BSD For Linux Users: Intro

The article is dated though - it predates GIT, and still refers to the odd/even devel/production numbering in linux, which went out of vogue a couple years ago (at least)

It is, of course, not entirely accurate when discussing BSD as consisting of a system that is designed with all its "core" components by the BSD system. Some of the "base" stuff in BSD is actually still from outside the tree. For example, rtadvd, the IPv6 Router-Ad daemon, originally came from the WIDE Hydrangea IPv6. The rtadvd.conf files, in Open BSD, aren't the elegant/simple OpenBSD standard, but instead use the termcap(5) format. OpenBSD's approach to situations like this is to use the software until someone is inspired to build an "OpenBSD from the ground up" version, rather than mess around too much with upstream contributions to make them look more "OpenBSDsh"

We use OpenBSD a lot where I work - its firewall, and routing configurations are rock solid. And configuring the systems is a dream. I far prefer the OpenBSD /etc/hostname.if approach to the various /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts approach that various RHEL releases have taken (and changed between releases).

For some reason, 95%+ of our deployed systems (around 500) and our target for application development, is Linux though. Probably because there is no equivalent of RHEL/SUSE in the OpenBSD world.

He alludes to OpenBSD favoring reinstalling rather than upgrading in place. To some extent, this is probably because the OpenBSD installer is quite spartan. Once you know the process, a whole OpenBSD server can be running and configured in well under a half hour. Depending on the system, that can be simpler than merging / updating everything. I update my desktop (chasing snapshots) and laptop (each numbered release, which for OpenBSD happens every 6 months), and just reinstall my firewall/server when I feel like it.

Also, OpenBSD runs a monolithic kernel - all the drivers for the platform are included by default, so if your hardware is supported, it's autodetected on boot. No kernel rebuilding or modules necessary. (I don't think FreeBSD does this.) I've used an OpenBSD install disc to identify weird hardware that Linux didn't recognize.

There are a lot of benefits from a packaging system that primarily builds from source: It's much easier to build a package with various options (OpenBSD calls them "FLAVORS"); build this, no-x11, use postgres for its stats, add support for vorbis, etc. He mentions this, but seeing apt-get struggle with dependencies if you go away from the default configuration (or worse yet, build something from source that other packages use!) really makes it clear. You don't have to build everything from source, either - there are cached packages for most things on the mirrors. (Building all of KDE or GNOME from source would take quite a while!) If PKG_PATH is set to a mirror, "pkg_add pkgname" will attempt to fetch the binary package and its dependencies.

I agree that the author put a nice disclaimer warning us he will not be telling us why BSD is better - but he definitely mentioned that it is .

It is rather obvious the author is biased towards BSD - For example - "Chaos VS Order" and "Right VS Wrong" as titles when comparing BSD and Linux from a philosophical POV. Reading this reminded me of how I was as a young Linux user 15 years ago (Slackware 3.4...) and was proud of using a barely usable OS - blinded by my own pride arguing in favor of Linux without any true understanding of the internals - and unable to hold a single argument of what makes it any better.

If i wanted to sum everything i would basically be saying - Linux is different. But thats why Linux has many different flavors - It depends on what you like - and your level of expertise. If you like compiling everything - you could use Gentoo. If you want it to "Just work" - you could try out Ubuntu. If you need something Robust and supported - use RHEL. While it is true that Linux development might be more "chaotic" than BSD, there is order in the chaos. What seems to be unordered and unorganized in fact has its own way of making things play in harmony.

PS. I would really love if anyone has a more technical comparison of BSD VS Linux (FS, Scheduling Etc..)

Not according to a judge, A jury, and at least one judicial review. Unix, the code, is owned by Novell.

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Novell-271.pdf

http://groklaw.net/pdf2/Novell-846.pdf

It's interesting to note the criticisms that he has gotten -- but not surprising. Most developers that I have met share the same trait; they take things personally. When you talk to someone who has spent years of his life learning Linux (or Windows, or C++, or whatever) and then you make a comparison against that, the developer will feel like you personally insulted him. He feels that you are invalidating all of the knowledge that he has painstakingly acquired. We should all, as a group, move beyond this behavior and seek to have healthier and more neutral debates on these things. I have the same bad habit so I'm not pointing fingers here -- just a commentary. We should all thank people like the OP for sharing their knowledge with us.

In general, I've found FreeBSD to be more stable and to have more of an "engineered" feel to it (if you'll excuse the use of the term "feel"), while Linux.. well, as pointed out elsewhere is a little more chaotic in terms of it's development.

I can't speak for Net/OpenBSD, but FreeBSD certainly has a Linux compatibility layer that let's you run most, if not all, Linux code, so potentially it's "win/win" (or "Lose/Lose" depending on your POV).

But I can say that, over the years, comparing Linux and FreeBSD, FreeBSD is my choice as it has generally been less of a hassle to set up and administer, and the documentation - whilst not completely perfect - is pretty damn good.

My tuppenny opinion, YMMV etc..

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I am an OpenBSD user, but the reason I don't use it as often is because most of the VPS/dedicated servers providers only offer Linux.

coming from a Gentoo background, where portage is based on the bsdports system, package management is not all that foreign in BSD. But when it comes time to tweak things, I start missing my sysfs and procfs, mostly throug ignorance of how BSD does such things.