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Date:      Sat, 27 Apr 1996 01:18:38 GMT
From:      James Raynard <jraynard@dial.pipex.com>
To:        bryn@server.helmbrechts.de
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org, bryn@server.helmbrechts.de
Subject:   Re: Please Help:
Message-ID:  <199604270118.BAA03761@dial.pipex.com>
In-Reply-To: <31810020.2D12@helmbrechts.de> (message from Bryn Wales on Fri, 26 Apr 1996 16:56:00 %2B0000)

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>>>>> Bryn Wales <bryn@server.helmbrechts.de> writes:
> 
> Currently I´m investigating improvements to the way we use the Internet. 
> Part of this project will involve setting up various servers (SNMP, HTTP, 
> FTP, etc.) and am intrested in evaluating the varous low cost flavours of 
> UNIX. The two most popular seem to be FreeBSD and various distributions 
> of LINUX.

These are about as low cost as you can get 8-)

> Concerning FreeBSD, many commercial packages state that they will run on 
> BSD (as well as a variety of other flavours of UNIX). Does this also mean 
> that they will run on FreeBSD? I´m a little confused about the 
> differences between FreeBSD and 'full' BSD.

FreeBSD *is* 'full' BSD, in that it's derived from 4.4BSD (many
commercial Unices, including SunOS.4.x, are derived from its
4.3BSD). What you are probably thinking of is BSDI. This is a
commercial OS (cost about $1000, I believe), which is also derived
from 4.4BSD.

Almost all source code that is intended to be compiled and run on a
generic BSD system will successfully compile and run on FreeBSD.
FreeBSD is also capable of running binaries compiled on BSDI (and also
Linux and SCO, incidentally). This is useful for programs which are
only distributed as binaries, such as Netscape's web browser.

> As you might guess with trying to set up an HTTP server I´m looking into 
> publishing on the web and am not certain whether to use a product called 
> Apache which seems popular (and is free) or buy Netscape servers which is 
> one of the reasons why I´m trying to find out more about FreeBSD and the 
> differences from the full commercial version of BSD.

Apache is certainly very popular - it seems to have usurped NCSA as
the free HTTPD of choice. I seem to remember reading somewhere that
Walnut Creek runs Netscape's WWW server to allow people to buy CDROMs
over the Web securely (apologies if I'm deceiving myself here). And as
I'm sure no-one here needs reminding, they run FreeBSD 8-)

> Any help and enlightenment would be greatly appreciated.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
James

-- 
James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland
mail:	jraynard@dial.pipex.com



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