Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 02:44:18 -0700 (PDT) From: "Brian W. Buchanan" <brian@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU> To: Ingrid Kast Fuller <ingrid@cityscope.net> Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Radio Talk Show Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9906020126590.467-100000@smarter.than.nu> In-Reply-To: <3754E989.CD953F89@cityscope.net>
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On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, Ingrid Kast Fuller wrote: > I'm looking for any suggestions or comments you might have on promoting > FreeBSD on a radio talk show. I was invited to speak to TAMU (KAMU 90.9) > today at Noon (Central Time). > > Some of the questions he said we might talk about were... > What is FreeBSD and Linux and what do they stand for (BSD/Linux). FreeBSD is an advanced, UNIX-based operating system for personal computers with Intel x86 processors (386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, etc.), maintained by a large team of individuals collectively known as the FreeBSD Project. FreeBSD is a secure, multi-user operating system designed with performance and networking in mind. FreeBSD is used on many of the world's busiest Internet servers, including those at Yahoo, Best Communications (A major California ISP), US West, LinkExchange, and Walnut Creek CD-ROM. Walnut Creek CD-ROM's FTP archive is the Internet's busiest FTP site, transferring more than one terabyte (1000 gigabytes) per day using a single FreeBSD machine. Linux is a UNIX-like kernel created by Linus Torvalds, then a Finnish college student, and further developed by many independent contributors who submit their changes to Torvalds for inclusion into official Linux kernel releases. Linux was originally developed for Intel processors, but has since been ported to run on the PowerPC processor used in Macintosh computers and on several other popular processor families. Linux is similar to FreeBSD in functionality, performance, and stability, though FreeBSD is generally regarded to be better at handling the heavy loads experienced by busy servers. Unlike FreeBSD, which is distributed with both the operating system kernel and the other programms necessary to have a fully-functional operating system, Linux is just the kernel. It is combined with separately maintained sets of programs by other companies or groups of developers (Red Hat Software, for example) to create a functional system. There is only one primary FreeBSD distribution, which is produced by the FreeBSD project. There are very many Linux distributions, and perhaps three or four "primary" distributions which make up the vast majority of Linux installations. BSD stands for "Berkeley Systems Distribution", which is the name of the UNIX operating system developed at the University of California, Berkeley on which FreeBSD is based. The name Linux is, obviously, based on the first name of its creator. :) > What are the advantages or capabilities that FreeBSD would have over > say an NT server. > What makes FreeBSD a better server than NT or other OSes. FreeBSD is vastly superior to Windows NT in price, performance, and stablility. FreeBSD can be obtained for less than $40 on CD-ROM, or for free if downloaded via the Internet, while Windows NT Server costs hundreds of dollars. Windows NT systems do not tend to handle load well, and tend to crash unexpectedly, which could be very undesirable in a mission-critical environment. FreeBSD-based systems, on the other hand, tend to stay operational indefinitely, even when pushing their hardware to the max. Windows NT is a relatively young product, and has not yet matured to the point where it can be trusted with anything important. It's also a product of Microsoft, a company notorious for putting more effort into selling its products than into insuring that they actually work. FreeBSD is based on UNIX, which has been maturing since the 1970's, and is the product of some of the world's best software minds. The FreeBSD project enforces rigorous quality control on all contributed code, ensuring that the software is reliable and written in a fashion that will continue to be maintainable for years to come. > Anything about third party software and support? FreeBSD is distributed with what is called the "ports collection", a large (currently more than 2000 entries) collection of software packages specially modified to work under FreeBSD and be easy to install. Although commercial software for FreeBSD is rare, more and more commercial vendors are starting to release software for Linux, and FreeBSD is able to run nearly all Linux software. > Any comments on NetBSD or OpenBSD?(I am NOT familiar with either so > I can't say much about them) NetBSD and OpenBSD are also based on 4.4BSD, the same Berkeley release that FreeBSD is based on. While the FreeBSD project focuses on FreeBSD's performance on Intel processors, the NetBSD project focuses on porting their software to as many different architectures as possible. NetBSD will run on Intel-based computers, PowerPC-based ones, Sun SPARC workstations, and nearly every other architecture imagineable. The OpenBSD project branched from the NetBSD project, but focuses on making their operating system as secure as possible by carefully auditing the source code for security holes that system crackers could exploit and by employing cryptography to secure communications from eavesdroppers. Because of its roots in NetBSD, OpenBSD will run on many of the architectures that NetBSD will. > Comments on FreeBSD as a desktop, maybe comparing it to other > desktops, Linux or Windows? While nowhere near as many desktop applications are available for FreeBSD or Linux as for Windows, both operating systems still make excellent desktop OSes. While popular Windows applications such as Microsoft Word or Internet Explorer are not available for FreeBSD, Corel WordPefect for Linux and Netscape Communicator work well as substitutes. The options for desktop look-and-feel are much wider for FreeBSD and Linux, as many different programs are available to provide the underlying desktop functionality, each with its own style. One can mix-and-match programs to create a unique desktop configuration for his or her taste. It's even possible to have a desktop that looks and feels very much like Microsoft Windows. > I'm going to talk about our Houston FreeBSD Users Group along with > mentioning my company which custom builds FreeBSD servers and sells the > book and Cd's too. Good luck! I'm affraid I think too much toward the technical side of things and may have over-emphasised things would be trivia to newbies and not said enough about things that a potential FreeBSD user would want to know, but I'm sure you'll use your judgement and apply marketing spin where necessary. :) -- Brian Buchanan brian@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU -------------------------------------------------------------------------- FreeBSD - The Power to Serve! http://www.freebsd.org daemon(n): 1. an attendant power or spirit : GENIUS 2. the cute little mascot of the FreeBSD operating system To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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