[ale] free bsd vs. linux

Dylan Northrup docx at io.com
Sat Mar 15 09:46:34 EST 2003


A long time ago, (14.03.03), in a galaxy far, far away, Marvin Dickens wrote:

:=But, like Robert said, if your looking for chrome, you are not going to find it in BSD. With BSD, what you get is what you see... Nothing more, nothing less.
:=Further, Linux comes as close as any other *NIX regarding the ability to match the stability of BSD. Yes, BSD is more stable, but at a price. Linux was designed to perform more duties than just serve data on high bandwidth networks. In addition, Linux has more utilities and applications (This includes both userland and system utlities and apps) than BSD and therefore is not as vertically limited as BSD regarding it use. 
:=
:=I suppose another analogy is that BSD is the knife of computer networking, but Linux is the Swiss Army Knife of computing.

I've been using FreeBSD for the past five years on and off as a server and
for the past three years as a desktop machine.  For my desktop, I switched
from RedHat after running into RPM dependency hell when trying to install
xmms and being required (eventually) to upgrade my version of rpm. . . and
then I remembered the ports collection.  The ports collection has an
enormous number of software packages that can be downloaded, compiled and
installed (along with any dependencies).  The primary benefit of the ports
collection is each port is tested to insure it compiles and installs
properly.  In addition, with the Linux binary compatibility layer, linux
binaries can be run on a FreeBSD box (I generally turn this off on servers
to reduce the chance of script kiddies using Linux exploits against my
production servers and turn it on for desktops when/where there's a specific
application dependency).  I've installed Gnome, KDE, xmms, Star Office,
Enlightenment and several other apps that are typically associated with
Linux.

Going with the car analogy, I see Linux as a model of Mercedes. . . you can
get a Mercedes truck that'll haul what you want, but most folks when they
buy a Mercedes get one with the leather seats, CD changer and climate
control.  FreeBSD is more like a Kenworth. . . it'll haul what you want, but
if you want creature comforts, you have to get them yourself.  It's not that
there are significant differences in how a Linux box or FreeBSD box *can* be
used.  There's a difference between how they are *typically* used and
therefore the *perception* of how they can be used.

On a personal level, my first unixes were Ultrix and SunOS 4.x.  BSD-based
unix OSes just feel right to me.  I work with SysV descendents all day, but
when I work on a BSD box, it's like going back home.

-- 
Dylan Northrup <*> docx at io.com <*> http://www.io.com/~docx/
"Harder to work, harder to strive, hard to be glad to be alive, but it's 
 really worth it if you give it a try." -- Cowboy Mouth, 'Easy'

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