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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!inferno.mpx.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!imci4!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!new-news.sprintlink.net!helena.MT.net!nate From: nate@trout.sri.MT.net (Nate Williams) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs Linux Date: 9 Apr 1996 19:40:08 GMT Organization: SRI Intl. - Montana Operations Lines: 88 Message-ID: <4keeeo$ooh@helena.MT.net> References: <4issad$h1o@nadine.teleport.com> <31657509.5E45C160@gnu.ai.mit.edu> <4k76gl$5s4@dyson.iquest.net> <4kb5vo$fqn@csnews.cs.colorado.edu> Reply-To: "Nate Williams" <nate@sneezy.sri.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: trout.sri.mt.net In article <4kb5vo$fqn@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>, Alan T Krantz <atk@alumni.cs.Colorado.EDU> wrote: [ Now this is one *huge* paragraph below. ] > >I think the ELF/a.out debate is a little silly, however, I do have some >comments in comparing FreeBSD to Linux. I've been running FreeBSD 2.0 >for about 7 months and Linux about 2 weeks. I'm getting ready to upgrade >because of a bug in FreeBSD and I am unsure if I will upgrade to FreeBSD >2.1 or Linux. Some of what I say is personal observation and some is >thoughts from other friends who use Linux more than myself. I think FreeBSD is >noticably faster esp for compiles and swapping, however as a home user that >speed isn't critical. As both a home user and a office user of FreeBSD, I disagree. And, based on the fact that 'response' time is very important, I'd tend to think that folks are very much interested in overall speed of a system. If speed weren't important to folks then all home users would still be using 386SX/16. :) >On the other hand, Linux is snappier (not response time >but in fluff gimmicky software). Also Linux has better support for Dos >which is somewhat important to me (dosemu is said to run better under >linux - as far as i can tell it doesn't run under FreeBSD 2.0, FreeBSD 2.0 >is rumored to be bugged when writing to a dos partition and is very >slow). Yep, and yep. PCEMU does DOS emulation, but the Linux DOSEMU stuff doesn't work in any version of FreBSD. >Also, (not important to me) Linux supports eide systems better - >my system is well supported by FreeBSD. I think the FreeBSD people need >to realize that there are a lot more home users than corporate users. The FreeBSD 'people' work on what they want to work on, and although we care very much about who uses the system, still won't do something that's not fun. There's no money to be made, and most of the developers are professional programmars, while in Linux most of the developers are students. This is not to say that students do bad work, but they generally have more time, and many of them are coming from the DOS world and want access to what they used to have. On the FreeBSD side, I care little for DOS programs running under FreeBSD, so I won't use any of my time and effort to get DOS emulation working. That doesn't mean it's not important to many folks, but it's just not important to me. (I'd rather work on laptop support. :) >While there is more $$ in the corporate world, FreeBSD isn't about >money. You're right. It's about having fun and getting an ego boost by having lots of people use software that you helped develop. It's not about money, or guilt, or competition. >Don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to criticize the FreeBSD >development team I'm really trying to say that I (personally) would like >to see improvements in things like dos support (rather see dos support >than Linux support) You are *more* than welcome to champion the DOS effort. That's *exactly* how the DOS support got in Linux. Someone else thought it would be a fun project, did the work, and others joined in. In FreeBSD, no-one has taken up the mantle of the 'DOS emulation' project, so it's not being done. (To the best of my knowledge anyway. Someone may be doing it but it hasn't been publically announced.) >... within margins performance isn't everything >- esp as machines get faster and memory cheaper. It doesn't matter how effecient a machine is, someone will always want more performance out of it. I'd love to have my 486 box run as fast as my Pentium at work so I could get more done, and I'd rather see 10% speedup on all systems instead of DOS emulation. And, it'd probably be more fun to find a bottleneck (IMHO) and fix it. Yes, FreeBSD tends to be geared towards the 'professional' user more than Linux, but I think that's generally because most of the FreeBSD developers are professionals, so they tend to do projects which affects them the most. This isn't a bad/good thing, but simply a fact of life. Nate -- nate@sneezy.sri.com | Research Engineer, SRI Intl. - Montana Operations nate@trout.sri.MT.net | Loving life in God's country, the great state of work #: (406) 449-7662 | Montana. home #: (406) 443-7063 | A fly pole and a 4x4 Chevy truck = Heaven on Earth