From owner-freebsd-newbies Tue May 30 19: 7:49 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from mail2.panix.com (mail2.panix.com [166.84.0.213]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DAEF937BE87 for ; Tue, 30 May 2000 19:07:41 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tomg@mailhost.nrnet.org) Received: from mailhost.nrnet.org (mailhost.nrnet.org [166.84.192.39]) by mail2.panix.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 877981560F; Tue, 30 May 2000 22:07:37 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (tomg@localhost) by mailhost.nrnet.org (8.8.7/8.8.4) with SMTP id VAA16151; Tue, 30 May 2000 21:55:56 -0400 Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 21:55:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Thomas Good To: David Johnson Cc: outlawtx@bga.com, freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Some food for thought...(aka rant of the day) In-Reply-To: <393425AB.42CABC8E@acuson.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 30 May 2000, David Johnson wrote: > Thomas Good wrote: > > > Basically the *only* difference between Linux distributions is system > > initialisation. RedHat is very System V. So if you know UnixWare or > > Solaris, RH is not *that* far off. Slackware is very BSD, in fact the > > development teams know one another and share ideas. After all, Walnut > > Creek is both their homes. SuSe and Debian are somewhere in the middle. > > I was meaning something a little different. Of course, underneath, all > of the linuces are similar. However, over the top of that they all have > a different veneer. For someone who doesn't know Unix inside and out, > that veneer becomes important. They won't know each and every > configuration file by heart. They won't know that Redhat stores foo.rc > under /etc/foo while SuSE stores it under /etc/bar. So they'll do what > the manual tells them to do, and fire up Linuxconf, or YaST, or COAS, or > SAS, or whatever. This is the veneer, and it doesn't matter how much you David, I don't use linuxconf, YAST, Gnome Control Center (or whatever it's called), CDE, the UnixWare desktop or /stand/sysinstall (after installation). I download src and do the build with gmake, then put the binaries where I want em. It's the same on any box. So they all look pretty much the same. You can do this on almost any unix implementation. I don't like the Redhat thing of putting postgres stuff in /var/lib for example. So I don't use RPMs. I grab the src and do the build and put the binaries in /usr/local/pgsql. Where they belong in my view! It's the same with most any unix - you can pay the vendor for their prefab binaries or do it yerself. I prefer the latter. And it works on *any* linux or freebsd box. Once you get the concepts where they put the conf files isn't that important. I don't think its that tuff to get what you want from unix. But it takes some time to see the *big picture*. And here is my real point (ignore the one atop my head ;-) It is *easier* to learn unix when you use more than one implementation. Can I explain this clearly? I dunno...lemme try. UnixWare, my first unix (yeah what a way to get deflowered!) was a complete mystery to me for awhile. So I learned some linux, against the advice of my mentor ("You've got enought on your plate.") Then it began to click. So I procured Solaris, and FreeBSD - tried AIX too. The more ways I saw - of doing the same thing - the more sense the overall concept made. The ttymon process (for system logins) made alot more sense to me after I learned getty/uugetty. Hopefully I haven't explained this too badly. I tell my wife (a linguist) this: English grammar was utterly meaningless to me until I got a handle on German. Then I had an 'aha!' experience. Same with unix. Learning one set of rules was learning by rote. Comparing two systems - and appreciating both - was achieving a deeper understanding that transformed feeling sort of competent into feeling a great fondness for my favourite OS. > know the Corel veneer, it won't do you any good for SuSE or Debian. And > unlike typical open source software, these administration tools only > work for the distro they're designed for. Proficiency in YaST is useless > when you're faced with a Mandrake box. We are in agreement here my friend. It is like learning WordPerfect as opposed to vi. ;-) > To the average Linux user, Debian is as different from Caldera as IRIX > is from HPUX. I think you overstate a bit here, d-man... > [ snip ... ] but at least you're learning generic all-purpose > Unix instead of locking yourselves into a single distro. I disagree here...why? All the linuxes are is a kernel, a filesystem, a whole bunch of great GNU code and an initialisation strategy. Add in one or more package managers. Sounds like FreeBSD to me. ;-) No RedHatter has to use linuxconf or Gnome...No FBSDer has to use sysinstall. You can lift the hood on any unix you want. Use tarballs and gcc instead of pkg_add or rpm -i. Right? And if you think the FBSD conf resembles Solaris or UnixWare, I dunno about that one. And UnixWare is *AT&T Unix* - about as standard (in theory anyhoo) as unix gets. (Before Novell and SCO got ahold of it anyway. ;-) Bottom line: unix is unix. Maybe a diff paint job... but the similarities are greater than the differences. When I hear that FBSD is more unix than linux is, I am reminded of the old Japanese proverb: Every reverse side has a reverse side. ;-) Speaking of which, I gotta get my reverse side into gear! Nice talking to you David, Tom ------- North Richmond Community Mental Health Center ------- Thomas Good MIS Coordinator Vital Signs: tomg@ { admin | q8 } .nrnet.org Phone: 718-354-5528 Fax: 718-354-5056 /* Member: Computer Professionals For Social Responsibility */ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message