Enterprises tend to choose Linux because they must consider the availability of professional service, the IT learning curve, and standards and interoperability, the Yankee Group’s Laura DiDio said. Read the article at NewsFactor.
The OS Wars: BSD vs. Linux
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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FreeBSD is really the only way to go. Very secure out of the box. Easy to set things that you need up. Extremely stable (I’ve only crashed a FreeBSD box when the CD-ROM drive in it died and I was ripping CDs with it)
It’s also very easy to keep updated…CVSup…make world…very nice
Looking over the article, it doesn’t really say much. It could really be summed up in one sentence: “While BSDs may have certain technical advantages, Linux has support”
Of course, the article says nothing about FreeBSD supporting most Linux applications through binary compatibility. distributed.net for example runs the Linux Sybase on FreeBSD systems. In that respect, FreeBSD’s application support is virtually equal to Linux’s.
I think the real issue is one of administration. You can find kids these days who know their way around Redhat for a dime a dozen, but a BSD system administrator is a little harder to come by.
As the article said, Linux has greater mindshare, and in the end that’s pretty much all that will determine industry acceptance. Technical superiority is all but disregarded.
Why people must have this competitive mindset? For me, free software is about cooperation. BSDs helps Linux and Linux helps BSDs. I use Debian and NetBSD and I love both.
I really don’t understand the recent increase of holy wars.
I just love Linux.
This thought just popped into my head – maybe Gates ordered a .NET port to BSD not as a cross-platform demo of .NET, but as a longterm or fallback plan of migrating Windows to a proprietary BSD kernel. Then adios to all the existing Windows security and robustness problems. Of course, such a migration wouldn’t be feasible for years because current apps use thousands of Win32 APIs, but newer apps are supposed to rely on .NET exclusively.
Nahhhh – he wouldn’t do that.
No need to hurry mr. gates..
It already exists you know:
Linux!
I just love Linux!
Some self psy here..
People who are in love tend to go blind?
Nah…love is in the air..
Why people must have this competitive mindset? For me, free software is about cooperation. BSDs helps Linux and Linux helps BSDs. I use Debian and NetBSD and I love both.
I refer you to [u]The Cathedral and the Bazaar[/u]
windows vs linux, bsd vs linux. whats next, vi vs emacs?
do not feed the trolls (:
If hotmail were able to run without FreeBSD they probably wouldn’t have had to port .NET to it. Most people see that as the real reason for the move. The marketing move, in terms of he trial, and platform independance, was secondary.
I think the real issue is one of administration. You can find kids these days who know their way around Redhat for a dime a dozen, but a BSD system administrator is a little harder to come by.
Yes and no. The great irony of it all is that administering any *BSD box is actually much simpler than any Linux box, thanks to the centralized configuration, filesystem, etc. You can take any average Linux SysAdmin, and they’ll feel quite comfortable on a *BSD box (granted, they’ll lack the engineering/architect abilities, but that’s standard with any OS) once they’ve had a chance to poke around /etc.
IMHO, FreeBSD’s main drawback is that hideous setup/installer. They should consider *simplifying* their installer in the style of OpenBSD’s (again, just my opinion). Everything else is a walk in the park.
-fp
I agree
Although I have no problems installing it, I wondered why FreeBSD 4.6.2 still has this silly installer (my last install was 4.4).
It’s really a bit annoying
In terms of development, the BSDs are crawling along. They just don’t have that many developers. Except you own a mac, there is nothing in a BSD system to attract a non-geek. You have to be completely hardcore-geek to bother with a BSD system. Linux, on the other hand, is developing quite fast, and at different levels -embedded, server, desktop. Even technically, I think Linux is likely to outrun BSD in the long run. But who knows, maybe apple will breed some life into the BSD line.
Does anyone know which one of the BSDs would be best for a desktop system? I’m basically looking for something that I can start out with the essentials (shell, gcc 3, etc) and build (or install) everything from the ground up, so I can have all of the latest shit without having to wait for the distro makers to pre-include everything, and not have these same distro makers messing with the config(s).
Linux and the BSDs are just passing fads. FreeDOS is here to stay.
why always reffers competition to “war” ?!
It’s about two open source entities; there’s no war. Just competition that benefits both part. If one code is better in one system, it can be ported to the other system.
It’s not like two firms trying to kill each other. There was a browser war between IE and NS, but there’s no war between those open source projects.
Am I the only person who doesn’t find FreeBSD installer difficult to use? Sure, it took me a try or two in the beginning, but after that it was smooth sailing.
Besides, you only have to install once per machine. I’ve been running the same install of 4.x-STABLE since 4.2-RELEASE using cvsup on a regular basis. It’s coming up on 2 years now, and I was running 3.x-STABLE for a year (on a single install) before that.
When FreeBSD gets the NVidia drivers as promised that will seal the deal as far as me moving from Linux to FreeBSD on my laptop.
It has been my personal experience, (it might just be something unique to my area of the country) but the *BSD people that I have met all have this “733t” air of superiority and are the people most likely to say “RTFM!” with the rudest tone they are capable of mustering. It just seems as though the *BSD camp, (possibly only in my area) attracts people with “angry” social skills.
On the other hand, most of the people that I have interacted with that are involved (mostly) in Linux have been exceptionally friendly and very helpful. (Again this could be unique to my area of the country.) Well, except for those people that are really into Slackware. (Again, that might be just in my area.) The Slackware folks tend to look down their noses at everyone that uses any other distribution as been “n00bs” or wannabes.
If the things that I have seen appear to hold true in other areas of the country (and World). I am quite certain it is the attitude of the users, developers and advocates of these two Operating Systems that have put them in the places that they currently sit.
Ask yourself this, would you rather work with people that are friendly, helpful and nice to talk to or people that are quite cranky and often quite rude when you ask “simple” questions?
“MHO, FreeBSD’s main drawback is that hideous setup/installer.”
Granted the installer is ugly, I found it quite useful and intuitive. In no time I was installing over FTP, it even transparently recognized my RAID controller! A lot less hassle than setting up W2k IMO.
As for setup, there is a BSD setup program?? I thought you were supposed to do all that yourself. Ha.
Anyways, I pretty happy with my BSD box, It feels a lot snappier than Mandrake8.1 and much much more responsive than W2k!! I think when I get another harddrive, I’m gonna give that cool new version of RedHat a try on my standby system.
I think it’s great we can argue about which free opensource system we prefer on our computers. Choice is good.
Is it just me, or this article kind of disappointing (did anyone even read it?), i was expecting technical comparisons etc. When i got to the end i actually went back trough, looking for a “next page” link.
Darius,
Anyone will tell you that the easiest and with the most apps is FreeBSD, (OO.org, Mozilla, evolution, gcombust, xine, xmms, Realaudio, Flash, Java, KDE, Gnome Blackbox/Fluxbox, Enlightenment, WM, XFree4.2.1 with nvidia drivers, some games, and even more including good linux emulation, personally I would like to have native Oracle9, or even better DB2 but for now I have to wait). If you ever installed slack so there you are with install routine. Upgrade and apps install is much better than for linux thanks to ports. NetBSD is a little more demanding but in fact it is the most stable OS I have ever used (except mainframes of course). In terms of portability it is true that you can install Net on a toaster. But seriously is is very stable with great VM. As a firewall is actually better than famous Open, again -> stability. In past I have been using linux, but it is nothing exciting except hostile crowd. PicoBSD (small OS for small tasks but nice), MicroBSD (more secure FreeBSD), and ClosedBSD (-> floppy firewall)commercial BSDi/OS. Sometimes MacOS X is also considered as BSD, but the reason for confusion comes from the fact that OS X incorporated some stuff from Free and Net however that would mean that WindowsNT/2000/XP is VMS (kernel) or even Unix -> MS worked on Xenix.
MP
–quoted by Hug0–
Is it just me, or this article kind of disappointing (did anyone even read it?), i was expecting technical comparisons etc. When i got to the end i actually went back trough, looking for a “next page” link.
–/quoted by Hug0–
I agreed, I was very disappointed when I read this article. It was same exactly what you did, I was seek for the next page but it said end. This artcile is complete sucks and need to write more. It’s obstive that the authors need to do the more research.
Anyway, BSD has always been for me! But, I might have to use Linux as desktop, because of more video cards/apps support. Nothing will ever replace BSD as server.
“FreeBSD, (OO.org, Mozilla, evolution, gcombust, xine, xmms, Realaudio, Flash, Java, KDE, Gnome Blackbox/Fluxbox, Enlightenment, WM, XFree4.2.1 with nvidia drivers” …
Someone above said that FreeBSD doesn’t have nvidia drivers …. will I be able to play ball with a Diamond Viper 770 (TNT2 Ultra) ?
it’s entirely a case of what people prefer, i’m a big Linux fan and user here, although OpenBSD is ok i dont find it’s structure as logical, it’s hardware support good enough, it’s installer usable enough, nor it’s reliability on hardware that gets great linux uptime good enough, i don’t want to talk about freeBSD…
Your BSD box can run most, if not all, Linux apps anyway … I’d go with BSD.
Don’t forget NetBoz which is a FreeBSD firewall that runs off a CD-Rom (no hard drive required). It rocks !
FreeBSD nVidia 3D accelerated drivers are reportedly finally forthcoming from nVidia. In the meantime you can use the non-accelerated “nv” driver that comes with XFree86. I use it under NetBSD and have used it under FreeBSD without a problem and with acceptable performance in non-3D-game applications.
BSD people say RTFM because the documentation is so good for the BSDs…the FreeBSD handbook is amazing…and the man pages are by far the best i’ve ever seen…much better done than Linux or Solaris IMHO
I have yet to actually have to ask a person for help with FreeBSD…the online docs are just that good…and i’ve done some pretty complex things with my FreeBSD box, like bridging, samba, recompiling and optimizing the kernel…so perhaps it’s not about l337ness factor…and maybe more about teaching people that there are excellent resources available.
just my $0.02…of course i’ve never had anyone tell me RTFM b/c i usually do some research and learn things that way
-bytes256
Darius,
start here with instructions how to install and get wrappers for linux drivers http://nvidia.netexplorer.org/nvbsd-install.html
get these drivers for linux (older but more stable).
http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=linux_display_1.0-2960 – This is unofficial solution but work fine (I have GeForceDDR 32MB with working OpenGL). nVidia promised native drivers for BSD but they may be released along with FreeBSD 5.0 (close to the end of 2002, if I am not too optimistic)
I can not vouch for for every OpenGL game but that should work as good as under linux. In another words use eh.. anoder OS better suitable for games.
You can also get antialiased fonts.
If you decide to give it a try, get FreeBSD 4.7RC2 with cable or DLS connection only thing you need are boot floppies. If you install -current you will be able to always have bleeding edge FreeBSD through cvsup.
MP
“In another words use eh.. anoder OS better suitable for games.”
Eh, piss on games … that’s what I have a PS2 for
Never been a fan of the PC gaming platform.
I noticed that 4.7 was due to be released yesterday, but guess it didn’t make it, so I’ll probably wait for that. In the meantime, I’ve got Mandrake 9 and Redhat 8 coming down the pipe.
I recommend NetBSD for learning Unix administration, networking etc. It is incredible well organized, documented and consistent, in source, configuration files and manpages. Compared to it a Linux distro looks as messy as my room…
I believe FreeBSD may be better as your primary desktop, since it is somewhere between Linux and NetBSD, but I really have no experience to say. Here I use Debian as main, and NetBSD as a gateway, webserver and learning station.
I know I already said that, but I love them both. I hope I can contribute to these projects!
Is packet reflection from IPF/PF. I hate that none of my *BSD Firewalls can handle source/destination transmissions that bounce off the externally NATted IP address. *sigh*
-fp
Odd, i’ve always had GREAT assistance on #freebsdhelp on Efnet. No one tells me to RTFM, i just explaine what i am doing and i am told what i needed to do instead. I only really ask questions if handbook or google don’t have answers. (read rare)
You got to realize that the corporations are investing millions in their server technology.
You might like FreeBSD because it makes you feel like a 7337 h4x0r, but there are people out there who’s job depends on making decision such Linux or FreeBSD be run on the server. We’re not talking about here running a small file server to share with your friends. If something breaks the corporations need immediate support. You won’t see them go into a IRC chartroom and ask for help. I think people don’t realize that this is not kids stuff and that it’s on a much bigger scale. Corporations want money.
After reading it, I wonder why I wasted my time. It is just an article quoting some research idiots on plainly known stuff.
My philosophy: use what works best for you. If Linux works great: use it, even though you like the idea of using BSD. Same way vice versa. Just why the enterprise enviroment would employ this method…
ced: It’s about two open source entities; there’s no war. Just competition that benefits both part. If one code is better in one system, it can be ported to the other system.
It only works one way. Linux and GNU may take BSD code, but not vice versa due to licensing issues. Besides, Linus Torvalds have been very hostile to the idea of forking something out of Free/Net/OpenBSD unless it is the last resort.
Robert Adkins: It has been my personal experience, (it might just be something unique to my area of the country) but the *BSD people that I have met all have this “733t” air of superiority and are the people most likely to say “RTFM!” with the rudest tone they are capable of mustering.
Wow, weird country….. (I normally experience more snobby Linux users from various distributions, especially Debian and Slackware, holding the RTFM attitude, but for the BSD community, they’re not gonna win any manners award, but pretty polite).
Is packet reflection from IPF/PF. I hate that none of my *BSD Firewalls can handle source/destination transmissions that bounce off the externally NATted IP address. *sigh*
man natd
man ipfw
🙂
I ran ipfw on our company router and still all unknown packets got forwarded to my own box on the internal network. I can’t tell you the configuration by heart tho (and I’m on holidays
)
I found an old config template of mine. Add this as natd params to rc.conf (put your internal IP at intdestip):
-redirect_address intdestip 0.0.0.0
And add this ipfw rule (put your own number at 1234, and own interface at xl0)
ipfw add 1234 divert natd ip from any to any via xl0
After coming from OS/2 – disliking WIN*$ – I gave some
earlier Linuxes from Redhat and SuSE a try. I almost always
came to a point where I had to find some information and
could not find it. Should I look through man pages (mostly
outdated) or – even worse – inspect gnu info pages?
Most of the relevant information is hidden in some text files or html.
After that I tried FreeBSD. Ok, the installer looks
ugly but it worked for me and yes: the documentaion makes
the difference. Man pages for everything and an excellent handbook and some really good faqs.
Yes my personal experience is: FreeBSD people more often
answer with ‘RTMF’, but in most cases for me they were
right.
I am now using FreeBSD – not only playing around with it.
What a great experience:
You hear of some new security problems with
– let’s say – sendmail or ssh, and a day or two later your nightly cvsup job fetched you the corrected sources and
after a ‘make world’ everything works. Has someone ever
tried this with a commercial Linux distribution
(not talking about Debian)? Especially when the problem
is in some popular library with dozens of apps depending
on it.
I think the professional and centralized development
model makes the big difference.
And the wholy system just feels more integrated.
I don’t need the latest video or sound drivers for my
system. And, btw, I have some old-fashioned hardware
here at home, where ONLY FreeBSD or NetBSD worked.
In one situation I had to change FreeBSD’s kernel
source to get it running. But I could fix it easyly!
So – for me – it’s this order of preference:
FreeBSD for i386 systems
NetBSD for other hardware (vaxen etc)
Debian as a choice to see what’s going
on in the Linux world, especially on the desktop.
About RTFM, I’ve been noticing increasing agressiveness in both the Linux and BSD camp. Nowadays you can’t say that you like/don’t like anything without eating dozens of flames.
I’m a bit sad that so many free software users seems to have lost that “community” feeling.
About code sharing, I was not talking about the Linux kernel and the BSD kernel, I was talking about the operating systems as a whole (ok, I should have said “GNU/Linux”, don’t kill me).
Am I the only person who doesn’t find FreeBSD installer difficult to use?
Nope!
I personally don’t know what the all FreeBSD installer gripe is all about.
I’ve found it’s no more simple or complicated than it has to be. FreeBSD Minimal install in < 5 minutes. I’ve yet to get that out of a Linux install
“Debian as a choice to see what’s going on in the Linux world, especially on the desktop”
no, debian is not a good way to judge whats going on in the linux world, and especially not on the desktop front, debian stable tends to be several months behind important changes that mandrake redhat and the like have already rolled in, it is however a great choice for a very stable server platform, when deb hits stable it is just that. i’ve found the local LUG to be very usefull and when asking questions on linux support forums i tend to get good responses, the documentation is good enough from my experiences, on the other hand when talking in IRC to F’BSD experts and on forums to similar i tend to get rather shot unhelpfull answers and a reluctance to share knowledge for the reason that they seem to like having the upper hand more than the linux people.
It only works one way. Linux and GNU may take BSD code, but not vice versa due to licensing issues. Besides, Linus Torvalds have been very hostile to the idea of forking something out of Free/Net/OpenBSD unless it is the last resort.
There’s not any piece of code that is not BSD-based licensed in *BSD ? Even not LGPLed code? At least, the applications are not all BSD-based licensed. And an OS without much applications is ‘not much’ useful. I mean, many apps have mixed licenses, like BSD, GPL, LGPL, X, etc…
Depending on the complexity/no. of ports/traffic levels, etc , you could you not do the reflection via SSH ? Just a thought.
It would be nice to have though.
Thanks god to linux is having more popularity. If was any *BSD, M$ would make a version with stolen code (it is legal on BSDs) and then they will make many incompatibilities and extensions to destroy all BSDs (“embrace and extend policy”).
BSDs are good but they will never be a popular O.S.
Aren’t you a little short on your “reflections”?
First, BSDs are popular. Less than Linux, but they are.
Second, you should explain how Microsoft (or any other) can embrace and extend (extinct) BSDs. They do their thing, the BSDs guy do theirs. Isn’t Microsoft already using something incompatable with Linux? Is that destroying Linux?
saying about stolen code. Read about ATA code from BSD that was incorporated into linux kernel without keeping copyright notices. That is stealing. Open source means that one can incorporate freely when one use the source code from any open source program, but one is bound by the terms of the license agreement. MS has incorporated BSD code several times, but allways giving credit and keeping copyright notices intact.
So educate yourself Mario instead of spreadind stupid (unfortunately common) opinions.
MP
…they tend to choose Linux because they must take into account the availability of professional service, the IT learning curve, and standards and interoperability.
Has this person actually used Linux? Standards??? Show me two Linux’s used in the industry that are identical in use? At least with *BSD it’s the same on each system it’s ported to! When I use FreeBSD. it’s the same regardless where I use it! ALSO, surely this would aid the learning curve? Wouldn’t it take longer to learn several versions of Linux?
libc-headache-2.4.5.o but not libc-migraine-2.1.0.o