Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 13:43:41 -0600 From: Christopher Farley <chris@northernbrewer.com> To: Michael Lucas <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org> Cc: Stephen Hovey <shovey@buffnet.net>, "Tsalicoglou, Isaak" <tisaak@student.ethz.ch>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: *NIX Selection Message-ID: <20011130134335.B5243@northernbrewer.com> In-Reply-To: <20011130125342.A72960@blackhelicopters.org> References: <786CB48E65ABC74CA1E25577B096357F3FE7F6@EXSTUD2.d.ethz.ch> <Pine.BSF.4.05.10111301240080.269-100000@buffnet11.buffnet.net> <20011130125342.A72960@blackhelicopters.org>
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Michael Lucas (mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org) wrote: > Also, Linux is technically just a kernel; everything else is the > responsibility of the distributor. FreeBSD produces a complete, > coherent operating system. I've known a lot of, say, Red Hat admins > who are lost on a Slackware box; they don't really run Linux, they run > Red Hat Linux. That isn't a problem on FreeBSD. I'm not super-intimate with Linux, but have used it enough to point out some other key differences: - In Linux, most packages (and parts of the system) are distributed as pre-compiled binaries. This means software is much quicker to install (you don't have to spend half a day compiling X Windows), but also a little less flexible. If you want to compile SSL into mutt, for example, you're going to have to build it by hand. FreeBSD, on the other hand, has some pre-built binaries but in general the ports system makes it easy to build software from source, which is occasionally quite useful. - Updating a Linux system is often done piecemeal. You learn that wuftpd has a security vulnerability, and you download a new binary. On FreeBSD, there is a very nice 'make world' mechanism for keeping your entire system up-to-date. You can bring your entire base system up-to-date in one fell swoop. I have often updated my system to correct one security vulnerability only to find out that I also fixed four others, too. - To the best of my knowledge, FreeBSD has never had a problem quite like the recent Linux kernel that trashed your filesystem when it was unmounted.... -- Christopher Farley www.northernbrewer.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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