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Date:      Sat, 7 Nov 1998 09:51:07 +1030
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Johann Visagie <wjv@cityip.co.za>, Martin Leufray III <martin@netconstruct.com>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD vs. Linux
Message-ID:  <19981107095107.C499@freebie.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <19981106165913.B13675@cityip.co.za>; from Johann Visagie on Fri, Nov 06, 1998 at 04:59:13PM %2B0200
References:  <4.1.19981102162944.00cc6ec0@mail.netconstruct.com> <19981106165913.B13675@cityip.co.za>

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On Friday,  6 November 1998 at 16:59:13 +0200, Johann Visagie wrote:
> On Mon, 02 Nov 1998 at 16:31 SAST, Martin Leufray III wrote:
>>
>> There is a raging debate in our offices about FreeBSD vs. Linux. We are an
>> international consulting firm and our internal decisions affect a lot of data
>> centers.
>>
>> Is there a definitive comparison anywhere?
>
> Every "expert" will have his own opinion.
>
> As for mine:  If you want to run stable, reliable, maintainable servers, go
> for FreeBSD.  (There are many other applications where I would recommend
> Linux, but that's besides the point.)
>
> My own summary of the entire debate:
>
> * Linux is a PC OS that happens to be Unix-like.
> * FreeBSD is Berkeley Unix that happens to run on a PC.
>
> The more I learn, the more applicable it seems (though I know some disagree
> with me).

Yes, I'm one of them.

To the casual observer, there is *no difference* between Linux and
FreeBSD.  If you look closer, the differences you'll see are mainly
historical.  If you look in the source code, you'll see the real
differences: FreeBSD is more mature code, and it expends more effort
making the system run well in an environment with a large number of
processes.  I think it unlikely, for example, that you could create a
system like wcarchive (ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/archive-info/wcarchive.txt)
using Linux.

What does this mean for the average desktop user?  Nothing.

Greg
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