8 ms·

EdgeBSD

73 points by justincormack 13y ago

AlexanderDhoore 13y ago
"EdgeBSD is primarily hosted in Germany, Europe." I expect to see that a lot more in the future. It's pretty much saying "EdgeBSD is not primarily hosted in the USA."
- koralatov 13y ago
  I agree, but I dislike the use of the qualifier `primarily'.
- davidjgraph 13y ago
  No, I'm pretty sure it's just saying that it's hosted in the Germany... Our primary company servers are hosted in Germany, because that gives the lowest overall latency for the locations of our employees, maybe it's just a similar technical reason? And it's so slow that I suspect it's running from someone's bedroom, anyway.
- davidw 13y ago
  Yes, I think hosting open source projects outside the US is eminently sensible; it would be terrible if organizations like the NSA were able to go through every single commit on the project, see who did it, and what they changed.
  - pekru 13y ago
    What's stopping NSA from scanning http://git.edgebsd.org http://git.edgebsd.org ?
    - rpsw 13y ago
      The GP was being sarcastic. The need for privacy would be small on a project that is open by it's very nature.
      - laumars 13y ago
        True, but there's also the argument of patents (eg how DVD decoding libraries cannot be shipped from US-based Linux distros)
- shin_lao 13y ago
  For us Europeans knowing servers are hosted in an European country has got everything to do with latency and nothing to do with some sort of anti-americanism.
  - harrytuttle 13y ago
    Actually in our case, it's for compliance and confidence purposes and hatred of American politics and government policy, not the American people. Not one single company in the financial sector in the UK wants their kit anywhere near the US or in any datacentres with US ownership any more simply because of the PATRIOT act and PRISM etc. We just moved 2 tonnes of kit into a wholly UK owned DC away from two large primarily US based DC's. We've also cancelled our Amazon S3 storage option and migrated over 540Gb of data back to our kit. People have paid for all this voluntarily because being responsble for being fucked over by the US government is a big concern. Would you want all your mortgage, insurance and credit scoring data in the hands of a foreign government who religiously ignore data protection laws?
    - liljimmytables 13y ago
      This is certainly the case for businesses with proprietary data, for an open-source community like we're discussing it's just another (admittedly rather useless) online backup service :)
      - harrytuttle 13y ago
        Until someone things it's ok to meddle with your infrastructure and codebase without a warrant...
        bdunbar 13y ago
        If you think only the US is capable of these kind of shenanigans you have another think coming.
        13y ago
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
jacques_chester 13y ago
The page source gives no hint of the source of the slowness, but curl -I reports it's Apache running PHP. So I'm going to guess it's mod_php in standard forking mode, fruitfully multiplying.
- koralatov 13y ago
  That's maybe why I can't even load it. I thought perhaps it was my work proxy.
- jlebrech 13y ago
  no varnish?
rwmj 13y ago
Will it have a proper packaging system?
- justincormack 13y ago
  It says pkgsrc. Do you consider that proper?
- bch 13y ago
  It's using pkgsrc, which is excellent source-based package management (I prefer it over FreeBSD ports myself; it feels less brittle). The biggest changes over NetBSD for this NetBSD-derived OS are using git for source control (versus CVS of NetBSD), and by default turning on options like disk encryption. I had a brief discussion with the principle driver of this, and it sounds to me like this is all based in technical pursuits, and not (as mentioned above), hosted in Germany and enabling encryption as an NSA reaction, or anything like that.
- asdasf 13y ago
  Nope, just pkgsrc.
elktea 13y ago
Finally got it to load. From the site, for those who can't: EdgeBSD is a new member of the family of BSD-based Operating Systems, starting development with the current NetBSD codebase with Git for Source Code Management. Package management is based on pkgsrc. Objectives The primary goal of EdgeBSD is to provide an ambitious environment for working as a bigger community together on the NetBSD Project. This will be achieved thanks to a more modern development infrastructure, while taking a more aggressive stance on integrating and enabling features. Ultimately, EdgeBSD should be just as fun and attractive as a Research & Development platform while delivering a modern, robust, and industrial-grade system for all ranges of computer devices. First steps The preliminary plan looks as follows: * existing features will simply be enabled and used by default (SSP, ASLR, modular kernels and Xorg, full disk encryption, securelevel...); * a release with these features will be delivered, based on the latest stable NetBSD branch. Every meaningful contribution will be proposed back to the NetBSD Project. Longer term EdgeBSD should be as attractive a platform as possible, and use the advantages of its existing codebase to experiment on being a modern, safe, and portable Operating System. This vision currently includes: * advanced facilities for developers (patch management, build environments...); * re-organization of the base system (Git submodules, packages...); * a graphical installer; * modern package management (signed packages...); * alternatives to Xorg and default desktop environment; * ready-to-flash images for embedded devices; * virtualization of most components with the RUMP anykernel. Community EdgeBSD users and developers can be found on the #EdgeBSD channel on the freenode IRC network. A web interface for the Git development trees can be found at git.edgebsd.org. More services are being brought up and will be provided soon (mailing-lists, wiki...). Hosting EdgeBSD is primarily hosted in Germany, Europe.
nwh 13y ago
Seems to be crippling under the load, here's a mirror — http://archive.is/yTdHm http://archive.is/yTdHm
raimue 13y ago
What I don't like about the approach is that they announce to prominently use git as a modern DVCS, which is not BSD software. I would rather see improvements in the existing BSD-licensed VCS. Currently, the only candidate under active development would be http://fossil-scm.org/ http://fossil-scm.org/. Or heck, maybe even start an initiative for a DVCS implementation under a BSD license that is able to work with the git protocol. This could even use the git disk format, so you can still use git in parallel until it's feature complete.
- davvid 13y ago
  Users don't want to learn yet another fossil scm; Git is ubiquitous. It seems like a wasted effort to reimplement Git just because of its license. libgit2 exists and has been making steady progress, and its license is permissive enough.
  - bch 13y ago
    I can't speak for "users", but fossil is an absolute joy to use, easy to pick up, and has features that I'm not aware of in any other SCM (hello, built-in first-class tickets). libgit2 has been "making progress" for a long time -- it's barely used in github (it's one or two little features of libgit that are harnessed internally, according to the githubber I talked to at a meetup), and, without trying to insult the developers/development, I seems more accurate to say libgit is "plodding along slowly". With "critical mass" as one of gits features, this is sort of surprising. I suspect it speaks to the complexity of git, but I'm not positive.
  - raimue 13y ago
    With this argumentation you could also say it's wasted effort to implement a BSD kernel because Linux exists. Thanks for the pointer to libgit2.
- heidar 13y ago
  Isn't OpenCVS being worked on too? I don't think it's decentralized though.
Nux 13y ago
For a moment there my heart stopped in the hope this new project will bring the one thing I've been missing the most: decent binary package management. Alas, no.
- elktea 13y ago
  How's FreeBSD's pkgng these days?
  - alcari 13y ago
    See [1] for an explanation of why pkgng isn't useful, especially the April 30th update: "...Port managers are currently working on introducing new-style (as known as "pkgng") binary packages in the coming months, please check the FreeBSD ports announcements list for further gradual status updates." [1]: http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html
  - Wilya 13y ago
    It works fine, but there's still no official repository. Maintaining your own or using a third party is possible, but that's more of a temporary fix.
- asdasf 13y ago
  NetBSD could easily start using OpenBSDs pkg_tools to solve that problem.
  - noselasd 13y ago
    How's it different from the pkgsrc tools coupled with the binary packages supplied by NetBSD (e.g. here http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/ http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/)
    - asdasf 13y ago
      OpenBSD's pkg_tools handle dependencies correctly, allowing you to do things like upgrade packages, dependencies, etc. It provides the same level of experience as apt.
fiorix 13y ago
What a horrible web site!

73 points by justincormack 13y ago

"EdgeBSD is primarily hosted in Germany, Europe." I expect to see that a lot more in the future. It's pretty much saying "EdgeBSD is not primarily hosted in the USA."

koralatov 13y ago
I agree, but I dislike the use of the qualifier `primarily'.
davidjgraph 13y ago
No, I'm pretty sure it's just saying that it's hosted in the Germany... Our primary company servers are hosted in Germany, because that gives the lowest overall latency for the locations of our employees, maybe it's just a similar technical reason? And it's so slow that I suspect it's running from someone's bedroom, anyway.
davidw 13y ago
Yes, I think hosting open source projects outside the US is eminently sensible; it would be terrible if organizations like the NSA were able to go through every single commit on the project, see who did it, and what they changed.
- pekru 13y ago
  What's stopping NSA from scanning http://git.edgebsd.org http://git.edgebsd.org ?
  - rpsw 13y ago
    The GP was being sarcastic. The need for privacy would be small on a project that is open by it's very nature.
    - laumars 13y ago
      True, but there's also the argument of patents (eg how DVD decoding libraries cannot be shipped from US-based Linux distros)
shin_lao 13y ago
For us Europeans knowing servers are hosted in an European country has got everything to do with latency and nothing to do with some sort of anti-americanism.
- harrytuttle 13y ago
  Actually in our case, it's for compliance and confidence purposes and hatred of American politics and government policy, not the American people. Not one single company in the financial sector in the UK wants their kit anywhere near the US or in any datacentres with US ownership any more simply because of the PATRIOT act and PRISM etc. We just moved 2 tonnes of kit into a wholly UK owned DC away from two large primarily US based DC's. We've also cancelled our Amazon S3 storage option and migrated over 540Gb of data back to our kit. People have paid for all this voluntarily because being responsble for being fucked over by the US government is a big concern. Would you want all your mortgage, insurance and credit scoring data in the hands of a foreign government who religiously ignore data protection laws?
  - liljimmytables 13y ago
    This is certainly the case for businesses with proprietary data, for an open-source community like we're discussing it's just another (admittedly rather useless) online backup service :)
    - harrytuttle 13y ago
      Until someone things it's ok to meddle with your infrastructure and codebase without a warrant...
      - bdunbar 13y ago
        If you think only the US is capable of these kind of shenanigans you have another think coming.
        13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

jacques_chester 13y ago

The page source gives no hint of the source of the slowness, but curl -I reports it's Apache running PHP. So I'm going to guess it's mod_php in standard forking mode, fruitfully multiplying.

koralatov 13y ago
That's maybe why I can't even load it. I thought perhaps it was my work proxy.
jlebrech 13y ago
no varnish?

rwmj 13y ago

Will it have a proper packaging system?

justincormack 13y ago
It says pkgsrc. Do you consider that proper?
bch 13y ago
It's using pkgsrc, which is excellent source-based package management (I prefer it over FreeBSD ports myself; it feels less brittle). The biggest changes over NetBSD for this NetBSD-derived OS are using git for source control (versus CVS of NetBSD), and by default turning on options like disk encryption. I had a brief discussion with the principle driver of this, and it sounds to me like this is all based in technical pursuits, and not (as mentioned above), hosted in Germany and enabling encryption as an NSA reaction, or anything like that.
asdasf 13y ago
Nope, just pkgsrc.

elktea 13y ago

Finally got it to load. From the site, for those who can't: EdgeBSD is a new member of the family of BSD-based Operating Systems, starting development with the current NetBSD codebase with Git for Source Code Management. Package management is based on pkgsrc. Objectives The primary goal of EdgeBSD is to provide an ambitious environment for working as a bigger community together on the NetBSD Project. This will be achieved thanks to a more modern development infrastructure, while taking a more aggressive stance on integrating and enabling features. Ultimately, EdgeBSD should be just as fun and attractive as a Research & Development platform while delivering a modern, robust, and industrial-grade system for all ranges of computer devices. First steps The preliminary plan looks as follows: * existing features will simply be enabled and used by default (SSP, ASLR, modular kernels and Xorg, full disk encryption, securelevel...); * a release with these features will be delivered, based on the latest stable NetBSD branch. Every meaningful contribution will be proposed back to the NetBSD Project. Longer term EdgeBSD should be as attractive a platform as possible, and use the advantages of its existing codebase to experiment on being a modern, safe, and portable Operating System. This vision currently includes: * advanced facilities for developers (patch management, build environments...); * re-organization of the base system (Git submodules, packages...); * a graphical installer; * modern package management (signed packages...); * alternatives to Xorg and default desktop environment; * ready-to-flash images for embedded devices; * virtualization of most components with the RUMP anykernel. Community EdgeBSD users and developers can be found on the #EdgeBSD channel on the freenode IRC network. A web interface for the Git development trees can be found at git.edgebsd.org. More services are being brought up and will be provided soon (mailing-lists, wiki...). Hosting EdgeBSD is primarily hosted in Germany, Europe.

nwh 13y ago

Seems to be crippling under the load, here's a mirror — http://archive.is/yTdHm http://archive.is/yTdHm

raimue 13y ago

What I don't like about the approach is that they announce to prominently use git as a modern DVCS, which is not BSD software. I would rather see improvements in the existing BSD-licensed VCS. Currently, the only candidate under active development would be http://fossil-scm.org/ http://fossil-scm.org/. Or heck, maybe even start an initiative for a DVCS implementation under a BSD license that is able to work with the git protocol. This could even use the git disk format, so you can still use git in parallel until it's feature complete.

davvid 13y ago
Users don't want to learn yet another fossil scm; Git is ubiquitous. It seems like a wasted effort to reimplement Git just because of its license. libgit2 exists and has been making steady progress, and its license is permissive enough.
- bch 13y ago
  I can't speak for "users", but fossil is an absolute joy to use, easy to pick up, and has features that I'm not aware of in any other SCM (hello, built-in first-class tickets). libgit2 has been "making progress" for a long time -- it's barely used in github (it's one or two little features of libgit that are harnessed internally, according to the githubber I talked to at a meetup), and, without trying to insult the developers/development, I seems more accurate to say libgit is "plodding along slowly". With "critical mass" as one of gits features, this is sort of surprising. I suspect it speaks to the complexity of git, but I'm not positive.
- raimue 13y ago
  With this argumentation you could also say it's wasted effort to implement a BSD kernel because Linux exists. Thanks for the pointer to libgit2.
heidar 13y ago
Isn't OpenCVS being worked on too? I don't think it's decentralized though.

Nux 13y ago

For a moment there my heart stopped in the hope this new project will bring the one thing I've been missing the most: decent binary package management. Alas, no.

elktea 13y ago
How's FreeBSD's pkgng these days?
- alcari 13y ago
  See [1] for an explanation of why pkgng isn't useful, especially the April 30th update: "...Port managers are currently working on introducing new-style (as known as "pkgng") binary packages in the coming months, please check the FreeBSD ports announcements list for further gradual status updates." [1]: http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html http://www.freebsd.org/news/2012-compromise.html
- Wilya 13y ago
  It works fine, but there's still no official repository. Maintaining your own or using a third party is possible, but that's more of a temporary fix.
asdasf 13y ago
NetBSD could easily start using OpenBSDs pkg_tools to solve that problem.
- noselasd 13y ago
  How's it different from the pkgsrc tools coupled with the binary packages supplied by NetBSD (e.g. here http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/ http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/)
  - asdasf 13y ago
    OpenBSD's pkg_tools handle dependencies correctly, allowing you to do things like upgrade packages, dependencies, etc. It provides the same level of experience as apt.

fiorix 13y ago

What a horrible web site!