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From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: NetBSD FreeBSD LINUX and BSDI Unixes
Date: 9 Feb 1994 19:06:44 GMT
Organization: Kendall Square Research
Lines: 62
Message-ID: <2jbc84$1j1@hopscotch.ksr.com>
References: <76.9.490.0N965E1E@teaminfinity.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: kaos.ksr.com
aradhika.webber@teaminfinity.com (Sysop) writes:
>What is the difference between, NETBSD, FeeBSD BSDI and Linux.
NETBSD and FeeBSD differ from the others in that they do not exist :-).
NetBSD and FreeBSD are derivatives of Bill Jolitz' port of 4.3BSD/Net2 to
the PC architecture ("386BSD"). BSDI is the name of a company selling
a product named BSD/386, which is their port (with some assistance from
the members of the UCB CSRG) of 4.3BSD/Net2. Linux is a from-scratch
operating system written by Linus Torvalds and maintained by him and a
slavering horde of twisted hackers all over the Internet :-).
Linux has more of a System V feel to its programming interface. The *BSD*
operating systems, obviously, have a BSD feel. BSD/386 costs money ($1000
for OS and sources, I believe), but is extremely well supported; the others
are all free, and supported by volunteers. The differences between NetBSD
and FreeBSD are hotly debated almost constantly in comp.os.386bsd.*, despite
the need of an electron microscope to spot most of them. The indisputable
differences are (1) NetBSD currently runs on several non-386 architectures,
because the NetBSD team has placed a high priority on removing 386 dependancies
that were inserted into 386BSD where they didn't belong; FreeBSD as distributed
doesn't, yet, though I believe their current source runs on one other
architecture, as their core team has other priorities. (2) The installation
process for FreeBSD 1.0 is said to be slicker and easier than that of NetBSD
0.9, since the FreeBSD team spent quite a bit of time polishing it; the NetBSD
process does, at least, work (if you're careful).
Linux is entirely GNU copyright; FreeBSD and NetBSD are primarily UCB
copyright, except for the GNU utilities they include (hence you could develop
your own proprietary kernel starting with their work). BSD/386 as a whole
is copyright by BSDI and not redistributable; you do, at least, get all the
sources (except to a couple of device drivers that they got from board
manufacturers and cannot ship source to). BSDI has given some of their
changes and development to the "free" BSD community.
> Which ones will do TCP/IP, Telnet, FTP, SNMP, PPP, UUCP out of the box ?
With the exception of SNMP, NetBSD certainly covers all of these as shipped,
as do FreeBSD and BSD/386 (which may, for all I know, also have an SNMP
agent shipped with it); I believe public-domain SNMP agents are available,
and should run on them. Linux presumably can make the same claim, but I've
heard numerous complaints about the quality of their TCP/IP implementation
(no IP fragmentation/reassembly, for example).
>Which one is overall the best for setting up an Internet site with ?
I shouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole, but: if "best" means you won't
have to spend much time and thought on it, and will get guaranteed hand-holding
by genuine experts and reasonably prompt positive responses to bug reports,
and if you have the cash for it, go with BSD/386. If "best" involves
not paying much for it, then you'll probably have to try out all three of
the other operating systems (unless you don't have a 386, in which case
NetBSD is your only choice).
>Which ones can be obtained already on media, for how much and from whom?
BSD/386 obviously comes on purchasable media (info@bsdi.com); Linux and
FreeBSD both have CD-ROMs available, and probably floppy distributions as
well; I do not know whether NetBSD is available on media, but wouldn't be
at all surprised. You can ask about distributions in comp.os.linux.help
and comp.os.386bsd.misc.