Date: Thu, 11 May 1995 10:29:22 +0300 From: kallio@jyu.fi (Seppo Kallio) To: Plyaskin Sergey <splyaski@cmp.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs. NetBSD Message-ID: <v01510100abd75c669cd0@[130.234.41.39]>
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>I'm just curious: >What are the main differences between FreeBSD and NetBSD? in which cases >it's better to use one or another? I personally like FreeBSD very much but >it's would be very interesting to hear the opinion of people who know both >systems. >Thanks. >P.S. I know NetBSD runs on variety of platforms. I too would like to hear people's opinions about NetBSD, FreeBSD and Linux differences. I have been looking these three about one year now and first I got impression that Linux is the only one (I am in Finland ;-) ). Then I found NetBSD 0.9 and after that FreeBSD 2.0. I have never found any descriptions what are the "real" differences (or example: is one better for personal use and one better for server). Maybe it is like cars: "My is the best";-) NetBSD is version 1.0 and FreeBSD is version 2.0 :-) NetBSD is more hardware independent, more ports on different hardware. NetBSD is not as easy to install as FreeBSD is: You have to collect bindist etc. and install it by "hand". You have to configure network by editing things in /etc/ and so on. =46reeBSD 2.0 is very easy to install using ftp. (As Linux is, if you can mount Linux distribution with NFS). NetBSD does not support more than 16M of RAM if you use ISA disk controllers. (It cannot do "buffer bounching" (sp?) for disk buffers. ISA cannot address more than 16M RAM with DMA). Not a problem if you choose the hardware correctly, I had old h/w and it was a problem. (*I am not expert on PC harware*). I think they do NetBSD more for "server" use. That is: to use the NetBSD node as Internet server. I think FreeBSD (and Linux) is more one user Unix box for personal use with XFree86. Maybe this was true only on FreeBSD 1.x?? FreeBSD 2.0 seems very same as NetBSD 1.0 in that respect. These are my personal impressions based on: 1. I have test installed NetBSD 0.9 and NetBSD 1.0. 2. I am running FreeBSD 2.0 as a httpd server (NCSA htppd + CERN httpd&cache + one file reguest in 3 seconds) 3. I am running Linux Slackware 2.1 as student's time sharing node for pine+tin+irc+... users (700 active users, max 30 at same time). (h/w: 486DX2, 50-66MHz, 32M RAM, 2G SCSI AHA 1540A/1542CF, SMC Elite) 4. I have been listening people who have used or test installed at least two from the NetBSD, FreeBSD and Linux I like FreeBSD. I think Linux has some network and memory allocation/Swap problems + no shadow passwd. I have plan to move from Linux to FreeBSD in the student's node. My next box (If I will have next one) will run FreeBSD (or maybe NetBSD). I think one difference is: Linux is most used, FreeBSD is next and NetBSD is the last (Or is this true, has someone any figures?) I am a Macintosh user so I have some interest for PowerPC and hope NetBSD will be ported on it on some day. Seppo Kallio (kallio@jyu.fi) U of Jyvaskyla =46inland PS. Unix is not h/w dependend, so why run it only Inside Intel?
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