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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!nexus.coast.net!news.kei.com!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!news.ucdavis.edu!library.ucla.edu!news.bc.net!felix.junction.net!okjunc.junction.net!michael From: michael@okjunc.junction.net (Michael Dillon) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: When did this become linux.advocacy Date: 23 Jun 1995 06:06:07 GMT Organization: Okanagan Internet Junction, Vernon B.C., Canada Lines: 78 Message-ID: <3sdlkf$tl3@felix.junction.net> References: <marcus.114.00E9749F@ccelab.iastate.edu> <3s8pet$m65@bonnie.tcd-dresden.de> <3s9vmk$f9p@agate.berkeley.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: okjunc.junction.net >Other problems were annoying: The FreeBSD distribution didn't come with >a full collection of precompiled binaries, like "pine" and "lynx". This could be remedied by a better packaging of the FreeBSD ports so that people could easily pick up an Internet access kit or a full-blown X kit or a stripped down X terminal kit etc. >I guess it's more of a "do it yourself" attitude among BSD users (which >isn't necessarly bad). Or the fact that the kernel compiling isn't >more automatic like the Linux kernel config utilities. If the /usr/src/sys/i386/conf directory were symlinked to /usr/kernel then a user could CD there, type make config which would run an interactive question and answer session to build the actual config file. This should also run config CONFIGFILE once it built the configfile and print out a message saying, "Type make to build this kernel". At that point typing make would cd ../../compile/currentCONFIGFILEname and do a make depend;make then it would prompt for the name of the new kernel (default kernel.test) and give instructions on how to boot a test kernel and how to make it the default. Think about it.... This is merely a thin shell of makefile and documentation that could make the user's experience more pleasant. If it used the same tools as the 2.0.5R install utility, then it would be flashier and more user friendly than the Linux kernel build procedure. >Someone e-mailed me, asking me if I "get this kind of service/response >from a Linux group?" My experiences with Linux have been very good. >For example, when I found a bug with their serial driver (probing the >serial device caused a spurrious interrupt) I reported the bug to >the serial code maintainer. Within 12 hours I had a patch from the >maintainer, and within 3 days a new kernel, with the serial port patch, >was released. The FreeBSD group was almost as good, only taking 3 days >to get the bug patched. Both the Linux and FreeBSD code developers >are an incredible group, no questions. I think the true comparison here is between FreeBSD/Linux and SCO or even BSDI. (I hear that with commercial success BSDI is getting slooowwww to respond to support requests). >I still feel that Linux is better, however. To me, the Linux communities >seem more profession and better run. Businesses are starting to jump on >the Linux bandwagon, and a host of new applications are planning to come >out. I think you are right for now. But I have been involved in Linux for the past three years and it certainly does have its warts such as the NE2000 bugs and the WWW socket hangs and the Sudden Death Syndrome and a host of other things. I think that anyone who makes any long term decisions based on the current state of FreeBSD and Linux is making a mistake. The two efforts have a lot of cross fertilization. Both are continually developping and improving. For some jobs FreeBSD is better today and for others Linux is better today. Tomorrow this WILL change. The worst thing that could happen to the software community is for FreeBSD disappear. Linux would then get fat and sassy with no competition. I think the best thing that could happen is for both to thrive and find different niches. For this to happen it may be neccessary for FreeBSD to move even farther off the BSD4.4 track. One interesting possibility would be for Linux to oust POSIX as *THE* UNIX standard and for FreeBSD to oust BSD4.4 as *THE* BSD standard. This could very well happen within the next two years or so. Even more important to the free software community are applications. OSes are nice, but applications are essential. Right now, FreeBSD and Linux have minimal to no effect on the Windows etc. community. But if John Ousterhout's efforts at SunLabs pan out with the TCL/Tk portable development environment for X, Mac and MS-Windows, then FreeBSD and Linux find a new role as applications development platforms for software that can be used on almost ALL platforms. -- Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-549-1036 Network Operations Fax: +1-604-542-4130 Okanagan Internet Junction Internet: michael@junction.net http://www.junction.net - The Okanagan's 1st full-service Internet provider