From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue May 23 20:10:57 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from smtp.millennium20.com (smtp.thecyberguys.net [209.79.190.13]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BCDFB37BA19 for ; Tue, 23 May 2000 20:10:51 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from glennpj@bayouhome.net) Received: from gforce.johnson.home (1Cust181.tnt2.covington.la.da.uu.net [63.31.31.181]) by smtp.millennium20.com (8.10.0/8.10.0) with SMTP id e4O296327023; Tue, 23 May 2000 19:09:06 -0700 Received: (from glenn@localhost) by gforce.johnson.home (8.9.3/8.9.3) id WAA01979; Tue, 23 May 2000 22:10:04 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from glenn) From: Glenn Johnson Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 22:09:36 -0500 To: Mohit Aron Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD kernel as a replacement for Linux kernel Message-ID: <20000523220936.A1892@gforce.johnson.home> References: <200005240156.UAA07049@noel.cs.rice.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0.1i In-Reply-To: <200005240156.UAA07049@noel.cs.rice.edu>; from aron@cs.rice.edu on Tue, May 23, 2000 at 08:56:18PM -0500 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, May 23, 2000 at 08:56:18PM -0500, Mohit Aron wrote: > Hi, I apologize beforehand if this topic has already been discussed at > length here or elsewhere. > > More and more commerical sites are providing software packages > that contain binaries for Linux. While FreeBSD does provide Linux > emulation, this is often flaky and breaks down more often than not for > commercial software. I do not agree with this last statement. I have had success with every Linux program I have thrown at FreeBSD. Of course I have not tried them all but my experience has been good. > On the other hand, the FreeBSD kernel is superior than that of Linux. Yes, and FreeBSD is also superior to every Linux distribution I have seen. Although SuSE is pretty good. > Since FreeBSD and Linux have so much in common wrt to the user > interface to the kernel, wouldn't it be so much better if both had the > SAME interface such that the Linux kernel could just be replaced by > the FreeBSD kernel. That way, one would be able to take advantage of > both the increasing development of software for Linux, as well as the > strengths of the FreeBSD kernel. It would give FreeBSD much greater > visibility. > > Can someone comment on how difficult achieving the above would be ? I think you need to keep in mind that FreeBSD is more than just the kernel, in contrast to Linux. The tight integration and control of all of the userspace tools makes system management much easier IMHO with FreeBSD than any Linux distribution I have used. This is especially true when you have a fleet of machines to keep up to date. I think you are right though that visibility need to be increased to attract commercial developers but I think the only way to do that is to steadily grow the user base. -- Glenn Johnson glennpj@bayouhome.net To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message