From owner-freebsd-small Thu May 30 7:51:50 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from cubical.fi (ip212-226-173-1.adsl.kpnqwest.fi [212.226.173.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 67C8437B405 for ; Thu, 30 May 2002 07:51:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from root@localhost) by cubical.fi (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g4UEpeu42922; Thu, 30 May 2002 17:51:40 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from jml@cubical.fi) Received: from cubical.fi (dhcp-63.cs-intra.net [192.168.42.63]) by cubical.fi (8.11.6/8.11.6av) with ESMTP id g4UEpdo42913; Thu, 30 May 2002 17:51:39 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from jml@cubical.fi) Message-ID: <3CF63C86.546D2FBD@cubical.fi> Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 17:51:50 +0300 From: Juha-Matti Liukkonen Organization: Cubical Solutions Ltd X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Graham Wright Cc: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Pro's and Con's of FreeBSD vs Linux for embedded systems? References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020530095331.00af1c58@ralraleigh.hcl.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS perl-11 Sender: owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Hi, in my experience, there are a few deciding factors involved... Any or all of these may apply in a given scenario. o if you need a small footprint GUI with little or no work, go linux. It has microwindows (which doesn't work with freebsd out-of-the-box). o if you need Java, go linux. Sun explicitly provides jdk for linux, availability for freebsd has been less stable due to various reasons. o if you need top-of-the-line PC gadget drivers, go linux. They just ain't there for freebsd (although the quality of the linux ones often tends to be a bit shaky). o if you want non-ix86 cpu support, re-enter this list comparing linux and netbsd (which is a bsd and runs on anything with silicon in it). FreeBSD is ix86 only (alpha isn't really a consideration in embedded systems, and the powerpc support isn't there yet). o if you want (or need) to modify the system sources for your application, go *bsd. It isn't GPL. o if you want (or need) your box to be a bulletproof back-end system (ie. no GUI, reliable, efficient, secure, networked), go *bsd. The code base is maintained so much better, it is more robust, updates are easy to manage and review due to their consistency and quality, (...lots of other reasons). o if you want added advertising value, go linux -- it _is_ better known, particularly to the consumer public and traditionally windows-hosted server and appliance markets. We use freebsd because we do networked back-end (ix86) boxes, but if we ever had to do consumer applications with GUIs, I wouldn't scoff on linux either. Br, Jussi PS. If anybody wants to dissuade my linux recommendations wrt GUI and Java support for small footprint systems, please do so; I see a need for those in my future and I'd rather stick with one base system for logistical reasons. Graham Wright wrote: > > Please excuse the obvious newbie question here but I'm trying to understand > what the pro's and con's are of using FreeBSD vs Linux in an embedded > appliance scenario. The marketing people seem to feel that Linux should be > the OS of choice since there is a higher level of consumer acceptance, > while the technical staff feels that FreeBSD is preferable due to it's > superior TCP/IP stack. > > Of course, I haven't been able to find any technical comparisons between > the two so I thought I'd ask the experts :-) > > Thanks, > Graham > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message -- Juha-Matti Liukkonen, Cubical Solutions Ltd Phone: +358(0)405280142 Email: jml@cubical.fi To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message