Did anyone install 5.4 yet?

Opinions?
New stuff?

I haven't installed it, per-say, but I have been running a 5.4 system for the last couple of days. I also followed the RC versions of it... so any change was gradual enough that I didn't notice.

It works fine for me.

I installed it. The installation went smoothly and I have not had any problems running it. I have not really noticed anything new.

Good to know everything is running smooth!


but whats the point of a new release without snazzy new toys and looks?

If you are interested in what new feature there are, you can read the release notes: http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.4R/relnotes-i386.html

Releases aren't about new features and toys. Although they usually include new features. But the main reason is improved functionality... which obeys the law of least surprise. That law being that all changes should surprise the end-user as little as possible -- if at all. As a person who has been tracking FreeBSD since the days of 3.4, I can say that although there have been sweeping changes and new features, it still feels like the same system.

There's good reason to enjoy stability like that... at least for end users and developers.

Anyway, on the userland side, you have KDE 3.4, firefox-1.0 and so on... basically everything which has been improved since the 5.3 release.

I have used bsd since the 4 days and the most shocking advance to me was the last release when I loaded it up and my labtop with a docking station all of a sudden automatically had an internet connection with Wirless with 0 configuration!!!!!!! That however was a very good surprise and violated the rules of lease surprise.

yea I will give a look at the realease notes but they are not always as good as hearing the opinions of those who are using the newest os since everyone uses different features everyone has a diff experience

Well I probably didn't notice all the new stuff because I had been using the 5.4 testing releases.

I'm using 5.4.
The Linux boxes aren't getting as much use these days.
Stable as Unix. Fast as XP. All the software needed for a normal user. Package add system second to none. 900 page handbook. Great hardware detection. Sound support, 802.11 support out of the box. Great config tool sysinstall. This is what I was looking for. A stable, fast, secure box for internet usage that doesn't stall frequently and need an ifdown, ifup, or close all browser windows and relaunch to get the lead out all of the time.

The only problem I've had with 5.4 is the version of Firefox thats in the tree for it 1.0.3. It's a little unstable and crash prone. Minor problem, I didn't know that konqueror could perform so well. In fact I've never seen KDE launch and run so rapidly.

I was looking for hdparm, couldn't find it. I found atacontrol for that.

I know that you were talking about comparison to previous FreeBSB versions, but it's a fairly smooth transition for a Linux user also.

I have been using it since the RC, i made a backup from my 5.3 installed. i cvsuped my sources 2 days ago to be up 2 date with the 5.4 release.
From 5.3 nothing has changed a lot as my software, hardware hasn't changed. It is as fast and as stable.
I am more interrested in packages/ports than releases. I upgraded because i had time to do it, i am not overexcited about 5.4 though... :-)

My version of Firefox works fine, but I have noticed that if I try and play real media files using linuxplugin-wrapper firefox and mozilla both crash. I am not sure about Konqueror or Epiphany since I don't have those installed.

I agree that freebsd is alot more stable and easier to configure then linux due to support with everything but one problem I have always had with BSD is I never end up getting java or netbeans to work properly in it