Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 22:49:43 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Duke Normandin" <01031149@3web.net> Cc: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: BSDi Acquired by Embedded Computing Firm Wind River Message-ID: <007701c0bfef$b594f120$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20010407142725.A171295@mandy.rockingd.calgary.ab.ca>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Duke Normandin > >I understand your example. Setting aside the issue of kernel support for >garbage peripherals a-la Linux for a minute, is FreeBSD's server-centric >kernel inherantly not as well suited to perform as a desktop platform as >it could be? I realize that folks *are* using FreeBSD as a desktop >platform, but are they "forcing" it to do so at the expense of the >kernel's rock-solid stability? This depends on what you want to do with a desktop system. The first issue that most people that want to run desktop systems want to do is the following: They Want The Cheapest Thing Possible. In short, placing some absolutely rediculous price constraints on building their desktop systems results in some truly gruesome hardware selections. So, what happens when someone with a e-machines system with a winmodem, a bunch of usb peripherals, a crappy monitor and video card goes and tries to load FreeBSD? Well, their chances of success are lower than if they tried loading, say, Windows ME. This is because ME has to be designed to run on that absolute junk hardware - because that's the target market Microsoft is shooting for. Now, there's absolutely no reason that you cannot select decent-quality hardware for desktop systems, such as using SCSI peripherals, and that sort of thing. It will cost you more money, probably a significantly more amount. The better hardware will run FreeBSD, and other higher-performance operating systems just fine. In fact, it may NOT run the cheaper OS's as well, I know of at least 1 Compaq model that a customer has which runs NT Workstation flawlessly, but crashed regularly under Windows 95. I don't think that there's inherently anything that someone wants to do on a desktop system that is hazardous to the operating system. However, certainly there's programs that people want to run that ARE hazardous to the computer! For example, I've seen Pagemaker crash a system for no reason whatsoever, except application software bugs. If you are willing to use FreeBSD as a desktop OS - which means giving up the ability to run certain windows applications - then you will probably have no problems with it. Now, if you were a programmmer and you "forced" FreeBSD into running _all_ Windows applications, well then you might have to make serious compromises in system integrity to do it. >Bottom-line -- should FreeBSD be chosen >strictly for use as a server, and Linux as a desktop platform, albeit the >latter's instability that *sometimes* occurs in their effort to support >as much relevant hardware/software as possible? This is the $64 question, isn't it? Well, my answer to that is the following: Since FreeBSD has stability and reliability as it's absolute mantra, when selecting an OS for _either_ a server or a desktop, try FreeBSD first. If it will work for what you want to do, then your ahead of the game. If it fails on the server hardware you have, then consider that the server hardware shouldn't be in use as a server to start with, and replace it. But, if FreeBSD fails on the desktop hardware, or you find that there's things that you can't do on your desktop that you want to do, then check out Linux. Now, understand that this rule is only good for _me_. In a large company with controlled desktops, you may for example, decide to standardize on Linux for the desktops from the get-go. You may do this with the idea that your more likely to run into oddball or substandard peripherals in your fleet of desktops. Since standardization is paramount here, and swapping out the entire fleet of desktops isn't an option, you may feel that ultimately you will get better support from the Linux community for the many variations of low-quality desktop hardware, and the many oddball user applications that you may run into. Compounding the problem of answering this question is the fact that Linux and FreeBSD are at the very _beginning_ of their life interfacing with commercial software and hardware vendors. There's still a large amount of new hardware that's being released _without_ support for Linux/FreeBSD drivers. Manufacturers are just beginning to come around and start including Linux drivers in new systems, and we haven't yet seen that large divergence of Linux into the desktop, and FreeBSD into the server market. I see the tendencies for it, however, which is why I made the comments that I did on this issue. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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