Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!lucy.swin.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au!news.apana.org.au!cantor.edge.net.au!news.teragen.com.au!news.access.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!grumpy.fl.net.au!news.webspan.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uuneo.neosoft.com!junkie.gnofn.org!not-for-mail From: craig@gnofn.org (Craig Johnston) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs BSD Date: 2 Feb 1997 20:06:35 -0600 Organization: Greater New Orleans Freenet Lines: 61 Message-ID: <5d3h7b$gc@junkie.gnofn.org> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <m23evrulla.fsf@desk.crynwr.com> <5cdqos$e6k@camel1.mindspring.com> <Pine.SOL.3.91.970201040446.16129A-100000@ux8.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: junkie.gnofn.org Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:157474 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2440 In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.970201040446.16129A-100000@ux8.cso.uiuc.edu>, Kueh, Anthony <kueh@students.uiuc.edu> wrote: >Someone else wrote: >> How many Linux distributions are there? > >I think about 4 major ones. But if you look at the four, they could still >be considered "siblings". Where as if you compared FreeBSD, BSDI, Certainly they could be, especially if you wanted to consider them so. They all share the same kernel, and the same GNU tools but in various different places. ;) OTOH, FreeBSD is one OS, NetBSD another. If you install FreeBSD, you have the same FreeBSD everyone else has. (barring version differences.) If you install Linux, that could mean any number of things. One's choice is mostly a matter of taste. One's choice of arguments is mostly a matter of what one wants to prove. >and OpenBSD, they have more differences, especially on a philosophical >view point. For example, BSDI is created to more on the level of other >major Unixes (to provide a reliable and stable network server). Where as >FreeBSD is to provide a desktop workstation type OS. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. BSD/OS (nee BSDI) was created as a commercial effort. It is certainly more stable in the sense that development is slower than that of the free BSDs, be that a plus or minus for you. Whether or not it is more stable or reliable as a network server has nothing to do with its commercial status vs the others. FreeBSD, being more highly optimized, tends actually to handle loads a bit better than BSD/OS. I know of a large internet provider that recently switched to FreeBSD over BSD/OS, their BSD/OS license notwithstanding -- FreeBSD is simply as stable as it gets and noticeably more efficient. For some people this is irrelevant -- they simply must have a commercial product with support from the vendor. In the context of free software, there are only 3 BSD factions: FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. FreeBSD wasn't created to be a "desktop anything" -- it was created to optimize 4.4BSD Lite for x86 (x>2) hardware. NetBSD was created with portability in mind, and runs on a bazillion different platforms -- it would probably only be a choice for people running x86 hardware if they were NetBSD developers or if they were also running different hardware and wanted the same OS across platforms. OpenBSD is big on security, and its userbase seems to be growing pretty rapidly -- it's closer to NetBSD than FreeBSD, and the userbase is at this point still very small compared to FreeBSD, which is still the choice for the sizeable majority of people running a free BSD system on x86 hardware. See ftp.cdrom.com for an example of a nice little "desktop workstation." comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc removed as per their request. (hint, hint.) -- Craig Johnston, Sysadmin, Greater New Orleans Freenet, breaker of MS boxes. Speaking for myself and all that good stuff. Contents may be flammable. Free net access for New Orleans and the Northshore -- http://www.gnofn.org Hooked on Daemonics! http://www.FreeBSD.org -- 4.4BSD-based OS for 386+ PCs