[Tfug] FreeBSD vs. Linux

Tue Nov 27 23:36:11 MST 2007

Well an operating system consist of several parts. Kernel(or hardware  
control) being one which directly communicate with the hardware but there  
are some others like file system, drivers, packaging system etc. Linux is  
just a kernel. All other parts are coded by other people and each distor  
(more than 350 in total) is putting a version of their OS together.

FreeBSD is like a big government project. There are 200 core developers  
working on the various aspects of the OS. Entire system is written by  
FreeBSD team (or OpenBSD team around 60 guys or NetBSE team I think around  
80 guys or DragonFlyBSD about 12 people)
it goes through rigorous quality control and no single person has  
authority to commit the code to the system.
In Linux world Torvals pretty much does what he wants with kernel and I do  
not think that my comments about Linux quality control would be  
appreciated. Linux development is quite chaotic in the positive sense.  
That is the major strength of the Linux as there are
areas where FreeBSD will never reach.

I would strongly recommend the classical book by Maurice J. Bach "The  
Design of the Unix operating system" if you want to understand more about  
design of Unix and classic "The Unix Programming Environment" by by Brian  
Kernighan and Rob Pike if you want quick
introduction into Unix by some of very people who created it.

You asked about system administration. I said before it depends what you  
wants to do. If you want a Desktop then PC-BSD is as easy to install as  
Ubunut. PC-BSD is derived from FreeBSD while Ubuntu is derived from  
Debian. Both of this distros have as ultimate objective to be as idiot  
proof as possible and that "everything" work out of box. Unfortunately  
sometimes things do not work as planed and than it becomes painfully  
obvious that FreeBSD and Debian are actually easier distributions to work  
with.

Setting a dekstop in FreeBSD or Debian is probably equally easy("hard" if  
you are noob) as neither FreeBSD nor GNU/Debian have any graphical tools  
for configuration. You are expected to read technical manuals and clicking  
your mouse around will take you nowhere.

That lack of graphical tools which seems like a big disadvantage is  
actually a good thing if you know what are you doing.
Most of the time servers do not run X anyway as it is a big security risk  
and is useless in configuration and maintenance of NFS server, MTA etc.

In summary, I think that the people who use Gentoo, Debian or Arch Linux  
are equally technically minded as you said as people who use
FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD. Everyone has its own reason for using  
particular OS.

If you want me I will bring a computer during next happy hour and do  
installation of FreeBSD. You will see how easy it is. We could
further discuss about my personal reason for choosing FreeBSD.

Cheers,
Predrag

P.S. Linux got publicity due to the corporate support from HP and IBM. The  
reason for that are subject of different debate.

On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:50:44 -0700, andy <andyjones at cox.net> wrote:

> Thanks Predrag, it was no troll, I'm just a fairly new Linux user and
> have heard of BSD, but didn't really know what differentiated it from
> Linux beside being another Unix variation.
>
> Besides, this politics discussion is way past the point of being boring.
>
> I was assuming that Linux was more for the casual user and BSD catered
> to the more technical crowd or hardcore Unix folks. It sounds like from
> your quick rundown that is true.
>
> What did you mean by BSD being a complete operating system vs. Linux
> plus GNU tools? Not sure if I understand.
>
> Andy
>
> On Tue, 2007-11-27 at 22:10 -0700, Predrag Punosevac wrote:
>> Depends what do you want to do?
>>
>> An obvious difference that FreeBSD is complete operating system. Linux  
>> is
>> kernel with the bunch of GNU tools
>> that depend from distro to disto.
>>
>> Applications are however mostly common. Apache is apache, exim is exim,
>> MPlayer is Mplayer.
>>
>> BSD was conceived at the University of California Barkley in early
>> seventies.
>> All present flavours of BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and DragonFlyBSD)
>> are direct descendant of
>> the Barkley 4.4BSD
>>
>> Linux was firstly coded 1993 by Torval Linux while 386BSD a first 386
>> version of BSD was in legal troubles with ATT.
>> Linux clone was based on the mix of V5 and BSD but the part which is  
>> POSIX
>> compliant should look very similar to FreeBSD.
>>
>> There are deep philosophical differences.
>>
>> Is this enough for the beginning? What do you want to compare in
>> particular. Desktop features?
>>
>> Linux works better for Flash, Java, VoIP, web-cam, Linux ndis is better
>> and many other things related to WiFi drivers and
>> video card drivers. For a casual desktop user Linux is probably better
>> choice even though PC-BSD, DesktopBSD, RoFreeSBIE are
>> "desktop" distros of FreeBSD
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Predrag
>>
>>
>> P.S. There are people in Linux gang who claim that their OS is better  
>> than
>> BSD and they are ready to kill to prove it.
>> There are people in BSD gang who claim that their OS is better than  
>> Linux
>> and they are ready to kill to prove it.
>> In reality both OS are quite good.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:42:43 -0700, Andrew Ayre <andy at britishideas.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > I don't think that question was trolling, they are merely asking the
>> > difference...
>> >
>> > I was wondering the same thing. Is there a website somewhere that
>> > concisely describes the pros/cons of each?
>> >
>> > Is system admin harder on FreeBSD than Linux? Why?
>> >
>> > Predrag Punosevac wrote:
>> >> On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:12:44 -0700, andy <andyjones at cox.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> What's the big difference between FreeBSD & Linux? I've only used  
>> Linux
>> >>> and it seems to get the lion's share of press attention.
>> >>>
>> >>> Andy
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >> This seems like a great topic for a troll but I will bite it anyway.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Depends what you want to do? For a casual desktop user NONE if  
>> somebody
>> >> did system administration for you.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
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