Installing NetBSD: From a Linux Perspective

Fawking DSL writes "``NetBSD can be intimidating from a Linux user's perspective. However, as the Linux user base grows, more people are finding their needs aren't being met by traditional Linux distributions. NetBSD is ready to step up to fill this niche. While Linux and NetBSD share many characteristics, there are some key differences.'' Check out this article at BSD Today."

bagh

[angry old man]

Finally, an article that helps answer the age old Linux vs. BSD debate and it doesn't even get posted on the front page!

Re:bagh

[AntiBasic]

Exactly, this BSD section is a cop-out of Slashdot not to post *BSD news on the main page. Even though Slashdot uses FreeBSD heavily for firewalling and are moving some of their guts to OpenBSD; their Linux push is very obvious.

It reminds me a lot of that 19th century recreation PBS is doing. Liberal PBS portrays the wife as the one who must persevere so much more than her husband. Their agenda is obvious.

Re:bagh

[nikc]

The decision to make this section only was mine. After reading the article, I figured that it's not really a great advance on "NetBSD is different to Linux, but a competant Unix admin can handle it easily enough."

Had this been a more in-depth technical analysis of the differences between the two (disk handling, memory management, networking, ...) then it would have made the front page. And if any of you have any pointers to that sort of article then please submit it.

N

Right tool/right job

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, disclaimer here. I am an old Un*x hardliner, cut my teeth on those fun systems we kindly refer to as the PDP-11. RSX-11, 2.11BSD, RSTS, AT&T V7, VMS.. yeah, I've played with them all and most modern things (incl. NetBSD) since then.
There is a certain nugget of truth that seems to be missing from every Linux vs. *BSD discussion here and on the net in general: Sometimes the vector of {favorite OS of choice for religious reasons} does not intersect with {best OS to accomplish the task at hand}.
This whole business of "needs not being met by traditional Linux distributions" is a little insulting, nik. Besides, what a user may "need" might be NT, BeOS or something other than Un*x. My experience is that a lot of the newbie Linux users install it to look cool/impress friends/run a warez server and become discouraged that it is not all 'point and drool'.
I have a solid philosophy when it comes to which Un*x is best:
1. In the server room, the most efficient, robust, and best result/cost wins the game. After all, this choice could cost your job if its not done carefully.
2. On your personal home/desktop machine, use whatever the heck you like best. Hey, I use Linux at home because it has the largest base of native software for free Unices. Does that mean I'll risk my job to replace Sun in the server room at work? No way!
3. To paraphrase Steve Jobs in the NeXT bible, the important decision is the one to use Unix. The details afterward are minor by comparison.
Before we paint Linux with the inferiority brush, keep in mind that the battle is between Unix and everything else, not with each other.

Re:bagh

[bugg]

Have you seen: http://innominate.org/%7Etgr/projects/tuning/ [innominate.org]?

Presented at LinuxTag 2000, it's a bunch of unbiased benchmarks of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux 2.2, Linux 2.4, Solaris 7, and Solaris 8.

It's certainly more of a worthy benchmark for the front page than the ones here [slashdot.org].

Re:Right tool/right job

[Lazaru5]

This whole business of "needs not being met by traditional Linux distributions" is a little insulting, nik.

Nik didn't say that, the story submitter did. Is the italicized and quoted text after "foo says..." not enough to make that clear?

Correcting myself...

[Lazaru5]

It's actually a quote from the article itself. That's what BOTH of us get for not reading it.