Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 13:00:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Archie Cobbs <archie@tribe.com> To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why freeBSD instead of Linux? Message-ID: <199508222000.NAA13965@bubba.tribe.com> In-Reply-To: <199508211749.AA25732@cserve1.crystal.cirrus.com> from "brian kirkland" at Aug 21, 95 12:49:33 pm
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> Hi, I was just wondering after reading through the freeBSD home
> page why you think someone should use freeBSD instead of Linux.
Warning: prepare for *another* guy's 2 cents... :-)
I have used both FreeBSD 2.0.5 and Linux a good bit, and I *like*
both of them, so this is not a either-or for me. However, there
are some differences on which I think Linux and FreeBSD could
cross-fertilize. I used Linux first, then FreeBSD, so many remarks
are an artifact of that.
Some of the following statements may sound ignorant/stupid due to
my own failure to understand something. If so, please ignore them!
No RTFM flames! I'm preemptively admitting that I'm lazy and stupid!
I'm interested in feedback, eg. "I agree", "this is wrong", etc.
Stability
---------
FreeBSD seems more "stable" than Linux.
Installation
------------
FreeBSD beats Linux on this one, especially with the auto-FTP stuff.
However, Slackware is pretty good, though there are too many questions
when it asks you about every little package. Both are acceptable.
Look & Feel
-----------
Linux seems nicer here... some (silly) examples:
o "gpm" program to cut & paste between virtual consoles with the
mouse.
o Scroll-back on virtual consoles: with FreeBSD you have to press
scroll-lock, then you can shift-page-up. With Linux, you don't
need the scroll-lock step. Why is it there? Just an extra pain.
Preserve scroll-locking feature, but allow shift-page-up at any time.
o Using LILO it's easy to boot up with 132x44 screens or whatever,
instead of the huge 80x25 screen. I understand this can be done
by using the pcvt console instead of sc0, but then you loose
scroll-back. Maybe I'm missing something vis-a-vis the sc0 console,
but not sure.
o The X windows numlock problem never happened with Linux. Maybe
FreeBSD should boot up with num lock off? I'm not sure why they
behave differently. This could be my own stupidity, but seems like
lots of people were tripped up by this for some reason. Maybe it's
the X driver (?), but it didn't happen on Linux.
o SVGA-lib: library of SVGA graphics routines... is this portable?
o On FreeBSD you get this:
$ rmdir directory/
rmdir: directory/: Is a directory
No duh. Is this some POSIX nonsense?
Disk management
---------------
o LILO is great and easy to understand. There's a nice config file
called /etc/lilo.conf and you just say "lilo" to install it.
The "boot-easy" thing is more mysterious to me. How does it get there?
How does it work? What about multiple disks? I like having names
for things I want to boot instead of specifying disks+kernels.
o Linux has a nice full-screen fdisk program. Where is FreeBSD's?
Oh, it's hidden away in /stand.
o The "disklabel" program seems poorly documented (hey, what the heck
is a "label" anyway?) and mysterious. Or, maybe it isn't. To tell the
truth, I try to avoid it.
o Having all the FreeBSD partitions in one "slice" is neat.
Kernel Configuration
--------------------
o The "config" system of configuring and compiling a kernel is
much nicer than Linux's system of answering a bunch of questions.
Swap/memory
-----------
o Given the same amount of memory + swap, FreeBSD will choke (and
start killing random processes) first. The libc malloc() routine
is optimized for speed instead of memory consumption -- should be
(imho) replaced by GNU malloc.
o This is partially because Linux has "ordered" libraries...?
o Call me conservative, but I like the policy of not promising more
memory than is actually available in memory+swap. It's a personal
taste thing, I guess. Could it be configurable?
o Linux has a nice command called "free":
$ free
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 11324 11120 204 3228 5236
Swap: 52412 4 52408
o Linux now supports ELF... never used it and don't know much about
its benefits, though.
-Archie
_______________________________________________________________________________
Archie L. Cobbs, archie@tribe.com * Tribe Computer Works http://www.tribe.com
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199508222000.NAA13965>