Search
Close this search box.

DTrace on FreeBSD, update

May 25, 2006

A while ago, I blogged about the possibility of a FreeBSD port of DTrace. For the past few months, John Birrell has been hard at work on the port, and has announced recently that he has much of the core DTrace functionality working. Over here at DTrace Central, we’ve been excitedly watching John’s progress for a little while, providing help and guidance where we can — albeit not always solicited 😉 — and have been very impressed with how far he’s come. And while John has quite a bit further to go before one could call it a complete port, what he has now is indisputably useful. If you run FreeBSD in production, you’re going to want John’s port as it stands today — and if you develop for the FreeBSD kernel (drivers or otherwise), you’re going to need it. (Once you’ve done kernel development with DTrace, there’s no going back.)

So this is obviously a win for FreeBSD users, who can now benefit from the leap in software observability that DTrace provides. It’s also clearly a win for DTrace users, because now you have another platform on which you can observe your production software — and a larger community with whom to share your experiences and thoughts. And finally, it’s a huge win for OpenSolaris users: the presence of a FreeBSD port of DTrace validates that OpenSolaris is an open, innovative platform (despite what some buttheads say) — one that will benefit from and contribute to the undeniable economics of open source.

So congrats to John! And to the FreeBSD folks: welcome to the DTrace community!

Leave a Reply

Recent Posts

September 2, 2024
November 18, 2023
November 27, 2022
October 11, 2020
July 31, 2019
December 16, 2018
September 18, 2018
December 21, 2016
September 30, 2016
September 26, 2016
September 13, 2016
July 29, 2016
December 17, 2015
September 16, 2015
January 6, 2015
November 10, 2013
September 3, 2013
June 7, 2012
September 15, 2011
August 15, 2011
March 9, 2011
September 24, 2010
August 11, 2010
July 30, 2010
July 25, 2010
March 10, 2010
November 26, 2009
February 19, 2009
February 2, 2009
November 10, 2008
November 3, 2008
September 3, 2008
July 18, 2008
June 30, 2008
May 31, 2008
March 16, 2008
December 18, 2007
December 5, 2007
November 11, 2007
November 8, 2007
September 6, 2007
August 21, 2007
August 2, 2007
July 11, 2007
May 20, 2007
March 19, 2007
October 12, 2006
August 17, 2006
August 7, 2006
May 1, 2006
December 13, 2005
November 16, 2005
September 13, 2005
September 9, 2005
August 21, 2005

Archives

Archives