migrates to Void Linux userland complete with actual Linux ELF binaries and can still run FreeBSD binaries, release X+2 switches to just running the Void Linux binaries on a Linux kernel, and only moving one release at a time is supported. It'd just be an insane amount of work.
- cjbprime 7y ago
  > Which is... fascinating. Switching out upstreams is one thing, but they're switching kernels in the process Switching kernel can actually be a pretty small thing compared to switching distribution! I remember using Debian/FreeBSD, Debian userland on top of a FreeBSD kernel. For most people, I bet switching away from BSD to GNU userland would be a bigger deal than moving from the FreeBSD to Linux kernel.
ysleepy 7y ago
It is a bit weird to see this written as if it wasn't crystal clear that the linux kernel is the only alternative. Why not just say it? "Sadly the graphics support is still lacking on FreeBSD since all the driver development is very linux specific, we therefore decided to switch kernels because graphics is a major part of the user experience."
- auvi 7y ago
  doesn't nvidia release FreeBSD graphics drivers?
  - trasz 7y ago
    It does, and the FreeBSD ports of open source Intel and AMD drivers are getting close to their Linux upstream. Pretty much the only thing that’s seriously lacking is Nouveau.
    - loeg 7y ago
      The Linux-ported intel/AMD drivers definitely still trail the quality of and aren't caught up to the latest Linux versions -- but they are catching up, at least. The FreeBSD wireless driver space is also pretty dated. Only 802.11N is supported -- the one or two 802.11AC WNICs that have support just run in the slower N mode. In short, the situation is getting better and isn't awful (especially on nvidia graphics and wired NIC hardware), but the concerns TrueOS has are totally valid and won't be completely eliminated even if FreeBSD stays caught up in the graphics space.
    - newnewpdro 7y ago
      What about all the arm-oriented mainline GPU support like panfrost, freedreno, etnaviv, vc3/4? Things are really picking up in this department...
      - trasz 7y ago
        I'm not sure, to be honest. I don't remember any news regarding FreeBSD ports of those. Having said that, if they use the same frameworks as the x86 drivers, the work on Intel and AMD ports should make porting them easier as well, since it all revolves around linuxkpi - shims that provide Linux-compatible API for kernel code.
ahbyb 7y ago
This site would benefit from higher contrast and thicker fonts.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  This is a nice way of saying it's nearly unreadable to the point where i wonder if it looks radically different on the developers device.
  - ahbyb 7y ago
    I don't find it to be "nearly unreadable" myself, but yes it's difficult. I think it depends mostly on the quality of your monitor, and on how it is calibrated.
    - smacktoward 7y ago
      It's the contrast, or lack thereof. Black text on a gray background is going to be hard to read on any display.
  - stelonix 7y ago
    I dismissed it as "they probably developed it for Chrome" and then used the inspector to set background to white. I can't imagine how this is not a bug.
- dickeytk 7y ago
  I literally just set `background: white` as the only change and it actually makes it look really good!
- hinkley 7y ago
  Worrying from a group that writes UI for a living. Someone needs to get over themselves and start thinking about their users.
protomyth 7y ago
Does anyone know what their relationship with iXsystems is and will this affect iXsystems BSD work?
- stock_toaster 7y ago
  From what I understand, the relationship was that project-trident was built on top of trueOS. ixsystems sponsors trueOS. I dont think there is a direct relationship other than that, aside from ixsystems apparently also supplied some forum hosting for project-trident (more correctly: a subforum on their forum)?
robbya 7y ago
Not familiar with Trident or Void, this announcement seems like a bit of an identity crisis. From the home page: > Project Trident is a desktop-focused operating system based on TrueOS. It uses the Lumina desktop as well as a number of self-developed utilities to provide an easy-to-use system that both BSD beginners and advanced system administrators can feel comfortable running 24⁄7. But after this change they are dropping BSD and TrueOS configuration tools. I'm curious how many users would stay through this transition (lots of other Linux OSes to move to instead).
artfulhippo 7y ago
I see why one would run Trident over plain FreeBSD on a workstation. But what is Trident offering on top of Void?
- jdc 7y ago
  Apparently it has had good selection of precompiled packages available.

2020 OS Migration

80 points by protomyth 7y ago

Money quote: "Project Trident will rebasing with Void Linux." Which is... fascinating. Switching out upstreams is one thing, but they're switching kernels in the process! EDIT: more comments from finishing reading: Looks like they do broadly intend to work with the Void upstream, so I'm quite pleased (as a Void user) that there will hopefully be more people contributing, especially on the musl branch. > We will not be creating a migration path from the FreeBSD-based Project Trident to the new Void-based version. Please be prepared to copy your user data (/home/*) to a temporary location like a removable drive before installing the new version and copying the data back. That's quite unfortunate. In particular, if they do integrate ZFS into Void including boot environments, there shouldn't be any reason they can't do it in place; just install into new filesystems and mount the old `tank/usr/home` as though nothing had happened. Unfortunately you would still lose direct binary compatibility, since Linux doesn't have a FreeBSD personality to use, but I don't see why you should need a new pool or home.

turndown 7y ago
IMO a migration path between kernels would be expecting too much out of an OSS project, but maybe I just have lower expectations for these things.
- mysterydip 7y ago
  It's probably not a matter of technical capability to implement, rather lacking the support staff to handle all the requests they get when edge case users have a failed migration.
  - red_phone 7y ago
    I think they’re trying to get around this by explicitly saying there will be no migration path, but it’ll be interesting to see whether they actually get away with that.
    - cwyers 7y ago
      They are a niche distribution of a niche distribution of one of the BSDs. They are moving to being a downstream of the 40th most popular Linux distribution by DistroWatch's measures. What is there to get away with? I suspect most of the people using this are the ones making this decision. https://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity https://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
- bitwize 7y ago
  Meanwhile, Microsoft provided the ability to migrate between kernels in the early 90s.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    Money is the magic that makes everything possible:) The true irony to me is that they probably could support it if they were going the other direction, since FreeBSD does have a Linux-compatible personality. Actually, you might still be able to leverage that going the other way... release X is based on FreeBSD, release X+1 uses the FreeBSD kernel but migrates to Void Linux userland complete with actual Linux ELF binaries and can still run FreeBSD binaries, release X+2 switches to just running the Void Linux binaries on a Linux kernel, and only moving one release at a time is supported. It'd just be an insane amount of work.
cjbprime 7y ago
> Which is... fascinating. Switching out upstreams is one thing, but they're switching kernels in the process Switching kernel can actually be a pretty small thing compared to switching distribution! I remember using Debian/FreeBSD, Debian userland on top of a FreeBSD kernel. For most people, I bet switching away from BSD to GNU userland would be a bigger deal than moving from the FreeBSD to Linux kernel.

ysleepy 7y ago

It is a bit weird to see this written as if it wasn't crystal clear that the linux kernel is the only alternative. Why not just say it? "Sadly the graphics support is still lacking on FreeBSD since all the driver development is very linux specific, we therefore decided to switch kernels because graphics is a major part of the user experience."

auvi 7y ago
doesn't nvidia release FreeBSD graphics drivers?
- trasz 7y ago
  It does, and the FreeBSD ports of open source Intel and AMD drivers are getting close to their Linux upstream. Pretty much the only thing that’s seriously lacking is Nouveau.
  - loeg 7y ago
    The Linux-ported intel/AMD drivers definitely still trail the quality of and aren't caught up to the latest Linux versions -- but they are catching up, at least. The FreeBSD wireless driver space is also pretty dated. Only 802.11N is supported -- the one or two 802.11AC WNICs that have support just run in the slower N mode. In short, the situation is getting better and isn't awful (especially on nvidia graphics and wired NIC hardware), but the concerns TrueOS has are totally valid and won't be completely eliminated even if FreeBSD stays caught up in the graphics space.
  - newnewpdro 7y ago
    What about all the arm-oriented mainline GPU support like panfrost, freedreno, etnaviv, vc3/4? Things are really picking up in this department...
    - trasz 7y ago
      I'm not sure, to be honest. I don't remember any news regarding FreeBSD ports of those. Having said that, if they use the same frameworks as the x86 drivers, the work on Intel and AMD ports should make porting them easier as well, since it all revolves around linuxkpi - shims that provide Linux-compatible API for kernel code.

ahbyb 7y ago

This site would benefit from higher contrast and thicker fonts.

michaelmrose 7y ago
This is a nice way of saying it's nearly unreadable to the point where i wonder if it looks radically different on the developers device.
- ahbyb 7y ago
  I don't find it to be "nearly unreadable" myself, but yes it's difficult. I think it depends mostly on the quality of your monitor, and on how it is calibrated.
  - smacktoward 7y ago
    It's the contrast, or lack thereof. Black text on a gray background is going to be hard to read on any display.
- stelonix 7y ago
  I dismissed it as "they probably developed it for Chrome" and then used the inspector to set background to white. I can't imagine how this is not a bug.
dickeytk 7y ago
I literally just set `background: white` as the only change and it actually makes it look really good!
hinkley 7y ago
Worrying from a group that writes UI for a living. Someone needs to get over themselves and start thinking about their users.

protomyth 7y ago

Does anyone know what their relationship with iXsystems is and will this affect iXsystems BSD work?

stock_toaster 7y ago
From what I understand, the relationship was that project-trident was built on top of trueOS. ixsystems sponsors trueOS. I dont think there is a direct relationship other than that, aside from ixsystems apparently also supplied some forum hosting for project-trident (more correctly: a subforum on their forum)?

robbya 7y ago

Not familiar with Trident or Void, this announcement seems like a bit of an identity crisis. From the home page: > Project Trident is a desktop-focused operating system based on TrueOS. It uses the Lumina desktop as well as a number of self-developed utilities to provide an easy-to-use system that both BSD beginners and advanced system administrators can feel comfortable running 24⁄7. But after this change they are dropping BSD and TrueOS configuration tools. I'm curious how many users would stay through this transition (lots of other Linux OSes to move to instead).

artfulhippo 7y ago

I see why one would run Trident over plain FreeBSD on a workstation. But what is Trident offering on top of Void?

jdc 7y ago
Apparently it has had good selection of precompiled packages available.