# Is there anything wrong with FreeBSD 10+ stability



## nforced (Mar 4, 2015)

I am not willing to start a war here, I just wonder why there are so many people reporting stability issues since upgrading from 9.x? I personally experienced network issues on my own covered here, but that's just me, I see lots of other reports all over the net regarding different aspects (not just networking) of the system. Here is one simple example.

So at the end what is the big deal, what changed?


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## diizzy (Mar 4, 2015)

More users also generates more error reports, users that runs FreeBSD without issues are usually quiet about it just like with everything else... ;-)


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## kpa (Mar 4, 2015)

FreeBSD 10 reimplemented many of the kernel internals compared to the earlier versions to provide more opportunities for concurrency by using more fine grained locking of resources. This change exposed many driver bugs and not all of the drivers are yet fixed completely.


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## nforced (Mar 4, 2015)

kpa said:


> FreeBSD 10 reimplemented many of the kernel internals compared to the earlier versions to provide more opportunities for concurrency by using more fine grained locking of resources. This change exposed many driver bugs and not all of the drivers are yet fixed completely.



Yes, as I see it drivers are causing the majority of issues (network, storage, etc), my own system was rock solid till 9.2 and started crashing after upgrade to 10.x, my Intel NIC driver was updated and I had to disable features to overcome downtime, but when one can't overcome system crashes this is where it starts to heart and when no workaround is available you have to downgrade and stick with it for who knows how long just to try again which did pull of some people from using FreeBSD which is not what we all want, right? 

I see the point where this started trying to bring new stuff to the community which is all desired and great but when we talk about BSD, stability is one of it's major advantages and  synonyms and I got the feeling that this was not somehow secured/satisfied with this branch so far and this is something I want to change but I just don't know how, that's why I am writing all this stuff


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## SirDice (Mar 4, 2015)

If you go to a bakery you will notice everybody orders bread. If you go to a butcher everybody orders meat. This may sound like an odd argument but if you go to a support forum you'll see everybody posting problems. Very few people will post anything when things simply work. Just like very few people will order meat at a bakery.

As diizzy mentioned the more people use it the more problem reports you'll see. It may look like there are a lot of problems but the ratio between working and not working usually stays the same.


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## nforced (Mar 4, 2015)

That's a good point SirDice. I just want to know more about this as I always talk to people what FreeBSD is and how good it is.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 5, 2015)

fwiw, I've been running FreeBSD10 since it came out (over a year ago?) and have had no issues and it's never gone down. I installed it for a new client a month ago and same thing; no issues whatsoever.


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## nforced (Mar 5, 2015)

drhowarddrfine said:


> fwiw, I've been running FreeBSD10 since it came out (over a year ago?) and have had no issues and it's never gone down. I installed it for a new client a month ago and same thing; no issues whatsoever.


I guess this depends on the combination of hardware and load.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 5, 2015)

No. I wouldn't think so.


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## kpa (Mar 5, 2015)

drhowarddrfine said:


> No. I wouldn't think so.



Come on, of cource it depends on hardware used and the combination of software/settings used. File server environment for example is a completely different animal compared to an average desktop system. When you have a high I/O load it becomes absolutely essential that the kernel internals can deal properly with potential deadlock situations and resolve them without crashing or hanging up, on the desktop system such situations wouldn't even manifest because it's very likely that the hardware used isn't even capable pushing high enough IOPS to cause any problems with timing and concurrency.


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## xy16644 (Mar 5, 2015)

I'd like to say that my FreeBSD 10.1-STABLE server has been running non stop since 10 was released. I have not had a single crash or issue but then again I am running it on good hardware. Currently I am on 80 days of up time. I use a supported Supermicro motherboard which makes FreeBSD super stable. 

I hope it continues to be this stable and I look forward to FreeBSD 11!


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 5, 2015)

kpa I agree. When you try and run an OS on incompatible hardware with the wrong software settings on an overloaded system, you will have problems.


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## tankist02 (Mar 5, 2015)

I use (well, try to use) FreeBSD as my home desktop. I noticed that on 10R various gtk programs crashed a lot. With 10.1R the problem was less severe. With 10-STABLE (from January 2015) it was mostly gone.


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## protocelt (Mar 5, 2015)

tankist02 said:


> I use (well, try to use) FreeBSD as my home desktop. I noticed that on 10R various gtk programs crashed a lot. With 10.1R the problem was less severe. With 10-STABLE (from January 2015) it was mostly gone.


I run into similar problems once in a while, but keep in mind ports(7) are not part of FreeBSD but run on top of it, and stability issues with ports do not necessarily indicate stability issues with the base operating system itself.


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## max21 (Mar 6, 2015)

Most of the problems posted about FreeBSD, especially 10.0 and up are usually our entire fault.  We do something against rules that we know nothing about or just learning about. It sometime help in scaring people away.  I been there up until 8.2-64bit. We use buggy applications that never get blame.  I been running Gnome-2 since 8.2 and it has never crash only since using 10.0.  I use LibreOffice intensively and from reading, its said to even be buggy on Linux , but I never had a issue since 10.0.  I use to use Virtualbox for Windows-7 the same way.  The only problem with FreeBSD is eating up the memory and not giving it back to free memory when done.  The problem only happen when doing simple things such as mass copying or moving large files under these heavy applications.  When you ask “where is my free memory” most replies say the same thing *FreeBSD is doing something useful with the memory* … If that was so true, then why do we all have to reboot to recover.

So yes, that’s the only real problem with 10.0 plus that I seen.  The kernel fine grained locking maganizum could have only brought out the weaknesses of some popular drivers.  The writers are the one that got to get it right.  The free-memory issue was inherited.  Before FreeBSD it was a UNIX business system (pure server) which _maybe_ did not have that problem.  It ran the entire AT&T operation, _maybe_.  Now everything and a bowl of chips are riding on its back, and on the day that FreeBSD fix this, it will be the day FreeBSD will totally dominate the computing world!  That’s all I can figure after using it as a desktop for nearly 5 years.


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