[techtalk] oops, forgot the questions about BSDs

[Aaron Malone]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2001 at 02:18:50PM -0400, Michelle Murrain wrote:
> I'm interested in learning more about the BSDs - I wondered if anyone had an 
> opinion about what the best of the BSDs is, in terms of hardware and software 
> compatibility and security. I am beginning to explore Darwin (the BSD behind 
> Mac OS X) since I have just installed OS X on a laptop.  But I know there are 
> several flavors (NetBSD, FreeBSD, BSDi, others?)

The standard answer:  FreeBSD for performance on x86, OpenBSD for
security, NetBSD for portability.

Some more details:  yes, OpenBSD tends to be very secure by default.
But in the default configuration, it's not really all that useful for
most tasks.  Thus, you need to be careful what you install or enable,
and definitely subscribe to the security-announce list, as with any OS.
Personally, OpenBSD is my favourite operating system in terms of design
philosophy and actual usage.  I use it on my new personal servers.

FreeBSD is also quite good, and does seem to outperform Open.  As well,
it has SMP (multiple processor) support, which OpenBSD lacks.  FreeBSD
has a more extensive ports collection, as well, which is a definite win
for desktop situations.  I use FreeBSD on my laptop because the Super
Nintendo emulator I use was in the FreeBSD ports tree, while not in
OpenBSD, and I didn't want to have to port it myself. ;)  Free tends to
be the "friendlier" of the two, and probably has the biggest installed
base of the freely-available BSDs.

Incidentally, I've been very happy with FreeBSD on my laptop, a Compaq
Presario 1200-series.  I particularly like that USB support Just Works.
:)

NetBSD, I've never used.  I have an ISO here that I keep meaning to burn
and install on a spare box, but I never seem to get around to it.

BSDi's BSD/OS is non-free, and thus out of the picture for my hobbyist
use, as well as distasteful.

By all means, download or buy them, install on spare test boxes, and
learn all you can.  I'm a convert from Linux to BSD (I still love linux,
no flamewars here, please), and have all sorts of fun just exploring the
systems and learning clever ways to do things.  But then, I'm a geek. ;)
-- 
Aaron Malone (aaron at semo.net)
System Administrator                "We learn from history that we learn
Poplar Bluff Internet, Inc.            nothing from history."
http://www.semo.net                          -- George Bernard Shaw