FreeBSD problems and preliminary ways to solve
Robert Watson
rwatson at FreeBSD.org
Fri Aug 19 18:49:38 UTC 2011
On Fri, 19 Aug 2011, Gary Palmer wrote:
> I think we need to refocus on what would give the most benefit. At least
> as far as I can see:
>
> - port/package management: most users would benefit
Definitely -- and there's active work going on here that is very exciting
indeed.
> - improved virtualisation support: a lot of users would benefit
This is an area of very active work as well, although I'd like to see more
going on. In particular, I'd like to see (a) significantly more mature Xen
HVM PV driver support -- and the ability to load them on a GENERIC kernel so
we don't break freebsd-update kernel updates by requiring custom kernels, and
(b) bHyve to be fleshed out, including support for suspend/resume and
migration. Cambridge may be able to help with non-i386/amd64 virtualisation;
I have a local TODO item relating to MIPS virtualisation, for example.
> - improved driver support: a lot of users would benefit
For server/appliance-centric devices, we're going quite well. For consumer
devices, less so. However, it's generally the case that things have
dramatically improved in the last ten years: companies come to us with drivers
now, asking how to get them merged, and frequently their developers get commit
bits and maintain them in-tree even. Compare this to 2000 when we had hacked
up Intel device drivers, and other than Adaptec, almost no storage vendors
closely involved in the project.
> - KMS/GEM for better graphics card support: a lot of users would benefit
The FreeBSD Foundation recently funded work on precisely this; it hasn't quite
made 9.0, but for Intel driver stuff it should make it for 9.1. Maybe Kostik
can say more about this.
Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge
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