Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 22:26:20 -0500 From: "Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P." <kdk@daleco.biz> To: SoloCDM <deedsmis@aculink.net>, "FreeBSD-Questions (Request)" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs. RedHat Message-ID: <3F7B9ADC.2080300@daleco.biz> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.50.0310012040460.811-100000@cdm01.deedsmiscentral.net> References: <Pine.LNX.4.50.0310012040460.811-100000@cdm01.deedsmiscentral.net>
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SoloCDM wrote: >Why do the ISOs seem to be three CDs of 600Mb each for RedHat compared >to 1.5 CDs for FreeBSD? I thought the files were larger with FreeBSD >and its tarballs. > Red Hat Linux is a Linux kernel+distribution, which means that the company not only provides a Linux kernel, compiler toolchain, and various userland tools, but also a set of pre-determined software, mostly of GNU projects, which I imagine makes up a little more than half of the 3 CD distro. I imagine you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but when you install RH you get KDE and Apache, automagically, right? This makes it a complete OS, but it's a little more structured in that some choices are made for you in terms of pre-installed software. FreeBSD is a UNIX-like operating system. It consists of a kernel and a 'userland' that has traditional BSD 'Nix tools and some small (yet significant) amount of GNU software to create a basic OS. Probably with the 2 ISO's you refer to you get as far as an X-server and a wm or two, I don't know for sure --- I always install over the Internet and grab the GUI stuff later from the "Ports Tree." You can actually get a minimal install going with the Mini-ISO which is about 199MB --- or, as I mentioned, a couple of floppies and an internet connection. And the "tarballs" are not *FreeBSD* per se, but "additional 3rd party software". I believe that various folks associated with the project also maintain many of the "packages" and ports for the benefit of the project's users, (and I'm thankful for that!) but the 'tarballs' aren't part of FreeBSD, per se, so there's some variation in sizes because you can call an ISO "FreeBSD" as long as it'll get the CLI system up and running. All you really need is the system binaries. >Does FreeBSD offer all the packages from A to Z in their CDs? > Never heard of those two packages .... heh. Seriously, I don't know that you get very many packages at' all in the two ISO's that you're probably referring to. A full set of 5.x with the distfiles for the most commonly installed packages is, I believe, being "crunched down" to fit on one DVD. I believe that there are box sets of one of the 4.x releases at www.freebsdmall.com that are maybe 4-5 CD's with quite a few packages and many 'distfiles' (tarballs) for common 'ports'. >Does FreeBSD come with an installation package? > FreeBSD comes with the old dialog-(? or it is ncurses-?) based program "sysinstall." Windows it ain't ... neither RH. On the other hand, once you've used it a time or two, you've learned a valuable tool. >Is FreeBSD Linux or UNIX? > Neither, it's BSD. But you can trace commit logs back to the epoch, so I've heard, so it's definitely a "'Nix". In order to be called UNIX, you have to buy a rather expensive license, and the project hasn't done that, for various reasons, among them likely the expense, perhaps the lawsuit settlement agreement, and apathy. Now that I've confused you, I can say, "HTH"... ;-) Kevin Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P. We've got a good thing, and adding another name to it won't make it any better in reality... My $0.02, (and I am nobody*...) Kevin Kinsey DaleCo, S.P. *Yeah, my erroneous opinions here, loosely based on whatever reading I've done on the subject. I'm not associated with the FreeBSD Project or FreeBSD Foundation, or the FreeBSD Mall. I'm not related to "Beastie", I don't play a kernel hacker on television and have never met a committer personally. OTOH, it's a nice, straight up OS, and maybe I wish I were/had....
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