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From: richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc Subject: Re: Is NetBSD alive? Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:41:02 GMT Organization: HCRC, University of Edinburgh Lines: 30 Sender: cnews@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (C News Software) Message-ID: <53ED69492A8EA850.228A0B33BA24B493.5E4BAFA9D87FA7DA@library-proxy.airnews.net> X-Orig-Message-ID: <EB670F.Frx@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> References: <01bc6c60$f76eb860$5f030514@yosemite> NNTP-Proxy-Relay: library.airnews.net NNTP-Posting-Host: biceps.gymnet.com X-Nntp-Posting-Host: pitcairn Bcc: richard Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!ns.saard.net!spasun.tpa.com.au!duster.adelaide.on.net!news.ade.connect.com.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-pull.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!199.171.20.9!news.nkn.net!news.panther.net!nemesis!hammy!news-in.iadfw.net!news.gymnet.com!LSNT1!lsbsdi6.lightspeed.net!news3.crl.com!nntp2.crl.com!news.gv.tsc.tdk.com!newsfeed.wli.n et!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!server1.netnews.ja.net!server6.netnews.ja.net!str-ccsun!singer.cent.gla.ac.uk!newsfeed.ed.ac.uk!edcogsci!richard Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:6046 In article <01bc6c60$f76eb860$5f030514@yosemite> "Dave Schaumann" <dschauma@csci.csc.com> writes: >However, I find the lack of traffic in this group troubling. >Are the other *BSD variants so much better? I think the low traffic reflects a smaller user community. If you only expect to be using x86 machines, I'd recommend FreeBSD for that reason. If you use FreeBSD, there will be lots of people using exactly the same release as you, which is very useful. On the other hand, if you intend to use anything other other than x86 then NetBSD (or OpenBSD) is the answer. Apart from that there's really not much difference. Anything significant done by one group will probably be picked up by the other, or could be ported with not much effort. A personal view (though I know some other people who share it): the FreeBSD people seem much friendlier than the NetBSD people. When the big split between NetBSD and FreeBSD happened, it wasn't really clear who was in the right; but given that NetBSD then split again in most acrimonious circumstances (to produce OpenBSD) it seems that the NetBSD people are terminally factional. I ran NetBSD 0.8 and 0.9 then switched to FreeBSD, almost entirely because their serial driver worked better with cheap hardware. -- Richard -- I delete unread all email from or through Earthlink and Compuserve, because it's almost all junk mail.