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BSD For Linux Users

Posted by michael on from the bridging-the-digital-divide dept.

noackjr writes "Matt Fuller posted among his rants a great introduction and explanation of BSD For Linux Users: 'It's been my impression that the BSD communit{y,ies}, in general, understand Linux far better than the Linux communit{y,ies} understand BSD. I have a few theories on why that is, but that's not really relevant. I think a lot of Linux people get turned off BSD because they don't really understand how and why it's put together. Thus, this rant; as a BSD person, I want to try to explain how BSD works in a way that Linux people can absorb.'"

1 of 937 comments (clear)

  1. Can't we all... by Skater · · Score: 5, Interesting

    just get along?

    I tried FreeBSD once, it seemed okay. I agree that the BSDs are probably a better, more reliable operating system than Linux. However, Linux was SO much better than Windows, that any improvements BSD could make seem minimal at best, especially since most of the server and end-user software is identical.

    For example, someone once told me that BSD is much more stable than Linux. Assume that's true for a minute: I've NEVER had a Linux system crash, except for hardware failures, and I've been using Linux since 1998 or so. Okay, so maybe BSD is more stable than Linux, but the time spent learning BSD isn't worth the "extra" uptime I'd have, since the extra uptime is approximately zero.

    As I mentioned, the end-user software is mostly the same, but I've heard Linux has more variety and more hardware support. My printer is supported under Linux (it's an HP USB printer), but I don't know whether HP is putting resources into BSD support. Same goes for my Palm Pilot. Since everything is working now, and I'm happy with how well everything works, why should I want to switch to BSD?

    And why can't we have our own preferences anyway? Why do BSD users have to bash Linux and vice versa? The two are a lot more alike than different, at least compared to Linux vs Windows or BSD vs Windows. (It's almost like brothers fighting...)

    --RJ "Firmly sitting on the fence"