From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Jul 9 10:44:19 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from exchange.xpsystems.com (exchange.xpsystems.com [207.171.47.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A706A14FC9 for ; Fri, 9 Jul 1999 10:44:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bfulgham@xpsystems.com) Received: by EXCHANGE with Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) id ; Fri, 9 Jul 1999 10:45:12 -0700 Message-ID: <21D757CECBD2D211AD5D00105A2974A73ED646@EXCHANGE> From: Brent Fulgham To: Nate , gkshenaut@ucdavis.edu, questions@freebsd.org Cc: Debian-Devel Subject: RE: FreeLinux (Debian/GNU BSD) Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 10:45:10 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.0.1460.8) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > 1. FreeBSD's kernel kicks ass, but the ports system is not nearly > as sophisticated as the debian .deb package format. > > 2. Debian Linux's package format kicks ass, but the linux kernel > is not nearly as stable as the freebsd kernel (IMHO). If we > could combine > the .deb package format with the freebsd kernel, I do believe > one would > have absolutely the most stable, most versatile, most sophisticated > operating system on the whole damn planet. If you are a developer > > On Fri, Jul 09, 1999 at 07:29:31AM -0700, Greg Shenaut wrote: > > I've not used Linux, but I've been told that there is considerable > > difference among the several principal variants. Once a bunch of > > user software has been installed over the net, from the user's > > point of view (and to some extent, the adminstrator's), is FreeBSD > > more or less different from the Linux variants as they are from > > each other? And if the answer is that they are all pretty similar, > > then perhaps a customized version of FreeBSD could be prepared that > > emphasizes the similarities, distributed as FreeLinux or LinuxBSD. > > (I'm thinking in terms of a FreeBSD kernel with a Linux API in > > front, a reshuffled directory hierarchy, and several of the more > > prominent Linux applications--sort of a Linux emulation on > steroids.) > > > > Why? You ask, "Why?!" > > > > I'm curious as to how many users would be attracted to a product > > incorporating the "Linux" handle, plus greater out-of-the box Linux > > compatibility, compared to more or less the same thing without it. > > We did discuss doing a Debian BSD distribution, but we had some question as to whether there would be much interest in doing so, or in using it. We also weren't sure what kind of response we would receive from the BSD community, and whether we would be seen as an abomination. ;-) The short-term plan was to create a BSD kernel module that could be used on a regular Debian system, perhaps using the BSD Linux-compatibility code. Our distribution already spans two binary CD's for each ARCHITECTURE. So, we would have a tremendous amount of additional space needed to host a completely-native BSD distribution as well. We did feel that FreeBSD would probably be the best distribution to base such a beast on. We would probably be distributing it as Debian GNU/BSD, or perhaps Debian GNU/FreeBSD... -Brent To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message