Migrating from Linux to FreeBSD

Eugenia writes: "OSNews published a guide that could help users migrate from Linux to FreeBSD by spotting the main differences between the two popular systems. Interesting read & relevant to the recent FreeBSD 4.5 release a few days ago."

Comments

FreeBSD Has Some Merits

[trg83]

Unlike certain Linux distributions, the FreeBSD package system seems to work great, even on packages that are on an FTP site somewhere else.

Re:FreeBSD Has Some Merits

[Anonymous Coward]

Like some, not all.

If I developed a FreeBSD distribution that sucked, would you like it (FreeBSD) any less than you do now?

Re:FreeBSD Has Some Merits

[Baki]

You write a lot but don't seem to be well informed on FreeBSD:

If you can fetch the package from an FTP server, you can also cvsup to make sure your ports tree is up-to-date (it just takes a few minutes). The ports tree doesn't need to be very up-to-date b.t.w., since tar-balls that vanished from the sites are kept for a long time on ftp.freebsd.org, which is used as a fall-back. If you don't want to bother with net-access, then just install packages (the binary form of a port) and use the ports that are delivered on CD-ROM with an official FreeBSD set.

make world (I've been doing it regularly for years) has never taking down your box during the process. It uses 2 steps by the way, which you can execute separate if you wish: make buildworld builds everything (in /usr/obj), then make installworld to copy /usr/obj to the system itself, which is a quick process. Even during this step your system remains up and running. A reboot is advisable afterwards but not absolutely necessary (running processes shall still use the old libraries of course).

Upgrading a Linux box (which often comes down to a reinstall) takes much much more time. Upgrading FreeBSD is a routine operation which takes only 1-2 minutes of operator intervention, then takes some hours to complete (compiling) during which your box keeps running. No physical accesss is needed (it remains in multi-user mode and this has always been the case).

You can say much about cons and pros about FreeBSD w.r.t. Linux, but there is absolutely no doubt possible on which one has the superior package management (ports) and system-update system, ease of system administration etc.

At home I run my "production server" on FreeBSD because really, I'm too lazy for Linux.

For those times that I'm not lazy and want to try some neat cool new stuff, I run Linux, Slackware of course. Because if/when I'm not lazy, I want to do everything myself and only deal with the source. I hate being bitten by incompatible packages, vague conflicts between unknown shared libraries etc. The only way to avoid is to recompile from source, and use statically linked software if no source is available (such as commercial software like Opera).

Re:Followed by

[WasterDave]

Also they fail to mention why you want your system up to date

Security and stability fixes, primarily.

Do you really want the latest kernel if it is untested on a production system?

Ahhh, solved. FreeBSD has branches, -STABLE for code that has been tested, and -CURRENT for code that hasn't. By updating along the -STABLE track you can be sure of no nasty surprises. (5.0-CURRENT is having lots of nasty surprises, right now).

They fail to mention any real advanatges of why should one want to go from Linux, which they clasify as the 'kernel', to FreeBSD,

FreeBSD is distributed as an entire OS - there is no "distribution" concept, it arrives and works. The advantage is in the reduced amount of fragmentation, and ultimately a reduction in the time it takes to get anything working.

While the mention the linux compatiblity layer, they fail to point out a list of all the programs that run just on Linux and which ones ARE compatible

It'd be a big list! But, yes, some highlights would've been good. A good example would be Oracle, which aparrently can be made to run under Linux emulation, but it's a bit of a fight. Probably easier to just use Linux :)

rpm is also a open source program that if one wanted they could probably install it under FreeBSD and get it to work.

You certainly could, and in fact the Linux emulation layer does include a bunch of symlinks to make the FreeBSD file system look distinctly like a Linux one. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with the ports and packages systems.

Does FreeBSD have a journaling file system?

Kind of, it has a system called soft updates. To cut a long story short it runs the advantages of a journaling file system without the journal. There is only one of them.

(Video is done mostly through XFree so both are about equal in that respect).

Yes and no. It's only recently that FreeBSD has started to ship with XFree4.x.x (due to deeply conservative release engineering). Also FreeBSD does not have access to closed source video drivers, i.e. closed source nVidia drivers. Linux is ahead in video, but then so is Windows.

Dave

Re:Followed by

[josepha48]

Wow there are so many replys to my initla post I thought I'd address them all.

I was referring to the article NOT FreeBSD. The article makes little or no mention of all the things that people have pointed out that are better reasons for switching to FreeBSD.

1) yes they say FreeBSD is all in one as opposd to Linux distros, but they don't mention why that is really bad. Maybe it would help if they mentioned that the different distros are not always binary compatible with each other and the libc issue and that the different kernels mean you may have to upgrade some programs and recompile programs when upgrading kernels.

As far as the windows installer goes I was referring to it as an installer. RPM, gnorpm are not real installers. Neither is make install. The plusses in windows installer are that it lets you choose full, custom, or small install usually, and also lets YOU the user decise what directory to put stuff in and more often than not if they got it right then you can uninstall stuff too by just a click. Nice easey to use GUI that lets YOU in easier. No it is not an upgrade utiltiy nor does it clain to be. Windows update is just that WINDOWS. Windows add on programs that you install are not part of windows. But if you get XP part of windows update will update internet exploiter.

"Where you will have a problem is with programs that depend on Linux kernel-only features, software dependent on drivers only written for Linux, and trying to link FreeBSD applications to Linux libraries".. installer and updater are two completely differnet entities. Thus this was not what I was talking about .. learn to read..

"Where you will have a problem is with programs that depend on Linux kernel-only features, software dependent on drivers only written for Linux, and trying to link FreeBSD applications to Linux libraries".. yes I and I work with such software. Which even running under linux can be tricky. You need this version of this distribution.. blah blah..

What they fail to mention is that FreeBSD is actually already a branch that is part of NetBSD, OpenBSD and all the rest of the BSD's. Oh and don't forget that Mac OS X is a splinter off of FreeBSd. FreeBSD came from BSD and now has become only one. They are also different schools of thought. At some point Linux distros will die and there will be only one or two. Currently there are many yes, but only a few of them are acutally big time players, like RedHat, mandrake, SuSe, debian and Slackware. yes others exist but any polls show these as the top 5 most used.

Lastly the first comment I made was basically why should anyone migrate from one OS to anther. People will test them and if they like one better than another they will use it. Persoanlly I think they all kind byte and that there is yet to be a real "killer OS". Mac OS X is looking good, but it only runs on Mac hardware. (exlude darwin as I want the WHOLE OS GUI and all).

Re:few things left out

[Metrol]

You're talking about ports, while the author was talking about the core OS.

Of course I'm talking about the port installs. The reason I replied was that the original post had a VERY misleading statement about bash and GNU utilities being unavailable in FreeBSD. It would be way too easy to assume you couldn't even get these things to run had they no experience with FreeBSD.

If core OS means that you can install these things initially when you install the OS, then FreeBSD does that as well! Just like a Linux distro install you can select packages to be added along with the rest of the OS.

As a Linux distro is really not much more than the kernel and selected packages I could just as easily state that GNU utilities aren't a "part" of any of those either. Certainly they aren't a part of Linux, as Linux only includes a kernel if we wanted to get all kinds of nit picky.

Re:The FreeBSD community

[Ded Bob]

I have heard that #FreeBSD is not the place to ask about installing FreeBSD. The best place would be #FreeBSDHelp. They tend to be more helpful. :)