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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,alt.os.linux,alt.uu.comp.os.linux.questions,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Questions about Linux vs. FreeBSD...
Date: 17 Dec 1995 23:54:08 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
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garcia@pc5.ece.cmu.edu (Brad Garcia) wrote:
]
] Terry Lambert spewed forth:
]
] |> It is idiotic to try to compare such fluid entities for the
] |> benefit of fools who don't recognize the scope of fluidity
] |> and thus ask dumb questions like "which is better?", which
] |> can never be satisfactorily answered. If the fools think
] |> that the question has been answered, and thus they "know which
] |> is better", well, that simply proves that they are fools.
]
] Gee, Terry, try to be more of an asshole next time, won't you?
Well, I was basically responding in kind, and I actually thought
I had toned it down a bit from what I was responding to...
] If someone asks "which is better, MS Windows or Linux, do you
] say that "Only a foolish idiot asks this question because
] Linux will soon come out with kernel 1.4.x and the Windows 95
] bug fix will be out real soon now?".
Well, since the Windows95 bug fix has been delayed, possibly
into Q2 96 (it was scheduled for January), I'd probably be able
to better compare them.
Because they are extremely disparate products, and one of them
is static enough that it can't be reactive.
Consider that I can compare the scheduler in Windows95 with
"UNIX Schedulers in general" without having to go into detail
on this weeks implementation of the Linux scheduling code.
Now consider that I must pick at petty differences to make a
distinction between the Linux and FreeBSD schedulers, both
UNIX type schedulers. And petty distinctions require only
petty changes to "correct" them.
] You provided a couple of nice points in your original post,
] and I think this is exactly the kind of information people
] would like to know! So what if it will change next month
] and start a flame war? I'd like to have some idea of how
] the OS'es differ! Even if the information is due to be
] outdated soon.
My nice points were carefully contrived: they were picked on
the basis of the cost/benefit ratio a member of the opposite
camp would have to expend in order to invalidate them, and on
the basis of the time frame for such an effort relative to
what I think is average for news propagation time.
There are *very* few points where it really matters one way or
the other to the end user, and most of them will boil down to
your taste vs. my taste.
And in the large scheme of things, they are trivial differences
when it comes to what a user percieves when he is running tcsh
or bash compiled from the same wources with the same GCC code
generator on both platforms.
It boils down to their not being a hell of a lot of difference
between FreeBSD and Linux for someone who is going to grab it,
use it, and not make changes (so the licensing issue never comes
up). Compared to something like, say, Windows 95.
And (to paraphrase) it's people like that what cause unrest.
People asking questions looking for a non-trivial distinction or
some single figure of merit are most typically in the category
of "use either one, it won't matter to you". And they aren't
going to find what they are looking for. They are only going
to replay the Emo Phillips routine on religion, where a one bit
difference has one person yelling "Heritic!" at the other.
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.