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From: adrian@lorax.cs.virginia.edu (Adrian Filipi-Martin)
Subject: Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
In-Reply-To: b.j.smith@ieee.org's message of 7 May 1996 16:05:25 GMT
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Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 03:01:15 GMT
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In article <4mnsc5$6qo@sundial.sundial.net> b.j.smith@ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith, E.I.) writes:
From: b.j.smith@ieee.org (Bryan J. Smith, E.I.)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Date: 7 May 1996 16:05:25 GMT
Organization: IEEE, Inc.
|Re: Linux vs. FreeBSD ...
|Linux, since it is written from the ground-up, is a much more efficient OS
|than FreeBSD (which has been written somewhat from the ground up, to prevent
What can a fresh rewite accompilsh? Not much untill it's been
rewritten several times. 20 years of rewritting accounts for the
intial and sustained lead in BSD networking capabilities.
|a lawsuit from BSDI, is still a lot of legacy OS code). And FreeBSD v2.1 is
|a little dated (late '94) and the current test version is still quite buggy.
What?! I have neaver heard the results of research described
as a 'legacy' before. 4.4BSD is hardly 4.3BSD warmed over.
Furthermore, CHECK you FACTS! From the release list on
www.freebsd.org:
2.0 (November 22, 1994)
2.0.5 ALPHA (May 30, 1995)
Release 2.0.5 RELEASE (June 10, 1995)
Release 2.1.0 RELEASE (November 19, 1995)
|FreeBSD is only available on CD-ROM from Walnut Creek CD-ROM for $50. Linux
|can be found on a endless number of vendors CDs for a low as $10.
Again CHECK you FACTS! From www.cdrom.com:
FreeBSD 2.1 Release Berkeley BSD 32-bit O/S for PC, w/GNU & X11.
Sources, $39.95
FreeBSD Subscription (from NEXT edition) Berkeley BSD 32-bit O/S for PC,
w/GNU & X11. Sources, $24.95
I see no mention of $50! Furthermore, it now includes
"Installing and Running FreeBSD" book (also sold separately.)
|Downloading a complete FreeBSD system along with a good number of packages
|took me 16 hours @ 28.8Kbaud (saving me the CD-cost and the agony of messing
|with an alpha-quality IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM driver) and takes up only about 150MB.
The CD-ROM for may people is an issue of convenience. You
pick and pay for your delivery bandwidth/throughput/latency. If you
can get real internet access for an hour or two, you can use the
internet as your install media. That's what I do. (Of course, I
still subscribe to the CD for those times I am not so well connected.)
The choice is yours. You could also shop around. Infomagic as well
as others sell *BSD's on cd-rom.
|features XInside's Accelerated X which cost $99 on its own!!! AccelX is a
|much better X-server than the default XFree86 (X-Windows) that comes with
|Linux and FreeBSD. You can get more info from Caldera @ www.caldera.com.
If you want to buy it, AccelX is also available for FreeBSD.
In fact, it is beta-tested by some of the core team members.
|In essence, Linux has the latest and greatest software and drivers (only a
|few companies won't release information, like Adaptec, without the signing of
|a non-disclosure agreement -- which is impossible in a OS who included the
|source code in its distribution). Quite a few hardware (and even software
Bull! No one who distributes source code drivers to devices
such as Adaptec controllers has signed a non-disclosure agreement!
FreeBSD ships the COMPLETE sources to the system. Hence, NO ONE in
the FreeBSD core team has signed a non-disclosure agreement and
included either binaries or sources.
If linux doesn't support your hardware, go cry to the linux
community about their indolence. What do you think the words
"non-disclosure" mean? Furthermore, not too many hardware vendors are
supporting linux in the way you mean. It would be pretty futile to
distribute device drivers. Which version of the kernel would they
support? Which distribution would it seamlessly mesh with?
As to "latest and greatest software and drivers", have you
tried to do any serious networked multi-media under linux? Have you
tried to make a linux box crash by using a duplex sound card (GUX
MAX)? Have you ever wondered why FreeBSD has has working, efficient
drivers for devices such as the Martox Meteor, whilst the linux
developers have a broken, theoretically less functional driver for
months on end? They have the FreeBSD sources at their disposal, yet
it still took many months to support in any usable manner.
In summary, you have provided a misleading response to an
innocent question. Given that you may actaully know something about
linux and claim to be using FreeBSD, I suspect this was a malicious
attempt at spreading disinformation. I've been ignoring the "freebsd
v. linux" flame-bait for several years; today I was weak. This kind
of irritating drivel is what makes this subject shuch an uninformative
one.
Adrian
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