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I disagree, for anybody who knows how FreeBSD works the title is perfectly clear IMO. They removed FreeBSD from the base system. Of course you can still build G

by simias 7y ago

I disagree, for anybody who knows how FreeBSD works the title is perfectly clear IMO. They removed FreeBSD from the base system. Of course you can still build GCC from ports, but that's not part of the base OS. It's as if MacOS decided to stop shipping bash by default. Of course you'll still be able to install it yourself, but it's not part of the OS anymore and you can't rely on it being available and supported. FreeBSD is not Linux, it's a full OS, not just a kernel. There's a very clear line between what's part of the base system and what's not.

lloeki 7y ago
> It's as if MacOS decided to stop shipping bash by default. More precisely, it’s as if macOS stopped shipping GCC in the CLT. Oh wait, they did exactly that already, the last one being gcc 4.2 on Darwin 11, after that a GCC command is still present but it’s just a front to llvm. https://github.com/archmac/packages/blob/master/core/apple-gcc/PKGBUILD https://github.com/archmac/packages/blob/master/core/apple-g...
- fullstop 7y ago
  > It's as if MacOS decided to stop shipping bash by default. They switched from tcsh to bash, so it's not out of the question. edit: looks like tcsh is still available, but not the default.
  - michaelsbradley 7y ago
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208050 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208050
ori_b 7y ago
> I disagree, for anybody who knows how FreeBSD works That excludes the bulk of this site's readers.
- oefrha 7y ago
  It’s a good time for the bulk of this site’s readers to learn something about the BSD philosophy then. Edit: This comment was not meant to be snarky.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    You can't expect people to be experts in everything.
    - oefrha 7y ago
      I didn’t expect people to be experts in everything, and my comment says the exact opposite: non-experts could learn a little bit about the subject.
      - degski 7y ago
        I just learned something useful! There might be more crud in BSD, better avoid. The fact they only now remove gcc-4.2 as the base of their system has told me more than enough, thanks, but no thanks.
  - BanazirGalbasi 7y ago
    I'm a relatively new FreeBSD user, in fact I'm writing this on a Thinkpad running FreeBSD right now. The title is still super misleading, I had no clue that it was talking about the build infrastructure from the title alone - instead, I was expecting that my next version upgrade would remove GCC compatibility. Learning the FreeBSD philosophy doesn't change the fact that the title is inaccurate and unhelpful.
    - umanwizard 7y ago
      Yes, your next upgrade will remove GCC from the base system, not just from the "build infrastructure". However, you can still install the GCC port, as before.
pankajdoharey 7y ago
Though i dont know how FreeBSD works after reading the title my first guess was hah, so are they completely switching to clang or some other compiler. But i think maybe if the title read "FreeBSD would stop GCC support" or something would have made it more clear on the outset, may be thats what the he is referring to.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  > so are they completely switching to clang or some other compiler. Yes, they are -- your understanding was correct. The FreeBSD OS now exclusively builds with clang, and clang is also the compiler shipped with the system. You can, of course, still install GCC, and many other packages, from the ports tree, but it is no longer part of the OS.
  - emaste 7y ago
    In fact for the vast majority of FreeBSD users (those on i386 or amd64), this happened years ago. Old GCC was kept in the tree for some Tier-2/Tier-3 archs (like MIPS), and is now removed because it's no longer used for those.
lvh 7y ago
The title does not say "FreeBSD has removed GCC from the base system". It says "FreeBSD has removed GCC", full stop. Ports are also managed by the FreeBSD project, as I'm sure you'll agree.
- cat199 7y ago
  But 'FreeBSD Ports' are not 'FreeBSD' itself. Title was clear to me - yes, perhaps more clear as you say it though.
  - twic 7y ago
    The title very evidently wasn't clear to the casual reader. Today, you learned something!
  - lvh 7y ago
    I've ran every major BSD as a desktop OS and my first read was "what?! I knew Clang was getting good at pretending to be GCC nowadays but there's no way they've thrown it out of ports, right?!". And indeed, they haven't, but not because I read the title correctly.
derefr 7y ago
> and you can’t rely on it being available and supported Is there a reason that you’d be relying on what’s included in the FreeBSD base system? If I were building a piece of software and developing a FreeBSD target for it, I’d probably just write a port manifest for it and contribute it; and in so doing, I can have my port manifest declare a dependency on the GCC port. Just like if I create an Ubuntu PPA, I can depend on Ubuntu system packages, or even other people’s PPAs. (And it’s even less arduous than the Ubuntu PPA case, because PPAs are all their own third-party package repos that you have to add, while Ports is one flat namespace. As long as it’s “in ports”, you can depend on it without asking the user to do the equivalent of `sudo apt-repository add ...`)
- pjmlp 7y ago
  IT security where you just get what they think you should be using, and regular accounts don't have execution permissions on any user accessible file system.
  - derefr 7y ago
    Presumably we're talking, here, about relying on GCC as part of the build-process of a package or script you're trying to deploy to this system. If you don't have execute permissions, then, well, you're not going to be "installing" any software in any practical sense—you might be able to compile sources or copy files around, but you can't make the resulting binaries executable. Nor are you going to be doing much software development, for the same reason. So why, at that point, would you need a compiler to exist on the box? It'd be like having GCC in a busybox installation.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Yes you will be doing software development, but only for what matters to your employer and nothing else. Savy UNIX IT can take care of it, apparently the experience of what meant working in UNIX shops with thin terminals is now lost.
tbenst 7y ago
I ran FreeBSD for years, and this title still surprised me. I thought it was gone from ports too for ____ reason. Misleading
m463 7y ago
MacOS is moving to zsh (I think they still ship bash)
- wolfhumble 7y ago
  macOS Catalina, i.e. version 10.15, has actually already moved to zsh, but – as you said – bash is still installed: % bash -version => GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin19)

by simias 7y ago

lloeki 7y ago

> It's as if MacOS decided to stop shipping bash by default. More precisely, it’s as if macOS stopped shipping GCC in the CLT. Oh wait, they did exactly that already, the last one being gcc 4.2 on Darwin 11, after that a GCC command is still present but it’s just a front to llvm. https://github.com/archmac/packages/blob/master/core/apple-gcc/PKGBUILD https://github.com/archmac/packages/blob/master/core/apple-g...

fullstop 7y ago
> It's as if MacOS decided to stop shipping bash by default. They switched from tcsh to bash, so it's not out of the question. edit: looks like tcsh is still available, but not the default.
- michaelsbradley 7y ago
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208050 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208050

ori_b 7y ago

> I disagree, for anybody who knows how FreeBSD works That excludes the bulk of this site's readers.

oefrha 7y ago
It’s a good time for the bulk of this site’s readers to learn something about the BSD philosophy then. Edit: This comment was not meant to be snarky.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  You can't expect people to be experts in everything.
  - oefrha 7y ago
    I didn’t expect people to be experts in everything, and my comment says the exact opposite: non-experts could learn a little bit about the subject.
    - degski 7y ago
      I just learned something useful! There might be more crud in BSD, better avoid. The fact they only now remove gcc-4.2 as the base of their system has told me more than enough, thanks, but no thanks.
- BanazirGalbasi 7y ago
  I'm a relatively new FreeBSD user, in fact I'm writing this on a Thinkpad running FreeBSD right now. The title is still super misleading, I had no clue that it was talking about the build infrastructure from the title alone - instead, I was expecting that my next version upgrade would remove GCC compatibility. Learning the FreeBSD philosophy doesn't change the fact that the title is inaccurate and unhelpful.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    Yes, your next upgrade will remove GCC from the base system, not just from the "build infrastructure". However, you can still install the GCC port, as before.

pankajdoharey 7y ago

Though i dont know how FreeBSD works after reading the title my first guess was hah, so are they completely switching to clang or some other compiler. But i think maybe if the title read "FreeBSD would stop GCC support" or something would have made it more clear on the outset, may be thats what the he is referring to.

umanwizard 7y ago
> so are they completely switching to clang or some other compiler. Yes, they are -- your understanding was correct. The FreeBSD OS now exclusively builds with clang, and clang is also the compiler shipped with the system. You can, of course, still install GCC, and many other packages, from the ports tree, but it is no longer part of the OS.
- emaste 7y ago
  In fact for the vast majority of FreeBSD users (those on i386 or amd64), this happened years ago. Old GCC was kept in the tree for some Tier-2/Tier-3 archs (like MIPS), and is now removed because it's no longer used for those.

lvh 7y ago

The title does not say "FreeBSD has removed GCC from the base system". It says "FreeBSD has removed GCC", full stop. Ports are also managed by the FreeBSD project, as I'm sure you'll agree.

cat199 7y ago
But 'FreeBSD Ports' are not 'FreeBSD' itself. Title was clear to me - yes, perhaps more clear as you say it though.
- twic 7y ago
  The title very evidently wasn't clear to the casual reader. Today, you learned something!
- lvh 7y ago
  I've ran every major BSD as a desktop OS and my first read was "what?! I knew Clang was getting good at pretending to be GCC nowadays but there's no way they've thrown it out of ports, right?!". And indeed, they haven't, but not because I read the title correctly.

derefr 7y ago

> and you can’t rely on it being available and supported Is there a reason that you’d be relying on what’s included in the FreeBSD base system? If I were building a piece of software and developing a FreeBSD target for it, I’d probably just write a port manifest for it and contribute it; and in so doing, I can have my port manifest declare a dependency on the GCC port. Just like if I create an Ubuntu PPA, I can depend on Ubuntu system packages, or even other people’s PPAs. (And it’s even less arduous than the Ubuntu PPA case, because PPAs are all their own third-party package repos that you have to add, while Ports is one flat namespace. As long as it’s “in ports”, you can depend on it without asking the user to do the equivalent of `sudo apt-repository add ...`)

pjmlp 7y ago
IT security where you just get what they think you should be using, and regular accounts don't have execution permissions on any user accessible file system.
- derefr 7y ago
  Presumably we're talking, here, about relying on GCC as part of the build-process of a package or script you're trying to deploy to this system. If you don't have execute permissions, then, well, you're not going to be "installing" any software in any practical sense—you might be able to compile sources or copy files around, but you can't make the resulting binaries executable. Nor are you going to be doing much software development, for the same reason. So why, at that point, would you need a compiler to exist on the box? It'd be like having GCC in a busybox installation.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Yes you will be doing software development, but only for what matters to your employer and nothing else. Savy UNIX IT can take care of it, apparently the experience of what meant working in UNIX shops with thin terminals is now lost.

tbenst 7y ago

I ran FreeBSD for years, and this title still surprised me. I thought it was gone from ports too for ____ reason. Misleading

m463 7y ago

MacOS is moving to zsh (I think they still ship bash)

wolfhumble 7y ago
macOS Catalina, i.e. version 10.15, has actually already moved to zsh, but – as you said – bash is still installed: % bash -version => GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin19)