

BSD for Linux Users (2005) - s-phi-nl
http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/

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Supermighty
I've heard this 'base' package argument before, but still don't understand it.
What true benefit does having the kernel maintainer also maintain ls and
userland utilities?

The ports system is just an install time package optimization. For most users
I don't see it having a benefit over pre-compiled binaries supplied by the
distro. Sure it's nice to tune your system to it's optimal and build against
current libs instead of updating, but I don't see how it's "that much greater"
than .debs or .rpms which is the attitude that I see BSDers take. I've used
Gentoo, a little FreeBSD and never felt like it was that much different than
.debs.

I like that BSD is out there doing it's thing. I've even used it from time to
time, but I always come back to Linux.

Linux just feels more open to ideas, more open to anyone playing around and
crazy having ideas that end up working even though we laughed at them when we
first heard. Whereas BSD seems more like a walled garden with the inner circle
of kernel committees and secret rites. Linux always felt like it was moving
forward, taking the pragmatic approach, and BSD was being dragged into future
implementing things when they had to. Just my opinion.

~~~
bobbyi
Just because they integrate everything into one source tree doesn't mean they
have kernel developers maintaining the userland utilities.

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koeselitz
This is interesting. The image it gives of Linux is more than a little
outdated and/or out of touch, even for 2005; the author apparently hasn't
touched Debian (!) which makes his criticisms of Linux installation and
maintenance of packages a bit unfair, I think. Aptitude was out there doing
its thing more than a decade ago; I figure he must have more professional than
personal experience with Linux, since Red Hat distros seem to be his big point
of contact. Really, rpm is nice, but it's not the ideal or even the common
Linux model for package distribution - and the Linux model, it should be
noted, is more similar to Portage than I think he realizes. Everything -
everything! - updates automatically, all at once, with Aptitude within one or
two short commands, and this was just as true in 2005 as it is now.

But it's a great article if only because it gives a good picture of how the
BSD world sees things, a picture that we don't get enough of these days.

And anyway: bazaars are nice, but sometimes cathedrals can be much more
pleasant. They're quieter, and often a lot more beautiful. Heh.

~~~
nailer
Comparing aptitude with rpm doesn't make any sense. One is a tool to fetch
packages and their dependencies, the other is a packaging format.

The logical equivalent - yum - was around in 2005 too.

~~~
koeselitz
Yeah, I know - that's why I was sort of surprised that he seems to compare rpm
with Portage. Portage isn't like rpm at all; if you're going to compare the
Portage system with anything in Linux, it should be Aptitude, anyway, right?

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naner
This old thing again? Is it still accurate?

~~~
s-phi-nl
In response to your comment, I added the date to the title.

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3dFlatLander
Ubuntu has completely ruined me when it comes to installing/configuring an OS.
Recently, I found myself wanting to tool around with freeBSD for a bit, so I
installed it in a VM and gave up after I spent three hours trying to get the
network working.

~~~
dagw
Have you looked at PCBSD? It's about as close to Ubuntu as you can get in the
FreeBSD world (except that it uses KDE instead of Gnome). It's not quite as
painless as ubuntu, but it is pretty close and on the whole most things work
more or less out of the box.

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moe
Cyan text on gray background? Are you kidding?

Edit: The content looks good, though, when read through
<http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/>

~~~
sumeeta
The page also has a color scheme changer on the right.

~~~
nailer
I think the parent poster is complaining about the defaults not being
particularly sensible, which seems reasonable.

