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From: michaelv@iastate.edu (Michael L. VanLoon)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Usefulness of BSD/Linux Source Knowledge (was BSD vs. LINUX)
Date: 26 Jul 94 21:40:38 GMT
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Lines: 99
Message-ID: <michaelv.775258838@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu>
References: <30jqp1$ees@grex.cyberspace.org> <1994Jul21.182603.15882@belvedere.sbay.org> <2NsBkiCqLiLU068yn@cs.odu.edu> <30pn0a$9rf@hermes.unt.edu> <CtEuyA.En1@world.std.com> <1994Jul24.185248.5906@escape.widomaker.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ponderous.cc.iastate.edu
In <1994Jul24.185248.5906@escape.widomaker.com> shendrix@escape.widomaker.com (Shannon Hendrix) writes:
>Lee E Parsons (lparsons@world.std.com) wrote:
>: Which brings up the reason I went BSD instead of Linux. When I set up my
>: PC I didn't just want a unix at home. I wanted a unix at home I could
>: hack, destroy, change and review. And I wanted all of these things with
>: the assurence that what I was learning during the above process had some
>: applicability to something other than Linux.
>Linux is probably more applicable to the future of UNIX than BSD. It's
>following POSIX very closely and all other OS are going that way too.
>It's also very much like SysV and has most of the BSD stuff in it.
Linux is applicable to the future of unix because it's somewhat POSIX
compliant? That's quite a far stretch, in my opinion. There are many
more POSIX-compliant systems than Linux. Granted, they aren't free.
You also assume that just because NetBSD is based on BSD unix, that
this precludes any POSIX compliance, and this simply is not true.
NetBSD-1.0 has excellent POSIX-1 extensions in many areas, such as
termios, signal handling, headers, etc., not to mention sysV shared
memory support, /proc, /kern, and /dev/fd filesystems. NetBSD is
probably not much farther from a certifiable POSIX "unix" than Linux
is.
>Also, SunOS is no longer a port of BSD. It's yet another version of
>SVR4.2 now, not BSD. It's been that way since Solaris 2 was released
>and it is the future, like it or not.
I would say "not". In fact, most everyone who has been with Sun for
awhile only went to Solaris 2 after clawing and scratching, and being
forced to by lack of new hardware support in their older BSD SunOS.
Many sites would still be running SunOS (BSD) rather than upgrading to
Solaris if their hardware permitted it. At least that's the
impression I've gained from most of my associates where Suns are used.
I think SysV Solaris is really going to kill off a lot of Sun's
established market base in the long run.
>: With Linux I felt I would be spending my time learning the guts of
>: a system written by Linus. While that may be very educational it doesnt
>: do much for my ability to say "Our OS works like THIS"
>He wrote it following POSIX and standard UNIX so it's mostly the same.
Not internally. And not in the general feel of administering the
system, setting it up, maintaining it, etc.
>: Before somebody flames me let me provide an example. If I wanted to
>: understand how Ultrix computes the loadaverage I could go to FreeBSD
>: and get a pretty good idea how it is done. Where does Linux get its
>: code for the loadaverage? Is it a total rewrite? If so how can I
>: make any other choice except FreeBSD.
>Because BSD is dead. I wish it were not so because I prefer BSD but
>SVR4.2 is the future of UNIX, not BSD. You actually made a wrong
>choice by your own critieria.
Oh, please stop spreading such lies. How can BSD be dead if it's
still being developed and evolving? Maybe it's not the "market's"
choice for the mass OS. But then again, neither is SVR4... can you
say Windoze?
>Anyway, the two are fine Unices so you should choose what you like best.
>What you learn in either one is good for you and the differences between
>the two are shrinking because SVR4.2 and Linux have most of BSD in them
>and BSD is getting a lot of the stuff from SysV in it. Like I said,
>all OS are merging and your learning won't be wasted either way.
But, for real systems programming, BSD is much more like what I use at
work (Ultrix) than Linux will ever be. And, Linux simply would not
give me any real applicable experience at the level I'm working. It
would be like rebuilding Chevy engines at home, so I could go work on
Volvos at work. Most of it, beyond the basics (and even some of
them), simply wouldn't apply.
>: Am I not putting enough faith in Linux? Too much in FreeBSD?
>No, you just argued against yourself a lot.
And you just made a lot of personal opinions into false general
assertions.
I'm not saying Linux is bad here. But you are obviously not listening
to what the original poster was saying. Linux is not the ideal
operating system for every single application, no matter what the
world of Linux bigots* would like to believe.
* I don't refer to the entire community of Linux users as Linux
bigots. I think we all know who the offenders are.
--
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Michael L. VanLoon Iowa State University Computation Center
michaelv@iastate.edu Project Vincent Systems Staff
Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free Un*x for PC/Mac/Amiga/etc.
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