Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 08:37:10 -0700 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: jarvis@guru.wow.aust.com Cc: lbruno@cmp.com, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Technical questions about BSD Message-ID: <36DFFA26.CD53C6DD@softweyr.com> References: <8525672A.00205CC7.00@NotesSMTP-01.cmp.com> <36DE3633.566B1C58@guru.wow.aust.com>
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Jarvis Cochrane wrote:
>
> Lee,
>
> I'm far from the being the most knowledgeable person on this list, but perhaps I
> can make a start on your questions...
>
> lbruno@cmp.com wrote:
>
> > I'm in the process of writing a feature story about open source Linux and BSD.
> > I'm doing some comparisons between them and commercial NOSes such as Netware and
> > NT. However, I have a few unresolved questions I need answered.
>
> > First, I am
> > curious to know how many thousands of lines of code make up the BSD kernel?
>
> I can't help you with this. Perhaps another 'lister' will be able to?
953,409 raw lines in .c and .h files, as of 3.0-RELEASE.
> > Second, what hardware platforms does it run on Intel, SPARC, Amiga,
> > Alpha---etc.?
>
> FreeBSD is available for the x86 PC architecture and the Alpha architecture. Work
> is proceeding on a SPARC port, but I believe it is still in pre-alpha. I believe
> the SPARC port has the at least tacet support of Sun.
Actually, it's currently pre-booting. ;^)
> > What scripting languages can be used with BSD-- such as TCL, C,
> > C++, PERL, Java, Bourne, Korn ...etc.?
>
> All of theses are supported (TCL, Perl and java tools are available in the ports
> collection). The standard OS installation includes a pretty complete collection of
> development tools - debuggers, assemblers, make, etc.
C, C++, Fortran, Ada -- any GNU compiled language is available. The DEC
Modula-3 compiler is available too.
> > What is the minimum footprint of hard disk
> > memory that BSD can run on?
>
> PicoBSD will boot from a floppy disk. This distribution is sufficient to allow the
> user to use PPP and telnet. PicoBSD is designed to be used as platform for
> dedicated systems such as routers or firewalls.
>
> I have run a complete and very useful FreeBSD system on a Toshiba laptop with a 200
> Mbyte hard drive. Perhaps it was even smaller than that - I forget exactly!
I used to run a little "server" box on a 386sx/16 with 5MB RAM and a
100MB disk. It was a source code server for a small source code base.
> > Can you point out any other significant differences
> > between FreeBSD and other versions of BSD, such as OpenBSD and NetBSD?
>
> NetBSD's specialty is running the same distribution on 'every machine under the
> sun.'
Or the Apple, or the Atari, or the Amiga, or the HP, etc. ;^)
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com
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