The official release announcement should be coming later today or tomorrow. In the mean time, I recommend that people do NOT download ISO imagess and start installing, since you have no way of verifying the authenticity of said ISO images.
Upgrading via freebsd-update is perfectly fine, though -- those bits went up only after I received a GPG-signed email from the release engineer with the SHA256 hashes of the ISO images. :-)
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "viable", but the principle structural advantages FreeBSD has are:
1. FreeBSD has system libraries maintained together with the kernel, thereby reducing compatibility issues, and
2. FreeBSD provides stable ABIs and APIs, so if you build some code -- including kernel modules -- on 8.0, it will run without recompiling on future 8.x releases.
Depending on what you're doing, other factors such as the BSD license, the ports tree, and performance (FreeBSD and Linux each win in some areas and lose in others) may also be important considerations.
Like choosing Debian over Red Hat, or Solaris over Linux, some people just prefer the way it does things.
You can geek out on millisecond benchmark performance comparisons with FreeBSD vs certain Linux kernels, but really it comes down to preference.
I love its design and have been using it on all my servers (and often my home/dev/laptop) since 1998. But that's just me. No need to try to convince you to do the same.
That analogy is wrong. If you read what the other ones said, you will see that the 'linux is just a kernel' vs 'freebsd is a entire Operating System' is more correct. BSD provides the userland tools and thus supports the entire OS experience. Linux just makes the hardware available to the user.
This also depends on how one defines the word Operating System. I remember linus was stating in the documentary 'OS Revolution' that "your never supposed to see a operating system - no one never uses a operating system, people use programs, the operating system makes it easy for the programs to access the computers resources"
When I was first learning (recent switcher from various Linux distros to FreeBSD), I asked the same question.
The best answer I received was that FreeBSD isn't quite like Ubuntu vs RHEL vs Fedora vs Gentoo, etc. BSD is a more-direct descendant of UNIX and is an operating system, vs Linux, which is actually a Kernel. They are different philosophies, and solve slightly different problems. From a high-level "I just want to use an operating system", your basic interactions can be quite similar.
That said, some things I like about FreeBSD that I didn't like about my favorite Linux distro, RHEL:
1) Ports (you can install packages, too, but I don't like waiting for someone to build one for me to download)
2) Clean and well-organized
3) Phenomenal documentation (RHEL isn't terrible here, I just feel more comfortable with FreeBSD's)
4) Less fancy extra features and such running out of the box (95% Personal preference, 5% security preference)
5) Less base-operating-system dependence on specific versions of languages (read: Yum/Python on RHEL)
Some things that caught me off guard:
1) Ports generally come with the software's default config, not a friendly config created by a packager. This ended up being better for me in the long run, but awkward and confusing in the short term.
2) BIND is not an uninstallable package from the base distribution.
3) No htop without the Linux compatibility layer, which I don't care to install.
I also haven't used FreeBSD on workstations, only on servers, so I am less demanding of comfort features than someone else may be.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 45.4 ms ] threadUpgrading via freebsd-update is perfectly fine, though -- those bits went up only after I received a GPG-signed email from the release engineer with the SHA256 hashes of the ISO images. :-)
1. FreeBSD has system libraries maintained together with the kernel, thereby reducing compatibility issues, and
2. FreeBSD provides stable ABIs and APIs, so if you build some code -- including kernel modules -- on 8.0, it will run without recompiling on future 8.x releases.
Depending on what you're doing, other factors such as the BSD license, the ports tree, and performance (FreeBSD and Linux each win in some areas and lose in others) may also be important considerations.
You can geek out on millisecond benchmark performance comparisons with FreeBSD vs certain Linux kernels, but really it comes down to preference.
I love its design and have been using it on all my servers (and often my home/dev/laptop) since 1998. But that's just me. No need to try to convince you to do the same.
http://www.google.com/search?q=freebsd+linux+comparison
reference interview at 2,20 min. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707585592627775409&...
The best answer I received was that FreeBSD isn't quite like Ubuntu vs RHEL vs Fedora vs Gentoo, etc. BSD is a more-direct descendant of UNIX and is an operating system, vs Linux, which is actually a Kernel. They are different philosophies, and solve slightly different problems. From a high-level "I just want to use an operating system", your basic interactions can be quite similar.
The most pragmatic explanation of BSD for Linux users I've seen is here: http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/bsd4lin...
That said, some things I like about FreeBSD that I didn't like about my favorite Linux distro, RHEL:
1) Ports (you can install packages, too, but I don't like waiting for someone to build one for me to download)
2) Clean and well-organized
3) Phenomenal documentation (RHEL isn't terrible here, I just feel more comfortable with FreeBSD's)
4) Less fancy extra features and such running out of the box (95% Personal preference, 5% security preference)
5) Less base-operating-system dependence on specific versions of languages (read: Yum/Python on RHEL)
Some things that caught me off guard:
1) Ports generally come with the software's default config, not a friendly config created by a packager. This ended up being better for me in the long run, but awkward and confusing in the short term.
2) BIND is not an uninstallable package from the base distribution.
3) No htop without the Linux compatibility layer, which I don't care to install.
I also haven't used FreeBSD on workstations, only on servers, so I am less demanding of comfort features than someone else may be.
I hope that's somehow useful to you.
What would be an interesting comparison is the differences between Debian/kFreeBSD and Debian/Linux which is more apples to apples.
[1] http://www.google.com/trends?q=freebsd
[1] http://www.google.com/trends?q=opera
[2] http://www.google.com/trends?q=icq