BSD for Linux Users (2005) | Hacker News Reader

BSD for Linux Users (2005)

over-yonder.net

43 pointss-phi-nl16 comments

I've heard this 'base' package argument before, but still don't understand it. What true benefit does having the kernel maintainer also maintain ls and userland utilities?

The ports system is just an install time package optimization. For most users I don't see it having a benefit over pre-compiled binaries supplied by the distro. Sure it's nice to tune your system to it's optimal and build against current libs instead of updating, but I don't see how it's "that much greater" than .debs or .rpms which is the attitude that I see BSDers take. I've used Gentoo, a little FreeBSD and never felt like it was that much different than .debs.

I like that BSD is out there doing it's thing. I've even used it from time to time, but I always come back to Linux.

Linux just feels more open to ideas, more open to anyone playing around and crazy having ideas that end up working even though we laughed at them when we first heard. Whereas BSD seems more like a walled garden with the inner circle of kernel committees and secret rites. Linux always felt like it was moving forward, taking the pragmatic approach, and BSD was being dragged into future implementing things when they had to. Just my opinion.

Just because they integrate everything into one source tree doesn't mean they have kernel developers maintaining the userland utilities.

> I've used Gentoo, a little FreeBSD and never felt like it was that much different than .debs.

There is quite a difference in speed of the standard stuff compared to customized optimization, e.g. via USE flags. I found that actually bootup as well as system speed is faster. (tested that on Asus eeepc)

One of the things I like best about FreeBSD is the ports collection, since it allows me to keep software updated and current as opposed to pre-compiled packages (only Arch Linux comes close) in the Linux world. At the same time, the base system (kernel+world) stays stable. This is also why I would choose FreeBSD over source-based Linux distros, since the latter updates everything to bleeding edge, even the kernel.

Also, sometimes I get the feeling that the FreeBSD world is less about politics and more about getting stuff to work. This makes porting software easier (ZFS for example).

I've run OpenBSD for a few years. Before that I ran Debian for many years. I prefer OpenBSD for most purposes.

OpenBSD's base system is really nice. It truly is a complete system. It has everything I need: text editors, build toolchain, version control, openssh, tmux, etc.

And all of this is built together and configured with sane defaults. By default sudo insults you if you type your password wrong. If you have a key in your .ssh dir and you launch xdm it automatically runs ssh-agent and ssh-addkey and so on.

Everything in the base system is documented and documented very well. The OpenBSD man pages are incredible. They are so good I use them even if I am currently on a linux system. Nothing is allowed in the CVS tree if it is not documented.

OpenBSD has fewer drivers, certainly, but the ones they do have are excellent quality. Check out the driver for a device supported by both sometime. Often the OpenBSD driver will be 3-5x smaller and far clearer to read. This is especially the case with wifi drivers. The userland is simpler too. To setup a wpa connection on OpenBSD I just type:

# ifconfig wpi0 nwid my_net wpa wpapsk \ `wpa-psk my_net my_passphrase`

On linux you'd have to call ifconfig, iwconfig, and run wpasupplicant after configuring it. I've never been able to get my 3945ABG to work under linux but it works out of the box with OpenBSD, etc.

> Linux just feels more open to ideas, more open to anyone playing around and crazy having ideas that

I don't know about that. Do you really have enough experience with both communities to make such broad statements? If you want a great example of a walled garden check out GLIBC sometime.

This is interesting. The image it gives of Linux is more than a little outdated and/or out of touch, even for 2005; the author apparently hasn't touched Debian (!) which makes his criticisms of Linux installation and maintenance of packages a bit unfair, I think. Aptitude was out there doing its thing more than a decade ago; I figure he must have more professional than personal experience with Linux, since Red Hat distros seem to be his big point of contact. Really, rpm is nice, but it's not the ideal or even the common Linux model for package distribution - and the Linux model, it should be noted, is more similar to Portage than I think he realizes. Everything - everything! - updates automatically, all at once, with Aptitude within one or two short commands, and this was just as true in 2005 as it is now.

But it's a great article if only because it gives a good picture of how the BSD world sees things, a picture that we don't get enough of these days.

And anyway: bazaars are nice, but sometimes cathedrals can be much more pleasant. They're quieter, and often a lot more beautiful. Heh.

Comparing aptitude with rpm doesn't make any sense. One is a tool to fetch packages and their dependencies, the other is a packaging format.

The logical equivalent - yum - was around in 2005 too.

Yeah, I know - that's why I was sort of surprised that he seems to compare rpm with Portage. Portage isn't like rpm at all; if you're going to compare the Portage system with anything in Linux, it should be Aptitude, anyway, right?

This old thing again? Is it still accurate?

In response to your comment, I added the date to the title.

Ubuntu has completely ruined me when it comes to installing/configuring an OS. Recently, I found myself wanting to tool around with freeBSD for a bit, so I installed it in a VM and gave up after I spent three hours trying to get the network working.

Totally agree. It used to be that's why I stuck with Windows, everything had a relatively painless exe installer. Nowadays, the reliability, ease, and huge scope of apt-get completely bests everything I've ever used.

Have you looked at PCBSD? It's about as close to Ubuntu as you can get in the FreeBSD world (except that it uses KDE instead of Gnome). It's not quite as painless as ubuntu, but it is pretty close and on the whole most things work more or less out of the box.

Cyan text on gray background? Are you kidding?

Edit: The content looks good, though, when read through http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

The page also has a color scheme changer on the right.

I think the parent poster is complaining about the defaults not being particularly sensible, which seems reasonable.

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