Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Thu 12th Jul 2007 19:38 UTC, submitted by mark
The next major release of FreeBSD, version 7, is one of the most significant so far, with amount of new technologies and improvement largest since introduction of 5.0. Since constantly searching the mailing lists for important changes can be a bit tedious, this page lists some of the more interesting new things in one place.
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Member since:
2007-02-22
Am I wrong thinking that if an Open Source operating system supports a chipset, where another Open Source operating system should support it too?
Under the hood, BSD has quite a few differenes from Linux (which is why the binary compatibility thing exists). Due to this, porting drivers can, in some cases, be easier said than done. When it is possible, source-code-licensing issues and not-invented-here pride occasionally get in the way. A lot of BSD folks don't like the GPL (to put it politely), and FreeBSD prefers BSD-licensed code to keep things simple, so FreeBSD tries to have as little GPL code as possible (the Ports Collection being a glaring exception, of course).
FreeBSD also tends to be more server-oriented than Linux, and its included drivers reflect such. You also have to keep in mind that many Linux distros add additional drivers (especially Mandriva and SuSE). From my experience, FreeBSD usually lags behind Linux in supporting "exotic" hardware, though it isn't too far behind.
If you want to run FreeBSD, check their hardware compatibility list and choose or build your computer around it. I also learned this the hard way. It's not as picky as Solaris, but it's always good to be on the safe side. Also, FreshPorts is a very good place to look for FreeBSD drivers.
Edited 2007-07-12 22:13