August 2002 Daemon News Ezine Published

questionlp writes "The August 2002 Ezine has been published and is packed with articles and columns with topics ranging from behind-the-scenes look at VicFUG 2002, a report on the recent O'Reilly OSCON, one's adventure through Unix starting from Linux to FreeBSD, a HOWTO on backing up FreeBSD with tar and SMBFS, plus a look at some of the most popular web browsers (most of which are available in the BSD Ports collection)."

Comments

Re:Upgrading once a week? Is he serious?

[Wdomburg]

>One comment in the Life After Redhat article stuck
>out. He loves FreeBSD and his systems are
>"upgraded once a week (all software)". Is this
>normal pratice? I still have SuSE 6.3 systems
>running.

"Normal practice" varies depending on who you're talking to. :)

On the networks I administrate, I have a strict policy of "no unjustified upgrades", which usually translates to applying only security patches and relevent bug fixes. It might include new versions of software if, and only if, we're rolling out an enhancement to our services that necessitates it.

Part of the reason for being so restrictive is because we do QA and testing after every upgrade, so all upgrades have an associated cost in admin time. It may seem overly paranoid, but we've caught a lot of subtle issues that would have otherwise effected service to our customers.

Matt

Re:Why BSD isn't spreading

[xA40D]

1) It's development method is too formalised, it discourages people from just throwing a patch at things and becoming involved

I've always thought of this as a good thing. The core team makes decisions about the direction of the OS and I've always been happy to accept them and just get on with it. Whereas the last time I installed Linux I got side-tracked with a discussion on the relative merits of the umpteen filesystems Linux supports.

2) BSD users are to the Unix world like how Mac users are towards Window users "Use my superior OS you inferior idiot"

Amusingly I've always found it's Linux are most rabid about OS (and distro) superiority. So this must be a matter of perspective.

3) They're obsessed with the opposition, they mention Linux, constantly

I'm not aware that I'm constantly talking about Linux. Yes I will refer to Linux when I describe BSD to someone who doesn't know what unix is. But Linux is seen as "the" free unix not "a" free unix, so one has to make the distinction as people think you're talking about "BSD Linux". Anyhow, what's wrong with talking about Linux? Linux is not as conservative as BSD. So Linux heads out in different direction on a whim. The Linux crowd will learn stuff which the BSD crowd can look at, evaluate, and (if it's worthwhile) mimic. Should the Linux crowd feel the need to not talk about BSD that they are missing out on a choice opportinity to pick up some free R&D.

4) The logo is aweful and unsuitable. "Oh boss, I'm just going to install this software with a devil on it.."

The lil' beastie is not awful, he's cute. And classifying the OS based on the mascot? I could say Linux is unsuitable because the mascot is of a bird that can't even fly. But I'd be barking mad if I ever expected somone to believe me.

5) Linux isn't as bad as they try to say it is. If you want quality, get a quality distribution like Slackware and not a hashed together commercial distro.

You see. In a discussion on BSD you're talking distro superiority. Using BSD over Linux is exactly the same sort of decision as using Slackware over RedHat. It Unix, it's free, who cares?