Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.os.linux.help:8313 comp.os.386bsd.questions:6716 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!paladin.american.edu!gatech!news.ans.net!malgudi.oar.net!news.ysu.edu!yfn.ysu.edu!ap713 From: ap713@yfn.ysu.edu (Christopher L. Mikkelson) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: SUMMARY: FreeBSD vs. Linux Date: 10 Nov 1993 22:30:02 GMT Organization: Youngstown State/Youngstown Free-Net Lines: 197 Message-ID: <2brq1b$a8j@news.ysu.edu> Reply-To: ap713@yfn.ysu.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: yfn.ysu.edu I got a few responses to my post, and some people have been asking for them, so here they are. Message #15 (24 is last): Date: Sun Oct 31 18:32:41 1993 From: storm@mnementh.cs.mcgill.ca (Marc WANDSCHNEIDER) Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs. Linux To: ap713@yfn.ysu.edu >Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.os.linux.help In article <2b1bjr$6dm@news.ysu.edu> you write: > > Hello all! I am kinda stuck between Linux (Yggdrasil LGX) and FreeBSD. >I was wondering what LGX would give me that FreeBSD wouldn't and vice versa. >Please e-mail responses. Linux has a scary kernel, bad networking code, and is generally a pretty patchy system. NetBSD and FreeBSD are full blown ports of 4.3 Net/2, so they have all the advantages (and disadvantages) that this system had. Specifically, a COOOL Filesystem, Great networking code, integrated SLIP and PPP support, and BSD familiar utiltiies. Linux tends to be VEYR patchy int his aspect---You have to use -lbsdcompat, -lthis -lthat, etc. To Linux's credit, a LOT of these problems are being addressed. NetBSD also now has Sun style Pic-based shared libraires, which freeBSD lacks. Linux has some scary jump table based shared lib.s Linux has the advantage of having about twice the number of users however, a large number of which are frothing freebie freaks who can't understand why one would POISSIBLY want to use anything other than Linux. Linux has dosemu, which lets you run DOS progarms. As most *BSD people use UNIX to escape DOS, there is no demand for this in the *BSD world :-) Both systems (NetBSD and Linux) have wine, which is a project in the alpha stages to wort of do the same thing as WABI. The choice is complex: 1. If DOS requirements are a MUST, then Linux is the best. 2. If you want a clean OS with nice kernel, and ALL The utilities under the sun, Net/FreeBSD are the way to go. 3. If you have more than one type of machine, or plan on getting more machines, NetBSD is the way to go---It currently runs on the i386/i486, Sun3, Sparc, hp300, Amiga, Mac, and two others I've never heard of before. Having used SunOS a while, and being a big fan of TRULY free source code (ulnike the GPL, under which ALL linux code falls), I found NetBSD to be entirely optimal for my needs. Toodlepip! Marc 'em. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Wandschneider Seattle, WA Barney the Dinosaur sings! You faint... Barney sings! Barney sings! --More-- You Die... --More-- Message #18 (24 is last): Date: Mon Nov 1 01:07:20 1993 From: nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs. Linux To: ap713@yfn.ysu.edu >Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.os.linux.help In article <2b1bjr$6dm@news.ysu.edu> you write: > > Hello all! I am kinda stuck between Linux (Yggdrasil LGX) and FreeBSD. >I was wondering what LGX would give me that FreeBSD wouldn't and vice versa. >Please e-mail responses. FreeBSD is BSD unix. It is not a hodge-podge which has different binaries and se an entire operating system. The system has a nice coherent feel to it. Also, because BSD unix bookstore. (Including kernel programming books if you want to do that) For Linux, you are relying on the documentation that is supplied by the users, which is sparse and hard to find. Finally, if you need networking, Linux just doesn't cut it. My FreeBSD box has been on the Internet 24 hours for almost a year now without ANY problems due to the networking code. And, most of the stability problems have been addressed by FreeBSD, so the old arguement that Linux is more stable than FreeBSD is no longer valid. (And from some Linuxers around here, I would now say the opposite is true) Bottom line though is you need to run whatever version you feel more comfortable with. If there are 100 FreeBSD users near you, obviously your best bet is to use it, but if there are only Linux users around you would be better off with Linux. Nate -- nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu | Freely available *nix clones benefit everyone, nate@cs.montana.edu | so let's not compete with each other, let's work #: (406) 994-4836 | compete with folks who try to tie us down to home #: (406) 586-0579 | proprietary O.S.'s (Microsloth) - Me Message #19 (24 is last): Date: Mon Nov 1 10:52:08 1993 From: dejan@cdfsga.fnal.gov (Dejan Vucinic) Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs. Linux To: ap713@yfn.ysu.edu In article <2b1bjr$6dm@news.ysu.edu> you write: |> |> Hello all! I am kinda stuck between Linux (Yggdrasil LGX) and FreeBSD. |> I was wondering what LGX would give me that FreeBSD wouldn't and vice versa. |> Please e-mail responses. |> Thank you, |> Chris |> -- Yuck. Go find yourself a NetBSD 0.9. Linux is a toy. It's a nice system really, but still in its early childhood days. It's cool for DOS-damaged people to play with something that's not a real big system, but is much better than DOS. FreeBSD is a kind of NetBSD branch that was shooting for stability and hit the wall. It's not any more stable than NetBSD 0.9, and it's six months behind it in the evolution. NetBSD is the fastest growing thing with more brainpower under it than both of the other two systems together. I have a NetBSD-only box and it's more stable than the bloody Silicon Graphics Challenge I use at work! NetBSD is in my opinion ready for a 1.0 release, and I am sure that you'll see it soon. The Sun-like shared libraries support is already in the current tree. There are ports for Sun 3, HP 300, Amiga, Mac, and your favourite pocket calculator. It is pretty much the same thing as BSD 4.4 (after all, the main distribution sites are located in the same place, those people work in the same department). There are teams working on quite esoteric things such as culsterisation (farming, imagine 100 PCs/Macs/Amigas munching your code in parallel). The Mach kernel will soon be available in NetBSD kernel source, and there is talk about building NetBSD server on top of Mach 3.0 microkernel. So, why the hell would you want to suffer from Linux!? (hey, it's a System V!) Just go and look at the CHANGES and TODO files, nothing more need be said. Happy Hacking,, Dejan Message #20 (24 is last): Date: Mon Nov 1 12:05:14 1993 From: tillemaj@cae.wisc.edu Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs. Linux To: ap713@yfn.ysu.edu ap713@yfn.ysu.edu (Christopher L. Mikkelson): > > Hello all! I am kinda stuck between Linux (Yggdrasil LGX) and FreeBSD. > I was wondering what LGX would give me that FreeBSD wouldn't and vice versa. > Please e-mail responses. > Thank you, Well, I haven't used the Yggdrasil version of linux, but have used both linus and FreeBSD (1.0 Gamma). For my system (486/33, 8 meg ram), Linux does a whole lot less disk thrashing than FreeBSD does. No one has come up with a good answer except that shared libraries weren't implemented in BSD yet, they were being worked on though, so executables tended to be a lot larger, and took up more memory. I could easily bring the system to a grinding halt, and lock up FreeBSD by loading large files, which didn't happen on Linux. Linux has more DOS support if that matters. It has a dos emulator, and eventually will have Windows support as well, though I think that that (Wine is the package name) will be able to run on BSD as well. Otherwise, it's more what you like. If you like BSD like features, you'd do better with BSD, but if you like SYS-V & POSIX, Linux is better. Then again, your hardware will play a role as well. I like BSD much better, but linux runs faster and recognized my harddrive from day one, which BSD didn't do until FreeBSD came out (Net and 386BSD don't recognize it still). Good luck. John tillemaj@cae.wisc.edu --