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Arch GNU/Linux Ported To Run On the FreeBSD Kernel
An anonymous reader writes "The Arch Linux distribution has been modified to run off the FreeBSD 9.0 kernel as an alternative to using Linux. The developer of Arch BSD explained his reasoning as enjoying FreeBSD while also liking the Arch Linux philosophy of a 'fast, lightweight, optimized distro,' so he sought to combine the two operating systems to have FreeBSD at its core while being encircled by Arch. The Arch BSD initiative is similar to Debian GNU/kFreeBSD."
I probably wouldn't actually use a Linux-distro-now-with-BSD-kernel for regular usage, but the porting efforts tend to do a good job uncovering not-quite-portable parts of supposedly portable code, which makes everything more robust. So I like that they exist, because the fact that they work at all gives me some more confidence that portable code is working like it's supposed to.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
As a longtime FreeBSD user, I am wondering why bother? I can run Linux binaries through the built-in compatibility layer since at least 7.x
How is using the FreeBSD kernel with the GNU userland any better than running the GNU binaries directly on a full FreeBSD system? If this is to improve "desktop" usability, how does this compare to something like the PC-BSD distribution of FreeBSD?
Wasted effort that would have been better spent on something useful.
That time is not yours to spend.
Some people spend their time playing golf, others spend it arguing on the interwebs. None of them are useful but it is also unlikely that those who do so will be willing to do something else unless you pay them to.
This dude spent his time doing something way more useful than most other people but you call it wasted time.
As long as people participates in sports, watch TV or go to the cinema I find it a bit odd to call this a waste of time.
I could see some use in this. I happen to like FreeBSD and ports - but if you were a Arch Linux expert, now you have a way to get really stable ZFS up quickly without learning a whole new environment.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Headline makes it sound like Linux has been ported to BSD. Ten years ago I would have said "That doesn't make any sense," but then User Mode Linux came along (where other operating systems, rather than just hardware, become the port platform target). If you RTFA, though, this does not involve User Mode Linux. It doesn't involve any Linux at all, so it should be left out of the name; it should be called Arch GNU/BSD.
To put it another way, when you run a certain multimedia player on your NOT-AN-XBOX hardware, you might call that app XBMC. You don't (ever) call it X Box Multimedia Consoleorwhateverthelastwordis, because there's no XBox involved.
Another analogy (because this is Slashdot where we love such things). I once heard a funny story about an English man who had dark skin, being called an "African-American" by some PC-non-thinker. The dunce would call him African-American, and the English dude would say, "No, I'm not American. I wasn't born in American, I don't live in America, I've never been there. Don't call me American," and the PC guy would think "but you're black, except I'm not allowed to label a person 'black' because the pc police say I have to blindly search-and-replace 'black' with 'African American' so..." and then he'd repeat the mistake.
That is what you're doing when you call this project "Linux." You sound just as dumb as the "You're African-American" dolt. It's not Linux, just as the black Englishman is not an African-American.
I just don't see the value proposition in spending time on this versus spending the time perfecting Arch Linux. I'm not an Arch user, though I'm interested in it. Right now I tend to mainly use Debian, Mint, and FreeBSD. What I'm sure of is that there are bugs and usability issues in Arch that this effort could have been used to address.
I didn't read the article (yet... yeah I know) but I can already come up with an answer - maybe this guy's expertise/interest is in low level kernel details that would crop up swapping kernels, instead of in bugs/usability issues which sound UI or user-mode related to me. It's like asking a compiler internals person to fix GNOME 3. Come on, not every developer and their particular skillset is 100% interchangeable with the area that you think needs attention.
>I can appreciate their efforts from a technical standpoint, but in the end they used that time to create a technical novelty that in reality will not see a long term use nor large scale adoption. A sharper and more polished Arch experience would have a tremendously larger impact compared to this.
Personally, I don't see the point to having a Linux userland with a FreeBSD kernel or vice versa. I'd much rather have a stable system with wide adoption (either Linux or FreeBSD, not some unholy hybrid), but I like the fact that this exists anyway. In the free and open source software world, anyone with interest and time on their hands can do what they want to do. This is in opposition to the closed model where a few decision makers are trying to maximize profit given their resources.
FOSS works a lot like darwinian evolution. A lot of random mutations occur and most do not survive. A few, however, do survive and become widespread and we are better off for it. Don't think of it as wasted effort, think of it as part of the process.
Slashdot is exactly the place for news like this to be posted.
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In December I had the opportunity to try Arch out while attempting to get Xen working on a newly built pc. The Xen experiment failed but I did find myself liking the way Arch did things enough to install it on a SD card for my laptop just a week ago, replacing a FreeBSD 8 install. I really keep it there mostly for emergencies so perhaps I'll wipe and reinstall with this new BSD variant. But I'll still be keeping 9.1 on my desktop, at least for now.
"The Arch Linux distribution has been modified to run off the FreeBSD 9.0 kernel as an alternative to using Linux. The developer of Arch BSD explained his reasoning as enjoying FreeBSD while also liking the Arch Linux philosophy of a 'fast, lightweight, optimized distro,' so he sought to combine the two operating systems to have FreeBSD at its core while being encircled by Arch. The Arch BSD initiative is similar to Debian GNU/kFreeBSD."
Well, if you want it "encircled" you're gonna need another Arch. Or maybe some cowbell?
LOL. I use Arch Linux, but forcing everyone to switch to systemd has me looking at other distros. Thinking Lubuntu might be the way to go. Read that Ubuntu is going to a rolling release starting in version 14.
The Arch people get pretty nasty if you question their decisions. I asked why they made this move to systemd, and got "you're an ignoramus if you don't understand" kind of responses. Maybe they don't have a good reason? And maybe that's because there isn't a good reason to switch to systemd? The only good thing I've heard about systemd is that it boots faster.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"