*BSD News Article 31555


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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 18:32:47 GMT
Organization: University of Wuerzburg, Germany
Lines: 82
Message-ID: <2td00f$dq1@winx03.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de>
References: <2sva1p$llr@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> <2t659q$sn@s069.infonet.net> <2tbnop$elc@winx03.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de> <2tbnuj$elc@winx03.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de> <2tcsas$5dr@s069.infonet.net>
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Dave Burgess (burgess@s069.infonet.net) wrote:
: I have just finished your compilation of the differences between the
: various U*ix clones and have a few things to say:

: 1.  This document is excellent.  It succinctly describes the
: differences between the OSs in their current (or close to current)
: state.  I will be using as much as possible for the *BSD FAQ in the
: future.

I hope someone will add my white some spaces RSN.

: 2.  This document will never be read again.  It will serve the same
: function as a FAQ.  It will sit on the net and be ignored so that three
: or four times a week someone will have to post a meassage that reads
: "Please read the Differences List" instead of "Please read section 0 of
: the FAQ".

I hope it will :-)

: 3.  It is going to be a nightmare to keep current.  It is already
: wildly out of date for some of the NetBSD stuff, and leaves many newbie
: type questions unanswered.  There are many, many features of the *BSD
: systems that exist that were not listed, and many features that have
: been vastly improved in the past six months.  For example, QIC-40/80
: support is built into FreeBSD, and if I can ever get it working will
: get pounded into NetBSD.

My intension was NOT to keep it current. The idea was and is to give
a comparison of the *distributions*. For all people without net acess
this is the crucial point IMHO. I have tried not to include anything
from not usable because too slow - Dos emulator - or not yet stable
- WINE or the iBCS2 Code- , or anything from {Free|Net}BSD-current.

Your 3.rd sentence is the Problem "There are many, many features ..."
If I cannot get/see this information in the FAQ, how can a new
unix users read this info ?

: I tried writing this document once, a long time ago.  After getting 
: flamed nearly out of existence for it, I decided that it wasn't worth 
: the effort and gave up.  That is why section 0 of the FAQ says what 
: it says.

Why are you getting flamed for this work ?

: I stand by my original answers:

: 1.  Get them and try them.  You will like one of them.  They are
: available on the net for free and on CD-ROM for less than $50 total.

Exactly this *is* the Problem. As a U*ix newbie you can't install them
all. Mainly due to space or machine limitations. And for a usable
system you must download XXX disks or have a supported CD-ROM drive.
You will try it once for *one* system, but you will choose the system,
where you get most informations *before* you start the download.

: 2.  Read the FAQs that are posted to the net regularly.  Every two
: weeks is plenty enough for the *BSD one (IMHO) but I can post it every
: day if I want; I own my feed.  I still think that this makes more sense
: than any other advice I can give.  If a newbie is so new that they
: haven't even read the rest of the news in the group, then they are
: posting completely blind and deserve to be flamed.

A quick wc shows that the BSD-FAQ is now about 8415 lines long.
Unfortunately you have to grep long to extract the
info on the newer *BSD-system, i mean {Net|Free}BSD.

: 3.  Find out what your friends have and do that.  It worked with Video
: tape, and it will work here.

True, but this works only if you *have* people, which are willing
to try Unix ! If you must decide, what system is good and has no
other systems, where you can look to - you start reading in the
News Groups and on rtfm.mit.edu for the FAQS.

--
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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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