Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!phaedrus.kralizec.net.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!grumpy.fl.net.au!news.webspan.net!news1.exit109.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.mathworks.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!nntp-hub3.barrnet.net!accesscom.com!kevinb From: kevinb@aic1.accesscom.com (Kevin Brown) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs BSD Date: 8 Feb 1997 04:49:53 GMT Organization: Access Internet Communications Lines: 64 Message-ID: <5dh0lh$rlt@news.accesscom.com> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <5dao3t$t7a@cynic.portal.ca> <5dd624$b05@oden.abc.se> <5dg6kt$fil@cynic.portal.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: aic1.accesscom.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:82784 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2357 comp.os.linux.misc:156787 In article <5dg6kt$fil@cynic.portal.ca>, Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.portal.ca> wrote: >In article <5dd624$b05@oden.abc.se>, Jonas Bofjall <m9418@abc.se> wrote: [...] >>Also, I think the *BSD people have more internal fights, otherwise we >>wouldn't have *three* (at least) BSD derived freeware OS'es. > >No, by that argument, given that there are more than a dozen >GNU/Linux systems out there, there are more internal fights in the >Linux camp. Not to mention things like duplicated drivers in the >kernel itself. I think the difference is that although under Linux it is possible to find device drivers and such that aren't integrated into the kernel, there don't seem to be separately maintained kernel source trees the way there are under the *BSDs. Furthermore, it's widely known that the reasons for the divergence between the BSD camps were largely political (The creation of OpenBSD, in particular, seems to be more politically motivated than technically motivated). I do realize that the BSDs are technically different from each other (FreeBSD from NetBSD, in particular), but are they so technically different that they really do require separate source distributions?? Note, too, that a "distribution" under Linux is a Linux kernel along with a collection of utilities and other programs, all packaged together into a (more or less) coherent form. What primarily differs is the selection of programs and the mechanism used to install and maintain them. Because of that, the different distributions tend to be good for different things and each targets a different audience. On the BSD side, each kernel comes with a single distribution, and the kernels themselves are separately maintained. Changes, bugfixes, etc. that make it into one distribution probably aren't necessarily integrated into any of the others, even if the changes are applicable. Neither way is better or worse, they're just different and target different needs. I do sometimes wonder how much cross-pollenization of ideas there is between the BSD camps, however. How much does the FreeBSD camp learn about portability from the NetBSD camp? Since FreeBSD runs only on the x86 platform, how can you tell that the portability ideas are even well-tested on that platform? How much does the NetBSD camp learn from the FreeBSD camp about kernel performance and stability? How many performance improvements that are made in FreeBSD manage to make their way into the NetBSD kernel? I'm not being critical here, I'm genuinely curious. The BSD side of things has always seemed to be a bit fragmented to me. The Linux community *feels* more whole, even if perhaps it's not. -- Kevin Brown kevinb@netcom.com This is your .signature virus: < begin 644 .signature (9V]T8VAA(0K0z end > This is your .signature virus on drugs: <> Any questions?