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Xref: sserve comp.os.linux.help:8323 comp.os.386bsd.questions:6724 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!convex!convex!convex!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!deep.rsoft.bc.ca!giant!a09878 From: a09878@giant.rsoft.bc.ca (Curt Sampson) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: SUMMARY: FreeBSD vs. Linux Followup-To: comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.386bsd.questions Date: 10 Nov 1993 23:29:23 GMT Organization: MIND LINK! Communications Corp Lines: 155 Message-ID: <2brtgj$bbv@deep.rsoft.bc.ca> References: <2brq1b$a8j@news.ysu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: giant.rsoft.bc.ca X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8] Christopher L. Mikkelson (ap713@yfn.ysu.edu) writes: > I got a few responses to my post, and some people have been asking for > them, so here they are. > 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 > 2. If you want a clean OS with nice kernel, and ALL The utilities > under the sun, Net/FreeBSD are the way to go. Sorry, but this is quite untrue, unless you're willing to do quite a lot of work. The Slackware release of Linux comes with most everything under the sun already installed (including elm, smail, cnews, various newsreaders, XFree86 2.0, ghostscript, emacs, GNU Smalltalk, and tcl--none of which come with the standard NetBSD [or, as far as I know--which isn't too far, FreeBSD] install kits). Having all this stuff compiled and ready to go under NetBSD would certainly be exceedingly handy. Has anyone plans to put all this stuff together for NetBSD 1.0? I have heard that the networking code is NetBSD is considerably more stable and solid than Linux, which is why I'm tending that way right now. I did receive a similar question about which to choose via email from a fellow recently, and I ended up putting together a little table of some of the differences, which I then discovered I couldn't fill in very much of. I've appended it below. If you'd care to correct my errors or add new things and then send it back in, I'll post a "corrected" version in a week or so. cjs ----- begin my old message and table ----- I've haven't really received any useful information on the differences between the two, but I've now installed both Linux (SLS) and NetBSD (0.9), so I can tell you a bit about both. BSD, to me, feels like a somewhat more "mature" system. This is not surprising, given that BSD 4.3, which 386BSD is based on, was released in about 1986 and BSD 4 was in use in the very early eighties. 386BSD, of course, also has all the enchancements that BSD added to Version 7 Unix to improve the user interface. BSD also has the Fast File System, which is a self-defragmenting file system that has 1K fragments in 8K blocks so that a three byte file uses 1K instead of 8K. Linux, on the other hand, though not so mature, seems to have a larger installed base (judging by the number of messages in the comp.os.linux groups compared the comp.os.386bsd groups) and seems to support more different devices, as well. The system calls are completely POSIX compliant, if that's important (though BSD is approaching that). Linux also comes with piles of useful stuff pre-installed (less, elm, emacs, cnews, etc. etc.) whereas BSD, though it includes all the Berkeley enhancements (more, sendmail, etc.) seems to include nothing above that. The one unfortunate thing about Linux, from my point of view, is that its networking code isn't very mature yet, whereas BSD is. Perhaps I can draw up a little table to compare the two: If a feature is present in all releases of Linux or 386BSD, the answer is "yes". If it's present only in certain packages it will be marked. If it's just around in a beta version, it's marked "not yet". 386BSD packages: 386BSD 0.1 (+patchkit?), FreeBSD (1.0), NetBSD (0.9) Linux packages: SLS, Slackware (1.1.0), TAMU, MCC Feature Linux 386BSD -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Orientation Similar to SysVr3. Is BSD. Internals: POSIX compliant system calls yes almost POSIX compliant libraries ??? ??? System V IPC yes no Berkeley sockets ??? yes Shared libraries yes not yet Loadable device drivers no no Device drivers: IDE, floppy, etc. yes yes SCSI yes yes Ethernet yes yes File systems Unix-type MINIX, efs2, xiafs FFS, MS-DOS Xenix, MS-DOS, CD-ROM Security Shadow passwd yes ??? Kerberos no yes Utilities: Shells bash, tcsh, ksh sh, csh Version 7 (eg, ed) yes yes Berkeley (eg, more) ??? yes Usenet (eg, perl) yes no (for NetBSD, anyway) Text processing groff ??? yes TeX yes (SLS) no ghostscript yes (Slackware) no Network: UUCP Taylor yes, (flavour?) Basic TCP/IP yes yes Name Services (DNS) BIND BIND NIS no no? Telnet, FTP, etc. yes yes r-utils (rlogin, etc.) yes yes NFS slow yes SLIP yes yes PPP no? yes Email: Mailer smail, sendmail sendmail Usenet news: Cnews yes no NNTP yes no Newsreaders rn, nn, tin none X-Windows: yes no Documentation man pages yes (complete?) yes system guides The LDP is working on NetBSD includes some this; the ones I've papers from Berkeley; seen a rather good, most technical, some of esp. for beginners. limited applicability. Other Notes: Linux: Linux has a somewhat easier installation program and comes with it's own program to make the required partitions. You may install from floppies, an MS-DOS hard disk partition or a CD-ROM. 386BSD: The 386 BSD installation requires more technical knowledge, and you've also got to find your own partitioning program (the MS-DOS one won't do). You may install from floppies or over a network (via FTP or NFS). (Can one install from a CD-ROM, as well?) ----- end of table ----- -- Tongilianus habet nasum; scio, non nego. sed iam Curt Sampson nil praeter nasum tongilianus habet. a09878@giant.rsoft.bc.ca --Martial