Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!convex!convex!convex!darwin.sura.net!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!bright.ecs.soton.ac.uk!rsk From: rsk@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bob Kemp) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: What's "FreeBSD"? Date: 26 Jul 1993 11:28:30 GMT Organization: Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton Lines: 32 Message-ID: <230f4u$jri@bright.ecs.soton.ac.uk> References: <22up8o$pvb@introl.introl.com> <22ut4j$53o@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <explorer.743637064@tbird.cc.iastate.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: frege.ecs.soton.ac.uk In <explorer.743637064@tbird.cc.iastate.edu> explorer@iastate.edu (Michael Graff) writes: >One thing Linux has going for it is there is ONE big push, but three medium >sized ones. From what I've read so far, FreeBSD seems _roughly_ analogous to the SLS Linux distribution. SLS provides a stable version of Linux that usually lags behind the main effort but therefore has fewer (zero?) new & untried features. In theory SLS provides a reliable, working, easy-to-install system (though I've seen gripes about it being buggy :-). The situation is not quite the same because FreeBSD is not "NetBSD repackaged" but doubtless good features will trickle through to FreeBSD (& perhaps back). The main thing seems to be that the NetBSD & FreeBSD groups are talking to each other & on fairly friendly terms. (IMHO) When NetBSD broke away it was rather worrying, but they seem to be doing really good work. On first reading of the FreeBSD "announcement", it was also worrying but they say that they will take things from NetBSD. Presumably bug fixes will be freely shared and binary compatibility will be improved (even if requires support for multiple executable formats). Bob -- Robert Kemp Internet: rsk@ecs.soton.ac.uk Phone: (0703) 59 31 22 ECS Dept, Southampton Univ, Highfield, Southampton, S09 5NH, UK "Rose bushes have thorns; thorn bushes bear roses"