Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!csnews!alumni!atk From: atk@alumni.cs.Colorado.EDU (Alan T Krantz) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs Linux Date: 8 Apr 1996 13:57:12 GMT Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder CS Dept Lines: 49 Message-ID: <4kb5vo$fqn@csnews.cs.colorado.edu> References: <4issad$h1o@nadine.teleport.com> <31642098.75AB4317@gnu.ai.mit.edu> <4k2cvc$j8e@park.uvsc.edu> <31657509.5E45C160@gnu.ai.mit.edu> <4k76gl$5s4@dyson.iquest.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: alumni.cs.colorado.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Charlie Root (root@dyson.iquest.net) wrote: : In article <31657509.5E45C160@gnu.ai.mit.edu>, : H.J. Lu <hjl@gnu.ai.mit.edu> wrote: : > : >I have been flamed on that by people like you from : >the Linux camp :-(. Someone has to do it. If not for Linux, : >your FreeBSD/ELF tools may not like what you have today. : >I thought FreeBSD might be fun. It seems that I was wrong :-(. : > : Don't give up on FreeBSD. Anyone (competent) is welcome to work on it. : Alot of problems sometimes get started by people saying things that can be : construed as advocacy for "the dark side, whomever that is", and causing : responses to that, as opposed to responses acknowleging a request for : cooperation to contribute. I think the ELF/a.out debate is a little silly, however, I do have some comments in comparing FreeBSD to Linux. I've been running FreeBSD 2.0 for about 7 months and Linux about 2 weeks. I'm getting ready to upgrade because of a bug in FreeBSD and I am unsure if I will upgrade to FreeBSD 2.1 or Linux. Some of what I say is personal observation and some is thoughts from other friends who use Linux more than myself. I think FreeBSD is noticably faster esp for compiles and swapping, however as a home user that speed isn't critical. On the other hand, Linux is snappier (not response time but in fluff gimmicky software). Also Linux has better support for Dos which is somewhat important to me (dosemu is said to run better under linux - as far as i can tell it doesn't run under FreeBSD 2.0, FreeBSD 2.0 is rumored to be bugged when writing to a dos partition and is very slow). Also, (not important to me) Linux supports eide systems better - my system is well supported by FreeBSD. I think the FreeBSD people need to realize that there are a lot more home users than corporate users. While there is more $$ in the corporate world, FreeBSD isn't about money. Don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to criticize the FreeBSD development team I'm really trying to say that I (personally) would like to see improvements in things like dos support (rather see dos support than Linux support) ... within margins performance isn't everything - esp as machines get faster and memory cheaper. While I'm not a big fan of gimmicks, and i think the argument about colour ls was utterly moronic, I do like conveniences. It is convenient to be able to copy files between dos and unix file system - it is convenient to run dos programs without rebooting the system - ... Probably the only thing that has kept me from switching to Linux is that I prefer (i.e, am familiar with) BSD system calls and don't really like SYSV behavior with regard to some system calls (though my friends really like streams). Not sure which I will upgrade to - will visit the Linux expo first (I live in Atlanta and ga-tech is having an expo next weekend) - but I think the above accurately represents my perspective on the two operating systems as a home user. I do realize that corporate or professional needs are very different than my own.