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From: tom@wpzd07.pzlc.uni-wuerzburg.de (Thomas Heiling)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: BSD vs Linux
Date: 11 Jun 1994 07:09:07 GMT
Organization: University of Wuerzburg, Germany
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Sorry I posted on the wrong console !
This was the intended post :
I have read this group now for some time and saw this thread
Linux-BSD coming often. Some answers to this question were good,
but the FAQ was not updated.
It is IMHO *not* very helpful to flame a newbie, that he/she should
read the FAQ, where there is no information, nore it is helpful to
shout to him "Hey man read the previos posts - I *hate* this thread!"
What is missing here is an overview and a comparison of the free
available Unixsystems. And this info should be in the FAQ !
I will start here such a comparison.
For whom should this be ?
For a (hopefully) new Unix-user, who wants to install one of the
free Unixes.
He should be able to read this document, look at his hardware,
define his needs for a Unix-systems and then he should be able
to choose a system which meets his needs.
Who am I and why should I be able to write such a doc ?
Good Question ! My name is Thomas Heiling, I am working at the
University of Wuerzburg in Germany as a doctorate. My job is
to program an Ultraviolett/Vis-spectrum comparison program.
Furthermore I am the person, who maintains the Internet
connections and computers of our Department.
I have running Linux and NetBSD 0.9, the main Server is a
486/33 + 16 MB which runs Linux. A 486/66 is for numerical work.
Then there are some clients mostly 386 with either 4 MB or 8 MB.
One 386 with NetBSD, but this is just for testing.
So I would say I can speak for Linux, a little bit for NetBSD
and I have no idea for FreeBSD beside the Installation Guide.
( I have no access to the BSD386 1.0 CD,
which was announced some time ago ).
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
It would be very helpful, if someone of the Core-Team of NetBSD and/or
FreeBSD have a look at this and fill the white spaces, which I left.
And if the FAQ-maintainer reads this, it would be nice, if he thinks
this info should be in the FAQ.
Hardware requirements :
/* from the FreeBSD-installation Guide and from the Linux Info Sheet */
Linux:
CPU: Anything that runs 386 protected mode programs (all models
of 386s and 486s should work; 286s don't work, and never will).
Architecture: ISA or EISA bus. MCA (mostly true blue PS/2's)
does not work. Local busses (VLB and PCI) work.
RAM: Theoretically up to 1 GB. This has not been tested. Some
people (including Linus) have noted that adding ram has slowed
down their machine extremely without adding more cache at the
same time, so if you add memory and find your machine slower,
try adding more cache.
Data storage: Generic AT drives (IDE, 16 bit HD controllers with
MFM or RLL) are supported, as are SCSI hard disks and CD-ROMs,
with a supported SCSI adaptor. Generic XT controllers (8 bit
controllers with MFM or RLL) are now also supported. Supported
SCSI adaptors: Adaptec 1542, 1522, and 1740 in extended (not
1542 compatible) mode, Seagate ST-01 and ST-02, Future Domain
TMC-88x series (or any board based on the TMC950 chip) and
TMC1660/1680, Ultrastor 14F, 24F and 34F, and Western Digital
wd7000. SCSI and QIC-02 tapes are also supported. Support for
QIC-80 tapes is now in ALPHA testing. Several CD-ROM devices are
also supported, including Matsushita/Panasonic, Mitsumi, Sony,
Soundblaster, Toshiba, and others. For exact models, check the
hardware compatability HOWTO.
Video: VGA, EGA, CGA, or Hercules (and compatibles) work in text
mode. For graphics and X, there is support for (at least) normal
VGA, some super-VGA cards (most of the cards based on ET3000,
ET4000, Paradise, and some Trident chipsets), S3 (except for
Diamond Stealth cards, because the manufacturer won't tell how
to program it), 8514/A, ATI MACH8, ATI MACH32, and hercules.
(Linux uses the Xfree86 X server, so that determines what cards
are supported.)
Networking: Western Digital 80x3, ne1000, ne2000, 3com503,
3com509, Allied Telliesis AT1500 (said to be some of the
fastest, as well as quite cheap), d-link pocket adaptors, SLIP,
CSLIP, PLIP (Parallel Link IP), and more I have forgotten at the
moment.
Other hardware: SoundBlaster, ProAudio Spectrum 16, Gravis
Ultrasound, AST Fourport cards (with 4 serial ports), several
models of Boca serial boards, the Usenet Serial Card II, several
flavours of bus mice (Microsoft, Logitech, PS/2).
*BSD:
Architecture: ISA or EISA bus. MCA (mostly true blue PS/2's)
does not work. Local busses (VLB and PCI) not. ( Is this true ?
It was not in the Installation Notes )
Standard hard disk controllers:
MFM ESDI IDE RLL
SCSI hard disk controllers:
Adaptec 154x *, Adaptec 174x, Buslogic 545S, Bustek 742(EISA)
DTC 3290 in 1542 emulation mode *, Ultrastor 14f and 34f
/* * means maximum 16 MB of memory */
Display Adaptors : MDA,CGA,VGA,HGC for textmode.
For X the same as Linux.
Serial Communications: 8250,16450,16550A,
4-port multi-serial cards require a kernel rebuild
Ethernet controllers:
SMC/WD 8003, 8013 and equivalents ( including SMC Elite )
Novell NE1000,NE2000,NE2100
3com 3c503
ISOLAN ISOlink
Tape Drives:
QIC-02 format tape drives
most SCSI tape/DAT drives on a supported SCSI controller
CD-ROM drives:
Mitsumi CDROM with Mitsumi Controller
Most SCSI CD-ROM drives on a supported SCSI controller
Harddisk Storage requirements :
FreeBSD:
Base System /* Not usable for multi-user */ 16 MB
Full binary distribution 46 MB
Full source " 72 MB
Kernel Source 7 MB
Swap 8 MB
They say, that the minimum is Base + Binary + Swap, and
that this minimum is 80 MB.
For a complete system with binary and source you need
at least 210 MB.
/*
Comment : As I see it, with a complete system you have
NO XFree-2.1.1 and no LaTeX.
*/
Linux:
This is difficult, because there are different distributions
to choose from. Every distribution has a special goal.
I will show two popular distributions :
Slackware and the MCC-Interim Distribution.
Slackware is intended for a full fledge system, which has
everything you want. You need about 150 MB for this.
MCC-Interim is intended for small systems. The main idea is
to give a ASCII-environment for programming courses.
For a full MCC install you need about 47 MB + 8 MB Swap,
you can strip this down to 23 MB + 8 MB Swap, if you don't
want emacs , no kernel source and no extras.
/* Only as an example : This computer here is a 386/25 MHz
with 4 MB RAM, I gave 70 MB for Linux, which includes
8 MB Swap. After Installation of X11 and Networking programs
I have cut it to 40 MB for the system, which leaves about
20 MB for the users.
*/
Some other features:
With NetBSD 0.9 ( This was the version i installed, none of this
features was existent . It could be in -current, but i don't know )
virtual terminals/consoles:
As I see it, FreeBSD and Linux have it.
shared libraries:
FreeBSD and Linux have it. I recall a thread some time
ago, which was something like "Linux shared Libs are no
good - A pain for the developer ".
For the user this should be meaningless.
Networking:
*BSD networking is better, but with Linux 1.0 it's getting
closer.
One Feature of Linux is the ability to make a filesystem on top
of a DOS-FAT, so you don't need to repartition your Disk. This
Filesystem is of course not so fast as a native Filesystem, but
for trial it should be O.K.
Conclusion:
It depends on you hardware and what you want to do with
your system. If your hardware is supported and if you
have the resources and if you are on the net, I would
vote for *BSD. If you just want some *iX experience
and have low ressources, choose Linux.
/*
This are my personal opionions !
*/
Here are some pro's and con's for both :
*BSD:
+ Full Source Code of all commands in a source tree, no need
to look all over the Internet for the source of a command.
+ There is only one distribution, which is valid for some time.
+ Networking is better.
+ The system is standard BSD.
- You need extra packages for XFree and for TeX.
Linux:
+ Uses lower resources
+ Has more support for devices
- Every distribution is a little bit different
- Development is too fast without net access
I include here some info from other posts, which should help the
new user to show the differences:
Dave Burgess (burgess@s069.infonet.net) wrote:
[Stuff deleted]
: NetBSD is the OS I use. It is a BSD derived Operating System that has
: a very stable operating envelope. The networking code has been stolen
: by commercial OS and network vendors the world over. NetBSD has the
: advantage of being meant for a wide range of hardware platforms. It is
: currently available for something like 10 different CPUs, and has been
: laid out such that new architectures can be added relatively painlessly.
: FreeBSD is pretty much the same (go ahead a quibble over details, I
: don't care anymore). The biggest difference is that NetBSD is a
: horizontal system (across platforms) and FreeBSD is a vertical system
: (intended to stay on the Intel family). Both are based on code from
: 386BSD, although neither really resembles it any more.
: Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds and has the advantage of being
: available in source code form first. Other than that, I have heard
: that it is a good OS platform for standalone Unix workstations. It had
: a lot of things that made its users rabid before the *BSD folks did,
: but the purists insist that *BSD it is (choose two: cleaner, safer,
: taller, wider, better, quieter, louder, greener). I even heard a rumor
: that Linus had sold the source code license to Novell so that they
: could distribute an 'X' terminal package for use in their networks.
From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
> What is the difference between FreeBSD (386BSD) and Linux? Are they both
>UNIX clones, and is one better than the other?
> Thank you very much for your help.
There are four major differences:
1) the 386BSD family started with BSD, and Linux started with POSIX.
NetBSD/FreeBSD/386BSD have been adding POSIX and System V
compatibility, and Linux has been adding Berkeley and System V
compatibility. So there's a good deal of overlap. But ...BSD is
still a better choice if you want to program in a Berkeley environment
and Linux if you want a POSIX environment.
That's for the kernel and libc -- the utilities and other stuff users
see tends to be fairly similar. In both cases the programs are what I
call "typical University Unix". The main difference is that the base
Unix utilities tend to be Berkeley for ...BSD and Gnu for Linux. Gnu
is fairly Berkeley-compatible, but its priority is POSIX, so it tends
to look slightly closer to System V, with massive Berkeley extension.
There are several sets of administrative utilities, but it's more
likely that init, getty, etc., are going to be System V style for
Linux and BSD for ...BSD.
Again, these things aren't as significant as they might be because
...BSD is also concerned about POSIX compatibility and Gnu is
concerned about BSD compatibility. So both sets of software are
approaching a similar sort of goal from opposite directions. You
could probably use the systems for quite a while without noticing much
difference. (I'd like to emphasize that there's no similarity in
overall feel between Linux and typical brain-dead PC System V ports.)
The ...BSD FAQ characterizes the difference as one of East Coast
vs. West Coast. There's a lot to be said for that summary. There's
more difference in Unix culture between New Jersey and California than
between New Jersey and Finland.
2) The nature of the development communities and distribution
mechanisms are different. ...BSD has two or three different developer
communities that take code from each other, but appear to hate each
other's guts. (Actually, even ...BSD and Linux take code from each
other.) Thus there are several different ...BSD's, each of which has
an official distribution. There's just one Linux kernel, and from a
practical point of view just one set of major utilities, but there's
no official distribution. So several different groups put together
distributions, with their own choice of kernel and utility versions.
This means that it's easier to define what the One True Linux is than
what the One True BSD is, but harder to get it. Once you've decided
which BSD is the right one, it's easier to find an authoritative
distribution of it. Development of Linux tends to be more
distributed. Lots of people are working on lots of projects: new
drivers for this and that, new versions of this utility and that. If
you want to keep up with netBSD, you can sup netBSD-current from one
place. If you want to keep up with Linux, you end up taking pieces
from lots of people (though they generally end up on one of two
archive machines -- tsx-11.mit.edu or sunsite.unc.edu). If you don't
want to do this, of course the packaged distributions do it for you.
3) The BSD networking is more mature than the Linux networking. This
is one area in which I don't think Linux has any countervailing
advantages, though in my opinion by release 1.0 Linux networking will
be acceptable.
4) There are specific things in each system that are likely to be
deciding factors for some people. I don't know what unique things BSD
has, because I'm not part of that community, but for some people the
COFF and ELF compatiblity projects may be critical, as it will allow
Linux to run major commercial Unix software. For typical end users
Windows compatibility is probably more useful, but that's being done
jointly by BSD and Linux. (Neither of these things is finished, by
the way.) It's not clear to me whether the existing Linux DOS
compatibility is a critical advantage. BSD doesn't have it, but my
experience is that the Linux DOS emulator is slow enough and creaky
enough that it's not generally usable. However it certainly does work
for many programs, and if one of those programs is critical to you, it
may be a big deal. Differences in support of devices are not likely
to persist for long. There's a history of taking device drivers in
both directions, so if there's enough interest in a device, and one
side implements it, you can bet it will show up on the other side.
Linux uses DOS partitions (including extended partitions). BSD
creates its own partitions inside a single DOS partition. This is a
difference, but it's unclear whether it's a critical one. Linux can
mount DOS and OS/2 file systems (OS/2 is read-only).
For a lot of people, the best suggestion is to find out what your
friends are doing. If there's a significant user community near you
of either kind, you're probably best off to go with it. If not, flip
a coin (or look at a map and see whether you're nearer Berkeley or
Finland -- note that in this comparison portions of the distance that
are over an ocean don't count).
/**********************************************************************/
/* End of included Mails
/**********************************************************************/
--
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Thomas Heiling Pharmacist & Doctorate at
Pharmazeutisches Institut Uni Wuerzburg - Germany
Email phar006@rzbox.uni-wuerzburg.de (HP-UX)
tom@wpzd07.pzlc.uni-wuerzburg.de (Linux)
or phar006@vax.rz.uni-wuerzburg.de ( VAX )
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