Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 11:01:38 -1000 From: dan bigelow <danno@mindsong.com> To: "linux-embedded@waste.org" <linux-embedded@waste.org>, "freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG>, "'Chris Avis'" <c.avis@rama.com.au> Cc: "'linux-router@psychosis.com'" <linux-router@psychosis.com> Subject: RE: Linux or FreeBSD (hairy edge of off topic) Message-ID: <01BDE161.61278860@m142.mindsong.com>
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Good to know about these other lists/groups... like humanity, it seems like a waste to have so much redundancy, yet the subtle improvements and brilliance seen in the diversity seem to justify the cost, in spite of the lack of logic... Hi, Having followed this thread but not seen the main reason for *my* choice listed, here goes... first, my unix history - Sun, HP, AT&T 3b1, NextStep, FreeBSD, Linux - both sysv and bsd variants. Right now my servers are FreeBSD, and my imbed box is Linux. my philosophy - "What's the least I can get away with to get it up, then add *my* desired functions (only) to that - Intentional, tight, controlled, with no side effects, please!". I'm a reductionist... less is more (and more likely to just work and be comprehensible...) my opininon - Linux lets me build and change the smallest/cleanest system and add to it most elegantly, keeping in sync with the 'current' releases. Right now, FreeBSD adds the complication of the boot-crunch mode : the do-it-all executable with links, but have to build-it-all into cool but inter-woven bundles (VERY clever, with decent tools to maintain, but not very unix-like in philosophy... and simply more complicated than I like right now). my bottom line - Linux is easier for imbedding and reductionists at heart, and FreeBSD *or* Linux for general desktop/server applications. I happen to pick FreeBSD for my servers (there's only one distribution/way to worry about 'doing it' with normal FreeBSD...), but it's not religious, just easier for me. my soap box (skip unless you're really bored...) - Unlike MicroSnot, Sun, HP, and ... who bundle-it-all and force us disk-cheap schleps (from an era gone by) to strip the un-needed muck (how many screen saver/sound motifs or termcap entries does a mortal really need?) out , with our fingers crossed, hoping we haven't introduced some odd side effect that we'll see in some End-Of-Month-Only-CRON-Script that breaks badly... Personally, I like to divide and conquer : I boot to get a file system, console, and loading tools. Then I bootstrap the resources I need... to load and run the services I came for in the first place. Nothing more on the machine or in memory. period. then I'm happy. If the loading/run the services part is modularized right, life only gets better! While there's nothing new about this protocol (the Sys V Init system does this pretty well and can even go backwards and undo things done, by changing run levels), the ability to distinguish between (and bundle) the sections and control the behaviour on most systems is almost always obscurred by the tangle of scripts and their interdependencies... Linux seems to have isolated these parts better than the others I've seen. Maybe it's because I've studied it better for my purposes, I dunno... the LRP package (linux router project, http://www.linuxrouter.org) is probably the best model I've seen to this end... I've even bastardized it to my own, more minimal ends... Look at mulinix too - clever minimal tools for common tasks (sed can do *anything*... dunno where that is... sunsite for sure). I'm also keeping my eye on Andrzej Bialecki's picoBSD progress (http://www.freebsd.org/~picobsd/), cuz his attitudes seem in-line with what I'm doing. (Andrzej, look at LRP's initrd and tgz image loading code! bitchin stuff! although your custom 'init' shell has a place in LRP type projects too) It's all an amazing ton of fun! anyway, my 2 'sense' - opinions encouraged, flames to /dev/halon thanks to all involved, --danno (spam_watch@mindsong.com) ---------- From: Chris Avis[SMTP:c.avis@rama.com.au] Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 1998 5:58 PM To: linux-embedded@waste.org; freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Linux or FreeBSD I have been following the discussion on embedded Linux versus FreeBSD with some interest. Like Roger Irwin, I was not even aware of picoBSD. Having read through the FreeBSD information and the picoBSD site I was impressed by the level of clear and concise documentation. I have been using Redhat Linux for some time and will admit that I sometimes get confused with the different variants of Linux and the different ways things are done (e.g. Caldera). In this respect the FreeBSD solution is extremely well documented in the "FreeBSD Handbook". I have been looking at experimenting with an embedded solution and started using the Linux Router Project as a starting point. The Embedded Linux Project looks very much in its infancy and there is not much information present. I basically want to run an embedded Java system. Does anyone have any suggestions ? regards Chris -- Chris Avis (c.avis@rama-tech.com) _--_|\ RAMA Technologies Pty Ltd, 28 Walters Drive / \ Osborne Park, Western Australia 6017, Australia \_.--._/ Tel: +61 8 9445 7999 Fax: +61 8 9445 7666 v http://www.rama-tech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message
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