Hi all, sorry if this isn't a proper message for this list but what the heck. =)
I just joined on here because at work we are currently using Debian 2.1 for hosting servers, but we really need the capabilities of FreeBSD. The deal is that we've engineered this really screwy chroot-based virtual domain system using NFS over localhost and symlinks. There is a "skeleton" tree that contains a basic Debian 2.1 system (which you can chroot into and use dpkg, etc, on) and then for each virtual domain there is a "skel-vol" NFS mount of the skeleton tree, and a "domain" tree that contains all the data neccessary for the single domain. This is glued together with symlinks. I've been exploring the possibilities in the FreeBSD kernel using unionfs and portalfs. Right now my developmental working model involves a skeleton FreeBSD4.0-CURRENT system mounted below a domain-specific tree. Inside the skeleton is a portalfs with a modified mount_portal that handles creating config files through translators (e.g., you can ask for a passwd for a specific domain and it creates it from a SQL table). However, the FreeBSD packaging system and FS layout leaves a bit to be desired (personally) after using Debian for quite some time. So I'm excited to see what comes out of this project. So I guess what I'm really getting at is: is there a repository of packages anywhere that can be played with on a real system? How "stable" is this? (hurd-stable, woody-stable, potato-stable, or slink-stable =) Is it built mostly around emulation of Linux binaries or is there an actual porting effort going on? I know a few of these things were mentioned on the general devel list amidst a large group of flames (grr!) a while back but I couldn't find a debian-bsd list archive anywhere on the Debian site. Thanks! -- If you have to hate, hate gently.
