ask:
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What's the main differences between the two, and why should one choose
one or the other for example ?
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ans:
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I'm going to take a stab at this.
I've been a FreeBSD user since my first exploration into non-MS OSes
many years ago, so my Linux knowledge is second-hand (and may not be
100% accurate or up-to-date) but here are tidbits I think I know:
- The licenses are fundamentally different. This doesn't matter so much
to me but may to you. I'll therefore skip that, but understand that BSD
vs. GPL is somewhat of a Holy War.
- Linux seems to me to be more disorganized. With FreeBSD, you have one
true OS. With Linux, there's the true Linux kernel, but that's useless
by itself. Instead, it depends on other groups to put together
distributions around a kernel (Red Hat, SuSE, etc) adding on userland
programs and maybe even patching the kernel a bit for their own needs.
With FreeBSD, if you're running FreeBSD 4.8 then you're running the same
OS as everyone else with "4.8". With Linux, you're not running Linux
version whatever, you're running Red Hat ver whatever, which is based
upon a particular version of the kernel, which is different than some
other distribution even if it's based upon the same kernel version. An
analogy is with cars: With Linux, there's a Linux "engine" but many
different companies build cars around that engine. With FreeBSD, they
make the engine AND the car.
- <opinion> Linux users seem to be more "fanatical", while the FreeBSD
camp seems more level-headed </opinion>
- FreeBSD is renown for it's stability. Linux is a bit funkier... it
seems to go for flash and glitz more than rock-solid stability. This is
not to say that Linux can't be made stable, or that FreeBSD can never
crash. But they approach things from a different angle. A Linux
distribution for example tends to initially install X and a ton of
programs you may or may not use. The benefit is that you might get to a
GUI immediately with less work, but you also might have 100 daemons
running you really don't need. FreeBSD on the other hand might take more
work to get to initial GUI but once you're there you probably only
installed what you really wanted to, and nothing/little else.
An enlightening point is found at Netcraft's list of the servers with
the longest uptime... check what OSes they run:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html
- Yahoo runs on FreeBSD. Hotmail did too, before Microsoft took it over.
The largest/busiest FTP site on the 'net runs on FreeBSD (www.cdrom.com).
- The FreeBSD ports system is awesome. As far as I know, most Linux
distributions don't have anything like it. I think one has something
that is close but is based upon precompiled binaries. FreeBSD's ports
you compile yourself, which takes longer but has benefits that I like. I
think the various Linuxes are trying to "catch up" to FreeBSD in this
regard but I could be wrong about the current state of affairs. Keeping
apps (and the OS itself) up-to-date with tools like CVSup and
portupgrade is sickeningly easy.
- I find upgrading FreeBSD to be incredibly simple. I have heard it
surpasses most Linuxes but I could be wrong. But basically with 4
commands you're done (aside from mergemaster, which could use
improvement, but really isn't so bad for most simple people like me once
you "get it").
- Linux gets more press, but I consider FreeBSD "the best OS you've
never heard of". I'm a firm believer in having your vote be counted even
if it's the underdog. I'm putting my support behind FreeBSD because I
like it better than Linux, even though I'm in the minority. Using Linux
"because everyone else does" is the same mistake that turned Windows
into a painful monopoly.
- There are technical details with threads and scheduling that differ
between the two but I don't understand them enough to say anything more
on the subject.
- Don't let people scare you into thinking FreeBSD can't be used on the
desktop and is only good for servers. I use it as my desktop at home.
Well that's all I can think of for now. Hopefully I don't start a flame
war... I am not anti-Linux (although I'm anti MS). |
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