
BSD For Linux Users - Ennis
http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/bsd4linux1.php
======
uggedal
I've used both the BSDs and Linux for almost a decade. Both have their strong
points, but I'm finding that I like the Linux distributions which take
inspiration from *BSD.

Arch Linux is currently my favorite desktop OS: rolling release, bleeding
edge, minimalist, customizable, binary packages and a ports like build tree
(ABS). See "The Arch Way" for more:
<http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way>

For a server you can't go wrong with Debian stable or FreeBSD (or OpenBSD if
you can sacrifice some convenience and speed for increased security measures).

~~~
Ennis
I'll look into Arch Linux. My biggest frustration is with drivers. I made the
switch from WinXP to Ubuntu last year but I couldn't get bluetooth audio to
work. I loved Ubuntu but it wasn't usable for daily workflow. I had to go back
to Win7. After increasing crashes I'm going to try out BSD. I'm pessimistic
about driver support but i hope it's up to par with Ubuntu at least. I really
like the philosophy behind the OS. Haven't looked at the code yet but they won
me over with the "build from scratch" no-binary way!

~~~
eru
If you like building from scratch, you might also like the linux distribution
Gentoo.

~~~
uggedal
I used Gentoo as my main desktop OS for a year. The system will not get much
faster because of the CFLAGS one uses (this is especially true for x86_64),
but you can customize the packages you build to contain exactly the
functionality you need (through the use of USE flags).

In the end, I switched over to Arch Linux (got tired of waiting for compiles),
then switched to Debian testing (needed loads of LaTeX packages not found in
Arch Linux), before I switched back to Arch a couple of weeks ago.

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tdoggette
The open source community needs more writing like this: conversational but not
dumbed-down, informative but not dense. This was aimed directly at my level of
familiarity, and hit it straight on.

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kaens
This article motivated me to give FreeBSD a go about a month ago.

I haven't been using it consistently, but so far it's been like using linux,
if there wasn't so much insanity surrounding how to do everything outside of
the kernel in linux-distro-land.

I found it much easier to start poking around the source of the kernel, and of
the various userland utilities, and all of the source that I looked at was
pretty damn clean, well commented C.

The man pages are better (or at least more consistent). Actually, the whole OS
feels a lot more consistent.

In short, I'm liking it. You probably will to if you're the type that likes to
get down and dirty with your OS.

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JeremyChase
I have been an OpenBSD user for about 3 years, and I can't give high enough
praise. The programs work as the man pages say, and my experience with
Linux/GNU has not been the same. The OpenBSD system is logically put together,
and simple to debug. The same can not be said for Linux/GNU; not only because
each distribution has its own startup style or package system, but also
because the tools that make up the system aren't a cohesive package.

I haven't used FreeBSD in about 10 years so I can't comment on it, but back in
the late 90's it was pretty nice. NetBSD feels particularly old school to me,
and I just liked OpenBSD the best.

There are times when Linux/GNU is necessary, and in that case I run Debian.

~~~
buugs
Freebsd is pretty nice, mostly for ports and simplicity reasons. I would use
freebsd over linux on my computer if the boot disk would work with my usb
keyboard and usb mouse... and if matlab were native, I don't know if it is my
nforce chipset or some other weird thing but it works fine if the usb
peripherals are unplugged.

------
pert
This may be a good introduction to BSD (I don't know BSD at all so can't
comment on that side much), but it certainly isn't representative of modern
Linux kernels and distributions.

"Last modified: $Date: 2005/04/15 06:38:18 $" explains a lot.

~~~
click170
I was about to comment about this specifically until I saw that someone else
beat me to it. THIS ARTICLE IS FROM 2005 PEOPLE

Sure, some things will have not changed, but I imagine a great many things
will have. While its a good article and a good read, I wouldn't consider it up
to date; if anyone has a more recent discussion I'd definitely be interested
in reading it. For example, how the discussion covers largely RedHat based
distros, if the article was written nowadays I think that would change.

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mstevens
He seems to distort Linux a little by focusing on Redhat derived
distributions.

eg Debian/Ubuntu doesn't use RPMs, there's one central place to get packages,
it's realistic to upgrade the system a long way without reinstalling, etc.

~~~
Randai
Mind you this article/essay was written quite some time ago now, several years
at least.

