Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 07:30:45 -0600 (CST) From: "Paul T. Root" <proot@mail.iaces.com> To: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey) Cc: drwho@xnet.com, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs. Linux (was: a couple ?'s) Message-ID: <199902221330.HAA04252@horton.iaces.com> In-Reply-To: <19990221205121.O93492@lemis.com> from Greg Lehey at "Feb 21, 99 08:51:21 pm"
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> > For a long time, I've refused to answer this question due to lack of > reasonable evidence. Now I've seen > http://advisor.gartner.com/n_inbox/hotcontent/hc_2121999_3.html, which > seems a reasonably careful analysis. It shows that FreeBSD > outperforms Linux by about 50% in the areas which they have examined, > but for some reason comes to the conclusion that, though FreeBSD has > all the advantages, one should choose Linux. In particular, they > write: > > FreeBSD UNIX-Advantages, Disadvantages > > FreeBSD UNIX has a similar story to Linux, but without the > commercial aggregators of the code or the honor system that > prevents commercial vendors from advancing the OS in unique > ways. Thus, to base a product on FreeBSD eliminates the cost of > the OS entirely. On the downside, though, there quickly becomes no > such thing as standard FreeBSD. Every vendor ends up with a > proprietary operating system based on FreeBSD, but not the > identical OS. This is fine for the thin server vendor that wants > to control the entire software layer, applications and all, but > can be a burden and drawback to the vendor that wants to support > commercial applications from other vendors. However, the key value > in all successful thin servers will be the glue that creates an > integrated, optimized system. This often calls for low-level > changes to the OS, and exposing those changes to the competition, > a la the Linux model, may not be in the best interest of the > vendor. > > I disagree with the statement " Every vendor ends up with a > proprietary operating system based on FreeBSD" The fact is that > there *is* only one FreeBSD, whereas there are multiple versions of > Linux. I'm not sure what the author was thinking of when he said > this. We resently have received a Nokia IP440 firewall machine. It's OS is based on FreeBSD, but it has it's own device drivers and extra stuff yanked out (like no xntp!, which annoyed me). On top of this it runs CheckPoint Firewall-1 and Apache that runs their configuration front end. It's pretty neat, but it isn't standard, and I really can't muck with it, if there was a problem. -- I hear there's some exciting developments in rubber squeak toys! - The Tick To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199902221330.HAA04252>