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BSD Operating Systems

Debian NetBSD for Sparc 245

Posted by Hemos from the building-it-for-Sun dept.
Dan writes "Matthew Garrett has demonstrated his success in building a Debian operating system on the Sparc architecture on top of the NetBSD kernel. Additionally Joel Baker reported about significant work for the NetBSD/x86 port, such as dpkg and APT, that will work without additional patches. NetBSD runs on hardware unsupported by Linux. Folks working on the project say that porting Debian to the NetBSD kernel increases the number of platforms that can run a Debian-based operating system."
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Debian NetBSD for Sparc More

Debian NetBSD for Sparc

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  • Genesis (Score:5, Funny)

    by mirko ( 198274 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:30AM (#5833776) Journal
    In the begining
    There was nothing
    then God said :
    apt-get install light

    • Re:Genesis (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night,
      God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light.

      -- Alexander Pope

      It did not last; the devil howling "Ho!
      Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo.

      -- Sir John Collings Squire

    • Re:Genesis (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:41AM (#5833879)
      thought it was apt-get install man,
      packages required: light, water-land, animals, birds, fish, plants, earth, etc...
      and he downloaded and installed for 6 days, on the 7th he said "oh, its finally done."

      and now we wait for the day he types
      >apt-get remove satan
      >dpkg-reconfigure reality

      • Re:Genesis (Score:3, Funny)

        by MrHanky ( 141717 )
        The world was taken into production, and God made Adam and Eve:

        And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man:

        $ man woman

        UNDOCUMENTED(7) Linux Programmer's Manual UNDOCUMENTED(7)

        NAME

        undocumented - No manpage for this program, utility or function.

        DESCRIPTION

        This program, utility or function does not have a useful manpage. Before opening a bug to report this, please check with the Debian Bug Tracking System

      • Re:Genesis (Score:5, Funny)

        by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajs@ajs . c om> on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:45AM (#5834558) Homepage Journal
        thought it was apt-get install man,
        packages required: light, water-land, animals, birds, fish, plants, earth, etc...
        and he downloaded and installed for 6 days, on the 7th he said "oh, its finally done."

        Hmm, I think there was something about crashing on the 7th day... Of course, I may be mis-translating ;-)

      • Re:Genesis (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Downloaded and installed for 6 days? Had to be Gentoo.
        • Downloaded and installed for 6 days? Had to be Gentoo.

          Of course :) He was working from the source after all ;) Not like there were pre-compiled packages around or anything :)

  • what makes it debian? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:33AM (#5833800)
    i thought debian was a linux distro. if they make a distro for something other than linux, does that mean its done by the same people, with the same principle behind it, or something like that
    or am i jsut really missing the point of what a distro is?

    • Re:what makes it debian? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:42AM (#5833891)
      If you read the Debian homepage you will see that Debian is striving to provide a platform-agnostic, kernel-agnostic operation system environment.

      As well as Debian GNU/Linux there is already Debian GNU/Hurd.

      Debian/NetBSD is an effort to provide the NetBSD kernel with the Debian software utilities. I for one can't wait.

      You're not missing the point of what a distro is, this is something the Debian folk want to do.
      • Hmm. Unless they are planning to call this Debian GNU/NetBSD they had damn well better remove the wretched GNU/ from GNU/Linux. If Linux plus the GNU compiler chain justifies claiming ownership of Linus's work then their 'logic' also requires them to attempt to claim BSD once Debian is running on it.

        • Re:what makes it debian? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by sydb ( 176695 ) <michael @ w d 2 1 . c o . uk> on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @11:01AM (#5834754)
          Well, it's Debian GNU/Hurd when Hurd is the kernel, so I see no reason why Debian GNU/NetBSD is not acceptable when the NetBSD kernel is used.

          There's no 'claiming ownership' of anyone's work involved in this naming convention. The slash is a separator between 'majority OS stakeholder' and 'kernel'.

          Even if you don't agree that GNU is a 'majority OS stakeholder' in terms of lines of code, I would argue that they are 'majority OS stakeholder' in that they defined and promoted a philosophy on top of which a community of developers, a body of software and a community of users has been built.

          • Even if you don't agree that GNU is a 'majority OS stakeholder' in terms of lines of code

            Since when are mathematical truths open to agreement or disagreement? I played with wc one day, and the base GNU utilities in Linux From Scratch (not including emacs or anything non-GNU) far exceeded everything else, including the Linux kernel and the X Window System. GNU definitely provided the most lines of code in a "regular" Linux distribution.

            • It would be cool to see the figures for this. I wonder if anyone has a web site with current stats?
            • Last time I did the same experiment, GNU was just a minor player along with everyone else. Of course, I did not include any non-OS stuff in the statistics. Emacs is not part of an OS. Then again, neither is gcc (gasp) or bash (double gasp). Ones needs to take care in differentiating the operating system from the development system and user environment.
              • I can understand excluding gcc from the term "operating system" (understand, mind, not necessarily agree). But excluding bash, or at least "a shell", seems illogical.

                How else does a user operate the system but with a shell?

              • You use Linux without a shell?

                • No, I do use a shell. But that shell isn't necessarily bash. It might be sh, csh, tcsh, ksh, zsh, etc. The point is, the choice of shell is up to the user. Completely optional and replaceable components are not justifications for naming an OS.

                  Putting Pirelli tires (bash) on a dodge doesn't make it a Pirelli/Dodge. Assembling the engine with Stanley tools (gcc) doesn't make it a Stanley/Dodge.

                  • Yes, but most distributions are going to use GNU bash. In fact, most distributions are going to use bash for sh.

                    Everything in a Linux distribution is replaceable. You can replace the kernel itself with the NetBSD kernel or HURD. (Won't work yet, but both projects are slowly getting there.) So since the Linux kernel is an optional and replaceable component, is it then not worth of being part of the name of the OS?

                    Certain things are just standard, man. Sure, you can build a busybox distribution or wh

                    • Just goes to show that attempts to name a system after its components is wrongheaded. Perhaps whoever puts together the distribution should be the one to name it. Hey! That's what happens now!

                      p.s. The default shell for Slackware is sh (ash).
      • ...Debian GNU/NetBSD?

        Can't they take the heat from outraged FreeBDS developers?
    • Hmmmmm... sounds like a Soylent Green commercial "debian is PEOPLE" :-) Anyway, back to the topic...

      Debian is a group of people who have SOFTWARE distributions, including a bunch of software distribution tools like apt-get. Usually people use their Linux distros, and use apt-get to get Linux updates, but they've also been working on other Unix-like distros, such as their GNU/HURD package. Unix in general has been intended to be a portable operating system, with applications that are portable (and often

  • You've got to admire these guys (Score:5, Funny)

    by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:34AM (#5833804) Homepage
    NetBSD [www.netbsd] can run on more platforms than you can shake a stick at. Also with the ability to run IRIX binaries as well gives it a bit more depth/reach. Just shows what portable code can do. Anyway time to boot my Dreamcast :)

    Rus

  • Yes, more support... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jerk City Troll ( 661616 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:36AM (#5833831) Homepage
    ...for when I argue against "Debian sucks because it's Linux" *BSD people. Debian is a "universal" operating system (well, let's say "packaging system") -- it's is not strictly Linux. Debian != Linux

    On this topic, I remember reading a while back about a Debian FreeBSD project. Anyone know the status of that?

  • why? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:37AM (#5833838)
    So, would someone care to explain why you wouldn't just use NetBSD instead of trying to run a Linux environment with a NetBSD kernel? What benefit does this give you? One of the benefits of BSDs is that they're coherent systems and not a hodgepodge of kernels and userland apps. So again, what is being gained here?

    • Re:why? (Score:2, Informative)

      by jvervloet ( 532924 )
      What benefit does this give you?

      They explain it on there web site [debian.org]

    • Re:why? (Score:2, Informative)

      by lederhosen ( 612610 )
      It has nothing to do with linux, it is the GNU environment...

      Debian GNU/linux -- GNU on Linux
      Debian GNU/Hurd -- GNU on The Hurd
      Debian GNU/NetBSD -- GNU on NetBSD kernel
      NetBSD -- NetBSD userland on NetBSD
      kernel

    • Re:why? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Frater 219 ( 1455 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:13AM (#5834194) Journal
      So, would someone care to explain why you wouldn't just use NetBSD instead of trying to run a Linux environment with a NetBSD kernel? What benefit does this give you? One of the benefits of BSDs is that they're coherent systems and not a hodgepodge of kernels and userland apps. So again, what is being gained here?

      Debian isn't exactly a hodge-podge either. Every package in Debian stable has been tested for compatibility on all the platforms for which it ships; its dependencies and conflicts documented; its license terms checked; and its configuration files tweaked to use standard locations for things wherever possible. Debian also provides bug tracking for all packages, providing a centralized place to get in touch with someone who considers him- or herself personally responsible for the package.

      And then there's the fact that Debian has more packages than any other system I've seen. The version currently in beta ("testing" in Debian terms) has almost 11000 packages. That's a lot of software -- how many does your ports tree have?

      • Re:why? (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        FreeBSD has 7000 or 8000 ports in it's ports tree now. I don't know about NetBSD -- as I don't run it.

        But seriously now, does anyone REALLY need any more xclocks?!?

        It's not the size that counts, it's how you use it.
        • I don't know about NetBSD -- as I don't run it.

          3525, at last count [slashdot.org]

          And a note from personal experience - the vast majority of stuff is in there. It's when you want obscure stuff like pymad and py-ao that you run into having to install them yourself. Still very impressive though, especially considering the ridiculously miniscule attention NetBSD gets in comparison to debian or freebsd, other than slashdot posts saying "oh look, it runs on xyz now", and the ensuing bsd is dead posts.

      • And then there's the fact that Debian has more packages than any other system I've seen. The version currently in beta ("testing" in Debian terms) has almost 11000 packages.

        Considering that Debian has a much higher granularity in its packages, this isn't saying much. Under Debian you might have libfoo, libfoo-devel, and libfoo-docs. Under NetBSD you would have just libfoo. So you're essentially saying "mine's twenty centimeters, how many inches is yours?"

    • Re:why? (Score:3, Informative)

      by GrimReality ( 634168 )

      jvervloet [slashdot.org] provided a link [debian.org] to the Debian page that answers your question. The following is the relevant part. Just in case (I miss stuff a lot).

      Not everybody likes the *BSD ports tree or the *BSD userland (this is a personal preference thing, rather than any sort of comment on quality). Linux distributions have been produced which provide *BSD style ports or a *BSD style userland for those who like the BSD user environment but also wish to use the Linux kernel - Debian GNU/NetBSD is the logical reverse of

      • Re:why? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Billly Gates ( 198444 )
        Not to sound flamebaitish or anything but why in gods name would anyone want a linux package system? shudder.

        Unix in general( not just Linux or bsd)has central libraries that applications share centrally located in /usr/lib unlike WIndows or MacOSX which have the libraries in the directory with each application. This means .rpm and even apt-get hell. Yes dependancy problems happen with apt-get as well. You can not have 2 different versions of an app without causing dependancy problems. Sure I do not have t
    • One of the benefits of BSDs is that they're coherent systems and not a hodgepodge of kernels and userland apps.

      If you mean what I think you mean then that's a bizzare idea. BSD distributions contain the same 'hodgepodge' of userland apps, they are not any more or less 'coherent' .

      You'll find quite a bit of GNU software on a default FreeBSD install (and not just gcc and related tools, more basic things like GNU versions of tar too).

  • Debian actually runs on sparc. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rmadmin ( 532701 ) <rmalek@@@homecode...org> on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:37AM (#5833839) Homepage
    I had debian installed on my UltraAXI and it ran pretty good. NetBSD ran pretty good on it too. Not to get off topic, but UltraSparcs lack variety. Not many linux distros still support Ultra ports well (Redhat stopped at 6.2, MDK stopped at 7.1?, Debian is current!, Gentoo doesn't support X on Ultra (WTF, Idiots) Slack stopped at 6.x? and Splack just isn't bleeding edge). Back on topic, I'm glad to see progress. I'm not into OS flame wars, but I do like things about Debian (apt, dur), and NetBSD (mad portability), so I'm definately going to have to play with this. :-)
    • Have you tried Aurora Linux? They've been releasing an updated RH-based distro for both SPARC 32-bit and 64-bit for some time now.

    • Re:Debian actually runs on sparc. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by spinlocked ( 462072 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:22AM (#5834278)
      ...but UltraSparcs lack variety. Not many linux distros still support Ultra ports well...

      That's due to lack of demand, the general public can't afford new Sun hardware (except for the crappy SunBlade workstations and the sub $1000 servers, which are basically PC's anyway) and the enterprise needs proper support. A port of RedHat9 would be almost unusable on older SPARC boxes - it's slow enough on my 1GHz Athlon.

      Would you run Linux on a brand new Apple PowerBook, or would you stick to MacOSX? - a nice looking, modern OS which is tuned for the hardware platform, supports all of it's features, comes with a bunch of decent apps and is well supported by the vendor. Ditto Solaris on Sun hardware. Once you get to know it Solaris is a beautifully elegant and technically excellent OS. Even more so on the mid-range and high-end boxes, where it's maturity and scalability really shine.

      Linux is maturing into a modern, fully featured UNIX which rivals Solaris in bloat. Lack of bloat was one of it's earlier strengths on low-end SPARC desktop hardware, there seems little point in using it these days, especially since there are so few SPARC/Linux applications.
      • Yes, but have you tried to put a PCI sound card in a solaris box lately? :-) Mine didn't come with onboard sun sound, and I wanted to use it as a half ass workstation. Won't be no tunes comin outta that box! On the other hand, Linux does support PCI cards a bit better. That is quite a small detail to worry about though. Just thought I'd mention it :-) Then again, a sparc classic running splack and mpg321 will work nicely. :-)

      • Solaris is severly lacking exactly where Debian excels. When I administered Solaris boxen for a living, I described them as "administrator hostile" because of the difficulty of installing and configuring up-to-date software. Sun's pkg tool is a joke compared to dpkg+apt, and what few third-party pkgs you can find on SunFreeware [sunfreeware.com] are all months out of date.

        Sun has already replaced their gimpy command-line tools with the GNU equivalents and should be fully transitioned to Gnome2 for Solaris9. Why don't they

  • Fire up Bochs [sourceforge.net] on your new Debian kernel on your NetBSD OS on your SPARC system and run an i386 system on which you may choose to run ... oh, I don't know, maybe a copy of FreeBSD? Which itself could run Bochs---but in Linux emulation mode? And that could run MS-DOS?

    Whatever you do, don't start a Java app at this point!

  • Debian (Score:4, Funny)

    by chevelleSS ( 594683 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:42AM (#5833884) Homepage
    It is great to see Debian running on everything known to man.. However I have never understood why they are so far behind other distributions?
    • It is great to see Debian running on everything known to man..

      Yes, it is (speaking from the relative omfort of familiarity with RH 5.2 to 7.3). Alternatives are good.

      However I have never understood why they are so far behind other distributions?

      Perhaps, because they take the time to ensure that we can see Debian running on everything known to man.

      • Stability (Score:5, Informative)

        by rf0 ( 159958 ) <rghf@fsck.me.uk> on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:55AM (#5834027) Homepage
        Debian is all about stability. The main branch, Woody, had old packages but they are know to work. You don't get a lot of crashes, things just work. You will find debian people put a lot of work into configs and such like, make sure things interact with each other.

        For example say I install a new Apache Modules there are scripts that will automatically update my httpd.conf rather than just writing over it. To get a Debian system up and running is quick and easy as 99% of the tweaking has been done.

        Even though things are old they do make sure they are secure. If there is an exploit you can upgrade your system by just doing

        apt-get update
        apt-get upgrade.

        Thats it. Auto download and patch of affected programs

        However there is also another unstable branch, Sarge IIRC, which has cutting edge stuff. Latest version of everything. However as implied by its name it could just get up and crash at any moment.

        Hope that helps

        Rus

        • old != unsecure, with debian, a big plus (Score:4, Interesting)

          by StandardDeviant ( 122674 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:44AM (#5834547) Homepage Journal
          the 'main' distribution is, when you add security.debian.org to your /etc/apt/sources.list, updated with backported security fixes and such. so you get the best of both worlds from an admin standpoint: stable software (as the OP said) known to work and work well, plus security updates. subscribing to the debian security list is also a nice, low traffic way to keep up on debian security things. the combination of these factors make debian a damned dream to run as a sysadmin if you have, say, a huge thundering herd of web and database servers to keep happy.
        • Yes, stability and ease of upgrade are more difficult than halfhazard addition of the latest bleeding edge components.

          I had addressed another aspect of the kind of structured thought that has to go into those efforts, and that is portability, which also takes time and skill.

        • Re:Stability (Score:5, Informative)

          by blonde rser ( 253047 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:54AM (#5834686) Homepage
          However as implied by its name it could just get up and crash at any moment.

          This is a common misinterpretatioin of the branches in debian. When the 'sid' branch is refered to as 'unstable' it is referring to how stable the package is, not how stable systems that install the branch are. Namely a branch is stable/unstable depending on how often the packages change: in Woody you don't have to worry about things changing and upgrading very often. This is an advantage to a great amount of people. But a systems stability is measured by a variety of things: how often programs seg fault, uptime, performance bugs, etc. I would say more often than not the testing/unstable branches of debian make for more stable systems. For desktop one need only look at the XFree86 version offered in each branch to see this.

          Yes I am aware that instability of code does have an effect on instability of a system due to less opportunity for testing and etc. But in general people greatly over value this effect. I think people do this for two reasons. The logic is easy to understand and people like to believe what they can understand. And the name leads people to a first conclusion and people like to stay with their first conclusion.

        • Re:Stability (Score:5, Interesting)

          by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:58AM (#5834727)

          First of all, I must state that Debian isn't the most newbie friendly distribution out there, although, some non-newbie friendly aspects, such as dselect is slated for replacement in the next release.

          That being said, Debian is one of the easiest systems to configure, *if* you know what you are doing. (If you don't know what you are doing, all operating systems are hard to configure - some just guess better at what you want). The packaging support is excellent, and as the OP said, the installation scripts are rather refined for the most part.

          However, the OP has one thing wrong about Debian - there are usually 3, (sometimes 4) branches out there. First branch is the stable branch, and its codenamed "woody" in this release. The second branch is the testing branch, codenamed "sarge". The third branch is unstable, and is forever known as "sid" (after the boy next door in Toy Story who liked to break toys). Packages/updates first appear in sid/unstable, then, after a short period of testing to make sure nothing breaks, they move to sarge/testing. Sarge/testing tries to keep its numbers of bugs low, so its always a good release candidate. Woody/stable has no new packages or updates, save for back-ported bug fixes. (The Debian project is rather good at getting quick bug fixes, btw). When the Debian project is close to a release, sarge will be frozen, a new testing branch will be made, and for a short period of time, there will be four branches in existance.

          Several complaints are frequently heard about debian. One of the most common ones is that the stable distribution tends to have older packages, which is very, very true. The goal for the "official" Debian stable release isn't to have the newest collection of packages, but the most tested and stable collection of packages. Another complaint is the selection of packages out there, and the Debian package requirements. A vanilla Debian install, with no non-free sources, tends to be a rather good example of FOSS. Again, this has to do with the Debian philosophy (and it makes the maintainance of packages easier). Complaining that Debian doesn't have Cool-Binary-Nonfree-Package-XYZ is like complaining that iptables doesn't run on windows.

          Other then the package management, the one area where Debian really, truly shines (IMHO), is the wide collection of ports out there, and that Debian (unlike many other distributions out there) does not treat non-x86 users as lower-class citizens. Woody runs on (IIRC) 11 different hardware architectures. That impresses me. I can go out, right now, find an old Alpha, Sparc, m68k or a new Itanium, and can run the latest Debian release on it, and for the most part, it will act like the same release on my x86 laptop. When the AMD64 CPUs are widely available, I'm expecting that Debian will quickly jump over to supporting that architecture.

          Oh, and Debian tends to have a wonderful user community. :)

          • First of all, I must state that Debian isn't the most newbie friendly distribution out there....

            NetBSD isn't the most newbie-friendly kernel, either. I'm just starting my NetBSD/Amiga journey and it's frustrating sometimes. (I'm not a total newb, either; I'm a longtime Solaris and GNU/Linux admin. Still, it's a fun kind of frustration. Hackerbuzz, I think.)

            Another complaint is the selection of packages out there.... Complaining that Debian doesn't have Cool-Binary-Nonfree-Package-XYZ is like complaining

        • Re:Stability (Score:3, Informative)

          by zdzichu ( 100333 )
          Debian is all about stability. The main branch, Woody, had old packages but they are know to work.

          I never undestood this old==good semantic. FreeBSD is mature, modern, stable as rock and has recent version of most packages.

          You don't get a lot of crashes, things just work.

          You don't get crashes at all with FreeBSD.
          • I would say it's more consistency than stability, there's no chance of an 'apt-get upgrade' on woody installing the Samba 3.x cvs that's currently in sid which would be a huge 'upgrade'. Security fixes are backported but major version upgrades generally don't happen. I personally run sid on my workstation and rarely have problems, usually just a broken package that's fixes in a few hours.

            You don't get crashes at all with FreeBSD.

            Except for that minor bug that caused FreeBSD to panic on Alphas when the

    • why they are so far behind other distributions?

      It is called Quality Assurance. Very unpopular lady. But very nice to know.

      Besides that what does it mean behind?

      Off the top of my head: Debian has been shipping automounter 4.0 singe days unknown. Redhat as of 8.0 is still stuck in the low 3.x versions. Difference - with redhat you can hang the machine easily on automounting and you cannot automount smbfs, afs, etc shares. There are other examples as well.

      So behind in the version numbers of latest wizz

  • Gnu Debian BSD (Score:3, Funny)

    by Zach Garner ( 74342 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:45AM (#5833920)
    Gnu/Debian BSD

    Why God, Why!?

  • Thank you Captain Obvious (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:47AM (#5833937)
    Folks working on the project say that porting Debian to the NetBSD kernel increases the number of platforms that can run a Debian-based operating system."

    In related news, scientists for the dairy industry announced that pouring milk into glasses will increase the number of glasses which contain milk.

  • Maybe Debian can help NetBSD with another platform (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Plankeye ( 72603 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @09:51AM (#5833980)
    ... the HPPA architechture [openpa.net], specifically the 800 models. Debian already has a working port [debian.org] of Linux to these systems. However, NetBSD [netbsd.org] and OpenBSD [openbsd.org] aren't quite there yet.

    It would be great to be able to run *BSD on these machines, especially the older ones we have where hp-ux just doesn't hack it anymore.

  • Or maybe FreeBSD port based (oh wait Gentoo)...
  • not sparc - different things. The 'sparc' implies 32 bit whereas sparc64 are the 64 bit 'ultra'sparc based machines.

  • favorite movie (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Debian does Dallas.

  • How about BSD on Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by david.given ( 6740 ) <dg@cowlark.com> on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:02AM (#5834096) Homepage Journal
    What I would love to see is a BSD userland running on a Linux kernel. The BSD userland is so elegant and modular --- I really love the way you can rebuild everything with just one command. OTOH, the Linux kernel has much better hardware support and has some nice features like an automatically sized buffer cache (which I was amazed to discover OpenBSD doesn't, or didn't, support).

    One of Linux' big problems is a lack of modularity. Building an entire Linux system, from scratch, is an incredible pain; you have to buy books to explain how. This is particularly annoying when, say, you're building a Linux appliance and want to tweak things. You want to compile with -m686? On BSD you just change one setting, run one makefile and everything rebuilds. On Linux you have to configure a zillion packages independantly.

    OTOH, one of BSD's big problems is hardware. I have a Hauppauge Nova-T DVB card. Is it supported under BSD? Need you ask? (Although, surprisingly, BT8x8-based TV cards are supported by OpenBSD.) I have a long-term project to build a PVR. If I could use BSD, I'd go for it like a shot --- it's just so much easier to configure. As it is, I have to go for Linux, which is so much of a pain that I haven't been able to muster the energy to get started yet...

    • I think you might be looking for this [gentoo.org]
    • IIRC apt-build has a 'world' option to rebuild every package on the system, although I can't really see why you'd want to.

      If you really think Linux is more of a PITA than a BSD you havn't tried Debian.
  • As greater mixing and matching of operating system (minus kernel) and kernel happens, perhaps designations like GNU/Linux will be more acceptable, for their technical precision.

    However, then, it wouldn't be "Debian/NetBSD" but rather "Debian GNU/NetBSD" (Debian, at least, having already accepted the GNU/Linux moniker).

    I really think there are practical advantages to distinguishing between 1) kernel, 2) "everything else", i.e. portable packages ported to run on that kernel, and with each other, and 3) who did the porting/distribution bundling.

    Of course, when there is only one varient of one of those three components, i.e. the bits and pieces of what would be GNU, we tend to leave it out, as cumbersome, redundant, and unwieldly, RMS protests of the need to pay hommage (or at least use terminology that conveys GNU roots) notwithstanding. Thus, "Red Hat Linux": there is no other kind of "Linux" packaged by Red Hat (and since they did the bundling, they get to call it pretty much whatever they want (personally, I would have preferred "Up Yours, MS"/OS, but anyway...)), and no techical need for a "Red Hat GNU/Linux" designation.

    RMS may want to see us embrace a phisosophical basis for free software, but, without the economic benefits that open source exemplifies, I doubt free software would have the contributions it does. Similarly, without a technical argument for "GNU/Linux", the moniker will likely not be popular. It would be nice, though, if the technical argument were there, so the philosophy and history could get some recognition and representation in common use.

    I expect that might come in niche markets: where Linux is combined with severly scaled down portions of GNU, and non-GNU software, particularly in the embedded market: look at BusyBox -- a combination of utilities in a single executible for space reasons. We are seeing attempts to standardize "Linux" for the desktop (LSB), as well as for the embedded space. I, for one, wouldn't mind seeing LSB (Linux Standard Base) become GSB (GNU Standard Base), with LSB dealing solely with a kernel standard, in this vein.

    O.K. ObGNU/Linux rant over.

  • Distros vs kernels (Score:5, Insightful)

    by robbo ( 4388 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMsimra.net> on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:08AM (#5834142)
    Are we beginning to see kernel-independence in the major distros? Wouldn't it be cool if at install time we could select our kernel from a pull down menu:
    • Linux
    • Open/Free/NetBSD
    • AIX
    • OS/2
    • Win2k
    • DOS
    • etc,etc.


    Come to think of it, on many levels GNU/FSF has led the charge. Look at how many GPL'ed programs already run on several OS'es. I mean, all that really matters is that nethack works on your os of choice, right?

    I wonder how long before we see RedHat XVII for windows..
    • Of course, all those systems need different binaries. Even with DVD distro media that a crapload of files.

      You could build from source on install, but that would be almost as bad in terms of all the little freaky patchlevels you'd need to get everything to work.

      You're dead right about the FSF though. Why not become a member [fsf.org]?

      -Peter
    • There is nothing keeping one from building the entire GNU library on one of the BSD's.

      Go into the ports directory, find what you want, and type "make install".

      This is even better, in that you can just do the programs you are interested in.

    • I wonder how long before we see RedHat XVII for windows..

      The GNU userland can already run on top of a Windows kernel. It's called cygwin [cygwin.com]. Running Xfree within Windows is really strange.

  • switching kernels (Score:5, Insightful)

    by munro ( 265830 ) on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:29AM (#5834367)
    Maybe this will make people stop and think about what "linux" actually is, and where else credit might be due. If you switch out that component, what do you have?

    Of course the marketing machine likes the word linux quite a lot, it's catchy, it has panache, it sells, which is why people say things like "wow, how did you get that linux software running on MacOS?" when refering to things like bash, gcc or gnome apps.
    • If you switch out that component, what do you have?

      A broken system. And not just merely broken, but so kaput that you must either reinstall a new OS from scratch, or put that kernel back in.

      Contrary to the words of RMS, LinusOS is not merely The GNU System with the Hurd swapped out. It's impossible to take a running GNU/Hurd system, exchange the kernel with Linux, and have it run. It doesn't work that way.

      Ever wonder why it's taking Debian so long with Debian GNU/Hurd and even longer with Debian GNU/Net

  • I've noticed a trend... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by k03 kalle ( 669378 ) <kalle@@@networkthis...org> on Tuesday April 29, 2003 @10:41AM (#5834510) Homepage
    Everyone always complains and bitches about what OS is better, whos has the l33ter OS, who is running the most current kernel, and then proceed to get in bitter flame wars over which OS is better.

    This guy has created a product to satisfy one thing for him, which is his curiousity. Isn't that good enough these days? A project based on curiousity should be respected on general the general premise that something creative is being done in the name of innovation.

    Maybe if we stopped wasting time arguing and insulting each other about what OS we run, and spend all that time doing something productive like this man has done, we will actually accomplish every goal we set.

    Just a thought.

    -kalle
    • I think alot of it has to do with the fact that BSD users love to claim that there os is better because its not fragmented like Linux. You have both the kernel and user utilities integrated together on one central distro.

      When development in the bsd world goes on the developers do not just concentrate on the kernel. They concentrate on the apps, kernel, and installer as well. It usually the same developers in all of these area's. In Linux you have people working on the kernel and a seperate branch working o
  • If Debian's support of NetBSD is because it can run on platforms Linux can't, when will we see

    Debian GNU/NetBSD for Sega Dreamcast?

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