Linux implies a focus on GPL, which is one of many open source licenses, some of which may be more open. Other licenses with varying degrees of openness may be more comercially advantageous to companies then either a closed license or GPL, depending on the context. A paper discussing in which contexts a license is more useful is:
http://www.softpanorama.org/Copyright/License_cl as sification/dynamic_licensing_and_BSD_vs_GPL_debate.shtml
The author of the article probably didn't try to make it look better. The default KDE and GNOME setup, last I knew, also looks ugly. Motif is easier to theme for because it inherits X widget properties. A crude X theme could simply be made by adding to.Xdefaults the lines:
**foreground: White
*background: #9B009B00B900
Also the author didn't mention any disadvantages of GNOME and KDE. Last I used GNOME, it was extremely slow starting compared with CDE, because of unnecessary programs that it tries to start. These caplets only functioned well when started by gnome and poorly in shell scripts. It was difficult to get GNOME to not start them because it would overwrite my gnome config files. Also, some of what the caplets do could be better handled by preexisting programs. For example, the mouse properties caplet could be handled by xset. This leads me to think that GNOME is not very modular.
I been using the BSD equivalent, mfs, for my/tmp directory for a few days and have noticed a suddle improvement in X performance. All the documentation i've read about mfs has given increasing performance of/tmp as an example. I believe mfs is also resizable. I'm not sure but it would be logical if mfs didn't use file system caching. If this is true then mfs is a way to give one application which uses a directory priority for having it's files stored in RAM to boost it's performance above others.
As far as increasing web caching performance, a better approach is to use squid, which has the option of storing things in RAM without the need for creating a file system. Also having a huge disk cache speeds things up since disk speed is faster then network speed.
The announcement lacked technical details. Firstly, it didn't mention in what part of linux is it a subsystem. Is it related to the XFree86 dri? Its mention of multiple monitor support is strange. I've never heard of games using multiple monitors. Could it have been refering to X? BSD was also not mentioned. If the subsystem is open source, would it compile exclusively on linux. The press often describes software being exclusive to linux when it could be compiled on any unix platform.
I once used fbsd for a week, and then switched to obsd. I have been using that for about two months now. I also once tried to use nbsd, but it didn't support dhcp in the install, and I couldn't force an IP.
I believe there isn't a significant driver difference between the two. The vidio drivers are part of xfree. They both have limited sound driver support. If you care about sound, you should probably use oss with both. The only significant hardware support difference is fbsd can use smp. If that isn't a factor, then obsd's security features and increased stability defenetly make it a better choice.
Slashdot Mirror
Linux implies a focus on GPL, which is one of many open source licenses, some of which may be more open. Other licenses with varying degrees of openness may be more comercially advantageous to companies then either a closed license or GPL, depending on the context. A paper discussing in which contexts a license is more useful is:
l as sification/dynamic_licensing_and_BSD_vs_GPL_debate .shtml
http://www.softpanorama.org/Copyright/License_c
It is more stable because it's mostly immune from government manipulation, i.e. inflation.
The author of the article probably didn't try to make it look better. The default KDE and GNOME setup, last I knew, also looks ugly. Motif is easier to theme for because it inherits X widget properties. A crude X theme could simply be made by adding to .Xdefaults the lines:
**foreground: White
*background: #9B009B00B900
Also the author didn't mention any disadvantages of GNOME and KDE. Last I used GNOME, it was extremely slow starting compared with CDE, because of unnecessary programs that it tries to start. These caplets only functioned well when started by gnome and poorly in shell scripts. It was difficult to get GNOME to not start them because it would overwrite my gnome config files. Also, some of what the caplets do could be better handled by preexisting programs. For example, the mouse properties caplet could be handled by xset. This leads me to think that GNOME is not very modular.
I been using the BSD equivalent, mfs, for my /tmp directory for a few days and have noticed a suddle improvement in X performance. All the documentation i've read about mfs has given increasing performance of /tmp as an example. I believe mfs is also resizable. I'm not sure but it would be logical if mfs didn't use file system caching. If this is true then mfs is a way to give one application which uses a directory priority for having it's files stored in RAM to boost it's performance above others.
As far as increasing web caching performance, a better approach is to use squid, which has the option of storing things in RAM without the need for creating a file system. Also having a huge disk cache speeds things up since disk speed is faster then network speed.
The announcement lacked technical details. Firstly, it didn't mention in what part of linux is it a subsystem. Is it related to the XFree86 dri? Its mention of multiple monitor support is strange. I've never heard of games using multiple monitors. Could it have been refering to X? BSD was also not mentioned. If the subsystem is open source, would it compile exclusively on linux. The press often describes software being exclusive to linux when it could be compiled on any unix platform.
I once used fbsd for a week, and then switched to obsd. I have been using that for about two months now. I also once tried to use nbsd, but it didn't support dhcp in the install, and I couldn't force an IP.
I believe there isn't a significant driver difference between the two. The vidio drivers are part of xfree. They both have limited sound driver support. If you care about sound, you should probably use oss with both. The only significant hardware support difference is fbsd can use smp. If that isn't a factor, then obsd's security features and increased stability defenetly make it a better choice.