Questions about FreeBSD Versions

[culverk at yumyumyum.org]

Quoting "Leonard, Harry" <Harry.Leonard at az.ngb.army.mil>:

> Hello FreeBSD,
>
> My name is Harry Leonard and I'm very interested in using FreeBSD.  I work
> in a small shop, outside of Flagstaff, Arizona for the State of Arizona, in
> a half Microsoft, half open source environment.  I'm the resident programmer
> and I've used Perl/PHP/MySQL here for almost four years.  My boss has set up
> servers running OpenBSD and I get to use them creating our website and
> running intranet applications.  My problem now is that my boss is in Iraq
> and we're in need of a new server or two.
>
> I've researched the subject and have found myself getting a little squeamish
> with the thought of installing/tweaking an OpenBSD box.  FreeBSD seemed like
> the next viable option and I did get a thumbs up from my boss.  I also saw a
> segment on TechTv's Screen Savers which gave me the confidence that I could
> pull this off.  I started looking at versions and decided to purchase the
> latest and greatest.
>
> I bought the four disk set of FreeBSD 5.0 w/ the handbook and thought I was
> on a roll.  Surely, I installed it several times before I got it right and
> then I began to run into problems and loose some confidence.  My problems
> started with the installation of Apache.  I'm going back after it today
> though and I hope that I'll have some success.  Yes, I am a newbie but a
> driven one.  I very much want to have two FreeBSD boxes in-house and I am a
> hard one to quit.  I did quit on FreeBSD 5.0 though and I also think this is
> where my troubles really began.
>
> I figured that I would do some more reading and found that 5.0 might not be
> the best version for newbie's (in cases of trouble).  So, I figured that I
> would go to FreeBSD 5.1.  A newer version shouldn't hurt huh?  Well, I think
> something went awry in the download and I never got this version to work
> correctly for me either.  Well, now I'm figuring that I'll just move
> backwards to FreeBSD 4.8 Stable and this will just alleviate all my
> problems.  This has not worked yet for me either and my confidence is
> further eroding.  But, my tenacity is still in there and I'd rather go down
> in flames than let my office mate turn this office into a full Microsoft
> shop and me running Apache/PHP/MySQL on an IIS box.  My boss expressed his
> dismay of this happening and I told him I would not let him down.  Newbie I
> may be but I'm not a quitter.
>
> This email is about:  Which version of FreeBSD should I be using for
> production?  I need to set up an in-house web server for our website and
> another box for my few intranet applications.  In the near future I might
> have the opportunity to create a firewall box and I really need to get on
> top of things.  Today, I'll go back to FreeBSD 5.0 (which I've had the most
> success with) and read the errata over again and make sure there's nothing
> that I'm missing.  I'd appreciate it if you could give me a stamp of
> approval on which version I can/should use for my small production needs.
> Sorry, if I've gotten a little windy with my explanation but I wanted to
> give you some background.  I also Thank You for reading this email and for
> any help that you can provide me in this matter.  Please let me know what
> you think?
>
Most likely you should use FreeBSD 4.8-STABLE for any kind of production server.
I run FreeBSD 5.x-CURRENT on all of my machines without a problem (with apache,
mysql, php, etc...) but I still don't recommend that people do that.

What kind of problems are you having? I doubt that your problems are FreeBSD
specific... they are probably more specific to the server apps you are running
(apache, etc...).

Ken