[techtalk] *nix comparisons?

[Alex Yan]

Hey Julia,

There's nothing wrong with being a NetBSD user.  I used to run NetBSD all
the time, just because I wanted to be different from all the rest of the
Linux-mongers.

I don't know of any comprehensive list.  I think this is because the
distribution models for the various Linux distributions differ radically
from the NetBSD distribution model.  Three years ago, Linux was a lot more
(AT&T) System V-ish, which gave it a strange taste in my mouth, but now
the utilities on both the *BSD's and Linux are all pretty much the same.
So everything command-line-oriented is likely to behave identically
(except for weird low-level things like disk partitioning, which is much
more tricky in the *BSD's).

The main difference I found was that if I ever wanted to compile something
that was new or not-yet-autoconf'd, it was much, *much* easier to compile
it under NetBSD.  So all my friends who wrote code, their stuff compiled
easier under NetBSD, whereas they never compiled very cleanly or easily
under Linux.  But that was 3-4 years ago, and now things compile under
Linux easier because, hey, Linux became a standard.  Similarly, Loki
Software doesn't do NetBSD ports of their games that they've ported to
Linux from Wintendos.

In addition, you'll find that Linux's popularity makes certain commercial
applications more likely to be ported to it than to any *BSD.  I was never
able to get Mathematica running under NetBSD correctly, for example, even
with their Linux-"emulation".

Hm, I just saw a message about Red Hat versus Mandrake, which is yet
another topic...  Red Hat and Mandrake are both Linux-kernel-based, which
means you'll have the same experience compiling code on either, and the
same experience with trying to find commercial software, compared to any
of the *BSD's.

Beyond all that, I guess the main difference I found between the UI's is
that you're most likely to find all the X applications you'll ever need
for Linux/i386, less likely on Linux/non-i386, and much less likely on the
*BSD's.  When I was a big NetBSD-bigot, my attitude towards that was "I
can always compile everything myself", but at some point, I decided that I
can't compile everything that the world wants (or even have the patience
to compile everything that I want, or have the nerve to ask for a NetBSD
port) and discovered why standard distributions are a good thing.

Hope that wasn't too long-winded!


-Alex Yan
 flare at serv.net

On Sun, 16 Jul 2000, Julia Coolman wrote:

> Kind folks:
> 
> Please don't be mad. I am thinking of installing netBSD, to play with and
> to keep my linuxppc partition company.
> 
> Before I leap I would like to look over a comparison between the unices,
> or maybe just a superficial "similarities and differences in UI"  but I
> have looked to no avail. Has anyone run across a quickie comparison, or am
> I gonna need to dig deeper?
> 
> Thanks, y'all.
> 
> Julia Coolman
> 
> jcoolman at gladstone.uoregon.edu
> 
> 
> 
> 
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