[nycbug-talk] *BSD compairson

[Isaac Levy]

Hi George,

On Jan 25, 2006, at 1:20 PM, George Georgalis wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 12:03:53PM -0500, Scott Robbins wrote:
>> On Wed, Jan 25, 2006 at 10:48:03AM -0500, George Georgalis wrote:
>>> Folks, most of us have strong opinions about DragonFlyBSD,
>>> FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD (alphebetical, I think there are
>>> others). But can someone provide an unbiased compairson?

Hold on right there-

Do we really have such strong opinions?  I haven't really gotten that  
from this group (or the BSD's in general), at all.  (Ok, some people/ 
places, but they're exceptions).

The BSD's are so promiscuous, I don't know what *BSD I'll be using in  
5 years- but I surely know I'll be using some BSD.

>>>
>>> I know it's a moving target, and I'm not looking for technical
>>> details, just the big points and features. Looks like I'll be
>>> migrating some Linux systems to BSD; but exactly why I choose
>>> one BSD over another is not easy to explain whthout going into
>>> technical examples.
>>>
>>> Is there a resource that describes the different cultures,
>>> philosophy, implementation, performance or some other differences?
>>
>> The wiki at http://www.bsdnexus.com has somewhat of a comparision.
>
> I don't see anything there comparing *BSD, the wiki is unavailable.

There's not much to explain- compared to Linux distros, *BSD is all  
the same- consistent, ancient, UNIX.

I've never been disappointed carrying expectations for compatible  
userland utilities, it's only in the more esoteric/hardcore details  
where things start to differ.  I've found those details are not  
something sane to explain to 'laymen' as you put it.

>> I always thought the best explanation was that of Greg Lehey (who is
>> almost certainly biased, admittedly, towards FreeBSD) that one should
>> (with the exception of DragonFly, at least at this date) look at  
>> their
>> slogans to see what their emphasis is.
>>
>> FreeBSD, the power to serve
>> NetBSD, of course it runs NetBSD
>> OpenBSD, only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 8
>> years!
>
> That's a bit too macro of a perspective for me....

?

>
> in any event this is all no big. It's not too hard to talk about
> software packaging, major release upgrade process, support
> and flavor of base OS; which where my primary factors on *BSD
> selection. Or, install, software, updates and major release
> process for Linux vs BSD.

Well, to be honest, I don't think there's too much Linux vs. BSD  
stuff out there really, insomuch as it's negative in spirit.

There's plenty of docs to explain what *BSD does though :)

my .02?

Rocket-
.ike