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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!MathWorks.Com!news2.near.net!news.delphi.com!usenet From: John Dyson <dysonj@delphi.com> Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: To BSD or not to BSD... Date: Mon, 15 Aug 94 01:33:45 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 48 Message-ID: <ZyyR0f5.dysonj@delphi.com> References: <32mn8o$lc7@olympus.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: bos1b.delphi.com X-To: Dylan Vanderhoof <bassman@olympus.net> Dylan Vanderhoof <bassman@olympus.net> writes: >I am getting a Unix OS for my IBM, but I cannot decide if I should use >Linux or BSD. Does anybody have any help on that? > >Also, what is the difference between 386BSD and FreeBSD? My opinion is generally this (remember I am a FreeBSD partisan!!!): FreeBSD - currently i386-only, optimized for that platform. NetBSD - multi-platform emphasis Linux - currently i386, lots of driver support, but maybe a a little less capable of heavy loads. All three are *good* choices. Modulo a few months, all have or will have iBCS2 (Linux has it, FreeBSD will have it, and I guess that NetBSD will too.) FreeBSD has been attempting to fix-up the kernel to make it work better under heavy loads, with less emphasis on working on machine independency. NetBSD has been hammering out multi-platform support. It does not appear to be insane to run FreeBSD on i386-type machines and NetBSD on others. The *BSDs tend to track each other in driver support, while Linux tends to be a bit ahead. I'd like to think that *BSD is a bit better in the QC dept. NetBSD will be coming out with their 4.4Lite based kernel first, while FreeBSD is working on it also (and should be out late Sept.) One of the main reasons that FreeBSD is a little later is that it (the team) decided to come out with one-last Net/2 based release in order to support the existing user base. Notice that the above are *generalities*, and all of the above work pretty well. If you choose NetBSD -- definitely wait until 1.0 is stable. If you choose FreeBSD, you could choose 1.1.5.1 now, but might have problems finding it (I dont think that it is available on freebsd.cdrom.com anymore.) I think that it can be gotten elsewhere (someone else might chime in.) In a few months, you could then start using FreeBSD V2.0 (I believe that there must be an easy upgrade path for the user base...) And Linux is available *in many places*. The 4.4Lite releases (NetBSD V1.0 and FreeBSD V2.0) are fairly new code but each group will attest to how much they have been tested at release time. But for serious work, I would wait until things settle out (especially if you are a new user also.) Good Luck, and I hope you get *BSD a chance!!! John dyson@implode.root.com