[NEWS] - FreeBSD turned 10 years old yesterday.

[CougTek]

Yep, already a decade past for the most popular BSD operating system.

You can see how fine their OS has become by downloading version 5.1 from their web site or by ordering the CDs from online stores like FreeBSD Mall.

...and James and Ishan will provide the technical suport for all us BSD noobs.

 

[CougTek]

...and James and Ishan

Ihsan ...oops.

 

[honold]

*cough*

 

[time]

Look, I have no idea why he singled out those particular members either ...

Rest assured, when I think of honold, I think Dell, FreeBSD, Dell, Networking, Dell, Via sucks, Dell, ... :mrgrn:

j/k

Seriously, maybe you should convince me why FreeBSD is a good alternative as a (file) server. I want to pick a new flavour of Linux, but maybe BSD is a better strategic solution? Has to be something that is easily supported, though.

 

[Mercutio]

FreeBSD is faster for a lot of serverish tasks, can be updated easily and seems generally less flakey and more Unix (TM) like than Linux. It's also generally a step or two back from Linux in terms of hardware support, although it did have USB support first.

I'd suggest FreeBSD for someone generally interested in learning Unix (TM) over Linux, but there's a lot of interest in Linux in and of itself, and it's a lot easier to find Linux boxes in the world than *BSD, so there's value in knowing both.

 

[honold]

here's a pretty zany reason: dump/restore is the best backup free unix has to offer, and it won't work on linux: http://lwn.net/2001/0503/a/lt-dump.php3 (linus is only speaking for linux, as always).

but really if you've got whatever and it's working, let it keep working. if you're a linux-only (or linux-mostly) admin a trip to freebsd/openbsd/solaris can really open your eyes.

fwiw, openbsd is my favorite unix-like os. if they would get netbsd-style rc (freebsd5 already imported this), something along the lines of portupgrade (and ditch the idea of 'stable' ports), and slightly better hardware support i think they'd be unstoppable.

 

[ihsan]

fwiw, openbsd is my favorite unix-like os. if they would get netbsd-style rc (freebsd5 already imported this), something along the lines of portupgrade (and ditch the idea of 'stable' ports), and slightly better hardware support i think they'd be unstoppable.

Ditto and I would appreciate a Free's mergemaster-like script.

As for netbsd's rc.d, if this thread is of any indication (and De Raadt's attitude), I don't think we are going to see it anytime soon.

 

[honold]

mergemaster is in ports, and yeah, the devs are highly unlikely to implement the netbsd rc stuff

 

[The JoJo]

Could someone give me, and others that haven't used *bsd so much, a quick comparison about the differenced between openbsd, netbsd,freebsd and other possible variants?

I've only installed freebsd once, not much else besides that.

 

[Mercutio]

FreeBSD is a feature-filled product that is essentially made for x86.
NetBSD has the goal of portability. It runs on just about every platform I can think of, so they're doing something right.
OpenBSD is somewhere between FreeBSD and NetBSD in terms of portability and has a goal to provide an extremely secure, reliable operating system.

BSD development is structured and handled by closed groups. Code is audited. There's a great deal of QA. That's a very different philosophy from the Linux crowd.

 

[CougTek]

BSD development is structured and handled by closed groups. Code is audited. There's a great deal of QA. That's a very different philosophy from the Linux crowd.

Not sure, but I think only OpenBSD is audited.

 

[honold]

openbsd is the only one that's explicitly audited

there are 4 basic tenets: performance, portability, security, and features

freebsd: performance, features, security, portability (sparc64 and alpha)

netbsd: portability, features, security, performance

openbsd: security, features, portability, performance

that's about how i'd rank them. freebsd is a general-purpose os with a lot of bureaucracy in its way. netbsd is the most academic/hobbyist one, and support for it is tough. openbsd is a well-run dictatorship with a focus on global (not user) impact features.

i may elaborate more later, but it's time to eat.

 

[honold]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,555398,00.asp

 

[honold]

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article/0,3998,a=31573,00.asp - single-pager

 

[The JoJo]

Thanks h.

 

[The JoJo]

The article mentions Linux as being "...take a "revolutionary" stance, seeing their work as a war to compete with, and destroy, Microsoft... " .

Funny, as I read through the article, I thought the whole time that the article writer had partly the same type of attitude agains Linux..go figure...

Nevertheless, a good read about BSDs.