Debian vs FreeBSD (was Re: Re: [buug] cockroaches and kernel build)

[DiCioccio, Jason]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Aaron T Porter [mailto:atporter at primate.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 5:24 PM
> To: Patrick Soltani
> Cc: buug at weak.org
> Subject: Re: Debian vs FreeBSD (was Re: Re: [buug] cockroaches and
> kernel build)
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 07, 2002 at 05:05:04PM -0700, Patrick Soltani wrote:
> > I work with Solaris, Linux, Ultrix, and any other flavor of 
> the OS out
> > there, however, when I go home, my only solace is that my 
> FreeBSD box
> > will up and running and never ever complains even when I 
> tell it to do
> > stupid things. Ok..ok, sometimes it does!
> 
> 	FreeBSD is a perfectly good choice, and I definately recomend
> trying it on for style. I've had a ton of stability issues 
> under very high
> load on FreeBSD in the past (4.1) that have hopefully been resolved
> in recent kernels (won't know for sure until the christmas 
> rush).

the 4.x branch didn't really calm down until 4.2.. Not to say that it
wasn't stable for many people, but it was also unstable for many
people.  They seem to have been doing a lot more QA on their releases
since then though :)

> Most of the
> claims of FreeBSD's superior stability seem to be quite 
> dated. I've got a
> few Linux boxen that are among the busiest on our network 
> with 400+ day
> uptimes -- hard to beat with any OS.

That's really possible with most any UNIX OS out there today.  The
whole uptime argument is kind of moot as I could obtain this with
Linux, BSD, Solaris, IRIX, Tru64, etc given stable hardware.

>  
> > I am sure there is a lot of room for improvement, however, 
> just remember
> > that any flavor of tcp/ip stack you see out there, in one way or
> > the other is borrowed, copied, or taken from BSD.
> 
> 	Not really accurate for Linux, but it is definately worth noting
> that BSD was the original tcp/ip platform, and may well be the best
> debugged network stack out there.
>  

It depends on how you look at it.  You could say that if you're using
TCP/IP at all, then you're borrowing from BSD :)

> > ports tree alone is worth the hassle of setting it up and 
> going thru the
> > learning curve; that's just my $0.02, I may be biased ;-)
> 
> 	Ports is nice, but man does it ever pale in comparison 
> to apt. The
> cvsup/make world setup is nice and all, but a buildworld on a 
> p3/500 still
> takes over an hour.

Compiling just the linux kernel takes quite a while too.  They are
working on turning the base system into packages though instead of the
current "Dists" that they have now (segmented tar files :)).. This
should make binary upgrades more feasable, although the whole make
world thing isn't bad.  I usually do the make buildworld on one box and
then use the resulting /usr/obj to installworld on the other boxes.

> Building stuff from ports seems simple, 
> but you hit
> the same dependancy issues you see with binary packages, 
> except now you're
> compiling it all from source. Using pkg_* as an alternative 
> is crude, to
> say the least. Installing FreeBSD is definately a good nostalgia trip
> though... your install/config tools and package management 
> are at about
> the same level as Slackware in 1994.

Slackware had ports?  Slackware had a build cluster turning ports into
packages constantly? :).. I think you can give it more credit than
that.  The whole dependency thing is an issue, but it is pretty well
resolved by 'portupgrade'.  apt is great too, but neither system is
bad.

> 	On top of that, the Linux user culture is a hell of a 
> lot nicer to
> work with -- the anti-linux/anti-gnu bent of the BSD community is
> even more confusing when you realize just how much GNU software 
> you need to get
> a useable BSD box -- and the fact that the "default" X web browser is
> Netscape running in Linux compat mode... just strange.

There is no default X web browser, this is completely wrong.  The
reason many people prefer netscape in linux compat is due to plugin
support.  It's also more stable than the BSD built version (blame
netscape).  Is there anything *wrong* with running it in linux compat? 
It doesn't slow it down at all.  It doesn't make it less stable.  It
doesn't <insert rumor here>.  There is no default browser though, I
personally use Opera (and yes, the linux binary.)  I think the
anti-linux thing comes mainly from the lack of style that the
commercial linux distributions show in their distributions.  There's
really no standard.  But not everyone in the BSD community is like
this.  

> 	Of course, at the end of the day I've still got a stack 
> of FreeBSD
> boxen, a few OpenBSD and a few Solaris just for good measure. Run
> what fits.

Exactly

Cheers,
- -JD-

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 7.0.4

iQA/AwUBPVHCIDKUHizV76d/EQIhJACdFHR47s1QY8rhX0SlPP3XgrUsZbMAoJkH
Kvp0YOq3UqO+2EULLMLtut4l
=tpFa
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----