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Date:      Wed, 09 Oct 1996 21:05:19 -0400 (EDT)
From:      wb2oyc@cyberenet.net
To:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   re: FreeBSD - Linux
Message-ID:  <XFMail.961009210619.wb2oyc@cyberenet.net>

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John,

>I am not sure if this statement is worth responding to, but it
>makes be curious.  Specifically, you are stating that there are

Why not? Your comment makes me curious.  All I'm saying is what I'm
seeing, on my machine, right in front of me.  I'm glad you took the
time to respond, but I'm more than just a little curious as to why
you wondered "if this statement is worth responding to".  I thought
this was the place to ask and comment, hoping to get some suggestions
for what may be at fault here.  Maybe not.

>problems with user-land things that I just don't have problems with.
>For example, I use, fvwm95 on -current out of the box with no problems
>(in fact, I recommend fvwm95, being a long-time ex-ctwm user, and also
>compile from the fvwm95 dist, and not from ports.)  

It works perfectly for me on Linux.  The fault on FreeBSD is that I 
cannot get it to find the icons or xpm's.

>PPP hasn't ever been a
>problem (except the iijppp config is a bit tricky at first.)  

I have to use 'term' mode.  It refuses to dial my ISP.  Once the 
session is established manually, it works fine.  The thruput may not
be the same, but its close enough to not be an issue.  

>Console behavior
>is pretty darned good under FreeBSD (I have heard complaints about the

Really?  Not here.  On exiting 'X' its nuts.  Or is that the norm?

>console behavior on Linux, and it has motivated at least one conversion
>that I know of to FreeBSD.)  The default console on FreeBSD does not
>emulate a VT100, and was never intended to.

Never saw any of this kind of strange behavior on any of the Linux
distributions I have used.

>Memory utilization is different under FreeBSD and Linux, the rule under
>FreeBSD is to allocate enough swap for all of the running programs to be

I'm not an OS architect or internals person, but the difference is 
important in two ways: the need for a much larger swap file, and more
physical memory on a given machine.  Or, is it only the perception that
more RAM is needed to support FreeBSD?  I must be honest with this, in
that the original perception was based on the GENERIC kernel requirements.
Now that I've rebuilt the kernel, the memory needs are much closer to that
of the Linux 2.0.0 kernel I've been running.

>My friends who are converting from Linux to FreeBSD don't seem to be having
>any major problems.  There are some minor dialect differences, but that
>is it.  (I don't even evangelize FreeBSD, and usually warn people that

Whoa, I didn't say I was having any "major" problems, because I'm not.
What I am seeing is that applications I have been accustomed to using
and trust under Linux, simply don't work properly under FreeBSD.  Thats
what started this thread.

>Regarding minicom, I don't know and don't use it.

Well, thats one I need, and depend on.  The reason is quite simple.  It
is an excellent performing, and near perfect emulation of a VT terminal,
and many applications I need to interact with at work depend on that.  By
the way, the most important is accessing our Lan OS systems via a back
door, which I depend on since I work from home (medical problem).  Plus,
I am responsible for our network and the hardware that supports it.  The
accurate emulation is very important to me for those reasons.  Without it
I can't do my job.  With it, I can be successful.  So, it was with quite
a surprise that I found it essentially non-functional (except from the
console) when running FreeBSD.  On Linux, it works as expected, whether
from the console, or in an rxvt while running X.  Not so on FreeBSD.
Simple as that.

>My suggestion is that if you have made any decisions that would be more
>costly to go back to Linux than to try to learn why you are having problems
>with FreeBSD, I would suggest trying a little longer.  If you are not happy

Its no cost.  I just boot the Linux partition.  I'm talking about using
the two systems on the very same box.

>with FreeBSD and don't feel that you can ever be happy with it, then I
>suggest trying another OS.

I decided to try it to learn it.  At this point, I'm just more than a
little disappointed to find these faults that I didn't expect to find.
I expected the syntactical differences and so on, and have spent a good
deal of time reading O'reilly and others to get a jump on that.  But I
didn't expect these applications to act so differently.  And I didn't
expect my mentioning Linux would cause such a stir and don't appreciate
the denigrating comments either.  I find that to be petty and childish.

The real truth is, Linux is good; very good.  And you're not as far
ahead as you think you are.  Not by a long shot.

But, I expected some on the list may be sensitive, maybe overly so, to
any comparison.  And, if you go back to my original message on this,
you'll see that I stated in plain English, that I did NOT consider ANY
differences in the internals or architecture itself between the two.
I'll say it again.  All I said was that these applications that work
flawlessly on Linux, work poorly or not at all, on FreeBSD.  Period.
I don't care a wit about the differences in the OS's themselves, and
can't really talk about that since I don't have the expertise.  I don't
care about the techno mumbo jumbo, and I said so.  My concern is about
these few app's that work on one, and not the other.  Again, period...
They both have their warts; they're Un*x.

Paul
  
 




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