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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!classic.iinet.com.au!news.uoknor.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!qns3.qns.com!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!rkb55989 From: Rafal Boni <r-boni@uiuc.edu> Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Linux vs. BSD (NOT a religious question!) Date: 18 May 1995 18:32:56 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 57 Message-ID: <3pg3so$inh@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <coveD8qwsL.Mvq@netcom.com> <MICHAELV.95May17222030@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> <3pg08i$qdg@helena.MT.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: uxa.cso.uiuc.edu Originator: rkb55989@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu nate@trout.sri.MT.net (Nate Williams) writes: |In article <MICHAELV.95May17222030@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>, |Michael L. VanLoon <michaelv@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> wrote: |>In article <coveD8qwsL.Mvq@netcom.com> cove@netcom.com (Cove) writes: |> |> I have no intent of starting another long running thread on this. I |> just have a few quick questions: |> |> I am running linux now, but I'm considering switching over to BSD. |> Reason being is that I'd like to learn a more widely used OS, no just |> a PC based one. Could BSD give me this kind of experience over Linux? |> |>In *MY* experience, yes, NetBSD could DEFINITELY do this for you. |>FreeBSD also, but to a lesser extent (no offense -- I'm not saying |>FreeBSD is a lesser OS). |No offense intended, but why do you consider NetBSD a more widely used |OS vs. FreeBSD? Obviously there are no numbers to compare, but I would |suspect there are more total users using FreeBSD than NetBSD, and both |of them are surpassed by Linux. However, the *BSD's have the advantage |of being enough like a lot of other commercial OS's that 'BSD' is more |widely used. I think that the reply assumed that widely used == used on more hardware. (Ala the "not just a PC one" comment). I don't think anyone is going to argue about the relative number of users, as it means nothing other than (a) that one OS or another has more users, and perhaps (b) that said OS(es) with more users have more and/or better PR and "marketing" strategies. |I'm in total agreement that NetBSD runs on more platforms than FreeBSD, |but *most* of those platforms (not all by any means) are for older |legacy hardware that is not used much anymore, hence one of the reasons |NetBSD is the perfect OS for them. Putting NetBSD on this older |hardware breaths new life into it. Well, you're right in that many of the NetBSD ports (VAX, Sun3, ...) are pretty much "legacy architectures", but it doesn't mean that they are not worth considering. Besides, cgd's latest work on the Alpha has made NetBSD almost completely 64-bit safe (I haven't done any work there, so I'll grant that "almost completely" is my interpretation of the changes I've seen happening through the commit logs and such as opposed to "been there, done that, know it like the back of my hand" statement). --rafal ObBSDFlameRetardant: Not offense intended to any party mentioned above, all views are my own and not xxxBSD's, I am a grumpy person before my 4th coffee, I wore the same sweatshirt to work yesterday.... -- +--------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------+ | In search of the stress-strain relationship governing |/| Rafal Boni | | students of mechanics... Experimentally. |\| r-boni@uiuc.edu | +--------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------+