Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 08:49:06 -0700 From: Mike Porter <mupi@mknet.org> To: "Albert D. Cahalan" <acahalan@cs.uml.edu>, mupi@mknet.org Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD Kernel Message-ID: <01013008490601.32853@mukappa.home.com> In-Reply-To: <200101291725.f0THPKl480042@saturn.cs.uml.edu> References: <200101291725.f0THPKl480042@saturn.cs.uml.edu>
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On Monday 29 January 2001 10:25, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> > 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,
>
> RMS would have you believe that. He also insists the OS name is "GNU".
> The development mailing list is "linux-kernel" though, which would be
> redundant if "Linux" only referred to the kernel. (the mailing list
> existed long before RMS decided to tag along)
>
The (very logical, at least IMO) reasons behind this are that the
distributions, with very few exceptions (none that I know of) use GNU for
everything EXCEPT the kernel. Although I suspect there is a bit of getting
carried away involved, becuase there actually *IS* a distribution named
"GNU/Linux" For the most, of course, the differences between the
distributions are pretty thin, mostly relating to admin tools and install
routines.
> No, to put it in Linux terms correctly:
> FreeBSD 4.2 is a BSD distribution using the 4.4 kernel.
>
I don't think so. First of all, as I said before, we aren't acutally USING
the 4.4 kernel anymore. If you take your FBSD system and plop a 4.4BSD
kernel (or for that matter a 4.4BSDLite kernel if you don't want to incurr
the ATT overhead....) the system simply won't run. So it is entirely
inaccurate to say that we are using the 4.4 kernel.
Once again compare the following two outputs from a LInux machine and a FBSD
machine.
{linux}
[mupi@kelly ~]$ uname -rs
Linux 2.2.5-15
{fbsd}
> uname -rs
FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE
Now, from man uname:
- -r Write the current release level of the operating system to stan-
dard output.
-s Write the name of the operating system implementation to standard
output.
Thus, according to uname on a linux system, the kernel version (2.2.5) is
considered to be the "release level" of the "OS name" linux. Whereas on
freebsd, 4.2-STABLE is the comparable release level. Not 4.4 or 4.4BSD.
And as I said before in this thread., if I make my own OS and call it mupix,
and base it on freeBSD 4.2 or Linux 2.4 or whatever, what bearing does that
have on what version of mupix I am running? Isn;t the first kernel version
of mupix still 1.0, even though it is based on a kernel version 4.2 that was
based on a kernel version 4.4 which was itself based on a different kernel
version?
mike
> The distribution-specific changes just happen to be rather large
> and numerous. This is because UCB hasn't released a new kernel in
> a very long time and isn't about to do so.
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