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Which BSD?
Poodle Fang asks: "After using Linux for a few years, I am now interested in trying out the free x86 BSDs. I have been reading that OpenBSD is focused on security and FreeBSD on performance, but is there really much of a difference in security and performance among the BSDs? Do any of the BSDs have any features that sets it apart from the others (for example, does one work better on laptops than the others?) How well do the Linux emulation libraries work? I am more concerned in the performance, stability and security than packaging or an easy install process. Any insights would be appreciated! "
Each BSD has it's own goals - OpenBSD for example aims to be the "secure" BSD, and is designed package by package to make sure the l335 h4x0rs out there would rather pull their fingernails out than try to bypass the security safeguards on your box.
Sooooo... maybe it might be better if you told us what you're looking for- you've asked a really open-ended question!
--
I'm not an expert on BSD, but here's your basic breakdown: /Free|Net/BSD. Very significant security features, though I'm not sure how they affect usability.
386BSD - was the original 'PC' unix
from that grew:
FreeBSD - continue a focus on i386
NetBSD - main focus being platform proliferation (they support everything, though I don't know about laptops)
OpenBSD - a fairly recent splinter form
As a general rule you'll find the BSD's more server focused than Linux (big generalization, but it holds up some). Drivers are always there weak point, but check the Slashdot BSD section for sites that help you locate what you need.
If I could give any advice, it would not to go with the commercial BSD, BSDi. It's a royal pain in the ass on whatever you want to compile, and even worse to setup with a network - if you don't know what your doing.
However, this can be argued for any distro, but still.. I believe BSDi to be the worst in that category - it's simply nasty.
Stick with FreeBSD, it's stable, nice, and don't forget free.
Peace,
Matthew
_____________________________________
sortakinda.ca | canadian paraphrasing.
Well, it's not really emulation. It works perfectly, and pretty much runs Linux binaries as native binaries. It runs them about as fast as (or in some cases faster than) a Linux system.
As for the differences, FreeBSD supports more x86 hardware generally, while NetBSD supports more architectures. OpenBSD has better out-of-the-box security, but all the BSDs are quite good in security with a bit of tweaking and configuring. It mostly seems to be a matter of personal preference, though most home desktop users tend to pick FreeBSD.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I have a confession to make.
I run Windows98.
I know, I know. But I feel this is the appropriate time to come out of the closet.
So, I ask: Is *BSD as easy/hard to learn as Linux? Can I/ Should I start with FreeBSD?
This isn't meant to start a flamewar, of course. I'm just curious.
p.s. If you'd like to help in the "Drive to get jawad off of Windows": EMail me at jawad@nycap.rr.com or bhattj@rpi.edu. Thank you.
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Discuss
Here's how I understand it.
;-)
;-)
OpenBSD has undergone a line-by-line professional security audit. It is focused entirely on security.
FreeBSD is the most mature of the BSDs on the i386 platform. It focuses mostly on that platform, although I believe that there is a sparc port as well now.
NetBSD's hook is that it is ported to everything including the kitchen sink. It ran well on the Vaxen and the Apollos that I came across not so long ago.
Based on user testimonial, the linux Binary emulation is extremely good for anything that isn't specifically tied to the kernel. i.e. you can't load kernel modules. I've seen somebody run StarOffice 5.0 on OpenBSD using the emulation.
I'm installing OpenBSD on a 486 tonite, so maybe I'll follow up with some more first-hand info soon.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
FreeBSD - optimized for X86 op-code processors
OpenBSD - The line by line security audit gives it a claim to security. Security, however is what one makes of it on thier box.
NetBSD - likes running on as many different platforms as possible. From x86 to toasters to dreamcasts. And, the NetBSD developers have been cast by others as as giving a damn about hacking an OS, not trying to peddle one.
FreeBSD is prob. the best bet for x86. Only because that was the original focus.
Linux emulation on FreeBSD has worked on every program I have tried...but that is hardly useful praise.
For stability, FreeBSD gets the nod, only because you can point to Yahoo and cdrom.com and go, yup, yup, lotsa uptime, lotsa traffic. (for most purposes almost any modern Unix-like OS will be stable enough for most people) I'm sure the defenders of the Net and OpenBSD will submit big net/open BSD sites. (just like if one said RedHat was used on the biggest, a swarm of SUSE would point out big SUSE sites)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
I know this guy. He's the type of person who likes to make himself seem much smarter than he really is. He will write twice as much as he needs to on assignments (I'm in college), and he will say things in class with a very thoughtful voice, and no depth of thought.
:) (not refering to anyone who has posted here)
So, one day I was talking with a friend about BSD, and how I wanted to try it out. This person I know just happenned to be sitting nearby and jumped in. He said that FreeBSD was the most secure and that OpenBSD was the most compatible. I asked him to elaborate on this compatibility thing, and he said "Well... I think... OpenBSD can run C++ programs." Instantly I lost all respect for him. I inquired further, and he said "yes, it can run Microsoft C++ programs, and the other BSD's can't."
Moral of the story: If you don't know, shut up already!
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The BSDs are great for servers, their perfromance is excellent, and they have alright high end hardware support.
However, if you are using this computer as your personal workstation i would highly recomend staying with Linux. Its overall environment seem better polished and more usable. It is not difficult to get around the problems of the BSD's, however they are annoying. The ports collection is invalualuable to almost anyone on all three of them.
Between the three BSD's, I have found openBSD to be the best. It not only is super secure, but it gets around many of the newsences of freeBSD. It's hardware support is excellent, i have found drivers for many devices that would not work under freeBSD or Linux. I also found the installation of openBSD was much nicer, however i have done many i386 unix installation, so i knew what i was doing.
In my network which is mixed commercial unix(mostly solaris), Win 95/NT, *BSD, linux, i use freebsd on intranet servers (excellent NFS), openBSD on the internet servers, and Linux on the rest.
If you have never used unix, i would highly recomend Linux, Redhat, SuSE, or any commercial package will work great.
Everyone will have a different opinion, and they are all right. I'm going to offer my FreeBSD-slanted opinion as one view.
NetBSDCoke, original formula. Hard to argue with that. NetBSD has a long and noble history. The NetBSD team does a great job of covering the hardware world. No, not the WinTel hardware world, that's Linux. They cover platforms. By running on so many platforms it is a great platform if you have a lot of different (and/or old :-) sorts of hardware. Unfortunately, it is this platform compatability that slows their progress.
I have nothing bad to say about NetBSD. unfortunately, I have nothing good (feature wise) to say about it when it comes to getting real work done. Anything you buy these days has "better" choices that run on it. I will continue to be a big NetBSD supporter though, as it's the only choices for some of my older machines that still deserve a real operating system.
OpenBSDI'd tell you about it, but then I would have to kill you. :-) Actually, it's not that bad. OpenBSD is security focused, and so they do go a few extra steps in that direction. About 60% of what they do can be done on NetBSD simply by intelligently securing the box. The other 40% is good security add on work.
Most of the good stuff the OpenBSD folks come up with make it into the other BSD's and Linux shortly afterwards, although not all. I'm not sure on security alone OpenBSD is "better", assuming you have a clueful admin who understands the issues.
IMHO the best thing for the BSD community is if the OpenBSD guys and the NetBSD guys could get together. Unfortunately, the inability to do that is the very reason they are apart.
FreeBSDThe FreeBSD folks want to get real work done. Early on, that resulted in an Intel focus, as that was the only affordable platform available. Now the Alpha is included, and hopefully more soon. When they day is done though they are interested in bang-for-the buck, not on RC5 or quake, but applications like web, ftp, and news. Bread and butter network stuff, rooted deep in the Unix world.
This shows in several places. The VM subsystem they implemented several years back was one of the first of it's kind in the free OS world. The port subsystem is an efficient way to distribute and build tools that may still have compile-time dependancies and configuration without creating a packaging nightmare. The installer is simple, clean, fast, and good for the novice and the expert.
Put simply, FreeBSD makes the admin and the machine the most productive when trying to do Internet application "stuff".
LinuxI'll offer my Linux opinion, to complete my perspective. Linux wants to be everything to everybody. As such, it supports more "options" to everything. There are more device drivers, more supported file systems, and more "applications" than any other free unix. In many cases, this is good, but when it comes to getting real work done, it is questionable at best.
The quality of both some of the "supported" hardware and the drivers are to be questioned, but how are you to know what is good, and what is bad? The releases are more frequent, both to fix bugs, and introduce features. There are often all sorts of new things added you don't need that may affect what you're trying to do.
SummaryAny of them will probably do what you want. All of the BSD's have a very different structure than Linux, not only in code, but in how they are designed, built, and released. They all have core teams, rigid code review and testing procedures, and an emphasis on being correct rather than being first, best, or fastest. For the most part, if there is a feature in a released version, it works, reliably. Linux emulation on FreeBSD works like a dream. If RealPlayer G2 and acroread will run fine under it, anything will. The penality for this stability and reliability is that you're doing to have to pick from the "approved" hardware list, and do without some of the wizbang stuff.
Finally, I have one recommendation. Learn the way each OS wants you to do things. Unix is Unix, unless you're an admin or a programmer. The worst thing anyone switching OS's can do is try to impose one OS's / designers view on another. It's usually a poor fit. Just because one OS does something completely different than another does not automatically make it better or worse, what matters is what you are able to do with it at the end of the day.
Good luck with whatever you try.
As deep and from the soul this sounds, I can't sem to find anything than 'FreeBSD needs to grow up.' Sure, I agree that for a long time FreeBSD was considerd the underdog, and now that people are treating it more like an operating system rather than an annoyance to 'linux world domination,' there's some lag in changing attitude. This isn't by the leaders, but by some followers. Linux advocates had to grow up some, and maybe a few BSD ones do too... who knows.. maybe this is bs too..
But, where is your examples? How is FreeBSD being evil to other BSDs? How is it robbing the poor and giving to the rich, or anything else one could hold ethical and important where FreeBSD breaks community trust. I'm willing to listen, just not accept statements blindly. I like the FreeBSD people I've met, though never met other BSD people since I'm all x86, and used the BSD a system administrator told me to try. I've got an HP Apollo, but no luck yet with the NetBSD port (used to chat a bit with the guy), and just got another HP... might get it working...
So, where's FreeBSD hurt us? I can forgive some evils, because FreeBSD has helped user choice a great deal in knocking the linux zealots over and over again with the fact that there are other, and at times substatually superior, open source operating systems out there. That doesn't make everything ok.. but then what am I to despise FreeBSD for? I don't see them breaking my, or the communities, trust.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
.There are some serious differences between the different flavors of BSD, but for general purpose use one would almost never notice them.
/etc for example, the BSD's seem much better organized. The man system is but one small example, for primary documentation (just read Design and Implementation of the BSD Operating System for a great example of amazing kernel documentation) I've simply found nothing better among free software.
OpenBSD ships with heavy cryptography in the distribution, allowing one to choose Blowfish generated passwords instead of MD5 for example. They're allowed to do this because they code, integrate the distribution, and ship from Canada, where Draconian laws on exporting Open Source cryptography are non-existent. Taking advantage of this the OpenBSD project is also striving to update ssh-1.2.12, the last completely free version of ssh, to remove well known security problems, which will be known as OpenSSH.
The other two projects, NetBSD and FreeBSD each have separate slants, though neither offers direct strong cryptography in their distributions because both ship from within the United States. FreeBSD is tailored for use with x86 and now Alpha CPUs, while NetBSD is tailored for wide portability. This is why the NetBSD project states "Of course it runs NetBSD."
I've only slightly used FreeBSD, and many years back. However, my NAT box connected to a cablemodem runs OpenBSD, and I have several old Sun workstations which run NetBSD... I have to say I'm very pleased with both of these Operating Systems and would strongly recommend them to anyone with need of an OS for some specific purpose (like NAT service on a firewall, or to run old oddball hardware like my Sun3s, old VAXes, and the like). And they're very strong distributions with heavy development cycles... just recently the NetBSD project integrated in UVM, a completely new memory manager with distinct advantages from the stock VM described in the BSD Design and implementation Red Book.
Hell, they all make for excellent alternatives to Linux as well... though I personally prefer Linux on my desktop workstation, after having my previous IP-MASQ Linux system, also connected to the cablemodem, cracked using a well known named buffer overflow (yes it was my fault) I'm now convinced I don't want a Linux box sitting out on the open net. I feel much safer with OpenBSD for many reasons... not just because they include the cryptography but because they code audit, they by default run critical daemons without root privileges in chroot() jails, and the authors take great pains to distribute their system by default with the fewest services started as possible, unlike most Linux distributions.
And one last thing, not meant to inflame Linux Proponents since I gleefully run both systems in my house, the documentation in all the BSD distributions seems far superior to Linux DOCS. Linux may have more HOWTO's, and other informal documentation, but when it comes to finding canonical documentation, like in man5 for
I've been very pleased with the results
Although I haven't tried it personally*, everything I've seen and heard points to FreeBSD being the smallest leap from Linux. Once you get past the shallow stability/scalability/performance claims, the two aren't appreciably different.
As for the "emulation", I understand it is pretty good. A coworker of mine used to request Linux builds of a particular piece of software I maintained at work, because he was using it on a FreeBSD box, and I had a Linux box. It all worked without a hitch.
As for claims that some software runs faster, I'm sure it does. In general, software will run slightly differently, which includes some operations running faster and others running slower. FreeBSD and Linux are optimized differently -- this is an artifact of the fact that they're completely different implementations of the same basic POSIX and Unix APIs. I'm sure there's a class of problems that each is better at. Making a broad statement that X is faster than Y is pretty much pointless. (Even if Y is a Microsoft product. ;-) )
In the end, you really need to try out different flavors and find the one you're happiest with. If it seems like too much of a hassle, then perhaps that's a hint that the change won't do you much good.
--Joe(* Note: I did try to install FreeBSD once, but a bug in the Adaptec 7800 driver caused it to trash memory and crash before it even mounted the / partition. (This was a long time ago and I'm sure it's fixed by now. Linux and FreeBSD have been sharing their AIC7xxx code for awhile now.) Since I needed the machine for some hardcore simulation work, and since I already had a working Linux install, I didn't take the time to debug it then, and haven't gotten back around to it since. This isn't a black-mark against FreeBSD in my mind at all relative to Linux: Not only were the FreeBSD developers willing to help, but also my first Linux installs required similar sorts of hand-holding. The two worlds aren't that different. I've just been too lazy to try another Unix when I have something that works well enough for me.)
--
Program Intellivision!
*gripe* I hate it when rpms that install into /usr/local reset my SGID bits and groups.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
I've been tinkering with FreeBSD for nearly a year now and compared to the Linuxen I've experimented with (SuSE, Caldera, Debian, and Slackware), it's easier to keep FreeBSD up to date via the ports tree and CVSup.
But when it comes to the *BSD family, FreeBSD has more merchandise available. Just check out http://www.freebsdmall.com for stickers, hats, shirts, mouse pads, plushies, etc. OpenBSD does have the cool Blowfish shirt, with the C code on the back.
from the author of The Complete FreeBSD:
if you peers are using bsd, use bsd. have no freinds? use linux instead
--
You're a cartoon of rebel! You're all like exaggerated version of yourself! - Gerard Jones
Got a 7000. Be careful about the video! Mines an ATI-Media-P (they upgraded it behind my back.. would be good if xfree worked). Ok, so xfree does work, just is a pain. Check out the linux laptop pages for info on the i7000 to make sure xfree is setup correctly. I've kept putting off spending another hour or two tryingto get the config to work (kept doing something wrong)... hoping to get a desktop soon enough....
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
Well I have played with the install on all three BSD and I will give you a quick warning off the bat. OpenBSD's install is definitly not for the beginner. I found the install process for NetBSD and FreeBSD both to be much easier, with FreeBSD being the most automated. OpenBSD has a very odd way of setting up partitions. NetBSD has some similarities to OpenBSD as far as partioning goes but somehow NetBSD seemed easier. Those nice text menus I guess. Neither NetBSD nor OpenBSD are going to do a lot of post installation setup for you, running XF86Setup automatically for example. For that you need FreeBSD. FreeBSD takes up two floppies to boot instead of one floppy like the others. All three have ftp install processes which is what I was using, but only OpenBSD and FreeBSD include DHCP support during the FTP install. I find the BSD bootloader nicer than LILO and easier for the newbie at least. NetBSD however has a way to set which partitions are on the menu and label each one. FreeBSD uses the partition type as the label but I wasn't sure how to modify the boot menu. NetBSD seems to boot the fastest. NetBSD and OpenBSD put their base dist in a single file and the kernel in a single file and the X stuff all in one file, with the option of getting small split files. FreeBSD only offers them the small split file way. FreeBSD's ports collection is impressive and generally will stay ahead of the other with some interesting exceptions. For example FreeBSD has ported KDE as of 1.1.1 but NetBSD is up to 1.1.2. Those are just a few of my general impressions of the BSD's but I would suggest trying them out and see which one you like. FreeBSD and NetBSD get my vote over OpenBSD because security is not as critical and I find the install and setup easier. Also NetBSD and FreeBSD both can be downloaded from ftp.cdrom.com and OpenBSD was oddly absent Hmmm?
The chattr command allows changing file attributes on an ext2 partition. Here's an excerpt from the man-page:
CHATTR(1) CHATTR(1)
NAME
chattr -changefileattributeson aLinuxsecondextended
file system
SYNOPSIS
chattr [-RV] [-vversion ][mode]files...
DESCRIPTION
chattr changesthefile attributesona Linuxsecond
extendedfilesystem.
The lsattr command allows showing these attributes.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Yahoo, Microsoft, Wistle.. OpenBSD got $10k from very happy corperations that base products on it. Why not go to FreeBSD's page and take a look at the list they made. Its not nearly complete, but shows its got some big names. Yahoo has been very happy. Microsoft too, cept they refuse to update virus scanners so they can blame BSD...
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
I'm not going to reinvent the wheel; the distinction between the 31 flavors has been made abundantly clear. I think it's wise to point out, though, that you shouldn't choose OpenBSD just for security, just because of its vaunted line-by-line audit. I mean, that's a really laudable thing to do (not sure if I know of another OS available to day that can claim that), but a lot of what's been done to OpenBSD can be easily implemented in other operating systems (Unix, anyways). I'm sure OpenBSD users might suffer a few less buffer exploits or TCP/IP attacks in the years to come, but I think most the reasons why OpenBSD is "secure" can be implemented by competent sysadmin in the other BSDs. Thus, if you need compatibility or HW support, but also security, don't be too hesitant to try Net/FreeBSD.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
It's not really called "emulation" because it's not an emulator. FreeBSD (and others, I'm sure) runs Linux binaries. You can install Linux libraries, even as low-level as the various C libraries floating around for Linux. Technically it's called, in FreeBSD, "Linux mode."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I've heard this before from a lot of FreeBSD advocates: "The FreeBSD TCP stack is lightning fast", which of course goes with the implication that the Linux stack is not all it could be.
For the dozens of times I've heard this, I haven't seen any recent benchmark or anything to back up the claim. It should be very simple to compare the two -- you can use exactly the same apps very easily.
I know that the original TCP stack for Linux was not so hot, but I know it was rewritten sometime in 2.0.x (get me if I'm wrong). I'm sure there have been other improvements through 2.1 developement.
I've never used Linux in a high enough bandwidth environment to be able to see the stack at all. On my old k6-200 serving ftp on 10baseT, processor utilization to fill the pipe (perhaps 30 users, so the ftp daemon wasn't costing much) was about 3%.
Anyone have any reports on the two in a 100baseT or gigabit environment?
What nonsense! There is a thriving community behind OpenBSD. Subscribe to the misc@openbsd.org mailing list for a few days and you'll see lots of information, much of it very useful. The S/N ratio of the OpenBSD mailing lists is pretty high and there is definitely a community there.
The community seems to be growing in size, too.
A lot of those bugs were in the base BSD code, and in the process of auditing OpenBSD, theo find's the bugs and shares them with other BSD groups.
\w0zz - OpenBSD - A Better Solution
Hi, I am a partner of Nightfall Security Group, a San Diego based computer security thinktank which favors BSD over the other varieties of UNIX based operating systems. For security, OpenBSD wins hand down. OpenBSD has a very spartan feeling about it, the installation is text based and it requires some previous knowledge of tcp/ip, filesystems and various UNIX things. Theo, who heads the OpenBSD project is very proud that OpenBSD has had only a couple vulnerabilities found in it, since it's tenure, and most, if not all of them dealt with third-party applications. On the other hand, FreeBSD is Nightfall Security Group's choice for our servers, while OpenBSD is for our firewalls. FreeBSD in our experience is the most efficient and stable operating system that we have encountered regularly. You can bang FreeBSD with all that you got and chances are it will take it and bounce it right back. FreeBSD's security is also very good, like all BSDs, but because there primary focus is performance the FreeBSD core team does not review the source code with such scrutiny for vulnerabilities as the OpenBSD team does. FreeBSD's installation is very GUI and FreeBSD comes with a pretty complete set of drivers. Overall, FreeBSD is the most useable BSD out there. NetBSD is one of the most portable operating systems in existence. If you go to the NetBSD website, at www.netbsd.org, you will find a link to a list of hardware architectures that it can run on. The list is absolutely astounding. NetBSD lacks in our opinion true stability and their scrutiny of code for vulnerabilties needs improving. But, if you need an operating system to run on a very outdated or unique piece of hardware chances are it already has been ported to it, or it will soon. For more information you can always visit NFSG's website at www.nfsg.org - skalore@nfsg.org
skalore@nfsg.org
Chairman of TooRcon (www.toorcon.com)
skalore@nfsg.org
Founder of ToorCon (www.toorcon.com)
CTO of Nightfall Security Group (www.nfsg.org)
Linux is the "WinTel hardware world"?!?
Just off the top of my head, I can think of several platforms that Linux runs on:
- PPC
- x86
- ARM
- SPARC
- Alpha
You BSD guys just never give it a rest, do you?--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
OpenBSD's security is wonderful, but correct me if i'm wrong, it's no *remote* root exploits?
:-)
I doubt anyone would be insane enough to make that claim with sincerity. OpenBSD does a good job by starting most daemons as normal users and then chroot() jailing the process, providing high quality blowfish cryptography support for passwords (try and run crack on that!), and just being careful with their code. They've done an extensive code audit looking for lack of bounds checking ala buffer overruns and other obvious exploits... strncpy() instead of strcpy() type fixes.
But this DOESN'T mean OpenBSD is completely and totally secure, nor does it mean it's been completely cleaned of remote root exploits. Never mind removing all Denial of Service exploits, or well hidden and unpredictable race conditions.
Such are the statements of fools...
Unfortunately it seems that clustering support has been lacking for *BSD so far. I've seen a few attempts, but nothing really good that I've seen so far. It would be nice if someone ported Beowulf over, because that would give researchers an easy way to migrate over, or use in parallel, or whatever with existing clusters.
Yes, *BSD, and FreeBSD in particular have pretty advanced TCP/IP stacks, so far they've been the only ones capable of driving the Myrinet cards past the gigabit range.
Probably somebody who picked the "Complain about a company/organization" option for Scott Pakin's automatic complaint-letter generator, supplying "NetBSD" as the name of the company/organization, specified that it should generate 5 paragraphs, hit the "Complain" button, and pasted the results into a Slashdot comment.
I'll address just this point, never mind the rest *cough*.
Two reasons why this won't happen:
Indeed? I've heard that claimed, but not seen any hard evidence one way or the other.
MS does, as I remember, use, for example, the BSD FTP client (I think I ran "strings" on "ftp.exe" and saw a Berkeley copyright notice in it), but I've not seen anything to indicate that their TCP/IP stack came from BSD.
I guess I'm weird, but I like a no-frills, just-the-facts-maam installation. It installs everything you need, and then some. Out of the box, it's tight and stable. Given a few patches (available at www.openbsd.org) to take care of a couple little niggling bugs, recompilation of the system, and the installation of a couple packages from /usr/ports, it's up and running smoothly and flawlessly.
FreeBSD - well, I installed Free and ran it for a while. It has a *ton* of stuff with its system, most of which actually works. The only thing I can say here is that it seemed less "tight" than OpenBSD. One day, my X configuration worked. The next day, after having changed exactly *nothing*, my window manager mysteriously stopped working. Then, the next day, X refused to come up at all. So, I wiped it out. It didn't seem very well put-together at that point (v3.2).
NetBSD - its installer is less straightforward than OpenBSD. It uses a somewhat curses-type installer on x86, and it's a little less than flexible. For instance, I couldn't convince it to install the system to two disks (having a couple of smallish disks is an unfortunate reality on a couple of my machines). At any rate, I had to set up the slices on wd0, reboot and pretend to want to install to wd1 and set up the slices there, and then reboot again (because I wanted / on wd0a), suspend the installer after having "set up" wd0 again, and mount wd1a to /usr before resuming. After that little bit of hacking around, the system installed normally. The mouse device still eludes me, though, and I've not the time to deal with it currently. On OpenBSD, it's /dev/psm0. On NetBSD, from which Open is derived back in the mists of time, even after compiling in the wscons console drivers and setting things up, /dev/wsmouse won't allow the mouse to work. It, too, is less "tight" than OpenBSD in my opinion, but in a different way.
There seems to be a spirit of technological innovation in the NetBSD camp that the other BSDs benefit from greatly. Witness RAIDFrame, pciide, etc. migrating from Net to Open. Softupdates originated in, I believe, FreeBSD, and was ported into OpenBSD. Some of the better parts of FreeBSD's userland made it to OpenBSD and was audited and changed. Some of it made it back to Free and even back into Net. So, there's a lot of cross-pollination between all of them.
YMMV, of course, but my miles will be run on Open.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
though I have not used NetBSD or OpenBSD, I have used both FreeBSD and Linux, and one thing I have definitely noticed is that in low-RAM situations, FreeBSD seems to run decidedly more smoothly.
My machine is a Pentium 133 w/16 megs of RAM, so if I am running Netscape Communicator, i have about 22 megs of stuff in the swap partition. Any Window Managers other than FVWM are out of the question, and despite that, Communicator still dies fairly often.
FreeBSD, though, will let me use Communicator with KDE, and on top that, I have never had Navigator die on me.
How this info matters to a more powerful machine is beyond me, but what it means to me is that I see no good reason to be using anything other than FreeBSD - I use only x86 computers, so there's no compatibility gap there which would justify another unix, and security is not a big issue for me since I am just running a desktop which I doubt anybody would put much effort into cracking, anyway.
NetBSD 1.4 alpha
$uptime
11:35PM up 156 days, 3:04, 4 users, load averages: 1.21, 1.01, 0.69
NetBSD's stability looks fine here. :) 156 days w/ absolutely no signs of degradation. That's 156 days since the initial setup up the machine (i.e., after transferring data from a different-type filesystem and building a custom kernel), and my first experience with NetBSD. Of course, the FreeBSD box next to it has a similar uptime (as has the Linux box..)
I think it says something about all of them that the most limiting factor for uptime is the size of your UPS and eagerness to upgrade.
Regarding the original topic at hand, I think it really depends on how eager the poster is to jump head-first into a real unix environment. I personally think it's nice to learn it the hard way first, so you know the underlying principles and can easily pick up new flavors.
Of course, if you don't care about OS or having unix skills, the one with the easiest install and prettiest out-of-the-box desktop configuration would be the obvious choice, imho. The only 2 unices I've really used as workstation os's have been Linux and Solaris, though, so I can't really comment on how the BSD's compare.. (fwiw, Linux beats Solaris to a pulp in that department, and I suspect *BSD would, too)
$ time cp /from-linux-2.2.10-ac3/ppro-200/testfile .
real 1m11.308s
user 0m0.017s
sys 0m5.704s
$ time cp /from-freebsd-3.2-RELEASE/k6-2-400/testfile .
real 0m52.546s
user 0m0.013s
sys 0m5.314s
It's probably worth noting that (at least) FreeBSD and NetBSD support NFSv3 in stable releases, and Linux does not yet.
I can't give a good answer to what would be best for NFS serving *to* linux, as I don't have anything set up that way. Samba should display less variance as it's a user-level process. In that case, network stack and ethernet drivers would matter more.
The two things that definitely convinced me te use FreeBSD are the ports collection and cvsup.
The ports enable you to install 2000 different utilities with a single "make install".
cvsup allows you to keep up with all security patches with a 5 line script that is cronned every week.
But after using it for some time (after being a Linux user), the total consistency of the system is another good argument (although this is not a specific FreeBSD argument...)
-- Nothing is as subjective as reality --
I am going to try to answer the Original Question to the best of my ability:
/eye-suh-kemp/ built-in to the OS, many crypto libs built-in, etc).
;> I've seen NetBSD and OpenBSD on laptops before, however, so it still mostly depends on what you are going to be using and doing with your machine (of course).
is there really much of a difference in security and performance among the BSDs? Do any of the BSDs have any features that sets it apart from the others (for example, does one work better on laptops than the others?) I am more concerned in the performance, stability and security than packaging or an easy install process.
1. Security and Performance Issues
1.1 All three BSD's (and Unix or Unix-like Operating Systems) are server-class, carrier-class, and datacenter-ready applications geared specifically for performance, stability, and security. There may be other OS's that excel [Unix and Unix-like OS's] in one of these three fields, but never in all of them. Plus, Unix is an actual useable OS when compared to say, OpenVMS, MVS, VOS, OS/900, etc. I am specifically speaking from a mid-range perspective.
1.2 My point is this: any good Unix implementation will have you fully covered (assuming you know what you are doing) for security and performance. I do not believe that security and performance issues vary WILDLY between Unix and Unix-like OS's. (well, see below)
1.3 If your goal is development, and not implementation, then you may have to shop around. For example,
1.3.1 OpenBSD is great if you would like to rid Unix of the evil problem of buffer/heap overflows and poorly written code as far as SECURITY goes. It also includes SERIOUS Userland material for security-awareness (it has IPSEC and a keyserver for ISAKMP
1.3.2 FreeBSD is great for the Internet Server market it was geared for. It is simply BSD for the masses, but it does an EXCELLENT job in this manner. If you are not a coder and looking to help a project on the Internet -- this is it. If you are a coder and like to see your code actually used and cherished by it's users/implementors, this may also be a great and exciting development evironment for you.
1.3.3 NetBSD has probably the cleanest implementation of Unix code anyone has ever laid eyes on. I mean, this stuff is *solid*. If you are ever interested in SERIOUS kernel development, this OS is like the BIBLE. It is so clean and bug-free, it's simply amazing. They need a lot more developers to get where they want to be. Only for serious low-level hardware hackers, display hackers, device driver writers, and the like! But you will be very happy little coders.
2. Userland Support (such as Laptop support)
2.1 FreeBSD has all the Userland support you will be looking and expecting to find. This may not neccesarily be true under NetBSD and OpenBSD.
2.2 Most serious advocates of OpenBSD and NetBSD run FreeBSD on their laptops
3. My take on the BSD's for maximizing Performance, Stability, and Security (versus ease of use / ease of install)
3.1 FreeBSD is the easiest to deal with. It has the most documentation. It has the best driver support for say, NIC cards under x86 (this is probably true in general for x86 arch -- the FreeBSD network driver support is insanely awesome). It has the long-standing Vendor support that Linux has (one example: Accelerated-X, however, there are many more). If you are building a generic BSD server or workstation, this is the OS you probably want to do it on.
3.2 NetBSD is better than FreeBSD in all three areas. But the Userland support lacks in some ways. Since most people change around Userland into something completely different ANYWAYS -- this might not be an issue for you. If you already expect *LOTS* of development, than this is the OS you want to do it on. But, if you expect certain Unix Userland things to be there, you might find them missing or at least Under/Un-Documented. FreeBSD fills in those places, but at a slight cost of performance and stability.
3.3 OpenBSD is great for "Community", especially "Hacker community" environments. If you want to crack your life away, than this is the OS you belong in. It allows you to at least attempt to give out shell accounts and sleep well at night. I wouldn't do this with any other OS, and believe me, you will end up modifying OpenBSD to hell and back by the time you feel semi-confident with it. But, there is already a lot of work done with OpenBSD to guard against Userland attacks. FreeBSD or NetBSD will have all of the regular security stuff you are looking for (IPSEC, SSH, etc) and you can build a lot into FreeBSD or NetBSD for security (as much or MORE than any other Unix OS). But if you want all that stuff to play with right away, OpenBSD has it by default.
4. Final Discussion
Well, it's totally up to you. Check out all three homepages. Read up. And the best answer is probably, "Use what your friends use". I am a BSD bigot. If it were up to me, I would never want to use Linux again. But, everyone at work uses Linux. So, I either a) have to turn them all over to the darkside -or- b) become a Linux-head myself. But then again, I've fought the same battle for years at companies about Windows. I just enjoy an OS that actually works. And IMHO, it's got to be a *BSD.
If openBSD's code is so safe and secure because they audit their code, why doesn't Linux do the same? Is it because no one wants to initiate and maintain such a project?
-----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
strings ftp.exe on nt reveals:
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
All rights reserved.
Heh
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Ok, I've read basically that FreeBSD has the best support for the x86 platform, but I've also heard NetBSD is very well designed and written and fast.
So which is "fastest"? If I want to stick a *BSD on an old or even mediocre Pentium class machine...which of these is optimized for that, and would I be able to recompile with optimizations for my chip? E.g., Stampede Linux is compiled with pgcc which is optimized for pentiums...can I get that sort of optimization from a *BSD?
I'm actually considering to install some form of Linux, and I guess it could be an ask slashdot itself. I've looked at Slackware, and Debian for its package features, and Stampede for its optimization.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Why don't YOU give it a rest? I'm a Windoze guy, and don't know which is the better Linux/Unix. I think it's too bad that there always has to be someone who dumps some completely irellevant post in which they bitch and moan over something. Get a grip and say something if you have something to add, otherwise SHUT UP and let the serious people speak!
/Troels
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
No, Netscape Communicator is not based on Mosaic all "hacked to hell."
I find your usage of quotes very interesting, as I sure as hell didn't say that. I said Navigator is based on Mosiac hacked beyond recoginition. And it is. Perhaps you're not aware of the fact that the original name for Netscape Communications was Mosaic Communications. Pull up www.mcom.com sometime and see what happens.
Internet Explorer *is* based on Mosaic.
I'm well aware of IE's origins. I don't know why you think that excludes Netscape from doing the same thing.
Cool handle, BTW.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
BSDi is a company.
Their product is BSD/OS. It is fairly good, but its probably not worth the money.
_Please_ stop saying "i run bsdi"
-bugg
This isn't terribly relivant to which BSD is better, but since you brought RC5 up I thought I'd throw this in. Almost all of the distributed.net 'staff' have at least one box that runs FreeBSD, and for many of us, it is almost the only OS that we use. Many of our public boxes run it (web, many of the proxies, etc.), and all of the private boxes we depend on do.
Why? Well, certainly, there is an issue of familiarity. Several staff members are very familiar with FreeBSD; one of them is even on the FreeBSD team. But, most of them are also familiar with Linux, and they all prefer FreeBSD. I don't want to start another holy war, but I'd say that the biggest reasons why they prefer FreeBSD are stability, security, easy upgradeability (cvsup), and software distribution (ports). Some of it is also personal preference, and what you're used to. In fact, the stats box, which originally ran Red Hat, has been so heavily hacked that it could almost qualify as it's own OS (we call it dbnug BSDux release 1.0 (Bovinator) internally }:8) ). The only reason there's a linux kernel on the box is because of the Sybase Licensing.
As for the rest of us who aren't quite as 'in the know' (like me), we've just kinda followed along since it's easy for us to ask questions about FreeBSD. ;) Seriously though, many of us (myself included) have tried both Linux (various distros) and FreeBSD, and most of us prefer FreeBSD.
Decibel!
distributed.net Human Interface
decibel@distributed.net