FreeBSD is the most popular BSD flavor, however, it is not as popular as Debian/RH/Fedora/SuSE are even individually. Vote below to give us your take as to where do you pinpoint the roots of this fact.The poll is now closed, thank you for voting.
Poll: FreeBSD’s Popularity
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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It’s really nice when you have a major corporation like IBM making tv commercials for you, companies like Sun and SGI offering largs amounts of code, money and marketing and still others packaging of distros. That’s the difference.
have DHCP..then FreeBSD(and the others) connect
with no problem..(in my old job I had this)
Right now I’m stuck with ppp0E(ppp over ethernet)
and trying to get this to work on FreeBSD 5.1
is a royal pain..
After reading the much scattered “documentation”
and q/a in via google and trying the “suggestions”
nothing worked. (standard realtek ethernet rl0)
I found that my best bet was
Roaring Penguin ppp0e(which works like a charm on
slackware linux) client.
While it installed fine it could not connect..
a glance at the roaring penguin docs showed why:
pppd , the ppp daemon was too old on my FreeBSD.
so I search the web for pppd source code and
download it(via linux of course on shared dos partition)
unpack it only to find that it can only be compiled
for FreeBSD 3.0 (or earlier versions). Is this
STRANGE OR WHAT?
no wonder BSD isn’t more popular..as a desktop
of course.
Since I am a glutten for punishment , I will see
if OpenBSD works any better.
– too hard to setup
– lack of drivers
– technical inferiour as a desktop OS compared to Linux
To me, many of the poll options seemed a bit circular in reasoning, at least when comparing BSD to Linux. It seems like it’d be fair to say that at one point, the amount of advocacy, drivers, development, applications, and install ease was equal between the two Oses. And all those things are functions of popularity, yah?
So the question would be, what factor independent of popularity effects started the popularity feedback loop going for Linux?
Or, I’m missing something big and obvious.
This really is a bad poll. Anyone active in the unix community and familiar with FreeBSD can easily give you two reasons. The _only_ two reasons that FreeBSD is not as popular as linux.
1. Firstly, there was the AT&T trial years ago that put the BSD/OS code’s legitimacy in serious question. This was, actually, the reason that Linus first created linux. If not for that lawsuit, it is likely that he would never have created linux. Or at least not put the effort into it that it would have ever gotten out of its infancy.
2. Secondly… Well… by the time the AT&T thing was settled, linux was already on the rise to the point that it had won the OSS *nix popularity contest. Simple momentum has carried it since. It’s the entire snowball effect… once it gets rolling it just keeps getting bigger. (much like MS)
As for the poll options:
No. 2 is wrong — there are quite a few developers coding for it. And most userland utilities are coded for POSIX more than the linux system.
No. 3: Who really cares about how “traditional” it is. If anything, it might be more POSIX standards compliant — which can’t be a bad thing, can it?
No. 5: This is sometimes a problem… but strangely enough, I’ve found that in some areas fBSD has better driver support than linux (the best example of this is in RAID controllers)
No. 6: Same as No. 2
No. 7: People do not use *nix systems (with the exception of OSX) because they are user-friendly or easy. Anyone that says otherwise is mentally retarded.
No. 8: This is quite possibly the most retarded statement of all. The BSD/MIT license is _MORE_ free than the GNU license. You can argue until you’re blue in the face which is better, but you cannot dispute that you are more free to do with the software what you want when you use the BSD/MIT style license than you would be using GNU licensed software.
I can’t belive about what people are talking about, technical inferiority when just a couple a months ago every benchmark point that FreeBSD is more fastest than linux, when the highest uptime are registered to FreeBSD (www.netcraft.com)…..
come on!!!!!!
The license doesn’t help either. Why would anyone want to contribute to something that can be stolen by MS or whoever and used against you?
It isn’t stealing. If you knew your code was better than the rest, you’d consider letting everyone use it too.
Things like Not many developers involved and Not much momentum/advocacy for example are all related to the type of freedom the bsd license has.
The bsd license is about maximizing personal freedom by placing pretty much no restrictions on what you can do with the code. Licenses the linux stuff tend to use are about maximizing community freedom by placing certain restrictions on what you can do with the code.
Hardware companies looking to support one of these have been choosing linux because it is in their best interest to have a strong community code base and to prevent closed source forks of the code they contribute. When someone like ibm gives code away they do it to sell more hardware. They do not want someone to take this code and using a closed source fork make their hardware look more attractive than ibm’s. They want software to pretty much get out of the picture so the sale can be more mainly on hardware and support, areas where ibm feels it has an advantage.
So because of a license companies more comfortable releasing code that not part of their primary revenue source. To me this is why companies like intel, ibm and hp chose linux over bsd. This is what provided linux with its advantage in terms of number of developers, advocacy, and momentum.
Netcrafts benchmarks of uptime are incorrect. Linux until 2.5 and above, in the vanilla kernels could not have an uptime past about 397 days this though, has been fixed. Netcraft even states they can not accurately determine site uptime, on their own site.
I have not seen one good benchmark that points to FreeBSD being clearly superior to Linux systems, presently.
BSD did win the USL vs BSDi lawsuits and an unencumbered (AT&T UNIX free source code) version of BSD 4.4 lite was released later, that all the BSD’s are based from. I’m not sure how this impedes development, as we all know Linux development continues inspite of SCO’s blubberings.
I belive the main reason as BSD is not popular is because
Linux is overhyped & that is what is hurting BSD.
Very well said.
It is silly to say that BSD is “more free” than Linux. It really depends on how you look at it. One could argue that the fact that BSD code can be made unfree is proof that its freedom is more fragile. When a developer choooses to release under the GPL, he does so because he wants his code to stay free – it is a personal choice, to go against that would go against the developer’s freedom to license his code.
In fact, both BSD and Linux are free, but in different ways. As theorz indicated, the Linux kind of freedom is better for community-building, which explains why the Linux community is bigger (if a bit more chaotic) than the BSD one.
I would say that is all FUD, and untrue :/
One could argue that the fact that BSD code can be made unfree is proof that its freedom is more fragile.
It can’t be made unfree anymore than GPLed code. If a company bases a product off of BSD code, the original BSD code IS STILL FREE. Nothing changes that.
If a gpl application is modified by a company and distributed, those modifications must also be gpl. If a bsd liscensed application is modified, it can be modified forever, there is no provision in keeping changes public.
Let’s ignore “history” other than where it is useful in describing the present: because whether there was a legal issue over BSD/OS or whatever is entirely irrelevant to the emperical observation of how things are today: Linux has substantial momentum and support (financial, commercial, etc).
The BSD advocates need to think commercially and understand how they can keep market share in light of Linux, and a few of the key points seem to be the BSD license (allowing custom kernels — e.g. the insides of Juniper routers or Apple’s desktop), and the out-of-the-box consistency that BSD offers.
I understand that, but it does not make the original code unfree.
No. 7: People do not use *nix systems (with the exception of OSX) because they are user-friendly or easy. Anyone that says otherwise is mentally retarded.
I must be mentally retarded, then. I use Debian as a web server because I have found it to be the easiest and most user-friendly web server. I use Debian because I am lazy. I’m too lazy to use more than a single neuron to install software, too lazy to put a head on the server, and too lazy to accept limitations on where I can admin it from anyway.
So I guess I’m lazy and retarded. Damn.
1. Grow up, gaming isnt everything
2. I bet your grandma could use OS X
3. X has to be the most customizeable window environment out there, and with a good WM, the best preforming one.
4. A lot of people are willing to help, you just cant make a phone cal for it. Heard of Google?
5. So what?
6. Try reading the very first paragraph on http://www.freebsd.org
7. ./configure, make, make install. wow, thats hard.
8. My Powerbook is a freeBSD 5.x machine under the hood, with a bit of mach thrown in. It has very current hardware that works very very well.
9. Many of the same programs are available for linux and freeBSD, but you dont like compiling things, so i’ll give you that one.
10. Not only is FreeBSD going strong, so is OS X. Show me some evidence that it’s dying.
Wow that is one great troll. I think it includes it all. Good job!
The BSD liscense does offer some things the GNU GPL does not provide for, as in keeping changes to a system propreitary.
Though TiVo, and some Cisco routers do use Linux as a base system, and Linux is also gaining ground in embedded devices, this is a strange phenomenon.
I mentioned presently.
1. BSD has less developer because many developer think if they share code under BSD license then it may be stolen by big corporations.
2. Not too much momentum and advocacy. Linux fan boys for sure are good at it.
– Personally i like FreeBSD more because its much faster than linux (I compared FreeBSD 4.8 to Redhat 9). Also FreeBSD doesn’t have 100s distros which i hate about linux.
If freeBSD keep through this Linux momentum for couple of years, i feel it will come as a winner.
_Wolf_
And then consider that many developers don’t want to release their hard work under the BSD license: why let corporate bastards exploit you?
Uhhuh, but “corporate bastards” often prefer BSDL (yeah, GPL is more widely used, probably because it is hyped), and they have deep pockets, and good developers.
Seriously, it is just a combination of advocacy and luck. GNU/Linux users are often a bit more zealous than *BSD users, and “convert” more friends, family, etc. Besides that it is largely a matter of luck, Linux got momentum when BSDi was in court.
That said, *BSD is widely used, but just not by the average home user. *BSD is more unixy, and home users want nice installers, GUI configuration tools, etc.
http://www.critical.ch/bsdvslinux/
Darwin is heavily FreeBSD-influenced, and the NT Kernel is often reported to have huge portions borrowed from BSD, so in a way, there are much more users of BSD code than Linux. 8)
Seriously, this is sort of the whole issue of the BSD license. Contributers to FreeBSD simply have to accept that their code will probably be used by people not directly using FreeBSD. As a result, I think you’re making more people happy, but there are going to be less straight-up FreeBSD users.
I don’t know if NT based Windows systems really has any source code in it that is BSD. But I know Services For UNIX as distributed by Microsoft does have BSD code in it.
Though TiVo, and some Cisco routers do use Linux as a base system, and Linux is also gaining ground in embedded devices, this is a strange phenomenon.
Because there is no real incentive to make their code proprietary. With those products, TiVo and Cisco sell hardware and services, not software. That’s the commoditization of the OS for you…
BTW, you’re right that you can’t make the original BSD code unfree – but you can for derivatives. As I said, (faulty) arguments can’t be made both ways why one is “freer” than the other, but the bottom line is that it’s a false debate to begin with. Both are free, differently. One isn’t freer than the other.
Microsoft said that they will remove all GPL code from SFU before they bundle it standard with Windows.
It is very simple. FreeBSD is not designed with the average end-user in mind. I hope that changes as it is a very good system. Likewise with OpenBSD.
But until mere mortals can easily install it, FreeBSD’s market will primarily be as a web server OS. Nothing wrong with that.
It would also help FreeBSD’s case if you could find a company that offered 5-year support agreements for FreeBSD.
Finally, I think, the operating system market is too crowded and there just isn’t room for more than three players, Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. When I say this, I mean that commercial software makers and hardware manufacturers have very little interest in supporting 10 different platforms. Even Linux, which has a very extensive collection of drivers, suffers from this problem to a given extent.
For the above reasons, both of the FreeBSD and Linux communities would gain a great deal if much of the man power that now goes to FreeBSD would switch to Linux, but that is very unlikely to happen.
I believe the FreeBSD developer would bring a great deal of discipline and experience to Linux. This is a matter of setting aside your personal ego for the greater good in an attempt to create a free operating system that has a chance of being used by the wider public.
Will it happen? Probably not, but I wish reason would prevail over passion on these issues.
Uhhuh, but “corporate bastards” often prefer BSDL (yeah, GPL is more widely used, probably because it is hyped), and they have deep pockets, and good developers.
As it has been remarked often about Linux (at least on Groklaw and by people who understand the GPL), the GPL licence actually is better for corporations because it creates a level playing field forcing them giving back improvements to the original software. This is particularly true for hardware companies (IBM, HP, etc.), but also for all software companies who don’t want to be locked in by the OS maker (Oracle).
OTOH onsider what happened to the BSD code used by Microsoft: what have they given back? Nothing, excluding of course more lock-ins through their software, a race to software patents, an ongoing attempt to lock-in media playing through DRM, and a generous funding to the ultimate Linux lock-in attempt, SCO legal war against IBM and Linux.
So you see that this is the (apparent) paradox of complete freedom of software: ultimately, it fires back against you, you the developer and you the user.
This is one of the reasons of Linux’ success, there are others of course. Any attempt to explain it with a “bit of advocacy and much luck” argument is a gross, misinformed simplification (no offense meant, but that’s how it is).
rehdon
I agree, and I also agree that will never happen.
FreeBSD is not a bad design though, it is unified and its installation is not that much different from Slackware. If a company got ahold of it like Sun, I am sure they will be able to progress it to the point of Linux in technical feats in a few years. And a company could design a user friendly installer.
…is because I can’t install it on extended partitions. Every BSD flavour I tried insists on being installed on a primary partition.
PPPoe is documented in the handbook – http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/pppoe.htm…
Recently no one can compare FreeBSD 4-STABLE branch with Linux 2.6, that’s sure… and FreeBSD 5x is in development, then is unfair to compare with Linux too…. what I was saying is all about a time ago, not now. But you can’t go and say “someone is superior” without taking the final face of two projects and measure their behavior.
Umm no, you can compare Linux 2.6 with both branches. If you want to compare the latest stable branches, then compare Linux 2.6 with FreeBSD 4, if you want to just compare the latest and greatest code, compare Linux 2.6 with FreeBSD 5.
Anyway, FreeBSD 5 will be going “stable” soon, so that will remove your last excuse after all these years. What is going to happen when FreeBSD 5-STABLE is shown to be slower than Linux 2.6? Will all FreeBSD zealots vanish in a puff of smoke? Or will pigs take flight?
What a load of crap! Oh, well, here goes:
1. You can not play games on it.
You can. I have. They will.
2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
Neither can linux. Or windows, for that matter, really. Of course, my grandma doesn’t like computers in the first place.
3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
Well, that’s a matter of opinion; I consider KDE and Gnome (both included in FreeBSD) to be of note, since they are the leading DEs for free *nix.
4. There is no support available for it.
That depends on your definition of support. Paid support? Well, no. Unless you count my hosting company. They give me wonderful support for the FreeBSD server my clients’ web sites reside on. Community support? Awesome. Documentation? Equally awesome.
5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
Huh? I don’t have much knowlege on this…
6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
Hah! In what universe?? My PII/300 and Duron/950 will beg to differ.
7. You have to compile everything and know C.
No, you don’t. But, you can if you wish.
8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
My Nvidia Geforce FX video card works great. As well as my new Epson scanner. Oh, did I mention my 2-month-old Dell DJ audio player works fine?
9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
Hmmm…I guess I just imagined that I used the (install-time option) Linux Binary Compatibility that is part of the distro.
10. It is dying.
It is? Well, someone tell that to all the people who run it, then.
Ok, so BSD in any flavor (other than OSX) isn’t ready for the desktop. It wasn’t supposed to be! Sure, I can change the landing gear on my airplane and land on water with it, but I’m not going to use it as a boat just because it floats. That’s what boats are for! In case analogy is not your strong point, BSD is not a desktop OS. It does what it was made for, and it does a wonderful job of that. I would choose a BSD over Linux any day to run a server. For desktop use, I have Slackware and, more recently, Suse. In other words, the right tools for the right job.
Oops…well I guess great minds think alike…although I took the more serious route
The installations
Drivers drivers drivers
Filesystems to connect to everybody else on filesystem level
There’s plenty of drivers, plenty of developpers, plenty of momentum. In in fact, there’s also plenty popularity.
I for one do not feel the need for a FreeBSD hype, like the Linux hype. It’s been said before but: Linux is for those who hate Windows, BSD is for those who love UNIX.
As it has been remarked often about Linux (at least on Groklaw and by people who understand the GPL),
That is a fallacy
.
the GPL licence actually is better for corporations because it creates a level playing field forcing them giving back improvements to the original software. This is particularly true for hardware companies (IBM, HP, etc.), but also for all software companies who don’t want to be locked in by the OS maker (Oracle).
No, it is not better, to make use of the advantages of opensource as a company you want other people to be able to contribute fixes, code, etc. The problem is that after s/b else adds code he/she is also copyright holder, and you can’t use the resulting codebase in propietary products without giving away the sources. In contrast, if the code is BSDL-ed one can take it, modify it, and use it in propietary products with no problems.
The only remedy is to let all contributors sign copyright papers to assign the copyrights to that specific company. Though, I don’t think many GPL-minded people like that.
Besides that, if you use Linux in a propietary product you’ll have to deal with a whole army of GPL-fans that want your code and company investments in development.
OTOH onsider what happened to the BSD code used by Microsoft: what have they given back? Nothing, excluding of course more lock-ins through their software, a race to software patents, an ongoing attempt to lock-in media playing through DRM, and a generous funding to the ultimate Linux lock-in attempt, SCO legal war against IBM and Linux.
I’d like to give two comments: most BSD developers don’t care, they gave away the code with roughly two rules:
1. Don’t pretend you wrote it.
2. Don’t sue us when it breaks.
BTW. without BSD code the same would have happened (probably with less standardisation of TCP/IP stacks, etc.).
FreeBSD is really great, the installation is as easy as Debian or Slackware (when you’ve understood what’s meant by that partitions and slices), hardware support is mostly good enough (although support for multimedia devices could be better), most packages you know from Linux are already installed with default installation, with KDE, Gnome, XFCE and WindowMaker you have the choice.
But there’re still some things I miss when using *BSD, e.g.
– a framebuffer device, which makes it possible to view your console with 1024x768x16 @ 85 Hz if you do not want to run X
– the package- and ports-system is great but apt-get is much more comfortable
Something I don’t undertand when using OpenBSD:
The installation is not very difficult when using the documentation on the homepage and all you have to do after installation is well described, you feel happy with all that chrooted Apache and so on. But when you login the first time, why don’t that cursor keys and the delete-key do what anybody expect? OK, it’s the csh and you can use ksh or bash if you like to, but if this behavior is the first impression somebody will get after installation…
Ok, so I booted BSD from the CD like Knoppix. It worked and was interesting. Then I tried to install like Knoppix and it seemed that would not work.
Then deciding to give FreeBSD a chance I downloaded the 5.2.1 iso’s and booted them. I only got that far as the menu seemed very confusing and I did not manage an installation. I probably could have battled the installation, but realized that software would be harded to come by. (eg Java, or vendor applications that I have for Linux). Not having a good Java implementation hurts quite a bit, even lack of .NET implementation hurts.
My point is that BSD is probably pretty good, but it simply does not have the momentum that Linux does.
Well now, this is just a bunch of interesting opioins. And for thoes opionions are my resonses which would also fall under the catagory of opioions:
1. You can not play games on it.
Yes you can like UT, Quake and most Linux games.
2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
Sure it can, just set up Gnome or KDE (I prefer fluxbox but I am not your grandma). My 10 year old nephew loves playing BZFlag. He wants his own *nix machine. He is so cute. And my newphew is cute, thats not an opinion, its truth. Just install *bsd and your grandma can use Mozilla, Balsa or sylpheed and etc. She will do fine, try it.
3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
Gnome, KDE, Fluxbox, Blackbox, Xfce, EDE and more. Take a look at http://www.freebsd.org/ports
4. There is no support available for it.
Check out http://www.freebsd.org/ports and you will see that their are over 10,000 ports sitting their, read to install either by:
pkg_add -r packagename
or go into your ports directory and type
make install clean
5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
Please provide facts.
6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
Well, it just doesnt run on x86. Somewhat true. It runs on X86/IA32, IA64, RISC, ARM and more.
7. You have to compile everything and know C.
I dont know C and have been using it for the last 4 years. Well, I must just be gifted, or not.
8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
Please, provide facts. Check out the comprehensive compatiblity lists. *BSD’s were the first to get USB and WiFi.
9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
Actually, *BSD have a driver that emulates Linux. There are quite a few applications that *BSDs use that use that driver and they all work flawlessly. You can also install various GNU tools sets as well as the default *BSD versions of thoes tools sets. Choice is such a wonderful thing.
10. It is dying.
With so many releases and such a tight release schedual, how can it be dying. I wish I was that vibrant and I am alive (kinda). So to this I say O’please troll.
This list has been copied and paster for years with no one ever responding. Installing *bsd takes me 1/2. Easy self-explaitory install.
Then deciding to give FreeBSD a chance I downloaded the 5.2.1 iso’s and booted them. I only got that far as the menu seemed very confusing and I did not manage an installation. I probably could have battled the installation,
The FreeBSD Handbook describes the installation quite well.
but realized that software would be harded to come by. (eg Java, or vendor applications that I have for Linux). Not having a good Java implementation hurts quite a bit, even lack of .NET implementation hurts.
True. On the other hand both NetBSD and FreeBSD can run the Linux JDK very well, and you can compile a native JDK via pkgsrc-wip (NetBSD) and probably through the port collection on FreeBSD. .NET is no problem, Mono runs on FreeBSD, and AFAIR Microsoft even released a C# compiler for FreeBSD.
Yes, FreeBSD has native Java support, which has been certified by Sun Microsystems. Take a look:
http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/downloads/java.shtml
So many rumors and not enough facts. Please check out my note above.
Windows does have *bsd code in it. I will look for the web page on MS site that lists the BSD license agreement.
As for the unix utilitis for Windows, that is made by internix (www.internix.com) which uses openbsd as their code base. All the tools are OpenBSD.
Simply by luck. The same reason Windows is the most popular desktop OS now–they got lucky.
I started using FreeBSD some years ago.
First as server then I tried it as Desktop.
Now I’m using Debian.
What FreeBSD is missing are:
1) a simple tool to keep up-to-date my OS and my packges, such as apt-get (i know pkg_add exists and there is a tool to keep the sytem upgraded, but they are not as simple as apt-get to manage)
I don’t have time and resources to compile from sources.
2) this is not a freebsd fault but it seems to me that to install java i have to compile it from sources
3) to run acroread i have to install the linux emulation, right ?
Using linux I have the guarantee to find a lot of desktop app linux native.
As I said that’s my humble experience.
If i were to use FreeBSD, i’d wonder what additional features it would provide besides my current Debian. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. I sure know a few. PF is an example. But for desktop usage, i don’t see any and compiling from source (or source patching) is something i hate. I also dislike the standard layout on BSD in general which means its hard to use it as local terminal and i’ve never found out how to fix it. The problem doesn’t occur when one uses remote login via e.g. SSH. I’m sure BSD users have problems with Linux distributions, hence they chose a BSD. It all boils down to preference and in order to analize this a poll such as here could be used but i don’t think the options reflect the popular options as has been already critized.
Besides that, if you use Linux in a propietary product you’ll have to deal with a whole army of GPL-fans that want your code and company investments in development.
As if there aren’t BSD fans and zealots. All too often, people who i meet who use BSD on their desktop are some bunch of BSD zealots who claim anything which is less free sucks because of its license. For example, see some comments of Theo Deraadt, check some discussions on Deadly.org. But, more important, is that this is just how i perceive a group of people and such experience can never be used as a fact cause it is biased.
1. Don’t pretend you wrote it.
Bzzt. Wrong. Used to be that way with the advertising clauses. Now you don’t have to do that. All that’s required is you do not try to make the authors incur any liability from the consequences of the use, or flaws in their code.
If I had a team of coders, and was going to relase code to the public, I’d use something like the APSL or the GPL, because it does prevent people from co-opting your code without giving any credit.
3) to run acroread i have to install the linux emulation, right ?
Using linux I have the guarantee to find a lot of desktop app linux native.
This is an interesting point. What WineX and Transgaming do [as opposed by WineX CVS and WINE] is standard profiles for (popular) applications, games. If one would allow this for Linux emulation on FreeBSD making it easier for a FreeBSD user to run Linux applications, games that would make the user experience better. Such could be a non-profit or commercial effort. If it already exists, please provide a link to the relevant information.
You think I didn’t try that?
I live in Korea and the ISP may have slightly different
ppp protocol here – I don’t know this but I have
heard it may happen
For whatever reason it does not work
Actually when i do a ping [some address]
I get a “0.0.0.0 No route to host”
message even though tun seems to be configured.
Even got the “connected” message once.
Is this a problem with enabling IPv6 maybe?
What I do suggest is that desktop development is not
a priority for FreeBSD ..too bad cause as a C programmer
I would love to compare it to my slackware setup
Lets face it the reason Linux has jumped ahead is because IBM, Cisco and everyone else has to give back to the Linux cdommunity. In an ideal world the BSD lic works but on earth people have to be obligated to help-or give back. the BSD lic ensure that BSD will never get the help Linux will and also means limited lifetime before it eventually dies. BSD was a better OS now it is about even (as of 2.6 kernel Linux is actually getting into the technical lead) but while Linux is running ahead BSD is now starting to play keep up and it is only a matter of time before that is not good enough t stay in the game.
Bzzt. Wrong. Used to be that way with the advertising clauses. Now you don’t have to do that. All that’s required is you do not try to make the authors incur any liability from the consequences of the use, or flaws in their code.
Wrong!
* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
The BSDL clearly states that binary distributions must reproduce the copyright notice, etc. “in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.”. That boils down to “don’t pretend you wrote it”.
What FreeBSD is missing are:
1) a simple tool to keep up-to-date my OS and my packges, such as apt-get (i know pkg_add exists and there is a tool to keep the sytem upgraded, but they are not as simple as apt-get to manage) I don’t have time and resources to compile from sources.
Well, one of the tools to upgrade your system is “portupgrade” and I find it to be excellent at its job. Is it easier to use apt-get? I am fond of both tools. I guess this would be a matter of preference. If I remember correctly there is a binary update tools for FreeBSD, I believe that its called FreeBSD-update. FreeBSD is more a source based install and upgrade proceedure. Both have pro’s and con’s.
2) this is not a freebsd fault but it seems to me that to install java i have to compile it from sources
There is a binary version of JDK and JRE (native) for FreeBSD. It is listed in one of my comments above.
3) to run acroread i have to install the linux emulation, right ?
To run Acroread you do need to run emulation. However there is no speed differences between the two versions (that I have noticed). Its actually binary compatibility mode. If functions more as a translator for system calls. If your thinking of something like WINE, no, its not like that.
Using linux I have the guarantee to find a lot of desktop app linux native.
I have actually have had the Linux Apps run faster on FreeBSD with binary compatibility mode than on Linux itself.
“As I said that’s my humble experience.”
If one would allow this for Linux emulation on FreeBSD making it easier for a FreeBSD user to run Linux applications, games that would make the user experience better. Such could be a non-profit or commercial effort. If it already exists, please provide a link to the relevant information.
I use the following Linux applications on NetBSD:
* Sun JDK 1.4.x
* Opera 7.5x
* TextMaker
* PlanMaker
* Wordperfect 8.1
* StarOffice
* Heretic II
They all run without a problem, and only with a unnoticable 1% or 2% performance degradation (for translating Linux system calls to NetBSD system calls). The same story applies to FreeBSD.
I smell the blood of a GPL zealot.
It’s kinda hard to be “more free” than the BSD license. Public domain, maybe, but that’s about it.
I certainly hope you’re not suggesting the GPL (or any of its variants) is “more free” than the BSD license ?
It is silly to say that BSD is “more free” than Linux.
True enough. Correctly, one would state the BSD license is “less restrictive” than the GPL (and variants) predominant in Linux code.
It really depends on how you look at it.
No, it doesn’t. The BSD license has less restrictions than the GPL license and only marginally more restrictions than code without any copyright protection at all (ie: in the public domain).
This is not debatable, it is indisputable fact.
One could argue that the fact that BSD code can be made unfree is proof that its freedom is more fragile.
BSD code can no more be made “unfree” by inclusion in proprietry products than Disney’s pillaging of the public domain can make the original stories “unfree”.
When a developer choooses to release under the GPL, he does so because he wants his code to stay free – it is a personal choice, to go against that would go against the developer’s freedom to license his code.
In that case, the developer has made a mistake. If all the developer wants to do is make sure *his* code remains free, he doesn’t need the GPL, he just needs the BSD or perhaps the LGPL.
If, on the other hand, the developer wants *other people’s code* – that utilises his code – to *also* be GPLed, then he should use the GPL.
If you are a developer, the GPL is not about *your code*, it’s about *other people’s code*. That is its whole reason for existance – to “encourage” other people to GPL *their code*.
In fact, both BSD and Linux are free, but in different ways. As theorz indicated, the Linux kind of freedom is better for community-building, which explains why the Linux community is bigger (if a bit more chaotic) than the BSD one.
No, they aren’t “free, but in different ways” (sounds like an oxymoron to me). BSD is “more free” than Linux.
The restrictions imposed by the GPL have the effect of “forcing” more code to be GPLed (as designed). It’s certainly possible this is a cause of a larger level of popularity for Linux, but IMHO bigger historical reasons were the AT&T lawsuits and the snobbiness of the BSD community.
Linux is hyped too much
As it has been remarked often about Linux (at least on Groklaw and by people who understand the GPL), the GPL licence actually is better for corporations because it creates a level playing field forcing them giving back improvements to the original software.
Uh, a “level playing field” is the *last* thing corporations want – a corporation wants the deck stacked as much in their favour as possible.
Now, if you were talking about *customers*, then you’d have a point.
I like FreeBSD. It’s a fast, stable workhorse that performs well under load and just works. Its provided as a complete operating environment with a nice handbook and all the source code. Its development is like a tree that has fallen over to the right. One branch (the trunk) is where the development occurs and the branches on the right are the forked projects using the BSD technology or creating FreeBSD system derivatives.
For my Desktop, I prefer Linux. The linux development process is like a tree that has fallen over to the left. the branches (developer effort) combine to make the trunk (looking at it left-to-right). Each distribution can specialise in which packages are put together to form the complete product, and each package has this many-to-one development process. That’s why Linux will overtake BSD in terms of technology. Each part has hundreds or sometimes thousands of developers forming one package (such as the kernel itself, or the GUI) whereas FreeBSD is like a one-to-many process where new technology from a complete operating environment gets split into many sub-projects and forks.
Make sense?
I think the BSDs are more free, more stable code, all drivers work from the start (good GENERIC kernels instead of striped ones requiring recompilation), good base of software, better documentation, less changes, good ports system, easier to find errors since everyones stuff is the same, and so on.
But then I do use freebsd (or dragonfly right now). Only bad thing I can think of is that same code requires tweaking to compile (but then there already exists almost 10.000 ports or so so that’s a non-issue), which leaves me with ONE problem: Winex-cvs doesn’t compile and I don’t think there exist precompiled winex binaries.
Ah, plus ATI is stupid enough not releaseing drivers for freebsd, but that’s not freebsd fault. We need more open development of drivers and maybe a drivers standard instead of all oses on it’s own.
I think linux has much more ‘buzz’ going on, I think this is because linux has a different audience then FreeBSD, that audience needs the ‘buzz’
As for FreeBSD being an inferior desktop OS, I’ll give my personal expereinces on that. I started using linux, ran various distributions, but ended up with liking slackware the most because it’s the most ‘clean’. After some linux time I tried out netbsd and freebsd, they instantly grew on me, I never had much trouble with them or I could fix it.
Now recently I’ve tried out linux again with 2.4.26 and 2.6.7 kernel…My expereince sofar is compared to these new distros that FreeBSD is an excellent desktop OS, applications launch much quicker, everything feels much more responsive, much more solid, much more clean, more powerfull. FreeBSD is also much easier to maintain, update and fix.
You may call me a fanboy, but I really like linux, I started with linux, I’ve run linux for quite some time, I hug the penguin…My switch to FreeBSD is not of a fanboyish nature but a practical one, I found the OS suprisingly superior.
To me it seems that Free BSD not being as easy to use, install & configure (for normal, non-geek users, that is… I know that many of you geeks may find BSD very easy… is the biggest reason for Free BSD not being as popular as Linux. Remember that Linux started to become more popular only after the rise of Redhat, Mandrake, SUSE and other such easier to use distros, from newbie point of view. There still is no BSD “Mandrake” or “Xandros”. Related to the geeky, difficult to use image of BSD are the big problems of BSD having less hardware and 3rd party support than Linux.
Another reason: Many FOSS developers just like the GPL more than the BSD licensing, including Linus Torvalds and many other big and small names among FOSS developers.
Also often the GPL license seems to prevent too much forking of the FOSS code (for example, there are several different BSD kernels but basically only one Linux kernel).
Many developers who dedicate their (often free) time, skills and energy to the development of free and open source software, prefer that their code and also the derivative code remains free for the benefit of themselves and others as much as possible. It is just logical. So at least the new code developed by others and based on the old code is the payment the original developers get for their efforts if nothing else. That is a major motivation behind the rising popularity of FOSS. The BSD licensed software doesn’t seem to encourage so much FOSS developer interest (although, of course, also the BSD license may suit some situations and people better in some cases).
if FreeBSD would change their installer for the OS to be more user friendly like Slackware’s ncurses installer and offer to just set mount points for disc partitions i would install it…
so i don’t use it because the installer for the OS is too primitave and without features i need…
“It is silly to say that BSD is “more free” than Linux.
True enough. Correctly, one would state the BSD license is “less restrictive” than the GPL (and variants) predominant in Linux code.
It really depends on how you look at it.
No, it doesn’t. The BSD license has less restrictions than the GPL license and only marginally more restrictions than code without any copyright protection at all (ie: in the public domain).
This is not debatable, it is indisputable fact.”
Except for that last sentence a valid point however naming it as “restrictions” is just using the opposite of “freedom”, but more accurate (which is why i like it more). The point does not lie in the argument of direct freedom, but of indirect freedom which lie in cause-and-effect situations such as proprietary software.
When using a TAZ-like point of view BSD/MIT/Public domain code is certainly more free. When relating to the future, it is very debatable (which future is in practice anyway
.
The freedom of one is a restriction to another applies here too; which means there is no pure thing called freedom which is able to apply in practice as indisputable fact. Those who do not understand this, do not understand what freedom in theory is — IMO.
I call the people who call by definition the GPL more free GPL zealots and the people who call by definition BSD/MIT/PD more free BSD/MIT/PD zealots and i call both short-sightened. What matters is the purpose which ain’t (only) freedom. My opinion is none of these is more free and i could even easily relate that opinion to proprietary software or DRM…
That is a fallacy
.
Not really, read it as “You have probably already heard of this by now” and not as a reason for what follows.
In contrast, if the code is BSDL-ed one can take it, modify it, and use it in propietary products with no problems.
The scenario you are describing advantages some corporations, the one I was describing advantages some corporations, developers and users: guess which one I’d choose any time.
Besides that, if you use Linux in a propietary product you’ll have to deal with a whole army of GPL-fans that want your code and company investments in development.
As the basic principle of the GPL is “do what you want with this, but give back to others your improvements”, that only seems fair to me. Besides that, GPL is only related to distribution: if you need GPL code internally, for your own use, you can do whatever you want with it, provided you don’t redistribute it.
most BSD developers don’t care, they gave away the code with roughly two rules
I have lots of respect for BSD developers, but, hey, you hit the nail right on the head here: they don’t care about the use that can be made of their code, they don’t care about easy installs, they don’t care about desktop use, they don’t care about easy program installation, and so on. Is it really so much of a surprise that the rest of the world (except MS) doesn’t care about *BSD?
Sorry, but whatever BSD’s merits I can clearly see why it’s been progressively marginalized.
rehdon
I have been using Linux distros (many varied ones SUSE–>MANDRAKE–>GENTOO–>ARCH–>FEDORA–>YOPER–>A RCH) for years now and a few months back tried out FreeBSD. Web-browsing is much faster, installation is a piece of cake, kernel compilation and tweaking is easy. Also, everything is documented extremely well. I currently have my PC set up to boot to both and alternate, depending on my mood. Programs seem to compile quite a bit quicker as well. I’ve enjoyed using it.
Forget, at least for a moment, the theoretical arguing over which license is perhaps more free and what’s not. (The BSD zealots seem no better in this respect than the GPL zealots, sometimes even the contrary…) Instead, consider which kind of licenses may be more useful, to developers, users and the community in general.
For example, which kind of licenses encourage more FOSS developer interest – if that’s what you want – etc? In the end, it is the usefulness of the license what matters much more than some rather distant philosophical ideals about software freedom.
The GPL is all about the community, the benefit of the whole community. The GPL may restrict some commercial and proprietary implementation though which restricts its “freedom”. But though the BSD license may be more free, it doesn’t seem to encourage as much developer interest and dedication as the GPL licensed FOSS does. Also many big companies like IBM & Novell seem to like to license their FOSS rather under the GPL than the BSD license. Because that way they get all the fruits like new code and bug fixes, and no other company gets a chance to reap all the benefits without giving anything back.
I’m not saying that a certain license is better than the other, and, frankly, I don’t even care too much. All kinds of licenses may have their uses, pros and cons. But the GPL has certainly already proven its usefulness for the community (commercial and non-commercial community alike).
I’m rather sure that the FOSS phenomenon would be much smaller withouth the GPL license. If there was no GPL yet, it would have to be developed.
There are many good reasons why Mac OS X is based off Freebsd, because unlike linux, if you program something for it, it just works everywhere in freebsd, while to call a program production worthy in linux, they need to have many computers running with 30 or 40 different versions of linux to test unfortunately.. and Linus isn’t making it any better with his lack of ABI support.
The problem with freebsd however has been that fail to present it as a multimedia based platform, which if they did, they would not only have a highly secure platform, but one that had great potential in overtaking linux rapidly, and possibly kill linux eventually.
I dont think the license is making the difference, if *BSD was GPL the situation would be pretty much the same.
As said before the difference is in audience, people that run *BSD want a solid unix operating system, many linux users want a free, secure, opensource windows clone.
If there was an opensource MS windows there would not be such a big linux audience, but there would still be an equal *BSD audience.
This might be a daring statement but probably not far from the truth.
The buzz is certainly not bad, because all opensource software benefits from linux in the spotlight.
I think the big reasons are:
1) lack of vendor support compared to Linux distributions, which in turn lessens driver support (ATi being a big thing for me personally, sigh, shoulda bought NVidia)
2) less users so it’s harder to find answers to troubleshooting questions not found in the (rather good) documentation
3) the installer is still very technical, there are many questions it asks users that most would be scared to answer or not know how to answer properly
well atleast among my friends you couldnt be more far from the truth. i love unix like operating systems and i dont feel any ill towards windows i even run it sometimes on my laptop.
but of the unix like os i just preffer the way things are done in linux i still run bsd but then mostly netbsd on odd hardware. that most linux users just want a free windows clone is complitly bull
lol there are different linux kernels every distro includes its own patches and such, and GPL stops forking, what about:
XFree86>>XOrg?
Redhat>>Mandrake
Fedora>>Cobind
SuSE>>Sun JDS
Slackware>>Slax
when some developers dont agree with the project they tend to fork it. all the BSD licence means is that you dont have to make your fork’s SourceCode available to everyone.
I’ve been watching it’s popularity grow and grow.
The same as been happening to Linux though, it’s seems we have room for all
It’s much easier to develop specialized distros under Linux, it seems. Then again, very few have tried to do the same with the *BSDs. Maybe it’s just not worth it: besides a friendlier installer and GUI admin tools, what more could be done?
Packaging is excellent, filesystem structure is coherent and simple, and the documentation is much better than a lot of commercial OSes out there. You’ll find it very difficult to see a Linux distro with so many and so organized documentation. Just beautiful.
From Juniper routers to Apple computers to Windows net utilities like FTP and PING to QNX (which will replace Cisco IOS in their new routers), *BSD is there.
Responsible companies which want to be able to choose their licenses and avoid bad reputation over their closed-source products use BSD code. Cisco, Linksys and others used GPL code without releasing the source and got bad reputation over it, but now they know they don’t need to do it again.
Hardware companies like IBM and HP have nothing to fear from GPL, so they can actually benefit from the hype.
About commercial BSD support, read on:
http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/consult_bycat.html
http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/consultants.html
http://www.openbsd.org/support.html
About love and care for the source, Debian was the closest to what the BSD developers have done, a well-built system made to last. Despite releasing it under the BSD license.
BSD license means you only want credit, not necessarily new code.
GPL zealots have the illusion that their work gets protected by their license and no one can do a closed fork on their project, but I wonder how hard is it to rewrite the code (maybe even with automatic tools) to an unrecognizable form before compiling so the GPL zealots would never know they had been ripped off. After all, source is open, exposed. Just like BSD.
Bruno
I know BSD usres like to have a single, centralized, os which controls *all* the os ie: Freebsd is not just a kernel but mix of a kernel, libraries, etc.
Linux is not centralized. This has advantages and disadvantages. Disadvantages can be lack of “uniformity”, Advantages…there’re distros for servers, distros for desktops, etc. Personalization is great. This doesn’t happens with BSD OSs.
“Linux is not centralized. This has advantages and disadvantages. Disadvantages can be lack of “uniformity”, Advantages…there’re distros for servers, distros for desktops, etc. Personalization is great. This doesn’t happens with BSD OSs.”
But it does happen in the BSD field. Not just as customizations but as completely new projects:
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-current/src/share/misc/bsd-…
Bruno
What FreeBSD is missing are:
1) a simple tool to keep up-to-date my OS and my packges, such as apt-get (i know pkg_add exists and there is a tool to keep the sytem upgraded, but they are not as simple as apt-get to manage)
I don’t have time and resources to compile from sources.
It’s called portupgrade, and it can install binary packages as well. As for the base system: yes, you must recompile if you want to catch security patches. But recompiling is the fastest way to get these patches, you don’t have to wait for binaries to be created for you.
2) this is not a freebsd fault but it seems to me that to install java i have to compile it from sources
This is due to Sun’s licensing.
3) to run acroread i have to install the linux emulation, right ?
This is due to Adobe. Go ask them for a FreeBSD-native binary. Btw I use xpdf, not acroread.
Using linux I have the guarantee to find a lot of desktop app linux native.
Most Linux apps are open source, so you can compile them on FreeBSD as well (made even easier with the Ports system). And FreeBSD offers binary packages for most of these apps.
You type “apt-get install gaim”, I type “pkg_add -r gaim”. They both go fetch the packages (+ dependencies) from a repository on the ‘Net and install them locally. What’s the difference?
As I said that’s my humble experience.
And this is mine.
What I mean is a lot of linux users want to run windows apps and play windows games etc., they are trying to replace windows with linux, which is not bad, I think it’s excellent, but I think that is the reason linux is much more in the spotlight. The linux community is making a lot of noise to get all sorts of stuff (hardware,software mostly supported by windows) supported on linux, and it takes on ‘evil giant windows’ and is gaining and getting a lot of attention from that.
*BSD is a unix descendant, a lot of people using it have a different approach, they want to run unix(and have done for decades), not replace windows. Altough I think it also makes a fine replacement as desktop OS, perhaps people now begin to see that and *BSD gets hyped a bit…
most hype and ‘popularity’ is always toward the desktop/consumer market, the proffesional and server market have been using *BSD for years, I dont think it’s popularity there changed a lot, it’s always been one of the top operating systems in that market.
I think the main reason is that there isn’t quite as much attension on the BSD as there is on Linux.
It doesn’t get “Is not ready for the desktop” and “The counter claims”. There isn’t an MS campain against it (I do know Linux and populair before). And you don’t see many articles that argument which is more secure Windows or BSD.
All in all not as much free (as in beer) publicity as Linux gets.
I normally never reply but in this case i would like to say that
Mac OSX is FreeBSD based and its popular and has all the things that the poll sugest it has not.
I’ve been using linux for many years and had pretty much stuck with my distro of choice, slackware. I love to play around with different OS’s and well lets just say that new OS turned out to be OpenBSD. I now run a combination of OpenBSD and FreeBSD servers and havn’t looked back since.
As another poster said, use the right tools for the job. I run OS X and Slackware on the desktop and OpenBSD and FreeBSD on the server end. Quit complaining about whether linux or bsd is better and try and focus on whats really important; what suits you best for your needs?
There haven’t been many people describing their experience with FreeBSD here, so I’ll tell you mine. I am just starting to use it on a machine I bought not too long ago, that will (at least temporarily) replace a dying Linux box on my home network.
Installation was a little tricky to master at first. I suppose my first mistake was to install with the “mini-iso” cd. It didn’t seem to have ports with it, so there was no software to install. I attempted to fetch some things I wanted (X, Python, a desktop) with ports and discovered that this was a time-consuming process. So I decided I would get the complete images on CD and reinstall. So I attempted a complete reinstall, but I am not sure it did much more than install ports. Since the “mini-iso” was 4.9 and the complete images I got were version 4.10, this may have messed up ports, because it could not find some packages I wanted when I used pkg_add. As it turns out, this was not a problem, since you can point to a package on the FreeBSD site with a URL.
So I did pkg_add for GNOME… no problem, it installed and runs flawlessly. For Samba and Apache, I had to point pkg_add to the packages that were made for 4.9-release (what I have installed). They both installed just fine, and with the usual editing on httpd.conf, I have Apache running static web pages. The next steps are to get Samba running (it was a challenge with Linux, too) and to install and run PHP and MySQL.
What drew me to FreeBSD is the possibility that configuring a server would be easier than Linux. My main criticism of Linux is that some distros (e.g. RedHat) vary from the “canonical” configuration of some services on Linux. You are dependent on the distro vendor for packages that will run on your system. I like the idea that with FreeBSD, you are dealing with one distro that is laid out in one particular way. Plus, there is one place you can go to get binary packages that will work with your system. Upon further reflection, maybe it would have been just as profitable for me to look for a stripped down Linux distro, install a minimal text-mode system, then use a package management tool like yum to add and update the SW on my system. So far, so good– for someone who knows Linux, FreeBSD isn’t too hard to understand.
I’m using FreeBSD 5.3-BETA2 right now. It rocks. It’s not about popularity (because in that case, Windows wins) but about power and more power.
1. You can not play games on it.
Well, you can play as many games on it as you can play on Linux, which, admittedly, isn’t much.
2. It cannot be used by my grandma.
Neither can Linux. Hell, most grandmas probably can’t effectively use even the MacOS.
3. It lacks a GUI of any note.
It has exacactly the same GUI’s as Linux: KDE3, Gnome2, Windowmanager, Afterstep, Enlightenment, etc.
4. There is no support available for it.
I presume you mean, other than the man pages which are far superior to the Linux man pages, the OReiley site, BSDForums, usenet, a number of popular books, and it’s own website.
5. It is an assortment of fragmented OSes.
OK, I’ll admit, I have no idea what you are talking about. It has a monolithic BSD kernel with a collection of BSD versions of Unix programs, all of which comprise the OS. Pretty parallel situation with Linux.
6. It cannot be run on the x86 platform.
Nonsense. Of course it can. FreeBSD in particular runs on a number of platforms. NetBSD runs on more platforms than any other OS, I would venture to guess.
7. You have to compile everything and know C.
No you don’t. Packages are pre-compiled binaries that can be installed. Ports are source. 99% of the time the ports require no knowledge of anything to install other than make install.
8. Support for the latest hardware is always poor.
That is true for Linux as well, though in general FreeBSD might have less cutting edge support than Linux. Neither match Windows or MacOS. At least I can get sound to work on FreeBSD which is something I cannot do on Fedora Core 2.
9. It is incompatiable with GNU/Linux.
Nonsense. You can install a Linux compatibility layer when you install the OS.
10. It is dying.
LOL.
Maybe what you should have said, to save typing, was: I don’t like FreeBSD because I am completely ignorant of it and too lazy to learn anything about it.
I agree that this poll is absolutely absurd. If FreeBSD is not as popular as some linux distros it’s not mainly because of any of these reasons. It’s just because linux is trendy and receives a lot of attention and people don’t really care trying out all the possible options before settling with one OS. Other than that one would be hard pressed to find any application missing on FreeBSD that linux has and BSD is clearly more free than GPL.
I found BSDs to be much more coherent and usable than any of the linux distros. For instance linux gcc/glibc/kernel incompatibility issues were severe and upgrade of any of them was quite difficult if one wants to maintain the compatibility. Also if I want to download a binary application for linux usually this application is compiled for popular distros and it’s therefore very hard to find something that works on your system if you use a modified system and deviate from any of these distros.
I believe apart from the initial installation procedure any average user would be happier running FreeBSD than any other linux distros because of the quality of documentation and this coherence.
Actually, the original post was so off the wall and flat out wrong, that I figured it was a joke.
We don’t know why one thing is more popular than another. There’s no good reason for it. It’s about momentum, word of mouth, networking, press.
We know Windows is the most popular OS, mySQL is more popular than Postgres, PHP is the most popular scripting language. Are they so popular because they are the ‘best’. Of course not.
So and so uses it, so I have that support. There are these books and documentation, a lot of activity on this support group, etc.
I think M$ have a “B plan” if it cannot stop linux. M$ will put a unix layer on top of its Windows NT kernel and probably will use “stolen” code from *BSDs.
M$ already have Services For Unix which uses OpenBSD code. What M$ gives to OpenBSD project ? A banana…
This is the reason why M$ hates Linux and GPL. M$ cannot stop or steal linux and GPL softwares. The only way is spreading FUD and using SCO to do dirty tricks.
“I think M$ have a “B plan” if it cannot stop linux. M$ will put a unix layer on top of its Windows NT kernel and probably will use “stolen” code from *BSDs.”
How can you “steal” BSD code? It’s just not possible.
“M$ already have Services For Unix which uses OpenBSD code. What M$ gives to OpenBSD project ? A banana…”
How about the credit of seeing OpenBSD code being selected for mainstream products, like OS X? A banana is a GPL zealot thinking that his exposed code can’t be rewritten and used in a proprietary product without being noticed…
“This is the reason why M$ hates Linux and GPL. M$ cannot stop or steal linux and GPL softwares. The only way is spreading FUD and using SCO to do dirty tricks.”
Well, the dirtiest trick they have is patents. And that will hurt us all, BSD or GPL. Somewhat I think they’ve unleashed the patent poison to protect themselves from GPL, hence the GPL FUD may be guilty for all this…
BSD is what you get when a bunch of Unix hackers sit down to try to port a Unix system to the PC. Linux is what you get when a bunch of PC hackers sit down and try to write a Unix system for the PC.
BSD is far more advanced for what linux is today.
Mac OS X is not FreeBSD. However it does contain *BSD code.
“BSD is far more advanced for what linux is today”
Which is why linux is working in servers with docens of CPUs and FreeBSD 5.3 won’t be able to go beyond 6-8 CPUs – read a (somewhat) recent post from Baldwing in freebsd-smp.
(Not that I dislike BSDs, but I _hate_ when the come with this “superiority” attitude, when it’s quite clear that it’s not true nor the contrary either)
I used FreeBSD exclusively on my PC until Mac OS X came out–another BSD. FreeBSD is simply heads and shoulders above many other Unix or Unix like systems. Its rock solid, stanle and has a great community.
“ BSD cerainly has some arguments on its side
By ralph (IP: —.dip.t-dialin.net) – Posted on 2004-08-29 07:53:07
” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.critical.ch/bsdvslinux/”
i just loooove BSD :p
I think Chuck (the freeBSD daemon) is sexier than Tux (the Linux fat penguin).
And the image FreeBSD has is “more power” and “more security”.
Just my own taste
I’m sick of GPL arguements and BSD arguements.
This site leans toward the GPL and linux politically, so a poll here is not really fair.
However.. Linux is obviously more popular since there are big companies advertising it.
I mean jez, you can put an advertisement saying how george bush didnt start the iraq war and run it over and over and people would beleive it.
one of the reasons, i think, is that linux made propaganda from the beginning that it was free unlike windows, and justified its very existence on that basis. Of course everybody was waiting something like that, no matter if it was linux, freebsd, beos, or anything else.
I cannot believe the last option. You people have really gone off the deep end here. This completely reminds me of some religious extremests:
“You are free to live under the rule of our god, otherwise you are not free.”
!?!? That’s the last straw. I’ll be finding my “OS news” elsewhere from now on. Preferably some place who uses the traditional dictionary definiton of the word ‘free’.
I’d say the major reasons BSD lags behind Linux in popularity are a.) Linux was available first, seizing the momentum, and b.) BSD isn’t significantly different enough from Linux to merit a change-over.
Anything I need a free unix-like OS to do, I can do with Linux. While it might be argued that BSD enjoys some technical superiority (and I don’t claim to know whether it does or doesn’t), is the margin of superiority significant enough to merit having to learn the ins and outs of another operating system to take advantage of them? Or to put it another way, are the benefits derived from using BSD over Linux great enough to justify the “cost” in time and effort to become familiar with a new OS?
I use Linux because I discovered it first. I’ve been using it for years, I’m comfortable with it, and it does all the things I need it to do. Other than using OS X, I’ve never really used any of the BSD’s, simply because I never had a need to. There just aren’t any features that BSD offers that Linux doesn’t that justify having to put in the time, effort and pain required to learn a new OS. Using Linux is the line of least resistance.
Now, if I was in Apple’s or Microsoft’s position, and I wanted to build a proprietary product on top of an open-source infrastructure, then I would probably chose a BSD licensed product just like Apple did (license issues and such). But I’m not in that business, so that kind of constraint doesn’t apply to me. I initially used Linux because I needed an x86 based unix-like OS, couldn’t afford an SCO license, and Linux was what I found when I went looking. I’ve been satisfied enough with it that I never felt the need to look for something else. Unless I perceive there’s a significant advantage to using BSD instead of Linux, I probably won’t use it.
BSD’s definitely have role to play in the free software ecosystem, particularly as the basis for commercial products (see Apple). But for my personal use, I’ve little reason to abandon something I’m familiar with and serves my purposes for something I’m not familiar enough with to work with easily.
It comes down to a cost/benefit question – does the benefit of using BSD justify the cost of having to learn a new OS? For me, personally, they don’t. That could change if BSD becomes available with a rash of new features I feel I just can’t live without. But at the moment, I’m not aware of any.
We use FreeBSD exclusively on production environments.
One of the strongest points on FreeBSD (and NetBSD/OpenBSD) is the ports/packages collection.
Many people are unaware of this mechanism.
For example, on Linux, you install an RPM and if it fails dependencies, you have to manually download all the needed RPMs.
This is very tedious!
On FreeBSD, you have a complete source tree of packages, and it’s as easy as changing to the correct directory and typing: “make install”.
The mechanism will automatically download ALL dependency packages, compile them and install them for you.
The closest thing to this, on Linux, is Debian’s “APT-GET”, and it still doesn’t match the functionality of FreeBSD’s ports collection.
Not to mention that the curent ports collection is now over 10,000 packages, all available at your fingertips.
Another strong point is the 64 bit FFS2 file system with soft updates, which is superior to ANY current file system used by Linus. Even XFS, ReiserFS, etc.
And remember: Linux is only a kernel. FreeBSD is a complete operating system
I disagree. The BSDL isn’t more free than the GPL – they are differently free. However, coming from an anti-GPL zealot, I shouldn’t expect anything else than the usual flamebaiting…
By making sure that derivative works remain free, the GPL promotes freedom of code. It protects a developers right to make his creation, and derivative works built on his creation, remain free.
Look at it this way: America is often lauded as the “land of the free” – and in fact freedoms are guaranteed to its citizens. What guarantees those freedoms? The Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Now, the Constitution is full of restrictions (i.e. “Congress shall make no law…”) and so is the Bill of Rights. Those restrictions are there to protect the freedom of individuals – because one’s freedom ends where another one’s begins.
The fact is that words like “free” and “freedom” are so loaded, have so many different meanings in different contexts, that making such sweeping affirmations as “BSD is more free than Linux” (or, for that matter “Linux is more free than BSD”) is erroneous by definition.
Anyway, unless I’m mistaken, there’s GPLed apps in a typical *BSD distribution, just like there’s BSDL code in a typical Linux one…
I know subtlety is often lost on a zealotous mind, but try to make an effort.