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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!think.com!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!ai-lab!hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu!not-for-mail From: mycroft@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: 386BSD vs Linux Date: 11 Apr 1993 01:48:51 -0400 Organization: dis Lines: 63 Message-ID: <1q8bg3$1rju@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu> References: <1q7ot2$guo@sunb.ocs.mq.edu.au> <1q87cpINNfql@gap.caltech.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: hal.ai.mit.edu In article <1q87cpINNfql@gap.caltech.edu> glt@cco.caltech.edu (Greg Tanaka) writes: > >Advantages of Linux: > > Linux has a vastly easier installation system. My friend has little > knowledge of Unix or C yet with the SLS distribution of Linux, he was > able to install Linux without having to muck through kernel sources, > devices, a tremendous number of patches, or any of that fun stuff. > He was also able to install X without much trouble. That depends entirely on what devices you have, and what devices are configured into the distribution kernels. `[Your] friend' got lucky. If you have a distribution kernel with the appropriate oddball devices, you don't need to recompile 386BSD, either (unless you want to apply patches). > Openlook window manager. I am at lost to understand why Linux can be > distributed with the Openlook window manager for free..I thought sun > owned Openlook olvwm uses the (free!) `xview' toolkit, which runs on almost any system which runs X. > a working TCX which compresses the binaries Seems to work fine under 386BSD. > Working virtual consoles with automatic vga card recognition. I've been using syscons 0.1 for a long time. Besides fixing one egregious bug (it *was* alpha-test software...) it's been working just dandy. Virtual consoles are here. > Linux appears to be more memory efficient. When I am running X, 386bsd > swaps like crazy as if it didn't have enough memory. There is virtually > no swapping with linux and X. There are patches which seem to fix a lot of bad paging behavior and loss of pages in 386BSD. > more rapid update and patches. I disagree with this. > more programs seemed to have been ported to Linux than 386BSD. I'm not really sure I believe this, either. > The ability to mount different types of file systems like dos. PCFS for 386BSD has been around for a long time, too. You didn't mention the one advantage Linux has over 386BSD that I can't argue with: a coordinated release mechanism. This appears to be changing. -- \ / Charles Hannum, mycroft@ai.mit.edu /\ \ PGP public key available on request. MIME, AMS, NextMail accepted. Scheme White heterosexual atheist male (WHAM) pride!