Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 21:55:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Thomas Good <tomg@mailhost.nrnet.org> To: David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com> Cc: outlawtx@bga.com, freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Some food for thought...(aka rant of the day) Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.1000530210821.16057A-100000@mailhost.nrnet.org> In-Reply-To: <393425AB.42CABC8E@acuson.com>
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On Tue, 30 May 2000, David Johnson wrote:
> Thomas Good wrote:
>
> > Basically the *only* difference between Linux distributions is system
> > initialisation. RedHat is very System V. So if you know UnixWare or
> > Solaris, RH is not *that* far off. Slackware is very BSD, in fact the
> > development teams know one another and share ideas. After all, Walnut
> > Creek is both their homes. SuSe and Debian are somewhere in the middle.
>
> I was meaning something a little different. Of course, underneath, all
> of the linuces are similar. However, over the top of that they all have
> a different veneer. For someone who doesn't know Unix inside and out,
> that veneer becomes important. They won't know each and every
> configuration file by heart. They won't know that Redhat stores foo.rc
> under /etc/foo while SuSE stores it under /etc/bar. So they'll do what
> the manual tells them to do, and fire up Linuxconf, or YaST, or COAS, or
> SAS, or whatever. This is the veneer, and it doesn't matter how much you
David,
I don't use linuxconf, YAST, Gnome Control Center (or whatever it's called),
CDE, the UnixWare desktop or /stand/sysinstall (after installation).
I download src and do the build with gmake, then put the binaries where
I want em. It's the same on any box. So they all look pretty much
the same. You can do this on almost any unix implementation.
I don't like the Redhat thing of putting postgres stuff in /var/lib for
example. So I don't use RPMs. I grab the src and do the build and put
the binaries in /usr/local/pgsql. Where they belong in my view!
It's the same with most any unix - you can pay the vendor for their
prefab binaries or do it yerself. I prefer the latter. And it works
on *any* linux or freebsd box. Once you get the concepts where they
put the conf files isn't that important.
I don't think its that tuff to get what you want from unix. But it
takes some time to see the *big picture*.
And here is my real point (ignore the one atop my head ;-)
It is *easier* to learn unix when you use more than one implementation.
Can I explain this clearly? I dunno...lemme try.
UnixWare, my first unix (yeah what a way to get deflowered!) was a complete
mystery to me for awhile. So I learned some linux, against the advice
of my mentor ("You've got enought on your plate.")
Then it began to click. So I procured Solaris, and FreeBSD - tried AIX too.
The more ways I saw - of doing the same thing - the more sense the overall
concept made. The ttymon process (for system logins) made alot more sense
to me after I learned getty/uugetty. Hopefully I haven't explained this
too badly. I tell my wife (a linguist) this: English grammar was utterly
meaningless to me until I got a handle on German. Then I had an 'aha!'
experience. Same with unix. Learning one set of rules was learning by
rote. Comparing two systems - and appreciating both - was achieving
a deeper understanding that transformed feeling sort of competent into
feeling a great fondness for my favourite OS.
> know the Corel veneer, it won't do you any good for SuSE or Debian. And
> unlike typical open source software, these administration tools only
> work for the distro they're designed for. Proficiency in YaST is useless
> when you're faced with a Mandrake box.
We are in agreement here my friend. It is like learning WordPerfect
as opposed to vi. ;-)
> To the average Linux user, Debian is as different from Caldera as IRIX
> is from HPUX.
I think you overstate a bit here, d-man...
> [ snip ... ] but at least you're learning generic all-purpose
> Unix instead of locking yourselves into a single distro.
I disagree here...why? All the linuxes are is a kernel, a
filesystem, a whole bunch of great GNU code and an initialisation
strategy. Add in one or more package managers. Sounds like FreeBSD
to me. ;-)
No RedHatter has to use linuxconf or Gnome...No FBSDer has to use
sysinstall. You can lift the hood on any unix you want. Use tarballs
and gcc instead of pkg_add or rpm -i. Right?
And if you think the FBSD conf resembles Solaris or UnixWare, I dunno
about that one. And UnixWare is *AT&T Unix* - about as standard (in
theory anyhoo) as unix gets. (Before Novell and SCO got ahold of it
anyway. ;-) Bottom line: unix is unix. Maybe a diff paint job...
but the similarities are greater than the differences.
When I hear that FBSD is more unix than linux is, I am reminded of the
old Japanese proverb: Every reverse side has a reverse side. ;-)
Speaking of which, I gotta get my reverse side into gear!
Nice talking to you David,
Tom
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