Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 11:45:01 GMT From: James Raynard <fqueries@jraynard.demon.co.uk> To: jgibbs@ingham.k12.mi.us Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Linux and FreeBSD Message-ID: <199607051145.LAA01591@jraynard.demon.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <31DC8ABE.46E6@ingham.k12.mi.us> (message from John Gibbs on Thu, 04 Jul 1996 23:23:42 -0400)
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>>>>> John Gibbs <jgibbs@ingham.k12.mi.us> writes: > How do Linux and FreeBSD differ? Since they both emulate UNIX, how > exactly are they different? FreeBSD is a complete operating system, Linux is, strictly, just a kernel. (In practice, Linux distributors add applications to provide a complete system). There is only one FreeBSD distribution, which is maintained by the FreeBSD developers. There are many Linux distributions, of varying quality. There appears to be little coordination between the Linux kernel developers and the distributors. A stable FreeBSD release is made every 6 months or so, with one of the core developers assigned as "release engineer". New Linux kernels are released literally every day, Linux distributions vary. One of the main aims of FreeBSD developers is stability. A sharp distinction is made between development code and release code, and code is not put into a public release until the developers believe they have tracked down all the bugs and integrated it smoothly with the rest of the system. Linux seems more interested in making the latest code available as quickly as possible, regardless of stability. FreeBSD is based on BSD Unix. Linux is based mainly on System V, though it often uses BSD applications and code (and man pages!). FreeBSD's TCP/IP code is derived from the reference implementation, Linux's is "home-made". Linux supports a wider range of hardware than FreeBSD; in particular, work is still in progress on FreeBSD's support for IDE CDROMs. There are probably many other points, those are just the ones that occurred to me. (No doubt others will fill in any obvious omissions!). You probably won't get anything much more than sweeping generalisations; anything more would require a very detailed knowledge of both systems, and as both systems are under very active development, keeping up to date with them is a full-time job in itself! If you're trying to decide which one to run, the only advice I can give is to try both of them out and see which one you prefer (and be grateful you have the choice!) > FreeBSD can run X-Windows, correct? Correct. > One last question.....how > many megs of hard disk does a typical installation of FreeBSD use? As many as it needs. This can be anything from ~50 - 700MB, depending on how much of it you install. -- James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland james@jraynard.demon.co.uk http://www.freebsd.org/~jraynard/
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