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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.kei.com!news.mathworks.com!news.ultranet.com!news.sprintlink.net!pipex!sunic!sunic.sunet.se!news.funet.fi!nntp.hut.fi!nntp!sja From: sja@snakemail.hut.fi (Sakari Jalovaara) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Slight flame from Linux user Date: 07 Jun 95 09:35:36 GMT Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Lines: 44 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <SJA.95Jun7113536@lk-hp-16.hut.fi> References: <3ql3gd$je2@bell.maths.tcd.ie> <D9K4Iz.BJM@midway.uchicago.edu> <3qo2af$nqo@bell.maths.tcd.ie> <3qq5i8$2jj@anshar.shadow.net> <3qqotb$sla@hamilton.maths.tcd.ie> <3qtgfi$7od@anshar.shadow.net> <3qtpa9$p95@bell.maths.tcd.ie> NNTP-Posting-Host: lk-hp-16.hut.fi In-reply-to: tim@maths.tcd.ie's message of 5 Jun 1995 03:14:33 +0100 > I believe the opposite -- that Unix is perfectly simple, > when properly explained. > I have no reason to suppose BSD is any more complicated > than any other version of Unix. UNIX is an absolute no-brainer. Just install /vmunix and /bin/sh and whatever else is absolutely necessary for booting. Use two commands in various combinations: "doom" and "logout". Zero administration needed. However. Pretty soon you'll be wanting to configure sendmail. Install NNTP. Attach a few ttys. Get on the net. Get PPP or slip. Reconfigure the kernel. Create a few accounts for friends. Soon you'll have users playing "amusing" tricks on each other. You'll have feuding users. So you'll start thinking about security. You might even want accounting and quotas. NFS no doubt. You'll install an exotic tape drive. Install every bloody program you can get via FTP. By this time your system is so old that there are newer versions of all your programs - so you need to start removing old stuff and putting in new versions. Add a few disks. Binary patch the root disk after a crash. Install automatic scripts that clean up ever-growing log files from all those free programs. Set up a WWW server. Write a couple of hundred klocs of C. And so on. You want to be a UNIX user? Whether you have Linux or BSD makes little difference. Using UNIX is the same in both if you don't do anything ambitious. "ls -l | more" is the same in both. xmosaic works the same way in both. XFree and twm are the same in both. You want to play UNIX administrator? sendmail.cf is the same bloody sendmail.cf in both. RS-232 presents the same adventure in both. It is administering the *applications* that takes the real work. Administering UNIX (without any applications) takes zero work. The applications are almost exactly the same in Linux and in BSD. If someone told you that in Linux these things are somehow magically easier than in other UNIXen be careful of him - he might lie to you in other things as well. ++sja