Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!news.vbc.net!vbcnet-west!knews.uk0.vbc.net!vbcnet-gb!azure.xara.net!xara.net!newsfeed.nacamar.de!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!ncar!uchinews!news
From: stephen farrell <stephen+usenet@farrell.org>
Subject: Re: BSD vs Linux
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: phaedrus.uchicago.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Message-ID: <87lo5bmued.fsf@phaedrus.uchicago.edu>
Lines: 86
Sender: sfarrell@phaedrus.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago -- Academic Computing Services
X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.4.37/XEmacs 19.15
References: <337A4307.3BF9@vertexcomm.com> <87k9l1twjc.fsf@phaedrus.uchicago.edu> <5lnct0$47$2@klemm.gtn.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.89)
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 14:03:06 GMT
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:41176
>>>>> "Andreas" == Andreas Klemm <andreas@klemm.gtn.com> writes:
Andreas> In article <87k9l1twjc.fsf@phaedrus.uchicago.edu>,
Andreas> stephen farrell <stephen+usenet@farrell.org> writes:
>> [...] There are reasons why FreeBSD is better, and there are
>> reasons why it is worse. I'm running linux now and there are
>> things I miss about FreeBSD [...]
Andreas> What are you missing in FreeBSD. Just curious.
1. I miss "ports" (rpms suck)
1.5 I miss how ports will actually d/l the dependencies. rpm will
just tell you that a dependency is missing. But it doesn't tell you
the package, it tells you the particular file. Granted after a few
years you get to recognize that e.g., /usr/bin/host comes in a package
called bind.blah.rpm... but sometimes they're not that easy.
2. I miss the way that the live sources are available via cvsup, etc.,
and that you can write a simple script that will keep your /usr/src
dir in sync with the current development or stable tree.
3. I miss the *complete* set of userland utilities--I swear I
installed every rpm in the redhat distribution and I'm still missing
stupid programs I can't remember. For these, when they come up, I
usually have to go to one of my xterms on our sun/solaris box.
4. I think the scheduler/interrupt handler is better (smoother
multitasking)
[oops... just reread your question... now I've got to answer the other
way. I guess I asked for this, huh?]
better things about linux:
1. I think there is a more open and forward-looking user community
with linux.
2. I really hate the fact that freebsd seems to see linux as it's
biggest competitor and measuring stick. leave linux alone; it's
microsoft that is the real enemy.
3. At the time I switched back, linux was in 2.0 phase, and I was
having major stability problems with the 2.2-current stuff I was
running. It was 2.1 or linux. Linux had a. a current, stable
release, b. appletalk c. quake (ok, it was important at the time,
certainly not anymore) d. JDK (that was/is very important to me)
4. I like the technical forwardness of linux. I like the extensive
module support (I have an almost completely generic kernel), I like
the native threading support, the stable SMP, and I like the
*momentum* of the linux community. There are tons of cool projects
going on for linux, and it definitely feels to me that it is "pulling
ahead" of FreeBSD, where it started off way behind technically.
5. I like the /proc filesystem on linux. I'm a big fan of flashing
lights and the /proc filesystem makes it trivial to write status
utilities.
Generally I think that FreeBSD is a much better *system* (at least
than RedHAt), but that Linux is a better kernel. Linux works great
for me--I haven't had a crash since I went back to it last fall, and I
can spend all of my time just getting my work done on it, unless I
want to play with something, then there is tons of stuff to play with.
The only thing that really blows hard intrinsically to linux (IMHO, of
course) is the c library. It just cannot seem to stabilize. Every
year it gets turned upside-down, whether it being breaking flock,
converting to ELF, and now we're due for libc6 == glibc2 which is
supposed to fix all of those woes... but as I understand will *not* be
binary compatible. so we've got the following for every binary
distribution:
blah-linux.aout.tar.gz
blah-linux.ELF.tar.gz
and, coming soon to an ftp site near you:
blah-linux.glibc.tar.gz
super.
If I were reinstalling today I'd have to seriously think about it,
however. As you can see I have some very positive opinions about
FreeBSD. I'd also seriously consider debian. My last experience with
debian was a disaster, but it seems to be much more modeled on
FreeBSD, which is a Good Thing.
--sf
(Lest this seem a little too one sided, please believe me when I say
that when I ran FreeBSD, I could have come up with equally as strong a
list of technical complaints about it as I can about Linux here. It's
just that it's been nearly a year, and I've forgotten much.)