5 ms·

I'm sorry? Which BSD system is that you are describing?

• mansr 17y ago
  Who, me? NetBSD and OpenBSD are the worst. FreeBSD is a bit better, and Dragonfly is the least broken of the ones I've had to deal with. It's hard to keep track of all the BSDs, though, with the number of BSD developers and the number of BSD forks steadily converging.
  • bensummers 17y ago
    It's hard to keep track of all the Linux distributions, though, with the number of Linux developers and the number of Linux distributions steadily converging. OK, so maybe it's better now that Ubuntu has conquered all, but writing software on a BSD and then attempting to make it work on "Linux" is a nightmare. Every single distribution does something different, and it's a nightmare to work around. Whereas the BSDs tend to be very consistent.
    • mansr 17y ago
      POSIX compliance is much better in Linux than in BSD. End of story. If you stick to standard POSIX features, your code will work without change on any modern Linux distribution.
      • j_baker 17y ago
        Unless you can prove this, it's hearsay. Part of the reason why linux and BSD don't actually get POSIX certified is because they change so quickly that it wouldn't be practical. So it's difficult to get an idea of what system is most compatible with POSIX. And even if you did, it would be different by the next version.
        • mansr 17y ago
          OK, there are probably corner cases where Linux isn't quite compliant. However, in my day to day work, I encounter far more problems with BSD than with Linux. I don't know how I'd go about proving that to you.
          • j_baker 17y ago
            I don't doubt that you do encounter more problems with BSD than Linux. But does everyone who works with the two encounter more problems?
      • aidenn0 17y ago
        Too bad nobody does this... Quick example: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/program.php?test=threadring&lang=icc&id=1 http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/program.php?test=threa... Can you spot the non-compliant behavior in this? It actually relies on undefined behavior in the POSIX spec to work on linux!
    • jvdh 17y ago
      True, but the most relevant part for POSIX is always GNU/Linux, which is always the same in each of the Linux distributions.
      • bensummers 17y ago
        Well that's true up until a point. But an OS is more than an API, it's also a collection of files and libraries within a directory structure. In my experience Linux distributions rarely agree on these minor points, and that is where the hassle lies in porting anything non-trivial.
        • mansr 17y ago
          The details where they differ are not standardised. If you stick to the standards, you will have no problems. The problem with BSD is that following standards is what gets you in trouble.
  • dlsspy 17y ago
    I spent an unreasonable amount of time porting software that is generally run on Linux and Mac OS X to RedHat (mostly because their fork of Linux appears to be a museum of obsolete libraries). The BSD forks are often quite interesting in their goals. Some of the Linux ones are as well. There are so many more Linux forks than BSD forks though.