BSD For Linux Users 937
noackjr writes "Matt Fuller posted among his rants a great introduction and explanation of BSD For Linux Users: 'It's been my impression that the BSD communit{y,ies}, in general, understand Linux far better than the Linux communit{y,ies} understand BSD. I have a few theories on why that is, but that's not really relevant. I think a lot of Linux people get turned off BSD because they don't really understand how and why it's put together. Thus, this rant; as a BSD person, I want to try to explain how BSD works in a way that Linux people can absorb.'"
Odd title. (Score:5, Funny)
"BSD For Linux Users"
What, was "BSD For Dummies" already taken?
ouch.. my karma is going to burn over that one
Re:Odd title. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I wanted to read this but... (Score:3, Funny)
HTTP suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
Re:HTTP suggestion (Score:4, Informative)
The codes are roughly:
1xx -- Not done yet
2xx -- You win
3xx -- You lose, but try again
4xx -- You lose; your fault
5xx -- You lose; my bad
Re:Odd title. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Check This Out ! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've admin'd *BSD (free and open), Solaris, and Linux in corporate environments (as well as a bewildering array of freenixen at home). All the systems have advantages, all of them have disadvantages. Personally, I run debian by choice when I can get away with it because *BSD, Solaris, and most Linuxen just piss me off in various ways, but I still use BSD where it makes sense. Running around trumpeting this or that OS as being the end all and be all of existence for everyone just shows that you're a greenhorn.
BSD vs Linux (Score:5, Funny)
BSD is for those that love Unix. Linux is for those that hate Windows.
Re:BSD vs Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
But the GPL is something to get zealous about, the BSD license is hard to get excited about.
Re:BSD vs Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
See-- "Youre trying to steal my code!!!" they scream, having never written any.
But you're right, they are excited. They have zeal. And in doing so they move from "We support free (as in BSD, not GPL) software" to "You must use GPL, you are NOT FREE to release your code any other way. Anything non-GPL is "non free" and therefore evil!"
Despite the fact that objectively BSD is more Free than Linux-- the GPL imposes an economic cost and restrictions on use that BSD does not.
It is only religious delusion t
Re:BSD vs Linux (Score:3)
The real reason is that "free software," as defined by the GNU folks, has nothing to do with the meaning of the word "free." Instead, it's been given a definition that suits their cause. So of course the GPL is "more free" according to them than any other license. That was the whole point.
You're right (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is about freedom. Either you have it, or you don't... and beer has nothing to do with it.
Re:You're right (Score:5, Insightful)
Your copy, yes. But you're not alone in the world. You need a community to help you (seems like many BSD folks think they are an island). If the majority starts to use a closed branch of your code, then you lose something beyond the code - relevance in the real world. The shiny new device driver you just wrote may have no device to support, because the hardware manufacturer thinks that it is better for the new revision of his device to go with a closed branch of your project, because it was developed by a more effective PR department than yours.
If this doesn't make sense to you, consider this analogy: "But the US Constitution wasn't released under the GPL! There's nothing to stop Microsoft from making it proprietary then charging us a fee to exercise our speech, press and religion!"
I hope that you recognize that this analogy doesn't make any sense. A proprietary derivative of a law has no significance for anybody.
Re:BSD vs Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Only to tell you that you won't get any Linux user to use BSD by telling them "they don't understand it" (as the article does) or by ranting as you do.
(Yes, I know there are Linux zealots, too)
Re:BSD vs Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
People with his pretentious attitude make up a sizable portion of the FreeBSD community. That kind of superior attitude comes mainly from walking through a sea of crashing Windows machines and recompile-reboot-repeat Linux machines only to end up at a FreeBSD machine that's more reliable than running water. Now, that's not to say that there's anything wrong with Linux, but its frequent updates to stay on the absolute bleeding edge does cost it a measure of reliability. On the FreeBSD end of things, you've got "running water", but not many of the newer toys. Things like firewire support, new file systems, CD and DVD burner support don't make it into the FreeBSD-STABLE line until long, long after Linux and Windows have had them.
"Only to tell you that you won't get any Linux user to use BSD by telling them "they don't understand it" (as the article does)"
I think a lot of this comes from the fact that the small Linux fanboy group screams so often and so loudly that it often appears to make up the majority of Linux users. When you see someone shouting "0h D00DZ! I ju3t g0t t3h n3w k3rn3l! Fuck1n C00L!" on a forum, followed by a dozen 'me too' posts similarly formatted, you tend to think of the posters as... well... morons. When enough of them shout long and hard enough, one can't help but feel that you'd be talking to a wall trying to get into a reasoned debate about the pros and cons of each OS.
The fact is that SCO isn't Linux's biggest threat. Microsoft isn't it either. The single most dangerous threat to the success of Linux, especially in the workplace, are the legions of fanboys who show up at the most inopportune times and places to rant and rave irrationally, irreverently, and incessantly; spouting off profanity-filled immature propaganda about how Linux equals the second coming of Christ Almighty. As a community, Linux would do well to figure out a way to shut these idiots up so that Linux's fate can be determined by the merits of its code, rather than the character of a small portion of its users.
Re:BSD vs Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried to be clear that I in no way intended to disparage Linux. The culture simply tends to be one of always going for the latest 'n greatest stuff. This means getting the latest kernel as soon as it's released, then compiling and running it. Certainly not everyone does this with Linux, but it does seem to be the mainstream view so far as I can tell. That's not to say Linux people are sitting there every day recompiling their kernel. I haven't done any research into the exact frequency of kernel releases from Linusland, but my general feeling from friends that run Linux is that every month or two it's off to the races with doing this or that which requires some fairly substantial work.
The difference that I generally see between that and FreeBSD is that many FreeBSD users just want everything to work as expected - like running water. No one expects anything fancy to happen with their running water. What they do expect is that they can go to the faucet at any time, day or night, turn it on, and get water. To continue the analogy, the mainstream Linux folks seem to enjoy disassembling all the pipes every so often so they can be re-run. They can get all sorts of different flavors and colors of water, but occassionally a couple pipes come loose and need to be hammered back into place. That's not to say that either line of thought is better or worse, merely that the lines of thinking tend to be different.
I'm a minimalist by nature. I don't want to have to jump through hoops to get something going. That doesn't mean I wont sit there and tinker with something if I want to; I just don't like ever having to tinker with it to get it going. In terms of what I use, it's a mix of FreeBSD and Windows 2000, mostly. I'll toy with other things (inluding Linux) now and then, but the combination of FreeBSD and Windows 2000 meets all my needs for reliability and feature-richness at home and work. That's not to say it's for everyone, but it works very well for me.
Re:BSD vs Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
You're absolutely correct here. The most stable OS on Earth can be brought down by someone with enough access and a lack of knowledge. In the same fashion, I'm sure a freshman administrator could take an OpenBSD machine and end up with it being less secure than an unpatched Windows 95 box. The documentation for most OSS projects tends to be lacking, out of date, incomplete, and sometimes outright wrong. The reason
Re:Are you sure about that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft edged *nix out of the low-end server market in the 1990s because companies were able to take any half-wit drunken dumbshit off the street and have him trained (sort of like a monkey) as an admin inside of a few weeks. The resulting drop in reliability from moving to Microsoft products wasn't substantial enough, and didn't kill off enough mission ultra-critical servers to justify moving back to the more expensive *nix solutions.
The fact that you could toss NT onto a hand-built off-the-shelf machine also made a big difference. Instead of moving back to the more expensive, but far more reliable *nix solutions, they simply segmented server functions such that isolated Windows failures didn't cause major problems. With promises of (relatively) cheap upgrades, much better reliability, and far more features on the horizon, Microsoft kept many companies with them by dragging the proverbial carrot along. The simple fact is that Microsoft did a much better job marketing the OS that the *nix vendors did.
Re:BSD vs Linux (Score:5, Funny)
oh
As they've said repeatedly... (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how funny it would be to tell SCO that BSD is a direct derivative work from AT&T UNIX...
Re:BSD vs Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
The Truth? (Score:5, Funny)
site is slashdotted, here's the 1st page (Score:4, Informative)
I run FreeBSD on my computers. A lot of my friends run Linux, or at least one of the distributions of it. Naturally, then, we agree that a Unix-style operating system is the right choice, but we disagree on which to use.
It's been my impression that the BSD communit{y,ies}, in general, understand Linux far better than the Linux communit{y,ies} understand BSD. I have a few theories on why that is, but that's not really relevant. I think a lot of Linux people get turned off BSD because they don't really understand how and why it's put together. Thus, this rant; as a BSD person, I want to try to explain how BSD works in a way that Linux people can absorb.
While there's overwhelming similarity between the operating systems in most cases, there are also a lot of differences. As you probe more into the differences, you find that they emerge from deep-seated disagreements. Some are disagreements over development methodology, some over deployment and usage, some about what's important, some about who's important, and some about which flavor of ice cream is superior. Just comparing the surface differences doesn't tell you anything; it's the deeper differences that both explain and justify why each group does things the way they do.
What isn't this?
This is not:
* A list of command correspondances; "'netstat -rnfinet' on BSD = 'netstat -rnAinet' on Linux" and such things.
* How to do all the things involved in adminning and running a BSD box.
* Why you should use BSD instead of Linux.
* Why you should use Linux instead of BSD.
* Why you should use this BSD instead of that BSD.
* Why you should use this Linux instead of that Linux.
* Why BSD is Right and Linux is Wrong.
* Why Linux is Right and BSD is Wrong.
* Why I am a god and you should worship me.
I, personally, for me, believe (obviously) that my OS choice is right. That's me. I'm not telling you that you should believe it. Learn the facts, and the origins behind the facts, and make up your own damn mind. That's why you have one.
Some preliminary thoughts
There're a lot of philosophical disparity between the Linux world and the BSD world. And there are a lot of expressions about it out there. One I particularly like goes something like:
BSD is what you get when a bunch of Unix hackers sit down to try to port a Unix system to the PC. Linux is what you get when a bunch of PC hackers sit down and try to write a Unix system for the PC.
Now, I like that quip, not because it's some sort of absolute revealed truth, but because it gives a very good feel for some of the differences. The BSDs, in general, are very much more like traditional Unices than Linux is. A lot of that is because they're direct-line descendants of the BSD from Berkeley, which was a direct-line descendant of the original AT&T Unix. Unix-the-trademark is a trademark of The Open Group, and Unix-the-code is owned by SCO, so one can't actually say that the BSDs are really Unix (that's the sort of statement that triggered the USL/UCB lawsuit extravaganza, in fact). But, in many ways, the BSDs are direct derivatives of traditional Unix.
That shows through in a lot of ways. It shows up in the design of the base system and the packaging of addons. It shows up in the partitioning of the mass storage. It shows up in a lot of details of the commands. And it shows up in the attitudes and reflexes and prejudices of the developers, which are reflected in the code and in the users.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. Perhaps that's the only succinct way to describe it, and possibly the most correct.
Where to begin?
Page #2 (Score:5, Informative)
Meet the players
I'll give here a quick introduction to and discussion of the systems I'll be talking about. Note that the histories presented are not comprehensive or authoritative, and no attempt has been made to make them that way. Deal.
Unix
Unix isn't (precisely) an operating system.
Well, it is, and it isn't.
In specific usage, Unix is an operating system originally developed in the late 60's at Bell Labs by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Over the years since then it's been developed and distributed as a commercial operating system, and a research operating system, by Bell Labs and USG and USDL and ATTIS and USL and Novell and SCO and anybody else who could come up with an acronym.
It's probably not too much exaggeration to say that Unix is the single most influential operating system in modern computing. Every general-purpose computing device you'll find, and a lot of specific-purpose computing devices, will be using ideas and concepts and often code from something in the Unix family tree.
When we use the word 'Unix', then, we far more often mean the general form, than the specific OS that carries the name Unix(TM). The general form means "Any operating system which, in design and execution and interface and general taste, is substantially similar to the Unix system." That means all the BSDs, Linuxen, SunOS, Tru64, SCO, Irix, AIX, HP/UX, and a cast of hundreds or thousands of others.
I'm not interested in getting into semantic discussions about how many angels can dance on a head of split hair. Let it suffice that when I use phrases like "Unix systems", I mean exactly what you think of when I use the phrase. Pedantry City is ---> that way.
Linux
Linux also means several things. It's a kernel, originally written by Linus Torvalds when he was a student in Finland. Since then it's been beat up, punched around, tweaked, poked, prodded, manged, digested, spit out, stomped on, chewed up, tossed out, brought in, and otherwise manipulated (not necessarily in that order, of course) by more other people than you could easily count.
Linux is also the term for a family of operating systems. While there are fascinating metaphysical discussions taking place in dozens of places around the world at this very second (I guarantee it) about how "Linux isn't really an operating system, it's just a kernel", or "It should be called 'GNU/Linux'", or similar topics, I'm also going to neatly avoid that semantic cesspool. When I say "Linux", I mean Red Hat. I mean Slackware. I mean Mandrake. I mean Debian. I mean SuSe. I mean Gentoo. I mean every one of the 2 kadzillion distributions out there, based around a Linux kernel with substantially similar userlands, mostly based on GNU tools, that are floating around the ether.
BSD
BSD stands for "Berkeley Software Distribution". Originally, it was a set of patches and extra add-on utilities for the official Bell Unix system that were developed by the CSRG at the University of California, Berkeley. Over time, it evolved to change and/or replace more and more of the system, until at some undefined point it became basically its own OS that merely happened to share chunks of code with Bell's Unix system.
Of course, it still required that you have a Bell license to use the system, since a lot of it was still Bell's code. All of the code written by Berkeley, however, was released under what's come to be known as the BSD license, which basically translates to "Do whatever the hell you want with the code, just give us credit for writing it". And a lot of the BSD code ended up working its way back into the "official" Unix system too, in System III and System V. And, a lot of both strains worked their way into the various commercial forks of Unix.
After the CSRG (mostly) dissolved and stopped developing the BSD system, several groups went off different ways with the code. One of these was the 386BSD project, which took the BSD code and made it run on the Intel i386 platform.
Page 4 (thanks, Google :) (Score:5, Informative)
Then, there's the second category; those programs which are add-on packages. In the BSD world, this is usually called the "ports system". That name is chosen for a specific reason.
Traditionally, when you wanted to run a package on your system, the first thing you had to do was compile it. And often before you could compile it, you'd have to fiddle with it. Your system would require different header files. Sometimes, manifest constants would be different. Sometimes, you'd even need to rewrite parts of it from scratch, because of basic assumption that didn't hold on your system.
Or, in other words, you'd have to "port" it to your OS, and/or to your specific system. The basic intent of the ports system is to do all that "porting" stuff for you. That it also automates building and installing, and provides packaging services (for things like 'uninstall') isn't as well reflected in the name.
But as with many things, it grew past its name into the beast it is today. The current FreeBSD ports collection has close to 10,000 packages in it (this number will, of course, be outdated quickly, but that's the nature of development). The most obvious feature of ports is that it builds things from source all the time, rather than just install pre-build binaries. This, it seems, is another one of those blatant differences that trip people up when trying to look at BSD from a Linux perspective. That it builds from source is just a side effect, it's not the primary purpose or difference. Binary packages are also available; in fact, binary packages are built from the ports tree!
Now, it's true that most Linux users install binary packages, and most BSD users install by building from source. Partly, that's a result of the tools; the ports system is designed around the concept of building from source, with the ability to make and install binary packages being something of an afterthought, while Linux packaging like RPM and dpkg and such are designed around the concept of installing a binary package, with building from source as an afterthought. Some of this is historical; binary packaging historically isn't a predominant theme in Unix systems, as I mentioned earlier. For that matter, packaging itself is a more recent thing. Traditionally, you'd deal with uninstalling and such manually.
Now, there are advantages to pre-compiled binaries; mostly time (as in much less), and usually it'll take a lot less space to install a pre-compiled package, than it would to compile the package. There's also advantages to building from source, like avoiding all sorts of library versioning ugliness (my personal pet peeve with binary packages). You can install binary packages on Linux or BSD; you can build from source on Linux or BSD. But the users seem to be biased differently, because the systems are biased differently, because the users are biased differently... it all dovetails.
I guess what's important here is to realize that the difference between ports and RPM's isn't just that ports compile and RPM's just install. Ports are designed to cover the full range of bits and pieces of installing stuff; encoding and tracking and installing dependancies, packaging, installing and deinstalling, local changes necessary to build on your system, compile-time configuration tweaks... all those things. An RPM is just a binary package. If you want to auto-install dependancies, you have to have a higher-level tool like urpmi or apt-get to do it. And, since it's binary, you have to deal with library versioning conflicts, or missing compile options, or any of the other limitations you incur by not building it on your own system.
And further, ports, like the rest of the BSD systems, are centralized. The "ports tree" is really just a big directory tree with a bunch of categorized directories, each containing a Makefile with some variable definitions, a checksum file, a packing list, and various other possible things. Each of those directories represents a single program, which is described by th
BSD is designed. Linux is grown? (Score:5, Informative)
He jests (not kind
BSD has grown from each previous BSD and then from each previous UNIX. How he can say this is more "designed" than Linux I'm not sure.
Sam
Page 5... (Score:5, Informative)
The BSDs all keep the system under revision control; all the free BSDs use CVS [cvshome.org]. Revision control (in extremely brief) is a process by which editing a program means checking out a file or group of files, making the changes, then checking in the new versions, along with a message describing the change. A full history of all changes is kept in the revision control system, so you can view a history of the changes, check out an old version, look at the differences between arbitrary versions, etc.
All the BSDs provide public access to their CVS repositories in one way or another; generally through anonymous CVS, or CVSup checkout or mirroring, or often both. That means that, as a user, you can see exactly what changes happened when, who did them, and why they did them. You can also always get your hands on the latest changes (within a few hours, anyway, depending on mirroring strategies). All of the free BSDs have mailing lists that you can subscribe to and see the changes as they're made. In fact, they all have web frontends as well; you can poke around FreeBSD's entire source tree online at http://cvsweb.freebsd.org/src/ [freebsd.org], and see all the history of every file.
Linux, historically, hasn't used any version control for the kernel. I don't have exact data at my fingertips here, but I believe it was somewhere in mid-2.4 days that the kernel began being kept in a public BitKeeper repository. Many of the other utilities use revision control, but since they're all developed separately, there isn't any central place you can go to to look through the changes. So it's sometimes hard to get a historic picture of even any one part; to so do for a whole distribution is practically impossible.
This leads to a lot of differences. In a very real sense, BSD systems are constantly developed; I can always update my system to the absolute latest code, irrespective of "releases". In Linux, that doesn't really have as much meaning, because the release process is very different. I think the most appropriate verb for a Linux release is "assembled". A Linux release is assembled from version A.B of this program, plus version C.D of this program, plus version E.F of this program... all together with version X.Y.Z of the Linux kernel. In BSD, however, since the pieces are all developed together, the verb "cut" makes a lot more sense; a release is "cut" at a certain time.
Linux releases kernels in two parallel lines (well, often more than 2, but we're simplifying); a version with an odd minor release number, as a "development" version, and a version with an even minor release number, as a "production" version. The BSDs also have "development" and "production" tracks, but they're handled rather differently.
CVS, like most version control systems, has the concept of "branches". It's easy to understand, but somewhat difficult to explain. Basically, when you "branch" a file or a set of files (or a whole directory tree), you create a new version of the file which exists in parallel with the primary version. When you make changes to the primary version, it doesn't affect the branched version. And you can make changes to the branched version without affecting the primary.
In FreeBSD, there's usually 2 active development lines; one called "-CURRENT", which is the development version, and the other called "-STABLE", which is the production version. Both, of course, are under development, and both have some attempt to be made to keep them usable. -STABLE, as a rule, gets bug and security fixes, but only gets new features and such that are well tested, usually by a stint in -CURRENT first. -CURRENT gets new features, big architectural changes, and all those sorts of new development stuff. It should be noted that the naming of the branches doesn't necessarily mean what it seems to; while -STABLE usually is "stable" as in
CVS isn't all that great (Score:3, Informative)
Don't get me wrong -- using CVS is waaay better than no VC. CVS was the first VC system I used seriously (well, after a short stint with RCS). However, CVS is seriously hampered by trying to be highly compatible with RCS, which was never designed for th
Say WHAT?! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm wondering what he's smoking. Of course, if he's in Berkeley maybe he's using more LSD than BSD...
If the SCO lawsuit has done anything positive, it has caused a lot of research into the history of UNIX and its derivatives. And based on the continuous ripoffs between Berkeley and AT&T, BSD definitely didn't start out with a plan. Linux hasn't forked into eight or nine individual large projects, and is still spearheaded by its original creator, who ultimately decides what goes where or delegates the decisions. True he takes input from more and more people, and probably has less direct control than he used to, but the core of what is wanted for the next stable series is usually pretty clear once things are played with.
and other than Slackware, all of the distributions seem to be pretty tight too, not just falling completely where things end up.
Re:Say WHAT?! (Score:3, Insightful)
The only reason that I use Debian primarily (and Slackware on a couple of machine
Re:site is slashdotted, here's the 1st page (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a theory about this, and I borrow it from the movie "The New Kid." Basically to make a reputation for yourself, you find guy bigger than you in the school and you kick his ass. For BSD, the next biggest kid is Linux. For Linux, it is Windows (no, not OS-X, you get a bad rep for beating the hell out of the big retarded kid. People don't think your tough, just mean). Basically, most Linux evangelists aren't concerned with which UNIX like OS is better, but with freeing those people shackled to a proprietary operating system that hampers their freedom. That is the reason you don't see many Linux users writing articles on why BSD users should switch to Linux.
page #3 (Score:4, Informative)
The concept of the "base system" is something that, I think, causes the most trouble for people used to the Linux methodology. Which is perfectly understandable, because the whole idea just doesn't even exist in the Linux world.
Linux, from the start, was just a kernel. Without getting into the eternal debate of what an "operating system" precisely consists of, it's easy to state that a kernel by itself isn't very useful. You need all the userland utilities to make it work. Linux has always been a conglomerate; a kernel from here, a ls from there, a ps from this other place, vim, perl, gzip, tar, and a bundle of others.
Linux has never had any sort of separation between what is the "base system" and what is "addon utilities". The entire system is "addon utilities". MySQL is no different from ls from KDE from whois from dc from GnuCash from ...
Every bit of the system is just one or another add-on package.
By contrast, BSD has always had a centralized development model. There's always been an entity that's "in charge" of the system. BSD doesn't use GNU ls or GNU libc, it uses BSD's ls and BSD's libc, which are direct descendents of the ls and libc that where in the CSRG-distributed BSD releases. They've never been developed or packaged independently. You can't go "download BSD libc" somewhere, because in the BSD world, libc by itself is meaningless. ls by itself is meaningless. The kernel by itself is meaningless. The system as a whole is one piece, not a bunch of little pieces.
Now, X isn't a part of the FreeBSD base system. It's an addon package. Since X isn't part of the base system, X apps like xterm and KDE and Gnome and Mozilla and gaim and xmms and such obviously can't be part of the base system either. They're add-on packages, which are treated and thought of differently. The primary difference is where they're developed.
NetBSD and OpenBSD do have an X implementation in the base, because of the way they integrate it with their console driver. They both use heavily modified, very custom versions, so it's not feasible to keep it as a separate package.
The entire base system is developed together. To be sure, there're parts of the base system like sendmail and BIND and tcpdump and ssh and such, which are in fact individual packages which are developed elsewhere. There are even some GNU packages like groff and gcc and gzip and such, which will be immediately recognizable to any Linux user. But these are treated specially, in that versions are imported into the tree, then molded to fit the rest of the system. In fact, many of them used to be BSD-only; BIND and sendmail were originally developed at Berkeley as part of BSD, and only later became available separately. My FreeBSD system claims to be running gcc version 3.2.2 at this moment. Technically, it's not really gcc 3.2.2; it's a FreeBSD compiler based on gcc 3.2.2. The version of tcpdump I've got here isn't technically 3.7.2, it's a FreeBSD tcpdump based on tcpdump 3.7.2.
In most cases, of course, the FreeBSD version is practically indistinguishable from the vendor version. There're usually some changes to the compiling setup (Makefiles and such) to let it build cleanly with the rest of the system, and occasionally some necessary patches to make it compile and run right. Some changes are more extensive, and some are massive. But, they're all maintained together, and forced to play nicely together. There's a basic assurance that the pieces in a BSD base system all fit together, by design.
The primary reason an externally-maintained package becomes imported into and tracked in the base system is that it is, in some way, basic enough to the functioning of the system that it's easiest to have it there by default. FreeBSD currently uses the OpenSSH ssh server and client, which are integrated into the base system because, in this day and age, a secure remot
BSD Braindamage (Score:5, Informative)
I jumped from RH62 to OpenBSD3.3 some time ago. I have to admit that I've applied a lot fewer patches, security is much better, and the firewall is very powerful. In all, I'm happier.
However, I don't like:
And let's not even get started on Mac OS X.
Re:BSD Braindamage (Score:4, Insightful)
I've not used OpenBSD in a while, but last time I did, it didn't come with tcsh. root's shell was csh. If this is a problem for you, it's because you're doing something wrong (i.e. logging in as root).
There is no
I am incredibly annoyed by some of the customization that is coming with recent Linux systems I've used. For example, I signed up for a web host that has craploads of completions that create a behavior I'm completely not used to and is not useful to me. I sometimes have a need to rename a file to a variation of itself where I type `mv fi[tab] fi[tab]^H2' or something...except on this system, the second parameter of mv completes to a directory only, so I can't rename it, or grab more than one file at a time, or anything else like that with completions. Let me customize my own shell.
OpenBSD does not have methods to easily start/stop services (i.e. redhat "service network restart") for reasons of nostalgia. FreeBSD is somewhat more forward-thinking in this.
I think FreeBSD is using NetBSD's implementation of the individual rc scripts in a directory with built-in dependencies. The scripts themselves are far more simple than classic SysV scripts and can do a lot more. Not to mention the dependencies are done correctly so you don't end up with fifteen S99 scripts like I've always seen.
And let's not even get started on Mac OS X.
Why not?
Re:BSD Braindamage (Score:3, Insightful)
If errata are issued against the OpenBSD's Base Operating System, it is source only - you must recompile. There is no automatic update agent.
As a debian-user-trying-out-OpenBSD, I found this quite odd.
OpenBSD is supposed to be about security. Yet, to keep a system up to date, the official way is to have a ports try, sync it with cvs, and rebuild it. To update the base operating system, you need the source and to apply the patches manually (as far as I can tell from the FAQ). All of a sudden, your
Re:BSD Braindamage (Score:4, Informative)
The only difference is that someone sat down and imposed a bit of order on the chaos, making a nice, standard way to install and uninstall packages and provide runlevel functionality.
Page #4 (Score:3, Informative)
Then, there's the second category; those programs which are add-on packages. In the BSD world, this is usually called the "ports system". That name is chosen for a specific reason.
Traditionally, when you wanted to run a package on your system, the first thing you had to do was compile it. And often before you could compile it, you'd have to fiddle with it. Your system would require different header files. Sometimes, manifest constants would be different. Sometimes, you'd even need to rewr
page 7 (Score:3, Informative)
General
Ah, now this is the part I enjoy. Lots of soaring generalities, without a single hard fact in sight. Saves the trouble of having to do research. 8-)
What I'm going to discuss here is some of the real and imagined philosophical differences that both cause, and are caused by, some of the technical and organizational differences we've discussed. Like most such discussions, there's little that's hard-and-fast here; there's plenty of overlap in attitudes among pe
Re:site is slashdotted, here's the 1st page (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. No argument there. If someone wants an authentic 1980's feel to their system, by *all means* use BSD. It's just that authenticity to traditional UNIX is not of high priority to most folks -- it's getting things done that is. That's why bash, gcc, and other utilities traditionally associated with Linux systems seem to be installed even on "real" UNIX systems nowadays.
page #6 (Score:3, Informative)
Building the world in less than 7 days
As a result of the fact that the BSD base system is developed as a single unit, you can easily get the entire source tree for the entire base system. And because of the way it's designed, you can execute a single command at the top level to compile everything. For most of us, that's the normal way to upgrade; you update your source tree to the absolute latest (with a few hours, of course) changes made by anybody, compile it, install the new binaries, and
Re:site is slashdotted, here's the 1st page (Score:3, Funny)
Yea, because everyone knows that an opinion posted on slashdot is hard evidence in any court of law.
Do you have any idea how silly what you said sounds? They are too busy asking IBM for a copy of AIX so they can compare code.
Re:site is slashdotted, here's the 1st page (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:page 9 (Score:3, Insightful)
What kind of jerk *is* this guy?
Yeah, I think I'll "go after the Mozilla authors with a 2x4" because they've failed to provide native support for my sixth mouse button. Christ. What happened to "I want something done, so instead of making someone that *already* gave
In a way that Linux people can absorb (Score:5, Funny)
Just sprinkle your explanation with random anti-Microsoft rants and talk of your imminent death, and you'll do just fine.
FreeBSD for Linux Users (Score:3, Funny)
Well, my suggestion would be to use a lot of pretty pictures interspersed with interludes on where Linus is, what Linus is doing, what Linus was wearing, what Linus said, what Linus' facial expression was as he said it, if Linus will be say something like that again, perhaps, in the future, and where Linus might be living or moving to, maybe, perhaps, possibly.
Then I'd lead all the Linux users out to a fertile field where they could graze for the day, protected by a couple of good dogs, herding them in, keeping them together, where I'd sit back and enjoy their gentle baying in the summer sun: Liiiiinnnnux, Liiiiiinux ...
I have a few theories on why that is (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps for the same reasons that the Branch Davidians or the Ralieans knew more about the Cathloics than most Cathloics knew about the Branch Davidians or the Ralieans? Maybe Linux is just a much more widespread cult than BSD.
And my impression is... (Score:5, Insightful)
And my impression is that Ogg communit{y, ies}, in general, understand Mp3 far better than Mp3 communit{y,ies} understand Ogg
*ducks*
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:turned off (Score:3, Insightful)
This has already happened - Sun's Solaris 9 SSH is based on portable OpenSSH. I'm happy that Solaris is a little less braindamaged out of the box these days (though I wish they would get a modern
Would I care if Microsoft were to make a few $$$
Quite mistaken (Score:3, Interesting)
Below is from the SFU licenses you get with SFU 3.5
The utilities bc, ci, co, cpio, csplit, dc, diff, diff3, gawk, gzip, gunzip, ident, merge, nl, rcs, rcsdiff, rcsmerge and rlog are covered under the GNU General Public License, here reproduced. In accordance with section 3b of this license the source code to those utilities is available from the Services for UNIX World Wide Web site, http://www.microsoft.com/wind
Re:turned off (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. If Microsoft takes a copy of your BSD licensed code, compiles it, presses it onto a CD, drops it into a shiny box (so shiny!) and sells it for $100...
What is stopping anybody else from doing the same thing? What is stopping anybody else from doing the same thing but only charging $90? Or $110 but including a nice manual? Absolutely nothing.
People who use the "Microsoft will use my code in a product" argument against the BSD license forget that the original code will still be available for free. Whatever the marketplace can accept paying for Microsoft's additions to otherwise freely available software then that is what Microsoft's additions are worth, regardless of how insignificant those additions are.
Embrace and Extend. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or they simply save resources on developing that code, and can put more resources into the Doc format lockin.
I'd rather OSS contributions were forced open so all could enjoy them. Those who want to create closed software can suffer from the same code duplication and inefficiencies that everyone else suffers of, due to the closed-software practices.
Re:turned off (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:turned off (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has released their changes when required, specifically KHTML, GCC, and others. They have also released their BSD codebase as Darwin, which is available at the following URL.
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/
Feel free to look at all of the other code they have contributed. If you ask me, they're better than Microsoft simply because they participate. Microsoft doesn't do this, at all.
Maybe you're just writing flamebait and I'm a big sucker? Oh well.
Another flamebait post ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It should be pointed out that if ever the Slashdot community believes that the editors of Slashdot are immune to pot-stirring tendencies, then this post should serve as proof that sometimes they get bored and message each other: "The servers are slooooowww today. What can we do to get a few hundred angry comments? Oh, I KNOW!!!"
Site Mirror, Conclusion (Score:4, Interesting)
It Just Works. When I install the system, a set group of pieces are there. Period. When I go through the upgrade process, it works. When I install an addon package, it works.
It supports practically every piece of hardware I've thrown at it in close to a decade of use. And that support Just Works, it doesn't flake out or fail from one version to another.
I can choose whether to stick with tried and tested release versions, to track the -STABLE branch, to track the -CURRENT branch... however close to the edge I want to live. And even the bleedingest edge usually works just fine. I can take a system that hasn't been touched in 3 years, and bring it up to date with minimal pain.
When a problem comes up, whether it's security or stability or performance or even just aesthetics, it gets fixed. And because of the development methodology, I can get those fixes later that same evening. All the time. When a new feature gets added, I can grab it right now, not wait a week or a month or 6 months until the next release. I can see, whizzing by in my email, every change as it's made. Or, when something breaks, I can fix it myself, and be able to send the fix right off to somebody who can get it incorporated into the system right away. I've done it before, I'll do it again, and so have thousands of other people.
It's designed to all fit together. Not just munged after-the-fact to go together OK, but designed from the ground up to be a single coherent system. And when something doesn't fit, it's a bug to be fixed, not just "part of the game".
It's had quirks. It's had vagueries. It's had out-and-out bugs. It's had bizarreness. It's had inexplicable behavior. It's given me misleading error messages. Sometimes, it out-and-out breaks things that worked yesterday. And all those will happen again in the future. But, every time, somebody goes right ahead and notices, and discusses, and fixes it. I read the mailing lists, and I see these things go by. I see the problem brought up, I see the people who know the area discussing it, I see solutions proposed and discarded and tested and agreed upon, and I see them committed into the main repository. And usually by the time I see it happen, I can already get my hands on it.
It's just a level of consistency and transparency and usability lightyears beyond anything else I've seen. Its development path is aimed at technical merit and correct solutions, not just sexy features and workable hacks. And I think that's the only way to be sustainable long-term.
Why should you run BSD?
Well, I don't know. Does what you have now meet your needs? Then you probably don't have an urgent need to change anything.
There're plenty of essays and rants on there about why X works better than Y, for any values of X and Y. I don't want to write another one. If and when you do get time or inclination or resources to try BSD, I want this essay to help you understand why some of those differences are there, and what the result of those differences is.
More info
All the BSD's sites (FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD) have extensive documentation available on their systems. Because the base system is integrated, all things dealing with it can be authoritatively documented in a single place. They describe the strengths and weaknesses of the individual systems, how to install them, how to upgrade them, how to admin them... Everything you need.
In the FreeBSD docs in particular, the article on Explaining BSD is similar to this essay, in that it describes BSD and its historical context. There's all kinds of documentation, from introductory documents describing the basics of FreeBSD and Unix-type systems, to detailed descriptions of the inner workings of the kernel, and everything in between. Scroll down the page.
And, of course, the FreeBSD Handbook, and the FreeBSD FAQ are both stuffed with information you never even knew you needed. Don't leave home without it.
The BSD's also all have mailing lists and news
Slashdotted (Score:3, Funny)
Only 31 comments so far and it is slashdotted.
Are Slashdot readers actually reading this story? What with Linux, BSD, and rant in the title it must be good. :)
I guess that is what I get for working on Friday afternoon instead of reading Slashdot. It is time for the afternoon sun to wash out my monitor anyway, so I have to take a break.
</worthless_post>the_crowbar
Live and let live (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of BSD code flows into Linux, and a lot of apps that are made worthwhile (in terms of size of userbase) by Linux are ported to BSD.
Every person using Linux OR BSD is an asset to the free software community, and helping things in the right direction. There is no need to get pissy over small things like licenses or religious wars until only Linux, BSD and other free OSes are left standing and all other non-free systems are long buried.
BIND and Sendmail (Score:5, Funny)
BIND and sendmail were originally developed at Berkeley as part of BSD
Aha, so that's where the blame lies! ;)
Been Trying It Out (Score:5, Informative)
It's one of those things where for a bit, I was a little confused on how things work. Granted, OpenBSD is not as "user friendly" on the install as, say, Red Hat 9, where you click the pretty buttons and things install. But thanks to a copy of "Absolute OpenBSD", I got it installed.
And I have to admit - for my server love, it's working pretty well. The ports system works like I'd always dreamed RPM's to work - tell it "install", and it gets the source, check it for dependancies, and go on.
The Flavor setting is another one I think I can live with, since you can specify there things like "Plaintext imap" versus default "secure imap" and the like.
And everything is right where I'd expect it. Ports installed files are in local, so now I can remember where everything is at once it's installed.
And it's pretty small - little "crufiness", and the community has been great. Like when I couldn't get Apache, PHP, and MySql to play. Turns out it was a socket issue (Apache on OpenBSD by default only wants to see things in
So far, as a server system, I'm beginning to groove on it. Perhaps if I wanted to run it as a desktop I might or might not have other issues, but since I've got a different OS for my desktop things, I'm pretty pleased with the BSD system.
Next up: learning how to upgrade. Not that I need to yet, but it's that "yet" that I'm anticipating. (Hey, there could always be another ssh exploit - you never know.)
A matter of preference ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was a linux fan from quite a while back and I decided to try FreeBSD to see the differences.
I installed it without much difficulty and poked around. I liked what I saw. I sorta shrugged my shoulders and said "Looks like a Unix system to me" and continued using Linux.
I was using Redhat for the longest time before RHAT forced me into migrating (Mandrake if you must know). I never really saw a reason to switch from this distro to that distro unless the features were significantly different.
I think it's all what you get used to and prefer. I never understood the BSD/Linux platform wars. To me, we're on the same open source team. As long as I can download the code, I don't see a big problem. If SCO got their wish and asked me for 699$, you can bet I'd be hopping straight over to FreeBSD. All the software I need is there anyhow.
After all, LinuxDistros/BSD aren't so different when they share the same features (KDE, openoffice, etc...)
Why I don't use BSD? (Score:3, Troll)
If a software license was like the government:
1. BSD would be anarchy. You can do whatever you want with whatever you want, whenever you want to. Murder your own mother? Nobody cares, you're free to do so! It's anarchy baby!
2. Most of Microsoft's traditional licenses would be rampant fascism. We control everything, we are accountable for nothing, and we will not stop until there is nothing left. Hitler would be proud.
3. Just about any license agreement from any small company would be the equivalent to an Iraqi or Italian dictatorship (think Musolini, absolutely pathetic compared to Hitler, but still a complete control freak).
4. Shared source would be communism (you have the illusion of freedom, but really, we the collective control everything and you have no say even though we say you have say even though you don't but you do).
5 And finally, the GPL would be democracy. Democracies are hardly ideal, they are slow, they waste a lot of energy, they infight a lot, but in the end there is NOTHING better.
It's as simple as that.
Bryan
Re:Why I don't use BSD? (Score:5, Interesting)
5 And finally, the GPL would be democracy. Democracies are hardly ideal, they are slow, they waste a lot of energy, they infight a lot, but in the end there is NOTHING better.
Refresh my memory, how is the GPL not a "shared source" license again? How can I create a derivative work of GPLed code without sharing my code?
Oh, and you are mixing your metaphors. Anarchy, fascism and democracy are systems of government. Communism is a system of economics.
In which you demonstrate (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Linux, not BSD is run like an anarchy. The kernel is done by one group, Gnu, the utils, libs and applications are another, they're not even vaguely in sync with one another and like a sloppy carpenter they're leaving it to the plasterers and painters (Distributions) to make it look good.
2. pass (aside from noting a Goodwin)
3. Small companies obviously vary, I've had both extraordinary good luck with some(most) and less good luck with others. That's called a market, caveat emptor. Particularly smaller software firms I've worked with have been extraordinarily good at listenting to customer requirements and actually responding.
4. Shared Source ... ahh now that's an important license type. Didn't want to contrast Public Domain, Artistic, MIT ...?
5. As with (1) you've reversed it. The BSD's in fact operate considerably more slowly than Linux in developement pace, however they do so with far better coordination of the various parts. Kernel, Libc, utilities are released together, and probably benefit from the faact that the whole assemblage is tested.
I have *nothing* against any of these systems, some I use, some I don't. Linux works, BSD works and I'm fluent in the advantages and disadvantages of each and can make educated decisions about which is appropriate to a given task.
You've also demonstrated that you don't understand crap about governments. The world has many flavors of democracies, the Linux, BSD, Gnu, Perl communities are all vibrant forms of demorcracies in action (as, by the way are commercial / proprietary vendor - customer environments.)
It's as simple as that. Let me guess you use Debian? or is it Windows?
One thing I dislike about Linux community (Score:5, Insightful)
The first page stated that BSD is for those who like Unix and Linux is for those that hate microsoft, and that last statment is not going to win support for Linux.
Take the Wikipedia asking for donations last week, half the posts here at slashdot were, "Why don't they go salvage a few old PIII 600's and cluster them together. Should only cost about two grand". Hell, an worthwhile opensource project needs some help paying the bills and they get ripped apart here. Sorry geeks, but Econ 101: There is no free lunch. It costs someone something somewhere. (Yes I did donate $25. Not much, but all that I could afford at the moment.)
I do use Linux, but mostly I do use some kind of BSD, whether it be Mac OS X, OpenBSD, or FreeBSD.
I see the people trying to either be funny or karma whoring state: Well if he can show me a freeBSD server that can survive a /.ing...and I have to ask, "How many sites are taken down a week by slashdotting running Linux?" Hell I know our little 2.Ghz Xeon box with 1GB of Ram wouldn't survive no matter what OS we had on there, it is Linux btw.
Bottom line...the negativity needs to go out of OSS. Linux cannot have the banner, "Microsoft Sucks! and use us because...Microsoft Sucks!" and hope to really make it into the desktop arena. OSS and Linux needs a banner of, "Hey our system works, has fewer viruses, easy to use, and it will do any thing Windows will do, except play games."
And to the "any thing you can do, I can do for free" dot communist crowd: In order to make Linux viable, its going to need programs written for it like games, quickbooks, quicken, adobe products, that people are willing to spend money on and need before it will truely be accepted main stream.
One thing I dislike about the Jackass community (Score:3, Informative)
Linus, Gates, and Theo have no control over how their software communities behave. Their respective software communities have no control over how they themselves behave.
Yes, I realize my complaint has been voiced before. But all y'all jackasses are hard to drown out. Well. IHBT. IHL. HAND.
What I'd like to see more than a rant... (Score:3, Insightful)
Dealing with these questions would be far more useful than taking saying
foreach("Amiga", "Mac", "OS/2", "*BSD", "WinXP") {
print "$_ is better than your OS.\n";
}
which is my impression of where these screeds come from.
I Hate These Kind of "Helpful Documents" (Score:3, Insightful)
Happy Linux, Mac, Windows, etc. Users don't need to be told why BSD will make them happier. Frankly an author has to take a wild guess what bugs me about my Linux and Windows machine. They might get it formated like this but a general "What does BSD do well" FAQ is better. Mr Fuller might not know that some of the things he thinks are wrong in Linux I've hacked around or are in the end non-issues.
Free software is about enabling people. Linux and BSD and whatever can and should all exist because neither is "right". A Linux user can learn how to use BSD. A BSD can learn how to use Linux. How come? Its because both are open systems. The implication with "helpful documents" like this is that there is a right or wrong choice to be made which I believe is an idea rooted in bad faith.
Can't we all... (Score:5, Interesting)
I tried FreeBSD once, it seemed okay. I agree that the BSDs are probably a better, more reliable operating system than Linux. However, Linux was SO much better than Windows, that any improvements BSD could make seem minimal at best, especially since most of the server and end-user software is identical.
For example, someone once told me that BSD is much more stable than Linux. Assume that's true for a minute: I've NEVER had a Linux system crash, except for hardware failures, and I've been using Linux since 1998 or so. Okay, so maybe BSD is more stable than Linux, but the time spent learning BSD isn't worth the "extra" uptime I'd have, since the extra uptime is approximately zero.
As I mentioned, the end-user software is mostly the same, but I've heard Linux has more variety and more hardware support. My printer is supported under Linux (it's an HP USB printer), but I don't know whether HP is putting resources into BSD support. Same goes for my Palm Pilot. Since everything is working now, and I'm happy with how well everything works, why should I want to switch to BSD?
And why can't we have our own preferences anyway? Why do BSD users have to bash Linux and vice versa? The two are a lot more alike than different, at least compared to Linux vs Windows or BSD vs Windows. (It's almost like brothers fighting...)
--RJ "Firmly sitting on the fence"
As a user of both... (Score:5, Insightful)
The folks that will choose one or the other and be biased about it are either:
1) BSD folks that tried out linux in 1994, and still have the impression stuck in their mind. They seem to think that linux hasn't changed at all since then.
2) Linux folks that at some point of their complete n00bness went into a BSD channel in efnet and asked some lame question like "since linux is unix, where can i get the FreeBSD RPMS?" and got flamed so hard that they had to crawl out of a hole in the ground. Therefore, they think that BSD users are all crusty assholes that cling to a "little used" OS that is fading into obscurity like people that try to ride out hurricanes. Hence all the "BSD is dying" bullshit.
And it's really sad. Both have their merits. Both share many of the same goals. I wish they could get along and do great things together.
My $0.02USD + tax.
BSD (Score:4, Interesting)
I think with Linux's popularity, people often fail to understand that generally the same desktop environments, utilities, and such work exactly the same on the BSD's. Especially in the case of the ever-so-portable NetBSD, it allows one to have a Linux-like desktop on pretty any platform imaginable that's powerful enough.
Now, commercial/binary application support, and variety of device drivers available are the main areas were the BSD's are still playing catch-up.
I read the article when it was on newsforge (Score:3, Insightful)
Although the writer does have a few good points, he also has some rather large gaps in his knowledge. He really only knows the FreeBSD system, but seems to assume the other BSDs do things exactly the same. Some of his arguments would apply to NetBSD and OpenBSD, but not all of them.
His personal bias really shows through in the writing, almost bordering on making it a flame or troll against Linux, even though he mentions over and over that this is not the intent.
I'd love to see the same article written by someone with less personal bias, and more actual knowledge of Linux and the BSDs.
Understanding communities (Score:4, Funny)
better than the avg linuxer.
Oh, I tried it (Score:4, Interesting)
I found the installer to be utterly cryptic, filled with unexplained single letter commands. I should not need a $40 reference book to install the freaking OS. Once it was up and running I was fairly comfortable, except for the propensity to scatter config files/etc around the filesystem. Maybe debian has spoiled me, but I expect to find *all* config files under
Then of course there is their reputation for security. They would have people believe that there has never been a root exploit; in reality, that only actually applies to the "base" system. I do like that the secure by default thing; having to specifically enable services is a good idea(getting the choice while installing is better though).
Times have changed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahem (Score:5, Insightful)
The comment at the top, in css class "ahem". Saying that my browser doesn't support css. What actually happened is your server couldn't serve the css page. With pretentions like these are you suprised people don't care about the facts of BSD?
Schisms... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gentoo is somewhat similar but they aren't aiming for ultra stability and they don't have a long term reputation like FreeBSD.
Debian is great for upgrades but the glacier pace of upgrades to the stable release is unacceptable.
Slackware is wonderful (I'm back to using it for my desktop OS) but upgrading the OS isn't as nice as FreeBSD. Third party tools like swaret are slick but not time tested.
I would love to have a tidy distributation of Linux and a small core of tools released in the same way as FreeBSD with a similar "make world" upgrade process.
Shiver Me Timbers..... (Score:3, Insightful)
What i think is a *real* issue for the BSD folks to consider if they are being misunderstood..
(and i mean this as informative, not scathing)
In other words, the BSD community just inherited a whole new legion of zealots, who will have the side effect of causing people (who probably also aren't very knowledgeable) to associate "BSD" with bad flamewars, etc. The difference is that some of these folks don't have a clue, and they spout a lot of dumb rhetoric.
Sure, there are zealots in *any* camp, and there are kind, knowledgeable, helpful folks in every camp too. I'm not saying that all OSX users are zealots, or clueless, or that all BSD users are assholes, or anything. Good and bad in all.
Like in Star Trek (Score:4, Funny)
Here is why (Score:3, Insightful)
That's my reasoning, and I'll bet it's the majority opinion if you were to poll average linux users.
Re:Here is why (Score:3, Insightful)
Explore somethinng you might like better perhaps?
I switched. (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, I consider myself somewhat of an advanced *nix user, even though I've only been doing it circa 2001. I started out with linux, of course, and liked it very much. I've seen the both the system and the open source community make tremendous leaps and bounds in just these few short years, and I must say that linux is absolutely a fine operating system.
Despite this, I was also compelled to try FreeBSD; I'm always interested in trying new things and tinkering around as much as I can with things I know little about, so naturally BSD was the perfect target for me. Being used to linux, I found the subtle differences in BSD very attractive; I wanted to get in on this because of the useful knowledge would provide as well as the rich history behind it. Also, a tiny bit of zealously may have played a part ("Wow, it's really unix!) ;)
I had a touch and go realtionship with BSD for the past several years, but it wasn't only until this one that I got a little more serious about it. Putting linux down for a while, I delved deeper into the use and maintanence of the system, gaining the kind of more intimate knowledge that the casual user probably doesn't have.
What happened was that I loved absolutely everything about it; it was very different than linux! Instead of groping around for strange tools and trying to fight a quirky system with which, due to constant mutation, there was always some uncertainty as to the correct way of doing things (are you running distribution X, Y, or Z? What version of software package A do you have, and are you using libraries B or C?).
With BSD, I found a system that was consistent, reliable, and very practical in its design. If you wanted to do something, there was a right way to do it, and this way always works (and works well, at that). Package management was top notch, and upgrading, maintaining, and generally managing the system was a quick, easy, and painless process. It is often said that BSD is not "user friendly", but I guess it's true when they say unix is "picky about who its friends are." To a moderately advanced user like me, BSD was more friendly and easy to use than linux! There aren't as many programs that will hold your wee-wee for you so you don't miss, but all of the information you need to know in order to do a certain thing is always readily available and right up front, beckoning for you to do it yourself and do it right. (some linux distributions are much better in this respect than others)
It must be said, however, that linux is a very fine system in its own right, and not to be looked down upon in any way! As Matthew says in his article, the big differences are mainly philosophical and cultural, and I have just found myself very much at home in this culture and very agreeable towards this philosophy.
What puzzles me is all of the rampant slandering of BSD that goes on by linux users (only a small percentage of this is meant to counteract the slandering made against linux by BSD users). Yes, there are common myths (like the ones Windows users hold towards linux, which make us all cringe), and yes, there are many misconceptions afloat.
Regardless of personal preference, the fact remains that BSD is also a very fine operating system, and does a few things a lot better than linux. Of course, linux does a few things a lot better than BSD, so when choosing between the two it's important to learn what those things are and how important they are to you.
The Scoop (Score:4, Informative)
4.4 What versions of BSD are available?
In contrast to the numerous Linux distributions, there are only three open source BSDs. Each BSD project maintains its own source tree and its own kernel. In practice, though, there appear to be fewer divergences between the userland code of the projects than there is in Linux.
It is difficult to categorize the goals of each project: the differences are very subjective. Basically,
*
FreeBSD aims for high performance and ease of use by end users, and is a favourite of web content providers. It runs on PCs and Compaq's Alpha processors. The FreeBSD project has significantly more users than the other projects.
*
NetBSD aims for maximum portability: ``of course it runs NetBSD''. It runs on machines from palmtops to large servers, and has even been used on NASA space missions. It is a particularly good choice for running on old non-Intel hardware.
*
OpenBSD aims for security and code purity: it uses a combination of the open source concept and rigorous code reviews to create a system which is demonstrably correct, making it the choice of security-conscious organizations such as banks, stock exchanges and US Government departments. Like NetBSD, it runs on a number of platforms.
There are also two additional BSD UNIX operating systems which are not open source, BSD/OS and Apple's Mac OS(R) X:
*
BSD/OS is the oldest of the 4.4BSD derivatives. It is not open source, though source code licenses are available at relatively low cost. It resembles FreeBSD in many ways.
*
Mac OS X is the latest version of the operating system for Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh(R) line. The BSD core of this operating system, Darwin, is available as a fully functional open source operating system for x86 and PPC computers. The Aqua/Quartz graphics system and many other proprietary aspects of Mac OS X remain closed-source, however. Several Darwin developers are also FreeBSD committers, and vice-versa.
I'm almost ashamed my FreeBSD preference now (Score:4, Insightful)
The only real part the author got right was the anology in comparing BSD/Linux to PC/Unix users. Mainframe verses PC; Client/Server verses decentralized P2P. But there is no reason it has to be that way. And in fact it can't because FreeBSD is just a fragmented in it's pieces as linux, many like him just won't admit it.
I like BSD for it's licence. I dislike Linux for it's licence. There is some truth to FreeBSD being a stronger distribution (which is another reason I like it) but it's still a distribution all the same as any Linux distribution. His statements to the contrary just don't stand up. Both sides pick and patch from what's useful.
FreeBSD is a distribution built around a core set of tools with relatively tight quality control. It is more focused that many Linux Distros. FreeBSD is also controled democraticly among the elite where Linux people have no problems forking code and competing against one another, with users and distributors judging the winners and hence is more democract.
The FreeBSD ruling class may have a bug up their ass about somethings but I'm still free to fork code. But it turns out it's not worth it. If you have good reasoning on your side and enough patience people learn, or else they die while you persist. In gerneral BSD is more about patience, who has it, and who doesn't.
Re:Slashdotted already? (Score:5, Funny)
*ducks*
Re:Slashdotted already? (Score:5, Funny)
traceroute to www.dyn.over-yonder.net (68.19.137.116): 1-30 hops, 38 byte packets
7 BELLSOUTH-TE.gar1.Level3.net (67.72.8.42) 20.3 ms (ttl=247!) 20.4 ms (ttl=247!) 20.5 ms (ttl=247!)
8 axr01asm-1-0-0.bellsouth.net (65.83.236.7) 20.5 ms (ttl=246!) 20.5 ms (ttl=246!) 20.5 ms (ttl=246!)
9 ixc01jan-5-0-1.bellsouth.net (65.83.237.89) 29.4 ms (ttl=246!) 29.4 ms (ttl=246!) 29.5 ms (ttl=246!)
10 205.152.137.134 (205.152.137.134) 40.9 ms 40.9 ms 41.0 ms
11 adsl-81-101-28.jan.bellsouth.net (65.81.101.28) 41.0 ms (ttl=54!) 45.6 ms (ttl=54!) 41.0 ms (ttl=54!)
12 * * *
13 * * *
14
(interrupt)
ADSL line, meet Slashdot. Slashdot, melt ADSL line.
rabbits (Score:5, Funny)
We'll have rabbits and chickens and live off the fat of the LAN.
Appologies to Steinbeck
Funny and True (Score:5, Insightful)
My favorite snippet:
and make up your own damn mind. That's why you have one.
Oh! That's what that thing is for! Thanks for letting me know.
Re:Funny and True (Score:3, Interesting)
This week, I had a developer log a reply in our bug tracking system as "... maybe because I am a developer it is 'intuitive' to me".
This was in response to an issue raised on a pop-up calendar with no less than 9 functional elements and 2 invocations to change a date field on a web page.
Now that's condescending.
Re:Funny and True (Score:5, Insightful)
and make up your own damn mind. That's why you have one.
Oh! That's what that thing is for! Thanks for letting me know.
The number of people that actually USE their mind is depressingly low. Most people simply watch some talking head spew an opinion, then adopt that as there own, because "he is famous". Most people have an opinion based on the last person who talked to them.
If this was not true, then our society would be MUCH different, democracy would actually work, and we would be better off.
Most people are idiots.
I suppose I am going to get a lot of "ooooh flame bait" for this
Re:Funny and True (Score:4, Insightful)
Are most people stupid sheep who will just do whatever they are told? I don't think so. It seems that way, I think when you try to 'look' at large groups of people as a whole. But when I get to know people personally I find that more are not-stupid than stupid. (proper credit - Mike came up w/ "not-stupid" and I've just stolen it - thanks RAH - And I do realize that he would disagree with me on this.)
I don't see any way to verify either position so I'm not trying to debate. Just throwing out there that I disagree with "most people are idiots" and think that it is a common misconception brought on by certain human tendencies to view things from a limited perspective. Which by the way is not stupid but rather understandable.
Re:Funny and True (Score:3, Insightful)
The educational system, most places, produces a lot of little g
Re:Funny and True (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, you're right! That's now my opinion too!
Re:Funny and True (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that and make up your own damn mind. That's why you have one is not at all condescending.
It is immediately preceded by I'm not telling you that you should believe it. Learn the facts, and the origins behind the facts, ...
He does not want his statements to substitute for your thinking. He doesn't want people going around blindly following what he says, only to find that it does not work for them in their particular situation. I can't see how this can be construed as anything other than asking people to keep their independence of thought (and choice). I mean that is why we use free software, right? Freedom of choice.
Re:Funny and True (Score:3, Insightful)
2. You can't address a large group without talking to some who aren't thinking for themselves.
So, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Let's ask him if he's stopped beating his wife next.
Re:The Best Of Both Worlds... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What is {y,ies} (Score:4, Informative)
Because there are one or more BSD communities depending on how you look at it.
Re:I'm interested in BSD but... (Score:3, Informative)
1) open-source applications
2) Linux binaries
99% of what you tend to use on a Linux system falls under #1. It's not a Linux application, specifically. It's source code that compiles under Linux... and probably other OSes as well. Maybe the authors only use Linux, and are like "Well, this is written for Red Hat, but if you want to make it work on a different OS, take the source and hack it up" (shame on them). Or maybe they're decent
Re:Of course... (Score:3, Interesting)
You're overlooking philosophical differences between Window and linux. Which is a lot more different the the philosophical differences between BSD and Linux.
Also momentum. Windows is loosing places to look for new users, Linux is still gaining them.
Re:It's political not technical (Score:4, Funny)