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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!news.kei.com!ddsw1!not-for-mail From: macgyver@MCS.COM (MacGyver) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: BSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Linux... Date: 20 Aug 1994 17:58:37 -0500 Organization: TOS Enterprises. Lines: 52 Message-ID: <3361qt$d02@Venus.mcs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: venus.mcs.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2 (KSD)] Hi there, I'm an avid UNIXer, and I'd use nothing else personally, although I feel that DOS/Windows has its place. Basically, I've been running Linux now for about a year and I'm moderately happy with it, but I do have my gripes here and there, and I've heard that BSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD might have possible solutions to all this. My questions are these: 1) Which BSD version is best to use? 4.4Lite is out there now, and I'm pretty sure it can be compiled/run under the 486 platform. NetBSD is from what I hear the likely candidate for my needs. Basically, I'm someone whose a power user...I use X, emacs, gcc extensively to program and test stuff. Any system I choose should be able to easily have stuff ported to it and should have most GNU products availible. SLIP/PPP support is a definite must (I use SLIP a lot), with support for dip. PLIP support would be nice so I could hook up a couple of machines together relatively painlessly via parallel port access. Support for shadow passwords (which I believe they all have...) is a must, as well as support for IPC and streams...ESPECIALLY being able to do things like pass open file descriptors from one process to another. Memory requirements should be modest...and the OS should be relatively stable. I've got 20megs RAM on a 486SX/33. Also, the system should have a pretty decent startup sequence and filesystem support, meaning that it shouldn't take forever running fsck on a partition if it's clean (ext2 filesystems for example). Network support should be there and be pretty solid...that's my biggest complaint with Linux right now. The final requirement I have is for support for the myriad of devices that Linux can offer... specifically CDROM, Tape, SCSI and support for mounting DOS/OS/2 partitions. 2) What is the difference between the versions of *BSD and BSD4.4Lite? I've read all the FAQs and what not, and it still isn't very clear to me which version is best for my needs. I want something as true blue as I can get with all the features mentioned above. 3) Does the *BSD family support enhanced IDE drives, and systems with TWO IDE controllers? 4) Relative to Linux, what kind of performance should I expect? 5) What serious advantages would there be in running *BSD to running Linux? Is there the nice mesh of SVR4 features and BSD features? Is there SVR4 IPC concepts like shared memory, semaphores, and message queues? 6) Is the memory model under *BSD efficient and are there many drivers written for the *BSD family to handle various controllers/cards/etc.? ANY advice would be greatly appreciated. HJD.