Slashdot Mirror
Comparing Linux and BSD, Diplomatically
Joe Barr writes "Talk about a red-button issue. How do you compare Linux and the BSDs and keep the debate from turning into a friendly-fire flame-fest nightmare between bigots on both sides of the line? Linus Torvalds once handled a similar situation by wearing a BSD beanie at USENIX while delivering a Linux talk. Now he tries it again in this interview on NewsForge ."
TFA is not a Slashdot-style discussion, obviously. No matter how hard Joe Barr tried to get Linus to engage in a comparison, he was unwilling to rise to the bait. Good going, Linus.
/.ers think, Windows does work well enough to allow people to do productive work. The various BSD flavors work well enough for their community to do productive work. I would venture that Solaris users probably get quite a bit done with their relatively immature software as well. Oh yeah, OSX stuff works well too.
There are obvious merits to any operating system. Despite what many
The problem with comparisons is that once all of the products begin to operate at a level that makes them useful to their target audience, then the only thing left to argue about is the margins. Zealots exist on the margins and so are they are the most likely to carp and moan about the small differences between various products.
Linus is not a zealot. He is an advocate.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
How do you compare Linux and the BSDs and keep the debate from turning into a friendly-fire flame-fest nightmare between bigots on both sides of the line?
Would you have a "debate" with a racial bigot over which race is better?
Bigots of any type aren't worth the time of day.
IMHO
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Try to use the appropriate tool at the right time at the right moment.
What is appropriate depends on the situation and your experience.
Easy, you just compair them to Microsoft and the Linux and BSD bigots will unite.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
So what? Everyone knows windows blows both of them out of the water as far as viral whoring goes. Try that with wine.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
In summary, Linux Torvalds understands that computers are about the right tool for the right job. For some, that tool is Linux. For others, that tool is *BSD. But he rightfully takes the stance that competition is no skin off his nose.
;-P
This is a *good* thing people! I realize it's much easier to jump into Highlander mode ("There can be only one!"), but reality is rarely so simple. Until someone invents the "perfect solution", every decision will lead to a particular set of tradeoffs. If you don't have anyone else exploring alternatives, how can you know for certain that your own alternative is the best one? Cooperation always leads to better results.
That said, I have a feeling about the replies I'm about to get:
Girl: Don't even think about it!
Human Torch: Never do. (Jumps off building)
Human Torch: Flame ON!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
To summarrize Linus :
1)They are different don't try to compare them.
2)I like Linux better because it agrees with me.
3) Don't ask me what I wan't in Linux (kernal) from BSD (kernal) because I don't use BSD.
Basically it was a whole bunch of nothing
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Torvalds : It just means that I don't know anything about BSD technical internals, so I'm the wrong person to ask. Ask somebody who uses both.
Which are better, apples or oranges?
Linux or BSD? I don't care...
As long as you use vi (and not Emacs).
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
One of the things I'd love to see in Linux that exists in BSD is umount -f for any filesystem, not just NFS. On FreeBSD (and probably other BSD's?) you can force unmount any filesystem. This is especially useful when you need to foce unmount snapshot mounts.
I shows a lot about how he thinks. He seems to be more of a realist than I would have thought.
I find Linus's interviews to be very interesting.
I do think that Linux, and Windows seems to be more similar than Linux and BSD, since he keeps commenting that BSD wants everything to be perfect, whereas Linux tends to be all things "good" for everyone.
I would consider Windows to be happy with just being "ok" at all things, and not perfect. Which also works for a lot of people.
Personally, I find it hilarious that there's a standard anarchy symbol....
Just junk food for thought...
Your point of view is as utterly intolerant as the point of view of those you are criticizing.
"Mac users are phanatix. They are insecure and utterly intollerant.. Mod me up for being reasonable!"
Are you kidding us?
diegoT
He's obviously a bad person to ask since he thinks things like "you'll find a lot of areas where Linux is better (often a lot better -- as in "it works"), and then you'll find a few narrow areas where one particular BSD version will be better." and "Linux has a much wider audience, in many ways. That ranges from supporting much wider hardware (both in the driver sense and in the architecture sense) to actual uses.".
Sorry, NetBSD runs on more hardware that linux does, and apart from running on very large SMP systems, I can't think of *anything* that linux can do and BSD can't, much less "many" things.
Putting aside truly harmful types of bigotry, such as racism etc., I find "OS bigotry" pretty entertaining. I am a centrist, who sees merit in almost every viewpoint, so it's pretty funny to me to watch people get at each others' throats over ludicrous low-level minutiae from the inner bowels of arcane computing concepts. I mean, who gives a rat's ass? And yet people are using comparisons to the Nazis, and worse.
Truthfully, it's what keeps me coming back to Slashdot.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
It's quite easy.
Purchase 1x Tux Plushie, 1x Daemon Plushie, fill them both with audio tapes of associated OS zealot's verbal spew, put them down and press play. Whichever one's batteries run out first wins the debate.
Simple, no?
The easy part was getting the brain out, but the hard part was getting the brain out.
Sitting Walrus Blog
Wow. Amazing. Linus has managed to speak to another human being in paranthesis. What happened here, was he talking one minute verbally and then transmitted his thoughts to the interviewer through some Jedi'ish mind trick?
I knew Torvalds had to be an alien. I just knew it.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Now, now, operating systems are technical things, with technical merits and disadvantages.
A good computer scientist can look at any system and ask himself, "ok how does this suck?".
Because the answer to that question can be followed up with "how do we make it better?".
If you can't ask "how does this suck?" for fear of being an "troll" then you've effectively eliminated thought.
If he looks at BSD internals, anything he comes up with relation to those internals might be considered derivative works and would need to be BSD licensed.
I was going to mod you down since I've got the points, but there isn't an "Incorrect, -1" moderation.
The BSD license is about as liberal as it gets, basically saying "Do what you want with the code but leave my copyright notice." This includes sticking the BSD code into GPL'd code, XYZ'd code, or even closed, proprietary code.
GPL is the license that says what is open must stay open, and even with that, only if you copy the actual code. "Ideas" are not protected by copyright, just expression. Protecting designs and more recently ideas is what patent law is for.
A: I don't know, man. It depends what you mean by "better."
Q: Okay, then, why is it BSD used to be better?
A: Was it? I was busy not noticing.
Q: So you prefer Linux?
A: Um. Yes. Are you an idiot?
Q: Why do you think BSD and Linux are two different operating systems?
A: Probably because they start at different places in the alphabet. Are we done here? (points) Hey, look, there's Tanenbaum! Go ask him why writing a Unix kernel from scratch is impossible!
Q: Thank you for your time. Tune in Wednesday as we ask the BSD leaders why they insist on using one-button mice.
ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine
Solaris has fault tollerance features that aren't found in Linux. Solaris has support for isolating failing hardware and hotswaping everything includeing cpu boards. Big IBM, and SGI/Cray iron support this as well. To be fair most Linux developers don't have access to a Sun E10k. So it is understandable if they don't fully support it. Solaris zones are nice and currently better then Linux/Xen, and much better then usermode linux or VMware. On the userland side Solaris has excellent nis/nfs support that I have yet to find in any Linux distro.
However Solaris is big, stubborn, and ugly. I would rather admin three machines each with a different Linux distro then a single Solaris box.
Linux has other strenghts, but on big servers Solaris is best.