*BSD News Article 49520


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From: Markus Baeurle <s671687@rghx50.gp.fht-esslingen.de>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Why isn't NetBSD popular?
Date: 22 Aug 1995 13:32:47 GMT
Organization: Hochschule fuer Technik Esslingen
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curt@cynic.portal.ca (Curt Sampson) wrote:
>Now to experienced Unix gurus, these are not major problems. They
>can eat up some time, but they're not that hard to fix. On the
>other hand, these sorts of things tend to stop a more novice user
>in his tracks, and he just can't get going again.

Unix is nothing for newbies and it probably never will be. But the people
who have a certain degree of experience with computers and who are interested
in the matter should get a chance to get it working, shouldn't they?
Without reading and, most difficult of all, understanding source code!
Otherwise, such a system will always be limited to the absolute gurus.

>With NetBSD, you really have to be willing to dig in and get your
>hands dirty, as it were, solving your own problems. This generally
>means going and reading the source (which is, in the end, the most
>correct documenation, after all). This is hard work, though fun if
>you've got the right mindset for it. Most people would rather have
>someone else fix their problem rather than fix it themselves. (Let's
>face it, even I often would rather someone else fix my problems.
>:-)) That's a lot more likely to happen with Linux than FreeBSD,
>and with FreeBSD than NetBSD. And I'm certainly not discouraging

As I mentioned above, this should not remain so. Users of non-PC platforms
should also get the chance to get a relatively user-friendly Unix, shouldn't
they?

>Another person mentioned that one of the reasons he went with
>FreeBSD was that there were upgrades more often. This may be fine
>for personal systems, but there are circumstances in which frequent
>releases are undesirable. I run an ISP on NetBSD. I have several
>production machines which Must Not Go Down if it's at all possible
>to avoid it. Upgrading an OS and making sure everything is working

>I think NetBSD tends to be a bit more conservative than FreeBSD,
>and both are a lot more conservative than Linux. This conservatism
>makes NetBSD extremely suitable for commercial systems.

This is fine for the requirements you mentioned. But you can have the best
of both worlds with the way FreeBSD is released.

MB