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FreeBSD s/390 Port in the works

brad-x writes: "It appears that an enterprising gentleman has taken the time to port FreeBSD to the s/390. It needs some work yet, as his project page suggests, but if he makes it happen it will definitely be very cool. Check it out!"

82 comments

  1. oh well.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i guess *BSD isnt dying after all....

    1. Re:oh well.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, guess not. And I've been needing something to do with all my extra s/390s.

  2. Does this mean that... by j-turkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Since the S/390 is a pretty parallel architecture...does this mean that the FreeBSD kernel is getting better at SMP?

    Does it run with more than 2 processors on the 390?

    Is the 2 CPU limitation an X86-only thing that I'm ignorant of (quite possible)?

    That's not to say that I don't love the BSD's, but they do have (or maybe they had) their limitations.


    -Turkey

    --

    -Turkey

    1. Re:Does this mean that... by questionlp · · Score: 4, Informative

      5.0-CURRENT includes SMPng which is supposed to improve MP performance dramatically by knocking away that single giant lock. I have heard people running FreeBSD on a quad Intel processor setup a while ago on freebsd-questions... though I'm not sure how well performance would scale compared to a dual processor setup of the same processor speed.

      I haven't been able to fully parse the boot log, so I'm not sure if it is utilizing more than one processor or not, but the thing that the write-up forgot to mention was that it was tested under the S/390 emulator (aka Hercules). I'm not sure what Hercules is and how it work per se... but it's still a huge jump forward for FreeBSD.

    2. Re:Does this mean that... by Ded+Bob · · Score: 2

      The complement to SMPng for FreeBSD (v5) is Kernel Scheduled Entities (KSE). The third milestone was just recently added to CURRENT: KSE-MIII Merged Into Current (5.0).

      FreeBSD v5 will be a speed daemon. :)

    3. Re:Does this mean that... by hubertf · · Score: 2

      > Is the 2 CPU limitation an X86-only thing that
      > I'm ignorant of (quite possible)?

      I've ran NetBSD on a quad-Xeon machine.

      - Hubert

    4. Re:Does this mean that... by Strog · · Score: 3, Informative

      It isn't really a 2CPU limitation per-sey. The problem is performance has diminishing returns as you go past 2 cpus. Giant kernel lock means that one cpu has access to the memory space at a time and this is why performance can't scale well with this design.

      The good news is that it works remarkably well on 1 or 2 cpu systems. It beat the performance of Linux 2.2 kernels and still gives 2.4 kernels a run for their money in most situations. When you start running mores cpus then performance will only go up a little bit so it really isn't worth it at that point.

      FreeBSD 5.0 will not have this limitation and will scale nicely. I'm just not sure how far it will go at first but you can be sure that it will improve from there now that a decent setup for SMP is in place now (with 5.0).

    5. Re:Does this mean that... by Moridineas · · Score: 2

      The good news is that it works remarkably well on 1 or 2 cpu systems. It beat the performance of Linux 2.2 kernels and still gives 2.4 kernels a run for their money in most situations. When you start running mores cpus then performance will only go up a little bit so it really isn't worth it at that point

      Do you have any benchmarks or anything (non-anecdotal)? I've been looking for a side-to-side type comparison for awhile.

    6. Re:Does this mean that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you can run Win98 on a Quad Xeon machine. Neither Win98 or NetBSD will utilize the other three processors.

    7. Re:Does this mean that... by jmcneill · · Score: 1

      Not true. The sommerfeld_i386mp branch (is that the name?) contains SMP support for i386 (and has for quite a while now).

      Cheers,
      Jared

    8. Re:Does this mean that... by Strog · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I used to have several because I wondered the same questions. All my links are either dead or updated to 5.0 figures. Ignore the rest of my post if you consider it "too anecdotal".

      I've seen some inhouse testing with identical hardware with both Linux 2.4 and FreeBSD 4.x tuned for performance. They would go back and forth in some real-world testing with the edge in raw performance going to Linux more often. Usually the differences weren't that much but sometimes there was a clear winner.

      I would suggest that you get some hardware to test with and use both on this hardware in the situation(s) that you are going to put it in. It is real easy to get a system that each can support the hardware. If one or the other doesn't support the hardware you want or very well then go with the OS that supports the hardware well.

      For me, the real choice is outside of the scope of raw performance since they are fairly close (close enough for me at least). A couple factors I look at.

      1. A moderate to heavy loaded FreeBSD box still responds well while a Linux box under the same load will become extremely sluggish or unresponsive.

      2. Updating the system is more solid in FreeBSD than Linux. Apt-get and other mechanisms work well but usually have more issues for me at least. Following -stable is very easy in FreeBSD.

      3. Experience. Which system is the admin more comfortable with? If they have experience BSD or other traditional Unix then FreeBSD is the way to go. If they are more comfortable with Linux then it really needs to factor in to the choice.

      4. Number of processors. If the number goes over 2 then you need to go Linux or look into FreeBSD 5.0 if you can wait or run the development versions. Probably Linux will suit you better on your quad+ box for now at least. It will take some time to wring the most out of FreeBSD 5.x

      These are all opinions and suggestions. Use both in your setup and see which works for you. Alternately you could tell them both to take a hike and get an Irix box. That would open a whole new set of things to look at.

    9. Re:Does this mean that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not just use Linux, fully mature SMP, better support. *BSD is dying, get over it.

    10. Re:Does this mean that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Why not just use Linux, fully mature SMP, better support. *BSD is dying, get over it.

      Why not put your finger in your arse and fart "it's pronounced linuchs"?

    11. Re:Does this mean that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      FreeBSD SMP has always supported more than 2 CPUs. While FreeBSD 5.0 Developers Prerelease with SMPng might be more efficient, FreeBSD 4.6-RELEASE will boot today on a quad CPU x86 system. It will also boot on octal x86 CPU moterboard, with some hacking. Unfortunately, octal CPU x86 motherboards chipsets are rather different. These the mailing list archives for the details.

    12. Re:Does this mean that... by Jay+Maynard · · Score: 2

      Hercules does have the ability to emulate multiprocessor 390s. It will use multiple processors on the host system if available to givce increased performance.

      --
      Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
    13. Re:Does this mean that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL moderator

      Moderation isn't how much you agree. It could be wrong and still interesting or whatever. This comment doesn't deserve +5 interesting but modding it down from +2 is just silly. The poster probably has +2 bonus but didn't even use it. (based on age on current moderation)

  3. I'll check it out as soon as... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...someone gives me a 390 to try it out on.

    Anyone with a 390 given it a whirl yet?

    1. Re:I'll check it out as soon as... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup, it works great.

    2. Re:I'll check it out as soon as... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, but I got NetBSD to run on my 420

    3. Re:I'll check it out as soon as... by Guy+Harris · · Score: 3

      The page for the port says it's being done on Hercules, which is a System/390 and z/Architecture simulator; the Hercules page claims it runs on Linux and 32-bit Windows, but it can probably be made to run on UNIXes other than Linux as well, assuming it doesn't Just Work out of the box.

    4. Re:I'll check it out as soon as... by brad-x · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is a FreeBSD port of the emulator in /usr/ports/emulators/hercules; if you're running another BSD flavor and it doesn't have this port you'll likely have an easy time importing it.

      --
      // -- http://www.BRAD-X.com/ -- //
    5. Re:I'll check it out as soon as... by Jay+Maynard · · Score: 2

      the Hercules page claims it runs on Linux and 32-bit Windows, but it can probably be made to run on UNIXes other than Linux as well, assuming it doesn't Just Work out of the box.
      As noted, it's in the FreeBSD packages tree. I plan to get it running on MacOS X by the time the next release is out, now that I've got a Mac to run it on. It will run on most Unixoid OSes with tweaking to remove Linux-specific SCSI tape and TUN/TAP code.

      --
      Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
  4. How long by SpatchMonkey · · Score: 0

    It'll be interesting to see how long this takes. Surely an announcement after it is finished would have been better?

  5. More the merrier by atcurtis · · Score: 2, Interesting


    The more platforms supported, the merrier it will be.

    Although, I don't expect to see FreeBSD on anywhere near the same number of platforms as NetBSD.

    I'd like to see FreeBSD 5 running on RS/6000 hardware... That would be nice ;)

    --
    -- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
    -- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
    1. Re:More the merrier by maddjn · · Score: 0

      Although, I don't expect to see FreeBSD on anywhere near the same number of platforms as NetBSD.

      neither do i, i don't even think that this is FreeBSD's aim. FBSD claims to be a performant, stable and easy-to-use server while NetBSD wants to run on your toaster, your washing-machine and everything else...

      maddjn

      --
      --EOF--
    2. Re:More the merrier by glitchvern · · Score: 4, Informative

      Intrestingly enough NetBSD does not run on the 390.

    3. Re:More the merrier by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think there's been some talk about supporting the RS/6000 and ARM. The ARM port hasn't made much progress in a while, but there has definitely been a trend lately for more ports to other architectures. The speed with which the UltraSparc and PPC ports have come along is amazing. I find it odd that there's little to no activity with AMD's Hammer. Seems like FreeBSD's almost entirely in the Itanium camp despite the "Itanic" namecalling.

    4. Re:More the merrier by Sivar · · Score: 2

      Of course it doesn't run NetBSD!

      --
      Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
    5. Re:More the merrier by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heheh. mods, where are you!?

  6. NetBSD isn't on that platform by glitchvern · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The thing I think is interesting about this port is that it puts freebsd on the s/390 while NetBSD isn't. They do say a port of NetBSD to the s/390 would be relatively staightforward though.

    1. Re:NetBSD isn't on that platform by overbom · · Score: 2, Insightful

      NetBSD's priority isn't as a server OS; its priority is to be on multiple architectures to be an embedded system.

      At least, that's what the head guy said in his recent interview.

    2. Re:NetBSD isn't on that platform by foonf · · Score: 2

      But why port NetBSD to the S/390 when it runs on the VAX already?

      --

      "(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
    3. Re:NetBSD isn't on that platform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      NetBSD is not intended to target the server market. It is a user driven project which has two main foci:
      1. subset of the embedded market
      2. the classic hobbyist
      Item 1 would be that part of the market that doesn't require a hardware MMU (NetBSD can't work without one). This excludes a large segment of the embedded market, however. Item 2 is the Amiga/Atari/VAX hobbyist who likes to tinker with old computers. This is probably the greatest area of penetration for NetBSD, and where the largest portion of the user base is involved.
    4. Re:NetBSD isn't on that platform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its all about writting out a CHECK. Its hard to write out a big check for a VAX or PDP that can crush you, but a new shiny 390 to kill you.....now THAT you can get. A VAX, you have to find one.

    5. Re:NetBSD isn't on that platform by Dr.+Cody · · Score: 2, Funny

      The thing I think is interesting about this port is that it puts freebsd on the s/390 while NetBSD isn't.

      Think about it more practically:
      A lot more people have toasters than have S/390's.

    6. Re:NetBSD isn't on that platform by hubertf · · Score: 2

      And it will do what in the embedded application?
      Server type things, of course! :-)

      - Hubert

  7. They shouldn't mess with this.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...until they can get off their duffs and at least give us PPC and sparc64 ports!

  8. This AC Has Done Us ALL A Public Service. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He:

    1.) Reminded us how lame CLIT is. They didn't even get first post. Are they even still around?
    2.) Reminded us that BSD has died. Something many people reading this site desperately need to realize.

    Excellent job, fellow AC! I salute you!

  9. Re:Fist Sport! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry pal. It's doing quite well. Linux, however, is a toy OS that's going nowhere fast.

  10. Re:*BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get a life, Mandrake luser.

  11. Re:Just a reminder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux is garbage.

  12. Kind of silly. by LiquidPC · · Score: 0, Troll

    Are there really that many people that own s/390s that are going to put FreeBSD, rather than it's native OS, on it? Seems kind of odd that they're going through all this effort to port it to an arch that probably won't see much use, whereas a sparc or ppc port would see a lot more action. They have some odd priorities.

    1. Re:Kind of silly. by rsidd · · Score: 2, Insightful
      They have some odd priorities.

      Um, it's just one guy doing this, so far and he'll do whatever interests him, obviously. If all free software people did what was "needed" and not what was personally interesting to them, commercial OS's would be extinct by now.

    2. Re:Kind of silly. by Garg · · Score: 1

      You would almost certainly never see it replace OS/390 or z/OS. It might, however, be an option to run on an LPAR (logical partition) or as a guest under IBM's VM, which allows other operating systems to run beneath it.

      It's doubtful, though. IBM has officially blessed Linux for mainframes, and it's unlikely that any organization would give up the support they can get for that to run *BSD, regardless of the merits.

      Garg

      --
      Garg
      Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
    3. Re:Kind of silly. by treat · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Um, it's just one guy doing this, so far and he'll do whatever interests him, obviously. If all free software people did what was "needed" and not what was personally interesting to them, commercial OS's would be extinct by now.

      Indeed. Look at all the poor free software that there are multiple, independent, poor versions of. (e.g. DVD/mpeg players, web browsers, word processors, financial software, file managers). If people had coordinated, with a goal of producing what was needed, instead of each writing their own software independently because of what they personally wanted, the free solutions would be so vastly superior to the commercial solutions that only the free ones would survive. Unfortunately, this almost never happens.

  13. limits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Beyond 2 CPUs FreeBSD may crawl, but it ought
    to work at least. Getting up to 15 processors
    on a PC is easy. Past that, IRQ routing has to
    be done differently.

    For most jobs, Linux 2.4 will scale well up to
    at least 4 CPUs, and maybe to as many as 12.
    It will operate on up to 32.

    The S/390 is about reliability, not speed.
    Some models will catch a bit flip in the CPU
    by running every instruction twice, and
    comparing the results.

    The S/390 has been replaced by the 64-bit
    zSeries hardware. Of course it runs Linux,
    and it sure doesn't run BSD. (not even NetBSD)
    Maybe someday BSD will be almost as portable
    as Linux is.

    1. Re:limits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The plain truth is that Linux scales better than BSD. Linux can run on Intel i960 and Moto ColdFire, and a whole host of 68K CPUs that are off limits to BSD. And of course there is the Linux wrist watch, and the Sandia super computer, and the IBM mainframes. Linux handles everything, all across the board.

    2. Re:limits by Jay+Maynard · · Score: 2

      Baloney. There are 58 ports of NetBSD. Linux can't even come close.

      --
      Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
  14. I wonder what it would be like ... by swamp+boy · · Score: 1

    to compile the linux kernel on this thing.

    to have a Beowolf cluster -- oh never mind!

    Before people get too excited about topics such as SMP, kernel threads, and I/O devices -- it only partially boots on a mainframe emulator. This is a VERY LONG WAYS OFF from asking, "so where can I download the ISO images?".

    1. Re:I wonder what it would be like ... by Jay+Maynard · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Before people get too excited about topics such as SMP, kernel threads, and I/O devices -- it only partially boots
      Yeah...the project isn't to the point where it's usable for anything but system hacking yet.

      on a mainframe emulator.
      If it runs on Hercules, it'll run on the real hardware. Before you pooh-pooh the use of an emulator, consider that Alan Cox uses Hercules for S/390 work (not all of it, but quite a bit).

      --
      Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
    2. Re:I wonder what it would be like ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mainframe EMULATOR!?

      I didn't know that an S/390 emulator existed. Do you have any more info on it? (I'm assuming that's a commercial IBM product.)

    3. Re:I wonder what it would be like ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      If you're wondering what it would be like to compile Linux on an S/390 mainframe, well....it's not only been done, but it was done in late 1999 and is in full production at many sites now. Check out http://www10.software.ibm.com/developerworks/opens ource/linux390/ for the official IBM page.

      I actually work for a company that does quite a bit of consulting in zSeries and S/390 Linux. We've got quite a few related links on our web site, http://sinenomine.net/.

      By the way, it runs just fine on Hercules! We use that for some of our testing work. It also runs under VM, an IBM operating system that fully virtualizes the hardware, acting as a hypervisor (a kind of BIOS on steriods). With VM, you can run hundreds of Linux images on a single S/390 or zSeries mainframe, and each Linux kernel thinks it owns the entire machine. Some of our customers are doing some amazing things with this.

      Finally, if you want to play with Linux on an S/390 mainframe, you can get a free account -- with full Linux root privileges -- directly from IBM at the Linux Community Development System.

  15. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Important reminder: *BSD is dying

  16. Re:Fist Sport! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    a toy os that works on S/390 already, and fully supported by IBM,unlike FreebSD (which is dying and losing developers)

  17. Warning! Dangerous worm attacking FreeBSD systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    BSD systems threatened
    Theworm is thought tobe capable of spreading only to Web servers running the FreeBSD operating system, an open-source variant of Unix, that haven't had a patch applied for the recent flaw. Although few home users have reported the worm, it is thought to be infecting vulnerable Web servers worldwide.
  18. Re:Fist Sport! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only brainDEAD trolls post such crap.

  19. Re:*BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    what a classic.

    Ah no. He stole that idea from Cato ("... and besides, nuke Carthargo..") and that girl who invented the use of repetition for advertising purposes.

  20. *BSD is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    It is now official. Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying

    One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

    FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    OpenBSDleader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

    Fact: *BSD is dying

  21. Terminals by octogen · · Score: 1

    The question is not whether *BSDs are dying, but rather whether S/390s are dying.

    Unix machines have had more processing power than S/390s for years now, but they did commonly not support block-mode terminals (like S/390's 3270), and therefore it was difficult to implement host-/terminal-based applications on unix-systems without causing too much network traffic.

    AS/400's (aka iSeries 400) have got 5250-terminals, which are quite the same as the 3270's, but a few years ago AS/400's did not have as much processing power and/or disk capacity as mainframes. Recent AS/400's are mainly based on pSeries-like hardware, with the same powerful POWER4 processors, lots of cache memory and lots of main storage (RAM).

    Since the biggest AS/400s are now more powerful than the biggest z/900 but also are more mainframe-like than the pSeries, it could be possible, that IBM is going to replace the S/390's with the more modern AS/400's.

    1. Re:Terminals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that IBM is going to replace the S/390's with the more modern AS/400's.

      Maybe. But the AS/400 is a damn weird system, pretty much custom-designed for OS/400 (lots of hardware-based capability stuff). Possibly the newer AS/400s are more generic systems, but from what I know of AS/400, it would be virtually impossible to port a Unix system to it and remain sane.

      And IBM must have billions of dollars of support contracts for S/390 systems. Not something one would want to toss away lightly (unless you're Compaq, of course). Hell, I'm sure they're still making some serious bank for S/360 parts and support.

      Suppose I should log in, but Mozilla always seems to forget the cookie. Whatever.

  22. Why no new BSD articles in six days? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe it's because BSD is dead.

  23. Knock, Knock, Knock... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hear that? It's death at the door coming to collect BSD's bloated corpse. Maybe it's carcas will be ground into something usefull, like a word processor.

  24. Berkely, Software and Distribution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has anybody here seen my old friend Berkeley?
    Can you tell me where he's gone?
    He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
    I just looked around and he's gone.

    Has anybody here seen my old friend Software?
    Can you tell me where he's gone?
    He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
    I just looked around and he's gone.

    Has anybody here seen my old friend Distribution?
    Can you tell me where he's gone?
    He freed a lot of people but it seems the good die young
    I just looked around and he's gone.

    Didn't you love the things they stood for?
    Didn't they try to find some good in you and me?
    And we'll be free
    Someday soon
    It's gonna be one day

    Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
    Can you tell me where he's gone?
    I thought I saw him walking up o'er the hill
    With Berkeley, Software and Distribution

  25. Re:*BSD is dying by Tassadar99 · · Score: 1

    You Jerk!
    A close aquaintence of mine WROTE
    386BSD!
    Actually, if people wern't such idiots,
    386BSD would be popular!
    But, I must admit, other *BSD's than
    386 are very crappy.
    P.S. Do not insult 386BSD! Its the other
    *BSD's that are bad!

    --
    Hardware is what you kick, Software is what you curse.
  26. ISOs are just here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just follow this guide.

    http://people.debian.org/~sgybas/deb390/boot-flo pp ies/doc/install.en.html

  27. Re:*BSD is dying by Erikson+Fsck · · Score: 1

    Quick!!! Look!! Hell is freezing over!

  28. Re:*BSD is dying by Erikson+Fsck · · Score: 1

    You sure seem to have a hatred for *BSD. You remind me of those guys that post on stockmarket boards trying to drive the price down. Please tell us what you prefer. Linux? The bandwagon jumpers OS of choice? I'd rather run *BSD than dirty Linux distros any day.

  29. don't hate *BSD by natefrogg · · Score: 1

    the BSDs love you they are your friends (at least freebsd anyways) =*

    --
    this is my sig which appears at the bottom of my post
  30. NetBSD has complete ports by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One major NetBSD guy has on his website (I forgot the link and his name) explaining why he believes NetBSD qualifies as being more widely ported as an entire Operating System than Linux. It is a good argument in my opinion, but it's basically semantics of what are you calling a "port".

    NetBSD's ports are complete ports, with software source compatible across all ports, whereas alot of the listed Linux ports aren't even working.

  31. Sniff, Sniff, what's that smell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's BSD starting to decompose.

    Look guys, I know you're attached to it, but face it; BSD is dead! Let it go. You'll feel much better.

    It's not health to cling to it like this.