From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Mar 19 07:53:32 1995 Return-Path: hackers-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id HAA10423 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 19 Mar 1995 07:53:32 -0800 Received: from cybernetics.net (jeffh@server0.cybernetics.net [198.80.48.52]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with SMTP id HAA10417 for ; Sun, 19 Mar 1995 07:53:27 -0800 Received: by cybernetics.net (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA00845; Sun, 19 Mar 95 10:53:18 EST Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 10:53:16 -0500 (EST) From: Jeff To: John Beukema Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Comparison of un*x's In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Sun, 19 Mar 1995, John Beukema wrote: > Solaris (Seemingly the first choice of several members) I have read several magazine reviews about Solaris x86 because I, too, was considering switching from FreeBSD. All I can say is NO, NO, and NO. Solaris x86 was ported almost directly from the sun, with no consideration for the fact that it was no longer running on a sun. It may run on x86 hardware, but it likes to think it's still on a sun. > FreeBSD Honestly this would be your best choice, I believe. You can get almost any network utility to compile on FreeBSD. A testament to the stability of FreeBSD can be seen at freebsd.cdrom.com, which is a 90mhz pentium and supports 500 concurrent users. > SunOS (Does it even run on i386?) Nope. > BSDI This is not bad. > SCO ACK! SCO likes to take all standard unix utilities and prepend them with the word 'sco'. I'm surprised they don't have 'scols', 'scomkdir', etc. :) Not to mention it's slow. > NetBSD I have never run this, can't comment. > Any other suggestions. (Linux has been eliminated due to too frequent > patches.) That's silly, IMO. No one forces you to apply any of the patches. You could get a stable version and run that forever, never applying any patches. The only time patches apply is when you always want to be current. Linux has performed well as a WWW, news, and e-mail server for my internet provider. (The only reason they use linux over FreeBSD is because the software for their Annex terminal server flakes out on FreeBSD for some reason.) > It is likely I cannot prevail on FreeBSD at this time. What would the > *second choice* be, particularily in terms of compatibility with FreeBSD? > I could then use FreeBSD on one machine on the network and compare. BSDI. The BSDI people tend to set after having a solid, static OS. The FreeBSD team sets their goals a bit higher by also adding new features often. SMP (multi-processor) support is being added now, along with a host of other goodies that the BSDI people have not done yet. (At least I don't think they have.) If you can't run FreeBSD, however, BSDI would be your best second choice. > I appreciate the assistance. Sure. Hope it helps. > jbeukema Jeff -- Jeff Hoffman -- jeffh@cybernetics.net ------------------------------------- "A man facing the light looks not into sorrow, but to to the future...always." WWW: http://www.cybernetics.net/users/jeffh ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PGP Public Key available on request.