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BSD Operating Systems

Is FreeBSD really 'The Other Linux' 454

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-think-about dept.
Why2K writes "This article provides some interesting comments on the differences between FreeBSD and Linux, and the reasons why Linux is more popular. " Its sorta an outsider fluff piece, but its a nice summary. Talks broadly about the technical differences in the code, the sociologies, and of course, the fact that BSD has a cooler mascot ;)
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Is FreeBSD really 'The Other Linux' More

Is FreeBSD really 'The Other Linux'

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  • iso? Please support the FreeBSD or NetBSD projects and buy the cd's.

  • I'm better than you (Score:3)

    by HoserHead ( 599 ) on Sunday August 29, 1999 @10:17AM (#1717878)
    It seems whenever certain topics (GNOME/KDE, BSD, NT [sometimes]) get brought up, people get a severe case of "My dick is bigger than yours" syndrome. Somehow, every single person who uses a particular system, setup or piece of software instead of your own pet friend has become evil.

    It's funny up to a point. Seeing FreeBSD bigots flame away, saying how much superior their kernel, development system, method of distribution, networking, (insert issue here) is than Linux' implementation of the same feature, or Linux bigots saying how FreeBSD is dead, that it can't, won't, hasn't, will never go anywhere, that it doesn't support hardware, (insert isssue here) - It sort of grinds on you.

    Why people feel the need to make their system the best is obvious. Why, in the process, they have to put down, flame, or actively disrupt other systems and their development is beyond me, though. I'm sure FreeBSD is great. I'm sure BeOS is fast and it scales pretty well. What people fail to realise is that every single person on earth thinks differently. That's why there's such diversity.

    I've come across this sort of mentality before - in children. For children, it's hard to comprehend that there are a lot of other possiblities other than the one that they can come up with between their two ears. They'll become devoted to a rock band, or a television show, or perhaps something a little more extreme, and suddenly everything else in the world isn't an option anymore, and anyone who chooses it is not only misguided, but stupid - and they must be put on the right path, or they'll surely perish.

    FreeBSD is developed in a different manner than Linux, and BeOS is developed in yet another way. Each has their own goals and methods. Each is better at some things than other systems are. You know the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none." - It applies.

    The simple fact is that systems have been chugging along quite nicely, doing what they're doing, and lots of people like it they way it is. Sure, you might be disappointed in the rapid changes of Linux' kernel - but a lot of people like it that way. You might be mad that BSD doesn't christen new versions often enough for you, but a whole whack of people don't even want the option of updating often.

    If everyone could try, not to understand, but just to live and let live, I'm sure that flames would go down, the signal to noise ratio would go up, and fewer rants like this would have to be written. (I may just have to write something substantial next time)

  • Your insane then. OpenBSD supports almost every type of processor ever thought of. And these guys that write the drivers write stuff for the most obscure of devices for the most obscurest of hardware. Linux is pretty mainstream in comparison...
  • I've found that, when Linux people become frustrated by their darling going mainstream, they will probably make a shift, but I've yet to see this be a shift from Linux to some other OS. Once you've really had a taste of Linux, little else compares.

    Instead, those who switched over to RedHat, which seems to be the mainstream distro of choice, will later migrate to one of the other, less 'visible' distributions. Some do this for technical reasons, such as moving to Mandrake for the pentium optimizations, or to Debian for the tighter quality and security control. Others do it for sake of being different.

    Another avenue of which I personally am guilty, is playing with Linux on different architectures. I currently am running Linux on my AMD K62 and an old 486, a sparc IPC, a borrowed ultrasparc, a Mac Performa (PPC), trying hard to get it working on my Vax and my two HP Apollos, and priming up for an install next weekend on my Mac Quadra 660AV (an m68040 box). Nothing gives a dedicated geek that feeling of individuality like the look on the faces of people who see a big pile of seemingly unrelated computer "junk" all working together seamlessly =)

    There's so much going on with Linux, ports to different architectures, different distros to try out and compare, and new development always on the horizon, that no geek should feel compelled to switch, just to have something different to do.
  • FUD from yet another Anonymous Wanker:
    > FreeBSD has lost... .. yadda yadda yadda ..

    I can't speculate too much on FreeBSD growth except to say that a threefold increase in users is probably what has happened in the last year.

    A simple indicator, channel logs on #freebsd on efnet available at:
    http://www.emsphone.com/stats/freebsd.html

    The yearly graph shows over a threefold increase in the people coming onto to IRC to talk about and ask questions about FreeBSD.

    CDrom sales are up according to friends at WC.

    Anonymous Coward, the name fits you too well, for someone who may stating facts I'm suprised you aren't inclined to back it up by revealing your identity.

    The future may belong to Linux, but I'm sure you won't be welcome there.

    --

  • outbursts (Score:1)

    by Lx ( 12170 )
    what were they about? I've hung out with Theo before, and he seems to be an ok guy, although he does have a bit of a temper sometimes...something I guess I can accept from someone who's contributed so much to a free OS.

    -lx
  • astmatix uname -a
    SunOS astmatix.ida.liu.se 5.7 Generic_106541-03 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-4
    astmatix file /bin/* | grep dynamic | wc
    355 3907 30022
    astmatix file /bin/* | grep static | wc
    1 11 82
    astmatix file /sbin/* | grep dynamic | wc
    8 88 703
    astmatix file /sbin/* | grep static | wc
    10 110 846

    Sure doesn't look like Solaris has /bin and /sbin mostly statically linked to me (well, sbin does, by a small margin). Of course this isn't a stock install of Solaris, but somehow I doubt that /bin and /sbin are all that different from the stock ones....

    Let's try Digital UNIX 4.0, shall we?
    lien2[~]> uname -a
    OSF1 lien2.mai.liu.se V4.0 878 alpha
    lien2[~]> file /sbin/* | grep executable | grep -v dynamic | wc
    15 210 1498
    lien2[~]> file /sbin/* | grep executable | grep dynamic | wc
    71 1137 8552
    lien2[~]> file /bin/* | grep executable | grep -v dynamic | wc
    16 224 1578
    lien2[~]> file /bin/* | grep executable | grep dynamic | wc
    284 4565 33880

    Dynamically linked binaries dominate here, too.

    OK, admittedly my Debian GNU/Linux only has a total of 4 statically linked binaries in /bin and /sbin, so real Unix wins, but /bin and /sbin obviously aren't mostly dynamically linked in either of the two Unices I had available. OTOH, many people don't agree that static binaries are a good idea even for essential stuff.

    As for rc?.d dirs:
    isildur@o191 ~
    $ uname -a
    Linux o191 2.2.10 #5 Sat Jun 19 14:06:48 CEST 1999 i586 unknown
    isildur@o191 ~
    $ ls -d /etc/rc*
    /etc/rc.boot/ /etc/rc1.d/ /etc/rc3.d/ /etc/rc5.d/ /etc/rcS.d/
    /etc/rc0.d/ /etc/rc2.d/ /etc/rc4.d/ /etc/rc6.d/

    At least Debian GNU/Linux keeps the rc.d dirs in /etc, though Red Hat Linux (and probably others, as well) doesn't.

    I don't really understand why I bothered with this, I just felt like it. :)
  • I know of no professor with commit rights to the Linux kernel, could you elaborate please?

    In contrast the FreeBSD project has at least one professor, Alan Cox (at Rice University). No, he's not the Linux kern developer Alan Cox, but a different Alan Cox.

    However both camps (FreeBSD and Linux) have people in acadamia in active development, why do you feel the need to mis-inform people?

    Also, could you please explain how you managed to put "SGI" and "great minds" in the same sentance?

    --
  • Check out: http://www.freebsd.org/ports/ [freebsd.org]

    Jordan and a few others slaved to ensure that there were upgrade kits for those wishing to do an upgrade without a reinstall.

    There are "kits" for 2.2.x -> 3.x available.

    --
  • I used BSD in 1994 and it was great. Had a few friends (who gave it to mt) they never had problems. It is a worthy addition

  • BSD Licence promotes fragmentation by allowing changes to be made without these changes being released back to the "open changes pool", this will cause multiple groups to have their own little *BSD.

    Any development done on a BSD licenced program is then open to the world to take, as long as they specify "Parts taken from X by X" in the credits. This makes it so that if a company improves a BSD licenced program and then refuses to release their changes, their version will always be superior in featureset then the free and open version.

    Hey, I could grab FreeBSD, call it "Seldnix" and release it under the GPL. As long as I "Duplicated the above notice, the two conditions, and the disclaimer" the FreeBSD people could, at worst, make loud rude noises in my direction. However neat it would be to have a *nix named after me, it'd piss people off, and the fact that I could release it under the MS-Windows EULA as easily as the GPL makes that capacity a Bad Thing(TM).

    Microsoft sole the FreeBSD TCP/IP stack, made it crufty, and put it in NT5. Does this *help* society, or hurt it?

  • As far as I am concerned, FreeBSD has more solid (if scant) drivers than Linux. Example, I tried unsuccessfully for many hours to get Linux to recognize my NE2000 compatible PCI card, including building a new kernal FTPed down. I finally gave up and had a full FreeBSD install downloaded installed, and working in two hours (including X and KDE). I was so impressed!

    FreeBSD seems to run Linux binaries just as well as Linux, while the whole OS seems more responsive overall. I don't get the lag I got with Linux. The documentation has been very good, and sometimes my old Linux book helps me with my BSD questions (they are two of the same in many respects).

    The FreeBSD FTP install was impressive, I got it right the first time. It was also a very clean install, I did not get the junk Linux gives me in my directories.

    I doubt I will try out Linux again within a year or two, maybe never. FreeBSD has impressed me to the point where I have canned my Red Hat 6 CDs.

    BTW, I do not like the cartoonish FreeBSD logo. It in no way is representative of FreeBSD. The clumsy, fat Penguin is, however, a great representative of Linux.

    P.S. Please moderate this up, I always get stuck with a 1. Thanks.

    --EC
    --My URL is soon to be.
  • I fail to see why people continue to compare FreeBSD to Linux. It is like comparing apples to oranges.

    The advantages I see being campaigned by the FreeBSD community tends to sounds something like this: (correct me if I left something out)

    1) Less people are allowed to modify FreeBSD (both userland and kernel land). And thus it is more stable.

    2) Less people are allowed to modify FreeBSD (both userland and kernel land). And thus it is more secure.

    3) The FreeBSD group controls both userland and kernel land and thus they are able to support a superior change control management scheme.

    4) FreeBSD has superior developers. (over linux) since everyone knows linux developers are a bunch of rebels hacking elaborate "fixes" rather then implementing sound designs. (Resulting in unmanageabke code)

    5) FreeBSD was based on source code provided by the LORD himself *BSDlite* and thus FreeBSD is UNIX which makes it superior.

    I will attempt to rebuttal each point stated above.

    1) Less people are allowed to modify FreeBSD resulting in less people looking at source code. Resulting in fewer new features and new design (possibly better) concepts from being implmented in a timely manner. The fact that adding new code tends to create a possibility of it being unstable merely creates an opportunity for a better CVS like solution to be created (case in point:BitMover)

    2) Less people are allowed to modify FreeBSD and thus less people look at the code, resulting in less bugs being discovered. Having a smaller user base also has the advantage of being less satisfying to "crack". I wouldn't brag to my supervisor saying I found this bug in FreeBSD. I could brag saying I found a bug in linux.

    3) This is one of the most interesting arguements because it seems to be the one that has the LEAST effect on the success of Linux/Gnu. However it seems to be the one that is campaigned most by the FreeBSD community (at least the vocal part of it).

    I see this as flawed thinking, the very reason why the GNU/LINUX model works is because it follows (IMHO) the model of creating that has the most longevity. I would call this a Natrual process of creating. I say that because I see the GNU/Linux process the same way I see nature. It evolves based on the energies put into it. Now this is true for all things in my opinion however it is my experince that when you attempt to "control" evolution (or nature) it has undesireable results. (fragmentation, stagnation, death, corruption ect..).

    4) For the most part core FreeBSD developers and core Linux developers are of the same breed. This arguement is silly. Research the names in the Linux CREDITS list and this whole theory gets blown out of the water.

    5) FreeBSD was based on the efforts of many before them. A very solid well designed system. Linux was created with these same good designs in mind. But it was created with the BAD designs in mind too. Linux is not UNIX, nor has it had the luxury of it's 40 year old code base and thus it has taken a number of years for it to mature to the point of most UNIX's. It has just recently (last year or two) reached a point where it can claim as such. If you put this in perspective, you will see that Linux is growing at a rate that is truly amazing.

    The Linux/GNU process (in it's entirety) is so radically differnt then other development processes that judging it based on standard methodologies leaves you in the position of supporting an arguement that holds no water (i.e. the position/arguements you hold against something has no noticeable effect on it (leaving you always saying (just wait, it will "REAL SOON now")).

  • Do people here not realize that /bin and /sbin dynamically linked to shared libraries that are also in the root partition accomplishes the same thing as statically linking them (and makes updates easier)?
    No, I don't realise that. So you're saying that with your method, if your ld.so or a shared library gets corrupted, these dynamically linked binaries will work well enough for you to recover from this? :-)

    cjs

  • I want to try BSD, but I have run into problems with support for my hardware. It seems that linux has a wider hardware support base than BSD.
    But I do like the fact that there is a flavor of BSD that has undergone a line by line security audit.
  • Most commercial unices contain BSD code: AIX, SunOS, etc. There has been some interesting discussion about this on the freebsd-hackers mailing list in the past.

  • And if you think every other Unix statically links those, might I suggest you run Solaris for a while and find out how wrong you are?
    Hm. On my Solaris 2.7 box:

    titanic $ cd /sbin
    titanic $ file * | grep 'statically linked' | wc -l
    9

    But effectively, you're right; a Solaris system is often not usable/recoverable if you separate / and /usr. I find this rather annoying, myself, since in my experience /usr gets trashed a lot more than root. (And also, it's a lot `cheaper' in terms of disk space and time to keep a bootable backup (/altroot) on another disk if it's 64 MB right than a gig or more.)

    Because the Microsoft partitioning scheme is both far more common in the world and far more useful.
    It's certainly not far more common among Unix systems.

    It's also a lot easier to set up multi-boot systems with the Linux scheme on one disk and brain-dead hardware--only the boot partitions have to be under 1024 cylinders, and not the whole partition like for *BSD.
    This is not the case. On BSD systems, only the a partition needs to be below 1024 cylinders, not the entire DOS partition holding the BSD partitions.

    cjs

  • FreeBSD is great! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Haven't seen anyone rip on it, it runs some of the largest sites in the world! What a great OS!

  • Sheesh (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    First off, you're looking at this from the POV of a GPL fan. The FreeBSD team want's *everyone* (you, me, M$, the dog) to use their code. The more , the merrier. BSD people already know that if you release code openly, there's really no way you can truly control it. eg. How do you know portions of the Linux kernel isn't already in use in a commercial OS without seeing the source? No type of copyright (despite the interesting twist on words, the GPL is still a copyright) will stop an unscrupulous individual from doing what they want with your code. Next, you seem to worry about what might happen to the code. My questions is, does it matter? The original is still there. If the proprietary additions are something people are willing to pay for, they why shouldn't a company charge for it. Now I'm talking about the additions. They would have to be fairly compelling to make an educated consumer forego a completely free and well supported alternative. So, obviously a trivial repackacking ain't going to work. So if you sink millions in R&D to make additions (saving millions more because you don't have to write the guts), then why shouldn't you try to recoup the investment? So people wind up paying for an extended featureset. Big deal. If you don't need the feature set, you can go with the free version. If there's one thing in the bloated version that is really useful, somebody will duplicate it. Or you can duplicate it yourself. Calling it Seldnix ;) in the process. Big deal. Hey if MS takes BSD and rolls their own Win32 brand from it, it'll make my job easier. For one, it'll be an OS that end users understand and it won't crash as much. On the otherhand, after seeing what M$ did to the TCP stack, maybe it's not such a great idea.
  • There are three '*BSD' distributions, aside from the venerable BSDi:

    FreeBSD, the codebase described here, is the middle-of-the-road BSD distribution. Its users make offerings at the Temple of Berkeley.

    OpenBSD is the "ultrasecure" version. It has an active, ongoing audit for security flaws and so forth. Even Linux advocates in the know will recommend OpenBSD when the main objective is security.

    NetBSD is the "widely ported" version; its platform count exceeds Linux's at last check (although a friend of mine working at a Maryland company curses out NetBSD/Sparc on a daily basis).
  • There's not much competition per se between Linux and *BSD.. they're both great OSes. BSD is incredibly powerful and stable but it's got a learning curve that's steep enough to require a safety line and supplmental oxygen. Linux, believe it or not, is a more "friendly" UNIX-like OS.
    Not to say that the BSD guys wouldn't like to be the darling of the world's attention as we dig ourselves out of the soft-inspired rut we're in now but they seem content with the fact that they're not. Their user base is growing (partially, at least) as a residual effect of the popularity of Linux. I know that when I was going to get into UN*X like systems, I saw how cool Linux was that encouraged me to try BSD on some REALLY old hardware I had laying about. Found myself one hell of a small server and can only imagine how my NetBSD install would run on a processor/logic board that was minted after 1993!
  • That is disturbing!!
    I hope they don't enlarge the breasts on Tux.
  • When I were a young laaad, Ei remember using BSD. :) It were 386BSD, it were. They don't make programs like that, nawadais! None of this kernel upgrade stuff, we were given a fill distribution and we were greatful for it! :)

    Seriously, BSD is a really cool system, fast, stable and in some ways even elegant. But the turnaround times, back then, were HORRIBLE! That's about the time I migrated, once and for all, to Linux. Linux was behind, then, but was gaining ground. BSD was playing the hare, and sleeping away it's huge lead.

    These days, it seems to take less than an eon before the next BSD updates come out, which is a huge improvement, but as I see it, it's still not got the pace it could - or should - have. I've been tempted to put a partition aside for one of the *BSD systems, but I'm holding off to see if it'll be overtaken by Linux on the few advantages it has left. If it is, what's the point? On the other hand, if it makes real progress, I want to have a copy to play with.

  • Oh, come on now... Cooler mascot??? How can a daemon be cooler than a penguin??? Logic clearly dictates FreeBSD's mascot is hotter.
  • But that's incompatible in a different way. Nothing there says that you can't take BSD'd stuff, slap the GPL on it (remember, you can do anything you want with it), and put it with the GPL'd stuff (except with that advertising clause, I guess; don't know about that). What you said just means that you can't take GPL'd stuff and put it in a BSD program. And aren't you using "commercial" incorrectly? I don't think you're allowed to make proprietary yet non-commercial products out of GPL'd code. As long as you intend to distribute it, it matters.
  • I have read just about 100 or so comments on why BSD is better than Linux. They say it is more secure, stable, etc. But it seems that nobody has any concrete examples of why this may be so. Like FreeBSD uses this technology while Linux uses that technology which makes FreeBSD better. Or look at lines xxx in Linux code which makes it unstable.

    I have used both Linux and FreeBSD and to tell you the honest truth I don't see that much of a difference. Many programs designed for linux has been ported for FreeBSD and I when I finished configuring FreeBSD I found myself with the same environment as Linux. It was actually quite funny. But because I was so used to configuring Linux, I went back to Slackware where it was more comfortable for me.

    The morale of the story is when we complain about Linux vs. FreeBSD we are mainly blowing steam. At least for the workstation usage it is relatively the same. If FreeBSD is more stable than Linux then that is fine. I have not noticed the difference. If Linux is so bad then I want to see concrete examples of why that is so. In my experience the badly written programs that crash in Linux still crash in BSD when ported. Linux is plainly more friendly and has more programs for it (But IMNSHO most programs that only run in Linux and not *nix are badly written). On the other hand, FreeBSD's compile on demand ports collection is just tooo sweet!

    The only thing that leaves me itching to go back to BSD is those damn script kiddies and the greed factor is getting just a little to high for my taste.

    Just use whats best for you.

  • Having tried both freebsd and linux (ok, rh), I can honestly say that I use freebsd because the organization of nearly everything is much cleaner.

    True, as Linus said, FreeBSD community has been much less evangelical than he about their cause, which creates a perception that they are less open than perhaps they actually are. But as my competence grows, I feel less and less that this is a drawback. It draws less noise - from mailing lists to actual development and chaos in system updates. It certainly results in fewer mailing lists a good admin would track for security-related updates :)

    From installation to software management, I find that *BSD is more "unix-ey" - features that are frustrating at first become the things that you appreciate as you gain knowledge.

    And yes, it takes none to post, but the lower standard of admission for linux users is why RedHat IPO'd. The only thing that bothers me is the rustling sound of many of FreeBSD-using admins trying to explain to their pointy-haired bosses why they aren't using linux... :-(
  • > What I want to know is why there isn't a ton of
    > distributions of *BSDs all over the place. The
    > BSD license is more permissive than GPL, so
    > what's the problem?

    Good point. Linux fans like to flame *BSD for being "fragmented", while ignoring the fact that there are only 3 largely co-operating BSDs, compared to over 20 largely co-operating Linux distributions.

    Personally, I think it's because people are quite satisfied with what they get with at least one of the three BSDs, so see no need to go and create their own MyBSD to do things their way. Contrary to what we see posted a lot on Slashdot, this indicates /stability/ of the BSD camps in that they don't keep splitting off every time someone has a new idea they want to implement.

    I think the way the three BSDs direct themselves has got the spectrum of "interests" fairly well-covered: security, portability, general-purpose (for want of a better term). Most users fit quite comfortably into these categories, so do their development work for there. And of course, many of the changes are cross-pollinated between the three species
  • Which only proves that such matters are subjective. I've tried Debian several times, but personally I hate it. Way too many packages, with a way too nifty package system, dependencies etc. Way too many maintainers that are too dedicated, thus tweaking and patching their "baby" package(s) to death. It's the most horrible dist I've seen. I'd rather use Redhat, even better like Slackware (which I'm currently using) and FreeBSD is the ultimate. Though, since I need vmware alas I can not run it at the moment. Soon I will, when the vmware kernel modules have been ported over; then vmware can run in the Linux emulation.
  • Hey, I could grab FreeBSD, call it "Seldnix" and release it under the GPL. As long as I "Duplicated the above notice, the two conditions, and the disclaimer" the FreeBSD people could, at worst, make loud rude noises in my direction.

    Actually, you couldn't. The GPL will not let you use BSD-licensed code.
  • Well, my point with it being harmful was mainly dealing with if infact something supernatural is going on. That is mostly dealing with the soul, not physical harm. I'm not honestly sure what it does, or how it works, so I guess I don't know. I can only say that I personally would consider it harmful to myself if I were to practice it for whatever reason. About the thing with the relationship with god, yeah, I know how it goes. A lot of issues that have to be dealt with, and some of them require changes in the way you think. I still haven't completely given up on the idea of "god", but in the scientific community, it's not the easiest thing to do. There are a lot of questions out there, and it seems like every day you have to be ready to accept that what you currently believe might not be right. Though at the same time, "popular" science has certainly been proven wrong in the past.. Ah well, as long as people keep open minds...
  • On your point of package management, I would have to disagree. I have no experience with ports - but I do have extensive experience with debian, and in particular apt-get. From the description of ports I've read, I'd have to say that apt-get is the equal or superior to it in every way. I don't know if ports verifies dependencies, but I do know that if I say apt-get install gimp and I don't even have X on my computer, it will get everything it needs, including X, gtk, and all the image libraries, install it, and configure it, and it will work the first time. In fact, I'd say the only difference between ports and apt is that with apt, you don't have to compile the software.

    Stability: I've never seen Linux crash. I've seen a kernel panic when I tried to boot off of a bad disk on install of slackware, but that's it. Bad distributions, though, can screw up the whole thing.

    I've had no problem with Debian and installing over ftp; you have to download the base image, true, but if you're going to be downloading debian anyways I assume you've got ample bandwidth. As for non-commerciality, again, Debian.

    CVSup - apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade

    As for personal preferences, I can't really rebut that. Mine is the GPL, yours BSD. Who cares.

    You might have noticed that mostly, Debian has been referenced in here. That's because, generally speaking, Debian is the only distribution with the bits which you can compare directly to FreeBSD. Yes, I'm aware of rpmfind or whatever it's called, but it doesn't install it for you, and I'm not sure about dependancy resolution, so I can't comment.

  • The picture used to represent the FBSD daemon is clearly the Christian interpretation of demons, not from the Greco-Roman Daimon. The Christian demon is described as a spirit with no body which has a nasty habit of posessing other people's bodies. They aren't even top dog in Christian mythology, they are inferior to archangels.

    The Greek daimon was not exactly something I'd want as a mascot anyway. A daimon is a supernatural being of the lowest order, inferior to other supernatural beings. It sits at a level between the gods and man.

    There are earlier definitions of demons being called daimones or "divine powers". Later however daimones began to refer more towards the spirits of the dead (Roman) and to the above daimon. They also refer to spirits which each person is assigned to watch over.

    --
  • > BSD Licence promotes fragmentation by allowing
    > changes to be made without these changes being
    > released back to the "open changes pool",
    > this will cause multiple groups to have their
    > own little *BSD.

    I see. This must be why 3 BSD distributions is "more fragmented" than 20 Linux distributions.

    Mathematics in your world must be based on some interesting axioms :-)
  • What I wanted out of switching to BSD is a more secure machine, so I decided to look into OpenBSD. The unsupported hardware I was talking about was multiprocessor i386 support in OpenBSD.
    (It really sucks not to be able to use the added processing power of a second CPU).
    I did not look into the other BSD's, cause the only reason I was looking at BSD as an alternative was security.
  • I tried unsuccessfully for many hours to get Linux to recognize my NE2000 compatible PCI card

    Funny, 4 different linux distributions have recognized my NE2000 PCI card with their default installers.

    while the whole OS seems more responsive overall

    Care to elaborate?

    I did not get the junk Linux gives me in my directories.

    You're assuming that Red Hat is Linux. Including all the packages which RedHat installs.

    I admin both Linux and FreeBSD boxes, and they're both very nice operating systems. It's people like you who give FreeBSD negative look. Why not *ask* people for help before spitting flames at linux?

    FreeBSD is great, but with people like this advocating it.. No wonder it gets bad PR.
    ...

  • Cool, you should run the "uptime" client on that box to submit stats.

    http://uptime.hexon.cx/

    I'd like to encourage everyone who has a long-lived box to participate in the project.

    Currently the BSDs are doing very very well in the stats. Go team! :)
  • The reason I think FreeBSD gets more pr is that it is quite a bit easier to use. I don't think many people care about running on different architectures all that much, honestly. Which is not to say that netbsd hasn't done some awesome stuff...

    -lx
  • Female penguins don't have breasts.
  • Haven't heard about that supposed outburst, but I can tell you that open is chugging away just fine. IMO, they've made an OS superior to NetBSD.

    -lx
  • I think you meant: The #1 Reason Linux is better than BSD is that it is protected by the GPL.

    -- Keith Moore
  • wierdo's? well, maybe... anyhow, OpenBSD is chugging along very well. as is NetBSD, and obviously FreeBSD is, too. all of the OS's around here (Linux and the *BSD's) have their strengths, and i use all of NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux (and IRIX, Solaris, SunOS4.x, NT, Win95, MacOS, BeOS and others) to do my job. each has benefits which aren't met by the others.

    try them all, they are, after all, free.

    /j
  • Is a man. hmmmm.

    matt
  • Why aren't the rc?.d directories in /etc, like every other Unix?

    HP-UX. /sbin/rc?.d.

    BTW, I still prefer the RedHat layaout, even though I was very used to the random layout of the other UNIX's (Sorry, each UNIX puts rc?.d in a different place, RedHat's just makes the most sense, since it segragates it from other config stuff).


    -- Keith Moore
  • I've read over the GPL several times and can't find any reason why the BSD license is incompatible with the GPL.

    The GPL states the BSD requirements in it (copyright notice) and the only clause that comes close to saying BSD is incompatible with GPL is the sublicensing restrictions clause, but it clearly is not incompatible with the BSD license if you read it carefully.

    --
  • Ok, so that was a bad example. The point still holds though. Most FreeBSD programs have up-to-date manpages, while most Linux programs seem to be following gcc's lead in abandoning their man pages in favor of other types of documentation.

  • Yes, debian is very nice with it's package management. But I have a HUGE PROBLEM with adding software to my system not on debians list.

    If I install my own library, or anything another package might depend on, i have to pray debian will recognize it as an answer to that dependency. Even with alien, i pray about it. That gets very annoying.

    Also, there does not appear to be a simple way to install packages from source (atleast, not that i've seen in docs.) This helps a hell of a lot when I don't have X and want to install Nethack. Why would i want nethack to require X libs when I'm only going to run it from the console?

    apt-find would be godly if i could pick a package, go into an 'expert mode' and modify the config.h file, and then it downloads, compiles and installs.

  • The Debian package management system sounds pretty nice - all I've used is rpms under redhat and suse. I just think that their version of installing over ftp is a little odd. Sitting around making 14 floppies is a complete pain compared to booting off of 2 with freebsd and having it suck the rest down from there.

    Actually, freebsd does have an alternative to the ports tree - you can add precompiled packages using /stand/sysinstall, and it works pretty much the same way as far as fetching dependencies as well. I just like to compile my own stuff most of the time.

    One of these days I'll have to order some cheap debian cd's and give it a try that way, but for now I'm going to stick with RedHat, and possibly SuSE, when 6.2 is available for download. It seems to be the best designed distro for my tastes, but the fact that they're totally commercial is annoying.

    -lx

  • _anyone_ can contribute to freebsd. I dunno where this myth started.

    The core team is just a group of people who have the final say on what goes in. _JUST_ like Linus.

    plus its easier to make changes to both userland and kernel, as they come together in /usr/src and everything is clean (recompile everything with make buildworld ; make installworld too!) as FreeBSD is an OS, not just a kernel :P
  • I assume you're just trolling, but i'll respond anyway. All those linux distributions have the same kernel, and most of the same userspace. The filesystem layouts are very similar. The differences between the BSDs are much bigger than the difference between say, redhat and debian.

    libc issues aren't. On my glibc2.1 based system, I can run glibc2.1, glibc2.0 and libc5 apps. Hell, I can even run OLD a.out binaries.
  • Your comments like "what could be simpler"
    a few posts above, or flaming people as
    "idiots" here, show that you are a snob
    and a rather intolerant at that. Do you
    hope to attract people with flames like
    that?
  • > shrinking marketplace... yadda.. yadda..

    I wonder what you think the benifit of your slander is and I can't understand where you got "FreeBSD failed"

    First off, Applixware is in its final testing stages for a native FreeBSD port.

    At least two major database companies are planning on native FreeBSD ports, or maybe FreeBSD friendly Linux ports of thier enterprise software.

    Xig continues to support FreeBSD's 3.x and 4.x lines with version 5 of their software, it is unfortunate that they got burned on the CDE issue but who really wants CDE?

    As long as ISVs are coding for Linux there will be people running those applications via the linux-activator in FreeBSD.

    The FreeBSD project is currently in contact with many ISVs with the goal of creating FreeBSD-friendly linux apps. This allows a "code once, compile twice" system where everyone wins.

    As far as the shrinking market share is objective, there is a larger market now than ever. One percent of 10,000,000 is larger than two percent of 1,000,000.

    Oh, and besideds that, I think you are talking out of your rear-end, but that's just me. :)

    It's easy to post under Anonymous Coward, if the shoe fits, wear it.

    --
  • Even a clumsy and fat Penguin can be trained into a well oiled killing machine!

    I do agree with you on the FreeBSD clean install, it does not even install Bash by default (that's raw). But to tell you the truth you can install Linux without Bash either! Installing my NE2000 card was easier in Linux than it was in Windows with PNP support.

    As with anything first installs are difficult because you are not used to the pros and cons.
    Question how is installing X and KDE easier in FreeBSD than Linux?? When I used both I had to do an XF86Setup for configuring both. Also if you do not like the files in your directories you can easily do an rm.
  • (20 minutes later, two things i should have also added)
    >It has just recently (last year or two) reached a point where it can claim as such.
    Not quite, its still not a UNIX. Perhaps its POSIX compliant, looks real like UNIX, but it is not a UNIX as it isn't a descendant of bell lab's UNIX.

    the Core team is just a little stricter. Less crap gets by. More people controlling the final release allows for that kinda thing :)

    (oh, and btw, anyone can contribute patches but yes, you have to be registered to upload to -CURRENT. with good reason too, as you wouldn't want someone adding code that flashes bios on boot, and then fry the mobo of the little guy testing current..)
  • Tux is more dangerous, and I'm sticking with that. Have you ever taken a good look at his beak? That thing is a lethal weapon :-)

    "If you think penguins are fat and waddle, you have never been attacked by one running at you in excess of 100mph" (Linus Torvalds)
  • I agree with a lot of what you have to say. People often do push Linux and FreeBSD too far apart.

    However, I believe that the argument for FreeBSD's stability and security is how it is coded and maintained. FreeBSD's kernel is written by a core team of developers (and membership to that core is very exclusive), where as Linus still has the final say on what goes into the linux kernel.

    It takes a lot more to get a patch/feature into the FreeBSD kernel than it does to get it into the linux kernel. Naturally this makes the FreeBSD's kernel more tightly coded (and therefore more stable).

    FreeBSD is also a distributed in one standard form, where as there are X number of linux distributions (74 according to linuxlinks.com). Securing and testing one standard group of software packages is a lot easier than investigating every single piece of software packaged with any linux distribution.

    I still think that the only valid argument for FreeBSD's stability is it's kernel, because FreeBSD and Linux aren't that different other than that.
    ...
  • Now go get your USB scanner and cablemodem working in Linux and then come talk to me about it.
  • If you would have selected "ports" in the freebsd install you would have got bash (the superior shell).
    ...
  • Then the poster should've phrased it as "more x86 hardware support," which would be correct, rather than "more hardware support" in general, which is incorrect.
  • I wouldn't agree with any of the original points you mention. Those are largely irrelevant, and aren't things that I normally hear from the BSD camp. The way that FreeBSD is developed is certainly an advantage to them, but what matters is the results of that development.

    I've tried every Linux distro I can get my hands on, in the hope of finding one I like(I didn't). In my opinion, the things that make FreeBSD superior to Linux are:

    1. Good package management. There is no better system for managing dependencies, installing, upgrading, and removing software than the ports tree. RPM's are laughable in comparison.

    2. Stability. This is simply a matter of experience. I've had Linux crash after installs, lock up, etc, and FreeBSD hasn't. As with speed, it changes in comparison to Linux with each release.

    3. Total non-commerciality. Almost every linux distro is bent on making money. Some, like Caldera and SuSE, don't even let you download the current versions. The process for installing over ftp is horrible in most distros, and Debian, the one that is supposed to be non-commercial, has no real option for installing over ftp, unless you want to make 14 floppies first. FreeBSD is FREE. They make it easy to install over ftp, instead of making it painful enough that you'll want to buy a CD.

    4. Cvsup. Makes it easy to keep up to date with the current codebase, and allows one to totally recompile the OS as wanted.

    5. The BSD license. A matter of personal taste, of course, but I believe free software should be free.

    If you have a rebuttal to those, I'd be interested.

    -lx

  • That's really cool and all but...
    I think the real issue about mascots is how the average person is going to see it...unfortunately to most people the "original" meaning will never have the importance of the percieved meaning.
    As long as our little "bazaar" keeps growing the less informed masses will tend to overshadow the individuals "in the know" ...whether it's Linux or *BSD or whatever, it will be a bustling place of ideas and not quite the "thieves market" (don't misunderstand my meaning...I'm just referring to sense of community) that it may have seemed in the past. Wasn't the point of open source of any kind supposed to be that people would actually use/reuse software...if it's to be succesful then won't some of those user have to be non-programmers and more casual users?
  • My cablemodem works just fine in Linux. Why shouldn't it? All I need is for Linux to recognize my ethernet card and do DHCP properly.
  • Since all of the the programs required to make Linux do it are OSS. Just need to recompile and possible make some kernel specific modifications.
  • Actually, it seems more likely that it'd result in an OS that nobody understands and crashes as much as Windows. But MS would convince people to use it anyway.
    --
  • Tokin' mascot. I get the feeling that he's staring straight into Zen, or maybe a tasty fish.
  • I'm curious about why having a team of, oh, 100 or so people (http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/staff-committers. html) who have privileges to DIRECTLY COMMIT CODE INTO FREEBSD means it's harder to get code in than Linux, which has only a single person who can touch the official source code.

    By subscribing to cvs-all@freebsd.org you'd see that a large proportion of the above regularly do exactly that - commit source code changes into the official base system.

    For the record, "-core" is simply a management body for arbitrating technical disputes and so forth. They're not a commit bottleneck through whom all changes must be passed, or we'd get nothing done.

    Note that I'm talking about Linux, i.e., the kernel - the various distributions (sensibly) do have larger committer teams.

    Now, not everyone on the above list is allowed to go playing around in every part of the system, but surely the equation "100 > 1" must mean something to you?
  • I agree that EROS has a very interesting design. There are a number of things that I would look at tweaking, but the core concepts are elegant enough that I think it should be given a hard look by OS architects.

    Another interesting, although still experimental, approach for making Linux more secure is the LOMAC [freshmeat.net] project.
  • You could make a cheesy fighting game with the Linux penguin vs. the FreeBSD daemon. The daemon's special move would be a syslog attack. :P


    *-emufreak-*
    www.kontek.net/pp
  • I don't think thast 400 and 900 are reasonable uptimes. If your Linux or Solaris box was up this long someone would just DoS it or crack it ..
  • The board itself is an inanimate object, but the way that people use them can be harmful.

    How? I can't think of any way of harming somebody with a board except for hitting them on the head with it. If other people believe that it is evil, that still doesn't mean somebody can be harmed with it.

    Even if your not doing anything supernatural when using it, your then fooling yourself to put your trust into the supposed abilities of an inanimate object...

    If you're trusting a piece of wood to tell you things, then you are a few clowns short of a circus IMHO, and deserve everything you get.

    I tend to just think it's counter productive and hurts your relationship with God.

    Nah, my relationship with God broke down because of a lack of communication, you know? He never called, visited, you know, you miss the little things...

    But seriously, daemon != demon. Anyone using the logo as an argument against the OS is taking the piss. If a government refuses to let their population use an operating system for that reason (I doubt it's that big a deal, although I've never visited any countries other people mentioned,) then the government is *way* too oppressive for it's own good and will probably end up being overthrown anyway.

    What I want to know is why there isn't a ton of distributions of *BSDs all over the place. The BSD license is more permissive than GPL, so what's the problem?

  • No one said it was "unix" It has never been the stated goal of Linux to become a "unix". It is a unix like operating system. The "crap" as you put it is exactly my point. What one person considers "crap" ie another person considers a feature. What I see as the pit fall of the *bsd system is that it seems (from what I have seen and mostly from what *bsd users state) the *bsd camps hinder their sucess by trying to control the code.

    How many linux kernels have "flashed bios on boot". This type of nonsense is what I am talking about.
  • "HorserHead" has it right! I don't understand why people always get their panties in a bunch when it comes to "Linux v. BSD"....

    Hell, the only reason I use OpenBSD is b/c the new Linux kernel miseriously stopped supporting my PS/2 Glidepad correctly(I get the "jumpies")...

    Of course, I'm a BIG security freak too, so that accounts for some things
  • ISO images for -current are already widely available and have been for some time. Just go to current.freebsd.org and look in pub/FreeBSD/ISO - snapshots are available for both x86 and Alpha.

    Yeesh, what could be simpler?
  • Not really, I orginally went to freebsd because they didn't support my ethernet card.
    (and boy am i glad those were the NICs i picked up that day)
    you'll probably have a better chance getting your bootleg sound card to work (i know everyone has one) with the luigi driver then anything with linux. And you don't need OSS either :)
    http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/install.html#INS TALL-HW
    Go tell me that isn't a lot of hardware. FreeBSD doesn't support MCA tho. Who cares about PS/2s? :)
    Although i don't own many cool toys, my friends do and they enjoy watching TV on their freebsd box via tuner, etc.

    Can you be more specific with the hardware that you have that isn't supported?
  • That was a sarcastic commit.
  • In case you did not notice, RedHat is funding a security audit of their distribution. As a result there are many announcements of security holes - but this is a side-effect of improving security.

    OpenBSD did this a while ago you say? Sure. But read those announcements because if you are using the same applications that the Linux folks are, then you are vulnerable. Security holes are things that tend to build up over time.

    In fact security is a constant problem with the *nix organization. If you want to see a fundamental design which can lead to far more security than either OpenBSD or Linux, take a look at EROS [eros-os.org].

    (Solution to root-exploits, get rid of the possibility!)

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • Then BSD isn't your only problem. You'll have to try to run your Linux box without any daemons. Have fun going without inetd.
  • True, but switching from one type of unix to another type of unix is not that much of a difference. Most of my day is spent in tcsh, X, mutt, vi, and BitchX. I have the same programs on my Linux system at home and my FreeBSD system at work and they both perform equally well with no noticeable differences.

    The only big difference between Linux and FreeBSD is the licensing. The FreeBSD license is considered more "friendly" by some.

    On the other hand, I have not been happy with the treatment of security issues in BSD. Someone can post an exploit on bugtraq and it can be days before you get a patch to stop it from the mailing lists (after sorting through several broken patches that don't work). Unacceptable on a production server.

    Also, the BSD people are not known for their friendliness but I believe this is changing.

  • That's because, by definition, UID 0 is root. Some other UID may be called "root," and UID 0 may have a different name, but the UID 0 is still the superuser with all the "root" privilages. Read up on your UNIX specs.
  • Anyone has the right to change the linux source code. If you are talking about the linux kernel then anyone can add patches. Linus has the option to veto any patch however. But in some cases companies like RedHat add their own patches to the kernel before shipping.
  • 5) FreeBSD was based on source code provided by the LORD himself *BSDlite* and thus FreeBSD is UNIX which makes it superior.

    Oh, this is a bullshit. Why the f*ck should I care if linux was based on unix(tm) or whatever. It is POSIX compliant, thats good enough for me.

    Being able to start from scratch instead of using 20 year old code base has its advantages too.

  • Being different. (Score:3)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Sunday August 29, 1999 @07:39AM (#1718019)
    The more articles I read up on *BSD, the more I'm convinced that it will become popular, but not for reasons of technical superiority, "core" groups, ad nauseum. I think it's because geeks like being different - a cut above the rest.

    Once linux has mainstreamed and everybody is using it, geeks won't feel so special anymore. I think alot of people jumped ship off of Microsoft simply because they wanted to differentiate themselves from everybody else. At the time, linux was the obvious choice. Now that linux has mainstreamed, geeks need a new toy that appeals to just geeks.

    The answer, it would seem, comes in the form of a small stuffed devil with a pitchfork.

    --

  • While they went to great lengths to say that one of the differences was how code was added to the base, they didn't really say why that matters that much.

    Before, when I did a lot of custom drivers for Linux, I was continually annoyed with kernel interfaces changing, and code that was 'current' a week ago, suddenly becoming legacy.

    With FreeBSD, I've had amazing longevity with my code. Not because they're slow to change, but because, in my opinion, (flame proof clothes ready) it was designed 'right' the first time.

    The works of people like Kirk McKusick and David Greenman are quite possibly some of the best designs I've ever seen. Even if you don't plan on using FreeBSD, I think all developers should at least take a look at how it works, and I promise you'll learn a thing or two.

    I also hold 'good design' as the reasons for why I've had systems with 400+ day uptimes, that were sometimes under nearly constant attack and/or intrusion attempts.

    Finally, the BSD license. My 'day job' is designing an embedded product, which is using FreeBSD for it's OS. Why? The license. Many companies are hesitant, or even contractually prohibited, from giving out changes made to the system, which the GPL rather insists on. The BSD license is very open, which I think may become more important in the near future.

    Go download a boot floppy, or buy a CD from Walnut Creek [cdrom.com] or even Cheap Bytes [cheapbytes.com] and give it a try. Even if you don't end up keeping it, if you're a hacker, you'll learn something. :)

  • Nowadays... (Score:3)

    by dcs ( 42578 ) on Sunday August 29, 1999 @07:42AM (#1718027)
    Anyone thinking FreeBSD (in particular) doesn't "release" often enough... well, just doesn't get it. FreeBSD's releases are just points at which it goes into cds.

    If you want to know at which pace FreeBSD progresses, send a message to majordomo@freebsd.org subscribing to cvs-all.
  • I think the choice of mascots is actually a fairly good indicator of the basic difference between Linux and xxxBSD.

    The BSD mascot is an in-joke, a play on the ubiquitous (sp?) demons in a UNIX system. For those who already are familiar with unix-like systems this is fairly obvious and somewhat amusing. By contrast, outsiders are likely to see the mascot in its original setting, as a mythological demon/devil. Insiders get it, outsiders are pushed away.

    Tux the Penguin, on the other hand, needs no inside knowledge to appreciate, but is as accessible a symbol for the neophyte as for long-time users. It's not an in-joke.

    This is of course a lot of symbolic baggage to overload these poor mascots with, but in a small way I do think this reflects a part of the culture of the respective systems.

  • Yeah, but Linux doesn't keep its man pages updated (try doing a "man gcc" to see what they have to say about it). FreeBSD does. What good does RTFM do if the FM is out of date?
  • FreeBSD is the most stable kernel on the planet!

    The distro and environment are not that great, which is why I use slackware & Linux 2.0.3x to
    run a major internet operation.

    However-- check out this uptime for a BUSY FreeBSD box we have (we even moved it when we changed offices, kept it connected to its UPS in the car!)

    % uptime
    10:43AM up 871 days, 1:07, 1 user, load averages: 0.31, 0.30, 0.31

  • Re:A point about mascots (Score:3)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak&yahoo,com> on Sunday August 29, 1999 @07:51AM (#1718053) Homepage Journal
    Actually, they won't see it in it's original setting. The =original= mythological daemons were messengers, which is where the UNIX in-joke originates from. So the UNIX insiders actually know the original setting. The outsiders generally know the Christianised version, which is a good few thousand years more recent.
  • Sigh. Why is it that the most clueless are so often the loudest? And why do they always feel compelled to post as "anonymous coward" - that alone ought to tell you something about the courage of their convictions. :)

    Needless to say, FreeBSD has a very definite "niche", a purpose and a growth rate that would probably swamp us if it went any faster. Don't believe the idiots who claim that we're closed to contributions, that we're somehow "less secure" just because we don't shout about it from the rooftops (that's only a good way of collecting a few incoming rounds, IMO) or that we're trying to somehow be another Linux just because we can run Linux binaries. We're very open to contributions and probably even a little more able to accept them because we still (knock on wood) have a pretty good signal-to-noise ratio where that's concerned and don't have to contend with 7 million screaming users and enough variant distributions to cause confusion to even the brightest rocket scientist. We track security fixes in all the major OSes, not just OpenBSD (they're good at security but hardly have a monopoly on finding holes) and, finally, we run Linux binaries because it's a nice thing to provide to our users, not because we're trying to "ape the competition".

    People need to both get their facts straight and stop hiding behind the anonymous coward label if they want to be taken seriously by anyone who actually follows these things. Sadly, actual knowledge doesn't appear to be a prerequisite for posting in these forums. :(

  • FreeBSD (Score:2)

    by drwiii ( 434 )
    Aside from the system design, one thing that really impresses me with FreeBSD is its spectacular documentation. Nearly every aspect of the OS is documented in manpages or in The Complete FreeBSD [freebsdmall.com] book.

  • Re:Slashdot poll? (Score:3)

    by arthurs_sidekick ( 41708 ) on Sunday August 29, 1999 @08:12AM (#1718128) Homepage

    For MS, the mascot would have to be a dollar sign, or of a large boot stomping on a computer (with apologies to George Orwell). Unless, of course, MS would like to remind us of "Bob" =)

    and, off-topic though it is (well, it concerns which mascot is "cooler"): anybody remember Thin Lizzy's "The Boys are Back in Town?"

    Remember that chick who used to dance a lot?
    Man, when I tell you she was cool she was red-hot
    I mean, she was steamin'

    So, in summation, the situation with which mascot is "cooler" is inevitably muddled =)

  • Well, apparently, there are a lot of people who disagree with you, as Linux, licensed under the evil GPL, has evolved, and continues to evolve quite successfully. Free/Net/OpenBSD, however you want to measure their success, have not matched the level of Linux's acceptance by a long shot.

    Now, there are many complicated reasons for this, but what I am trying to say is that the number of people who have a big problem with the GPL is relatively small. Most would be developers who wish to use others' work in their own proprietary work.

    You may define freedom as including the ability to restrict the freedom of others, but not everyone does.

    I use software that is GPLd, BSDd, X11d, and proprietary. I even am currently maintaining a program that has a (ugh) non-commercial-distribution license. But, I prefer the GPL, whereever suitable, because it discourages forking, and keeps software free. And quite a number of people seem to think they can make money from GPLd software, regardless of the views of a few rabid proprietary developer advocates.

    I guess my view would agree with Linus'. If you didn't write the software, you have no right to bitch about the license.

    But what it really boils down to is this: the user/customer will, in the end, determine what licensing schemes are successful. If the user prefers GPLd software, that is how things will tend to be licensed in the future. All the pissing and moaning in the world isn't going to change that reality.

    --
    Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

  • The thing is, FreeBSD and Linux are like twins, except that FreeBSD does not have a new libc every day that breaks every program in existence, and FreeBSD is an operating system, not a kernel.


    I finally switched to FreeBSD because I got tired of Netscape exhausting virtual memory and crashing my machine under Linux. FreeBSD kills Netscape (the proper behavior) and keeps running. FreeBSD runs all my commonly-used commercial Linux programs (Applix, WordPerfect, etc.), and the 'packages' system has a lot of packages that most Linux distributions don't come with (with the exception of SuSE!), so it's not like I had to give anything up.


    That said, FreeBSD has some disadvantages -- it supports fewer hardware peripheral devices than Linux, system administration is a pain in the rear (almost everything is done via rc.conf, which is almost totally undocumented), and you're right, all the "cool" stuff is being done for Linux (stuff like neat new filesystems, etc.) and FreeBSD continues to lag. Still, if you want an OS that doesn't have a new libc library every fifteen minutes, FreeBSD is the one.

    -E
  • Incorrect, it requires no restrictions be placed that contradict the terms of the license. The copyright notice does *NOT* contradict the license as the license has basically the exact same notice in it.

    Here's that exact clause:

    6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

    Note how it says you may not impose further restrictions on the rights granted. The copyright notice does *NOT* impose upon the rights as it is in paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 section c.

    As far as I can tell, it is perfectly legal to include BSD licensed code in a GPL program. This is a big loss to *BSD folks because Linux kernel types can integrate their code but the reverse can not happen unless you segregate it or switch the entire kernel source over to GPL.

    --
    1. Linux
    2. Exim
    3. ProFTPd
    4. KDE (A number of KDE programs could make up this whole list, actually, if you want to get picky about what is and isn't "enduser software.")
    5. XEmacs
    6. ncftp
    7. MiniVend
    8. PHP
    9. GNUTar
    10. samba
    IMO, of course. And, yes...I also use a Mac occasionally.

    And, because all this stuff is GPLd, I can hack on it, or ask others to hack on it for me. And I need not worry about someone else's "business decision" orphaning my software (happened to me with OS/2; not gonna happen again because I refuse to chain myself to proprietary software when free alternatives exist).

    --
    Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

  • Heh. The difference is the *BSD crowd points you to other websites instead of answering your question first. Therefore, Linux is more popular.

    No, really, think about this before replying to it. I just spent an hour trying to figure out why the hell some people call the "BSD Daemon" Beastie, and others call him Chuck, while his creator is very careful not to name him.

    Apparently it's a *BSD style ego-clash, in the same tradition as forking the main source tree. Under Linux, we don't care. Some people don't even care if the mascot is a penguin, much less if he's called "Tux".

    ...and if you ask me to elaborate, I won't refer you to a web page. :)
  • > By contrast, outsiders are likely to see the mascot in its original setting, as a mythological demon/devil. Insiders get it, outsiders are pushed away.

    Uh no. Unless they have a freakin redwood up their ass, they see a cute little getup reminiscent of many football teams. Matter of fact their first impression is that they were inspired by such a mascot. They see the penguin, they also think "mascot". You're the one coming off as stuffy and elitist now for thinking people are that stupid and all share your hair-trigger reaction to religious iconography.
  • As a person who uses both Mandrake 6.0 and FreeBSD 3.1, they are both kick ass. Without them, I would be running 98 on my laptop and NT on my desktop and I would be a sad person.

    That said, Linux is a huge boon to BSD because:

    1. Linux makes people aware of BSD. I first heard about BSD here at slashdot. Linux enlarges the PC Unix user base.

    2. BSD benifits from development of all of the Linux oriented applictions. I have not had any trouble running any Linux apps on BSD.

    3. Linux inspires innovation and provides competition, forcing BSD to provide what its users want.

    In the end, if you like to tinker and contribute, Linux is a good choice. If you just want to to work and not worry about it, Free BSD might be a better choice.

    Or, do like I do, use them both.
  • Actually, as far as "media performance" goes Linux has recently made some great strides. mingo released a patch that reduces scheduling latencies to under 5 milliseconds, and David Olofson has ported the linux sound drivers to RT-Linux so that linux can now do sound processing with a signifigantly lower max latency than BeOS (~1 ms). NT and macos both need external DSP boards to be able to beat this (pricey, but they beat the hell out of anything you can do on a general purpose PC).
  • If you want to follow a faster track I suggest you try out FreeBSD-current. Many more features are available at the expense of the thorough testing the the -stable branch provides.

    Here's a link that describes -current:
    http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/cutting-edge.htm l

    Also, it should be noted that "-current" is not for newbies or people that aren't used to helping themselves or even providing fixes to problems that they encounter.

    One of the benifits of developing applications for FreeBSD is the long term binary compatibility offered, it is almost unheard of to see a change go into FreeBSD-stable that would break current applications that are programmed correctly.

    This gives ISVs the advantage of not having to worry about binary compatibility between minor (and usually major) versions of FreeBSD.

    I also don't see why one would _want_ thier OS to change under thier feet almost daily, it sounds more like a punishment than a good thing imo.

    -

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