Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1999 22:11:51 -0000 From: "Matt" <Matt@roadhouse.fsnet.co.uk> To: <FreeBSD-Newbies@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: Website: FreeBSD vs. Linux Message-ID: <002501bf24b6$2ec9fb20$5c36883e@bluejeans> References: <Pine.LNX.3.96.991101160115.2935D-100000@spectre>
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> It's not much, but it's a start: > > http://www.honk.org/~mpoulin Theres always the comparison in Greg Lehey's book 'The Complete FreeBSD'. After starting out with Microsoft I've been using Linux for about a year, and only found out about FreeBSD a couple of months ago. Although I'll continue to use both, I do prefer FreeBSD. I find FreeBSD easier to install than most Linux distributions (I've tried SUSE, RedHat and Debian - I'll be trying Mandrake in a few days). I love the ports collection - its so easy. As is kernel configuration (its also a quicker compile than a Linux kernel). I also think that the Handbook is fantastic - much neater than HOWTO's all over the place. It seems true that Linux supports more hardware, but the downside of that is a *huge* kernel source tree (~50Megs I think). Linux has some great/easy config tools as well like SUSE's YAST, and RedHats Linuxconf. They make setting up printers, modems and PPP etc a breeze. Of course you can do it by hand if you prefer. I'd like to see FreeBSD have a similar tool - just so the choice is there. The other nice thing about FreeBSD is that there is only one. How many Linux disributions are there? Each has a different set of software and a different config tool and it is really confusing deciding which one to try first. Not forgetting that FreeBSD can run some Linux binaries, whereas the opposite is not true. As for performance, well FreeBSD 'seems' a bit slicker on my system - I think it handles swap in a different way so maybe thats why (I don't really know as I'm no expert). My other reasons for preferring FreeBSD are that I like the fact that it is a direct descendent of the original UNIX, whereas Linux was written virtually from scratch (also pretty admirable IMHO), and I dont really like the penguin as a mascot (a completely irrelevant point maybe). I think these days with companies like Cheapbytes, everyone has the opportunity to try as many variants as they want to and then make their own mind up. Here in Open-Source land we really are spoilt for choice. Matt To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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