Free Software With Free Source Code

Index of External Links To Free Software

Local On Site/Page Index

• Escape Microsoft !
• Is Free Unix Good For Everyone ?
• Apologies - Page is ragged below here.
• The BSDs are similar FREE Unix Operating Systems, with some or all of:
• FreeBSD: The Unix system Julian H. Stacey prefers.
• Further Reading

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Escape Microsoft ! - Here's How

Notes

• Magicpoint is great for a Unix person familiar with a text editor, to create presentations, but doesn't have a click & fumble composer tool.
• For click & fumble, try OpenOffice.
• OpenOffice is better at importing Microsoft's proprietary file formats . [than KDE Office] It can automatically read MS Word mail eg from Exmh via Metamail (slow to start of course as Big), .
• OpenOffice Impress is extremely compatible with MS PowerPoint, including the audio, wipes and other "frills" .
  Open Impress is part of Open Office

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Is Free Unix Good For Everyone ?

• UNIX is not best choice for lazy technophobes- ;-).
• Many rather clueless people pay Microsoft very heavily to support a dumb click & fumble approach. Some then feel sick when asking BSD users : "What, yours is Free, with No viruses & No crashes ? How come we pay for crashes & virus infections ?"
• BSD requires no purchase price, just that users be prepared to sometimes read documentation & attempt to think logically.
• Ported packages, tens of thousands of packages inc. many window managers gives a wide choice of desktops, (but perhaps not all classes of computer users would benefit from BSD, (neither would BSD benefit from everything being dumbed down for a minority of hopeless losers. MickeySoft Inc is welcome to keep the most incompetent users).
• If you don't know much about Unix:
  • "Introduction to Unix" Course notes by Frank G. Fiamingo, Linda DeBula, and Linda Condron updated by Rob Funk
    Copy @ 2009.06.04: Host not found: Dead Link http:// 8help.osu.edu/ wks/ unix_course/ intro-1.html
    Dead link: http:// wks.uts.ohio-state.edu/ unix_course/ unix.html
    Or use a search engine for others & similar.
  • http://www.sharefile.com/ content/ common-unix-commands.aspx
• Ask a friend for a demo. There's lots of user groups round the world. We have a BSD group in Munich

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Apologies - Page is ragged below here, needs sorting later.

• NetBSD LiveKey "a non-destructive NetBSD/i386 on USB stick. It is composed of a tarball or zipfile to be uncompressed on an USB key without changing the original Filesystem (usually VFAT). You will probably need about 256MB RAM to run the key smoothly."
• www.freesbie.org /bootable_freesbie_dvd/FreeSBIE-2.0.1-RELEASE.iso Live CD based on FreeBSD-? based on FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE
• www.rofreesbie.org Live DVD 1.2 Release based on FreeBSD 6.1.

No one pays me to make this a perfect page, so dig about. Or if you want my professional advice you'r welcome to purchase the necessary time from

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The BSDs are similar FREE Unix Operating Systems, with some or all of:

• tens of thousands of packages
• Full free binary & source code,
• Running on PCs + Alpha Amiga Arm32 Atari Hp300 Mac x68k PC532 Pmax Sparc Sun3 & Vax,
• Dead Link http://www.hcs.de/users/hm/isdn4bsd/ & modem & sound support,
• Commercial packages available, such as Word Perfect [Domain exists but host name does not ftp.wordperfect.com] Dead Link ftp:// ftp .wordperfect .com /pub /wpapps /unix /wp60 /demos /sco /static /x11 /split / (35M) & Starwriter.

FREE ! So shops etc find it hard to add their commission, & many magazines are loath to give us fair comparison, as we pay them no advertising fees. That's why you don't hear us hyped as `Flavour of the year software' - because we take none of Your Money from you in license fees, to later spend on promoting our software back to you again.

STABLE: Just locally, some FreeBSD PC Unix server systems have been running here in Munich over a year. Can you say the same about your commercially purchased Microsoft servers ?
(FreeBSD has also confusingly used the word `stable' as a misnomer to describe a collection of CVS (Code Versioning System) source tags that provide for changing code based on a stable API (application Programming Interface) where first priority is Not stability (as in reliability. For maximum stability as in reliability, install a Release.)

HIGH PERFORMANCE: Some of the hardest working sites on the internet are FreeBSD powered, see freebsd.org for current examples inc. Yahoo etc

IT'S TIME TO INVESTIGATE THE BSDs &OR LINUX, IF:

• When you have a problem: You'r sufficiently computer literate, & can overcome inherent laziness, & not just desperately mouse click yourself into a stupor & give up, or whine about user unfriendly software .... but are actually prepared to occasionally educate yourself, & read & understand a manual.
• If you want to take more control over your computer, & escape from a world of expensive commercial licences, bootleggers, and binaries that can't be checked against public sources for viruses.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE A PROGRAMMER Many people merely use it, & contribute no money or effort in return, but if you prefer to help, now or later, you'r welcome to contribute time creating or translating docs. & web info, or giving / lending / purchasing new hardware for the development teams. Contributing programmers are of course particularly welcome.

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FreeBSD: The Unix system Julian H. Stacey prefers.

• Overview
  • My view:
    A `Unix' like computer operating system (with X-Windows, KDE etc) with an ever growing collection of tens of thousands of ported packages ), & Sources - Free ! Some commercial packages are also available, some (such as Word-Perfect) running on emulators, some native compiled. Ideal for Internet servers etc. On Intel type PCs, Alphas, & a few other computer CPU types.
  • Overview by jcamou@freebsd
  • Official view : FreeBSD web sites:
    • Main site
    • German language equivalent: http://www.freebsd.org/de/

• Labels for CDROMs
  • Mine
  • http://www.wolldingwacht.de/ foss/ freebsd/ cdrom-artwork/
• The ported packages are mostly free, & well integrated in the ports/ system (also now adopted by OpenBSD). A current Ftp'able Index file is probably at ftp.freebsd.org. There's an index at www.freebsd.org/ports/. Also try freshports.org for daily ports info updates.
• My Source Code
  Enhancements & patches, not yet integrated in current generic FreeBSD source code.
• On Line Handbook & FAQ (Frequently Answered Questions)
• Books listed further down this page.
• www.freebsd.org/publish.html main page reference
• FTP Available
• .Release Numbers & Dates A continuous stream of releases from November 1993 onward.
• Some CD collections
  • Wind River (Ex BSDi (ex Walnut Creek)) USA: sales @@ cdrom.com http://www.bsdi.com 4041 Pike Lane, Ste F, Concord, CA 94520. Tel +1.925.674.0783 Fax +1.925.674.0821 Their 4.2-Release 4 CD pack (ISBN 1-57176-286-8 & 7 47851-02324 5, includes many ported packages. They haven't been including distfiles since end of version 3 (there's too many to fit!). They include 270M CVS & 65M of commercial demos etc. They also offer a 6 CD power pack, a DVD, a 1 CD Applixware Office for FreeBSD, T shirts, badges, stuffed BSD daemon toys etc, & global support contracts. Big donors assisting FreeBSD. Have a look at their site. 4.3 also available still 4 CDs.
  • Lehmanns Fachbuchhandlung, Berlin, Germany. bestellung @@ jf-lehmanns.de http://www.lehmanns.de Tel +49.30.6179110 FreeBSD 4.2 Edition. January 2001, 4 CD-ROMs. ISBN 3-931253-72-4. More German READMEs I believe (but English remains too). 5 CD pack 4.3 available.
  • DVDs available from
    • http://www.freebsdmall.com Mail $40
    Ltd
• Other Info:
  • Dead link http :// www .ictp .trieste .it /~ cfonda /sudan /OSs /references /kirch Unix Comparison with NT
  • C Programming You've got C, C++ gdb xxgdb as you'd' expect, free.
    • GDB 5.0 was released May 2000 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/ gnu/ gdb Dead Link ftp :// sourceware .cygnus .com /pub /gdb /releases
  • Laptop (& Other) Compatibility
  • • Compatibility Tables
      • Note these are largely lists of laptops once reported working. In some cases a newer version doesn't work [yet], or laptop dead or sold or given up on etc.
      • UNLINKED AS DOMAIN SINCE SOLD: "http://laptop.bsdgroup.de/freebsd/" 1474 laptops @ 2013.07.18
      • http://tuxmobil.org/mobile_bsd.html
      • http://wiki.netbsd.org/laptops
      • http://www.reedmedia.net/misc/netbsd/laptops-and-netbsd.html
    • Some old laptops don't work with newest FreeBSD.
    • I don't think freebsd.org ever compiled a full database of all hardware components for towers, servers, etc, just lots of advice to see Rel Notes etc. But there's various helpful bits here: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/search.cgi?max=25&source=www&words=hardware+compatibility&submit=Search
    • Dead Link http :// bsdstats .org /bt /devices .html ?os =FreeBSD
      http://bsdstats.org Lots of lists of devices, albeit no indication who filed report, unlike laptop indices.
• Consultants are listed here.
• Contributions & changes to the src/ tree are fairly tightly coordinated by a core team.
• Mail Lists cover many different aspects.
• Web SVN Interface
• Browsers include: Arena, Ashe, Chimera, Grail, Lynx, Mmm, Mosaic, Netscape. They are all installed at my site.
• AppleShare servers Dead Link http://www.imforei.apana.org.au/freebsd/freebsd+cap/ How to get the CAP (Columbia AppleTalk Package) working well under FreeBSD. Of use to other FreeBSD users that want to use their FreeBSD machines as AppleShare servers. (by Dead Link mailto :pjchilds_ERASE @imforei .apana .org .au No MX mail host for imforei.apana.org.au found - Peter Childs
• Security Fixes: ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/ pub/ CERT/ patches/ SA-96:11
• Security Sweep of Sources: Click Here
• http://www.closedbsd.org if you need to throw a NATBox together in about 30 seconds from a floppy.
• http://thewall.sf.net theWall is a single floppy firewall and NAT box based on PicoBSD/FreeBSD 4.5
• Firewall Toolkit Checklist http://www.strydr.com/ misc/ checklists/ fwtkchk.html
• HOWTO about wireless networking and FreeBSD
• PXE ethernet boot
• Motif/ Lesstif The X-Windows supplementary programming library Motif 2.1.10 is available from http://www.apps2go.com, The ports tree contains the free Lesstif. (I use a more recent version).
• Performance - If it's fast enough for Internet site ftp.freebsd.com It's almost certainly fast enough for you ! Here's a cut from the welcome message June 1999:
  • Welcome to wcarchive - home FTP site for Walnut Creek CDROM. There are currently 4746 users out of 6000 possible.
  • This machine is a Xeon/500 with 4GB of memory & 1/2 terabyte of RAID 5. The operating system is FreeBSD.
  • 100Mbps colocation services provided by CRL Network Services
• Commercial support is available - ask Julian H. Stacey who maintains a geographically ordered world wide list of consultants.
• Although no proprietary commercial code remains, it's derivation could be approximated as:
  Unix V7 ==> Unix UCB/BSD 4.3 ==> 386BSD (Jollitz) + 4.4BSD ==> FreeBSD
• FreeBSD MallFor T shirts, CDs Books etc brought to you by Wind River from www.windriver.com/ products/ html/ free_bsd.html
• A small 486 for embedded
• Developer Sponsorship
• Drawbacks To FreeBSD ?
  • Yes there are a few, despite FreeBSD is great, nothing in life is perfect. so perhaps it will lend more credibility to also admit some FreeBSD drawbacks:
  • Sometimes code butchers hack out old code from src/ without enough warning. If there's enough clamour & push back, sometimes it gets rescued & moved to ports/
  • Security Announcements come batched in Floods
    • Years before 2026 I complained to security-officer@freebsd.org when they adopted their daft change, from no longer simply issuing combined announcement of each vulnerability & mitigation patch on a per issue basis when ready.
    • They changed to instead delaying announcements to batches, which periodically floods dmins with lots of simultaneous published. sp all suddenly urgent issues, all demanding sequential time of a systems administrator to fix on all servers, overwhelming other real time commitments of recipient admin.
    • security-officer@freebsd.org might think it looks good for PR (Public Relations) for FreeBSD & / or also profiles their CVs as security management; but it is immature Mis-Management, not just wasting their own time, but Reduces the security of live FreeBSD systems, by both lengthening the period between vulnerability discovery to mitigiation announcement, plus the flood security-officer@freebsd.org causes. extends the exposed period, between announcement folld & when admins can find enough time to apply all fixes to all live systems, to the exclusion of all other work,
    • Imagine if other OS were equally as stupid as FreeBSD, sending delayed periodic floods: If floods happene to chronologically collide with floods from another software supplier equaly as foolish ? Or just imagine sys admins receiving a pointless flood when they are already dealing with some other urgent emergency. Fools construct floods. Sensible businesses plan for even flows. security-officer@freebsd.org announcement batching damages business based on FreeBSD.
    • Example of last (@ 2026-05) of 2 of many floods:
      From: FreeBSD Security Advisories <security-advisories@freebsd.org>
      To: FreeBSD Security Advisories <security-advisories@freebsd.org>
      First of flood of 6 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:40:58 +0000 (UTC) (20:40 CEST)
      Last of flood of 6 Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:46:09 +0000 (UTC) (20:46 CEST)
      First of flood of 8 Wed, 20 May 2026 22:23:36 +0000 (UTC) (Thu 00:23 CEST)
      Last of flood of 8 Wed, 20 May 2026 22:24:17 +0000 (UTC) (Thu 00:24 CEST)

Coms Monitoring Software

      On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 01:23:27PM -0500, Alex Stade wrote:
      > Thanks to all who replied. I received 26 replies, so I am opting to not
      > list your names - but thank you all!
      >
      > Overwhelmingly, Nagios is recommended for monitoring and notification.
      > For trend analysis about 60% of you recommend Cacti. Very few suggested
      > commercial solutions, which to me suggests that there really isn't much
      > good software out there for sale.
      >
      > We're already using Nagios in-house, so we'll look at keeping it around.
      >   However, the suggestion of Cacti was great, so we'll certainly look at
      > that as well.
      >
      > The software packages that you mentioned were;
      >
      > Nagios, http://www.nagios.org
      > Cacti, http://www.cacti.net
      > Big Brother, http://www.bb4.org, http://www.bb4.com
      > Big Sister, http://bigsister.sourceforge.net
      > Zabbix, http://www.zabbix.com
      > Cricket, http://cricket.sourceforge.net
      > ORCA, http://www.orcaware.com/orca
      > ProIT Monitoring, http://www.performanceit.com (sparc only)
      > Munin, http://munin.projects.linpro.no
      > GroundWork Monitor, http://www.groundworkopensource.com
      > Lund MetaView, http://www.lund.com
      > OpenNMS, http://www.opennms.org
      >
      > Again, thank you all and if I neglected to mention a software package or
      >   seemingly omitted your advice, I apologise.
      >
      > -Alex
      > _
      > sunmanagers mailing list
      > sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org
      > http://www.sunmanagers.org/mailman/listinfo/sunmanagers

Other Operating Systems

Like all free operating systems, without commercial constraints to hinder technology transfer, FreeBSD shares its best parts with others, & copies good bits from others. Some developers even support their continuing developments on multiple operating systems. As a partial example FreeBSD includes some optional kernel modules & tools from the GNU collection of the FSF (Free Software Foundation) , some kernel (VM ?) code from Mach, some drivers & tools from NetBSD, & emulators from Linux

FreeBSD developers `Share & Enjoy' free source code with these operating systems :

• 386BSD: Our ancestral OS, itself based on BSD4.3.
  386BSD was an impressive achievement by Bill Jollitz, a CD-ROM was eventually released, but as what at least once appeared a largely one man project, I'm not sure how active 386BSD is, consult newsgroups comp.os.386bsd.* to find out.
• FreeBSD Very popular with Internet Service Providers in Germany & elsewhere.
• NetBSD has a similar initial BSD heritage to FreeBSD; NetBSD offers the BSD /usr/src tree ported to a wide variety of hardware (not just Intel 86 type hardware), NetBSD doesn't offer the wide range of ported packages that FreeBSD does. There are other differences, but many similarities too, as both are BSD 4.4 derivatives. Their strong point is that NetBSD supports lots of architectures (50 or so I think, end of 2004). Their CVS tree has finally been released too. (FreeBSD & OpenBSD have always had their CVS available)
  • Web archives of NetBSD mailing lists
  • CDROM images of bulk binary packages Dead Link ftp :// ftp .netbsd .org /pub /NetBSD /misc /iso / Try: ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/
  • Individual binary packages
  • Cdroms & support etc from commercial company wasabi NetBSD 1.5 2 CD $25 1.2000, 3 CD $40
• OpenBSD is an offshoot from NetBSD. I heard CVS write access is (or was ?) not restricted.
• Linux is rather less similar, essentially a Unix rewrite from scratch, not to BSD norms, supposedly more of a System-5 flavour, (written by Linus Torvalds with about 8 subsequent variants). Very popular in Germany with end users, due to the vendors of 30 pack floppies, in the pre cdrom era.
  Free Software Foundation's Richard Stallman states Linux comprises a kernel from Linus Torvalds, & Dead Link: http://www.fsf.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html http://www.fsf.org/ various programs from elsewhere, the largest percentage being from FSF
• Mach: Supports a micro kernel & multiple servers, including a Unix Server.
• Hurd: The kernel-in-progress from the Free Software Foundation Don't know if this didn't get obviated by Linux ?

• Dead Link http://www.bsdi.com/ BSD/OS 4.4BSD with Commercial vendor support Old name: BSD386.
• Dead Link http :// www . bsdi . com BSD/OS 3.1 (@ 10.1999) A commercial BSD.
• SCO binaries are available free for Dead link "http://www3.sco.com/ Products/ openind.html" personal non commercial use.
  It's not BSD, & source is not available, but Santa Cruz give away SCO Unix binaries for non commercial use. A CD version costs $20. The free licence is/was via Dead Link "http://www3.sco.com/ Company/ Announce/ p081996e.htm">http://www3.sco.com/ Company/ Announce/ p081996e.htm
  Having given them a free plug, I feel it fair to also note that though SCO is the market leader in PC binary Unix sales, It's Unix base version is the oldest, merely with new extensions on top, & it's more time consuming to program on than other Unixes, & without the free Skunkware additional CD, it's horrible, when coming from a rich free source environment.

  They've also now got a bad name in the free software community. Impression is they're becoming a firm of solicitors & patent lawyers, with less interest in programming.

• Sun Solaris Free
  Was announced May 1997, for personal use I think, $100 copying charge or free with other orders. (A USA initiative I believe, no Sun staff I know of here in Munich seems to have heard of it.) No source include. I've read posts referring to papers saying Solaris is OK under light load, but that FreeBSD performs much better than Solaris under heavy load.
• Old PDP Unix Source Cheap ($100 or free for students)
  for V6, V7, PWB etc, from Dead Link http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au PDP Unix Preservation Society

Occasionally one encounters strident advocacy of Free Versus NetBSD, or Linux versus *-BSD etc: they're all good, a delight to have free source for, & from an X-Windows users top level perspective, if you'r running an XDM + FVWM session, restricted to just Netscape & IRC, in an `Internet Cafe' environment, you won't even be able to tell which Op. Sys you are running !

BSD Related Systems

• Information on BSD 4.* and Dead Link http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/ BSD-info/ BSD.html BSD Related systems, especially the free flavours of BSD.
• Dead Link "http://www.leo.org/ pub/ comp/ os/ bsd/ cracauer/ netbsd-vs-freebsd.german.html" A comparison "Ein kleiner NetBSD / FreeBSD - Vergleich" German CT Magazin 1997, Heft (Volume) 4, Seite (Page) 368; by Andreas Klemm & Lars Koeller. also in German on CT(ref not checked) web site.
• Dead Link http :// www -wks .acs .ohio -state .edu /unix_course >Unix Training Course
• bsdapps.org Applications database for BSD Unix systems. This database has been generalised to include ALL Unix applications.

Dead Link http :// www .ictp .trieste .it /~ cfonda /sudan /OSs /references /kirch Unix Comparison with NT. In depth article with lots of URLs by John Kirch.

Dead Link http :// eros .cs .jhu .edu /~ shap /NT -EAL4 .html Understanding the Windows EAL4 Evaluation

• http://www.unixpower.org
• http://www.ugu.com for Unix System Administrators
• Dead Link: http :// www .msoe .edu /~ taylor /4ltrwrd / Beginners article http://www.msoe.edu/~taylor/4ltrwrd/

Projects

• OpenOffice sponsored by Sun, Logo for Star Office on front page.

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Further Reading

• BSD Web Magazines:
  • www.freebsdforums
  • Daemon News about all 3 BSDs: Free Net Open. Account disabled by server administrator. 2017-08-14
  • http://www.bsdnewsletter.com
  • http://www.freebsddiary.org @5/2000, after a quick look, despite the .org this seems to be a mix of light & medium weight articles owned a commercial company, worth a look though, decide for yourself, correct me if I'm wrong.
  • BSD Today Magazine
• Books
  • Book "The Complete FreeBSD" Author Greg Lehey 2nd Ed. 1700 pages, in English, (available in Germany for DM 59.9 inc. UPS postage from Lehmanns ISBN 1-57176-216-7. Price in Pele Dec. 2000: DM 166 inc 4.0 CDs (OpenBSD V2.7 2 CD set with no book was DM 98)

    An online version now available.

  • Book "FreeBSD: An Open-Source Operating System for Your Personal Computer, Second Edition (with CD-ROM)" Author Dead Link: mailto : andrsn_ERASE @andrsn .stanford .edu Annelise Anderson ISBN: 0971204519

    An online version now available as out of print Dead Link: http :// andrsn .stanford .edu /FreeBSD /introbook Dead Link: ftp :// andrsn .stanford .edu /pub /introbook .

  • BSD Buch In Deutsch: Dead Link: http ://w ww. de. uu. net/ shop/ JFL/ linux/ BSDbuch. html" BSD mit Methode">
  • freebsd.org/ doc/ en_US.ISO8859-1/ books/
• German 45 Pages: FreeBSD Die Ersten Schritte - K. Heuer
• The Unix Heritage Society
• General Magazines
  • Fresh Meat Magazine
  • Slash Dot Magazine
  • Tom's Hardware
• Index of RFC standards (on which the Internet is based).
• Software Patents Damage Society
• Next chunk belongs somewhere else & is just parked here for now, till I can figure where to park it & look into it.:

  Presentation File Format Alternatives
  PowerPoint contains     text, Bezier curves/Fills and simple animations.
  85%/MS
  Postscript can display  text, Bezier curves/Fills       3%/GSView
  Flash can display       text, Bezier curves/Fills and complex animations.
  98%/Browser
  Office Draw         text, Bezier curves/Fills and simple animations 15%/Office
  SVG can display     text, Bezier curves/Fills and complex animations.
  68%/Browser
     SVG is W3C and Open source and is stored as text. www.svg.org
  

• Dead Link: http :// m0n0 .ch /bsd / BSD embedded on flash. http://m0n0.ch 02/15/2015 After 12 years, the m0n0wall project has officially ended.

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• http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/android/
• http://www.berklix.com/~jhs/pi/