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Xref: sserve comp.os.linux.misc:10862 comp.unix.bsd:13580 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!sunic!news.funet.fi!nntp.hut.fi!nntp!sja From: sja@snakemail.hut.fi (Sakari Jalovaara) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: BSD vs. Linux Date: 12 Mar 94 16:24:05 GMT Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Lines: 34 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <SJA.94Mar12182405@gamma.hut.fi> References: <1994Mar8.141900.2906@wubios.wustl.edu> <1994Mar9.094748.4022@swan.pyr><ARNEJ.94Mar9134803@supernova.pvv.unit.no><1994Mar10.120646.14144@swan.pyr> <DHOLLAND.94Mar10205415@husc7.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: gamma.hut.fi In-reply-to: dholland@husc7.harvard.edu's message of 10 Mar 94 20:54:15 > Don't forget that a 15 year advantage also means 15 years of > accumulated cruft. The very first command ever I tried on Linux looked something like this: $ ed .rhosts ed: command not found One man's accumulated cruft is another's set of familiar utilities. For a non-networked person, "telnet" is cruft. For another, "sendmail" and "rn" are useless disk fillers. Someone might frown at on-line manual pages. Judicious use of "rm" can make just about any system less crufty. With *BSD, getting a small system takes some expertise. You can remove useless network daemons but you also need to know how to make the system not try to start them. With a small OS you get a small lean system by default. With *BSD you get UNIX by default. With Windows you get a headache by default. Configure unnecessary devices out of the kernel. If the kernel has system calls you don't think you'll need - well, you'll just have to tough it out. It is unlikely that even a couple of hundred kB's kernel size difference is going to radically change your life. > NetBSD (and the other 386 BSDs) require more system than Linux does. Depends on what you mean. The minimal NetBSD requires two floppy disks - one for the kernel, the other for "sh", "ls", etc. That's how it is installed: you boot one floppy, then mount the other. After that, everything that comes is value-added extras. Or cruft. ++sja