*BSD News Article 36464


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From: wes@indirect.com (Barnacle Wes)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: Nailed down to 386bsd or linux, now which one?
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Date: 2 Oct 1994 20:31:40 GMT
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Po-Han Lin (plin@girtab.usc.edu) wrote:
: Ok, I didn't know QNX costs major money.  So I am considering
: either 386bsd or linux.  One person said I should get linux because
: 386bsd is monolithic (controlled I guess), while linux is non-monolithic.
: Now the question is, which os better?  Better as in...
:
: I hope someone can seriously asnwer these questions.  Note that Im not
: trying to start a flame.  I appropriately crossposted only to the
: relevant newsgroups that discuss these two operating systems.  I
: don't want to waste time downloading 50 or so megabytes and find out
: that the other OS is better.  Has anyone actually used both systems?

Yep.  I run FreeBSD now, because it's more familiar to me.  Also, I have
heard from people I trust, who run Linux, that the BSD networking code is
more reliable than Linux.

I run FreeBSD because it's familiar, having worked with SunOS for many
years.  Both Linux and Net/FreeBSD are impressive.  The only reliability
problem I've had since the FreeBSD 1.1 release is from my VGA card over-
heating, which is unrelated to the software (since it does it under OS/2
and MS-Windows also).

As far as applications and hardware support, look around, see if they run
what you want/have/need, and if so, you're probably makeing a safe choice.
A word of caution, though: if you're seriou, get a CD-ROM drive supported
by your system of choice and buy the OS on CD-ROM.  It'll save you a ton
of work.  I know, I've done it the hard way several times: NetBSD 0.9,
Linux, and FreeBSD 1.0 all ftp'd to work and loaded onto floppies.  When
FreeBSD 1.1 was released, I broke down and bought a $40 network card, 
which made it somewhat less painful.  I'm going to buy a cd-rom when 2.0
comes out later this month.  ;^)

If you have enough disk space, or can buy another disk, get both and decide
for yourself.  I have two disks, 340M and 424M, on my machine, running
DOS+Win, OS/2, and FreeBSD all.

	Wes Peters