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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:2102 comp.os.linux.misc:11400 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!its.csiro.au!dmssyd.syd.dms.CSIRO.AU!metro!news.cs.su.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pa.dec.com!usenet.pa.dec.com!jkh From: jkh@morse.ilo.dec.com (Jordan Hubbard) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Impressions: FreeBSD vs Linux Date: 18 Mar 1994 15:25:29 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Galway Ireland Lines: 40 Distribution: world Message-ID: <JKH.94Mar18152529@morse.ilo.dec.com> References: <1994Mar18.084355.19503@atlas.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: morse.ilo.dec.com In-reply-to: brantk@atlas.com's message of Fri, 18 Mar 1994 08:43:55 GMT * Linux includes more frills, FreeBSD doesn't include any support for news, or a decent mail reader. Also some of the GNU utilities that I prefer (such as less) aren't included. This isn't a huge problem, just download the source and compile it. While you're correct that SlackWare does contain more interesting goodies "out of the box" (I have a copy myself!), we do try to provide such things in the form of "ports", which you can get in the ports collection on freefall.cdrom.com (~ftp/pub/FreeBSD/ports). We also provide binary releases of things in "package" format (~ftp/pub/FreeBSD/packages). For 1.1, this has also be substantially enhanced and organized, and you can get a good preview of this by looking in ~ftp/pub/FreeBSD/FreeBSD-current/ports (you can also grab all or some of it by asking for `<dir>.tar.Z' and the ftpd will automatically tar, compress and send it to you as one file). The only real problem I have right now with FreeBSD is it doesn't seem to recognize my tape drive (Archive VP-150e with SC-402 controller). I have customized the kernel to match the configuration of the controller (IO 0x100h, I don't actually think we support this controller.. :-( If you can give more detail on the SC-402, it's possible that someone can hack a driver up by looking at the Linux sources. One advantage to Linux is that they _are_ faster than writing drivers for less main-stream devices than we are; they have the numbers! :-( One other thing that I can't seem to figure out is if there is in-kernel support for a Microsoft bus mouse. Didn't see anything in the docs. There is support - take a look at the mse entry in the /sys/i386/conf/LINT file. I'm going to work at getting my FreeBSD setup up to production level, adding X, news, elm, and some custom stuff. If I can get it working, I'll probably stick with it. All of those are already ported and available in the ports collection (some in ready-to-run package form). Jordan