Enabling the ULE scheduler for FreeBSD 7 1
Most of the performance benefit in FreeBSD is gained by switching from the default 4BSD scheduler to the ULE scheduler. This scheduler was introduced to FreeBSD in version 5. Since its induction to FreeBSD it has seen many improvements. By the end of this guide you will be booted into FreeBSD 7 and using the ULE scheduler.
cd /usr/src/sys/amd64/conf
cp GENERIC CUSTOM
ee CUSTOMThere are two things to change in this file then we can move to compiling and installing the new and improved kernel.
ident CUSTOM
options SCHED_ULEThats it! once that is done running the following commands and reboot.
cd /usr/src
make kernel KERNCONF=CUSTOMUpgrading FreeBSD 6.3 to FreeBSD 7.0
This is a surprisingly simple process. I just upgraded my development system and it took me about 10 minutes to be completely back up and running. As of FreeBSD 6.3 the freebsd-update utility supports upgrading to new binary releases. All of this can be done in one simple step.
freebsd-update upgrade -r 7.0-RELEASEEnjoy!
Tip of the Day 2 - Ifconfig Polling Option and FreeBSD 6.3
In FreeBSD 6.2, you could add the polling option in /etc/rc.conf for a given interface or specify it manually when using ifconfig. This enabled device polling if you enabled it when recompiling your kernel. In FreeBSD 6.3 polling is no longer an option for ifconfig. So, make sure it is not specified in /etc/rc.conf for your network interfaces, otherwise when you restart, your network interfaces will not have an IP address set. Thus, leading to a rather annoying walk over to the server room.
Tip of The Day - Custom Kernel and FreeBSD-Update
When upgrading from FreeBSD 6.2 to FreeBSD 6.3 with freebsd-update (detailed here) and using a custom built kernel, there is one extra step to be fully upgraded. After you follow the three steps from the instructions and reboot for the second time, you will be unpleasantly surprised to see that you are still using a 6.2 kernel. In fact all you need to do now and go rebuild your customized kernel, install it and reboot. Now you will have a customized 6.3 kernel installed.
Terminal Emulation on Mac OS X Leopard 2
The best and fastest solution to have a solid terminal emulation product that is free on Mac OS X Leopard is to just use minicom.
sudo port install minicom
sudo minicom -s
Configure minicom to your liking. If you need to find you device to configure minicom with just run
ls /dev | grep tty.*
tty.usbserial
Add /dev/tty.usbserial to the modem line in the configuration. Save the config as default and select exit