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Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP id AA738 ; Sun, 07 Feb 93 07:00:24 EST Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:10861 comp.os.linux:25195 Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!ai-lab!hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu!mycroft From: mycroft@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.os.linux Subject: Re: Linux or 386BSD? Message-ID: <1l03lfINN2gb@life.ai.mit.edu> Date: 6 Feb 93 10:24:47 GMT Article-I.D.: life.1l03lfINN2gb References: <1993Feb5.173617.12501@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1993Feb5.211047.16911@serval.net.wsu.edu> <1kv7e4INNc8h@smurf.sti.com> Organization: /etc/organization Lines: 39 NNTP-Posting-Host: hal.ai.mit.edu In article <1kv7e4INNc8h@smurf.sti.com> dgreen@sti.com (Dan R. Greening) writes: > > Doesn't anyone have an honest opinion? Here's mine. 386BSD has been around, in other forms, for a long time. It's high- level abstractions are well developed and fairly complete (though not by any means optimal). It has a full implementation of BSD networking, NFS, an only slightly outdated file system, etc. Linux is very new. It has networking and NFS, but they are rushed, incomplete implementations. I find them barely usable. Until newextfs is released, it will also not have a reasonable file system. (The extfs file system is slow and slightly flaky, and only has one time stamp per inode; the minix file system is worse.) The original device drivers in 386BSD were not very good. It is fairly clear that the people who wrote them were not all that familiar with PC hardware. However, new drivers have been written, and are quite good. Most Linux device drivers have worked pretty well from the beginning; this is because Linus appears to understands PCs fairly well. Of the two, I think 386BSD has less distance to travel before it is at all usable by a non-hacker. For the most part, it is now; but it really does need a good implementation of shared libraries, and better support for console hackery (like odd SVGA text modes). I see Linux as needing a lot of work. I am also concerned, after the `two files with the same name' thread, about how many other Easter eggs may be lurking. -- \ / Charles Hannum, mycroft@ai.mit.edu /\ \ PGP public key available on request. MIME, AMS, NextMail accepted. Scheme White heterosexual atheist male (WHAM) pride!