Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:54:39 -0700 From: Mike Porter <mupi@mknet.org> To: Keith Woodman <keith@cydonia.net>, Matthew Emmerton <matt@gsicomp.on.ca> Cc: Guillermo Leandro <guille@galileo.or.cr>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Kernel Message-ID: <01012908543903.10681@mukappa.home.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101281435420.31402-100000@core.cydonia.net> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0101281435420.31402-100000@core.cydonia.net>
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday 28 January 2001 15:43, Keith Woodman wrote: > I think there is some confusion here. In FreeBSD the kernel and the OS > version are not seperate as they are in the diluted confusion of Linux > versions. When you said you are running FreeBSD 4.1 then that is your > kernel version. As opposed to say a RedHat 7 running a kernel version > 2.x.x or what ever and Slackware version ?? running kernel version ?? etc > etc. FreeBSD doesn't seperate the version from the kernel, they are one in > the same. This isn't entirely a fair comparison, becuase you are comparing a "distribution" version to a "complete system" version. Since the term "Linux" itself properly refers only to the kernel, and the rest of the stuff is packaged together at the "distribution" level according to the preferences of the distributor. Multiple distributions use the same kernel (I thnkk most of the commercially available distributions are still using a 2.2.? kernel, though that should change fairly quickly. It is also possible for a user to put a new version of the kernel into a distribution, and I suppose theoretically possible (if rather dumb) to have a single distribution version span multiple kernel. (dumb becuase it could be possible to have a "redHat version 7 that was released several weeks ago incompatible with today's redhat 7. So I doubt they would,, but it is possible, since the distribution version is technically the "other" files it comes with). FreeBSD isn't available in that method, there is only one "distribution" if you want to put it in those terms. Becuase of that, it is fair to say that if you are running FreeBSD version 4.2, then that is your kernel version. And just like with linux, if you upgrade the kernel (say, to -stable) it is possible to break the system. To be fair, it doesn't neccesarily mean that this is the fourth major kernel revision since FreeBSD was released, since a lot of what changes between releases is stuff outside the kernel itself (more like a linux distribution, again) but again, becuase the kernel is tied to the distribution in FreeBSD's case (and really, I guess in all the other BSD's as well) and there ARE in fact kernel changes from time to time, there is no reason to *not* say that the kernel version=distribution version. the uname -a command will return the same basic result as on a Linux machine: compare: [mupi@kelly ~]$ uname -a Linux kelly.xxx.com 2.2.5-15 #1 Mon Apr 19 22:21:09 EDT 1999 i586 (at a local ISP I have an account at) to FreeBSD yyy.yyy.com 4.2-STABLE FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE #3: Sun Dec 31 17:06:43 MST 2000 mupi@yyy.yyy.com:/usr/src/sys/compile/MUKAPPA4 i386 and note that from that you can extract that machine A is running Linux 2.2.5-15 and I am running FreeBSD 4.2-Stable (albeit a rather old -stable) (for those newbies curious, the #3 means the third build from this config file; I did one time see someone who was on #90, or so they claimed...) mike -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.3 (FreeBSD) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iEYEARECAAYFAjp1kj8ACgkQZ7GovTQbIm6AKgCfaMvSY1f5jFfNcaoqlaPv1PZL 3S8AoIFmcsRRIE3pWpIAyTQ9Qq5CSUNn =NSKl -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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