Very Computer

by **Terry Eck** » Thu, 17 Aug 1995 04:00:00

Hi All,

First of All I don't want to start a flame war on this topic!

I have been running Linux for over a year and OS/2 for over 2 years.
My question concerns Linux and a unix OS called FBSD. I'm don't know
anything about FBSD and would like to know the merits of it vs Linux.
Can anyone fill me in on the advantages/disadvantages of each. Is there
a FAQ which addresses this subject and if so where can I get it?
I'm mainly interested in which has best features, most software, who
supports it, those kind of questions. Please post or email to me at

Regards,
Terry

by **Jim William** » Thu, 17 Aug 1995 04:00:00

>Hi All,

>First of All I don't want to start a flame war on this topic!

>I have been running Linux for over a year and OS/2 for over 2 years.
>My question concerns Linux and a unix OS called FBSD. I'm don't know
>anything about FBSD and would like to know the merits of it vs Linux.
>Can anyone fill me in on the advantages/disadvantages of each. Is there
>a FAQ which addresses this subject and if so where can I get it?
>I'm mainly interested in which has best features, most software, who
>supports it, those kind of questions. Please post or email to me at

>Regards,
>Terry

All I know about FreeBSD is that they've been a bit slow about getting
out and advertising their product. That seems to be changing, so I'd
expect you to get a response from someone who uses it.

I've a vague notion of their methodology (very vague). I'd expect it to
be a bit easier to figure out what the current state of affairs is with
FreeBSD, but that this state of affairs will tend to change less rapidly.
There seems to be a group moderating kernel changes instead of a person.

I don't have much notion of things like distributions are handled.

I'm not too sure what this will mean long term. Maybe FreeBSD will be
more suitable for write it and forget it applications, but I'm just
guessing.

(Hmmm.. This seems to be just going to linux. I'm sure there's a FreeBSD
group which it should go to, but I don't remember the name....)

--
Sphere.

Find a Linux/GNU Group for you: http://www.tiac.net/users/williams/lugnuts/

Buy Free UNIX!

by **Nick Kralevi** » Sun, 20 Aug 1995 04:00:00

Quote:>My question concerns Linux and a unix OS called FBSD. I'm don't know
>anything about FBSD and would like to know the merits of it vs Linux.
>Can anyone fill me in on the advantages/disadvantages of each.

Linux
-----
Greater number of people supporting it
Better software support
More commerical applications (wordperfect for Linux, novell office
apps for Linux, etc...)
Support for a wider variety of hardware
More extensive documentation
Faster disk access (freeBSD uses synchronous disk access which seems to
slow down common directory writing operations).
More documentation.
More features (like Appletalk support).
Better user support. (freebsd is mailing list orientated whereas linux is
newsgroup oriented).
Lower memory requirement.
GNU Licenced.

FreeBSD
-------
Better NFS speed.
Easier to compile BSD based programs.
More robust scheduler (although this is changing with the Linux 1.3.*
kernels).
Greater memory requirement.
Berkeley License.

My feeling is that Linux is coming out ahead, and that most of the
development work is being done on the Linux side. Linux is quicker
to respond to changes in the computer community. For example, Linux has
included support for IDE CD-ROMs for quite a while, where FreeBSD just
recently added support, and not yet for their primary release.

The Berkeley vs GNU license argument is one that will never go away.

Take care,
-- Nick Kralevich

P.S. Please cc: me any followups to this article, as I may not see
it otherwise.

by **Brian T** » Tue, 22 Aug 1995 04:00:00

Quote:
>I've a vague notion of their methodology (very vague). I'd expect it to
>be a bit easier to figure out what the current state of affairs is with
>FreeBSD, but that this state of affairs will tend to change less rapidly.
>There seems to be a group moderating kernel changes instead of a person.

A FreeBSD core team exists to approve and commit changes to all
aspects of the source tree, not just the kernel. If you have a piece
of code you want to donate to FreeBSD, or you feel there is a section
that can benefit from your particular area of expertise, then by all
means jump right in and hack! A lot of Linuxites get the impression
that FreeBSD is in a "closed" development environment, and nothing
could be further from the truth. It appears to be more tightly
organized than the Linux project, but code hacking is most certainly
*not* restricted to a small set of elite "members".

Quote:>I don't have much notion of things like distributions are handled.

As I mentioned in another posting, it's a well-defined release
schedule that Linux might want to adopt (see the "Why isn't NetBSD
popular?" thread). As well, there is a *single*, official
distribution source, and that's ftp.freebsd.org (or ftp.cdrom.com if
you prefer). Infomagic also sells a NetBSD/FreeBSD CD-ROM, and you
can buy the 4.4BSD Lite source too, but by far and away the most
popular distrubtion is Walnut Creek's.

Quote:>(Hmmm.. This seems to be just going to linux. I'm sure there's a FreeBSD
>group which it should go to, but I don't remember the name....)

Comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc, although with the original subject
line, it will very likely be ignored. ;-) Anything with the word
"vs." in it too often degenerates into a meaningless flamefest. I
find *BSD users just want to get the most out of their system, not
waste time debating whose OS is superior.
--
Brian ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in't") Tao

by **Brian T** » Tue, 22 Aug 1995 04:00:00

>Linux
>-----
>More features (like Appletalk support).

This, of course, is probably the fastest moving target of all, the
feature set of either OS. Not really worth mentioning either way.

Quote:>Better user support. (freebsd is mailing list orientated whereas linux is
> newsgroup oriented).

Personally, I prefer the higher signal-to-noise ratio on mailing
lists rather than newsgroups (and there has been discussion about
gating all the mailing lists to newgroups), but YMMV. The important
thing is that there are pointers in both the lists and the newsgroups
to the other.

Quote:>Lower memory requirement.

This is now debatable as well. I think the only situation where
this may be true is with machines with only 4 megabytes. I've run
FreeBSD 2.0.5 on 4-meg 386's (no X, of course) and it handles it quite
well. I could also do the same with the last Linux kernel I used,
1.1.89.

Quote:>FreeBSD
>-------
>Greater memory requirement.

As a counterpoint, I hear Russell Carter and Larry McVoy are
getting together to pound on a couple of very high-end Pentium servers
with Larry's lmbench benchmark and see why is it that the current
FreeBSD is so much more efficient than the current Linux one (well,
something in the 1.3.* range at least) on performance machines.
Should be interesting to watch.

Quote:>My feeling is that Linux is coming out ahead, and that most of the
>development work is being done on the Linux side. Linux is quicker
>to respond to changes in the computer community. For example, Linux has
>included support for IDE CD-ROMs for quite a while, where FreeBSD just
>recently added support, and not yet for their primary release.

All the free Unices rely on user support for improvement. Of
course, with a larger installed base of users, Linux will naturally be
exposed to more hardware environments then FreeBSD. The addition of
features are driven by user need. For instance, FreeBSD's support for
the AHA-2940, AHA-2940W and multichannel AHA-3940 controllers matured
much faster than the Linux equivalents, no doubt due in large part to
Walnut Creek's FreeBSD FTP server with 3 2940's.

The *good* thing about free Unices is that source is readily
available, and there is at least the possibility that code integration
work from one camp can be used as the basis for the other. There's
already a lot of that between the FreeBSD and NetBSD folks.
--
Brian ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in't") Tao

by **Jim William** » Tue, 22 Aug 1995 04:00:00

> Comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc, although with the original subject
>line, it will very likely be ignored. ;-) Anything with the word
>"vs." in it too often degenerates into a meaningless flamefest. I
>find *BSD users just want to get the most out of their system, not
>waste time debating whose OS is superior.

Unfortunately, just about any thread seems to degenerate into
flame wars. It's very difficult to keep conversations usefull.

I would like to see more coordination between the Free Unix groups.
At the same time I wouldn't want too much coordination. I think
that variety is important.

--
Sphere.

Find a Linux/GNU Group for you: http://www.tiac.net/users/williams/lugnuts/
Buy Free UNIX!
Microsoft is prohibited from examining any packet containing data
originating on any machine which I am using. (Not that I can stop them.)

by **J Wuns** » Wed, 23 Aug 1995 04:00:00

>>There seems to be a group moderating kernel changes instead of a person.

> A FreeBSD core team exists to approve and commit changes to all
>aspects of the source tree, not just the kernel.

Well Brian, to set this straight: there are currently 15 members of
the core team, but the list of commiters is beyond 50. The core team
wouldn't have a single minute available if they had to approve and
commit every single change. (It worked this way at the very beginning
of the project, but this scenario soon proved to be unusable.)

Commiters are requested to have their code modifications reviewed by
someone else before commiting (except for minor bug fixes etc.), and
most commiters feel responsible only for a rather small segment of
code (e.g. certain ports areas, a particular driver or userland
program that is maintained by this person etc.) and would rather avoid
touching everything else. The basic principle is responsibility: you
are responsible for your doing, and everybody who's breaking something
is expected to repair the damage immediately. That's the driving
force that makes people cautious against half-baked submissions
(unless they might be clearly imported as `experimental' in order to
widen the group of people involved), not the omnipresent core team
threatening everybody: ``You should not do this... you should
not...''. :)

(OTOH, the list of people allowed to commit into the bugfix-only
branch [currently the 2.1 branch] is rather restricted. However, this
is not enforced by administrative measures, it's just stated policy,
and everybody has to care.)
--

http://www.sax.de/~joerg/

Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)

by **Thor Lancelot Sim** » Thu, 24 Aug 1995 04:00:00

>>>There seems to be a group moderating kernel changes instead of a person.

>> A FreeBSD core team exists to approve and commit changes to all
>>aspects of the source tree, not just the kernel.

>Well Brian, to set this straight: there are currently 15 members of
>the core team, but the list of commiters is beyond 50. The core team
>wouldn't have a single minute available if they had to approve and
>commit every single change. (It worked this way at the very beginning
>of the project, but this scenario soon proved to be unusable.)

For perspective, the NetBSD core team size hovers around 5 people most of
the time. And they _do_ have to approve all changes to machine-independent
kernel code.

CSRG at Berkeley was never more than six or seven, if I'm not mistaken.

There are many ways to skin a cat. Linux represents one end of the spectrum,
with almost no version control, kernels slapped together seemingly as an
afterthought from the almost independent work of many people, and no standard
set of user-land programs. NetBSD and CSRG BSD are the other end, with
careful design and a small group of core developers enforcing a style and
single set of standards on the entire work. FreeBSD is somewhere in the
middle, it seems.

--

Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash. --Bo Diddley

by **Faried Nawa** » Thu, 24 Aug 1995 04:00:00

$ marketplace head-to-head. I still haven't fingured out how to view NetBSD
$ and FreeBSD.

think of them as operating systems you would run a nuke power plant on...

by **Jim William** » Thu, 24 Aug 1995 04:00:00

Quote:
>There are many ways to skin a cat. Linux represents one end of the spectrum,
>with almost no version control, kernels slapped together seemingly as an
>afterthought from the almost independent work of many people, and no standard
>set of user-land programs. NetBSD and CSRG BSD are the other end, with
>careful design and a small group of core developers enforcing a style and
>single set of standards on the entire work. FreeBSD is somewhere in the
>middle, it seems.

I'm not very fond of the way you described how Linux is done, but other
than that you are esentially correct -- and I think it's a good idea to
have several approaches.

With Linux there is version control -- just not tight version control, and
the kernels certainly are not an afterthought. The way Linux is developed
leads to very responsive -- if somewhat chaotic -- development. Not
necessarily the type of kernel you want to run a nuke power plant upon, but
rather the type of kernel you'd want to run current Internet applications
on -- it's going to be a bit more responsive to changing needs. Linux is
also going to have more say in actually changing those needs.

As I see it, it would be nice if the Free Unices were well enough coordinated
that I could easily choose a different kernel for my different needs. One
kernel for my Web server, another for my desktop, and a third to run my house.

I think of Linux as a fairly agressive OS which is willing to take on the
marketplace head-to-head. I still haven't fingured out how to view NetBSD
and FreeBSD.

--
Jim Williams.

Find a Linux/GNU User Group near you: http://www.tiac.net/users/williams/lugnuts/

by **Jim William** » Fri, 25 Aug 1995 04:00:00

>$ marketplace head-to-head. I still haven't fingured out how to view NetBSD
>$ and FreeBSD.

>think of them as operating systems you would run a nuke power plant on...

Do you mean that there aren't any real differences between them?

--
Sphere.

Find a Linux/GNU Group for you: http://www.tiac.net/users/williams/lugnuts/
Buy Free UNIX!
Microsoft is prohibited from examining any packet containing data
originating on any machine which I am using. (Not that I can stop them.)

by **J Wuns** » Fri, 25 Aug 1995 04:00:00

Quote:>For perspective, the NetBSD core team size hovers around 5 people most of
>the time. And they _do_ have to approve all changes to machine-independent
>kernel code.

I guessed that, but since i didn't knew it exactly, i didn't state it.

>... NetBSD and CSRG BSD are the other end, with
>careful design and a small group of core developers enforcing a style and
>single set of standards on the entire work. FreeBSD is somewhere in the
>middle, it seems.

``enforcing a style and single set of standards on the entire work'',
hmm. `style' is mostly associated with `cosmetics' in my opinion.
It's not that i wouldn't like some common styling, but seriously, it's
not _that_ important to have all the indentation styles uniform across
the entire tree, as long as the software itself is correct. (It's
better than having a buggy source tree with unified styling. :)

The major question is: you'll have to learn to trust somebody else
doing The Right Thing, instead of believing all others around belong
only to the Great Unwashed Masses. The FreeBSD way shows that it's
possible to create a building on such a mutual trust. People commit
in areas that belong to their field of knowledge, and let it up to
others to commit other things. It's not strictly enforced, and Julian
Howard Stacey (to pick a random example) would certainly avoid hacking
anywhere in the regular tree, while he's doing a valuable job in
maintaining a reasonable number of ports. This policy is not enforced
by adminstrative means, but it used to work.

I know of at least one example where the NetBSD way yielded severely
out-of-date kernel code (which is heavily broken). Hellmuth Michaelis
just complained at the phone that the pcvt code as it is in NetBSD-
current is totally defunct... (while the current official pcvt release
is working). [I know that FreeBSD's pcvt is also one of the latest
pre-3.30 betas, and i didn't have the time yet to upgrade it. Anyway,
it's consistent with the remaining source, and *it's working*.]
--

http://www.sax.de/~joerg/

Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)

by **Terry Lamber** » Sat, 26 Aug 1995 04:00:00

]

] >
] >$ marketplace head-to-head. I still haven't fingured out how to view NetBSD
] >$ and FreeBSD.
] >
] >think of them as operating systems you would run a nuke power plant on...
]
] Do you mean that there aren't any real differences between them?

There are.

But the type of person who would take someone else's casual
comparisons and use them to make decisions is the type of person
who should be prevented from obtaining casual comparisons.

For non-casual comparisons, you will need to specify precise
release version numbers and pay my inflated consulting rates
that I charge for doing things that I don't like to do unless
someone pays me inflated consulting rates.

Terry Lambert

---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.

by **Jim William** » Tue, 29 Aug 1995 04:00:00

>] Do you mean that there aren't any real differences between them?

>There are.

>But the type of person who would take someone else's casual
>comparisons and use them to make decisions is the type of person
>who should be prevented from obtaining casual comparisons.

There are casual comparisons for the purpose of enlightening
further research and there are casual comparisions for the
benefit of ckecking off a box...

Quote:
>For non-casual comparisons, you will need to specify precise
>release version numbers and pay my inflated consulting rates
>that I charge for doing things that I don't like to do unless
>someone pays me inflated consulting rates.

Not now, thank you. I don't have the casual comparisons
required such that I'll be able to ask intelligent questions.
I wouldn't want to waste my employer's money asking dumb
questions at inflated rates.

--
Jim Williams.

Find a Linux/GNU User Group near you: http://www.tiac.net/users/williams/lugnuts/

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