Comparing Linux and BSD, Diplomatically 448
Joe Barr writes "Talk about a red-button issue. How do you compare Linux and the BSDs and keep the debate from turning into a friendly-fire flame-fest nightmare between bigots on both sides of the line? Linus Torvalds once handled a similar situation by wearing a BSD beanie at USENIX while delivering a Linux talk. Now he tries it again in this interview on NewsForge ."
Not About To Be Baited (Score:4, Insightful)
There are obvious merits to any operating system. Despite what many
The problem with comparisons is that once all of the products begin to operate at a level that makes them useful to their target audience, then the only thing left to argue about is the margins. Zealots exist on the margins and so are they are the most likely to carp and moan about the small differences between various products.
Linus is not a zealot. He is an advocate.
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:2)
I love Solaris for the stability.
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think even the most hard-core Linux user would dispute that (well, maybe the zealots would).
As I wrote to the other poster who caught my gentle dig, I love Solaris for its stability. The only thing that I admire more about Linux is the open development. Sun cannot compete (for many reasons, mostly commercial) with Linux on that score.
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:5, Funny)
Look at Linux's vast array of scheduling algorithms. See how Linux's capabilities thrash Sun's pathetic security model into the ground. Checkout the triangles/sec and blit rate in Quake2.
OK?
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:3, Insightful)
He was expressing an opinion. I agreed with him.
Arguing about our opinions is a waste of time. My definition of what Solaris is best at would have to do with stability. But others may have an opinion that contradicts mine. I wouldn't take issue with their interpretation of best.
Didn't you even read the Linus interview?
Please read the paragraph above then decide for yourself.
Solaris is best at big iron (Score:5, Informative)
However Solaris is big, stubborn, and ugly. I would rather admin three machines each with a different Linux distro then a single Solaris box.
Linux has other strenghts, but on big servers Solaris is best.
Re:Solaris is best at big iron (Score:4, Insightful)
That aside, you're right about support for really big iron being less advanced compared to that in Solaris, for example, but in a way, you're comparing apples with oranges here, because that only goes for the "vanilla", main-line kernel. I think it would be more fair to compare Solaris with what Linux versions are being offered by other vendors such as SGI or IBM; SGI at least has a number of patches that have not gone into mainline (yet?), because most developers aren't that concerned with tweaks that make the kernel run smoother on 512-cpu systems.
Of course, there still is a lot that Linux can learn from Solaris - but learn we will, because we don't strive to be better than anyone or anything, we strive to be *good*.
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:2)
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:4, Insightful)
Yould should heed your .sig: that it can be done doesn't mean it should!
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:3, Interesting)
Say for a hypothetical "Gizmo daemon"
('scuse the squre brackets)
gizmod.configurator.xml
[gizmod option="port"]
[name]Select Port[/name]
[validate]
[lowerbound]0[/lowerbound]
[upperbound]10000[/lowerbound]
[default]79[/default]
[/validate]
[reject]That port was out of range[/reject]
[/gizmod]
and then
gizmod.config.xml
[gizmod option="port"]
[value]79[/value]
[configurator]gizmod.configurator.xml[/configurat o
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:3, Insightful)
I have yet to see a usable XML editor. And I see no reason to browser kernel configurations in a web browser.
I think doing kernel configuration in XML could still be good, but only if the XML is designed to be human readable in a text editor. And the purpose would not be to use an XML editor, but to permit better manipulation of kernel configurations by scripts.
I'll take the bait, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
You must be referring to Solaris on Intel. I still don't think "immature" is the right adjective. The problem with Solaris on Intel is mostly hardware support, and that's not going to change with age. Hardware popularity shifts faster than Sun's ability to support it.
"Stodgy" and "crusty", maybe, but not "immature".
For vanilla hardware in a server, it does just fine.
Re:I'll take the bait, too. (Score:2)
It was a joke.
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:3, Insightful)
The differences in the capabilities of the competing OS's is small compared to the differences in their philosophies.
MS and Apple both now have competent OS's - as of Win2K (in my opinion) and OS X - but they will always be driven by a different set of values than Linux and raw BSD.
So, I personally use Windows and sometimes even like it, but my hat goes off to those who use Linux, whether it is best or worst.
competent OS's (Score:3, Interesting)
MS and Apple both now have competent OS's - as of Win2K (in my opinion) and OS X - but they will always be driven by a different set of values than Linux and raw BSD.
So, I personally use Windows and sometimes even like it, but my hat goes off to those who use Linux, whether it is best or worst.
It depends on what you mean by "competent OS's".Though for the past several years I've used mostly Windows I rank it at the bottum of the heap in stability, with WinNT being the most stable to me, and I've use
Re:Not About To Be Baited (Score:3, Insightful)
Even Windows 3.1 satisfied that criterion. The problems with Windows are, and have always been, the costs and risks of going with a proprietary single-vendor solution. The many security and technical issues Windows has are just one expression of those underlying problems.
The problem with comparisons is that once all of the products begin to operate at a level that makes them useful to their target audien
Since when is debating with "bigots" a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you have a "debate" with a racial bigot over which race is better?
Bigots of any type aren't worth the time of day.
IMHO
Re:Since when is debating with "bigots" a good ide (Score:5, Insightful)
Truthfully, it's what keeps me coming back to Slashdot.
Re:Since when is debating with "bigots" a good ide (Score:4, Funny)
Some of my favorate Instults.
"Tie Wearing Sheeple." (Although I only wear a tie like once ever 3 months or so)
"poorly argued rant simply demonstrate that you are a close minded jerk of lower than average intelligence that no amount of college could help." (Ohhh good comeback, If my argument was so poorly argued why didn't he just give reasons.)
"Windows loving fananic" (although I normally run Linux, Solaris or OS X)
If they were just a little bit more moderated they would live happier lives. Because every other thing out there that could be more popular then their choice wont make then annoyed. I know I use to be an Open Source Zealot then I relized ill just be happier if I wasn't
Re:Since when is debating with "bigots" a good ide (Score:5, Insightful)
A good computer scientist can look at any system and ask himself, "ok how does this suck?".
Because the answer to that question can be followed up with "how do we make it better?".
If you can't ask "how does this suck?" for fear of being an "troll" then you've effectively eliminated thought.
But Linus is a bigot! (Score:4, Funny)
I often find black-and-white people a bit stupid, truth be told.
See! See?!
In short: (Score:5, Insightful)
What is appropriate depends on the situation and your experience.
Re:In short: (Score:3, Funny)
"The world simply isn't black-and-white, and I recognize a lot of grayness. I often find black-and-white people a bit stupid, truth be told."
Basically, what Linus is saying here is
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes"
Re:In short: (Score:3, Funny)
Had you RTFA, you would have noticed that the good at everything vs great at one thing distinction is the only difference between Linux and BSD that Linus points out. If your server is going to do a little bit of everything --
Comparison (Score:5, Funny)
come on (Score:5, Funny)
Short Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a *good* thing people! I realize it's much easier to jump into Highlander mode ("There can be only one!"), but reality is rarely so simple. Until someone invents the "perfect solution", every decision will lead to a particular set of tradeoffs. If you don't have anyone else exploring alternatives, how can you know for certain that your own alternative is the best one? Cooperation always leads to better results.
That said, I have a feeling about the replies I'm about to get:
Girl: Don't even think about it!
Human Torch: Never do. (Jumps off building)
Human Torch: Flame ON!
Re:Short Summary (Score:3, Informative)
Short Summary (Score:5, Informative)
1)They are different don't try to compare them.
2)I like Linux better because it agrees with me.
3) Don't ask me what I wan't in Linux (kernal) from BSD (kernal) because I don't use BSD.
Basically it was a whole bunch of nothing
Re:Short Summary (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Short Summary (Score:2)
Re:Short Summary (Score:2)
2.) You live
3.) You die
Remember that everything can be generalized into broad, short terms, but if you do that nothing except universe in the broadest sense makes a topic worth talking about. So before deducting something's value please try to look at the details first, not the broad generalization (btw, that is why i hate short summaries of any movie/tv show: they make the topic look utterly boring even when it is not).
Re:Short Summary (Score:2)
Ah, Grasshopper, you miss the point. Linus is saying nothing, and what is more, he is aware he is saying nothing. That anybody could acheive this is, apparently, news that matters.
Re:Short Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Strike 1: miss the point of the post.
Strike 2: miss the post itself (I think you meant this [slashdot.org] post)
So to save you the indignity of a third strike, I'll clarify the point of the post you were trying to respond to.
Hungus' point, IIRC, is precisely just because Linus does not, in your words, "take BSD code apart, analyze it and pass a judgement on the quality of the code" doesn't mean he isn't saying something worth listening to. To understand what he was talking about, you
The only line that matters: (Score:5, Insightful)
bothersome (Score:3, Interesting)
of course, this is my engineering mind thinking. Learn from what's out there and then do it better.
Re:bothersome (Score:2)
I prefer the developer spend time making things work the way they should, not peeking into someone else's code in an effort to potentially reap some small reward.
Re:bothersome (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:bothersome (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bothersome (Score:5, Informative)
I was going to mod you down since I've got the points, but there isn't an "Incorrect, -1" moderation.
The BSD license is about as liberal as it gets, basically saying "Do what you want with the code but leave my copyright notice." This includes sticking the BSD code into GPL'd code, XYZ'd code, or even closed, proprietary code.
GPL is the license that says what is open must stay open, and even with that, only if you copy the actual code. "Ideas" are not protected by copyright, just expression. Protecting designs and more recently ideas is what patent law is for.
Re:bothersome (Score:4, Informative)
Compare orginal, and modifiedBSD licenses.
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/license-lis
The gist of Linus's reply (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The gist of Linus's reply (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The gist of Linus's reply (Score:5, Funny)
next you'llbe telling me emacs is better than vi.
Re:The gist of Linus's reply (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The gist of Linus's reply (Score:3, Funny)
Well, you have to admit... emacs is a much better operating system...
Re:The gist of Linus's reply (Score:2)
-Adam
Re:The gist of Linus's reply (Score:2)
Linux or BSD? I don't care... (Score:5, Funny)
Linux or BSD? I don't care...
As long as you use vi (and not Emacs).
Re:Linux or BSD? I don't care... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Linux or BSD? I don't care... (Score:2)
Re:Linux or BSD? I don't care... (Score:2)
Re:Linux or BSD? I don't care... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Linux or BSD? I don't care... (Score:3, Funny)
Finally I understand what this Chainloader thingie in grub.conf is for!
Re:Linux or BSD? I don't care... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Linux or BSD? I don't care... (Score:4, Funny)
umount -f (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the things I'd love to see in Linux that exists in BSD is umount -f for any filesystem, not just NFS. On FreeBSD (and probably other BSD's?) you can force unmount any filesystem. This is especially useful when you need to foce unmount snapshot mounts.
Good quote... (Score:5, Interesting)
I shows a lot about how he thinks. He seems to be more of a realist than I would have thought.
I find Linus's interviews to be very interesting.
I do think that Linux, and Windows seems to be more similar than Linux and BSD, since he keeps commenting that BSD wants everything to be perfect, whereas Linux tends to be all things "good" for everyone.
I would consider Windows to be happy with just being "ok" at all things, and not perfect. Which also works for a lot of people.
Good enough? Anybody seen this? (Score:3, Interesting)
The movie biz is bitching about movie downloads. They're citing stats gathered from people's hard drives.
Hmmm?
With what degree of knowledge or cooperation from the people who's hard drives were scanned?
Or were these people just hacked? (Linux and OS X probably not just cooperate quite so readily to an invasive procedure like this, so is it just Windows that tattle-tells?)
An enquiring mind wants to know...
Re:Good quote... (Score:2)
This was my favorite.
You asked Linus because...? (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, he raised some interesting points about the differences in philosophy between the two camps.
Linus doesn't know much of anything about BSD. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, NetBSD runs on more hardware that linux does, and apart from running on very large SMP systems, I can't think of *anything* that linux can do and BSD can't, much less "many" things.
Re:Linus doesn't know much of anything about BSD. (Score:2)
Feel free to back that up. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Feel free to back that up. (Score:4, Insightful)
I usually find the BSDs might take a little longer to support the latest, greatest hardware. But that's primarily it. Or more support for more esoteric kernel settings and the like.
From an end-user perspective, by the time you install either, you have a nice UNIX-enough-for-me environment. They're both nice and robust feeling, and do well.
I use FreeBSD now simply because I'm lazy and I find the ports system to be the way I find easier/simplest to use. Do I care if you prefer to run Linux? Not really.
My FreeBSD desktop is behind a firewall, and I'm completely uninterested in regularly updating my OS. It just works, and doesn't ever give me any lip. I suspect many Linux users have the same stance.
If it's not out on the internet without a firewall, security patches are more of an issue. For a shockingly stable OS that I upgrade every year or so
I think Linus is correct though --- the BSDs focus on a particular design prinicpal, Linux encourages everyone to add in the things they need to make things work, and "just good enough" focues on actually providing functionality. Linux is highly successful because of that.
Re:Linus doesn't know much of anything about BSD. (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, NetBSD runs on more hardware that linux does..
I'd like to see a Venn diagram of the hardware supported by just BSD, just linux, and both. I imagine that if you gave each piece of hardware a weight by the number of people using that hardware, most of the weight would be in the middle of the diagram (i.e. both linux and BSD suppor
Re:Linus doesn't know much of anything about BSD. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linus doesn't know much of anything about BSD. (Score:4, Informative)
- Newbie-friendly installers with lots of really nice up to date free software (Ubuntu, FC4, etc.)
- Lots of custom distributions for specialized purposes, live CDs, etc.
- Accelerated 3D graphics with manufacturer-supported drivers.
- Support contracts available from Oracle and other large players.
- Hyperthreading support in scheduler.
- Kernel event system (dbus, hal, hotplug, etc)
- Device drivers for far more devices.
- Security levels beyond standard POSIX (NSA-designed SELinux framework, etc.)
- Really good, mature, journalling file systems.
-
Sure, NetBSD runs on more hardware. This is good if you want to create an embedded system with some obscure microcontroller.
But nobody choosing an operating system actually cares how many microprocessors are supported. They just care if their cpu is supported. And for 99.99% of the world, with linux, it is.
Not quite. (Score:3, Informative)
And of course, some company not making software for BSD is not a limitation of BSD. BSD is entirely capable of running the software, Sun just doesn't feel like releasing a BSD version.
Re:apps is what matters, not kernel (Score:3, Insightful)
For the end-user, probably. But there's a huge amount of work and research left to be done with OS kernels. How about a standard driver API/ABI for OSS kernels? How about the ability to use the BSD TCP/IP stack with Linux (something I'd love to see, for reasons I won't get into here)?
How about a microkernel or an exokernel with decent performance? The HURD is essentially dead, but there's still a
Warning: spoiler. (Score:4, Insightful)
Easy. (Score:5, Funny)
Purchase 1x Tux Plushie, 1x Daemon Plushie, fill them both with audio tapes of associated OS zealot's verbal spew, put them down and press play. Whichever one's batteries run out first wins the debate.
Simple, no?
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Informative)
That's so typical! Leave it to the Linux users to redefine success in their own benefit...
"BSD people are perfectionists" (Score:3, Interesting)
BSD vs. Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason is quite simple and probably uncommon: While I realize that Linux is easier to install and to configure (once you get used to the distro specific tools) and has wider hardware support, I just couldn't
Compatibility, Installation, and Packaging systems (Score:2)
Obviously with only three main BSDs out there, or four if you count Dragonfly, there's a lot less variability in the installation and porting systems, which seem to take up a lot of the learning-curve time. Many of the Linuxes are focusing on either friendliness or new
Re:Compatibility, Installation, and Packaging syst (Score:2)
And wether you buy an openbsd CD or do a network install makes no difference at all, they are the exact same installation procedure. There is no need to "do everything from scratch" anymor
It's very subjective (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess that when I find something that I really need to do that Linux and/or Windows can't manage, then I will be forced to learn something else. Maybe BSD...who knows?
Really Simple (Score:4, Funny)
This is easy. Linux is cool because it has an X in it. Everyone knows Xs are cool. (Of course, Linux would be cooler if they capitalized the X, but that's a minor point.)
On the other hand, BSD is cool because it has a hot chick [freebsd.org].
Both are valid attributes and neither side should feel bad.
Oh, come on, you're not even trying... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, you've got to be able to come up with a better BSD daemon girl than that without even trying. What, is that your girlfriend or something? Pathetic.
Honestly, doing a google search didn't give me _just_ the image I wanted, but there are some pretty impressive examples in this collection [unixprogram.com], even if what is perhaps the best one is animated. ( Warning: not entirely work-safe, *and* contains flamefest-inducing images of penguins impaled on pitchforks ). You've been warned, now let's see that server melt...
Simple answer (Score:2)
Linus says it all (Score:2, Insightful)
You didn't hear me. What I said was in parenthesis (Score:5, Funny)
Wow. Amazing. Linus has managed to speak to another human being in paranthesis. What happened here, was he talking one minute verbally and then transmitted his thoughts to the interviewer through some Jedi'ish mind trick?
I knew Torvalds had to be an alien. I just knew it.
Telling Moment From the Interview... (Score:4, Insightful)
Summary of Interview (Score:5, Funny)
A: I don't know, man. It depends what you mean by "better."
Q: Okay, then, why is it BSD used to be better?
A: Was it? I was busy not noticing.
Q: So you prefer Linux?
A: Um. Yes. Are you an idiot?
Q: Why do you think BSD and Linux are two different operating systems?
A: Probably because they start at different places in the alphabet. Are we done here? (points) Hey, look, there's Tanenbaum! Go ask him why writing a Unix kernel from scratch is impossible!
Q: Thank you for your time. Tune in Wednesday as we ask the BSD leaders why they insist on using one-button mice.
Linux beats BSD on the desktop (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not a linux zealot. I don't use Linux at home (I use OS X), and have no ideological reason to prefer Linux. I'm also at UC Berkeley, so, for "patriotic" reasons, I have a slight bias in favor of BSD.
That said, I have to admit Linux is more mature than FreeBSD for desktop use. Before you flame, hear me out.
Background
I'm a graduate student, and, with the help of another grad student and the College's head unix support guy, I'm stuck administering a small network of about 15 computers, all of which are vanilla Dell Precision 360s. Some run Windows, some run *nix. Our server is an Xserve G5, and it serves user home directories via NFS and does authentication & directory services via LDAP.
The FreeBSD story
We started with FreeBSD 4.9. Out of the box, we were able to get NFS mounting working, but there were a lot of problems. Sound didn't work. To get X working, we had to grab a special Nvidia driver. Even then, we only had VGA support, and not DVI. After much tinkering and kernel recompiling, I got DVI working, sort of (there were a few weird random "twinkly" pixels on each screen that showed up when in BSD DVI mode, but not BSD VGA or Windows DVI). Sound never worked. Then we tried to get LDAP working. No go, pam_ldap and nss_switch require FreeBSD 5.x.
So we upgrade to FreeBSD 5.2.1 (read, reinstall from scratch). That breaks DVI video, and the same kernel options as before don't work. No amount of tinkering can get sound working. Thus, we give up on DVI and sound. LDAP *does* work, after some effort, and so we have a mostly-usable system. There are still problems: KOffice apps crash on saving, and that the default PDF viewer doesn't work.
In an effort to fix KOffice and the PDF issue, we update & upgrade the ports tree. After a great deal of manual intervention to deal with broken dependencies in the pkg database, non-building ports, etc., the upgrade finishes. Now X is broken. It turns out the configuration file format for XFree86 changed when X got upgraded in the ports upgrade. A similar thing happens to KDE. After resolving those problems, the PDF and KOffice issues are resolved. Still no sound or DVI video, but we can live with that.
Then we upgrade our Xserve to Mac OS X 10.4 Server. All of a sudden, logging in via KDE as a "network" user on *some* of the BSD machines doesn't work. KDE complains that it doesn't have write access to the user's NFS-mounted home directories. A quick check on the command-line or with a failsafe session shows that users do, in fact, still have write access. I spend forever on this, and get nowhere. Some users can log in, others can't, on some BSD computers and not others. There are no clear differences, no explanations, and nothing makes sense.
I call in backup. The College's head unix admin comes over and spends a day on the problem. He contacts the KDE developers. I call Apple "Premium" Support. Nobody knows what's going on. In the end, we realize that the issue is that the NFS spec is fairly loose, and it's possible to have two nominally compliant implementations that don't quite talk to each other. Our theory is there's some sort of strange conflict between Apple's OS X 10.4 NFS implementation, the FreeBSD 5.x implementation, and KDE that causes some very subtle race condition with writing some KDE configuration file. At this point, we decide to try installing Linux on one machine as a test to see if it will work any better.
Total time about 100 hours.
The Linux Story
We install Centros 4.0 (a RedHat Enterprise Linux-derived distribution) on a machine. Everything works out of the box, except LDAP. After an hour or two of futzing around, that works too. Everything works. Sound, DVI video, NFS, KDE, PDFs, you name it. It all works.
Total time 3 - 5 hours.
Moral of the story
FreeBSD just isn't ready for the desktop. I wish it weren't true, because I like lots of things about FreeBSD, but it is. FreeBSD
Re:Linux beats BSD on the desktop (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Was there any meat in this "interview"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think I learned just as much about open software from this article as I did from E!'s coverage of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
Re:my black t-shirt can beat up your black t-shirt (Score:5, Funny)
Re:my black t-shirt can beat up your black t-shirt (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:my black t-shirt can beat up your black t-shirt (Score:3, Informative)
Personally, I find it hilarious that there's a standard anarchy symbol....
The hilarity can be explained by the following reasons:
1. You have absolutely no clue what anarchy means in a political sense.
You are probably one of these people who imagine crazed lunatics running around with cartoon-style bombs when you think of anarchists. In fact, anarchy (as a political term) is defined quite simply: absence of authority. Generally, I would describe it as a system of living without government or
Re:It's hard, Mac users are phanatix (Score:5, Insightful)
Your point of view is as utterly intolerant as the point of view of those you are criticizing.
"Mac users are phanatix. They are insecure and utterly intollerant.. Mod me up for being reasonable!"
Are you kidding us?
Re:First "BSD is Dead" Troll :-) (Score:2)
Re:Linux cost analysis (Score:2)
Frankly I would say a LOT of people are using Linux for a professional OS on a day in day out basis. IBM and Goggle being examples.
Seems like your post contains a lot more heat than light.
troll much? (Score:5, Informative)