Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 02:38:01 +0000 From: "clayton rollins" <crollins666@hotmail.com> To: ww.houweling@zonnet.nl Cc: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: BSD or Linux? Message-ID: <F208jXlJXQB4KIyYwXN000186dc@hotmail.com>
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Wouter,
I think, in many ways, you answered your own questions.
First, about Linux's popularity. Maybe this was best demonstrated for me in
a class I recently took at college. During the course, I got the teacher to
give a little class time for Linux/BSD (most students here have had only
experience with MS OSes) and even got to sit through a Mandrake install.
FreeBSD is definitely my favorite OS, and I wanted to promote it as much as
possible, but it was very hard to, after watching Mandrake install with all
defaults. Sure, I mentioned that those defaults probably opened the way for
security faults and future errors, but BSD is a useless alternative to those
who can't install it. (The majority of technicians I've met draw a blank
when you mention changing CMOS settings, and most users don't want to spend
a week reading the manual. Bottom line, I have never had an install go
through on the first try in BSD, and I should know the relevant details by
now.)
Admittedly, these fellow users should come out from the dark ages of not
understanding/being afraid of computers and gain the knowledge required to
install bsd (or learn to ask questions), but I doubt they will. (In
contrast, one I know of has already started trying a Linux install.) Some of
the things us technical people do, and consider easy, are very hard for an
average user.
From what I gather, most of what you mean by Linux "going in the wrong
direction," is also most of the reason it works the way it does, by lack of
adherence to protocol. Not to bring up the microsoft "quality" OSes, but
Windows "works," a term I use loosely, largely because it doesn't have to
accept other protocols and standards. (I mean, how hard is it to show a
performance gain, if your company had control of the standards of the
compiler, the OS, and, in some cases, the hardware involved.) Embedded media
players are another great example of this. Linux, as you stated, could play
media directly from the mozilla browser, well, what if you want to use a
different player? what if you want to pass it a command line option to drop
the frame-rate, or invert the picture? you're probably SOL (maybe not, but
I'm willing to bet it's less flexible than BSD).
(Not to start a flame war; Linux and MS are on different planes when it
comes to lack of respect for standards, and I certainly don't mean to
portray Linux like that.)
(And, of course, some of this is attributable to Linux's rapid growth, not
an active disregard for protocols. [though xinetd makes me wonder])
This also sounds like the cause of some of the problems you had with the
system, that config files weren't where you'd expect them, outside software
had a hard time, etc. (whereas, with bsd, people would probably scream
profusely with references to the hier man page if they ever saw a file out
of place.)
Which brings me to the reason I chose BSD to begin with, and why I wouldn't
waste my time with other OSes any more. BSD is based on implemented
tried-and-true standards, many of which came during the early years of UNIX.
It is well thought out and tested. (I have a hard time believing many Linux
computers even try for a year continuous operation.) And, though it was hard
to set up the first few times, all errors since then have been solved easily
with online resources and documentation. ("The power to serve" sums it up
nicely.)
And, I'm not sure I'd like BSD if it were the typical desktop OS; I think
it does a very good job of being user-friendly, without robbing the power of
the user or the system. (for instance, I'm glad I got to enable USER_LDT
[for mplayer, wine, etc.] rather than it being on by default. I now know the
security risks of setting this, whereas a linux user likely has very little
idea that there's a risk at all, though they got out of recompiling their
kernel...)
Just some thoughts...
Clayton
>
>A few months ago, i decided to install SuSE 8.1 on my desktop (yeah, i
>confess ;), after working with FreeBSD for almost 2 years. At first i
>was quite suprised with the fact that everything worked out of the box,
>sound, playing meg's from mozilla etc.
>
...
>
>So, 2 months later, i have reinstalled my system with FreeBSD 4.7. Back
>too goold-old-BSD :) I love the fact that i know where my config's are,
>that they are stored in one place, that only whats really needed is
>running in the background, etc etc
>
>One question keeps bugging me though: why is gnulinux so much more
>popular then FreeBSD atm? Is the fact that Linux is 'hot' the reason
>they are (in my opinion) going in the wrong direction?
>
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