96 lines
4.1 KiB
Text
96 lines
4.1 KiB
Text
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN" [
|
|
<!ENTITY date "$Date: 1998-05-27 09:23:44 $">
|
|
<!ENTITY title "About FreeBSD's Technological Advances">
|
|
<!ENTITY % includes SYSTEM "includes.sgml"> %includes;
|
|
]>
|
|
<!-- $Id: features.sgml,v 1.6 1998-05-27 09:23:44 wosch Exp $ -->
|
|
|
|
<HTML>
|
|
&header;
|
|
|
|
<H1>FreeBSD offers many advanced features.</H1>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<P>No matter what the application, you want your system's resources performing
|
|
at their full potential. FreeBSD's advanced features enable you to do just
|
|
that.</P>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
|
|
<HR ALIGN=LEFT NOSHADE WIDTH="100%"><FONT COLOR="#FF0000"><FONT SIZE="+1">A
|
|
complete operating system based on 4.4BSD.</FONT></FONT>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<P>FreeBSD's distinguished roots derive from the latest <b>BSD</b>
|
|
software releases from the Computer Systems Research Group at the
|
|
University of California, Berkeley. The book <I>The Design and Implementation
|
|
of 4.4BSD Operating System</I>, written by the 4.4BSD system architects,
|
|
thus describes much of FreeBSD's core functionality in detail.</P>
|
|
|
|
<P>Drawing on the skills and experience of a diverse and world-wide group of
|
|
volunteer developers, the FreeBSD Project has worked to extend the
|
|
feature set of the 4.4BSD operating system in many ways, striving constantly
|
|
to make each new release of the OS more stable, faster and containing new
|
|
functionality driven by user requests.</P>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
|
|
<HR ALIGN=LEFT NOSHADE WIDTH="100%"><FONT COLOR="#FF0000"><FONT SIZE="+1">FreeBSD
|
|
provides higher performance, greater compatibility with other operating
|
|
systems and less system administration.</FONT></FONT>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<P>FreeBSD's developers attacked some of the more difficult problems in
|
|
operating systems design to give you these advanced features:</P>
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<LI><B>Bounce buffering</B> gets around a limitation in the PC's ISA architecture
|
|
that limits direct-memory access to the first 16 megabytes.<P><I>Result:</I>
|
|
systems with more than 16 megabytes operate more efficiently with DMA
|
|
peripherals on the ISA bus.</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI><B>A merged virtual memory and filesystem buffer cache</B>
|
|
continuously tunes the amount of memory used for programs and the disk
|
|
cache.<P><I>Result:</I> programs receive both excellent memory management
|
|
and high performance disk access,
|
|
and the system administrator is freed from the task of tuning cache sizes.</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI><B>Compatibility modules</B> enable programs for other operating systems
|
|
to run on FreeBSD, including programs for Linux, SCO, NetBSD, and BSDI.
|
|
<P><I>Result:</I> users will not have to recompile programs already compiled
|
|
for one of the compatible OS's, and will have access to a greater selection
|
|
of off-the-shelf software, like the
|
|
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/FrontPage/">Microsoft FrontPage Server</a>
|
|
extensions for BSDI or
|
|
<a href="http://www.corel.com/products/unix/wpunix/index.htm">WordPerfect</a>
|
|
for SCO.</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI><B>Dynamically loadable kernel modules</B> allows new filesystem types,
|
|
networking protocols or binary emulators to be added to the kernel at
|
|
runtime without having to generate a new kernel image. <P><I>Result:</I>
|
|
Much time can be saved and 3rd party vendors can deliver complete subsystems
|
|
as kernel modules without having to distribute source or have lengthy
|
|
installation procedures.</LI>
|
|
|
|
<LI><B>Shared libraries</B> reduce the size of programs, saving disk space
|
|
and memory. FreeBSD uses an advanced shared library scheme which offers
|
|
many of the advantages of ELF, and the current version offers ELF compatibility
|
|
for both Linux and native FreeBSD programs.</LI>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
<P>Naturally, since FreeBSD is an ongoing effort, you can expect newer
|
|
features and higher levels of stability with each release.</P>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
|
|
<H2>What experts have to say . . .</H2>
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
<P><I>``FreeBSD has an outline-structured visual configuration editor ...
|
|
you can enter the configuration of every device the OS supports and can
|
|
therefore get a successful installation on the first try almost every time.
|
|
IBM, Microsoft, and others would do well to emulate FreeBSD's approach.''</I></P>
|
|
|
|
<DIV ALIGN=right><P>---Brett Glass, <I>Infoworld</I>, April 8 1996.</P></DIV>
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
|
|
&footer;
|
|
</BODY>
|
|
</HTML>
|