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Re: Comparison of Linux and FreeBSD
Quoth Daniel Feiglin on Wed, Jun 09, 1999:
> I know that benchmarks can be so much baloney. I was looking more for
> something like these topics:
Alright. It's only my opinion, so feel free to flame away.
> 1. Hardware resources
> 1.1 What is supported, what is not
Linux supports more hardware than BSD systems, as a rule. Still,
some hardware is supported by BSD system but not by Linux. For
example, BSDI supports serial multi-port cards (lots of them),
and Linux, AFAIK, does not.
You need just check whether this particular OS supports your
particular hardware.
> 1.2 Minimal system requirements
Basically the same in BSD and Linux systems. I don't know about
any major differences.
> 2. Installation
> 2.1 Ease of installation - "gotchas"
BSD systems are basically as easy to install as Linux systems.
Of all the BSD systems, FreeBSD is said to be the most
user-friendly one. BSDI is pretty easy to install, too, mostly
because they are a commercial OS and they pay their developers to
write this sort of stuff.
BSD tradition is to compile things from the sources. I think
that FreeBSD has lots of binary packages, like Linux, but I can't
say for sure. NetBSD and OpenBSD have their "ports" collections.
To install a ported package, you do something like:
cd /usr/ports/foo/bar
make
make install
Easy.
Some of the packages in the ports collections are available in
the binary form. I don't really know about others, but in
OpenBSD, for example, all (or almost all) the packages are
available in the binary form for i386 and other popular
architectures, but many packages are available only in the source
form for uncommon architectures.
> 2.2 Upgrade or replacement mode for an earlier installation
Hmm. It should differ between the OSes, but as far as I know,
every release of the OS (in OpenBSD, for example, a new version
of the whole OS is released once every 6 months) has an "upgrade"
option. Bug fixes and such are released when bugs or security
holes are found, both in source and binary forms, or only in
source form (depends on the OS). In the ports collection, new
versions of the ported software are released from time to time,
but I think that if the whole OS is released pretty often, if you
don't need the new version, don't install it. But it's my
opinion, and you're welcome to upgrade your ports whenever you
want.
The development versions of the OS are available via CVS. They
are not stable (usually not guarranteed to compile), and
represent the work in progress towards the new version of the OS.
It's not advised to install this alpha-quality software, unless
you really need it. Most people just install the official
releases.
> 3. X and related support
> 3.1 Servers
BSD operating systems come with XFree86. Accelerated X is
available for Linux and FreeBSD; NetBSD and OpenBSD can (and do)
run it under FreeBSD or Linux emulation. XiG discontinued its
support of BSDI, so Accelerated X 5.0 and later is not available
for BSDI.
I have no information about MetroX, except that it runs under
BSDI. Other BSD OSes have BSDI emulation, so I believe that
MetroX runs under it. But I dislike this product, anyway.
> 3.2 Window managers
All UNIX window managers: twm, ctwm, fvwm, fvwm2, fvwm95, you
name it. I can't say much about KDE and Gnome, because I'm not
interested in them, but I think they run on BSD systems.
> 4. Software tools
What tools do you mean?
> 5. Network management
BSD systems have ipfilter (which is a part of the kernel + some
binaries), which can serve as a firewall, perform NAT (sometimes
called IP masquerading), static address translation, and lots of
other stuff. BSD machines can be used as routers. BSD is said
to be very good at networking.
> And so on, and so on. A sort of detailed description along the lines of
> the PC Magazine
> comparative reviews of the 80's, but hopefully a little more "savvy".
I hope it helped somewhat...
> Something
> like this doesn't have all the answers, but at least it can provide a
> basis for
> more detailed discussion about specific issues.
I am willing to discuss what I know, but this forum is gread for
discussions about Linux, and if you want to know about BSD
systems, join BSD-related forums.
Vadik.
--
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, they are quick to
anger and have no need for subtlety.