FreeBSD and GNU/Linux

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strontium90 الاثنين, 19/12/2005 - 6:04م
(Forked from a previous thread)
 
Notice that I don't say "FreeBSD vs GNU/Linux" because such often subjective comparisons are so petty in the context of real work done by these operating systems. What matters more is the collaboration between the BSD family members and their more mainstream brother GNU/Linux.
 
 
 

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strontium90 الاثنين, 19/12/2005 - 6:07م #1
كتب "Geo":
But mainlly, I like the idea of group_working, and that the Linux Kernel devolopment is opened for any body to involve, where BSD guys, are closed group thinking about themselves that they are the best around!!
 
Completely untrue.
The development of FreeBSD is a very open and flexible process, being literally built from the contributions of hundreds of people around the world, as can be seen from the list of contributors. The FreeBSD core team of 8 people constitutes the project's "Board of Directors" and its primary task is to make sure the project, as a whole, is in good shape and is heading in the right directions. Inviting dedicated and responsible developers to join the group of committers is one of the functions of the core team, as is the recruitment of new core team members as others move on. The committers team is a large group (200+ members) of dedicated developers who have write access to the CVS tree, and are authorized to make modifications to the FreeBSD source. However the largest group of developers is the vast users community scattered around the world that provides feedback, bug fixes, proposals of new features on a constant basis.
Also I'd like to mention that the FreeBSD development process isn't an insulated one. In fact over the years FreeBSD has contributed to and borrowed many ideas and features from other members of the BSD family, namely NetBSD, OpenBSD, TrustedBSD and Darwin, the kernel of the Mac OS X. 

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ahnaqsh الاثنين, 19/12/2005 - 8:52م #2
Thank you strontium90 very much for forking the thread..
 
I want to ask where one might be able to get FreeBSD from, I asked around in البحصة , and the only place who had it had an old version (4.7) which couldn't detect my graphics ccard, and so X didn't start, an advanced user could've fixed that, but 4.7 is hopelessly out of date anyway.
 
But then, why would we want to switch over to FreeBSD ? It's very similar to linux, isn't it ? With KDE and Gnome and the GNU tools and all the Free Software the same, what is the difference from a user's point of view ?

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strontium90 الثلاثاء, 20/12/2005 - 12:04ص #3
كتب ahnaqsh:
Thank you strontium90 very much for forking the thread..
Nevermind, it actualy is our, the members', job to keep contexts clean  posting in appropriate threads or starting new threads as necessary. We can't expect Admins and Mods do the job all the time..
 
كتب ahnaqsh:
I want to ask where one might be able to get FreeBSD from, I asked around in البحصة , and the only place who had it had an old version (4.7) which couldn't detect my graphics ccard, and so X didn't start, an advanced user could've fixed that, but 4.7 is hopelessly out of date anyway.
4.7 is indeed a bit old, but the 4.x branch isn't that off track yet. Many people, particularly some of those who wanted rock solid servers, didn't upgrade to 5.x because the latter wasn't found to meet some of their harder  performance requirements. Anyawy, most are upgrading to 6.x now. If you can't or don't want to order CD/DVD sets, just grab the ISO images of the latest release from some mirror. Don't look for it in the local market because chances are very slight that you may find a working set. 
 
كتب ahnaqsh:
But then, why would we want to switch over to FreeBSD ? It's very similar to linux, isn't it ? With KDE and Gnome and the GNU tools and all the Free Software the same, what is the difference from a user's point of view?
As long as operation is concerned, ordinary users twiddling GUI bits will notice very little difference, but will surely benefit from a very professional and extensive documentation which is an official part of the FreeBSD project and comes with every release.
Advanced users will notice a bit more difference having to do with system layout, conventions, software installation and package management and the use of some traditional BSD services.
Programmers will notice a different free software license, BSD-style license, and will work with a bit different system API.
I don't know anything about how system configuration and tuning is done on GNU/Linux so I can't tell how different system administartion is on GNU/Linux compared to FreeBSD.
 
 

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ali_ismaeel الثلاثاء, 20/12/2005 - 7:11م #4
I tried to reach the ISO's pages :
 
 
 
 
but i got this message :

The following return code was received from the FTP server

 550: Requested action not taken. File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access)


what's wrong?

 

for Linux distribuations there are many sites to get  any distribuation you want like this one http://www.distromania.com

why there is only one site to get  FreeBSD from? 

 


 

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ali_ismaeel الثلاثاء, 20/12/2005 - 7:24م #5

well..I tried many mirror sites and i got some extra "not found" error but finally i got a working site

The following return code was received from the FTP server

 500: Syntax error, command unrecognized. This may include errors such as command line too long.

Not Found

The requested URL /pub/FreeBSD/ was not found on this server.

Apache/1.3.26 Server at mirrors.rcn.com Port 80

 http://ftp2.at.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-IMAGES-i386/6.0/

 
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strontium90 الأربعاء, 21/12/2005 - 1:07ص #6
Oh please ali_ismaeel use default font colour and sizes. Larger fonts and red text is really degrading both the readability and the visual aesthetics of the post.
 
Why would you try a US mirror and not a closer one? I've just checked a number of closer mirrors and found 'em all functional: Austria (ftp+http), Czech Republic (ftp+http), France (ftp), Germany (primary ftp, secondary http), Greece (ftp), Italy (ftp), Poland (ftp), Switzerland (ftp), Turkey (ftp).
 
I may try Czech or French mirros if I was to download the images because they are in the recommended mirrors list.
However I don't have upgrade plans at the moment. As the saying goes: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

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ahnaqsh السبت, 24/12/2005 - 9:36م #7
I searched for explanations of the difference between FreeBSD and Linux, there was this article which basically seems to say that FreeBSD is better, but the author is trying to say that the differences are simply the result or the mainfestation of a cultural difference, which is that linux is hcaotic and "hackerly" while BSD is academic and rigorous, and so it's a matter of "developer mindset" and "chaos vs order" .
 
It seems that, like many other simplifications, this one too has some issues..: The writer says that BSD is composed of two parts, the "base" system, which is developed as a single whole, by a single team; and external software, which is developed separately; and this is an apparent expression of "order"; and since there is no similar concept in linux, considering that linux is just the kernel andyou stick things to go with it, we conclude that BSD is better "designed", whereas linux is, more or less "grown" around the kernel. This doesn't strike one as accurate, what do you think ? It would be better to think of that "base" as a meta-package, or a collection of packages updated and installed as one package, but then it wouldn't be different from Gnome or KDE which are also meta-packages, anyway. The problem pergaps is that there is no way to jump from the fact "the base system is a meta-package in BSD and not a meta-package in Linux" to the conclusion : "BSD is orderly, linux is chaotic; and since order is good, and chaos is bad, BSD is surely a better choice.". Especially that the software is actually the same; Although the author states that "[his] FreeBSD system claims to be running gcc version 3.2.2 at this moment. Technically, it's not really gcc 3.2.2; it's a FreeBSD compiler based on gcc 3.2.2" he goes on to say after a couple of lines that "the FreeBSD version is practically indistinguishable from the vendor version". If they are "indistinguishable", how can we plausibly claim that they are different?
 
Then there was this article , which is of excellent quality, but the comparison here are made between macos (not osx), unix, windows, and beos. There is no comparison between the BSDs and the Linuxs, perhaps the author thought it wasn't needed, really.
 
Well,it all goes to validate strontium90's statement : "I don't say "FreeBSD vs GNU/Linux because such often subjective comparisons are so petty[...]".
 
Anyway, I downloaded the first FreeBSD  ISO from an intenet cafe today, and perhaps the rest tomorrow, and then I can have a personal petty compariosn of my own.

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strontium90 الأحد, 25/12/2005 - 2:45ص #8
كتب "ahnaqsh":
I searched for explanations of the difference between FreeBSD and Linux, there was this article which basically seems to say that FreeBSD is better, but the author is trying to say that the differences are simply the result or the mainfestation of a cultural difference, which is that linux is hcaotic and "hackerly" while BSD is academic and rigorous, and so it's a matter of "developer mindset" and "chaos vs order".
I'd generally advice against such superficial comparisons because they do excellent job on grounds of magnifying media hype and relaying others' errors. Unfortunately most of those get written by technically disoriented people.
I think that deeming the fact that the separate parts of many GNU/Linux mainstream distributions come from different parties and are assembled by another as chaotic is an exaggeration. Distribution projects have very good package management backbones so that version confilict is almost eliminated, unless you insist on creating it of course.
 
كتب "ahnaqsh":
It seems that, like many other simplifications, this one too has some issues..: The writer says that BSD is composed of two parts, the "base" system, which is developed as a single whole, by a single team; and external software, which is developed separately; and this is an apparent expression of "order"; and since there is no similar concept in linux, considering that linux is just the kernel andyou stick things to go with it, we conclude that BSD is better "designed", whereas linux is, more or less "grown" around the kernel. This doesn't strike one as accurate, what do you think ?
Not true, either the author is wrong or that you are.
Both GNU/Linux and BSD family operating systems are full-blown Unix systems as far as standards go although they legally cannot be called Unix because they've got to pay an insane amount of money to OpenGroup that owns the right to the name, and the fact that some of the commercial Unixes can be called so, like Solaris and HP-UX, doesn't make GNU/Linux or any of the BSD family members "less Unix".
Now, for a system to be a Unix system, you've got to provide a standard API, functionality and tools. BSD family members are Unix through original AT&T Unix heritage and GNU/Linux is Unix through a precise and seamless implementation of Unix working standards. In case of GNU/Linux, Linux project provides the kernel and the core functionality and the GNU project provides the system and other essential tools and utilities all under GNU's GPL legal banner. BSD systems on the other hand are produced by a single project that looks after all of the parts of a complete system and are released under the BSD-style license. But this is not everything. Because Unix from day one adopted a design of self-contained separate entities that provide well-defined single functionality, a graphics system was out of its initial scope until X appeared many years later, and its current mainstream use poses not only technical but also many legal issues. See my next post for hints. 
 
كتب "ahnaqsh":
It would be better to think of that "base" as a meta-package, or a collection of packages updated and installed as one package, but then it wouldn't be different from Gnome or KDE which are also meta-packages, anyway. The problem pergaps is that there is no way to jump from the fact "the base system is a meta-package in BSD and not a meta-package in Linux" to the conclusion : "BSD is orderly, linux is chaotic; and since order is good, and chaos is bad, BSD is surely a better choice.". Especially that the software is actually the same; Although the author states that "[his] FreeBSD system claims to be running gcc version 3.2.2 at this moment. Technically, it's not really gcc 3.2.2; it's a FreeBSD compiler based on gcc 3.2.2" he goes on to say after a couple of lines that "the FreeBSD version is practically indistinguishable from the vendor version". If they are "indistinguishable", how can we plausibly claim that they are different?
Oh God, where do I start detangling this mess.. ?
Basically, ahnaqsh, and as I said above, think of a Unix system as a hierarchy of self-contained separate entities that each provides a single well-defined functionality to the entities requiring its services. GNOME and KDE desktops and associated applications cannot run withought their GUI abtraction libraries, gtk and Qt, which in turn cannot run without core X libraries, which cannot run without various system utilities and most importantly the kernel which plays the most critical part in the performance of the whole system.
Because Unix systems have standard ways of doing things many programs written for one Unix work almost out of the box on another. That's why I can use GNU project GCC, Emacs, gmake and many other programs that you see on GNU/Linux on FreeBSD. Same applies to GNOME, KDE and the rest of GUI stuff which really, really aren't any different just because they prersent graphical interfaces to their users. Emacs, for example, can present both a CRT and a high-resolution graphics interface to its users.
 
كتب "ahnaqsh":
Then there was this article , which is of excellent quality, but the comparison here are made between macos (not osx), unix, windows, and beos. There is no comparison between the BSDs and the Linuxs, perhaps the author thought it wasn't needed, really.
I hope you were joking about that article, ahnaqsh. Comparison and assessment criteria on graphical or textual presentation isn't what we field experts might want to hear. 
 
كتب "ahnaqsh":
Well,it all goes to validate strontium90's statement : "I don't say "FreeBSD vs GNU/Linux because such often subjective comparisons are so petty[...]".
Anyway, I downloaded the first FreeBSD  ISO from an intenet cafe today, and perhaps the rest tomorrow, and then I can have a personal petty compariosn of my own.
Well I didn't want anyone to take my remark in a personal way. I was only hinting at that I consider OS wars that often spring from misinformed and subjective criteria petty and not the comparison itself. After all it is objective comparisons based on correct benchmarks and working experience is what affects our decisions the most and not some article puclished somewhere on the web or some post read in some forum including this.
 
And BTW, I consider FreeBSD andministration more difficult than the administration of any GNU/Linux flavor for the uninitiated. Far less works here out of the box than on any of the mainstream GNU/Linux distributions, and you are required to set up and tweak those by hand, something that requires a working Unix knowledge and sometimes non-trivial procedures as building a custom kernel. I mean if something like ls -l | grep -i 'post' isn't obvious, I'd strongly advice you to take your time and learn some of Unix basics to save yourself the frustrations of having to learn to things at once, Unix and your particular Unix OS, with the second assuming good knowledge about the first.
There are some good guides in this thead that you may want to check out.

 

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strontium90 الأحد, 25/12/2005 - 3:53ص #9
Since I noticed some interest in this particular thread, though the member that prompted the fork no longer appears to be interested, I'll present other differences between FreeBSD and GNU/Linux.
An above post outlined the development and contribution model of the FreeBSD project, and this one will losely outline licensing.
 
Core parts of FreeBSD, that is, the kernel, and the vast majority of userland programs, are released under a BSD-style license. Losely put, this license says that the software, including the binaries and the sources thereof, are available free of charge and can be used for whatever purpose provided that you agree to:
1. Not to claim that you're the original author, and
2. if it breaks, you don't sue its authors.
 
Core parts of GNU/Linux, and an enormous quantity of software for Unix systems is released under the GPL, the GNU General Public License, which is a quite elaborate manifestation of what Free Software is and what requirements software released under the GPL should meet. Care to remember that "Free", in the context of the GPL is as "Freedom" and "Free speech" and not as "free" in "free lunch". The GNU project is first and foremost a mission that aims at providing quality software for the vast computing community through a sharing experience, freely, in a way that respects intellect and basic moral principles and to guarantee that the freedom of the user and developer community is preserved under whatever circumstances and scenarios of usage software released under the GPL may be in. Losely put, GPL requries that anyone can run, study, modify and redistribute the software the way they wish and provide the same levels of freedom for others should they redistribute the softare with or without modifications. The source availability requirement arises not out of courtesy but because to study and modify the software you need its source code, and hiding it is restrictive of freedom and therefore a violation of the GPL.
 
Of course these merely are abstracts so the interested reader can visit fsf.org or freebsd.org to learn more, but I'd like to put a few remarks.
 
1. Neither BSD-style nor GPL licensing cover or imply anything about the use of software released under their terms in commerce. It is a misconception that these products cannot be sold. In fact providers and distributors can financially profit by a variety of methods and strategies and many do.
 
2. As you may have probably noticed, there isn't anything in the BSD-style license that implies or asks about the inclusion of the source code along with the software. It can be hidden, and in theory and as far as law goes any software released under a BSD-style license can be acquired, its source hidden and turned to a high-cost proprietary product tomorrow. That's why such software is an asset that's exposed and vulnerable to potential dangers from all directions, while GPL'd software isn't because the license itself guarantees that it will remain Free, and any violation is illegal and can be prosecuted.
In fact it isn't only BSD-style license that has similar terms. There is also the X license which has similar requirements and has X Windows, the graphical system of may Unix systems, released under its terms. Unfortunately history holds an account of authorities trying to restrict access to the source of X11R6.4 and releasing it under non-free distribution terms. The decision was reversed months later, but this means that it can happen again. Software released under this style of licensing is what is commonly referred to as Open Source Software. The code is provided not as a requirement, but as a courtesy, and can be withdrawn anyday.
 
3. Most of Unix operating systems must live with mixed licenses. The GNU/Linux core is GPL'd, but X isn't. KDE is GPL'd but Enlightenment, a new generation desktop environment, isn't. Same applies to FreeBSD; the core is BSD-style, but most of GNU tools, which are under the GPL, are included and used. X, with licensing similar to FreeBSD's, runs on FreeBSD, and KDE, a GPL'd desktop, runs on top of it.
 
4. The only guarantee that BSD systems will stay the way they are today is the vast users and developers community behind it and the de facto formed over the past 25 years.
 
Of course here in Syria none of the above licensing issues matter. You can acquire a GPL'd product, hide its source and sell binaries at the price of your heart's delight and no one can interfere with you.
 
 

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ahnaqsh الأحد, 25/12/2005 - 11:20ص #10

First of all, I would like to thank you strontium90 for your explanation, which is both very informative and very acessible, and it must have taken a lot of your time, I am ashamed of having bothered you to the point of making you spend so much time to explain things to me, but thank you very much for it.

The trwo posts are very convincing, and restate the facts elegantly, so much so that I have only a couple of minor quibbles:

(can't find the quote function, sorry)strontium90 wrote :

Well I didn't want anyone to take my remark in a personal way. I was only hinting at that I consider OS wars that [...]

It's not that, I meant that since I know very little about Linux, and much less about BSD, any comparison I can come up with will be necessarily ill-informed, naive, and very possibly just wrong.

Also, if you'll humour me just a bit more, I still don't understand why we can't call the base of BSD a metapackage, in the sense that it is a collection of packages that can be treated as one when it comes to installing and upgrading, it dowsn't sound so off-track. But of course, it doesn't make much difference anyway.

strontium90 wrote :

I hope you were joking about that article, ahnaqsh. Comparison and assessment criteria on graphical or textual presentation isn't what we field experts might want to hear.

Yes, but I was pointing out what you already said, namely that the difference between windows on the one hand, BSD and Linux on the other, is much greater than the difference between BSD and Linux. I found the aricle very enjoyable and wanted to share it with others, while we were talking about the subject.

In the end, it doesn't seem there's anything new, we started off saying the two systems weren't much different, and we're still saying the same thing, and that article on the differences appears to be inflated a bit.

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strontium90 الأحد, 25/12/2005 - 4:10م #11
كتب "ahnaqsh":
First of all, I would like to thank you strontium90 for your explanation, which is both very informative and very acessible, and it must have taken a lot of your time, I am ashamed of having bothered you to the point of making you spend so much time to explain things to me, but thank you very much for it.
No worries, you're welcome. Someone someday will ask something similar and can start off here and continue reading elsewhere.
 
كتب "ahnaqsh":
Also, if you'll humour me just a bit more, I still don't understand why we can't call the base of BSD a metapackage, in the sense that it is a collection of packages that can be treated as one when it comes to installing and upgrading, it dowsn't sound so off-track. But of course, it doesn't make much difference anyway.
Calling the base system a meta-package is both spurios and misleading. It is spurious because it assumes that there always will be so much of other stuff installed on the system that the base won't be "visible" and matter, which is not true. If I'd have a modest Intel Pentium lying just around the corner and I wanted to trun it to a network router/gateway, I'd install only the base system and a few utilities on it because I won't need any X stuff, will I? Also, if something already has a name, why invent another one? The FreeBSD community is used to call the base system so, why call it a meta package now? Also, using the word package is misleading because it assumes that the distrubution is in the form of a compressed/bundled package which again is not necessarily the case because you can retrieve it in a variety of formats in a variety of methods.
 
كتب "ahnaqsh":
In the end, it doesn't seem there's anything new, we started off saying the two systems weren't much different, and we're still saying the same thing, and that article on the differences appears to be inflated a bit.
The difference will always be there and will hit you according to what you're doing. Cultural difference is persistent, and more and more technical differences will come into scope as you grow with the system.
 
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