*BSD News Article 88412


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From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Linux vs BSD
Date: 5 Feb 1997 11:03:05 -0500
Organization: Panix
Lines: 68
Message-ID: <5daavp$8lp@panix2.panix.com>
References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <5d94nk$p9n@dfw-ixnews8.ix.netcom.com> <5d9i3q$61h@junkie.gnofn.org> <KETIL-ytqiv47v56j.fsf@pinro.imr.no>
Reply-To: tls@rek.tjls.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix2.panix.com
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:82571 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2281 comp.os.linux.misc:156398

In article <KETIL-ytqiv47v56j.fsf@pinro.imr.no>,
Ketil Z Malde  <ketil@imr.no> wrote:
>craig@gnofn.org (Craig Johnston) writes:
>
>> FreeBSD runs on x86.  Linux runs on x86 and Alpha and maybe some
>> others.  NetBSD runs on: Alpha, Amiga, Atari(!), HP 9000/300, x86, 68k
>> mac, PowerPC, Sparc, Sun 3, and VAX, to name a few more recognizeable
>> ones.

You forgot the arm32 and the pmax.  And OBTW, we have Linux emulation and
FreeBSD emulation and SCO emulation and SVR4 emulation, and SunOS emulation,
and 4.3BSD emulation, and HP/UX emulation, and OSF/1 emulation, although those
last two admittedly don't work quite as well as they ought to.

>``Maybe some others'' should be read to include (admittedly with varying
>degrees of stability):

Yes, that's the rub, isn't it?  Things generally don't get integrated into BSD
releases until they *work* -- things seem to get integrated into L1NU>< as
quickly as possible so as to allow a maximum of chest-beating by the k00l
L1NU>< |)00|)Z.

>Sparc, 68000 (Yep, Amigas, Ataris and Macs included), MIPS, PowerPC
>(various degrees).  Yeah, and there's a Linux server for Mach, which
>runs on x86 and PowerPC -- and probably with a little effort on other
>architectures.  Not as many as NetBSD, I'm sure, but at least enough to
>warrant a colon, IMHO. 

Oh, believe me, I think Linux warrants a colon.  A bull colon, to be precise.

"and probably with a little effort on other architectures" is fairly amusing
to me, as I've spent the past several weeks with my fingers in various Mach
gearboxes.  It's quite easy to *talk* about just about anything.  The
difference is that BSD releases don't claim to be able to *do* things until
they work correctly.

>X86, Alpha, and Sparc are supported by the RedHat packet management
>system (which means commercial support, for those who care about such
>things), while I *think* Debian only supports X86 as a complete
>distribution.  

Heh.  Yeah.  I know *all* about that, courtesy of Donnie Barnes spamming the
globe about how RedHat Linux was "the first operating system to support x86,
SPARC, and Alpha", despite the fact that he was lying by at least a year.
Heck, were I a commercial NetBSD vendor, I'd complain to the FTC, and they'd
probably fine RedHat.  But the behaviour doesn't surprise me -- in fact, it
seems utterly typical of the behaviour of "Linux foamers", which very nearly
approximates "Linux users" in my experience.

>Does NetBSD run on HP PA-RISCs (700 and 800 series), BTW?

Not at the moment.

>Apart from system compatibiltiy, I find the whole argument a bit silly.
>It's pretty clear that both OSes are nice, slim, fast, and stable to
>excess, and arguments about how this particular user couldn't get that
>particular version of the other OS to install on his particular
>ooga-booga hardware are IMHO somewhat unenlightening.

I wouldn't call Linux "slim".  And I wouldn't call it "stable to excess".  And
actually I wish the Foaming Linux Morons would stop spurting this kind of
garbage all over the comp.unix.bsd newsgroups, but... well, what I said up
above about typical Linux user behaviour and chest-thumping, I guess.

-- 
Thor Lancelot Simon	                                          tls@panix.COM

 Stumbling drunk in the railyard looking for God: http://www.panix.com/~tls/