From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jul 13 8:29:23 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from q.closedsrc.org (ip233.gte15.rb1.bel.nwlink.com [209.20.244.233]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE93737C1F9 for ; Thu, 13 Jul 2000 08:29:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from lplist@q.closedsrc.org) Received: from localhost (lplist@localhost) by q.closedsrc.org (8.10.2/8.10.2) with ESMTP id e6DFRs796189; Thu, 13 Jul 2000 08:27:54 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from lplist@q.closedsrc.org) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 08:27:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Linh Pham To: Thaisan Tonthat Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: questions In-Reply-To: <20000713150243.58922.qmail@hotmail.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG FreeBSD is aimed more at the general audience and the x86 architecture (although an Alpha port and a PPC port is in development...). NetBSD is aimed at multi-platform support, since it supports almost every PC architecture known. OpenBSD, headed by Theo de Raadt (spelling?), was split from NetBSD and aims to be the most secure operating system. The number of architectures supported by OpenBSD is about the same as the average between FreeBSD and NetBSD (x86, Alpha, m68k, Amiga, sparc...) I'm not sure what the hardcoded maximum amount of RAM is, but on the x86 side, a 32-bit processor can only handle 4GB of memory (with the exception of the Xeon processors, which can support up to 32GB). 64-bit processors can handle a whole lot more memory then 32-bit processors, but it'll cost you a pretty penny to reach the max :) I don't think there is a specific limitation to hard drive size, but there are limitations related to BIOS', IDE controllers, SCSI controllers and partition (oops... slice) sizes. The handbook or ``The Complete FreeBSD'' book should cover hard drives and slice limitiations. FreeBSD supports SMP on x86 (I don't know if there is an SMP kernel for the Alpha port yet), but OpenBSD does not (it'll run on machines with multiple processors, but only recognize only one). I'm not sure if NetBSD supports SMP or not. // Linh Pham // // Proud supporter of FreeBSD and OpenBSD // FreeBSD - http://www.freebsd.org // OpenBSD - http://www.openbsd.org /* "Oregon, n.: Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday night." */ On Thu, 13 Jul 2000, Thaisan Tonthat wrote: > Could you please explain the differences between FreeBSD, NetBSD, and > OpenBSD to me (besides that they are made by different people)? Also, i > would like to know the specifications that FreeBSD supports (such as max > RAM, max Hard Drive size, etc) Your help is greatly appreciated. > Sincerely, > Thaisan Tonthat > ________________________________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message