Slashdot Mirror
A Tale of Two Systems, Linux, xBSD
The monkey flying around in my butt writes "
In what has got to be one of the
better pieces
on the Linux vs. BSD debate
Wes Peters
talks about both OS's, the strengths and
weakness of each, and how they live
together to form a symbiotic circle. "
It seems to me that the difference in licencing is one really fundamental distinction that has escaped Wes's attention.
el bid
(Logged in and everything. Am I still coming up as Anon Cow?)
Because it's fun to hack one's own OS (or computer program). If you look closer you'd see that for almost any single program, you can find another that does the same/similar thing (KDE/gnome, enlightenment/windowmaker/fvwm/afterstep..., ...). While technically you could argue that one would be better of doing a single program in which all the features would be available, at least as options.
But this would ignore the very nature of free software developpers. They don't meet in a underground cave, and ask: "ok, what are we going to do to fsck Micro$oft. An application suite ? It is very boring to do but ok I'll do it". In fact they couldn't care less about Microsoft, Sun, SGI, IBM ; they are here just to write fun code. Thus we have at least 3 BSDs and 1 Linux (with numerous distributions), because there is more than one talented person (Linus) interested in supervising the design and evolution of an Unix clone.
Rather than having them constantly arguing them with each other on the kernels development lists, paralysing the evolution, it is better that they go and implement their ideas their own way, and let users have the choice.
The idea is that there are enough good hackers, that gathering them would result in "designed by comittee" systems (huge/elephantine, with all the ideas half-implemented as a compromise between conflicting sides). Besides, if you have 4 or more teams able to do good kernel development, Brooks' law (?), indicate that making an unique team would mostly result in a 4x slowdown :-).
What?! NT is just as stable as Linux. My NT box at work has now an uptime of something like 8 months. As long as your hardware is up to scratch and you don't mess up the registry by hand NT is rock solid. How long did you use NT for? This is just another LinuxIsBetterThanNT myth. Some REAL benchmarking in this area would be nice.
Well, there's stability and there's stability. My home PC dual-boots NT and linux. I've had both installed for about a year and a half. In that time, NT has crashed twice, and linux has crashed three times. As far as not crashing goes, NT is pretty damn rock solid as a desktop OS. Actually, if I count X server crashes as crashes, NT has been a lot more reliable than linux. I mean, when X crashes, you have to restart your applications and rebuild anything you might not have saved. It's just a lot quicker to log back on than to restart your computer.
But the other part of stability is whether or not your system starts having bizarre problems for no reason. Like the time my wife downloaded some wedding planning software just before we got married. It proceeded to break ActiveX, which meant that every time she double-clicked on a folder with View as Web Page active, she got a warning that she was about to run an unsafe ActiveX control, and that Internet Explorer's Product Updates web site stopped working. After much swearing, I was able to solve the problem. Or a few months ago, when the performance of NT steadily became worse and worse, to the point where it was taking 5-10 minutes to log on to my account. My wife's account, or the administrator account, were both sprightly as ever. Problem solved by removing my user profile and re-adding it. Or all the problems people have encountered with Internet Explorer's Windows Desktop Update - GUI no longer functional, other programs no longer working because 7,891 DLLs were just updated, yadda yadda yadda. Granted, I know many more people who have experienced DLL conflicts on 95/98 than on NT, and I don't know if that's just because people using NT tend to be more experienced and able to work around problems, or if it is because application installs are less likely to have problems because of NT's better design.
How many people do you know who have formatted and reinstalled linux? How many people do you know who have formatted and reinstalled Windows? I'd imagine the latter number is much larger. For me, it certainly is.
The way I've described it to my Windows-using friends is that with linux, you do all your swearing and cursing at the beginning, as you're getting it configured to your liking and getting past the somewhat steep learning curve. With Windows, all of your cursing comes after the initial setup, either because It Was Working Yesterday and It's Not Now, or because you're bumping up against its inflexibility - having to log out in order to do something that requires administrator privileges, not being able to just mount the Program Files folder on a different partition ..
Of course, the perfect situation would be to not have to swear at the computer at all, and no OS is there yet.
I dunno about the rest of you. I have always not bother about the which *nix is better or if windows is better then *nix. I think this works, just use the OS you feel most comfortable and sure of. If you know NT better and dunno Linux much then use Nt by all means because you are comfortable with it and you know it better. If you move to say Linux or *BSD because everyone else says its better but you do not know it well enough. You could be opening a can of worms either because you coul dnot learn the other system well enough or you were just no comfortable with it. For example you know NT well and know well its security features and you are able and commfortable of seeting up a fairly secure system (note no system is 100% secure if its on the net). But you hear one day that oooooh linux or open bsd is better to build a more secure server. So because of the masses you jump on that bandwagon. OpenBSD or Linux may well be more secure or not ... but if you dunno how to set it up comfortably, then you are worse off then having say a NT system that you know better and feel better about it. I hope you see my opinion.
> Probably because the GPL zealots will start screaming "violation! violation!"
Linux _systems_ typically use a lot of BSD code and BSD _systems_ typically use a lot of GPL code as well.
You can find below some technical information from Matt Dillion, a FreeBSD hacker. The comparison seems reasonable enough IMHO.
http://apollo.backplane.com/FreeBSD/
In an article I read recently about political activism and splinter groups (I think it was in The Nation), an activist pointed out, "There are a lot of people who want to work, but not all of them can work together or in the same way."
This is why open source "fragmentation" is mostly a good thing. Diverse groupings of developers allows people to team up with those whom they enjoy working with, and the natural cross-pollenation that occurs in open source software allows everyone to benefit from the work of others regardless of who belongs to which project.
Many people mistake the diversity of open source software with the very real and very crippling fragmentation that occurred in commercial Unix in the 80s and 90s. There are several differences, but the key is the lack of cross-pollenation back then because everyone was busy hoarding secrets from their competition and trying to own 100% of the market.
One thing that the author of the "Tale of Two Systems" article got right in spite of being an arrogant little bastard about it is that Linux and BSD, and the various distributions/variations of each, meet very different needs. Another point worth mentioning is that if BSD users were willing to use Linux instead of BSD, they would be doing it now since you can get a hell of a lot more software ready-made for Linux and it will probably work with most, if not all, of your doohickeys.
Finally, at the user level there is very little difference between the two operating systems. You've got bash and tcsh (and a score of other shells) on both. You've got X and you've got Perl. Most of the utilities are the same or very similar. They look like Unix and they quack like Unix, and the rest is only relevant to IP lawyers and historical purists. I suspect most of the people on slashdot, if faced with a command prompt that could be some Linux distro or some BSD, couldn't tell which without typing uname -a.
Sure, Linux has buzz. Right now. But who cares? Hey, I came to use mostly Linux from using mostly (Free|Open)BSD, but that's because Linux scratched a few particular itches of mine and it's close enough to the others that I feel no need to go back. If BSD scratches someone else's itch, why should they choose Linux instead just because of "buzz"? If I needed a really, really secure system I would probably still choose OpenBSD.
Diversity is good. There was a time when everyone thought elm trees were the cat's ass and cities planted them everywhere. Then came Dutch elm disease and suddenly there were cities with practically no trees.
I have experience with both Linux and all three BSD systems. I'd like to share a couple of my opinions:
1. Linux and BSD are both very stable. None of them lack in this department.
2. It's really hard to compromise an OpenBSD system. I mean REALLY hard. This OS has been through a really extensive security audit. Have a look at the bugtraq archives... I realize that security issues in Linux vary from dist to dist, but all dists share a lot of the same packages - packages that have not been properly audited. Linux seems to be inherently less secure than xBSD because it contains more software from more sources. If you run BSD you get your packages from the BSD team, not from a third party developer. That leads me to my next point:
3. Getting everything from one place makes it easy. In BSD, ls is ls - not part of the fileutils. Basically, BSD is packaged better than Linux is. I really like having one big source tree for the whole system. CVS rocks. the ports rock. nuff said about that
4. Linux has great hardware support. In my opinion this makes Linux better for desktop or notebook computers. On my workstation, I throw crap everywhere. It's not like the more organized BSD setup helps me at all in this case. Security and availability is also less of an issue. That lets me screw around with all the latest gizmos without worry. It's more fun to play with the features of the Linux kernel than a BSD kernel.
I like BSD more on servers because it is easier to install and maintain than Linux. Its development is less chaotic, and I worry less about it. On a server, having less hardware support is not an issue. Multimedia support isn't needed.. Servers just don't need to do a whole lot of that fancy stuff. BSD can run pretty much any Linux application, so lack of big apps isn't an issue.
One downside of BSD on the server is the SMP support. (I haven't tried FreeBSD on an SMP box in some time.. it sucked last time I tried about a year ago, but I hear it's much much better now) Anyway, I think the whole Mindcraft thing has shown everybody didn't already know that SMP isn't a big deal for most applications. Rather than get a big SMP box for a high traffic server, I would choose to use several cheap single chip machines. If I needed to run a big database off one machine, and SMP was the only way to go, I'd happily run Linux (or hell, even Solaris on a big sparc). It wouldn't matter. Nobody would be able to access the system directly over the net anyway. Nobody but me would have a shell account on it.. and it would be sitting behind a BSD machine. BSD makes awesome www/ftp/name/mail servers.
By the way, does the RedHat installation drive anyone besides me nuts?
Sean Comeau
scomeau@obscurity.org
Really, Unix is Unix, sure there are differant flavors, I bet I could name 10 of the top of my head, but that fact is, they all both unix.
I got the impression that the author was giving the BSD is better than Linux speach, and with the replies I got the impression Linux is better that BSD speach.
That fact is, they are both Free, they both run on cheap PC hardware, and they are both Unix.
It's not BSD vs Linux vs Solaris vs AIX vs SCO vs etc, etc...
It is *nix VS the World. For the Last 30 years unix has been coming on strong, fighting everything to the high end mainframes to the lowly PC, and I don't see unix backing down.
They both are great unix operating systems, Free, runs on cheap hardware and both help fuel the massive war machine known as Unix.
Think of it this way, if the IT department give you a computer to run a network service, and you have a choice between MacOS 7.5 or some unix you never heard of, which would you choice?
Don't ask what unix can do for you, ask what can you do for unix?
Vote unix (any unix) today!
The first Unix I ever used was Ultrix (don't remember what version), the first Unix I was a sysadmin on was SunOS 4. I'm not a crusty old Unix guy yet but I've paid my dues.
Before becoming a Linux user and advocate, I had run systems and done development on SunOS 4, Solaris 2, HP-UX 9 and 10, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. I was (and still am) a big fan of BSD, but one day I needed Unix on a particular laptop (probably one of those mostly useless doohickeys whatshisname was talking about, but it's no fun to travel on business as a sysadmin without a Unix box close at hand). I tried Solaris x86, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD before finally caving in and trying Red Hat Linux. It was the only one with which the laptop would function fully.
What I found was that in spite of my prejudices, I really liked Linux. It's a perfectly good system, better than old SunOS 4, that's for sure. It is NOT Unix with training wheels! Any training wheels that might come with a particular distribution can easily be unbolted and removed. It is true Unix in the sense of the book "The Unix Philosophy".
BSD fans, please just admit it: It quacks like a duck. Deal with it. That doesn't make BSD any less valuable.
Besides, if you want to see Unix with training wheels, take a look at any commercial "real" Unix. HP-UX has training wheels that can't be easily removed at all.
Let me summarize my personal experience, which is not that extensive, but should give you an idea.
I've got three systems at my house. One is my firewall (as well as web/ftp/email server). Another is a Sparc 5 w/ Solaris 7 (mostly for old time's sake). The third is my desktop machine with Linux 2.2. I use Linux 2.2 on my desktop work machine as well, and an O2 w/ IRIX 6.5 as my server.
For starters, both Solaris and IRIX, despite being recent versions, feel VERY dated and clunky after you're used to all the nicety of a "modern" UNIX system (which means one of the free UNIXs, as discussed in the article). I like 'em both, but their day is past, except for a few specific strengths (I think Solaris can still support more simutaneous users than either *BSD or Linux, and certainly its SMP is much better).
FreeBSD still feels a little bit clunky to me, honestly. I do have an older version (it's getting on a year old now), but compared to the Linuxs from the same time period (RH 5.2, etc), it just isn't as slick. It's hard to pin down what it is, exactly: a slightly old version of 'tar' that doesn't have the "x" command line option; no bzip2 out of the box; the "route" command is more convulted.
On the other hand, FreeBSD does seem a little snappier on network response (as a server, I mean). That's the main reason I chose it. The second reason was that the Linux 2.0 kernel had incomplete firewall support at the time that was plagued with a few nasty slowdown problems. FreeBSD worked like a champ right out of the box. It was much more secure, too - which is inconvenient on a desktop protected by a firewall where security isn't a big issue, but for something that is accessable to the outside world it's very important.
In the meantime, the desktop stuff for Linux is going through the rough. Everything from KDE to WINE to the Gimp are developed on Linux first, and ported later. You'll get the best and brightest on Linux. 3D drivers like the G200/400, the 3Dfx, and nVidia's stuff can be made to work on x86/BSD, but it's a LOT easier to set it up on Linux, because that's what they were all developed for. Binary-only games like Quake [1|2|3Test] and Civilization can certainly be made to work on FreeBSD, but it's nice to be able to just pop in the CD and have it work. I'm hacker, but I want to hack stuff that's interesting and rewarding. Getting binaries designed to run on another system to work on mine is not on that list.
Finally, there's the old BSD vs. System V thing. My first UNIX was SCO, and after that it was Solaris. I was never very fond of commercial BSDs, and that continues into the free BSDs. Of course, I know plenty of people who feel the other way around - that's a totally subjective thing, and there's no "best" choice. It's whatever you happen to like.
Here's my recommendation: if you want to increase your geek prowess and have some spare time and some spare disk space, grab an OS that you don't already have. Install it, mess with it. Figure out the differences. Who knows, you might like it better. But then again, maybe not. I like FreeBSD a whole lot, and I don't ever plan to replace it on my firewall. If I upgrade the machine, I'll probably grab the latest version and put in on there. But Linux is still my choice for day-to-day work.
I have a few things, actually.
:)
1. SMP on FreeBSD is quite good for what it is: a stepping stone to a properly multitasking/multithreaded kernel, running on multiple CPUs. That is being crafted in 4.0 (no, not vaporware, but something being developed.) SMP is better in Linux because they've already gone through many of the issues beign solved here now.
2. SMB "mounts" are done using Sharity Light.
3. As per ease of configurability, FreeBSD is VERY easy. But why do things have to be SysV-like? That's a matter of preference, anyway.
4. The NFS has had major problems plaguing it for years. Matt Dillon (and some others) have fixed all of them that I can think of.
5. Our portability is not bad; just because many ports haven't been done doesn't mean FreeBSD is not portable.
I hope I cleared up a few misconceptions
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
That's setting your system up wrong. If you will have heavy load, you raise maxusers, etc. You don't keep the defaults when they're incorrect for you.
One size doesn't fit all. This problem is a user error unless there's some kind of mbuf leak. None are known in FreeBSD.
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Probably because the GPL zealots will start screaming "violation! violation!"
Does no one take Linux seriously outside of the Linux community?
Linux has its place, as do the BSDs, but it does seem kind of silly to see Linux users on here insisting that everything be GPLed, and everything be free, as if the GPL is some kind of ultimate saviour.
It makes sense if you think about it. Start with a working base system and let the user build on it from there.
I don't know how NetBSD and OpenBSD handle it, but you can run /stand/sysinstall to select and install all of your favorite GNUish stuff after your FreeBSD system is up and running.
Or, you can cvsup your ports tree and build them from source if you want.
It is *impossible* to be impartial in a public editorial-style critical review of Windows when you have the mass marketing juggernaut known as Microsoft blaring its horns in your ear.
It just doesn't work. Its like there is an imbalance in the Force behind Windows...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You said:
:-)
One thing I hated about linux distributions was it's upgrade process.
I say:
Yes, upgrading used to be a pain, but Debian has made great strides in this area. Upgrading an entire Debian system to a new release is now possible with just two commands. no pain. In any case, I recommend giving Debian a try, because Linux has changed -- a LOT -- since you last tried it.
P.S. I have tried OpenBSD and FreeBSD. I did go back.
Not *every* Linux user wants everything to be free (I'm willing to buy software or use closed-source if it suits my needs). I'd say a bigger problem is stereotyping platform/distro users (RedHat's for newbies, Slackware's for experts, *BSD is for the 31337, etc.). Any *nix can be as easy or difficult as you make it.
Real-life example: my mother couldn't care less about why a car runs. My father's a mechanic that can rebuild a car almost from scratch. Yet they can drive the same family car, at roughly the same skill level. Get the point?
Now, let me jack up this here RedHat GPL system & take me look at what's goin' on 'neath the hood... :)
That's the essential gist of what I read. Especially reading the part about drivers for older systems and less known equipment. A server isn't going to need a driver for a $29 tape drive, but my home machine or desktop just might need it.
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
This sounds like politics! One democrat trys to "out-liberal" another, and one republican trys to "out-conservative" another.
This should be settled with two questions.
1. Do you like which OS you use?
2. Does it fork FOR YOU?
If the answer to both of those is yes, then keep on using it and leave me the fuck alone.
Do you see professional athlete's in such fights as to which is better Nike, or Adidas?
People dying of cancer don't argue about whether Marlboro or Camel was worse.
GROW UP! We're all on the same side.
LK
Posted by _DogShu_:
Why is Linux not Unix? I want SPECIFICS people!
A BSD derived syntax
Yes, but if you get the latest procps, you can make it work the right way... :-)
ps -ef
--
I've been using FreeBSD for four months, and I still prefer Linux and Solaris.
But, to each his own, y'know?
--
Once up and running, though, I find Linux to be much easier. With Solaris, I still have *lots* of work to do, adding miscellaneous packages, before I have what I consider to be a usable system. Under Solaris, after you dig around in CDE (yuk) or OpenLook (which honestly, I do not despise...no, really) a while, you find the shells, and the default shell is /bin/sh.
Don't get me wrong; I like Solaris, but only after it has been sufficiently GNUified...
--
I don't understand this. Why is BSD unix and Linux not?
I mean, if Linux is not unix, wtf is it then?
It's partially because of history, partially because of trademark law. BSD is a branch from the original AT&T source, at a point just after Version 7, so in that sense it could be considered "real Unix."
But in a technical, trademark sense, any OS can be considered UNIX(R) if it meets The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification (and you pay the $$$ to have the certification done); I understand that it doesn't even have to be based directly on SysV, and I also understand that at least one group was making a certified Linux distribution.
-lee
Just a few more. I still use Windows more than Linux, even though I'm trying to move over more and more, so hopefully I have some useful insights. (It might be nice to have an archive of these.)
/home directory, the files for a given user are anywhere and everywhere. Along the same lines, symbolic links of directories are second-class citizens (selecting one in an open/save directory changes the filename to the name of the link file.)
Windows Cons:
Drive letters: more specifically, the logical volume structure *is* the physical volume structure. NT may be able to change the letter order so at least adding a new partition doesn't destroy all the links, but fundamentally you see the cruft. So instead of the beauty of a
Windows pro: Odds are you know someone who is pretty good with Windows to go to for help. Ditto on trying to hire programmers, admins, etc.
Windows pro: uniformity of interface for Windowed applications. While far from perfect, it is still more uniform than Linux ones.
Windows con: Apps generally designed from the ground up to have graphical interface, with batch modes added later. Linux stuff tends to be command-driven first and foremost. Thus Windows apps are typically less scriptable. Likewise scripting languages seem less mature, although perhaps VBA is getting usable for this.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
And how is this not true of the Linux community? Things get cast in a Linux vs. the world light very often; it's Linux against Microsoft, Debian against Redhat, Slackware against the known world. When groups in the community get too large, people turn on them -- witness all the "Redhat is the next Microsoft" flames.
Linux folks seem to _love_ having a big bad enemy to fight against just as much as any other minority OS community.
It makes sense, too. After all, if you happen to think that your pet system is the best thing since sliced bread, then you needa reason why everyone isn't using it. It clearly can't be because something else is better, and it clearly can't be due to a flaw in your perfect system, so all that's left is finding an enemy to blame it on.
If you want to edit the kernel configuration file by hand on Linux just edit the "linux/.config" file in any editor you wish and afterwards enter the "make oldconfig; make dep; make zlilo; blaablaa" hoopla.
> How long did you use NT for?
About 10 seconds. I was there as a linux consultant, but they wanted to show me the windows version. As I sat down and hit something, it lost control of the windowing system. I asked, "but can't you kill things now." Not if the program you use to kill them is out of control . . .
I've also used it to download onto floppies for initial linux boot disks, and to transfer files since the floppy on my desktop went south. The P90's in that lab under wfwg (oops, not NT; haven't checkec again) had 20-25% of the networking performance of a 486/66 under linux.
Hmm, that's not why I'm posting this, that was a sidenote.
10 seconds of really trying to use NT, one crash.
Three years of linux, macbsd, and now freebsd:
macbsd: 1 kernel panic in 4-6 months of use. Apparently related to using a not-quite-ready driver for X.
debian: 2.5 years on my desk, no crashes or panics in 24/7 operation. We did have some panics while setting up scsi, but that's because we had no idea what kind of card it was, and had to use trial & error (insmod, then read). With the card identified, no more crashes.
debian: 1 year, we thought we had a crash on my boss's machine, but there were no logs indicating this after we reset it. When I went over to reset it when it happened again, it turned out that the problem wasn't a crash, but that half that building had dropped of the campus network.
freebsd: last three or four months, my desktop, I've found that accessing the defective floppy drive can clobber the kernel. It takes a couple of hours, but it never stops trying to access it (linux returns an error), and it slowly dies.
OK, so my NT sample is quite small, but in those 10 seconds, I had more real crashes than in 3 years of bsd & linux.
This is nearly identical to what I've seen happen on older 486 boxes as well.. Linux Slack works wonders, but perhaps it's just me that BSD doesn't seem to work quite as well under low memory conditions with a little swap..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
You disagree, yet you yourself admit coming from that fertile ground.. ;-P Linux get's people INTO a *nix type of system..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
They exist becouse they CAN.. ONE of the wonders of open source, is people CAN fork, come out with different systems, etc..etc.., and everyone has the ability to make things compatible. BSD wants it their way. They've been around LONGER then Linux has. Good for them.. If we get some ideas from eachother, good for everyone.
Since when have OS's become so communist? All for the good of all.. This is capitalism, BABY!!
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
AGREED! I am slowly getting used to SYSV init script, but they still annoy the heck outa me.. I love slackware, but I'm not sure WHY.. ;-P
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Well, it's long term vs short term gains.. I cannot say I can think of ANY shop who hasn't had to spend time fixing NT related problems that occur, in both Workstation and Server versions. I can say that while it takes Linux longer to get set up and working as one would like, it is usually solid, and things don't start to 'break' as they can sometimes do with NT.. Linux is also much more versitile then NT tends to be on the server end.
NT is a single user system with some multiuser abilities. *nix in general is a Multiuser system that can be USED as a single user system, but is not suited..
IMHO.. NT on the desktop, Linux on the server = least support costs.. (IN THE LONG run..)
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
read that darn subject.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
Compared to the BSD article, Slashdot users have provided both sides. There may be more Linux supporters, but we've never had the chip on our shoulders that xBSD users have had. Enjoy your OS, license and politics. We'll just write software, and you guys feel free to port it.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
It's a bit more complicated than that. The main instability in Linux systems comes from mismatched USER-SPACE applications. Redhat 6.0 crashes a lot because the system has been configured in an unstable fashion.
I run Stampede with glibc-2.1.1, kernel 2.2.10, and it never crashes. period. I've had similar experiences with Debian Potato. Bad packaging can ruin a stable system.
In the sense that xBSD has a tighter leash, it might appear more stable, but carefully choosing your distribution will result in an equally stable machine.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
This article, while vainly attempting to sound even-handed, comes off as Linux bashing. He trivializes Linux developers for writing drivers (though, he not-so-deftly attempts to take it back) and he passes Linux off as a 'mini-BSD.' He fails to address most of the strengths of Linux other than Hardware support. (What about software? I didn't see a Code Warrior for xBSD)
Since when is supporting affordable hardware an unimportant goal? I don't feel like buying the most expensive, and only supported device X, when I can have full support under Linux.
If anything, this article is thinly veiled Linux-bashing by a holier-than-thou BSD user, and as much as I like FreeBSD for running Apache, I've found xBSD users to have an air of distain for all things non-BSD.
Linux is not xBSD on training wheels. It's an alternative, original implementation of classic UNIX concepts. It happens to run Quake3 accelerated on my Voodoo3? Does that make it less valid? I can run it on my desktop, and run a web server, sshd, and ftp.
I've read more unbiased opinions from NT supporters, and that's really sad.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
ive seen the sig in a few different places, but the original quote came from an interview with jwz from (at the time) netscape
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
The phrasing "step up" was unfortunate, I should have said "move to". The phenomenon of Linux users adopting FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD *has* been a large portion of the new users of BSD in the past 18 months, and seems to be growing. This article was a comment on that trend, NOT an exhortation to Linux users to dump Linux and move to BSD.
As for a technical points, I'll point out one here that illustrates the difference in depth. In the virtual memory system, when a process needs a new memory page, both Linux and FreeBSD "zero" the page before handing it to the process, so the process won't get potentially privileged data, like passwords, from the previous owner of the page. On Linux, the page is zeroed as it is allocated. This works well. On FreeBSD, there is a queue of pages that have been released but not zeroed, and a queue of pre-zeroed pages. A kernel task running at idle priority zeroes pages from the free list and places them on the pre-zeroed list when the system isn't busy. This tends to make new page allocations faster when spare cycles are available.
Due partly to code like this, BSD has a well deserved reputation for running very well under heavy loads. It is commonly used by high volume web and ftp servers.
If you'd like to read more about details like that, read the white paper by Matt Dillon, or better yet, look into things yourself. This is only software, it's not voodoo.
If you really want to learn the technical differences between Linux and one or more of the BSD systems, the best way to do that is to install them both and live with them side-by-side. I doubt you'll find either one of the always the best for every task, but you may discover you like one more than the other for good reasons. Either way, you win -- you've made an intelligent choice rather than just clinging to prejudices and others opinions.
Yes, you could make a new release based on FreeBSD, with a SysV init system. You'd be better off just developing an init system for FreeBSD that answers the limitations of both the BSD and SysV methods, each of which has plusses and minuses. You could not, however, call your system FreeBSD (tm) because FreeBSD is a trademark of FreeBSD, Inc.
I don't know if NFSv3 is really "NFS done right," I'll defer to Mr. Cox on that one. I assume you're referring to Alan Cox of Linux fame, rather than Alan Cox of FreeBSD fame.
If, on the other hand, you are running a heavily loaded server on a high-end 4-CPU server box with gigs of RAM, Solaris screams. It has arguably the best SMP support available, much better than NT or Linux, well tested and well developed multi- threaded servers (think NFSv3 here), and good commercial support for high-end applications like Netscape Enterprise server and Oracle database server. (Probably better support in the SPARC world than x86, but the x86 system is still very fast on high-end SMP equipment.)
You certainly won't be wasting your time or your ten dollars to order and install Solaris on a system and do some poking around. Make sure you have plenty of spare disk space, though, Solaris is huge.
\U@\h stated we both know why NFS is mostly implemented in kernel-land.
Because it's an ugly, god-awful hack that requires kernel mode support to even work? Or did you have a good reason for putting something that huge and ugly into the kernel?
They have been, and Solaris as well. Guess which one came out on top, beating even NT? Solaris, of course. Anyone who thinks those Sun guys and gals sleep for a living is deluded.
Like the Linux engineers participating in the test, the FreeBSD people participating learned a lot about sustaining high througput on a high-end server, and learned a lot about how the system performs currently and how it might be improved. I don't have specifics on the performance numbers, nor when they might be published. I doubt the numbers I heard had even been audited for accuracy yet, but I suspect that both Linux and FreeBSD will perform much better in the next round. Both have already seen development (in Linux 2.3 and FreeBSD 4.0) based on what was learned at this benchmark, and we'll all benefit from this.
It'll be interesting to see if Microsoft can keep up.
Netperf is a tool for measuring network throughput, but has nothing to do with FTP throughput. If you want to measure FTP throughput, you have to use actual FTP servers and clients. A more fair test would be to install FreeBSD and Linux on both machines and test each combination of FreeBSD and Linux, server and client, running on each machine, to see if you can characterize performance. Short of that, you have a few datapoints but not enough to draw any conclusions.
Some of the FreeBSD ethernet drivers do actually work fast enough to overrun anything but a full duplex switched network. The time between packet transmissions is so short it has been known to run Windows ftp clients straight into the ground, stuffing data into them faster than they can take it. Linux, on the other hand, is capable of receiving these packets quickly enough to not require retries.
``I don't see a Code Warrior for xBSD''. I don't see a Code Warrior for Debian, or SuSE, or Caldera, or SlackWare, or Turbo, or any other Linux-based operating systems either. I do happen to have a beta of Code Warrior for Solaris at work, and like Code Warrior for RedHat, it's not terribly impressive. It's a half-baked editor with a cheesy binary project file build system wrapped around the same GNU compiler you can download for free from Cygnus. I'll stick with Emacs, thank you. If you want to look at an innovative approach to building complicated systems, see Jam/MR from Perforce Software. It's available under a free license and runs on Linux, xBSD, and just about anything else. Before you jump to point out that CodeWarrior for RedHat will run on Debian, or SuSE, or whatever, let me assure you it will run on FreeBSD as well.
``Linux is not xBSD on training wheels. It's an alternative, original implementation of classic UNIX concepts.'' Yup, you're exactly right. What my article points out is that Linux and xBSD are very closely related, both by the direct cross-pollination between the development groups and by the amount of shared code they use. Both Greg Lehey and I have written before about the difference in focus between FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, and I was showing our mostly BSD-based readership that Linux is very similar. In point of fact, it is probably the most like NetBSD, due to the portability of the Linux kernel, but is fairly close to FreeBSD as well, since much of the focus remains on the PC architecture. In addition to that, it has additional focuses, such as embracing a wide range of hardware, that differentiate it from all of the BSDs.
I suggested Linux is the best starting place for those who don't already know UNIX not because Linux is some goofball stripped down system with ``training wheels'', but rather because the developers of Linux have done such a good job of making it run and run well on just about anything. The developers of Linux also really care about those guys with the $29 tape drive, because they were all ``some guy with a $29 tape drive'' once themselves.
So, let's stop reading all your Linux snobbery into my article and take it at face value. When I say developing a device driver for a $29 tape drive doesn't mean the developer is wasting his time, that is exactly what I mean. I phrased it the way I did because that was the next natural question for the Horshacks in the audience to raise: ``Oooh! Oooh! Mr. Kotter! Doesn't that mean the developer is like wasting his time?'' ``No, Arnold, it means he has a working tape drive and you do too.''
Class dismissed.
Go back to Daemon News and read some of the other columns and articles, or maybe a few back issues. This isn't the only thing that has ever appeared there, you know. ;^)
This article failed to answer the question that I've had for a while: if the two communities have so much in common, why is there a need for one or the other? According to the author, the Linux community handles the "newbies" and the oddball hardware, and the BSDers concern is security, portability, and stability. Why can't we combine the forces we have and come up with a platform that is secure, portable, stable, and well-supported (not to say that any one of the mentioned platforms does not yet fit this description)? To me, it seems as if the only thing that separates Linux advocates from *BSD advocates is the philosophy of software and the respective licenses that the platforms have been placed under; nothing more, nothing less.
The other thing that troubles me is the common thread that I saw running through the article and that I also see in some of the comments made so far here on Slashdot. That thread is the idea that Linux exists for new users to learn UNIX on, and if they want to actually do anything serious with their hardware, they need to "move on" to the *BSDs. This, to me, says that the common image of Linux in the UNIX community is that it is nothing more than "UNIX on training wheels." Does no one take Linux seriously outside of the Linux community?
>I've never used a laser, or even seen one in action.
Never listened to a cd?
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Fighting fire with fire will only burn down the forrest. Use water it's more efficient.
"We want to take over the world, but we don't want to do it tomorrow, it's OK if it's next week"-- Linus Torvalds
That is, not. Even if Linux gets no more userfriendly, it will still be around because it's better for some of us.
User friendliness. While use friendliness is a topic that does not usually come up in discussions about unix, it warrants mention here.
Linux is by far the most user friendly unix out there. Usually bash is included as the default shell with the emacs key bindings already set up. BSD uses csh with no CLI editing configured. This is a major turn off to a newbie. This is just an example - this kind of user friendliness pervades linux and is totally absent from BSD (and commercial unices as well). I remember when I first used linux, setting up my ethernet card was very easy. And I was utterly unix-clueless at the time. After a year of using linux, I decided to give FreeBSD a try and it took me quite a while to figure out how to set it up.
Linux has many little setup tools like linuxconf and the distributions usually include their own nice setup utilities.
Linux has a very strong user friendly focus. Linux aims to be for home users as well as professionals. Even slackware is easier than BSD. BSD seems to me a very insular community.
BSD is very painful for someone who does not know unix. BSD might convert some people from linux, but it will never convert anyone from windows.
support gun control: take guns from cops
... because windows does suck. The only thing good I can say about it is that it is slick looking. I don't mean that the UI is good, I think the UI is horrible. I just mean that it looks pretty.
support gun control: take guns from cops
and it is extremely user unfriendly. Besides, I hate CDE! If you're used to the GNU programs on linux, I think the commercial unixes are quite painful until you get them installed.
support gun control: take guns from cops
> And, of course, as soon as you prove a linuxism > wrong, someone will fix it. IF BSD really _was_ > better, someone would have adopted the code long > ago.
Do you mean like Sun, Digital, SCO, Apple, SGI, HP, and any other SVR4 adopters have?
> I'm also annoyed at the somewhat patronizing > attitude that Linux is our most fertile > recruiting ground, and When they move on to BSD, > as if Linux is merely a step in the path to true > enlightenment with BSD.
I agree with this every step of the way. I used Linux for about a year before I got fed up by the lack of documentation, bloated utilities and unexplained crashes. I installed FreeBSD on the system instead and it was a godsend. No more unexplained crashes. No more corrupted file systems. Things worked correctly, the first time. There is a clean, consistent interface. The code is significantly smaller and easier to understand. I can upgrade the source and rebuild and install with one command line. FreeBSD is truly a superior systems.
> Note also that FreeBSD has some severe problems > with NFS: Search on freebsd-hackers to find all > the gory details (and that the main hacker
> working on it lost his commit rights due to > personal differences with a core team member).
NFS is an insecure and scary way of doing things.
> smbfs isn't supported on FreeBSD, that's right.
...
> There could be possibly a new distro based on > FreeBSD. You could even sell it and not give
> away your source code, thanks to the BSD > license.
And how is this bad? Linux and GNU like to claim to be "freely redistributable" and like to give freedoms to the users. But this one isn't given. FreeBSD is far more free than GNU or Linux could ever dream of.
The only time I ever heard of it on a BSD system was on a BSDi system where the networking code was fucked up by children who had no clue what they were doing.
BSD grew out of the originaly AT&T source. So did SunOS, Solaris, AIX, and SCO in one way or another. Linux did not do this, Linux grew out of Minix. I guess that makes it a Minix derivative.
(So will Tannenbaum or Torvalds be the first to put a price on my head?)
No it was Linux corrupting Linux file systems. I have a Linux box that eats a file system once every few months and everytime someone does a CTRL-ALT-DEL style reboot. It is kind of funny, if it were a critical server, I'd blow away Linux and put on something reliable. But it is just a system sitting the cornor that would otherwise be powered down.
I started with Linux because Linux is all we had at the University. I have since begged them to convert some of primary servers over to FreeBSD.
Sounds like growing out of Minix to me.
If it is Linux advocacy, it is at least good Linux advocacy. I can't remember the text in the HOWTO exactly, but it states something like:
Now, C'T' did point out some weaknesses in Linux, and even if it was a biased test, they recommended NT in certain situations./* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
Too often, linux advocates just say "Micro$oft fscking sucks!"
I would not call such people real Linux advocates. This article, and the Linux/NT (by c'n', or something, wasn't it?) are both examples of fair, well-written articles, and also counts as Linux advocacy, evne though perhaps it wasn't originally meant as such.
Every OS has pros and cons, and if you neglect that, you won't make a very good impression.
I think more people should read the Linux Advocacy HOWTO, and stick to it.
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
I specifically want source that I control; I want to know that if I buy another box, upgrade the OS, whatever, I can install the programs I want just by compiling. I don't have to worry about DLL hell, licenses, limited time demos, etc.
That's what it all comes down to. I think RMS has done wonders, but sometimes is too idealistic about GNU/Linux. ERS has done wonders, but sometimes is too insistent that OSS provides better quality control. I simply want to OWN the software I have, and not be dependent on big fscked corporations setting restrictions withlicenses and closed proprietary software.
--
Infuriate left and right
There is far more to the Unix community than just free BSDers. Liek I said in my other post, BSD has arrogant snobs, Linux has Anonymous Cowards. I think BSD got snobbish because they considered themsleves the last bastion of the One True Unix, and then along comes this upstart without proper breeding. Linux, of course, has its Anon Cows for just the same reason -- they are the rebels and don't have to pay attention to the Establishment.
--
Infuriate left and right
It's not idealism, or the idea that only Open Source Software doesn't suck. It's because with proprietary software, if you buy a new machine, it's most likely illegal to copy your software. Did you know that the new UCITA proposal makes it illegal for two merged companies to continue using their already purchased software? Yessirree bob it's true. It says that the machines have to be wiped clean and everything re-installed with newly purcahased software. The licenses to the old software cannot be transferred.
If I upgrade my OS, chances are the old software won't work. DLL hell anybody?
Or buy a different processor. With OSS, just recompile most of the time and you are ready to go.
I don't have to wirry about bugfixes also coming with unwanted upgrades, either. How many M$ upgrades come with IE, and won't work unless you install it?
That's why I don't like proprietary software. And M$ seems to lead the way in proprietary ugliness.
--
Infuriate left and right
A serving B is faster than B serving A. OK, but each has handled the same number of bytes, total Tx + Rx. Is A->B faster because A sends faster or because B receives faster?
Change one variable at a time, then try it. Or try all four combinations.
--
Infuriate left and right
He characterizes Linux as non-BSD non-UNIX. Now it might be "historically" accurate to classify any BSD system as "UNIX", but I thought UNIX was a trademark of somebody, and an OS had to be certified before using that trademark. Have any of the free BSDs, or BSDI, been so certified? In general terms though, only quibblers would call Linux non-UNIX; seems to me like a chip on his shoulder.
In another annoying poke at Linux, he says BSD systems shine at this, with their ability to provide a usable email server for numerous users on a castoff 486 PC. Uh, pardon me, Linux too, excuse me. Chip on his shoulder again?
I'm also annoyed at the somewhat patronizing attitude that Linux is our most fertile recruiting ground, and When they move on to BSD, as if Linux is merely a step in the path to true enlightenment with BSD.
Well, well, not bad overall for a BSD fanatic. I suppose Linux has raving Anonymous Cowards, and BSD has patronizing snobs. Not sure which is worse. Wouldn't it be a nice world without both?
For what it's worth, I chose Linux because the development seemed more open, so to speak. Not so tightly controlled. Plus, there are 3 BSDs, and I often wonder how well BSD-specific code ports from one to the other. I imagine that if I settled on one of them, it wouldn't really matter much at all, but I want my system for exploration, not production, so it changes all the time, and I am not interested in monolithic upgrades. I expect I would be perfectly happy with the "UNIX-ness" of any them. But a choice had to be made, and I am not interested in remaking that decision for "just another UNIX system".
--
Infuriate left and right
Linux did not grow out of Minix... it does not and never has had any Minix code in it. It did use the Minix file system at first and Linus (I believe) used Minix as the initial development platform, but that is all.
We would thank you to not spread this kind of misinformation.
Xenix is not unix. Its a horrid bastard that makes old versions of unixware look like code handed down by the gods.F /...
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
I take it you have never installed a version of
F /...
solaris or recent versions of hpux if you think linux is the most user friendly.
Of the free unix clones, linux is by far the most easy for the unix novice to get into. OpenBSD on the other hand is a huge pile of sheit that has one of the worst install processes I have seen since the days of dynix.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
Well, people are supposed to get a license before they can drive. Why can't they get a license before they can use a computer. Make the adverage (stupid) user take a class for a couple of months before they can use or purchase one. Of course there are stupid people with drivers licenses. But when a licensed person does something stupid, their license can be revoked.
So, it's not a perfect solution. I can just imagine someone trying to purchase a computer without a computer license. "Sorry, but you need to renew your license before you can purchase this new neato item."
What was this about? Oh yeah... Have people learn before they use. Not the other way around.
I don't know about C'T's biases, but submitting plain text files is very common for magazine and newspaper contributions - any formatting that has been done by the author is frequently useless, and of course if they use a different version of Word or something else altogether it is just a source of conversion hassles.
All very reasonable apart from the rules on installing new apps - why on earth should installing apps break an OS? With NT, this is unfortunately sometimes the case, but it shouldn't be.
We use NT systems extensively at my company, with quite competent administration, and the servers and workstations still occasionally crash (or become ultra slow and require a reboot - probably a memory leak or similar).
I have yet to see a Linux system crash, and don't even know what an 'oops' message looks like - by contrast, my mother, who is retired, has had to become horribly familiar with NT BSODs so that she can accurately report problems...
My one criticism of Linux as a server is its recovery from power failures - maybe our Linux boxes weren't set up properly, but they took a long time to be recovered after a power failure, even the one with an ICP Vortex RAID controller.
However, logging/journalling filesystems a la XFS should solve this, and we probably didn't have enough UPS capacity to allow a clean shutdown, so it could probably have been avoided. I don't know all the details as I'm not a sysadmin, but we do have a very competent BSD/Linux sysadmin here.
Linux
:)
-NFS server: not so good (is there any work being done on this?)
I agree... this was a big motivation for moving one of our fileservers at work to freebsd. And I am pushing for freebsd on the new servers. The kernel level nfs server for linux has better performance, but there seem to be some compatibility issues.
-SMB client: good
-SMP: good (could be better)
-Portability: good
-Ease of configuration: good (I love System V and kernel modules)
I agree... I prefer sysv, but that could be because I cut my teeth on linux and solaris... I must say that rc.conf is growing on me
-RAID: never tried
-TCP/IP: good (I add this just because the older Linux kernel didn't do TCP/IP near as well as FreeBSD)
FreeBSD
-NFS server: good
-SMB client: not so good (I don't think kernel level support exists - ie smbmount. does it?)
hmm, never tried the client side... the bsd box at work is running like a champ as a smb server, tho.
-SMP: not so good
In my experiance (I have a dual celeron at home) freebsd is as good, or perhaps better than linux when it comes to SMP.
-Portability: not so good (use NetBSD - whole other topic)
-Ease of configuration: Ok (but I really wish they would move to System V - is it possible to make a disto that is System V?)
-RAID: good (I love vinum)
-TCP/IP: good
--Rob
I should have mentioned that I was using -current (ie v4.0)... I don't know too much about SMP on the 3.2 branch.
Also, two processors isn't much of a stress test as far as SMP scalability... perhaps as you add more processors linux will have more of an advantage.
--Rob
I'm sorry, but this idea scares me. Why don't we just all adopt 95/NT!
I think it is good to have some diversity... because the source code to xBSD and linux is available, the best ideas from each may find there way into the other.
For the most part, user-land software is quite portable between linux/xBSD/, so I don't think the splintered efforts are quite the problem that you make them out to be. After all, when it comes to the free OSs, I think it is the user-land software where they are lacking the most. (Not to say that this isn't rapidly changing.)
--Rob
The UNcool thing about NT is that if you go longer than a month or two without reinstalling, you will NEED to reinstall.
Seriously, this is an effort (no doubt intentionally implemented by Microsoft) to hide the fact that you are reinstalling your operating system. The OS should NOT need to be reinstalled "every so often." That's just plain absurd. Worse than that: it's technologically criminal.
using windows I can change my host name with a few clicks, under Linux I have to figure out which text file to edit.
You omitted something: rename your host under Windows, and (once AGAIN) you are going to reboot. Is this sane? Is this rational? As for "ease of use": in an office of over 20 people, the number of those who know exactly how to rename the host is approximately three. So much for "ease of use." The point: "easy" is what you're used to doing. Personally, I find it very easy to edit one text file (and then NOT reboot) under Linux. So who's right about "easy"?
The fact that you "can" install NT "easily" is irrelevant if you're doing it once a month. By year's end you'll do it twelve times (or six if bimonthly) -- versus once with Linux. That's 24 or 48 hours installing NT vs. "8-12" on Linux (because you only do it once). Linux wins.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
I have to read anything posted by 'the monkey flying around in my butt'
Just trying to provide some comic relief on a (usually) touchy issue. =-)
--
N. Thomas
nthomas@cise.ufl.edu
You have to include the cost of ownership. Nobody will convince me that Linux is cheaper to maintain than NT.
You may never believe it, but this is simply a fact for many of us. Generally, the Linux user is a more computer-saavy person than the Windows user. They're more likely to fix their own machine than to incur costs in paying someone else to come and do it.
Many of us who have run both kinds of servers believe that Windows is less reliable than Linux, and this really does affect support cost. There are other more measurable means to make this argument though. I have a Mac at home, and I run a remote Linux box that does DNS for 8 domains, a web server, ftp server, mail (SMPT/POP), etc. If this machine were a PC, I'd have to buy Timbuktu to do any remote maintenance from my house or work. As it is, I just log in via a rhs/ssh/telnet/whatever, do my work, and log out. No cost incurred save my own time.
Hardware is another issue. Because of Linux, I can get a server-quality OS for free that will run on the hardware I already have. This box is a PowerPC Linux box, so I couldn't put Windows on it anyway. I saved a good bit of money right there.
What?! NT is just as stable as Linux. My NT box at work has now an uptime of something like 8 months. As long as your hardware is up to scratch and you don't mess up the registry by hand NT is rock solid. How long did you use NT for?
I have an NT4 box at work. The registry is corrupted, and I never edited it by hand. I can't get it to run Flash content, because it seems to believe that all Flash content is some kind of inheirently unsafe ActiveX control, and it won't let me. Admittedly, I'm not a Windows guru, but I'm pretty competent. Because NT is commercial, and I don't want to turn the corporate support guys loose on the machine I depend on to get work done, I have to use a much slower Mac to do all my Flash/Generator testing. Reliability means more than the lack of a BSOD/kernel panic. In Linux, the web browser is an application. If it gets corrupted (not likely, since I can't modify it unless I'm root), I just reinstall. In WindowsNT, the browser is "integrated", and reinstalling it doesn't fix the problem. It's not like a Mac either, where I can just go find the offending file and delete it. You're stuck relying on "Uninstall", which doesn't work reliably.
On a side note, my NT box generally goes about a month between reboots (usually a crash), compared to about every two months for the Linux box (getting a new kernel, etc). Both are acceptable uptimes for what I use them for.
- Vincit qui patitur.
May I just add that I find most GUI-software really too restricting.
They invariably will be, unless there is an easy way of extending them. Windows does let the poweruser extend quite a lot of the GUI (using COM etc.), but that's not really its target group, now is it...
And I still haven't found a way to install windows so that "Program Files" lies on different disk than windows.
Go on a quest to find out where %Progdir% and %Windir% are set... :-) What does suck are install programs which don't use %Progdir% but assume it's "C:\Program Files" even on non-English-language versions.
UI-tools are just as flexible as the programmer made them, comparing them against little CLI-utilities and good scripting language I would choose CLI-tools any time.
Wasn't Sun's rather failing Tcl/TK an attempt to make just as configurable GUI tools as the CLI tools using shell scripts were?
FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD- -
----------------------------------------
Reveal your Source, Unleash the Power. (tm)
Ahhh, Wonko, back again are we? I'm not sure I should bother making a serious reply to your post, considering that you're not exactly known for your impartiality, but:
1) Many people using Linux/*BSD have tried Windows and found it painful/bloated/expensive/etc., and are thus not particularly interested in a comparison.
2) Many Linux/*BSD users are quite simply not interested in a non-free OS.
3) Any such comparison would eventually deteriorate into "Linux/*BSD has this - Windows doesn't", "Windows has this - Linux/*BSD doesn't" discussion, simply because Un*x systems and Windows systems were originally designed for very different purposes. Windows was designed as a graphic shell to DOS; Linux was designed as a Un*x replacement; the *BSD design comes from the original Unix, aiming for a proper multiuser OS.
And last of all:
4) I find your comment about Windows - "most aspects of it suck" - to be a more than sufficient answer to your question.
"If you would know your way around Unix systems, you would know that at this very second Linux's knfsd is extended and debugged (see linux-kernel)."
Afraid I don't quite get what you're trying to say here - sorry I don't know about every aspect of Linux (don't do that much SA). But thanks for info anyway - I gladly welcome any improvement to Linux's NFS.
"There could be possibly a new distro based on FreeBSD. You could even sell it and not give away your source code, thanks to the BSD license."
I'll assume this to mean that FreeBSD should work with a System V init without any major problems (should someone wish to undertake such a project)
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
I came to Linux from the Unix world. From AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX. From there I went on to experiance a little FreeBSD. The reason that xBSD users usually come from Unix backgrounds, in my experiance, is because it does not receive as much attention as Linux. In other words, Joe user, sitting at home with IE browsing the net is more likely to see a story on Linux than FreeBSD - "Hmm...what's this Linux thing, maybe I'll try it." To say that a UNIX person is more likely to move to xBSD one would have to ignore that Linux is more or less System V and therefore, anyone coming from Solaris (or other Sys V) would probably be happier with Linux.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
This was a pretty good artical - although I felt it implied that Linux wasn't as good a server. They both have their good and bad aspects and I look forward to more sharing of code from both camps. So far, my experiance has shown me (caution, opinions start here):
Linux
-NFS server: not so good (is there any work being done on this?)
-SMB client: good
-SMP: good (could be better)
-Portability: good
-Ease of configuration: good (I love System V and kernel modules)
-RAID: never tried
-TCP/IP: good (I add this just because the older Linux kernel didn't do TCP/IP near as well as FreeBSD)
FreeBSD
-NFS server: good
-SMB client: not so good (I don't think kernel level support exists - ie smbmount. does it?)
-SMP: not so good
-Portability: not so good (use NetBSD - whole other topic)
-Ease of configuration: Ok (but I really wish they would move to System V - is it possible to make a disto that is System V?)
-RAID: good (I love vinum)
-TCP/IP: good
I know, I know - some of my opinions are probably ill formed, please correct me where I may be wrong.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
Hey! You turned a perfectly good Linux versus BSD flamewar into a Linux versus Windows flamewar!
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
^Linux is Cheaper to maintain than NT, you just
.sig here a while back that I really liked.
^ have to have patience and time.
What's your time worth?
Mine's worth an awful lot.
I can't remember who it was, but I caught a
"Linux is only free if your time has no value."
-LjM
So, who's maintaining your NT boxes?
Both systems require knowledge and time to maintain. I'm sysadmin on a number of NT4.0 systems _and_ a number of Linux boxes. The NT systems require constant attention and the Linux boxes (after initial configuration) run along quietly on their own.
From my perspective, NT is the costlier of the two.
My two frog-pelts.
My main problem with *BSD personally is that you still have to install most of the GNU tools by hand due to *BSD licensing/NIH/minimalism issues. I prefer to have a reasonably featureful command set out of the box.
This hits on something that the article, and most bsd'ers, fail to mention. I hear a lot of people citing the stability and security of *BSD compared to linux, but it's not an even comparison. If you compare kernel-to-kernel, they're probably about equal. Most linuces ship with a far greater spread of applications than the *BSDs, and are therefore mathematically more likely to contain a set of exploitable code.
So, until someone comes up and says, "codewise, thise, this, and this methodology are employed in SomeBSD and are proven more stable/secure/sexy," I don't buy it. the BSD's I've played with are, at heart, just like linux, without the toys. I like toys.
And, of course, as soon as you prove a linuxism wrong, someone will fix it. IF BSD really _was_ better, someone would have adopted the code long ago.
Long rant short, it's all the same crap. Shut up and code.
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
If you want to find linux users, go to a LUG, join development mailing lists of linux projects, join linux mailing lists. Of all the methods to form opinions on "Linux users", reading slashdot and coming up with your conclusions from there has got to be a genuinely stupid method. Why on earth would you pick the one place where people don't need so much as a valid email address to post, so the anonymity level is through the roof?
:-)
Look, I'm on a number of mailing lists and projects (generally in the periphery (sp?) for most), and the people there are virtually all intelligent, level headed people. You tend to find more people who believe in the GPL than you will in other places, but by and large you find competent people getting work done.
Go to LUGs, you'll find linux users from every walk of life. Some smart, some not so smart, some brilliant, some questionably mentally incompetent. A wide variety of people like and use Linux, and forming your opinion of them in a place nearly guaranteed to be unrepresentative is a little strange.
Oh, Linux is a better client side OS than NT as long as you have a sysadmin for it, if for no other reason than it's not the path to hellish vendor lock-in. I've seen a place which runs just about every incarnation of windows under the sun (including different service pack levels of both NT 3.51 and NT 4.0) because some particular proprietary software package will only work on that particular version, heaven knows why. And let's see you remote display on a Mac's interface. Of course, you can probably come close to duplicating a Mac's wm/interface nowadays with gnome/E, so it's not even much of a point.
Note, the interface issue is a really dumb one to bring up. I'm a power user, so I can't stand the mac interface. Some people love it. Interfaces are extremely subjective things.
Anyhow, my experience with *BSD people, aside from slashdot, has them generally being pretty decent people, and I've whitnessed great levels of cooperation for portability whenever needed. These holy wars generally only exist in isolated places. The majority of people live with each other, just like the rest of life.
I'm not surprised at the insecure people who find meaning in their lives through enemies bashing everything but their one true foo. That's always happened and always will. i'm a bit surprised at level-headed sounding people thinking that those people are at all representative.
Oh, and microsoft is a real enemy. Just like carthage to the romans, microsoft must be destroyed for the good of the computing community in general, be it mac, sun, *bsd, linux, os2, etc. Everyone else can work with each other relatively well, M$ is the only one who's trying to kill off the rest. Personally, as a linux user, I hope that both linux and the BSDs flourish. As a man who has to live in the world, I hope that microsoft dies. There are real enemies and there are fake enemies. The BSDs and Linux are anything but enemies. Microsoft and everyone else are nothing but enemies. Please keep the two straight.
As for the users, there's no real generalizing them. I've seen everyone from great programmers to great novices using Linux, just like nearly everything in life. Why overgeneralize? life's to short to be wrong.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Please don't take this as bashing you, but do you realize how sad this sounds? What would you say if I told you that my new car works just fine if I just treat it right. Treating it right consists of:
1. Only making left turns under 9 mph
2. Never going faster than 55 mph
3. Always using extra high super octane fuel
4. Always getting manufacturer supplied hyper-expensive parts
5. Not adding things like GPS units, replacing the air conditiong system, or getting a CD player.
6. Occasionally turning my car off and starting it up again while I'm driving.
Would you say that that's the mark of a good car?
As long as you're willing to redefine normal operating conditions, anything can be stable. That's not the point. Stability isn't about adapting your computing to your computer, it's about adapting your computer to your computing.
Do you really not think that users not being able to install their own software is normal? Hell, UNIX/Linux systems are designed in such a way that users can add their own system libraries without affecting any other user or system stability (minus disk space requirements).
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Gee, thanks for letting us know which Un*x is
the choice people who quit using Un*x.
Actually, while Linux's init is SysV-like, most
of the user tools where the difference matters
(ps, df) are BSD-like. As far as API, you get
POSIX by default and can take your pick of
BSD or SysV extensions with appropriate compile flags.
Really, the only ways Linux is SysV like are either ones where SysV won the standards war, or
where it is obviously just better, e.g. init.
My main problem with *BSD personally is that you
still have to install most of the GNU tools by hand due to *BSD licensing/NIH/minimalism issues.
I prefer to have a reasonably featureful command
set out of the box.
Having read substantial portions of both the NetBSD and Linux networking code, I have to say that, even though it's much older, the BSD code is much better designed.
Hate to respond to flamebait in kind, but:
I've never seen a "kernel panic: out of mbufs"
on Linux.
It makes sense if you think about it. Start with a working base system and let the user build on it from there.
It makes sense if the user has the time and inclination to do that. Certainly certain types of people do. Personally I think I know enough about Unix now that I don't need to hand-assemble each box I install.
I'll grant you that in providing an appropriate program to install gnu tools FreeBSD is way ahead
of Solaris or HP-UX.
I was obliquely trying to point out that the mbuf subsystem is poorly desgned.
Your post doesn't convince me otherwise - Linux doesn't need explicit tuning for this sort of thing, since it avoids kludgy single-purpose memory management subsystems.
I do think many other aspects of *BSD are much better designed than the Linux equivalent, but networking is not one of them, IMO.
Thanks for bringing "linux is only the kernel" to light. I know that, but until your comment I had relegated it to a dark closet.
To get to the rest of your message, aren't the different 'linux' distributions mostly just different flavors of the same thing while the BSD distributions have deeper differences? (honest question)
A metaphor I have in my mind at the moment: Unix is a frozen dessert. Linux is ice cream, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry... BSD is sherbert, frozen yogurt...
(what would this make Windows? crushed ice? with salt?)
Here Here!
I was hoping to read about the real, nitty gritty differences between the two, like:
"Well, FreeBSD handles network configuration This Way and Linux does it This Way"
I have never used a BSD, or even seen one in action. I have been using Linux for a year now and was really hoping to learn what BSD was all about, specifically what it does better than Linux.
The author seems to have a attitude that Linux will train the newbies who will then "Step Up" to a BSD, but he really gives me no reason to, no hints as to why a BSD would be a step up from Linux.
Anyone want to post what the BSDs do better than Linux and vice-versa?
-geekd
I wouldn't bother, x86 Solaris is rather unimpressive, what is impressive however is their Ultra Sparc architecture. Unless there is any reason that you need to learn Solaris (eg for a job) stick with Linux or try a BSD.
I hesitate to post this because I know the author from his posts on FreeBSD mailing lists but I must question the obvious lack of technical details. I assume I am not alone in wanting to know more about things such as the differences in scheduling algorithms than the differences in userbases. It just seems to be spewing out the things most of us have known all along, gee there is a tendency for people to start with Linux only to move to Free or Open BSD. I would much prefer a discussion on the comparative technical strengths on each system.
I find that a majority of Linux users do not have an unix background, ie they are from a PC world, and are typically "home" users.
A majority of xBSD users have previous "real" (commercial) unix experience, and are happier to move to BSD because they are more likely to know about it (and know more about it) than Linux.
Define serving huge mission critical projects?
Okay... Yahoo, IMDB.com, Walnut Creek CDROM... to name a few.
As for DoS attacks, I was talking about the OS, not an attack against an application (I assume sendmail here) running on it.
On the topic of sendmail... as a matter of fact, I've run a FreeBSD server with sendmail bare to the world with no firewall, and have never gotten one successful intrusion to the system.
See my reply to the parent thread for a little flame-bait justification.
Hippies smell.
With regard to my previous post-- I had hoped that an overview of my own experience with Linux and FreeBSD would be taken as just that, and not gobbled up for flame bait.
Hey, guess what. I use Linux. I like using Linux. It's kernel is a heck of a lot more forgiving to weird hardware, which I sometimes need to use.
BUT based on my own experience running an ISP, and a number of free-for-all type of services over the years, FreeBSD is the better server OS. Hey, your milage may vary.
If you like Linux and consider it the mecca of serving platforms, more power to you. I do not. as I've used both and found Linux to just plain not equal FreeBSD when it comes to serving on x86 platforms.
FreeBSD is basically designed as a bulletproof server OS; its desktop capabilities are less than those of Linux, quite a lot in some cases, but its performance and security as a server are unmatched.
Again, I am not saying "FreeBSD Rocks and Linux is crap!", I am saying "Linux is great, but when I have to serve something that can not go down, I use FreeBSD." Big difference there.
Regards,
Hippies smell.
You wrote "Define serving huge mission critical projects" and not "Define serving huge mission critical projects which you are currently running". I mean really, if you want to form an arguement, fine. But please do not put words in my mouth if you can't come up with anything.
On the subjects of systems I have run or am running, yes. I have tried Linux, and it was not as stable or as fast as FreeBSD. As I said, in big bold letters, FreeBSD is the better serving OS based on my experience with FreeBSD and Linux. If you have tried both, and prefer Linux, more power to you. I have, and in my opinion, FreeBSD is the better serving OS, while Linux is the better desktop OS.
As for DoS attacks on Linux.. well, TearDrop for one. Now, before you rant that it was patched within days of being found, consider this. That exploit required a kernel patch and a reboot. If you had been running a high profile system somewhere that could not go down, it would have, or you would have risked leaving a security hole open. FreeBSD was not effected by TearDrop, or any of the other Nuke-type attacks that Linux has proven vulnerable to. Bottom line is, the Linux system would have had to have been patched and rebooted, and the FreeBSD system would not have.
Now, if you would like to debate Linux vs. FreeBSD in the serving arena, fine. But please keep the personal insults to yourself. I mean, how much merrit do you think people really assign to anyone who resorts to personal insults, rather then debateable facts. It is you who ends up looking like an idiot.
Back to the sendmail thing. Yes, I am quite serious. I've run a totally unprotected FreeBSD machine with sendmail, and I have not had one single intrustion EVER. Sure, there have been attempts, but that's about all.
Oh, and by the way, you brought up application level attacks such as sendmail, not me.
Hippies smell.
Having used FreeBSD and Linux for a number of years now... well, I'll share my own opinion on the xBSD vs. Linux ball of wax.
Linux gets the nod from me for a desktop workstation. It's got the widest support of obscure hardware, multimedia support, graphics support, and so on.
xBSD (FreeBSD in perticular) gets the nod from me for serving. It is infinately more stable and secure then any flavor of Linux I've tried, out of the box, without any tuning. My Linux boxes are just fine for creating content, and mild serving. But, past experience has taught me not to trust them for serving huge mission critical projects.
Don't get me wrong, I like Linux. However, the development structure is just too muddled. There's some excellent code, some good code, and some not so good code. FreeBSD (and call this snobbish if you will, but it works) has a 'tighter fist' as I put it on source, Open but it gets scrutinized more, as such it's stable and secure as a rock. Sure, explots show up (e.g. the 3.2 natd thing) but they are much less common then the Linux expolits which turn up. e.g. Teardrop, and the fistfull of other DoS attacks on Linux. Sure, they are patched within hours of being found, but with xBSD they generally aren't there to begin with.
FreeBSD, from the people who brought you TCP/IP.
Hippies smell.
> But wouldn't it be cheaper slap linux with
> say StarOffice or KOffice on these 486's and
> have a stable environment for users to work in?
StarOffice on a 486? To make a stable environment?
OK, disclaimer first: I am a MS-hating (for their business practices, mainly) Linux user, who just used staroffice for a big project. I will always use Linux + Staroffice over MS Office on principle.
But, running it on a 486 is pretty much unusable (I've tried). And I found SO to crash much more frequently than MS Office (which I have to use at work). Granted that a SO crash doesn't take down linux, or even X. But still, stability is not the reason to use SO on linux, and forget it on a 486.
I recall hearing that The Open Group approved the use of "Unix" for a product that provided the right set of interfaces under NT.
Ugh.
So what would it take to get Linux branded as Unix?
Of course, that would only apply to a given release of a given distribution, but politically, it would be a big step. I'm sick of hearing that Linux is a Unix-like OS, as opposed to being just a version of Unix.
Maybe Red Hat, Corel, or Caldera would fund Unix branding?
The problem is that the audience might not be big enough... ie, people who are able to read intelligent comparison without getting angry that it didn't take their side. Let alone people who could actually produce it.
I've been thinking about this. I'm beginning to notice that in many ways, some of Microsoft's products are satisfactory for most of my "everyday" end-user type needs. They're even satisfactory for my net access needs. So, I wonder, why do I have lingering (OK, sometimes consuming) hostility toward them? Largely because of their behavior. I worry that someday they really might win and I'll have no choice. Though Open Source largely seems to have fixed the no choice problem for now.
I think I also hate them because I got my broadest exposure to their products from 1993-1995. I'd always thought DOS was emasculated
UNIX, but when I encountered FoxPro 2.5 for DOS
(and was expected to write a real application
in it; this while Delphi actually existed)and Win 3.1 and its ilk up close, I really hated Microsoft. But Windows 95 and NT really are better (than previous MS products). Although I will never touch FoxPro again, maybe not even for large sums of money.
Hmmm. I'm just meandering. I guess my main point is that it's snuck up on me that MS's products, by and large, have become tolerable for me. In some cases, even adequate. Anybody else feeling
this?
Tweet, tweet.
Why should you have to limit yourself, and engage in fascist policys just to have your OS work? What I love about linux is that a old p90 can be a webserver, mail server, dns server, and more without any worries about reliability. I can freely install software without worrying about it breaking the OS. I enjoy the freedom to use my servers to do what I need them, without having to worry about a new daemon I'm installing causing the OS to crash. Or more simply, what good is a server OS that you have to jump through major hoops just to make it work at all? Is a pretty click and drool interface worth it?
Yes you have a point, but listen to this. I work in a computer lab here at my school. We have some 486DX-66's running win95 with office and other crap for users to write papers and what not. But most of my questions from users are my comp is just sitting here for 5 minutes doing nothing. So I go over and move the mouse to see a nice BSOD. A least half of the comps crash a day on my 4 hour shift, with users losing quite a bit of data and time. Now how can this be satisfactory? A side notwe we are upgrading to new P2-400's next month so the new comps might be stable for a few months. But wouldn't it be cheaper slap linux with say StarOffice or KOffice on these 486's and have a stable environment for users to work in? Ahh, enough talk for now.
What?! NT is just as stable as Linux. My NT box at work has now an uptime of something like 8 months. As long as your hardware is up to scratch and you don't mess up the registry by hand NT is rock solid.
/etc are damn cryptic too (Sendmail anyone?).
Well, I have a 486 with an uptime of well near a year and a half. NT wouldn't even install on that hardware. No reason that old hardware should be written off so quickly.
As for Registries, I don't really like the concept of them, I've seen Windows boot too many times whining about a corrupt registry to be healthy. Then again, a lot of the conf files in
Well.. Here's a nice quick MS vs Linux..
;-)
(All points are in no order, just as I thought them up)
Pro's of Linux
1) Affordability. The OS, the apps, free. And more then just free beer, free code too.
2) Portability. Runs across most any platform.. Arm, PPC, x86, Alpha, Sparc, etc.
3) Development. Always growing, updates quickly available. Sure it's not complete and buggy in parts, but it's being fixed! Plus, all devel tools (gcc, etc) are free too (see 1)
4) Community. This means a LOT actually. The community not only comments, critiques, assists and what not, it contributes through coding. This makes support free.
5) Configurability. Linux can be a DNS/SMTP server on a 486 in a closet. It can be a file sharing intranet server. It can be a webserver of large size (/. anyone?). It can also be a workstation, a development box, etc. Also, how can you not like themeable wm's and widget sets?
Linux's Cons
1) Software. Sure, we're working on it. But we aren't there Just Yet(tm). Sure we have apps that wordprocess (Abiword, StarOffice, WP, etc), but nothing quite as nice as Office (Please, I don't like WordPerfect's Motif feel)
2) Development. It's a con too, not everythings finished, and it's not going to change. Well, it is changing, all the time. It's a growing OS, always growing, making holes and filling them.
3) Install. (Way)Less of a point then it used to be, but it's not easy to, say, take your average WinBox and add Linux. You have to deal with partitions, installation, configuration, etc.
Pros for Windows
1) Community. If a lot of people use it, even if that's because it's all that's out there, this will mean people will know it. This makes for a lot of books, software, etc.
2) Software. Just about everything sold on the average computer store shelf is for Windows. This includes one of the Holy Grails, games. Sure, we have Civ:CTP and Q1/2/3 and a few more for Linux. But Windows has the rest. Not to mention the popular Office.
3) Compatibility. While not on as many platforms as Linux, you do get a lot of hardware support within the x86 architecture. Vid cards that don't have Linux support work in Windows, same with some sound cards (A3D anyone?). Sure, this is because noone needs release specs/source, many hardware companies are reluctant to do this.
Cons for Windows
1) Stability. Any OS that can be crashed simply because an app crashes is NOT good. Any OS that can crash for no real reason is NOT good. Need I go on?
2) Proprietary. Where's the source? Why's there a price tag? It's not open. If it breaks, you can't look at the source code to find out what's wrong and fix it.
3) Install. Hey, come on, Windows 95 had you click the mouse button on Next and decide on easily as much crap as my Debian install does. People don't notice this though, as it's always preinstalled.
As for learning curves? I remember when EVERYONE had a CLI. Remember DOS? Joe User could learn DOS. Heck, sit someone clueless down in front of Windows and they won't be totally effecient. I know people who have used computers for a year or two and all they know how to do is turn it on, launch IE/ICQ/Word and shut it down. Linux may take a little more base knowlege to use, but both systems must be learned.
Both systems have to be configured at some point. Plug & Pray still doesn't exist on a level that lets devices work flawlessly on insertion (with maybe the exception of a USB mouse).
Bottom line? I'd rather not say, my bottom line doesn't like Joe User and his I-Just-Want-It-To-Work and I-Can't-Be-Bothered-To-Learn-Anything attidudes. Computers are tools, powerful ones too. People should treat them as if they were as dangerous as a car or a buzzsaw.
In the end though.. I prefer Linux. So please note a slight bias
Since when did "There's too much choice" become a bad thing? If you don't like the overabundance of toolkit choices, then fine. Use GTK. Now you don't have a choice. Of course, you could use another toolkit as well, no one is stopping you. Compare to the windows situation. There, you can choose from MFC or the Borland stuff. Other folks have put out other toolkits. The same number of choices are there, you just don't hear about it because Microsoft has succeeded in making MFC the ubiquitous choice.
As for the themeability of the Linux, I agree that they are inconsistant and confusing, but there is still the choice from before. Take the default KDE setting. There. Now you have given away your choices and the confusion is gone. For users with a clue, they can change their window manager and theme to anything they want. Ditto on Windows. You can swap out the entire explorer interface and use Litestep instead. That program doesn't suck much. (Explorer doesn't suck much either, from the interface point of view) If you're curious about what windows stuff is out there, go to www.desktopz.org and look at all of the neat eye candy they have (you can even change the window decorations).
Reading ahead further, you mention ISAPNP, wave your hands and say Windows is better. The point is that once the guru gets your computer set up, you don't need to mess with any of that stuff. If you have Linux, you need to reboot every year or so (Upgrade that kernel for security reasons, or perhaps just to reset the jiffies, I don't care). With Windows, you need to reboot every month or so (unless it crashed). Remember, we're talking about desktops, so we have to deal with Internet Explorer and surfing the web (or Netscape and surfing). These browsers have varying levels of suckiness, but the bottom line is in Linux, the browser crashes, and you never have to reboot to fix it. In Windows, the browser crashes, and sometimes you do need to reboot. I'm generous, I said 1 month.
As some others have said, I also would have liked to see more technical details in the article. Before I read it, I expected at least a somewhat more technical article than it was. After reading it, I thought that there was very little content of interest to myself (and probably a majority of the others who read Slashdot).
I don't know a huge amount about the specific details of FreeBSD, but I have briefly installed and played with it (and will do so again when I free up a machine for it). I would have loved to learn a little more of the specifics, e.g. how the task scheduling and memory management is handled compared to Linux, etc.
I also found the article appeared to be a fair comparison on the surface, but to me the author seemed to be belittling the efforts of Linux developers, which is a real shame.
However, I don't know who the target audience for this article is, but I have a feeling that it's not the technical community, but more people who have a passing interest in Unix in general or more specifically, Linux/BSD.
One thing that was somewhat annoying was the author's example of running FreeBSD on a small system, and then saying that it scaled right up to big systems like Yahoo/Walnut Creek/etc. Although he provided some good examples of large systems which run FreeBSD, it was almost as if 'Linux can handle the in-between tasks'. However, I can't think of an example of a big/famous system running Linux to use as a counter (although I'm fairly sure that some exist).
I just want to say that what you said is great. Hearing an admin actually follow practical tactics with their servers is great. Too many times you hear admins say that their systems suck because of the company. For example, my school's NT network, its shot to hell. Because I can "hack it" (basically do edit stuff I shouldn't) because our "Network Admin" (a joke term)doesn't understand what the hell he's doing. He had a hard time installing a simple typing program. Trust me if you saw this guy at work you'd cry!!
Basically I am saying that if you follow the guidelines and treat your network like a child (always nurturing/protecting/soothing it), it'll "grow up" like anything else, with some bumps and bruises but still basically very well.
Beau C
It doesn't, believe me I have looked. I hear that they are working on it right now but that they all ready consider it a lost 'cause (maybe like Netscape5).
Beau C
I WOULD have liked to see more info comparing the different flavors of xBSD, though.
"It compiles, SHIP IT!" -Overheard at Microsoft's development lab
I have to agree with that. Too often, linux advocates just say "Micro$oft fscking sucks!" It'd be nice to see an intelligent comparison. Pros/cons to each system. Learning curves. Support (public and professional).
Anyone up to it?
"It compiles, SHIP IT!" -Overheard at Microsoft's development lab
I currently run RedHat6 and Win98. I'm in both boats right now.
I try not to trash MS products. Inevitably, it happens, though.
My problem with Microsoft is its lack of stability. Even with a clean install of Windows, computers crash. Run a buggy program on it, it crashes. Restart the entire computer. Also, the fact that the system isn't reliable for long periods of time is an issue for me. Running a small web/ftp server means wanting my PC up for 24/7. Win9x can't do that. NT won't do that. Linux does.
Also, when Microsoft DOES come across a bug in their system, they say "We found this bug. We'll issue a fix for it with the next service pack..." 3 months later. In the Linux community, the story is "I found this bug. Here's what it is. Here's what it does. Here's a fix for it." In that instance, Open Source is a godsend. Bug fixes that are released WHEN the bug is announced? When do you see MS do that?
And my last point (for now) is a bit biased, but not because of a love for Linux:
Windows is too User Stupid. (flaimbait, or what?) It's been made so "user friendly" that a complete moron can sit down, use a few programs, play a few games, and turn the computer off (don't bother shutting down. Thank you for playing). I remember, in the not-so-distant past, when you had to LEARN how to use a computer. WHen you were faced with "C:\>" you needed to know what to do. I also liked having control over my system. Those cryptic dos commands meant being able to control what was happening with the system. With Windows, we're forced to use a GUI that has EVERYTHING predetermined in it. We're told what we can do and when we can do it.
Linux is different. Yes... There's a steep learning curve. Yes... it can be a pain to work with. But it also gives users control over what is happening. It forces a person to learn about a computer. It forces a person to learn how to use the computer. It forces people to read, ask questions, and search for answers. All of this, in my experience, leads people to a wealth of knowledge. How many different books can you have, with different info, for Windows 98? How many can you have for Linux? (I have 1 Win98 book and 5 Linux books).
I'm going to stop rambling.
"It compiles, SHIP IT!" -Overheard at Microsoft's development lab
I dual boot Debian linux and Windows on this box.
During the last 12 months I have reinstalled Linux 0 times, and windows about 5 times..
Have you read the halloween document.
Ok, it's not exactly a comparison but this is an analyse of OSS (for the part 1) and of Linux (for the part 2) from a Microsoft employee with sidenotes from ESR, and therefore can't be accused of pro-Linux.
it's a little bit long but worth the read (check www.opensource.org/halloween).
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
What you are saying is true to a point, but you might look at where these opinions are derived from.
I think it comes down to the MS marketing machine assulting us from all points. I take it as an insult to my intelligence that I can't make an informed choice about what is best for me. But the truth of the matter is that MS is simply a businnes that wants to maximize their profits. Killing you competition is one sure way to do that. Technology is secondary to MS, stock price is number one.
When MS has no competition then WE loose. I'm passionate about Linux because I believe in FREEDOM OF CHOICE. MS wants to take that away from me.
When I bash MS it has little to do with technical reasons(although there are some), and a lot to do personal reasons. I love computers and I don't want one company, who doesn't have my best intersts at heart, in control.
I think Linux might be better off if we were a bit more mature sometimes, but then again sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
--
Wonko the Sane
I kinda know what you mean. My first version of Linux was Slackware 3.1. It used BSD init scripts. At the time, I really didn't know much about that, but now when I have to use RH6, I *HATE* the SYSV stuff. It seems like all the major distributions are SYSV now, although Stampede looks like it'll be good and if Slackware ever gets around to upgrading to glibc2.1, I'll switch to that. Slackware is simply the best distribution I've ever used (except for *possibly* stampede which is still in beta)
I started with Linux, and then moved to FreeBSD and NetBSD. The installs aren't as seamless (you have to manually install the network in NetBSD), and the configuration tools aren't as common, but I'm real happy with my FreeBSD box (486/33 16 meg ram), which acts as a nice Print server, and stays up for weeks until my wife shuts it off accidentally.
I've only found one book about FreeBSD (which was bloated by the inclusion of 100s of manpages), and none about NetBSD, so you're in for lots of surfing and cd browsing when you need to do something.
On very marginal hardware (cyrix 386/486 thingy, 8 megs RAM with a failing simm) NetBSD stayed up longer than RedHat 6.0.
George
it's under could it be
OK, although I think that there's always merit in discussion and debate, I think we all need to take a breath and look at what the situation is here. The industry needs commonality, because we don't all have time to learn the nuances of 5 subtly different platforms. The successful vendors have been the ones to get others to follow their bandwagon, or jump on the strongest one and somehow influence it.
Although the BSD systems have many strengths and the cross-pollination that occurs is useful, keep in mind that BSD is partially responsible for the splintering of UN*X that has ultimately lead to the dominance of other platforms. At one time even Microsoft acknowledged the superiority of UNIX (remember XENIX?). No matter how good BSD is the most successful platform will be the one with the buzz, and without question Linux has got the buzz now.
Developing software is too time-consuming to repeat n times for n platforms. Instead of arguing the merits of one platform vs. another, we should all be arguing over how best to provide a common platform for software development, that allows for multiple implementations to exist transparently. Users are gaining a common user interface with efforts like GNOME and KDE, but programmers need more commonality at the API to develop these applications.
It seems to me that it's time to consider merging BSD with Linux. This would lead to even more rapid development of Linux and more of that mythical buzz. It's time for the non-UNIX to become the ONE UNIX.
I agree, it use to happen to me a lot when I used to be a Word (windoze) user. I would make a document in one word version, save it to disk then take it to a machine with a printer and whoop! A different version of word, sure it opens, but the format is crazy, ascii characters everywhere and blank lines in certain areas.
I have never seen that problem actually occur with plain ole' text files.
- "My name is Legion, for we are many" -Mark 5:9
While Linux and BSD are having "fun" competing and trying to make the technically superior product, Microsoft is left to play their game alone. Basically, they are becoming bored, fat and bloated while we stay fit and trim!
Slackware on a 386 with 6 megs of RAM made a fine and stable server, firewall, and router for me. Linux is not limited to desktop workstations!
>The code is significantly smaller and easier
>to understand
Uh. I totally disagree. Having done kernel work
on both platforms, I find Linux to be significantly easier to work with and understand. Compare the IP stacks or the drivers.
Is the author jelous of all the attention that linux is getting? Reading this article and a lot of the posts make me want to send a copy of the dragon book on OS's to the authors. It would be best to read about memory management and process control than if BSD,linux, whatever is more likely to crash a web server. Another thing is that BSD may be better in some situations and linux may be better in others. all these arguments over what's universally better are ridiculous. On another note I once ran BSDi at home, replaced it with x86solaris then with linux, which is probably the most user fiendly OS for home use However at work if anything happened to a BSDi server then you could get an 'engineer' from tech support because the OS cost $500. Linux on the other hand you would have to sift through newgroups, faqs, etc to get info that's more of a concensus than a professional answer. this argument will never end and to anyone out there that is still unsure which OS to run where, drop the faqs, howto's, and read a textbook because there are too many authorities out there using quake and apache as a benchmark then telling people what's better.
--
Blaine
Oh yea, the article was ok, i have been enlightened as to my sinful ways and will now replace linux with bsd so that unix(tm) gets the proper respect it deserves.
This is one of the best little snippets I've seen in this whole thread. See, I've been contemplating installing FreeBSD on one of my machines so that I could start studying Unix internals, kernal architecture, FS management and so forth. Every time I try to learn Unix's innards under Linux, I run into a huge tangle of hooks, and hacks.
I've enjoyed Linux as a user and as a programmer. Linus et al have gone through great pains to make the kernel a flexible, extensible framework, and these have paid off in an unbelievable level of hardware support. Unfortunately, the all-hooks model makes it frustrating to dig down further and further until I get to the True Purpose underneath it all.
Maybe I need to just go dig out my old 0.99pl13 Infomagic CD and compare that Linux's simpler monolithic kernel against the Bach book, but it seems you're suggesting that *BSDs have a sufficiently coherent internal architecture that maybe I should study them instead.
--
This is not my sandwich.
The cool thing about NT is that you CAN reinstall every month or two without problem. The reason is that with NT, most hardware is detected or their is a standard method of installing drivers. I have installed Linux atleast 7 or 8 times on different configurations, and NT is always easier. Think, with Linux, go through an automated install, then screw with pnpdump >isapnp.conf, then set up isapnp and have kerneld load the sound module at startup!!! Thats just to get sound working. Then screw around some more to get your modem. Then install Mesa, ALSA, and Libggi. Go download latest version of KDE or GNOME, compile and install those. Under NT I have a checklist of things to do and reinstalls (including apps) take less than 4 hours. An install of Linux takes at a minimum 8 to 12. Lastly, using windows I can change my host name with a few clicks, under Linux I have to figure out which text file to edit. Linux just isn't intuitive for that kind of thing.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Controlled development is a very good thing! For a core thing such as an OS anyway. Its incredible that people say that this could be a bad thing. MS software is not bloated because it is controled, it is because they don't care. Plus they have such a wide group of people working on it that bloat is unavoidable. Look at BeOS, see the incredible cleanliness and standardness of the system. Look at the 30 person dev team. Look at Linux, look at the bloat of KDE and GNOME, look at the general hodge podge of APIs and the kludge that is X. Look at all the different groups who developed it. Controlled development is a good thing for things that need efficiancy. Humans would be much more efficiant if they had been developed in a controlled environment instead of the chaos of Darwin.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
BTW. How is Solaris x86? I'm think about trying out their $10 home user thingy and installing GCC on it. anybody have that config and how would it run compared to say Linux on a PII 400 with 64MB
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
This is my first post and It's gonna be a wopper. Here goes....
Let me start by saying this. I have a Sun server 630MP (Solaris 2.51) a P2-350 (win98) a P2-266 (Suse 6.0) and some other older crap here in the old basement with me. I use them all and I run a fairly busy Linux (Suse 5.3/Apache) web server. Which resides at my office with a bunch of 98 machines and an NT Server primary domain controller behind a firewall. I feel I have a pretty open mind, and while although, I'm not an expert at with any of these Os's I get by in all of them.
Microsoft stuff crashes? Hell yes (Nt server at work uptime 70 or 80 days... last down to add a modem... just lucky I think)
Linux crashes? hell no (uptime= infinity)
Microsoft put a computer on everyone's desk? Yepper
(with a little help from Apple and Amiga among others.)
Linux put a computer on everyone's desk? Nope it wasn't even really around when the PC craze started.
Microsoft made the Internet take off? (from a home perspective) Sorta with a little help from Trumpet Winsock and Nutscape, cause Billy was sleeping.
Microsoft keeps the Internet going? Ha! Linux/Solaris/BSD and Cisco make the Internet go.
Microsoft created win95/98/Nt's explorer interface? We assume so (copied from the Mac?)
You can't look at KDE and not realize it's trying it's best to look like Windoze. right down to the K/Start button and the "settings" menu option. Course then there's Enlightment (Oooh Aahhh seriously cool stuff)
Microsoft made office? Yep and it really was pretty good.
Star office, a better interface? Nah it looks/feels nearly identical.
It's pretty easy (way beyond me however) to look at Microsft products and improve upon them. Microsoft can't just stop what they're doing/have done and say... "Ok people this dll situation is way out of control we're going to create a new OS and all the software you've bought won't work with this new OS... you're just SOL. So they're stuck.
Linux is new (ie. A better stronger faster foundation/kernel) and free! Linux developers get a kick out of rewriting their apps to work with the newest kernel in record time. And Linux developers can say hey this whole VB thing is shit and we're not gonna take it any more, and they can get away with it. Microcrap can't.. without loosing their little war immediately. They're gonna loose eventually there's no way around it.
Windoze has a registry? how stupid can they be? What was wrong with those lovely little ini files anyway?
Linux has about a billion conf files? Currently necessary but a pretty big pain for someone like me who refuses to use linuxconfig or YaST in order to seek the truth.
We gotta give them some credit for what they did and understand why they're doing what they're doing now. They're desperate. In the immortal word of Elvis.... "they're caught in a trap". ) Elvis was one of the first rock and roll singers... he can't compare to today's quality of rock and roll but he made rock and roll happen. Witnhelp from others I'm not a music expert and don't really care.
I was having a PPP dialup prob recently and I posted a question to onje of those linux newsgroups asking for help. Many posts suggested that I use KPP something or other to connect to the net. THIS IS WRONG! Didn't we learn anything from Microsoft? We can't let ourselves become so dependant on any Windowed app runnig on top of the real os. If we do someone will get greedy and stop giving away what we've become dependent upon or addicted to. It's happened before. Seek the truth always.
G
PS. Billy is the anti-Christ I have proof (Just kiddin Mr. Bill)
PPS. anybody remember an old dos app called 3DMenu? Take another look at a Windoze start button sometime.
I've posted on a previous thread about deficiences in the NetBSD scheduler/vm subsystem, but the whole thread has disappeared now - the main page shows "35 of 36 comments," even if I have set my threshhold to show -1 rated comments.
Hu?
That's normal. I catched me three or four times hitting CTRL-C to not send rants to freebsd-hackers about their limited mind sets.
People who mention this are constantly flamed at by always the same people (no, I won't name any particular names).
If it would happen only on -advocacy, I wouldn't care. But if it's on a list dedicated to _technical_ issues, it just pisses me off.
As a side note, this does apply only to some of the core team. There are exceptions - JKH comes to my mind. He seems to be more balanced than most other "hackers."
Being also on several Linux lists I haven't seen anyone trashing BSD in this form. Trashing Linux for non-reasons seems to be "cool" in BSD-land.
No rc5des, no seti@home.
:-) I'll try it the next time. I already wondered why NetBSD was trashing the disk, even as I had mounted the partition async.
...
/dev/fd /kern /proc
/dev/random and in-kernel generator
NetBSD automatically detected and used UDMA. MAXUSERS was set to 64, the highest numbers possible.
But thanks for the sysctl
For the curious, here is the config file. There are probably errors now that I've edited it under FreeBSD and didn't run it through config
include "arch/i386/conf/std.i386"
maxusers 64 # estimated number of users
options I586_CPU
options MATH_EMULATE # floating point emulation
options USER_LDT # user-settable LDT; used by WINE
options DUMMY_NOPS
options XSERVER # X server support in console drivers
options UCONSOLE # users can use TIOCCONS (for xconsole)
options INSECURE # disable kernel security levels
options RTC_OFFSET=0 # hardware clock is this many mins. west of GMT
options NTP # NTP phase/frequency locked loop
options KTRACE # system call tracing via ktrace(1)
options SYSVMSG # System V-like message queues
options SYSVSEM # System V-like semaphores
options SYSVSHM # System V-like memory sharing
options LKM # loadable kernel modules
options DIAGNOSTIC # cheap kernel consistency checks
options DDB # in-kernel debugger
options COMPAT_12 # NetBSD 1.2,
options COMPAT_13 # NetBSD 1.3,
options COMPAT_386BSD_MBRPART # recognize old partition ID
options COMPAT_SVR4 # binary compatibility with SVR4
options COMPAT_IBCS2 # binary compatibility with SCO and ISC
options COMPAT_LINUX # binary compatibility with Linux
options COMPAT_FREEBSD # binary compatibility with FreeBSD
options EXEC_ELF32 # 32-bit ELF executables (SVR4, Linux)
file-system FFS # UFS
file-system EXT2FS # second extended file system (linux)
file-system NFS # Network File System client
file-system CD9660 # ISO 9660 + Rock Ridge file system
file-system MSDOSFS # MS-DOS file system
file-system FDESC #
file-system KERNFS #
file-system NULLFS # loopback file system
file-system PROCFS #
options QUOTA # UFS quotas
options NFSSERVER # Network File System server
# immutable) behave as system flags.
options GATEWAY # packet forwarding
options INET # IP + ICMP + TCP + UDP
options ISO,TPIP # OSI
options PCIVERBOSE # verbose PCI device autoconfig messages
options WSEMUL_VT100 # VT100 / VT220 emulation
options WS_KERNEL_FG=WSCOL_GREEN
options WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_PCVT # emulate some ioctls
options WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_SYSCONS # emulate some ioctls
options WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_USL # VT handling
options WSDISPLAY_COMPAT_RAWKBD # can get raw scancodes
options PCKBD_LAYOUT="(KB_DE | KB_NODEAD)"
options WSDISPLAY_DEFAULTSCREENS=4
config netbsd root on ? type ?
mainbus0 at root
pci* at mainbus? bus ?
pci* at pchb? bus ?
pci* at ppb? bus ?
pchb* at pci? dev ? function ? # PCI-Host bridges
pcib* at pci? dev ? function ? # PCI-ISA bridges
ppb* at pci? dev ? function ? # PCI-PCI bridges
puc* at pci? dev ? function ? # PCI "universal" comm. cards
isa* at mainbus?
isa* at pcib?
isapnp0 at isa?
pcic* at isapnp?
npx0 at isa? port 0xf0 irq 13 # x86 math coprocessor
options GERMAN_KBD
pckbc0 at isa? # pc keyboard controller
pckbd* at pckbc? # PC keyboard
vga* at pci?
wsdisplay* at vga? console ?
wskbd* at pckbd? console ?
pcppi0 at isa?
sysbeep0 at pcppi?
com* at isapnp? # Modems and serial boards
com0 at isa? port 0x3f8 irq 4 # Standard PC serial ports
com1 at isa? port 0x2f8 irq 3
lpt* at puc? port ? # || ports on "universal" comm boards
lpt0 at isa? port 0x378 irq 7 # standard PC parallel ports
pciide* at pci ? dev ? function ? flags 0x0000
wdc* at isapnp?
wdc0 at isa? port 0x1f0 irq 14
wdc1 at isa? port 0x170 irq 15
wd* at wdc? channel ? drive ? flags 0x0000
wd* at pciide? channel ? drive ? flags 0x0000
atapibus* at wdc? channel ?
atapibus* at pciide? channel ?
cd* at atapibus? drive ? flags 0x0000 # ATAPI CD-ROM drives
fdc0 at isa? port 0x3f0 irq 6 drq 2 # standard PC floppy controllers
fd* at fdc? drive ? # the drives themselves
ne* at isapnp? # NE2000-compatible Ethernet
sb0 at isa? port 0x220 irq 5 drq 1 drq2 5 # SoundBlaster
opl* at sb?
audio* at sb?
midi* at sb? # SB MPU401 port
pseudo-device ccd 4 # concatenated/striped disk devices
pseudo-device md 1 # memory disk device (ramdisk)
pseudo-device bpfilter 8 # Berkeley packet filter
pseudo-device ipfilter # IP filter (firewall) and NAT
pseudo-device loop # network loopback
pseudo-device ppp 2 # Point-to-Point Protocol
pseudo-device tun 2 # network tunneling over tty
pseudo-device pty 64 # pseudo-terminals
pseudo-device sequencer 1 # MIDI sequencer
pseudo-device rnd #
options AVM_A1
isic0 at isa? port 0x340 irq 12
pseudo-device "i4b"
pseudo-device "i4btrc" 2
pseudo-device "i4bctl"
pseudo-device "i4brbch" 4
pseudo-device "i4btel" 2
options IPR_VJ # compile support for VJ compression
pseudo-device "i4bipr" 2
pseudo-device "i4bisppp" 4
Not that this would be really important ...
OpenBSD was derived from NetBSD and still shares most of NetBSD's "artifacts."
Ever tried to login and do work on that machine when the load was higher than two? Could that feeling be described with "sluggish?"
Since when has bias became an excuse for misrepresenting technical facts?
kernel panic: kassert failed
:-)
You are wrong with the assertion that each distribution is an entire new OS. They all consist of 99% the same code (I made this number up, but you get the idea). The only major difference is how they are set up (i.e. paths, SysV-ish init vs. BSD-ish).
The major difference between Linuces and BSDs is that Linux is developed by only one party (splintered in many little groups focused on one project) while the BSDs are developed by completely different parties who don't work closely together (they coexist in peace, one could say. This happens to have historical reasons, for example OpenBSD which was founded after differences in the NetBSD developer team).
Funny, in exactly this second there is a mild distribution war taking place on linux-smp. Join in, if you have some time left.
Bye you "1d107 haxor."
Nothing feels sluggish here.
Fine for you.
NetBSD has evolved since the split of OpenBSD. Do you compare Linux 1.0 to 2.2?
I didn't compare NetBSD to 4.4BSD-lite, did I.
What I dislike NetBSD for is the sluggish response time. I've tried the new NetBSD 1.4 with its new UVM system, but response-wise it looks like 1.3.
How to repeat: Start three compiling batches (you may even nice them to 5) and watch the response time (I tried console and ssh) drop off. I've never seen this behaviour on FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris, systems I work with daily. A login takes several seconds at that time.
Anyone want to give me any hints? The system in question ran on a P200/96MB RAM, self-compiled kernel (tweaked GENERIC + i4b). Otherwise, I used only stock tools.
The system ran FreeBSD 2.2.x, 3.x and several Linux versions already, so I know that better response times are possible on exactly the same hardware.
I find it a constance annoyance that the majority
:)
of people out there routinely classify "Linux" as
an operating system. For the record: Linux is a kernel.
What they should really be talking about are Linux distributions, such as Redhat, SuSE, OpenLinux, etc.
The argument is often as follows; "BSD is so fragmented, they have three (free) different offerings!".
However, when one pauses to consider the Linux distributions, one could easily wonder whether it's actually the other way around.
The number of Linux distributions far outweigh the number of BSD distributions, and the amount of difference between them is only going to increase as time goes by (userland-wise).
So I urge Slashdot readers out there (if they get down to this comment), please don't pass on the bad habit of defining "Linux" as an operating system, instead focus on identifying such platforms as Linux distributions.
I had to vent that after seeing Linux called an OS about 5 times today.
-h4r1k1r1
Sounds to me like he was saying (at the end) that good old BSD is for those HARDCORE mofos that like to do everything by hand and know the system inside and out. Well that's great if your time is not worth much. For those of us who would like to be able to do simple things like install a network card without having to rewrite the drivers or recompile anything. Then go and add the IRQ/DMAs into the config file by hand. Well us "weirdos" like systems like linux, and the weaker of us even like Win NT & 98. Cause they work and are easier. Besides, BSD has it's own faults. Just as linux does.
Dang... From the tone of that article, I'd definately say the author looks down at Linux as an OS in many respects. This sounds like something I'd write about xBSD, only because I don't have a ton of experience with BSD systems.
;-)
Linux is every bit as stable and secure as xBSD, period. At least, my Linux systems tend to be. If you're running every experimental module on your 2.3.x kernel, yes, your system might be a little flakey and could have a few memory leaks. Stick with the stable kernel, and only use the services you need (for security & performance), and a Linux machine will run for months at a time, if not longer.
And that crack about how xBSD will run on a 486 system really got me laughing... My main system at home is a 386 running Linux, and it's running just fine with Linux (Slackware, baby!).
Speaking of Slackware, isn't it partially BSD based? BSD*nix?
Oh, well. It's late, and I thought I'd post my opinion of this article.
SaDan