*BSD News Article 33244


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From: dillon@apollo.west.oic.com (Matthew Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: I hope this won't ignite a major flame war, but I've got to know!
Date: 22 Jul 1994 00:49:37 -0700
Organization: Obvious Implementations Corp
Lines: 44
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <30ntmh$642@apollo.west.oic.com>
References: <30drlt$7tc@news.u.washington.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: apollo.west.oic.com

In article <30drlt$7tc@news.u.washington.edu> tzs@u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:
:I realize I'm treading on dangerous ground here, since I'm going to
:
:Historically, these classes of people have preferred Berkeley Unix
:to System V.  System V appealed to the corporate world, where what
:was important was a supported Unix.
:
:Hence, I would expect {Free,Net}BSD to be overwhelmingly more popular
:than Linux.  Yet, based on the volume of posting on the net, the number
:of FTP sites that carry each system, and the number of CD-ROM places that
:...
:
:--Tim Smith

    Well, I fit into that category... I can't stand SysV, yet I am using
    Linux.

    What it comes down to is the user interface... for the most part,
    system utilities such as 'ps' use BSD style options.  I find that
    I don't mind the programming differences as long as the utilities
    use sane BSDisms.

    Another big point is the fact that Linux relies heavily on GNU
    utilities and is ground-up ANSI-C.  The only SysVisms you really
    have to worry about are:

    	* signal() handling (you have to re-arm signals by default)
    	* directory access
    	* tty stuff -- I like the sysVish termios calls much better
    	  then the old BSD ioctls.

    Linux also implements the more interesting BSD system calls such as
    mmap(), so I'm happy!

					-Matt

-- 

    Matthew Dillon		dillon@apollo.west.oic.com
    1005 Apollo Way		ham: KC6LVW (no mail drop)
    Incline Village, NV. 89451	Obvious Implementations Corporation
    USA 			Sandel-Avery Engineering
    [always include a portion of the original email in any response!]