*BSD News Article 12271


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From: steveb@tivoli.UUCP (Steve Benz)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: 386BSD v. Linux
Message-ID: <11567@tivoli.UUCP>
Date: 3 Mar 93 22:58:12 GMT
References: <1993Feb24.142553.18435@news.usfca.edu>
Reply-To: steveb@tivoli.UUCP (Steve Benz)
Organization: Tivoli Systems Inc., Austin, TX
Lines: 53

I tried both.  I know this:

	 -  BSD's installation procedures suck.  (I could rattle off about
	    a dozen reasons why, but I'll just rip off the top 3:  The
	    installation program gets deleted after you install (so you
	    can't incrementally install the packages); The documentation
	    sucks (the install notes contain reams & reams of junk not
	    relevant to the installation process, so if you have to refer
	    back to the notes, you have to sift through a ton of junk.
	    Further, there's no notes on exactly what's in all the
	    assorted packages.); and the kernels on Agate don't work
	    reliably (or at least they don't work on my machine and
	    some other folks have reported the same results.)

	 -  BSD requires about twice as much space as Linux to store
	    basically the same stuff.  (Mostly, I suspect, due to the
	    lack of shared libraries under BSD.)  In any case, you need
	    around 200Mb to run BSD, whereas 100Mb is a good number for
	    Linux.  (Where the amount of space "needed" is defined as
	    enough memory to run X, have a load of assorted PD utilities
	    on hand, and enough space for your own junk.)

	 -  I never could get X to work on BSD386.  (I couldn't figure
	    a way around the KBDFORCEASCII problem, and in any case,
	    I didn't have 200Mb of disk.)

	 -  Linux is easy to install.

	 -  Linux is problematic.  All the distributions seem to have
	    known bugs of one sort or another.

	    Of course, if you mention stuff like this on the Linux
	    newsgroups you'd get buffeted by people telling you "Well,
	    what you need to do is download <X> and recompile <Y> with
	    <Z> turned on and all your problems would be solved."
	    Which only proves that there's just reams of secret knowledge
	    which you have to keep up with under Linux.

	    From what I can tell, the same applies to BSD, but to a
	    lesser extent.

	 -  Linux is missing a number of man pages.  (Mostly in section 3.)

	 -  BSD doesn't do multiple consoles.  But then, they have a
	    utility called 'screens' that perports to do pretty much
	    the same thing.

	 -  Linux supports EGA/VGA modes (i.e. 132x40 characters).

	 -  Linux comes up with some bone stupid defaults (the /etc/profile
	    being the most ridiculous offender.)

					- Steve