From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jun 25 11:46:53 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from clink.schulte.org (clink.schulte.org [209.134.156.193]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 59F6E37B50E for ; Tue, 25 Jun 2002 11:45:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by clink.schulte.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BD303243CF; Tue, 25 Jun 2002 13:45:13 -0500 (CDT) Received: from schulte-laptop.nospam.schulte.org (nb-65.netbriefings.com [209.134.134.65]) by clink.schulte.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 12150243BE; Tue, 25 Jun 2002 13:45:11 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <5.1.1.6.2.20020625132254.046a0f00@pop3s.schulte.org> X-Sender: X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1.1 Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 13:42:36 -0500 To: David Wilk , Christopher Schulte From: Christopher Schulte Subject: Re: FreeBSD, Linux or Solaris Cc: Fernando Gleiser , David Kramer , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <20020625120402.A7861@cygnus.wks.Gallup.cia-g.com> References: <5.1.1.6.2.20020625121305.03d1f270@pop3s.schulte.org> <20020625135153.M403-100000@localhost> <5.1.1.6.2.20020625121305.03d1f270@pop3s.schulte.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS 0.3.12pre6 on clink.schulte.org Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG At 12:04 PM 6/25/2002 -0600, David Wilk wrote: >However, I gotta disagree with the linux comments. First, the linux kernel >is developed independant of the distributions, but not without regard to the >userland utilities that it will work closely with. Second, it is the >distributions job to integrate these two worlds so that they work seamlessly. >Third, if you have not tried it, check out Debian. This *huge* group of >developers work very hard to make an incredibly large number of packages >available that are all tested as part of a complete system. Package >management >is awesome. two commands bring your installed base up-to-date with both >security >and bugfixes - services shutdown and restarted automagically. Releases take >a while, so a system can seem a bit out-of-date, but are always solid. Thanks for the Debian heads up. I'll certainly give that a whack next time I have time to evaluate new OS distributions. >having the kernel separate from the system has the advantage of being able to >do a complete release upgrade without taking down the system (you lose each >service for a few seconds), or, upgrading the kernel for some new feature >without having to upgrade the entire system. FreeBSD is much more anal about userland/kernel synchronization than linux. If you just want to compile a new kernel without updating the source, that is easily done. `make kernel KERNCONF=MYBOX` If you need to update your kernel source to use a newly imported feature or bugfix, then officially you must also update your userland world. On the upside of this downside: the process is implemented well, and when done with care should not cause problems. Keep in mind there are situations even in linux where newer libraries (libc?) do need a minimum kernel revision..... but yes it's generally much more flexible than FreeBSD in this respect. I myself do not place a high weight on this due to my systems' configurations and update routines. As always, YMMV. Try a few different systems, use the one which jives best with your personality, requirements, and environment. >Dave -- Christopher Schulte http://www.schulte.org/ Do not un-munge my @nospam.schulte.org email address. This address is valid. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message