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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!agate!boulder!rintintin.Colorado.EDU!nelsoni From: nelsoni@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (Ian S. Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD Date: 1 Dec 95 00:59:48 GMT Organization: University of Colorado at Boulder Lines: 40 Message-ID: <nelsoni.817779588@rintintin.Colorado.EDU> References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <4972bn$psq@bell.maths.tcd.ie> <49ijf9$9rc@tombstone.kent.edu> <30BD2617.23585C28@mcs.net> <49k0dd$pfg@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <49ksgl$2pit@ns4-1.CC.Lehigh.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: rintintin.colorado.edu X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #8 (NOV) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:28679 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:9563 comp.unix.advocacy:11528 comp.unix.misc:19719 fjw2@Lehigh.EDU (FRANK JUDE WOJCIK) writes: >: I would like to dedicate this to "Why are we no longer running Linux?" >: 1) At the time of Linux's rise to fame, Slackware was the big >: distribution. It took us a lot of struggling to figure this out. SLS >: sucked. With FreeBSD, this is not a problem. One distribution, no >: ambiguity, no sweat. >Well, that's just an inherent difference between the two. Linux proper is >just the kernel. The way I look at it, I have more options with linux. >In my mind it's a plus to be able to upgrade any individual part of my >installation w/o affecting anything else. You can do that same with BSD. >: Most importantly, Slackware releases rearely synced with stable >: releases of the kernel!!! Separate distributions from the kernel >: caused us no end of grief. >I fail to understand why getting and compiling new kernel sources is a >problem. True, installing a new kernel requires a reboot, but... I can think of two problems. a) Rebooting is not acceptalbe in some situations if you are running a business server (I had to deal with this issue at IBM a couple of time.. It's amazing how many people get pissed off because the server was down to reboot for 5 minutes) I highly doubt that Walnut Creek reboot very often. b) You have to spend/waste the time to keep on top of the kernel releases and issues regarding it. If you have to do work then that can be a problem. I run linux on one of my machines and I have been fairly happy with it, there are a few things that bug me but not too many. Now start looking for new kernels because of those few bugs? If I haven't upgraded in a year then they could be a lot of kernels to look through and they may not fix anything, it's realistic to assume that they could even break something else. This is one area AIX, BSD, HPUX, and all the other organized unixi will always have an edge; and it's an important edge to a lot of people. I guess a third problem with this is that recompiling the kernel isn't seen by everybody as an okay thing to do. Commercial unixi are starting to move towards the more dynamic methods. On an AIX box you can plug things into it and activate them with out ever rebooting or recompiling the kernel. There is such a low level of trust in software these days, imagine if your complier jacked up and linked it wrong or something.