*BSD News Article 28862


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From: kenh@wrl.epi.com (Ken Hornstein)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Impressions: FreeBSD vs Linux
Date: 28 Mar 1994 04:33:48 -0500
Organization: Entropic Research Laboratory, Washington DC
Lines: 62
Message-ID: <2n689s$5r2@sparc10.entropic.com>
References: <CMzw69.92K@tower.nullnet.fi> <HJSTEIN.94Mar24111940@sunset.huji.ac.il> <Cn6txK.IDp@boulder.parcplace.com> <2n1l3n$821@clarknet.clark.net>
Reply-To: kenh@wrl.epi.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: sparc10.entropic.com

In article <2n1l3n$821@clarknet.clark.net>,
Rob Newberry <rob-n@clark.net> wrote:
>Well, this seems to be the place for this sort of gripe, so I'm
>going to post it.
>[...]
>IMHO, *BSD has a LONG way to go before its ready for users like me.  I
>guess what they need most is a kind of Slackware install, where someone
>can get the system and many utilities installed quickly.  I was
>VERY VERY disappointed to find that, even though I downloaded every
>distribution file for NetBSD at iastate.edu, I didn't even have a good
>way to talk to my modem -- kermit is not there, I can't get tip
>to work, and there's just not any instructions anywhere.

I didn't have much trouble getting tip to work; what kind of problems did you
have?  There's a man page for tip, so it's not like there aren't any
instructions.

>Plus, when
>there are instructions, they're wrong.  The FAQ for makeing a new
>*BSD kernel tells me to switch to a directory that doesn't exists on
>my machine, and config a file that isn't there.  Yes, I did manage to
>find the right place, and create the GENERICISA file from the 
>GENERICAHA, but it wasn't in /sys/i386/conf.  Plus, there's no
>description of all that junk in the configuration file -- the FAQ
>says, "Perhaps someone should tell us what all these options actually
>mean."  I thought that's what the *!@# FAQ was for!

The FAQ covers Net,Free and 386BSD; while they're all close, they have some
differences.  For example, the kernel config files in /sys/arch/i386/conf on
NetBSD.

>It's not just the FAQ's, either.  The man pages are screwy.  I wanted
>to add some users.  In linux, "adduser" does the trick.  So I do a 
>"man adduser", and it says that this is a command for adding new users,
>and furthermore that it has been around since 3.0BSD.  Great! So I
>try "adduser" and whammo! "adduser: Command not found."  Yes, I
>did finally find out to use "vipw" (Thanks, O'Reilly), but that's
>just plain dumb.

I quote from the adduser man page (which, apparantly, you didn't read closely;
it describes a procedure to follow, not a command):

An account can be added by editing a line into the passwd file; this must be
done with the password file locked e.g. by using chpass(1) or vipw(8)

>*BSD desperately needs the type of installation packages available for
>Linux.  Linux installed on my system, and I added the users I needed,
>and they had POP accounts immediately, and I could run "DIP" to set
>up our SLIP connections out of the box, and I could compile kernels
>right out of the box and install them quickly, and I got tons of
>utility programs that I never even used.  In *BSD, none of the things
>I was looking for were there -- no virtual consoles, no comm package,
>no "adduser", no good mail reader, no "pico", no nothing. *BSD may
>have fine networking code, but I won't know about it until they make
>it easy enough to use.

What's wrong with getting any of these packages yourself and compiling them?
I'venever had much trouble porting software to NetBSD; it usually very simple.
And if you're allergic to compiling things, the FreeBSD gang has a nice set of
already-ported packages ready for you to use.

--Ken