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BSD: "The Net's stealth operating system"
conio writes "MSNBC has an excellent article about BSD titled "The Net's stealth operating system." It gives a brief history of BSD and discusses why it's not as mainstream as Linux. It also delves into the BSDL vs. GPL holy war, and talks about how BSD will soon work its way into the workstation market. It's both accurate and well-written. "
Without GNU or GCC, some other free compiler and OS would have filled the bill. I don't believe any GPL products were/are necessary to build Minix or *BSD.
No apps? I suppose you never typed cd /usr/ports, did you?
(8-DCS)
Neither BSD nor Linux is Unix... talk to the Open Group...
---- sonoffreak
Code Warrior currently only has tech support for users of Red Hat Linux. That is only temporary until the Code Warrior guys are planning to add other distributions to the list of tech support but first need to understand the potential pitfalls of those other distributions. The Code Warrior binaries will run on any linux distribution. This point was beaten to death last time around. Weren't you listening?
Oracle binaries will also run on any Linux distribution as long as you have the required library files of the proper version numbers and in the same locations as those on Red Hat.
Linux is Linux is Linux. The Kernel is the same, the system inplementation/directories/some libraries/versions are what differ.
Much of this will change towards much easier interoperability with the adoption of the proposed standards base.
Well, technically, it can then be said that Hotmail originally ran on BSD. The fact that it was switched to NT and then back to BSD doesn't make that untrue.
Nope, Linux has much better SMP support then *BSD. In current BSD variants SMP is somewhat like that of Linux 2.0. However, there is plenty of anecdotal "evidence" that FreeBSD has a slight edge over Linux on single CPU systems.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Fuck the Open Group. They are just trying to make money. And they don't own "Unix". They own "UNIX". These aren't the same legally. Suffer.
We know the truth.
Linux is Unix!
Linux is Unix!
Linux is Unix!
Good technical merit will get you just as far in the BSD camps as it will in the Linux camp. You just sound like someone who had one of their submissions turned down...
The NetBSD/mac68k mailing list has one of the friendliest groups of people I've ever seen on the Net. Questions get answered patiently, often with pointers to references. In the last (nearly) two years, I've seen only one questioner get flamed, and that was because he was being thoroughly obnoxious about getting an answer.
Running NetBSD on an SE/30, and Linux on a G3,
-- Dirt Road
-- Dirt Road
Improvise - Adapt - Overcome (unofficial USMC motto)
It hardly matters that the kernels are the same (and they are not, of course) when the operating systems are different.
for RedHat?
Of course. If you were a software developer, would you want to support distributions X, Y, and Z that you've never even heard of? Quick: what patchlevel is glibc at in the latest release of Mandrake?
Sure, it RUNS on other linuces, as well as more mainstream ones like slackware and SuSE, but they're saving their own asses by saying "RedHat".
-Chris
Yes, NetBSD has the ports stuff, except it's called "packages." In the NetBSD camp, "ports" are the many many different architectures that NetBSD runs on -- so a different name was needed to avoid confusion.
-- Dirt Road
-- Dirt Road
Improvise - Adapt - Overcome (unofficial USMC motto)
Just because it's not untrue does not mean that it is not deceitful. And it is.
Both.
... implement a policy of total news black out concerning Linux.
Some people might be fudded but many will be interested, go to Best Buy, buy Caldera or RedHat, and then its all over for those people. They have joined the Open Source community.
The interesting statistic would be the small amount of people who go back to Windows after discovery the stability and power of Linux.
>
:-(
Ahh... the definition of intelligence.. the ability to make you *own* choices based on your own experiences.
If we all picked the OS with the largest "percentage of market", we'd all be running WinDoze now wouldn't we??
The nice thing is, if I want to try out Linux and any or all of the BSD's to evaluate them and decide which one will work the best for my application... they are all free!!
Of course, if I want to compare them to WinDoze, I'll have to fork out some money...
I have noticed similar sentiments among some of the "older" gentlemen attending meetings at our LUG. They prefer the community feel of Linux over the Elitist view of many of the die hard UNIX/BSD users/developers.
Personally, I knew one (he was one of the owners of a company that employed me) of the core developers of the NetBSD distribution. He seemed nice enough, yet carried a massive grudge over OpenBSD and FreeBSD.
He hated OpenBSD for breaking off and "not keeping" up with NetBSD's development process. He also despised FreeBSD because they concentrated on the Intel platform and that is strictly for "weenies".
I definitely felt the elitist sentiment when I worked there. The fact that I used Linux seemed to make me that much less of a person, since according to them Linux is simply an insecure system riddled with holes and containing no modular/hard-coded code. Ah well tis is life.
This may also be a reason for the popularity of Linux. Who would you rather follow? Linus and a community of young, enthusiastic hackers... Or a reserved body of elite programmers?
** On a side note. FreeBSD is detected as a typo and offers Freinds as the only correct spelling on Communicator mail. Interesting I found **
Linux != FSF. What is the goal of Linux, to write a free unix-like OS. What is the goal of BSD, to write a free unix-like OS. True both camps have chosen different methods of getting there, but in the end the goal is the same. Both strive to produce a secure, stable, and fast unix-like OS. IMHO, BSD is good for linux is good for BSD. If we'd stop worrying about whose dick is bigger and go back to writing software both camps would be happy. Although some comparison is good, ie if both are always trying to out-do each other, then we'll end up with two amazing families of OSes, which IMHO is a very good thing. I personally use linux, I've tried freebsd, i just felt more comfortable with linux, i'm sure it works the other way too. Who really cares which free OS someone is using. Atleast they aren't using NT.
-matt
OS/2 + OS/2 == OS
Native: "And what kind of football team has the devil as a mascot?"
/.'d w/o anyone accessing them.
Hey, here's a good one: the Diablo Valley Soccer Club has a 'Red Devils' team, heeee. Where I grew up in WV there's a HS w/ a 'Red Devils' mascott, Oak Hill - but their sites all seem to be
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Okay correct me if am wrong (well that goes w/o saying), but I always thought UNIX was the operating system and Unix/unix/*nix was a philosophy of taking a lot of small, useful, stable, configurable software tools and making them inter-useable (sp? or is it even a word?). Thereby empowering the user, developer, sysadmin,...
Now besides that I think that the argument is one of semantics and personal outlook. In other words people will say what they want. Linux and DOS are not even comparable, but definitions can be so subjective and tentative that it doesn't matter. Some argue that DOS is not even an OS but a collection of interrupts.
I can understand (given some of the personalities on this site) why some misunderstandings may cause as much confusion as they do, but people will derive what they want and assimilate it accordingly. Now I must stop before I digress into information theory (hhmmm..something to think about).
nothing excels in every environment
The reason why 386BSD was "splitted" into NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD is because the developers had a different view of what should go into an operating system, and what the priorities ought to be.
That is the same reason why there are different Linux distributions. People have different ideas about what should go in the operating system, and have different priorities.
btw, I thought Red Hat was distributed with a kernel using some Red Hat specific patches...
(8-DCS)
It's agnother gnu! :-)
> what patchlevel is glibc at in the latest release of Mandrake?
Why should they care. Just link statically. Have you ever downloaded Netscape Communicator? They have an executable with the motif library linked statically and another dynamically.
So the question is why do they make two tarballs, one for libc5 and one for libc6? Maybe it's a matter of space.
But in essence if you link your application statically you won't depend on what's installed on the machine, just the kernel.
My old ISP (before I got a cable modem)http://www.op.net/ used SunOS and FreeBSD. IIRC the reason why they used FreeBSD over Linux was pretty much "I like the way FreeBSD feels better." Which is the reason I use linux, to me it feels better. I'm just glad they didn't use any *doze.
-matt
BSD is purpler than Linux. Linux is well, a bit reddish.
Why? Because purple has always been the color of Free Spirits everywhere. It's also the color of royalty.
Red, on the other hand, is the color of bloody wars and communist incursions.
'Nuff said.
OK Mr. Pedantic:
Why don't you tell me who owns The Open Group?
Can you or can you not call a product UNIX without having to pay The Open Group (owned by SCO - see answer to above - who itself is 17% owned by MS) and pass their tests?
IT ROCKS, enuff said
It frigging runs on anything.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Linux's gain...BSD's loss...if it wasn't for that lawsuit we'd probably be having Linux Vs BSD wars...instead of NT vs Linux wars...
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
Elite is certainly a strange word. Why do you use it pejoratively?
> what patchlevel is glibc at in the latest release of Mandrake?
Why should they care. Just link statically. Have you ever downloaded Netscape Communicator? They have an executable with the motif library linked statically and another dynamically.
So the question is why do they make two tarballs, one for libc5 and one for libc6? Maybe it's a matter of space.
But in essence if you link your application statically you won't depend on what's installed in the machine, just the kernel.
Browse to the new MSN Homepages site and see for yourself!! They are running Apache/1.3.6 Server. Netcraft cannot figure out the server type, so maybe MSN did something to block Netcraft packets??
homepages.msn.com/unknownpage
Did Microsoft acquire the MSN Homepages from a smaller company, like they did Hotmail??
I wanted to ask the question: what did the move of putting Linux under the GPL do for attracting developers? it would be great to get the response of kernel coders on this. I would speculate that the fact that the kernel belonged to the "community" at large thanks to the GPL and could not be co-opted into another proprietary OS(tcp stacks in NT for example) played a part in assuring developers about the ownership, rightful use, and legacy of their code.
The Inscrutable Gargoyle
7) Dust Puppy!
8) Alan Cox?
--
QDMerge -- data + templates = documents.
how to invest, a novice's guide
Wow, now here is a credible argument for you..
Bill Gates says Linux is Unix
so it must be Unix
Bill Gates says NT doesn't crash
so it must not crash
Bill Gates says use windows
so we must all windows
Since when is Bill Gates an authority on Linux.
You have been assimilated.
That and who can't love the cute little Daemon logo? (:
Every few weeks I go into Best Buy or Comp USA or Circuit City or whatever and ask them what they have that runs or is for running on Linux or BSD or any other Unix system. Sometimes I just phone them. It's a lot of fun.
Hopefully not related to Microsoft Bob :)
Has there ever been a real rest to compare BSD servers to Linux/NT
OpenBSD rules, mainly because it's the first UNIX flavor to detach itself from DES, which is a sucky cipher system.
Blowfish all the way, baby!!!
"Code free or die!"
You forgot the all important bitmap of Bob (still available at a few places in Slackware).
All Hail Bob.
at my job, we have decided to move our rh5.1 webserver over to openBSD...simply because of what we have seen. The rh5.1 system is flawless, but sometimes chokes up under heavy loads...personally i love linux, but i think this was a good move for the company.
Browse to the new MSN Homepages site and see for yourself!! They are running Apache/1.3.6 Server. Netcraft cannot figure out the server type, so maybe MSN did something to block Netcraft packets??
homepages.msn.com/unknownpage
Did Microsoft acquire the MSN Homepages from a smaller company, like they did Hotmail??
Now, before you break out the flamethrowers, let me make clear that this does NOT, in my eyes, mean that one OS is better than the other. That's a silly argument to begin with under any conditions. Linux and *BSD each serve different niches that just happen to have some overlap. Use what works best for you, and Be Happy.
You're right -- at least about NetBSD/OpenBSD.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The difference is that it is actually possible (and easy) to emulate Linux.
Emulating Windows is a lost cause and now IBM knows better...
Of course Linux is Unix. We all know that.
The GPL is perfectly fine for creating GnuFree software. For free software, you'll need something better.
Its all about MARKETING.
/. or UseNet.
/. for Linux is like Mac Soilders is for macs. Here, talking about Linux is preaching to the choir. Just the the Mac sites are preaching to the choir. So getting your 'linux news' from /., freshmeat, *linux*.[com/net/org] is all a mutal mastrubation society.
Linux has a group of self-promoted promoters. And some paid ones even. The '31 flavors' of Linux (red hat debian etc la) all have paid marketers. BSD doesn't have the 'distribution of the day' promoting itself.
They are out there MARKETING GNU/Linux.
Example. Nick Pertley over at InfoWorld. Any time he can MENTION Linux, he does.
Some are not so good at it. Like Joe Barr, who's foot in mouth was featured on mindcraft's 'road rage' link. (I picked Nick/Barr becuse they are 'public figures' who have dead-tree exposure)
And even here....you have a RABID group of 'linux weenies' grasping for any reason that "linux is better than ". Look at the threads. 'What about forking' (31 versions of linux isn't forking how?) 'the GPL is about freedom' (BSDL is about freedom to do what you want with the code) 'Linux is about speed of change' (BSDL is about stability and control) BLAH BLAH BLAH. Each side has a point, and if some of you wheenies (on BOTH SIDES wore a hat, no one would see your point)
The BSD camp doesn't seem to have the same crowd of PUBLIC rabidness. Yet, I know of 4 different people in my personal circle who are JUST as hyped on BSD as Nick/Barr on Linux. They just don't bother with posts in public forums like
You also must remember that
*IF* the goal is 'linux everywhere' and 'OpenSource OSes' then the Linux camp can do EVERYONE a favor. When you ask for a Linux 'port', ask the vendor to make sure it runs with:
SCO
Solaris X86
*BSD
Linux emulation mode. By doing that, you are as sure as you are going to get that their Linux application will run with whatever of the 31 flavors of Linux you are running.
A rising tide floats all boats.....
Oh, and don't be supprised if you see someone create a Linux emulation mode for Mac OS X and at some point for NT. Its all about the money.
Shut up your face about UNIX. Nobody said that but you. Linux is Unix. BSD is Unix. DOS is not Unix.
Fuck the lawyers. Speak like a human, you idiot.
Not everyone is immoral enough to give people they haven't even met an incurable virus. That's why the GPV will always suck.
I've had nothing but good experiences getting help from the FreeBSD lists. Most recently I needed some help getting my USB equipment up and running. Nick Hibma (the FreeBSD USB guy) was very kind and very responsive and got me up and going in a day. In the past I've gotten responses from David Greenman, Soren Schmidt, Joerg Wunsch and John Dyson. All were polite and courteous and willing to help me get things right. None of them were derogatory, nor did they act elitist or snobbish when it turned out that the problem was just normal stupidity on my part.
SW
Unix is terrible .. the problem is that there is nothing really outhere to replace this .. :-)
So we are stuck
Yes! Thank for saying it.
In addition, many *nix users are hobbyists, not admins. I use linux at home because I get to play with more software and there is an active, friendly, helpful and cooperative user base. If I were trying to set up secure server that handled heavy traffic, sure I'd use BSD. Its proven! You just can't beat that! Its A-O-K! Linux is still great!
There isn't a single path to success, innovation, and improvement.
Jeez, I'd kill for either one right now, as I'm stuck on NT at work...
-crb
I suppose I'm not too threatening, presently, but wait till I start Nautilus
For a lot of the cross platform apps, it's simply a matter of:
unpack the source tarball
change to the source directory
./configure
make
I primarily use NetBSD, which is supposedly the most obscure of the three free BSD's. Just about anything I want to do is available for it. Except I haven't found a CDDA2WAV or CDParanoia app that works with IDE.
Linux - or, to be pedantic, "a GNU/Linux system", although a pile of the userland stuff in such a system doesn't come from GNU - is a UNIX-compatible operating system that's free software.
As far as I'm concerned, that's enough for me to call it a "free UNIX".
Besides, the BSDs have some GNU userland code as well. Hell, I think some commercial UNIXes have some GNU userland code....
They use racks of FreeBSD frontends to Sun e4500
machines.
There's a similar emulator from SCO called Merge, I haven't tried it, but see if you can run the SCO x86 binaries under iBCS, I'd be curious as to the results.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
You're not being pedantic by calling it GNU/Linux.
You're being sycophantic. These are not the same.
You're also being insulting to a lot of people.
I do not believe the GPL has anything at all to do with the rise of Linux. It has everything to do with Linus being at the right place, at the right time, with the right OS. Think back to 1991. MS-DOG was king, and the OS hobbyists were playing with Minix (a cute lil' free OS by Andy Tanenbaum). Minix was an okay cross-platform Unix-like OS. Linus wanted a great 80386 Unix. (Sigh. Nostalgia. Anyone else remember the Minix-Linux flame wars? The biggest criticisms of Linux were the monolithic kernel, its x86 platform dependency, and its lack of basic utility programs.) At the time, there was no really good free Unix for IA32. (I think at the time, Minix was really an 8086 OS -- can someone confirm that?) Linus produced the first good free IA32 Unix, and the rest (up to today) is history. I'd say Linux stole the show early on and has never had a serious competitor in its home field, x86 free Unix.
"You have never read the GPL, have you?"
Nice argument there, tiger. Let's focus on the issue here
Situation 1:
You write some nifty app under the BSD license. Company X comes along, takes your beginning and pushes it to the next level. It becomes a *great* app. They give you credit. Great.
Oh, but wait. They don't release their code and they sell me just a binary. Now I can't make improvements in this product. Yes, I can go back to your beginning and reinvent the wheel, but that isn't so great of an alternative.
Situation 2:
You write some nifty app under the GPL license. Company X comes along, takes your beginning and pushes it to the next level. It becomes a *great* app. And I have the source to it. Now I can come along and make improvements to it without having to reinvent the wheel. Great!
BSD'ed software *can* be free, but doesn't have to be. GPL'ed software *must* be free.
Also, if I author a GPL'ed app, I can also release a version under a different license only to people I choose. If Company X would really like to make changes to my app and I decide not to get upset about their changes not being free, I can give them permission to do so. Think about that next time you license an app under BSD.
The article says BSD stands for Berkeley Software Design. I've see other things that say it stands for Berkeley Standard Distribution. Is it the former, latter, or neither?
No, acually NetGate uses BSDi machines:
u1{narf} % uname -a
BSD/OS u1.netgate.net 3.1 BSDI BSD/OS 3.1 Kernel #0: Tue Jul 14 19:33:36 PDT 1998 brooks@u1.netgate.net:/usr/src/sys/compile/U1 i386
u1{narf} %
shhhh... I can almost hear the black helicopters coming.
Something to add to what you just said:
Boring=Stable
NewKernelEveryWeek=Unstable
Someone can sell me a binary only package under the BSD lincense, and give me no access to the source. I no longer have the right to change it and make improvements.
Linux is popular because it is *free*. I don't want my code used by some company, thanks.
Not to mention an NHL team from New Jersey, a basketball team from a university in Durham, NC, and a popular line of vacuum cleaners. Gotta love them rednecks.
But then, this happened pre-Dallas Stars' cup victory.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
Heh thats pretty weird, cause' I'm writing this message in X e + gnome on FreeBSD right now. I also have Civ: Call to power opened behind this window and really haven't run into many apps that I can't compile on FreeBSD (or use linux binaries). If I do have problems I usually go look in the ports collection instead. There, all you type is make install and it downloads the program, untars, automakes, and installs. It also keeps the package info so you can make deinstall or check what was installed by looking in /var/db/pkg. The ONLY thing I am missing on FreeBSD is vmware. Unfortunately FreeBSD can't emulate linux kernel modules, so I can't use vmware. Also, the SMP support is admittedly pretty ugly (even on BSDi 4.01), but we use solaris over here with 6 processor boxes if we want SMP. I haven't found linux SMP much better than FreeBSD 4.0 though.. they both need a lot of work.
My god. Is this the real Guy Harris out of days of yore? What are you doing slumming on slashdot!? :-)
It seems a bit disingenuous to criticize the behavior of the BSD folks, when the Linux crowd, especially many of the regulars at our /., are getting a very deserved reputation, as being bomb-throwing, foaming at the mouth, OS-bigoted, extremeists.
/. users were mentioned as doing something other than flame-mailing someone, just because that person didn't swear that Linux was the most important incention of the last several millenia.
" Do you doubt that this has all the makings of a good old-fashioned computer science religious war? Ask Peters, who wrote an article for online magazine daemonnews.org earlier this month. His even-tempered prose spurred a thread 600 messages long on geek news site Slashdot.org. "
I suppose that on the plus side, for once
I'm starting to get the same feeelings about this site, as I do about living in San Francisco. I love the location. And what it has to offer. But I'm starting to really hate the local population. Extremeism is not a healthy situation. No matter how cool the thing that you hold an extreme opinion may seem.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
SCO owns the AT&T source code, but the trademark is owned by The Open Group (I think)
There are a number of reasons why Linux is more popular. I don't have any experience/exposure to Net/Open so I will write based on my FreeBSD experience. A few of the reasons are:
-- Either by choice or by luck FreeBSD was originally seen as a Server OS. Most attention was on making fast and efficient. It was not until relatively recent that any meaninful attempts were made to make it easier to use.
The result of that was that people using it were more concerned with performance than usability. This further pushed the developers in favor of performance over usability since this was what the user base demanded and their reason to use FreeBSD.
-- Because there is a "core" team that either implements new code or reviews it before it makes it to the OS there have not been emphasis on making it easy to contribute code/man pages/documentation.
This is becoming easier and there are "projects" that make contributing easier (i.e. the documentation project), but FreeBSD still has a long way to go in terms of facilitating the work of volunteers.
Many people have been discouraged from trying to help, out of fustration on the hurdless they needed to overcome in order to help. These hurldess were(are?) mostly lack of documentation on how to contribute and lack of tools.
The perfect example is the FreeBSD "Handbook".. the official online manual for FreeBSD. This Handbook is done with SGML and for someone to help with it the would first need to figure out/install the tools and then deal with SGML. Last time I tried to help with documentation there was barely enough info on what tools to get and even less in terms of SGML documentation.
-- Marketting. Walnut Creek, Freebsd Inc, BSDI.. have done limited marketting in traditional media. BSDI probably are the ones that have done the most, yet most people don't even know who they are.
>Is it just me or does this seem amazingly hypocritical?
I think it goes back to the hunter/gatherer era, where people had to band together to hunt/gather (amazingly enough) enough food to survive. If a person wasn't helping your "group" it was competing (for resources) against yours. Therefore, in essence, the other groups were your "enemies." IMO, it just isn't so anymore. But some people still believe it is. Kinda like how some people still use racial slurs--until you consciously accept the fact that it isn't all/nothing, you won't be able to see past it.
.AsmodeusB
My ISP uses FreeBSD. In fact, they have been
for years!
http://www.mcs.net
Rich
cjs
The world's most portable OS: http://www.netbsd.org.
While reading the story, I couldn't get the image of Slim Pickens out of my mind!
Anyway, I'm from Texas and you only meet folks like this in Country and Western bars and steak restaurants. YeeHaw!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
(erm, OK)
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
I think it's primarily based on my writing style. Recalling a quote that I once heard, it stated that one could use even the most flowery words and come out with a very insulting message.
Unfortunately, my use of third person perspective (for the most part) and passive writing probably hinder things.
Elite however, is a word that applies to the core developer that I know. He knew his stuff, designed the software for some kind of board to be used on a PC et cetera. He knew his stuff, no doubt about it.
SCO owns the company that owns the UNIX name. AT&T sold it to Novell, and Novell sold it to SCO as part of the UNIXWARE selloff. If you want to call your product "UNIX" then you have to pay and pass the UNIX branding tests.
About 15 years ago I remember hearing that about a chuch led campaign in Dumas, Texas to change the name of the High School Mascot. They are the Dumas Demons, and the Fundamentalists lost that battle.
I believe that redneck religious freaks are on decline in my home state of Texas, and that's a good thing.
I needed a good flame war to cure my ADD at work and get my attention back.
Over the years, the UNIX/Unix/Free *nix community have been doing a great job at "sewing (sic) confusion in the minds of the public and IT management" all by themselves. They've never needed Microsoft's help before - why start now?
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
This is definitely true. I asked my brother-in-law about this, as he sells sun machines. It turns out that m$ still buys them from his company...
Most of Hotmail runs on Solaris. I know. I work there.
Dos, don't you mean WinTel?
I would speculate that the fact that the kernel belonged to the "community" at large thanks to the GPL and could not be co-opted into another proprietary OS(tcp stacks in NT for example
:-P
Why would NT want Linux's TCP/IP stack, of all things?
As with all good things, it's quite likely that one day the source for Linux and the source for the various BSD's will be essentially the same. There're usually a couple of good ways to do something, but one is almost always the best. And given another few years of development, the various systems will be (hopefully) using the best ways to accomplish all the needed OS tasks. Granted, I don't expect any of them to just fade away and die off, but I expect that the only real user level difference between any of these OS's will be the messages printed at boot and login. Performance and such should essentially be the same. Thoughts?
-Mike
Not *all* from Texas are like that ;)
Yeah, I tend to agree. Is FreeBDS better? Sure. Would I like to work with it where I would ever need help from anyone else? No. Hell no. I have been working with UNIX for a long time. Sometimes problems stump me. If I have a day or so, I will track them down. I will submit bug reports. Sometimes the workarounds get incorporated wholecloth into source. But if I am on a short schedule or a problem is holding up production, I can post a question and I will get answers back before I get back from lunch (I do not and will not eat at my desk -- I always leave the data center for lunch, even if I am eating a coild tamale on the hood of my car in the garage during a hurricaine -- it keeps me sane). I will get obnoxious flames from the BSD groups. I will never forget getting a response back from Alan Cox in less than 20 minutes. You can't beat that with a stick. The responses from the BSD weenies seem to suggest that the only people who run and support the XBSDxs are old and very short on both Geritol and Metamusil.
It is a pity because BSD is better. But I am too old for the crap that comes with it.
What about the El Paso diablos? El Paso is in Texas.
But now the point: BSD is boring. I actually try to work (to some extend
much more "innovative", got the straight target "world domination" instead of "high uptimes".
Beside of that both are very equal - it`s yet another *nix-lookalike. *nix is a tool, like toiletpaper. You use it, but you don`t arguee about it.
Well, welcome to the real world (TM), kiddo. The world where people use computers, not play with them. The world where people use toilet paper, as boring as it is, because it is still necessary to keep one's ass clean.
But you may still prefer the pink one with funny penguins on it
Sorry, kiddo, I do not want the pink one. For some reason, I never fell for cheap toys McDonalds gives away with their "happy meals".
Heh. Yep. Smug bastards the lot of us.
Still. The day i see a BSDUG is the day that.. well, it'll be a weird day.
One interesting thing i've found about the BSD 'market'... it may not have the market share, but with cdrom.com, yahoo.com, and other high-profile high-traffic sites, it's got one hell of a resume
Another damned comic
+++ NO CARRIER
Please contact me with REHAT IPO affinity program with ETrade Securities.
Thanks
James
sorry
> err..umm..how do you *uninstall* a tarball ?
With rm(1). man rm
> Most tarballs scatter bits of stuff all over the drive anyway.
Mope. He is talking about *sources". A tarball extracts everything into a single directory.
> While on linux you can do : rpm -U xyz...
Yeah. Cool. No, not really.
If you've installed it from within the package source tree (or used a binary package) you can use pkgdelete to deinstall software on a BSD system.
Talking about packages: They're fine for stuff like perl or X11 apps. But for serious server stuff (apache, squid, samba, nntp) you just *have* to use the raw sources. Believe me!
Most of Hotmail runs on Solaris. I know. I work there.
Heh. Sounds like a job for lex or sed...
Unfortunately doing this literally would probably lose a lot in translation, and doing it any other way would be difficult. Maybe one day, 40 years later, when the Cyc project is considered an 'applet' or something, we'll have smart text-filters...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It's the pro-freedom crowd vs. the ego stroking crowd, by the way.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
at least yu didn't call him a "l33T HaX0r"
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
- open source = source code
- manpage = documentation
- Enterprise = that spaceship from Star Trek
- binary edit = patch
- physical disk = hard drive
- box = computer
- mount point = hard drive
- file = binary file
- open source = shareware
- binaries = programs
- alpha = beta
- CGI scripts = CGIs
- partition = drive letter
- off the net = offline
- obvious = subtle
- MS-ASCII = text
- alpha = new technology
- computer secretary = admin
- logical disk = hard drive
- Evil One = Bill Gates
- program = script
- criminal = hacker
- bug fix = upgrade
- commonplace = ubiquitous
- programmer = software engineer
- floppy disk = disk
- luser = surfer
- network = web
- hide = protect
- computer scientist = mathematician
- net = web
- daemon = server
- legal extortion = per-seat licensing
- diskette = disk
- hacker = coder
- physical disk = drive letter
- secretary = HTML programmer
- sysadmin = sysop
- cracker = hacker
- IRC client = IRC browser
- computer = server
- memory = RAM
- logical disk = drive letter
- programmer = scripter
- mail messages = e-mails
- flexible = difficult
- beggarware = shareware
- paid bug fixes = updates
- disk drive = hard drive
- Internet Exploder = Internet Explorer
- eye trash = banner ads
- shell command = system call
- couldn't care less = could care less
- drive = hard drive
- greatest common factor = least common denominator
- Unix = UNIX
- Microsoft's mistakes = virii
- copy = upload
- competence = elitism
- monolithic program = application
- programming = scripting
- computer scientist = engineer
- fleeceware = software
- lying = marketing
- file system = hard drive
- controller = hard drive
- PC = home computer
- coredump = blue screen
- offline = away from the computer
- millennium = millenium
- partition = hard drive
- beginner = newbie
- business = enterprise
- competent = elite
- bloatware = apps
- fleeceware = commercial software
- function = command
- configurable = confusing
- Mordor = Redmond
- mail = e-mail
- challenging = impossible
- kernel = kernal
- disk controller = hard drive
- mails = sends e-mails
- executables = programs
- binaries = shareware
- crippleware = shareware
- buggy = beta
- mark-up language = programming language
- system call = command
- internal network = Intranet
- beta = production
- open source = freeware
- system call = operating system function
- copy = download
- fix = hire a consultant for
- luser = user
- disk space = memory
- code = software
- MS-HTML = HTML
- netiquette = useless manners
- newsreader = news browser
- IRC channel = chat room
- disk = hard drive
- Evil Empire = Microsoft
- GUI annoyance = wizard
- operating system = kernel
- kernel = operating system
- newsgroup = chat room
- editor = text editor
- bloatware = application
- patch = source edit
- file = text file
- file system = drive letter
- expert-hostile = user-friendly
- login = shell account
- mount point = drive letter
- connect to http://www.foo.com/ = logon to foo.com
- access the web = surf the net
Your job now is to write a program than converts from one lingo to the other, or vice versa.Sheesh, Microsoft Bob is as pink as they come!
Solaris 2.3 was slow, maybe even 2.4.
Solaris 7 is wicked fast.
I missed BSD when Sun first dropped it, but i don't miss it anymore!
err..umm..how do you *uninstall* a tarball ? Most tarballs scatter bits of stuff all over the drive anyway. While on linux you can do : rpm -U xyz...
The Open Group owns the UNIX name and you pay the Open Group, not SCO. The Open Group also administers the tests.
Do your homework before posting.
...I keep my threshold at -1 and ignore moderators comments. Why bother?
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
FreeBSD already runs most linux applications, except vmware, without a problem, and still companies port software for FreeBSD, including realplayer and Netscape. OS/2 was not helped by it's lack of apps, but it failed to gain use for other reasons as well. OS/2 was direct competition with NT (Old versions)and couldn't compete with the user base/support/already made apps for NT. Also OS/2's place amongst Geeks was removed by Linux and FreeBSD which are both superior to OS/2. Plus IBM didn't market or support OS/2 very well. Plus the author of the article (IMHO) is not trying to say that FreeBSD is vastly superior to Linux, but that it has it's place in the world, and that it soon may get a surge of new users.
Brian
P.S. It's the end of the day, and after working all day i'm too lazy to check for spelling/grammer mistakes
The following sentence is TRUE. The previous sentence is FALSE.
According to the applicable section of the A HREF="NetBSD FAQ, you should be using cdd for that.
Well, my school, Duke University, is the Blue Devils.
But the nickname comes from the French Army (no Jokes please!).
As you seem to have just now observed, on slashdot, you aren't allowed to speak ill of Linux, the FSF, the GPL, or emacs, or you'll get marked down. Likewise, if you speak well of BSD, Apple, Visual Basic, Microsoft, open source, or money, or you'll get marked down. There's a definite problem with the moderation system, but I haven't heard any suggestions for fixing it.
But they only own UNIX not Unix. So we win.
And here's a better one: Manchester United
</flame>
Among other things mentioned about this articel that were simply wrong I was kinda annoyed by the statment that teh *BSD's will SOON have support for linux binaries. I cant speek for teh other BDSs but FreeBSD has good linux emulation now and can run StarOffice NOW. Infact the BSD group for some time has told vendors to port to linux because that way they will get the FreeBSD users as well as the Linux.
Also teh statment that Linux has a userbase 10 times larger than *BSD is untrue. FreeBSD alone has a user base of about a third teh size of linux if I rember correctly. 4-6 million I think is teh figure I heard at USENIX.
Another intresting point I heard at usenix was that if you graph the number of users for Linux and FreeBSD you will see they are on teh exact same growth curv with Linux 2 years ahead of FreeBSD.
Scott
No ISPs use FreeBSD? I beg to differ. The ISP that I work for (I'm a member of the Network Abuse Triumverate for FlashNet communications) runs a mixture of FreeBSD and Solaris. In fact, my department has its own 'BSD server (support.flash.net) with an uptime of *ssh's in to check* 39 days now, and this is after a power outage. We had it running for three months before the crash. Unfortunatly, we have yet to be allocated a UPS for the machine.
I'd have thought they still had TENEX and Multics machines on the ARPANET then. Multics, at least, wasn't, I think, as lively as it was in the '70's, so maybe they had them, but its networking stuff wasn't cutting-edge. Perhaps the same was true of TENEX/TOPS-20. (When did Digital shoot the 10's/20's in the head?)
( Tom Van Vleck's Multics Web site claims that TCP/IP was introduced in the late '70's, but, given that RFC 791 says "September 1981" on the cover, he's off by a bit, I think.)
I'd heard that BBN had a stack for BSD before the 4.1aBSD stack, and that the BSD stack was derived from it, with a lot of changes by Bill Joy; I don't know if that's the case, though.
(I also vaguely remember hearing of older stacks for UNIX, but those may have been NCP stacks.)
(Gee, I wonder if your appearance here will further surprise the guy who was surprised to see me show up on Slashdot; this article seems to have brought out the old folks, for some reason. :-))
'Nuff said.
:-).
I need Applix Office (or StarOffice if I have to, but I'd prefer not). WordPerfect would also be nice, but not critical.
Looking at the Linux emulation stuff it looks like I can get it to run, but trying to 'brand' all the individual little ELF binaries as 'Linux' did not make it work, so I gave up and switched back to Linux. I did make sure that the emulation worked by running a few little Linux binaries (running the Linux version of 'gnu tar' then feeding it through the FreeBSD version of 'gnu tar' was a blast
I think the guy had a valid point -- while FreeBSD may run many Linux binaries, it is by no means as easy to do for non-trivial programs as some people like to say. ("non-trivial" == "has more than one object module").
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
pkg_delete name
or
cd /usr/ports/appname; make deinstall
The ports system is very useful.
I often stumble accross new software by examining my CVS updated ports tree.
Just type make and it pulls the tarball from the net and builds it. Works like a dream.
There do exist easy-to-find MP3 players in FreeBSD. Try 'splay'. Or 'freeamp' if you wish. Or even 'x11amp' if you don't care about that stupid license (its template is in /usr/ports).
Web browser: what's the beef? I installed KDE off the FreeBSD CD-ROM by using pkg_add (gosh, how horrible can that be!), then used its built-in web browser to download the FreeBSD version of Netscape off of ftp.netscape.com. What, you don't like Netscape? Tough, that's all you get on Linux too.
The only real problem I had with FreeBSD was that I could not get a commercial-quality office suite working. That's the only reason I switched back to Linux. Otherwise, it's fast, it's stable (more stable than Linux in fact -- the memory leak in the Netscape text input widget occasionally locks up my Linux machine, but all it did on FreeBSD was make Netscape core-dump once it reached the limits of virtual memory), and reasonably well laid out (though I prefer the way OpenBSD is laid out, to tell you the truth -- FreeBSD is trying to get too fancy nowdays).
Of course, there WERE some problems... I had to pull out the sound card I had in it (an Ensonique AudioPCI) and replace it with an old SoundBlaster pulled out my junk box in order to get sound support... but if I hadn't had four years of accumulated Applix files that I did not want to succumb to bit-rot(*), I would probably still be running FreeBSD.
-E
*bit-rot: what happens when a file can no longer be usably read, executed, or altered. Generally happens when the OS that the file was created for no longer will run on obtainable hardware, or when the applications software that it was created with will no longer run due to OS upgrades or etc.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
"and easier to configure than I expected"
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/ are executed at startup. Just how many files are there again in the Linux Init?
"When *BSD is as easy to use, configure, and setup for my own personal needs and wants"
You contradict yourself. As it is, I find FreeBSD far easier to configure than Linux, for two reasons.
1) I find the BSD style Init process to be less complicated than SysV. There is one master rc script that is configured via one single config file. Local programs can be run via a single rc.local, and scripts placed in
2) FreeBSD is an entire system, not just a kernel and a hodge-podge collection of packages the distributor includes with it. The entire OS can be rebuilt with 2 commands.
This doesn't mean FreeBSD is better (it is better in other ways for other reasons.) I'm just reacting to your totally baseless claims.
"no apps!"
StarOffice and WordPerfect run just fine under Linux emulation.
The problem is that far too many Linux users think that Unix software is only for Linux. It doesn't occur to them that source code is *supposed* to be portable. Linux software developers are as guilty as this as anyone...they present their software as being for Linux, even if it compiles on BSD without modification!
Many "Linux" programs compile cleanly on FreeBSD. The ones that don't only require a few changes. That's what the ports system is for..someone's already made the changes for you.
Not only does the Linux Netscape run under emulation, but there's a native FreeBSD version as well, and has been at least since 2.2.2.
The xmms (formerly x11amp) homepage says It works on most unix systems with sound, preferable OSS but on i386 systems any sounddrivers that is OSS compatible should work without any problems.
Of course..then they go and ruin it all by saying This player has most of the features as the original winamp from Windows 95/98/NT but it will of course feature some specials only available for the linux version.
This proves my point above about Linux software. People are being misled (though unintentionally) by the very people who write their precious software!
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
You should be careful. That kind of talk can incite the natives.
"elite" has become an insult lately. I suggest "31337" as a replacement. *grin*
I know that many companies use BSD to run secure servers and I know that BSD is more stable and secure than Linux, because it has been around for more years and is maintained by die hard server people. My question is, What is the performance difference between the two OSs? I have a feeling that BSD has superior SMP support, bu I do not know why exactly. Anyone have any input from experience?
- Kill Yourself, spare us all! -
The most striking feature of the BSD landscape is its barren application terrain. Linux is just the opposite. There are hundreds of new and exciting applications that are rooted in the Linux community. Linux is the home to the likes of KDE, Gnome, Wine, Gimp, Samba, and GGI. Linux has spawned hundreds of productivity applications for audio, finance, entertainment and so on. But BSD has contributed next to nothing. Since the end of the CSRG very little imaginative software has come out of the FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD camps. For all the talk, not much new code has come from the BSD users. This is the real root of why Linux is a success, while BSD is not. In short, Linux has addressed the needs of its users.
... I don't think so.
K, so internal flamewars are not nice. BSD and Linux are both great OSs. NT is not. Let's take a look at where the bias sits on this article though.
The big deal here is all about the licenses BSD vs. GPL. The BSD license does not protect open source.
The article, and the accompanying poll suggest that creativity is stifled by the GPL. Let's take a look it this statement... It relies on the statement that creativity can only be spawned by monetary profit. It also relies on the statement that monetary profit can only be spawned by proprietary software. The conclusion that they draw, then, is that Linux allows no proprietary kernel modifications, thus no profit, thus no creativity. This line of reasoning has been shown to be false - in fact, both of the precepts have been shown to be false. In fact the level of creativity and innovation in non-proprietary software is higher than or the same of that in proprietary software. Why, then, would we allow somebody to proprietarize and close development on the kernel, when proprietarization improves nothing and causes problems (like kernel fork, slow bug-fixes, etc.)?
So where is the bias? Can GPL'd software fit into Microsoft's business model and have modifications closed and proprietarized? No. Can BSD software fit into Microsoft's model and be proprietarized? Yes.
So if you buy into the BSD license, think about that quote from Ben Franklin that fortune gives us all the time. If you buy into the BSD license, you are sacrificing liberty for the sake of short term stability. Please, help us to innovate on a truly perennial open source system.
I suggest you check your dictionary. They are two different words. People who are the true "elite", i.e., those who are the best or most skilled at what they do, generally do not engage in "elitism".
"elitism" means (to quote the American Heritage Dictionary): "Belief in rule or domination by an elite".
Frankly, I would prefer not to be ruled by a self-proclaimed "elite". Frankly, that reeks of www.stormfront.org, where you can read the rantings of these self-proclaimed "elites" who want to rule our nation. Ick.
-- E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/bentson.html
Yeah, those Linux developers are just a bunch of college sophomores. Sure. College sophomores with PhD's and 10 years's experience.
'Nuff said.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
"The whole Article is biased towards M$."
/. having a link to a MS owned and operated site. How dare Hemos even admit that MS might have some affiliation with something worth doing. I suppose that we should all flame Hemos for corrupting our browsers with an MS owned http. Flush your cache, and get over it already. You're not gonna burn in hell, for reading an MS site. You're really not.
Apparently the link to the article was broken at some point, and connected Pit boy to some other article entirely.
"I wonder: Hell, why does an M$NBC Article show up on slashdot anyway?"
Ummm, because it's about something that is relevant to computers, and Open Source issues. Seems obvious enough.
"There isn't even information in this article - it's redundant ! I leared this much about GPL vs BSD licenses just by listening comp.os.freebsd.misc for 2 days !"
I'd say that at least 95% of the material on the web is "redundant". Just because the information is available in the darkest bowels of the net, if you know where to look, doesn't mean that taking it, and compiling it in a reasonable readable format is a waste of time. Prior to reading this, I had no idea about BSD, and AT&T, et al.
"I thinks slashdot is getting worse."
I have to assume, that the only reason for this comment, is the above comments about
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Well people often point out that one of BSD's problems is its fragmentation but the different BSDs are probably closer from a layout and design perspective than most Linux distributions.
I can just feel a flamewar coming on.
Flames can sometimes be useful. Most flamewars however, aren't constructive. They tend to be destructive, that's why they're named after a "destructive force."
And in this instance a flamewar would be pretty stupid. This isn't a case of who's better. The BSD's cover different areas, as does Linux. Is there a point to fighting? Its like saying, "My boat is faster than your car" or "My orange is sweeter than your apple."
The OSes in question are very powerful. What they do well they excell in. Its not like we're comparing Solaris (yay) to NT (boo!).
Before jumping into the BSD/GPL debate, think about it. We're all on the same side! We like solid OSes. We can have a few beers and start scoffing at the NT folk together.
Together. That is a word that both the BSD and Linux worlds should be using more often. Or at least we can hope.
DOS might not be Unix, but Unix can be DOS. Let me explain, DOS stands for "Disk Operating System" since many Unices operate disks, they are DOS. Any questions?
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
1.Yes, Debian will have soon (we hope), a FreeBSD Debian. There was also some projects for a Debian GNU/Win32 but I don't think it will ever be a full stand-alone distribution ;).
Say, that's news! Tell me more. (Tell Rob, too.)
I that this open_unix vs. open_unix stuff is absolute bullshit.
OS developers & contributers - work together.
Users - choose what's right for you.
Debating over which is better and which is more popular is a complete waste of time. Lets all cooperate and off the 50 billion pound Gorrila in Redmond.
Because LMBench puts it faster than any other Unix stack.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
The artical says that the difference, as if it really means anything, is that BSD developers have degrees and 10 years of experience and are managers in their work, while Linux hackers are all unwashed masses without degrees (loosely interpreted). It said it as if that implies a certain quality of the code that won't be found in Linux.
You misunderstood this part of the article. They were explaining why Linux development has been faster and more successful in those years than BSD. The average BSD developer has less time to spend hacking than your average Linux user.
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
If you are the same AC who responds to all the messages in this thread, WHAT IS YOUR POINT?
/. communitiy is pretty much ignoring those attempts and saying "both BSD and Linux are fine" you (and some others) just can't resist poking at Linux again. This could be an opportunity for Linux/BSD users to create more solidarity, but you seem to be trying to create a deeper split and cause more infighting. It's sad, in my opinion.
Even if all the distributions are too different, what do you want Linux users to do? Bow down before your feet and yell "We're so sorry! We were wrong to not pray at the altar of BSD! We will burn our filthy Linux CD's and stuffed Tux penguins and convert to 100% BSD! WE LOVE BSD FOREVER!!!"? It's the same question I would pose to NT advocates who claim that Linux is just a toy. What would you have us do? DO you want all Linux users and developers to just give up and use BSD?
I haven't been reading too many flames against BSD, so I wonder why I'm seeing so many AC's (or just a few writing a lot of messages) who feel they must bash Linux. It's the author of the aritcle that's fanning the flames of the BSD/Linux war, and just as the
Respectfully,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@maila.wm.edu
Gee, it looked fine on my netscape 4.51
perhaps you should upgrade from your
old Netscape1.2 or something
That's sort of the point, really. It shifts the focus away from the operating system itself to the jobs that the operating system is there to perform.
It is an operating system you can forget about, and in many contexts, that's a good thing. Focus on the work, not the environment the work has to run in
Another damned comic
+++ NO CARRIER
ARRGGHH NOT AGAIN!!!! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!!
Deleted
The open OS world would only perish if we splinter into our indevidual loyalties and failed to see the real power our forbearers had. They (Unix and DOS) became the standard because they had a fan base (Maybe not based on the ideals of the users, but even a defacto standard has a fan base.)
Microsoft had a pirch that grew because it was used by many users that learned and survived by following and never questioning the obnipotent power of this one vendor.
We need to back all open OS developments to provide a united front. A united front with varied solutions, that borrow from one-another. Truely, the way to survive is to evolve and encorporate the best of everything out there. The real traitor to our cause are those who's proscelitizing of their "best" looses sight of the best for the cause. Sure there are many booths in the bazzar. One may sell better oranges, and another better grapes. But, no one will come to the bazzar when the boothes are filled with a food fight. When we deify a particular vendor or platform we set orselves up to be closed-minded and eventually insignificant to the greater good.
Our many flavors of OS's is one of our greatest assests. Harnessing and keeping them open to very different problems is one thig we have, that nothing else will ever equal. Sometimes, it seems more comforting to root for a single and, winning team...Let's just root for all open systems to unite. They will always remain a little different. But, if we back them all, they will all also get better.
Together all open OS projects TOGETHER could make EVERY information task a great deal easier and less corrupt.
Is MSNBC (Partly owned by Microsoft) try to start an internal war between the free *nix avaiable for x86 hardware? And whats this crap about how hotmail ORIGNALLY ran freeBSD, does it still run it or not?
:)
in fact, perhaps 70 percent of all Internet service providers use BSD.
This is a fact? I haven't seen one ISP use *BSD, I could beilive it was FACT that %70 of ISP use *nix
At the same time, Torvalds was welcoming help from all comers, mainly young computer science students enamored of with the coming information explosion.
What was Torvalds kinda like Tim Leary back in the day?
Thus, any definitive narrow statement that can be made is usually obsolete before anyone hears it.
DOH!
Any free unix that runs on x86 (ie. cheap) hardware is cool with me.
>No matter, says Diercouff. Soon, the various BSD distributions will be able to run Linux applications, including office productivity suites such as StarOffice.
Any body notice this? Even though it might be completely different situation, but OS/2 had Windoz emulation(Or what ever they used) That only contributed to OS/2's demise. Nobody developed for OS/2 because their application will be able to run on it any ways. Even though OS/2 is technically much better machine(as bsd is being claimed to be compared to Linux), It never caught on.
=moJ
- - - - - -
swagmag.com
What? Did they finally succeed in converting it to NT?
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
The article on ZD, pawn of the Evil One, is written in MS-HTML, not HTML. I don't have any systems from the Evil Empire, so it looks like crap. Please warn us when you provide links to something we have to go out and pay the Bill Tax just to read.
Yeah, FreeBSD can emulate SCO binaries.. I've used oracle for SCO with it -- it is annoying to have to add shared memory though.
There are several users in the higher up ranks of the BSD lists that are trying to change this.
One is a more open development model. While you currently just send a pr report with your patches included the new system would allow you to do direct cvs commits. There will still be a peer review process to make sure the stuff is good, but the line between you and the reviewer won't be as obvious.
On the other hand... Was that answer at any documentation sites? -questions has a few thousand emails daily, most of which are highly repetative.
freebsdrocks, freebsddiary, and the handbook answer 99% of most users questions. The rest in IRC where I spend alot of time answering questions.
-questions is way too overloaded... Should setup somekind of a structured questions list, with ID tags, etc.
It should also automatically give you a faq when you join it...
Rod Taylor
The article actually touched accurately on the reason why, too. One of the strengths of Linux is the rapid pace of innovation and feature addition. This is actually a negative when I'm looking for an OS to run my servers. There, I need a consistent source and a relatively modest change rate, with the priority given to features relevant to the running-servers activity. FreeBSD excells at that.
So at home I'll run FreeBSD on my house server, and Linux on my workstation. As others have said, the two are *complimentary*, with different focuses. And the BSD people should not be upset about the greater press given to Linux, IMO. Linux should have the most press because its strengths will ultimately play well in the consumer market. The BSDs will be found and supported, as appropriate, by those of us with services to run. And of course there will continue to be a lot of cross polination between the two, especially in the application realm.
By the way, I found the mentions of BSDi in the article very interesting in light of the licensing argument. I used to use BSDi exclusively, but the problem with BSDi is that they did exactly what the BSD license allows: they added proprietary code and kept it proprietary. For this reason, while I am maintaining my current BSDi servers for the moment, any new servers are FreeBSD or Linux. So as far as I am concerned, the ability to, shall we say, proprietorize using BSD-license code just gives companies the ability to shoot themselves in the foot. Open Source is the superior business model, whatever license you execute it under.
NB: I suspect that Linux could erode the FreeBSD server market share if some company would craft a distrabution aimed at service providers, characterized by a modest, server focused change rate, and providing reasonably priced support contracts.
--BitDancer
actully, i thought the article was pretty positive towards *ix in general
Commodore 64, Loading up the dance floor!
If it's "Debian GNU/Linux" and "Debian GNU/Win32"
then shall we assume that we'll be looking at "Debian GNU/BSD"?
Isn't that weird? We have four BSDs and fifty-two Linuxes, and it's BSD that fragments? I don't think so.
...IF somebody pays, would Linux pass the test?
Just curious...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
I just call it Linux; there are those who, by being either pedantic or sycophantic, depending on your personal beliefs (I do not share the personal beliefs of those who consider it sycophantic), insist on it being called GNU/Linux.
The person to whom was replying said "Linux is GNU!", which could be viewed as saying "it's GNU/Linux", i.e., "a lot of userland code in the OS is from GNU"; as I noted, however, a lot of the userland code isn't from GNU, so calling it "GNU/Linux" doesn't give credit to the authors of much of the stuff in a typical Linux distribution.
Besides, I love NetBSD. My old machines get upgraded to it when their manufacturers stop supporting them. My old Mac won't run MacOS 7.6 or newer -- voila, NetBSD/mac68k. I tried Linux, but it's not useable on my machine (yet). Solaris 7 theoretically works on my SPARCstation, but man is it a dog. Sun doesn't realize we haven't all upgraded to Ultras yet (or just doesn't care). It'll get upgraded to NetBSD soon (although I'll at least take a look at Linux -- but my experience trying to get it working on my old Mac makes me leary of wasting time trying it on my old SPARC -- I may reserve Linux for my newer, higher performance systems like my Pentium II. I love Linux too, but it just doesn't seem to run as well as NetBSD on my non-Intel systems, or at least that's what my Mac experience was).
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The article said BSD stands for "Berkeley Software Design". AFAIK, Berkeley Software Design are the guys who make BSDi.
I always thought the BSD stood for Berkeley Software Distrib, since it came out of UC Berkeley.
-- yaac
Well, I prefer mpg123 as commandline tool or gqmpeg (cool frontend for mpg123) for X11.
Last time I've benchmarked some audio 1 layer III players mpg123 has won.(Tested amp, splay and mpg123).
This article certainly carries the attitude that many BSD users seem to have -- that BSD of for real users, users with experience, users who care more about a robust, secure OS than what's currently hip; and that Linux users are "hackers" who jumped on the Linux bandwagon because it's the hip thing to do among hackers, rather than because Linux carries any advantages as an OS.
The truth is, Linux carries with it several advantages that the article only hints at. The article mentions the splits in BSD, but it doesn't discuss the problems these splits carry with them. It's nice to know that with Linux, when a new feature or better security is added to the kernel, that feature will be available to every users on many different platforms. I am certainly not an expert on BSD, so I'd appreciate it if someone who is more knowledgeable than I would tell me how often developments in FreeBSD are integrated into the development tree of NetBSD, for example.
Personally, I prefer Linux. As a student at a large university, I'm surrounded by Linux experts. I couldn't say the same about BSD. The other main advantage that Linux has for me is the applications that are being ported to Linux more and more. However, I would be willing to switch to BSD if I saw clear advantages. Unfortunately, this article seemed to be more interested in cashing in on the Linux hype by subtly bashing Linux rather than presenting the real advantages.
Why is it that people have to bad mouth linux or freebsd. There's enough room for both of them to exist. I use both on my system, and they are both great OSes. So what if linux was written totally from scratch? So what if freebsd has less hardware currently?
Mike.
PS Just use what you like.
Tigger's like to read
In the parenthentical note in the side comment he makes at the end:
I think his memory doesn't serve; I think it's more like "(e.g., PDP-10)", although I don't know which OS had the first TCP/IP stack - Multics probably had one fairly early on, too. (We shall ignore the fact that UNIX originally ran on DEC machines - he may have meant "on DEC operating systems", although I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the first PDP-10 TCP/IP stack was on a non-DEC OS, TENEX; yes, I think it eventually became the DEC operating system TOPS-20, but it was originally developed by BBN.)
First of all, it annoys me to see the constant emphasis on hostility and one-upmanship in articles on different Unix versions. This is ridiculous. Who cares if user X perfers Linux or person Y prefers BSD? I am not interested in which version has which percentage of the market share. I want to know more about the operating systems themselves, how they are similar and how they differ.
Secondly, it seems to me that the best route for future development would be to merge the various Unix versions, taking the best features from each. Perhaps Linux and freeBSD could combine to form freeLSD.
Finally, people who say that Linux is not a Unix version are silly. If it looks and acts like Unix, has the same system calls as Unix, it's Unix, regardless of what its history is. Any other definition of "Unix" is useless.
--- Brian
I remember when I was in grade school, our local high school's mascot was the Sundevils, and the gym had a huge devil painted on the wall. I used to play basketball in the high school gym on the weekends, and I always wondered why the mural was sometimes covered up with HUGE strips of brown paper. Turns out a local church group would have gatherings in the gym on friday night. They didn't care too much for our local mascot, apparently.
Slashdot needs a killfile of some sort.
Deleted
"Kiddo"? Thanks for confirming the elitest attitude of BSD advocates for us.
Who wants to bet that this article was commisioned by Microsoft to help stifle the Linux buzz by sewing confusion in the minds of the public and IT management about free Unix systems?
Well, I've subscribed a lot of NetBSD mailinglists > 2 years ago. NetBSD people seem to be quite different to FreeBSD people: Most (if not all) of them are very helpful.
Feel free to browse the mailinglist archives at www.netbsd.org.
Linux is better than Windows but there are more Windows users than linux!
FreeBSD is better than Linux but there are more Linux users than FreeBSD!?
Linux: the ultimate Windows NT service pack
FreeBSD: the ultimate Linux kernel patch
Linux are for amateur clueless-wannabee
BSDs are for true power users!
Linux SUCKS and LINUS TORVALDS is an idiot!!
Linux can kiss my ASS!! haha
enuff said...
I'm confused. It's 0530 local time, I think it's time for bed. Good night!
How about, "put it back the way it was before"? I know, I know, you're a great audience, thank you.
Incidentally, you can criticize ESR and RMS, too, but tchrist is off limits. Yes, Virginia, posts ARE deleted off slashdot occasionally.
Do you think Linux developement is that much different? Why do you think we have those fine AC patches everybody prefers with all those goodies Linus has refused? And I guess Linus even likes Alan....
This wasn't accurate, it was just as uninformed as most articles. At least it's publicity, though.
I know that at least FreeBSD should be able to run linux binaries without too much trouble, just like Linux should be able to run, say, SCO binaries without too much work, etc. So it shouldn't really have fewer applications. Also, a lot of the same UNIX apps should be source-compatible anyhow, and some are released under the BSD license.
Since the owner of the source code can release it under multiple licenses anyhow, there's nothing wrong with making a kernel submission GPL'ed, and also releasing it to the *BSD's under their license, so I don't really see the argument there. The other arguments have been dealt with. Remember, the BSD license lets your competitors freely use your code too, and also lets people take that code and incorporate it into closed projects, which I don't think is necessarily a feature.
Past that, at least it's press. I don't believe that 70% of all ISP's figure, either. A lot of ISP's use Linux. Maybe if he meant the number, it would only take a few major ISP's to skew that figure. Still... that doesn't jive.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
.. Linux has a celebrity.
.. but she's heard of Linus Torvalds. The people who make the biggest splashes are the people that get the most press.
This is pretty much an extension of your comparison of the Linux community to a bunch of excited kids. Linus is a charismatic guy. He's funny, likeable, and direct. When it comes to PR, technical talent takes a back seat to some of the more interpersonal aspects. My sister, who is in nursing, doesn't even own a computer
Of course, this is not to say that the BSD community doesn't have its own important and colorful characters. But if you were to compare the number of Slashdotters who know who Linus Torvalds is against the number who know who, say, Theo DeRaadt is, you'd find a pretty evident bias.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Everytime I read about "AC patches", I keep thinking they're talking about me. :-)
This twisting of the word "elite" into something pejorative is a perversion worthy of Rush. Please try to find a better word for what you're attempting to express. Elite is a good thing.
Man, you would think MSNBC would be professional enough to copy edit its articles.
"right as the Internal began to reach critical mass"
and
"students enamored of with the coming information explosion"
in the opening 3 paragraphs, no less!?! I suppose it's only a matter of time before we start seeing possessive "its" with the apostrophes, in obvious homage to our Commander's prose style of choice.
Linux IS NOT UNIX. It was written from the ground up as UNIX-LIKE, but was not (unlike *BSD) derived from a source tree that was around before Linus took his first computer course.
And Chevrolets are not really cars, because they weren't invented by Henry Ford or made with reference to any of his plans for the Model A.
And Honda motorcycles aren't motorcycles because they aren't made by Harley Davidson, right?
Get a grip on reality. Linux has as much right to call itself Unix as BSD does.
You say BSD, I say Linux
You Say Tomato, I say Tomato(work with me here, it's text)
Let's call the whole thing off...
Would these be considered different Linux OS's then:
Real Time Linux
Linux Router Project
They are patched versions of Linux, but I would still consider them different at the kernel level.
Cool! Where do I get it?
SLACK! ;-)
--Matthew
Very nice! Perhaps this is why there's no need of a "BSD Documentation Project" the way Linux so desperately needs help on.
It's all already done. So cool.
That was blatent misrepresentation on the part of M$nbc geach
Wall clock time from packet arrival to time the data hits the user app. This is substantially different from throughput on a multi-threaded IP stack.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
That has to be by far, the todays top "Stupid Comment".
Linux is different distributions. I can start with Slackware and turn it into a system that looks, feels, and runs exactly like a RedHat distribution.
Its like newspapers. Linux is a newspaper, and it has different people passing the newspaper around. Some of the people put in their own TV guide, some put in coupons, some might even put it in a plastic bag to prevent it from being rained on.
NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD and BSDI are all different newspapers.
Get your facts straight troll.
It is the *GPL* that has brought Free Software into the mainstream.
It is the *GPL* that encouraged developers all over the world to contribute to the Linux kernel.
It is the *GPL* that brought us the tools with which to build more great software.
I am *sooooo* sick of hearing these whiny BSD trolls bad-mouth the GPL. *BSD-ish licenses allow the release of Sendmail Pro, which is only necessary because Sendmail is a half-assed, bug-ridden, incomprehesible, poorly licensed pile of crap.
By comparison, the *GPL*-d MTA Exim, actually cares about user-friendliness, and you don't have to resort to a binary-only band-aid solution to operate it.
If it wasn't for the *GPL* and Linux, BSD would have even fewer users than it has now.
Dominican wrote:
Spot on.
That's why I wrote the Doc. Proj. Primer, available at http://www.FreeBSD.org/tutorials/d ocproj-primer/.
Feedback is welcomed.
N
In the annals of computing freebsd rates with the more acrid failures. In the history of operating systems, never has so much talk met with so little to show. Why has freebsd failed? What lessons can be learned? Here are some of the reasons for its failure:
Freebsd is a classic study in office politics and backroom backstabbing. The freebsd ``core team'' has been devastated in recent months, punctuated by the resignation of many of its senior members. From lax attention to security as highlighted in Usenet's comp.risks, to continued financial woes of a certain vendor of freebsd cdroms, the ongoing decline of freebsd should serve well to instruct others in how not to run a software project.
The most important thing that have made Linux so popular is its fast development cycle and better support for special hardware and new end-user hardware. Linux support much hardware that not of interest for server systems, like radio cards and TV-cards, mpeg-cards, DVD, I2O. *BSD releases one major kernel release once a year, Linux 25-30 kernel releases every year, I think this quick release cycle holds much of Linux's sucess. I like BSD, have used NetBSD and OpenBSD (still using), but use Linux at home becoz *BSD lacks many things I take for garanted like Java JDK, POSIX Threads (fBSD got it but not oBSD/nBSD).
Many software i need are not availble for *BSD, like Java 2 JDK and Netscape Communicator browser. I some applications i use on Linux like the Blender 3D modeller and some CAD/3D apps are binary only so i need Linux to use em.
I don't think the lawsuit was all that important.
More important was the fact the Bill Jolitz, who released the original 386BSD wasn't really well suited for running a Bazaar-style project. At times, his (rare) messages didn't seem sane, and his "press officier" Jesus, Jr, didn't made it better. This meant that the project was delayed until first the NetBSD and later the FreeBSD groups got fed up waiting for him to reelase a new version, and broke away.
The most important thing, in my opinion, was that the BSD developers were highly competent operating system engineers making great personal sacrifices for the cause, while the Linux developers were a bunch of enthusiastic kids having great fun doing what they wanted to do. At least, that was the impression one got from the BSD and Linux newsgroups. There is even some of it left today.
I suspect a lot of potential developers felt like me: I'd rather hang out with the kids who are learning and having fun, than the self-important professionels who are making sacrifices.
Yeah, I read even Donald Becker had problems with the egos of the BSD guys. They wouldn't let him suggest any kernal changes, so he develops primarily for Linux.
--Matthew
You assume that Linux must have RPM. That's silly. Ever used Debian? And don't you think RPM is evil? Remember, it's made by those Mcirosoft/Linux people from Redhat. :-)
Geez this is what makes M$ laugh at people like us when we talk about replacing Windows on the desktop, arguing about a license agreement. If you read the article it says that you can't really say which license is "better". If you have read either the BSDL or the GPL you would understand this is true. GPL forces you to provide source code, which is a good thing for non competitive, usually non commercial (unless you're a service provider like Red Hat or SuSE). The BSDL license says you can release source code if you'd like, but you're not forced to, which helps competitive commercial groups to release just binaries for their work, even if they base it on someone else's work. Why does the GPL license always fall into the Linux catagory and BSDL always fall into the *BSD catagory, the GNU license was written by RMS well before Linus finished v.01, so I could put the GPL on my program I just wrote for BSD. Both licenses and both flavours of Unix have their uses and are both good at different things. BSD servers tend to be able to handle higher loads than linux servers, while linux has begun to appeal to the Joe Average user while still being a powerful server and workstation OS. Fighting about which one is better is like children arguing over who's a bigger fartface. It's not M$ and it works, don't complain.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
In the annals of computing freebsd ranks with the more acrid failures. In the history of operating systems, never has so much talk met with so little to show. Why has freebsd failed? What lessons can be learned? Here are some of the reasons for its failure:
Freebsd is a classic study in office politics and backroom backstabbing. The freebsd ``core team'' has been devastated in recent months, punctuated by the resignation of many of its senior members. From lax attention to security as highlighted in Usenet's comp.risks, to continued financial woes of a certain vendor of freebsd cdroms, the ongoing decline of freebsd should serve well to instruct others in how not to run a software project.
Second, you usually don't want to run your server peaked. ftp.cdrom.com is not peaked even when its putting out 1TB a day.
Now, if FreeBSD performed worse than Linux under the Mindcraft test, we can also deduce that its TCP/IP stack is worse than Linux's stack.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Most of that runs without modification on any Un*x like operating system. Gimp even on Win32...
If you've ever read anything Noam Chomsky has had to say about the "media-industrial" complex, you'll have no trouble believing that MS may have indeed inspired just this type of article.
Remember, MS is in it for the kill and will use any resource they have at their disposal to kill Linux. That includes NBC.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
He he ....
Ah, another sign of the condescending BSD enthusiast.
an "average BSD" coder is a "developer" and has less time to submit code changes due to his "real" job, than the "average Linux" coder, who is merely a "user", with loads of free time...
And people wonder why BSD is less popular.
Yeah, don't worry, those Linux lusers will flock to that immaculate BSD code, once its ready for the real world...
But now the point: BSD is boring
Explain. I run Linux as a firewall. It must therefore be boring according to your definition.
I have been using Linux regularly since the 0.99.14x days--only briefly around 0.77 (I can't recall exactly). I will be trying out FreeBSD on my next system withing a month or two. What programs will I NOT be able to run with FreeBSD?
I have two favorite games: Netrek and AOE. The first can be played on most UNIX systems. The second runs just as well under FreeBSD as it does Linux: not at all.
You are entitled to your opinions, but please give evidence when you come down so roughly on something.
Call me a bit paranoid, but it seems an interesting coincidence that ZDNET came out with a story on this subject. It's possible that MS thinks they can sow confusion in the open source movement by subtley pushing whatever competes with their biggest problem right now... Linux.
Or... would that mean your precious world view that BSD is all mighty and perfect would be flawed?
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
Unfortunately this article has many historical errors. To correct a few of them:
BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution, not Berkeley Software Design. Someone seems to have snuck in and fixed that one.
The article states that BSD UNIX was created because Bill Joy wanted to create a free UNIX. This is, to put it mildly, incorrect. Berkeley was funded by DARPA to provide an Internet-capable operating system based on UNIX, to act as a common platform for DARPA researchers. Bill Joy was one of several graduate students funded to work on this project via the Computer Systems Research Group. CSRG got money from a few other people in later years, but the expiration of the DARPA grant eventually resulted in the expiration of the group. Joy was "first among equals", and did quite a bit of work (ex/vi, csh) before the DARPA grant came through, but neither then nor later was his aim to create a "free UNIX" - neither was it DARPA's. DARPA believed, correctly, that the Berkeley work would eventually be picked up by various vendors and would be supported through standard commercial channels. When this became the case, DARPA support ended. The open source movement, the "free UNIX" movement, et al. all came in the last days of CSRG, some time after DARPA's involvement had ended.
I believe that it is true that the copyright lawsuit did hinder the progress of *BSD in the free marketplace (though not in the commercial marketplace, where license fees were paid), and is partly responsible for the dominance of Linux in number of seats today. That, however, is opinion, and not historical fact.
> http://www.anzen.com/products/nfr/testing/
The summary of this report is:
- if you want to run a commercial network intrusion detection program called NFR, you should run it on OpenBSD.
- if you use the result of this report to decide which OS to use for any other purpose, you are a moron. The packet sniffing code is completely disjoint from the TCP/IP stack and the rest of the OS.
NFR is moving away from being an application vendor anyway; now they want to sell you a 'black box' system with everything installed. So the issue of OS choice for them has become a non-issue.
The article was about BSD, not Linux. Have many--or ANY--Linux articles (read: not Linux-vs-BSD) said how BSD is equal to or better than Linux at Aspect #foo? If so, point me to it.
In the annals of computing freebsd ranks with the more acrid failures. In the history of operating systems, never has so much talk met with so little to show. Why has freebsd failed? What are the lessons that can be learned? Here are some of the reasons for its failure:
Freebsd is a classic study in office politics and backroom backstabbing. The freebsd ``core team'' has been devastated in recent months, punctuated by the resignation of many of its senior members. From lax attention to security as highlighted in Usenet's comp.risks, to continued financial woes of a certain vendor of freebsd cdroms, the ongoing decline of freebsd should serve well to instruct others in how not to run a software project.
Stop typing. Go read... NOW!
> BSD'ed software *can* be free, but doesn't have to be. GPL'ed software *must* be free.
*sigh*
You just don't get it!
Anything BSDL'ed is free will always be free.
If anybody takes BSD code and makes, say, a router of it (this has built up the internet BTW) this doesn't make the BSD code he took less free. But the BSDL gives him the freedom to *not* release *HIS/HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!* source code/modifications.
Anything that is released under the GPL is never free, and only the author can make it ever free.
What? So please with your own bile that you thought you'd hit us with the same thing again and again? Die faceless coward.
Microsoft just buys companies like Hotmail and LinkExchange after they are already established. They aren't stupid and so they don't force them to re-deploy all their software under a different OS (WinNT, whatever) for no good technical reason.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Or maybe the whole Linux-NT war is just a ploy to keep ignorant users in inferior operating systems. Almost like someone asking "Who do you listen to more: N'Sync or the Backstreet Boys?"
I work for an ISP, we run all our machines on FreeBSD boxes, and I've talked with many other business associates in the business that run it. Most of us use it on our home machines as well, much preferred to linux.
-lx
They tried with HotMail. They died the death, and reneged.
BSDL: Free forever
GPL: GPL restricted forever
At least in the BSDs, packets being sniffed "come off the stack" from the network interface driver, and get handed directly to the BPF code; I suspect it may be similar in other UNIX-flavored OSes.
They don't come from the TCP/IP stack; they only pass through that stack if they're IP datagrams intended for that machine or broadcast/multicast to that machine; for sniffing, the interface may be in promiscuous mode, and the bulk of the traffic being seen may not be intended for the sniffing machine, and thus wouldn't go through the stack.
FWIW : The Belgian national soccer team is called the "Red Devils". Too bad they play soccer like Wet Drivels when they get on the field :-)
and you know I linux better..
I have been using linux for a while now.. And
maybe freeBSD is more secure or "faster" but
I dont think it has the same kind of community
and I dont think it will grow as fast a linux will
TOG is a software consortium of which SCO is one of many members. For a complete list of members, refer to http://www.opengroup.or g/overview/members/membership_list.htm
He never stated what kind of connection to the server he has, so how can you say it's slow? Also, the network load isn't stated either. Maybe there's 50 other users on the network at the time.. In any case, 6MB/sec is more than adequate for kernel compiling.
I bet you read somewhere on your 31337 H4x0R sites that Linux was "w(h)ack"... just shut up...
Mooof!
In the annals of computing freebsd ranks with the more dismal failures. In the history of operating systems, never has so much excessive talk met with so little to show. Why has freebsd failed? What are the lessons that can be learned? Here are some of the reasons for freebsd's failure:
Freebsd is a classic study in office politics and backroom backstabbing. The freebsd ``core team'' has been devastated in recent months, punctuated by the resignation of many of its senior members. From lax attention to security as highlighted in Usenet's comp.risks, to continued financial woes of a certain vendor of freebsd cdroms, the ongoing decline of freebsd should serve well to instruct others in how not to run a software project.
here is one of the better comparisons I have seen between *bsd and linux on the net.
Slackware is actually cool. It's my favorite flavor of Linux OS. I've been running it on and off since I was weaned off Yggdrasil in about 1994. But I'm moving towards BSD for my own reasons. I'm sorry for sounding like I was trashing the slack in that comment.
A new poll idea:
Which is the kewlest Mascot/logo
1)GNU yacc/bison thing(I don't know what exactly it is)
2)BSD Daemon
3)Tux
4)That Salvidor Dali Window(M$ windows logo)
5)Pimp in the RedHat
6)That funky debian penguin
You don't exist. Go away. --SysVinit Halt
I was a seasoned OS/2 "zealot" when I first took up with 386bsd because of articles I saw in Dr Dobbs Journal. Later when 386bsd fragmented, I toughed it out with the Freebsd sect. Eventually they got some half-assed Linux emulation working. But it was deja-vu all over again for me. When nat ive apps failed to appear for bsd I jumped ship. I just could not bear to keep using bsd knowing that I would be forever a second class citizen. Because of the way MS treated the OS/2 community, Windows is not and will never be an option for me. Wanting to stay with a Unix, I eventually settled on Linux. When native Doom came out for Linux I was in heaven. Later more applications appeared and I'm still a happy camper with Linux. No matter how good emulation is, it relegates you to second class status. I served my tour of duty with OS/2, and I'm burned out. As long as native apps for Linux keep coming, I will stay the course with Linux.
Golly, gee thanks. I guess I should prowl around the NetBSD site more often. Say goodbye to Slackware on that box if cdd works.
That article summed things up pretty well for me, though unwittingly, I think. I've toyed with *nix off and on for the last 6 years, only just a few months ago gone full-Linux, using RH. I played with FreeBSD 2.2.2 through that, and while it was nice, and stable, and easier to configure than I expected...no apps!
Maybe this has changed with the FreeBSD 3.x series, but for those of us out there who don't know how to mod our Linux apps (no matter how easy true hackers claim it to be) *BSD isn't worth it. No matter how stable an OS is, if it doesn't DO anything, it's useless.
Linux has the larger share of the publicity and market not because of the 'young hackers' but because it is the only *nix that Joe Average User has a change of understanding and _using_.
-- I'm sure this is amusing to someone.
Is that the same one who mentioned a number of Linux distributions, such as "Red Hat Linux", "Caldera OpenLinux", and "Deviant Linux"?
Tim (Jones) at EST says he's still looking for that "Deviant Linux" distribution. Think it maybe has pictures of nekkid penguins in it or something? Or maybe penguins doing unspeakable things to sheep? Or ???
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
In the annals of computing freebsd ranks with the more dismal failures. In the history of operating systems, never has so much talk met with so little to show. Why has freebsd failed? What are the lessons to be learned? Here are some of the reasons for freebsd's failure:
Freebsd is a classic study in office politics and backroom backstabbing. The freebsd ``core team'' has been devastated in recent months, punctuated by the resignation of many of its senior members. From lax attention to security as highlighted in Usenet's comp.risks, to continued financial woes of a certain vendor of freebsd cdroms, the ongoing decline of freebsd should serve well to instruct others in how NOT to run a software project.
Lawd a mussy, that's just wrong.
Libel! Slander!
I don't believe they said that.
More like the BSDi of BSD.
Moo-ha-ha.
What a sick mother fucker you are.
Sadly, I can't really see a resurgence of BSD happening. Linux has the momentum behind it now and, quite frankly, I think that the BSD fans are extremely jealous. I can't really blame them as, had things gone right, it would be BSD vs NT now and no-one would have heard of Linux. But that's not what happened and I'm certainly not complaining as long as I've got a good alternative to M$.
HH
date; talk; touch; unzip; finger; expand; strip; head; mount; yes; yes; yes; eject; more; sleep
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
Funny, it describes the situation quite clear:
:-) and play at my machine. And here we go, the linux-folks is much more "innovative", got the straight target "world domination" instead of "high uptimes".
:-)
BSD crumpled under the struggle of copyright in 1993 (thats was right when I switched from BSD to Linux).
BSD is rockstable (I don`t say that linux isn`t stable, but maybe a little bit less).
But now the point: BSD is boring.
Simply said I don`t run a webserver all day and I don`t type "uptime" all day.
I actually try to work (to some extend
Beside of that both are very equal - it`s yet another *nix-lookalike. *nix is a tool, like toiletpaper. You use it, but you don`t arguee about it. But you may still prefer the pink one with funny penguins on it
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
I couldnn't run Minix in a sane fashion on my Amiga, so I did the next best thing and replaced just about everything except the kernel with U*ix like stuff from micro ports of GPL stuff. When I diteched my Amiga (well, it still lurks) Linux was a "not much thought" choice since for what I wanted to do Linux/FreeBSD were much of a muchness and it seemed there were more GPL people on Linux.
My ISP runs on FreeBSD and I'm tempted to find another box so I can play with FreeBSD...
Antti
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
ZDNet has a licensing agreement with MSNBC, under which MSNBC publishes ZDNet stories in its technology section (when relevant). As far as I know, it goes both ways, so ZDNet will sometimes publish MSNBC copy. In case nobody noticed the MSNBC logo on the ZDNet site...
Actually, Linux probably shares userland code a lot more than BSD does. That's because Linux really doesn't HAVE a userland -- Linux is a kernel, a few GNU tools necessary to boot, and a lot of little individual packages, most of which use the same code base. For example, there are not four different 'telnet' programs in the Linux world. Everybody uses the same "NetTools" package maintained by some guy whose name I can't remember (sigh). Similarly, everybody uses the same 'libc' library, it's all the same 'glibc' off of fsf.org, though everybody seems to be using a different revision of it (sigh). (even the old libc5 was that way, there was only one libc5, though some people, like Red Hat, for some inexplicable reason chose to ship an old version of it rather than the current version).
I like FreeBSD, but I'm posting this from SuSE Linux because I could not get Applix running despite branding all the ELF binaries in the Applix directory as Linux binaries and making sure the Linux emulation was compiled into the kernel. Bummer. I also did not have success getting WordPerfect 8 to run, though I've heard others say they managed to do it. I did run a couple of little Linux binaries to make sure the emulation was working, and they worked, so I do know the emulator works, but sometimes it's not easy to get multi-part apps to do right with it...
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
That will NEVER happen, if for no other reason, because people from both camps will never agree on licensing terms.
-lx
A typical inaccuracy was when they blithely repeated that Linux developers were a bunch of young kids and BSD developers a bunch of old pros, in blatant disregard of the facts.
l
See:
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/bentson.htm
for the details.
It does appear, though, that Linux has a whole lot of young kid ADVOCATES, some of who think it's, like, l33t (AGHH!!).
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Uh-Oh, I smell a bait and switch here!
Put up a BSD article, then you see the ad up top. And you think, "Can't be all that bad, can it?" then you click, then your lost!
(Microsoft is not a partner in this posters' soul)
One thing you might not realise too, is that like anything that comes from a University and the people deeply embedded in that culture, is that the focus and emphasis is on the small private clicks that form around the institutions, giving rise to that old adage "It's not what you know but who you know". So in BSD, you need to win popularity contests to get your stuff into the system. In linux, however, you only need to demonstrate the technical validity of your proposal. Thus, BSD lags behind in the development arena and has a pathetically small developer community to support it. I also imagine that the several forks of BSD are largely due to interested developers not being able to win popularity contests and thus being forced to fork off the code base in order to get their own stuff added.
Remember that what linus torvalds did was to capitalize on the Internet and the available talent. And he was wildly sucessful in creating a worldwide development team, which in turn has turned out a tremendous product. BSD can't do that because it's about popularity contests and dysfunctional politics. The artical says that the difference, as if it really means anything, is that BSD developers have degrees and 10 years of experience and are managers in their work, while Linux hackers are all unwashed masses without degrees (loosely interpreted). It said it as if that implies a certain quality of the code that won't be found in Linux. Bullshit. The focus should be on technical merits and not who has the more prestegious paper. And in the Linux world that is most certainly the case.
Linux is a truely open develop model that does not discriminate based on popularity contests or worthless peices of paper. It is not about who your sponsor is or what friends you have on the inside or who owes you favors. It's about technical merit.
All languages are weird. Fact.
So which Unix has the fastest TCP/IP stack? I too have read at various places that the Linux TCP/IP stack is the fastest monoprocessor implementation (among Unices, presumably). Whether this still holds true (or has ever held true), I don't have the foggiest. Anyway, why are you screaming so much about something while providing no concrete information. Anything you are afraid of? Eh?
Excuse me, I wasn't thinking properly (obviously!).
So it points to deficiencies in the network interface driver, not the TCP/IP stack. Which is different in terms of problem correction but, as I udnerstand it, not much different for causing problems?
--Matthew
Why have Debian GNU/BSD?
The *BSD projects want to be a central location for all the info, and want to have tight control over their code, and a Debian GNU/BSD would go against the *BSD dev wishes. And GNU/BSD is kind of an oxymoron when you think of licenses. And since, for most people, Linux and BSD really aren't that different, Debian should just concentrate on GNU/Linux and GNU/HURD (i'm waiting for HURD 1.0 myself). A Debian GNU/BSD would just be a waste of resources.
Or was it Gobbels?
BSD is another Good Old Boys(tm) club
The majority of FreeBSD developers is between 25-30.
The majority of the FreeBSD core team members is in their thirties.
I guess they are old if you are 17.
Linux is a truely open develop model that does not discriminate based on popularity contests or worthless peices of paper. It is not
about who your sponsor is or what friends you have on the inside or who owes you favors. It's about technical merit.
Is that why Linus hasn't fixed the VM system yet??
It's a gnu. Like in the Flanders and Swann song, "I'm a g-nu".
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
The only reason Gates says that is so that he can refer to Linux as "30-year old" technology in the next breath.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
I'm no expert on operating systems, but the important issue here, it seems to me, is binary compatibility. If Linux programs can be run on BSD and vice-versa, then we have a friendly competition. Otherwise we have potential fratricide and Microsoft wins. It's that simple. Technical superiority is a side issue.
Just for my own education, are they binary compatible?
Russ Paielli
Have a look at the FreeBSD mailinglists sometime. I have a friend who's been using the OS for 5 or 6 years now, since back in the days of FreeBSD 1.x. He asked a rather difficult question on the -questions mailinglist a month or so ago, and was torn to shreds by the denizens of the list, who seem hell-bent on ego-stroking rather than offering any real help. He was treated as if he'd just installed the thing and he *certainly* was no "newbie" to the BSD scene.
Take a look at some of the comments here. I bet you'll see a lot of "Hah! I TOLD you so!"'s. Again, more blatant egomaniacal behavior offering little to no substance. Fun stuff.
This is the kind of crap I've come to expect from BSD people; I've come to the conclusion that, while a lot of linux users are clueless, a lot of BSD users are heartless, and it seems to be a pretty even trade-off.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I have an ancient Slackware box I've been upgrading diligently for the past few years by hand. The other day I needed a copy of sshd 1.x, but I was buggered if I was going to download the whole thing and recompile it (I already had all the other crap compiled). FTP'd over to my friend's Debian 2.1 box, grabbed his copy, it ran fine. I can run libc6 binaries from another friend's Redhat 6 machine on mine, and have done so. I can run my own libc5 binaries from another old machine if I need to. I routinely compile binaries on my machine and run them on others' machines. Saves me from having to drag all my source code over to their boxes (I only have a 56k modem link) and do it there. Never have I had a problem with it, and I've been doing this for years.
There is *one* Linux. There are *several* distributions. There is *one* Linux kernel. When you hear Alan Cox announce that he's forking the codebase, you can call me and we'll talk.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Simply select the linux module when installing FreeBSD, and you can run the binaries of linux apps straight as-is. No recompile required.
And it's killer hardware, to boot.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
anyway, my point about MS using BSD as a "weapon" is still valid. We should keep an eye out and see if we start seeing more articles that attack linux.
*sigh* ok flame me... I commited a sin. I posted before reading the whole article...
No they didn't.
The whole Article is biased towards M$.
I wonder: Hell, why does an M$NBC Article show
up on slashdot anyway ?
There isn't even information in this article - it's redundant ! I leared this much about
GPL vs BSD licenses just by listening comp.os.freebsd.misc for 2 days !
I thinks slashdot is getting worse.
* Signatures Lie * * The Lord of the Pit *
I really wish some of these articles would focus on the concept of using the best OS for a particular function. When we decided to get some network sniffers running for Intrusion Detection we went with OpenBSD for their security and top notch packet filter that tells an accurate assesment of the number of packets dropped. Linux will tell you it never drops any packets because it doesn't really know. Solaris is the same way.
However, when we needed a logging box running RAID and SMP, the documentation for *BSD (free versions) was not clear. Linux OTOH had both RAID and SMP support that was clean and ready to go.
To me, any ISP or serious admin will not restrict themselves to one OS as the solution to all their problems. Add free to functional as being the two biggest factors for a server OS to be implemented and your choices are Linux and *BSD. Do your research on what you need and then go with what fits.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
The reason that everyone says Linux is UNIX-LIKE is not because of its source code heritage (which has absolutely no bearing on how good it is), but based on the fact that the term UNIX is owned by SCO. If you want to say that you have a UNIX, then you have to pay SCO and pass all their pretty little tests.
Somehow I don't think you can legally call *BSD UNIX either, not unless you paid for and passed all the tests.
I use both daily, they both work well. Hey, as long as it is Unix, it's all good.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
UNIX is not owned by SCO nor do you have to pay and pass SCO tests.
It says in the article that Hotmail started out with BSD. According to my last netcraft lookup *it* *still* *is*. I guess they can't come out and say that NT isn't up to the task. Gee, with all those great benchmarks you'd think they could outperform anything anywhere (snicker)...
No get away! sit, sit, stay...
Perspective: I am a Linux user.
The thing that I am getting from the article is the idea that BSD users started on Linux so they have the experience of using Linux. The already know what Linux does well when they start to develop for BSD.
My Suggestion: Linux users should drag that old 486 out of the closet and put BSD on it. Play around with it for a while and see if BSD really does have some advantages. (I'm sure it has to be better at *some* things right?)
Now that doesn't mean you have to be a BSD developer does it? It simply means you will be a more educated and better Linux developer. I think the most dedicated and successful developers are the ones who are Open Minded (Tm) and are willing to share their data, AS WELL AS to learn from others who are also sharing.
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
OK. I have to buy a car. Yes, I'm looking for a good mecanics, but is that all? No. I'm not a professionnal driver. So, I first want a reliable car. Because I'm a new driver, I also want a car that I can open the hood to just see how it works (must be my engineer formation). I also don't want leather but a confortable tissu to sit, as well as some pretty options like CD-radio and a program for proximity support. I really don't care the nationality or even the company as long as it has a good reputation of fiability.
OS is the same thing. For me, all BSD or Linux is rock stable enough for my purpose. I found them both at the same time, including the internet world. I choice Linux first because FreeBSD seem to be less user friendly than slackware and have less options (it was a pre-2.0 FreeBSD I think, vs the old Slackware with 75 floppies to download). Now, I switch to Debian and quite happy with it for 2 years. I was looking sometime for FreeBSD but... well... I don't like the install process even if make world is very cool. Also, I'm now a bit use to the Linux way and don't feel much at home with BSD. Finally, Linux is more... do you feel the wave? ;) I like the community sense of Debian and can't find a similar one in FreeBSD.
So, I used Linux simply because I'm used to and because it has all the dynamism I'm looking for. Maybe one day, I will change for something else. MkLinux? Hurd? BSD? I don't know but it surely be Debian for anything else[1]!
Fabien Ninoles -- Debian GNU/Linux Developer
This is MS FUD at it's finest. Sure, split the *nix crowd even more. Point out to the unconverted that basically "Users of BSD and Linux hate each other and constantly gripe. Nothing ever gets done. Microsoft doesn't have any competitors, so there's nothing to argue with!"
I can see some IT manager/director reading this article and saying "Well, I certainly don't want to migrate our mission critical systems over to OS that are maintained by a bunch of pathetic whiners!". The reference to the 600 message thread on slashdot (i missed that one) was an interesting punch, too.
I believe that the bitterness and competition between Linux and the BSD camps are actually good for both communities. It keeps both camps from getting lazy, in a form of motivation unknown to MS (well, until recently)......COMPETITION. Competition is good. With competition comes innovation..trying to stay one step ahead of the other camp.
In a way, I got the impression Microslop is really, truely taking Linux as a serious threat. I really hope we're witnessing M$'s last stand with the Linux v.s Windoze war....
I've had personal experience with biasing ethics for self interest. I was working for a company that was a major contributor to a not-for-profit. A major competitor of theirs wanted to place an event listing in the NFP's newsletter. I was also a member of the NFP (a bike club). We came to a meeting and let everyone know (employees of the company and others) that we should not put for-profit rides in the newsletter. The club officers agreed and the rides were not put in future newsletter (they had appeared in one rogue one). Also, the company paid for the newsletter distribution, so they would in effect be paying for their competitor's advertisement.
/. be biased????? Nah!
Ethically, this type of behavior is questionable. It's like the MS-NBC site trying to publish objective commentary on MS's pseudo-competitors (pseudo because Linux and BSD are not companies, they are entities). It doesn't work. Our newsletter exceuded all for-profit events, even by our sponsor. (But, our sponsor had access to our mailing list, so...)
Only a truly independent media organization can objectively report news. Even the non-profits, NPR, PBS, and PRI are biased by their sponsors. The writers will think (perhaps not consciously): "Helping my company (i.e. the MS part of MS-NBC) will help me."
Could
Why is the computer/internet community so insistent on having one OS, or proving what OS is "better". I think that obviously each OS has its strengths and weaknesses. Linux and BSD are both workstation and server platforms that are excellent performers in a wide variety of applications. Windows 9x is a perfect consumer OS (at this time) becuase it doesn't require hardly any know-how to use. Windows NT also has strengths as a server due to its wide application base and ease of use. Novell has a large following in the large corporation. Personally, I think already having seen what happens to innovation and interestwhen "the best OS" is taken to the extreme. A development in the Linux or BSD community will spur Microsoft or Novell to act and vise-versa. People will preach about "write once, run anywhere" but how will that realistically work? There will always be a proprietary OS that runs its own thing. We should concentrate on the betterment of the OS that we use. I use Windows NT and Linux about 75% and 25% respectively, but I also work hard to ensure that I'm doing the best, most productive work for both OSes. I hope that Microsoft keeps thriving. It creates healthy concentration and focuses the attention other OS developers. In short, as Adam Smith proved in economics hundreds of years, competition will bring out the best. We don't need a "one best" solution for anything because more often than not, it WON'T be the best.
Some people take their .sig way too seriously
p.s. I hope I have clearly make my opinion.