Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mira.net.au!news.vbc.net!garlic.com!news.scruz.net!kithrup.com!news.Stanford.EDU!agate!theos.com!riscan.riscan.com!van.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!torn!hone!informer1.cis.McMaster.CA!church.dcss!church.dcss!not-for-mail From: dsantry@church.dcss.McMaster.CA (Douglas Santry) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD v Linux - A Different View Date: 20 Jun 1996 11:21:35 -0400 Organization: Computer Science & Systems, McMaster University Lines: 39 Message-ID: <4qbq9v$6l0@church.dcss.McMaster.CA> References: <31C8D030.167EB0E7@telstra.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: church.dcss.mcmaster.ca In article <31C8D030.167EB0E7@telstra.net>, Wayne Farmer <wayne@telstra.net> wrote: >It seems a lot of energy is being placed on the "Which is best - Linux >or FreeBSD" debate. > >Personally, I use FreeBSD. Why ? I read up on the "debate" as it stood >last year and came to the following conclusions - whether right or >wrong. (And I don't wish to run both.) > >I wanted a stable OS with a SunOS 4.1.3 flavour to make life a bit >easier. Networking and i/o was seen as important and a stable, mature >BSD based OS seemed a better choice. I preferred a single point of >distribution and was happy to rely on the good nature of the developers >to do the right thing. I think there is far too much arguing about which is better. Personally I chose FreeBSD because of its BSD base. I prefer the BSD code base because of its research heritage and its influence on the Unix world in the last 10 years. I don't think there is a single Unix implementation that doesn't either include Berkeley code or implement a BSD derived interface/functionality. It is a very rich heritage and if BSD did not exist I don't think Unix would be what it is today, and certainly wouldn't be as popular. sockets/signals/ffs/paged mem I mean the list goes on and on. I feel that AT&T never would have Unix as popular as it is today, it was the BSD research that added the features we all take for granted. And I like seeing the code that did it! Linux came much later and doesn't really fit into the Unix family tree but started its own a few years ago(ofcoures there is minix). But in 10 years, people may well say the same of Linux as I said above, ya never know. So for me the choice was based on their origins. Is Linux faster than FreeBSD or vice versa? I personally don't know, probably in some areas and not in others. They were both built with different goals... They are both free, so try'em both if you have trouble deciding! DJS