Important announcement regarding FreeNAS Corral

[danb35]

there is no reason that a simple message cannot be added to the website so people are aware of the status of corral.

Agreed.

 

[hiro5id]

I am still reeling over this change as features added to FreeNAS 10 were very important to me and I committed to it. But open source is open source and there is not really much I can say. I don't want my comments to be overly negative as that is not really productive to the conversation, but what could have happened to get this far into the process and then totally scrap it? By this point in the process one would have expected a huge amount of unit testing and integration testing to be happening along with all the exploratory testing the rest of us were doing. Risks around design decisions so vital that it would cause a complete failure of the project would have been mitigated much earlier in the process. This is not the era of the mythical man month where you build a system knowing you are going to throw the first one away. The science of software engineering has come along way. From everything I had observed (as an outsider) the project seemed to be running pretty well. If this decision was really done because engineering approaches taken in version 10 were so untenable, I admire the tenacity and commitment to quality. But it does point to huge failure in process. If this decision was made because one developer favored chocolate over vanilla, I am upset because I invested a fair amount in corral.

Perhaps if the devs working on it wants to use this as a learning exercise, they could run a RCA in a different thread.

Otherwise, it is what it is, and they are making the best decision they can given their various pressures and real life issues and constraints.

Yes it's painful, but let's support the devs and give them room to do what they need to do next, so that we can continue to use this awesome software.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jclendineng]

Guys, this is embarrassing. I loved Corral but it is a FREE software. You want to complain and whine? Go buy a NAS. Also, FreeNAS =/= Linux...Seriously :D google BSD. All we are out is time, less time I might add than devs spent doing there passion project and less time than mods on here write documentation. We are not entitled to anything, and complaint forums do not motivate any devs I know. Please please be respectful to the devs and mods, If you use FreeNAS, its implied you are a DIY person, if not just go find another solution. This whole thing was a shocker for me, but we are all grownups, with the capability to not throw a temper tantrum when we don't get personalized support from free software with absolutely no guarantee. Ill stay on Corral until docker comes in 11, until then I would suggest not relying to much on docker for the time being. Lots of ways to work around it, plex is on a nas drive, not docker. Nextcloud the same. Just store files on mapped drives and you're all set.

 

[Jon Moog]

Guys, this is embarrassing. I loved corral but it is a FREE software. You want to complain and whine? Go buy a NAS. Also, Freenas =/= Linux...Seriously :D google BSD. All we are out is time, less time I might add than devs spent doing there passion project and less time than mods on here write documentation. We are not entitled to anything, and complaint forums do not motivate any devs I know. Please please be respectful to the devs and mods, If you use freenas, its implied you are a DIY person, if not just go find another solution. This whole thing was a shocker for me, but we are all grownups, with the capability to not throw a temper tantrum when we dont get personalized support from free software with absolutely no guarantee. Ill stay on corral until docker comes in 11, until then I would suggest not relying to much on docker for the time being. Lots of ways to work around it, plex is on a nas drive, not docker. Nextcloud the same. Just store files on mapped drives and youre all set.

FreeNAS may be free but that doesn't mean costs haven't been incurred due to the direction taken with Corral. I speak from personal experience that hardware was ordered from ixSys based on the features and direction of Corral that is now essentially null and void. Not to say that the hardware is going to be unused but honestly this whole thing is a mess and it's rude to tell people to shut up and eat your gruel because it's free. I can't be the only one who has purchased from ixSys and supported them based on the hype of Corral. I can honestly say that after spending a lot of money with ixSys this whole thing makes me reevaluate my future purchase plans. Maybe FreeNAS 11 gets to a reasonable point and becomes a suitable proxy for 10 or maybe it doesn't but the whole thing reeks of politics, internal infighting and poor execution. Who wants to tie their fortunes to that sort of company?

 

[Jailer]

FreeNAS may be free but that doesn't mean costs haven't been incurred due to the direction taken with Corral. I speak from personal experience that hardware was ordered from ixSys based on the features and direction of Corral that is now essentially null and void. Not to say that the hardware is going to be unused but honestly this whole thing is a mess and it's rude to tell people to shut up and eat your gruel because it's free. I can't be the only one who has purchased from ixSys and supported them based on the hype of Corral. I can honestly say that after spending a lot of money with ixSys this whole thing makes me reevaluate my future purchase plans. Maybe FreeNAS 11 gets to a reasonable point and becomes a suitable proxy for 10 or maybe it doesn't but the whole thing reeks of politics, internal infighting and poor execution. Who wants to tie their fortunes to that sort of company?

Well if you actually purchased a system from iX you didn't and wouldn't have gotten Corral, you get TrueNAS. And there is no way in hell that TrueNAS would have been sold to a customer as enterprise ready without first being vetted by the community.

This posts wreaks of a shill account........

 

[Ericloewe]

Well if you actually purchased a system from iX you didn't and wouldn't have gotten Corral, you get TrueNAS. And there is no way in hell that TrueNAS would have been sold to a customer as enterprise ready without first being vetted by the community.

This posts wreaks of a shill account........

It could also be a regular server. Still, I doubt it would have Corral installed.

 

[anodos]

It could also be a regular server. Still, I doubt it would have Corral installed.

Seems off to buy hardware for the specific purpose of running software that hasn't been released (knowing the lead times on procurement and builds). Especially when everyone knows that 1.0 versions of software tend to not be something you actually want to run in production / mission-critical capacity. That said, the hardware is still good for other purposes.

 

[joeschmuck]

I would have expected the system to have been a FreeNAS Mini myself which dollar for dollar is a fair value. But I also don't consider the FreeNAS mini a very expandable platform so to me it's really only a high quality and fast NAS but I don't see it as a real VM product. I certainly wasn't thinking on the lines of it being a full fledged data center server where you would be expected to get TrueNAS.

With that said, I wouldn't be surprised if there were certain assurances that it would run FreeNAS 10. While I'm not certain what your hardware configuration is, if it was good enough for FreeNAS 10 and several VMs, there will be no difference with FreeNAS 11.

So I think the issue is that you are upset because FreeNAS 10 flopped (you were not the only one) and you need to wait a little longer for FreeNAS 11. FreeNAS 11 will be released when it's ready and while it may not have the GUI that Corral had (thank god!), who cares provided it works. Dockers can be made, VMs can be made, Jails can be made. Color me one happy camper! A cool looking GUI means nothing if the software is problematic.

 

[danb35]

it may not have the GUI that Corral had (thank god!)

Heretic! Don't you know that the FN10 GUI was the embodiment of all that is good and holy? Or so I understand from this thread, anyway...

 

[danb35]

Especially when everyone knows that 1.0 versions of software tend to not be something you actually want to run in production

Yeah, but this wasn't version 1.0; it was version 10.0.

 

[anodos]

Yeah, but this wasn't version 1.0; it was version 10.0.

The amount of new code / features that went in to 10 basically reset the version clock to 1.0 in my mind. Heck, it was even renamed from "FreeNAS" to "Corral". Even before the project was canned I was thinking it would probably be a year or more before I'd migrate anything 'production' on to it. Especially after see the bug tracker surpass 500 bug reports in the first week or so. That's not to say that this was communicated well during the release process, but the whole thing had my 'spidey sense' tingling.

 

[danb35]

Heck, it was even renamed from "FreeNAS" to "Corral".

No, it was renamed from FreeNAS 10 to FreeNAS Corral. But really, "wait and watch the forums" seems like good advice for any release--even one without so much new code.

 

[Stux]

I was just about to install FNC/10 on a test machine last week when i saw a flippant comment about the future of FN10 in another thread ;)

That led to a rabbit hole.

 

[anodos]

I was just about to install FNC/10 on a test machine last week when i saw a flippant comment about the future of FN10 in another thread ;)

That led to a rabbit hole.

At 24 pages currently, this is more like a Mr Bones' Wild Ride than "rabbit hole".

 

[Andy C]

If you use FreeNAS, its implied you are a DIY person, if not just go find another solution.

Excellent point. I liked Corral and had configured containers so was disappointed with the decision to can it. Coincidentally, my boot drive died during all this (I suspect the increased number of reboots for Corral nightlies and the increased BE size didn't help here) and I had some irritating problems reverting to 9.10 (Jails repo broken, oddities with U2 install) but I am now back where I started :)

However, yesterday I evaluated OpenMediaVault, Rockstor, NAS4Free and ZFS on Linux. None of them (currently) meet my requirements as well as FreeNAS 9.10 but that's the beauty of it. I have a choice.

 

[anodos]

Excellent point. I liked Corral and had configured containers so was disappointed with the decision to can it. Coincidentally, my boot drive died during all this (I suspect the increased number of reboots for Corral nightlies and the increased BE size didn't help here) and I had some irritating problems reverting to 9.10 (Jails repo broken, oddities with U2 install) but I am now back where I started :)

However, yesterday I evaluated OpenMediaVault, Rockstor, NAS4Free and ZFS on Linux. None of them (currently) meet my requirements as well as FreeNAS 9.10 but that's the beauty of it. I have a choice.

SmartOS is also an option... granted that it's not terribly promiscuous about the users it's friendly with.

 

[wdjchurchill]

I can only echo the disappointment of all the other early adopters who also made the leap to Corral. I certainly did not expect an official release to be scraped so soon after launch. Had I but known....

I took the opportunity to reconfigure my storage and start afresh with a new pool but I'm hopeful this won't hinder the move 'back' to 11.

I managed to get a number of Docker containers running but quickly found that some were creating serious issues and clearly the implementation wasn't quite there. It seems that there were some fundamental problems which, having read the previous posts, were going to be very difficult to fix.

I plan to wait until Docker is implemented though as I've seen the potential and don't really think that going back to jails is the right move long term. Hopefully they'll work properly this time.

Whilst it's a pain to have to consider going back I view it as a learning experience. I learned quite a bit migrating to Corral and I'm sure I'll learn more going to 11.

+1 to all the calls for an easy upgrade path from Corral to FN11.

I also trust that the FreeNAS team have done the right thing for the future and won't be jumping off the bus just yet.

 

[Chuck Remes]

Frankly I'm shocked that Jordan Hubbard hasn't been thrown under the bus. Based on the timing of his departure and then the firing of the Corral team and its "unrelease" it is quite clear where the *management* failure lay.

Looking back, it was @diskdiddler who (quite rightly) pointed out that there were no GUI integration tests or middleware tests. He complained that he had to find and report the same bugs over and over again. I probably chimed in to that thread with a, "hey, it's open source; write your own tests" comment too. :)

It was doomed from the start. In retrospect the signs are clear.

Looking forward to FN11.1 with Docker.

 

[Archaniel]

whoah, hats off to the people who were able to decide this. It must've been quite a hard decision. And now I cannot thank Ericloewe enuff for the advice to stay on 9.x a longer.
Good luck and I'll be waiting for the new 9.x release :)

 

[joeschmuck]

Heretic! Don't you know that the FN10 GUI was the embodiment of all that is good and holy? Or so I understand from this thread, anyway...

lol, yup, I guess I could be wrong :p NEVER!