Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 23:03:50 -0700 From: "Seamus.Venasse" <Seamus.Venasse@polaris.ca> To: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Why FreeBSD over Redhat Linux? Message-ID: <007e01c13f3e$86689e50$1b7e7ed8@POLARIS.CA> In-Reply-To: <004a01c13f04$378b9c40$5eeaf7a5@oemcomputer>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hi Earle! > Do you have any articles that cover the question "Why FreeBSD 4.3 over Redhat Linux 7"? To find an answer to this question, please refer to http://www.freebsd.org/news/press.html on the main FreeBSD website. Just do a search on the page for "Linux", and you will find articles for comparisons. Personally, I like your specific question instead of a generic, "Why FreeBSD over Linux?", since Linux is just a kernel, and RedHat a distribution. I would like to share some of the benefits I am enjoying since I moved to FreeBSD from RedHat. I've used RedHat since 1996, and I thought it was the cat's meow, especially compared to the BBSs I setup in DOS. I cut my teeth on RedHat as my introduction into how a UNIX-like OS works. I liked the fact that, while using RPMs, I could instantly see what packages I had installed on my system. I also found that if an RPM requires a dependency package, I would have to find and install that RPM, before continuing on with the first RPM. Since my requirements were that of an ISP, I compiled all my necessary services, such as Apache, manually, as I was not comfortable about a binary Apache install. Last summer I started to play around with FreeBSD. It had a different install method, in that it allowed me to choose a simple or detailed method of installation. I very much fell in love with the jail subsystem as I could use one box, but separate processes for added security. Also, much like the RPMs in RedHat, I could instantly see what ports I had installed. The difference however, was that if a port required a dependency, the port would install the dependency and then continue. Also, since I could see how each port was being built, I now use a port for my Apache build. I moved all my servers to FreeBSD by Christmas. At my daytime work, I am required to use RedHat as the choice for our servers, when we don't have to use NT. Recently we decided to upgrade our boundary email server from RedHat 6.2 to RedHat 7.2. This turned out to be complete chaos! The RPM for BIND 9 required OpenSSL v1.x, while the RPM for OpenSSH required OpenSSL v2.x. To make matters worse, we couldn't install two different versions of the same RPM, even though it was two different versions of OpenSSL. The new RPMs were installing libraries in either /lib, /usr/lib, or /usr/local/lib. This upgrade took four days, and the server is still limping along. This is a major downfall for binary distributions, much like DLL problems on Windows. I decided to do that same operation for my own FreeBSD servers, which function the same as my RedHat servers at my daytime work. I upgraded from FreeBSD 4.1.1-STABLE to 4.3-STABLE, using a remote SSH connection. The upgrade took 3 hours, with the majority of time spent downloading the new CVS source tree. Although I am not using BIND 9 on my FreeBSD servers, there were no library conflicts. After a reboot, I was successfully running FreeBSD 4.3-STABLE. > Does FreeBSD have a graphical installation process? The FreeBSD installation is CUI based, not GUI, just like if you were to type "text" while booting up the RedHat installation. Seamus To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?007e01c13f3e$86689e50$1b7e7ed8>