116 lines
4.6 KiB
Text
116 lines
4.6 KiB
Text
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN" [
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<!ENTITY date "$FreeBSD: www/en/features.sgml,v 1.12 1999/09/06 07:02:37 peter Exp $">
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<!ENTITY title "About FreeBSD's Technological Advances">
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<!ENTITY % includes SYSTEM "includes.sgml"> %includes;
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]>
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<!-- $FreeBSD: www/en/features.sgml,v 1.12 1999/09/06 07:02:37 peter Exp $ -->
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<html>
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&header;
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<h1>FreeBSD offers many advanced features.</h1>
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<blockquote>
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<p>No matter what the application, you want your system's resources
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performing at their full potential. FreeBSD's advanced features
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enable you to do just that.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<hr align="left" noshade="noshade" width="100%"><font
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color="#FF0000"><font size="+1">A complete operating system based on
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4.4BSD.</font></font>
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<blockquote>
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<p>FreeBSD's distinguished roots derive from the latest <b>BSD</b>
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software releases from the Computer Systems Research Group at the
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University of California, Berkeley. The book <i>The Design and
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Implementation of 4.4BSD Operating System</i>, written by the 4.4BSD
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system architects, thus describes much of FreeBSD's core functionality
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in detail.</p>
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<p>Drawing on the skills and experience of a diverse and world-wide
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group of volunteer developers, the FreeBSD Project has worked to
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extend the feature set of the 4.4BSD operating system in many ways,
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striving constantly to make each new release of the OS more stable,
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faster and containing new functionality driven by user requests.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<hr align="left" noshade="noshade" width="100%"><font
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color="#FF0000"><font size="+1">FreeBSD provides higher performance,
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greater compatibility with other operating systems and less system
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administration.</font></font>
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<blockquote>
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<p>FreeBSD's developers attacked some of the more difficult problems in
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operating systems design to give you these advanced features:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><b>Bounce buffering</b> gets around a limitation in the PC's ISA
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architecture that limits direct-memory access to the first 16
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megabytes.
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<p><i>Result:</i> systems with more than 16 megabytes operate more
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efficiently with DMA peripherals on the ISA bus.</p></li>
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<li><b>A merged virtual memory and filesystem buffer cache</b>
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continuously tunes the amount of memory used for programs and the
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disk cache.<p><i>Result:</i> programs receive both excellent memory
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management and high performance disk access, and the system
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administrator is freed from the task of tuning cache sizes.</p></li>
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<li><b>Compatibility modules</b> enable programs for other operating
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systems to run on FreeBSD, including programs for Linux, SCO,
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NetBSD, and BSDI.
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<p><i>Result:</i> users will not have to recompile programs
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already compiled for one of the compatible OS's, and will have
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access to a greater selection of off-the-shelf software, like the
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<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/FrontPage/">Microsoft FrontPage
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Server</a> extensions for BSDI or <a
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href="http://linux.corel.com/linux8/index.htm">WordPerfect</a>
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for SCO.</p></li>
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<li><b>Dynamically loadable kernel modules</b> allows new filesystem
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types, networking protocols or binary emulators to be added to the
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kernel at runtime without having to generate a new kernel image.
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<p><i>Result:</i> Much time can be saved and 3rd party vendors can
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deliver complete subsystems as kernel modules without having to
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distribute source or have lengthy installation procedures.</p></li>
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<li><b>Shared libraries</b> reduce the size of programs, saving disk
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space and memory. FreeBSD uses an advanced shared library scheme
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which offers many of the advantages of ELF, and the current version
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offers ELF compatibility for both Linux and native FreeBSD
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programs.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>Naturally, since FreeBSD is an ongoing effort, you can expect newer
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features and higher levels of stability with each release.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<h2>What experts have to say . . .</h2>
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<blockquote>
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<p><i>``FreeBSD has an outline-structured visual configuration editor
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... you can enter the configuration of every device the OS supports
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and can therefore get a successful installation on the first try
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almost every time. IBM, Microsoft, and others would do well to
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emulate FreeBSD's approach.''</i></p>
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<div align="right"><p>---Brett Glass, <i>Infoworld</i>, April 8
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1996.</p></div>
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</blockquote>
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&footer;
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</body>
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</html>
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