Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 15:18:04 -0600 From: "Richard E. Hawkins" <hawk@hawkins.cba.uni.edu> To: wonko@entropy.tmok.com Cc: dannyh@idx.com.au (Danny), cweimann@wallnet.com, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why is FreeBSD better than Linux? Message-ID: <m11voTR-000QjIC@hawkins.cba.uni.edu> In-Reply-To: Message from Brian Hechinger <wonko@users.tmok.com> of "Wed, 08 Dec 1999 12:34:37 EST." <199912081734.MAA10773@entropy.tmok.com>
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wonko wobbled,
> well, danny's list is a good start. but let's look at what you said chris.
> how would you have done that in FreeBSD? easily. not a lot of problems, but
> let's look at my favorite difference. let's say you want to update your Linux
> system to a newer version of the OS (kernel+userland). under Linux such an
> undertaking is quite a bother due to the fact that it is almost 100%
> interactive, and i have never been able to make in non-interactive. (remember
> i haven't touched Linux is several years now, but i don't really think it has
> changed in this respect anyway)
I can't speak for the others, but for debian it's trivial. There were
some glitches going to glibc for people that wouldn't read the 10 lines
of directiosn, but even that they've worked around. However, you deal
entirely with prepackaged binaries. Debian's dependencies also work
without a hitch.
On the other hand, debian belongs to the High Church of Emacs, with the
ever-popular hymn "GPL uber alles" . . . There's a lot of reasonable
folks there, but the politics get to be a bit much.
> with Linux you have to do 'make config' and then load your configuration into
> the config program so it can build a real config file for building the kernel.
> it's just plain messy.
ehh. menuconfig/xconfig are really no messier then bsd. It may be
ugly, but it's hidden.
> let's face it, NOBODY has great documentation. i've run across some extremely
> out of date man pages in both NetBSD and FreeBSD distros. but the BSD people
> seem to be making a harder effort to update their man pages. (the BSD 4.4
> man pages you can occasioanlly find not-withstanding, hee hee)
And there's so much they get from the gnu folks that the hostility to
man pages gets to be a problem. Whoever developed info should be
sentenced to using microsoft products.
> > >If I have a problem with FreeBSD the answer is either in the handbook
> > >or in the mailing list archives. I have never needed to look at source
> > >except out of curiosity.
Once you figure out what you're looking for, yes. If you don't find
it, you have a much better chance of getting an answer on the debian or
redhat mailing lists than this one.
rick
--
Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
hawk@hawkins.cba.uni.edu
(319) 266-7114 http://eyry.econ.iastate.edu/hawk
These opinions will not be those of UNI until it pays my retainer.
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