6 ms·

BSD vs. Linux

66 points by jxub 8y ago

Apocryphon 8y ago
Could iOS vs. Android be understood as a faint echo of BSD vs. Linux?
- 2trill2spill 8y ago
  I wouldn't say so, although the IOS(XNU) Kernel has plenty of FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD code, it also has lots of Mach code and Apple code as well, to the point that XNU is it's own distinct kernel. EDIT: I don't think there's any OpenBSD code in kernel space on IOS, just userspace.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- umanwizard 8y ago
  iOS has some copy-pasted BSD code, but is probably the mainstream operating system that feels the least like {Free,Open,Net,Dragonfly}BSD. These feel even more "open-source" than Linux. Every one I have used installs the source code to the entire OS in /usr/src and make it very easy to change and recompile the system. On the BSDs I mentioned, if you don't understand how something works or you want to fix some bug, it's usually pretty easy to go find the source code, read it and learn how it works, and fix it. On most Linux-based OSs you would have to go figure out which random organization makes the component that has a bug (Linux project for the kernel, GNU for a lot of utilities, zillions of others for everything else), figure out how to download and build the source and install it into your distro (which is probably totally unsupported since your distro will expect to be using RPMs or DEBs rather than random stuff installed from tarballs...) This is the most salient feature of the modern pc BSDs to me. It's impossible to describe how different it feels to be truly in control of your system and understand/change it however you want.
gpcz 8y ago
Previous Discussions: - Nov 26, 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1942778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1942778 - Aug 13, 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4374865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4374865 - Jul 5, 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12034277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12034277 - Nov 10, 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18421877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18421877
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- CapitalistCartr 8y ago
  Lesser attempts, (this one gets around): -June 2, 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1396644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1396644 -3 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17755501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17755501 -Jan 16, 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10915922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10915922
- nemetroid 8y ago
  From archive.org, it looks like this was written in late 2003/early 2004.
geggam 8y ago
My favorite https://web.archive.org/web/20050211001936/http://linuxisforbitches.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050211001936/http://linuxisfor...
- hhw 8y ago
  Last updated in 2003. Seems eerily prescient, most of what it said back then would apply even more so today. All that would be needed is an amendment to 3) so that it also applies for init systems, to bring that list fully up to date.
  - geggam 8y ago
    I have the site archived and a domain quite similar. Maybe one weekend and some beer will breathe life back into it ;)
pmoriarty 8y ago
I've used Gentoo for a long time, and Gentoo (as the article notes) is quite similar to BSD in some ways. It too has a base system. There too the user compiles packages themselves from scratch (though precompiled binaries are available for a handful of packages) in a system like ports (called "portage" on Gentoo). It too has no systemd (unless you want it). I like Gentoo and still use it, but my biggest problem with it is that compiling packages takes a hell of a long time (especially some monstrosities like QT or webkit, which can take me days or even a week to compile on my old, slow laptop). You really have to have relatively modern system to compile all your packages from scratch, if you don't want to have to do it non-stop, virtually 24 hours a day. It's really annoying. I have better things to dedicate my processor cycles to and my own time to than constantly compiling packages. So maybe I'll switch. I'm not sure to what, though. I've thought of BSD, but it has the same problem. I don't really like the idea of binary distros either, because of their relative inflexibility (no choice to include/omit package features that you want/don't want), and honestly, I don't really trust binary blobs as much as compiling from source... though maybe in the end it doesn't really matter.
- ams6110 8y ago
  OpenBSD includes a large number of precompiled packages. In fact you are encouraged to use these rather than compiling from ports unless you have a specific need that isn't met by the standard package. It's my understanding that most of the other BSDs are similar in this regard, though I don't have first-hand experience. if you want to stay with Linux, I have heard that Arch is one of the more BSD-like distributions.
  - laumars 8y ago
    Arch used to be more BSD-like but since it’s adopted systemd it’s felt very much more mainstream Linux than it used to when it had a BSD-inspired rc.conf. That said, it’s still my preferred desktop OS. FreeBSD definitely supports binary packages as well. It’s a great system to use too. In fact if there wasn’t a few Linux-specific tools I needed and FreeBSDs hardware support was on a par with Linux, then I would use FreeBSD as my primary system - without a doubt. But as it is I still run FreeBSD for all of my personal servers.
victore 8y ago
Linux has more drivers for the latest hardware.
- 2trill2spill 8y ago
  In my experience that only comes into play with Laptops. FreeBSD supports pretty much any server or desktop hardware an organization or person has. Also FreeBSD has never made Laptop support a goal of the operating system, FreeBSD is primarily a server operating system for which it does a great job.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    Counterpoint: FreeBSD doesn’t support CUDA which would be a deal-breaker for a lot of people. This seems to be NVidia’s fault rather than the FreeBSD project’s, though.
  - chousuke 8y ago
    My experience has been that FreeBSD in particular has issues with graphics drivers. My 2015 desktop with a (at the time) mid-range Radeon card is only barely stable (took some fiddling with ports) in the latest 12 release. I hear Nvidia is better, but I refuse to use proprietary drivers. I didn't really find that FreeBSD offered any advantage on the desktop over Linux, and features like browser sandboxing seem to (understandably) be lagging behind. Lots of people are running away from Linux because of systemd, but that's a non-issue for me. It works just fine. Curiously enough OpenBSD works perfectly OOtB, but in the end I returned to Fedora anyway because there's no support for Wine or Steam. I'd prefer it over FreeBSD though since I like the design of the base system better.
- xiii1408 8y ago
  Linux also has more drivers for older hardware. Or just hardware. I installed FreeBSD on a ThinkPad T400 back in 2016... I was royally unimpressed with all the shit I had to go through to get drivers working on what is probably the most supported laptop of all time for the open-source community. I would shudder to think about setting up an encrypted BSD dual-boot with Mac OS on my MBP, like I do with Arch. And I mean this not to degrade BSD; I did love the design. Just, like, I don't want to spend all my time installing drivers from source and writing custom scripts to control my backlight and CPU fan.
trothamel 8y ago
I'd say that Linux's popularity tend to translate to technical superiority, which then contributes to continued popularity. Take something like Docker. Because Linux is popular, it was initially developed for Linux. And because Docker runs (best) on Linux, you get more deployments of Linux, and hence whoever makes the next big thing is more likely to develop it for Linux. The end result is you have an OS that scales from smartphones to supercomputers, and so one needs quite a good reason to replace it.
- kotharia 8y ago
  The same argument could have been made for Windows not long ago
- geggam 8y ago
  The end result is you have an OS that scales from smartphones to supercomputers The end result is you have A KERNEL that runs on everything from smartphones to supercomputers The linux community and the direction the operating systems using that kernel are taking is "interesting"
- jcranmer 8y ago
  > I'd say that Linux's popularity tend to translate to technical superiority Linux isn't exactly technically superior to other OS kernels, and it's definitely lacking in innovation. You cite Docker as an example, but that's a shining example of Linux taking major innovations from other OSes and copying it badly. BSDs had jails and Solaris had zones long before Linux got containers, and whereas those were considered security features on other OSes, Docker containers are not seen as improving the security of systems. Other features like this exist too. Linux has refused to allow better IPC mechanisms such as what Android to be upstreamed, and the Linux replacement for select/poll is generally considered to be the worst of the bunch. Another consideration is that both smartphones and supercomputers tend to use lots of modifications to Linux not present in desktop kernels. Android, as mentioned above, uses a different IPC mechanism, while supercomputer applications rely a lot on libraries that bypass kernels because scaling to highly parallel 100,000-core systems requires breaking POSIX a fair amount (particularly the filesystem semantics).
- 8y ago
coverband 8y ago
"Unices"?
- blattimwind 8y ago
  Unix -> unices, much like index -> indices.
santoshalper 8y ago
The article is meh, but the nostalgia was off the charts. I miss people having their own personal web sites. I made my first in 1995. Good times.
ncmncm 8y ago
The actual content is supremely uninteresting, even ignoring its obsolescence. (And SCO never owned any Unix source code.) But what a tour-de-force of passive aggression! I kneel.
ThJ 8y ago
I had to stop reading when he claimed that the BSD heritage of macOS is only of academic interest. The guy has clearly never tried to use macOS.

BSD vs. Linux

66 points by jxub 8y ago

Apocryphon 8y ago

Could iOS vs. Android be understood as a faint echo of BSD vs. Linux?

2trill2spill 8y ago
I wouldn't say so, although the IOS(XNU) Kernel has plenty of FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD code, it also has lots of Mach code and Apple code as well, to the point that XNU is it's own distinct kernel. EDIT: I don't think there's any OpenBSD code in kernel space on IOS, just userspace.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
umanwizard 8y ago
iOS has some copy-pasted BSD code, but is probably the mainstream operating system that feels the least like {Free,Open,Net,Dragonfly}BSD. These feel even more "open-source" than Linux. Every one I have used installs the source code to the entire OS in /usr/src and make it very easy to change and recompile the system. On the BSDs I mentioned, if you don't understand how something works or you want to fix some bug, it's usually pretty easy to go find the source code, read it and learn how it works, and fix it. On most Linux-based OSs you would have to go figure out which random organization makes the component that has a bug (Linux project for the kernel, GNU for a lot of utilities, zillions of others for everything else), figure out how to download and build the source and install it into your distro (which is probably totally unsupported since your distro will expect to be using RPMs or DEBs rather than random stuff installed from tarballs...) This is the most salient feature of the modern pc BSDs to me. It's impossible to describe how different it feels to be truly in control of your system and understand/change it however you want.

gpcz 8y ago

Previous Discussions: - Nov 26, 2010: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1942778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1942778 - Aug 13, 2012: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4374865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4374865 - Jul 5, 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12034277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12034277 - Nov 10, 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18421877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18421877

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
CapitalistCartr 8y ago
Lesser attempts, (this one gets around): -June 2, 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1396644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1396644 -3 months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17755501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17755501 -Jan 16, 2016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10915922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10915922
nemetroid 8y ago
From archive.org, it looks like this was written in late 2003/early 2004.

geggam 8y ago

My favorite https://web.archive.org/web/20050211001936/http://linuxisforbitches.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050211001936/http://linuxisfor...

hhw 8y ago
Last updated in 2003. Seems eerily prescient, most of what it said back then would apply even more so today. All that would be needed is an amendment to 3) so that it also applies for init systems, to bring that list fully up to date.
- geggam 8y ago
  I have the site archived and a domain quite similar. Maybe one weekend and some beer will breathe life back into it ;)

pmoriarty 8y ago

I've used Gentoo for a long time, and Gentoo (as the article notes) is quite similar to BSD in some ways. It too has a base system. There too the user compiles packages themselves from scratch (though precompiled binaries are available for a handful of packages) in a system like ports (called "portage" on Gentoo). It too has no systemd (unless you want it). I like Gentoo and still use it, but my biggest problem with it is that compiling packages takes a hell of a long time (especially some monstrosities like QT or webkit, which can take me days or even a week to compile on my old, slow laptop). You really have to have relatively modern system to compile all your packages from scratch, if you don't want to have to do it non-stop, virtually 24 hours a day. It's really annoying. I have better things to dedicate my processor cycles to and my own time to than constantly compiling packages. So maybe I'll switch. I'm not sure to what, though. I've thought of BSD, but it has the same problem. I don't really like the idea of binary distros either, because of their relative inflexibility (no choice to include/omit package features that you want/don't want), and honestly, I don't really trust binary blobs as much as compiling from source... though maybe in the end it doesn't really matter.

ams6110 8y ago
OpenBSD includes a large number of precompiled packages. In fact you are encouraged to use these rather than compiling from ports unless you have a specific need that isn't met by the standard package. It's my understanding that most of the other BSDs are similar in this regard, though I don't have first-hand experience. if you want to stay with Linux, I have heard that Arch is one of the more BSD-like distributions.
- laumars 8y ago
  Arch used to be more BSD-like but since it’s adopted systemd it’s felt very much more mainstream Linux than it used to when it had a BSD-inspired rc.conf. That said, it’s still my preferred desktop OS. FreeBSD definitely supports binary packages as well. It’s a great system to use too. In fact if there wasn’t a few Linux-specific tools I needed and FreeBSDs hardware support was on a par with Linux, then I would use FreeBSD as my primary system - without a doubt. But as it is I still run FreeBSD for all of my personal servers.

victore 8y ago

Linux has more drivers for the latest hardware.

2trill2spill 8y ago
In my experience that only comes into play with Laptops. FreeBSD supports pretty much any server or desktop hardware an organization or person has. Also FreeBSD has never made Laptop support a goal of the operating system, FreeBSD is primarily a server operating system for which it does a great job.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  Counterpoint: FreeBSD doesn’t support CUDA which would be a deal-breaker for a lot of people. This seems to be NVidia’s fault rather than the FreeBSD project’s, though.
- chousuke 8y ago
  My experience has been that FreeBSD in particular has issues with graphics drivers. My 2015 desktop with a (at the time) mid-range Radeon card is only barely stable (took some fiddling with ports) in the latest 12 release. I hear Nvidia is better, but I refuse to use proprietary drivers. I didn't really find that FreeBSD offered any advantage on the desktop over Linux, and features like browser sandboxing seem to (understandably) be lagging behind. Lots of people are running away from Linux because of systemd, but that's a non-issue for me. It works just fine. Curiously enough OpenBSD works perfectly OOtB, but in the end I returned to Fedora anyway because there's no support for Wine or Steam. I'd prefer it over FreeBSD though since I like the design of the base system better.
xiii1408 8y ago
Linux also has more drivers for older hardware. Or just hardware. I installed FreeBSD on a ThinkPad T400 back in 2016... I was royally unimpressed with all the shit I had to go through to get drivers working on what is probably the most supported laptop of all time for the open-source community. I would shudder to think about setting up an encrypted BSD dual-boot with Mac OS on my MBP, like I do with Arch. And I mean this not to degrade BSD; I did love the design. Just, like, I don't want to spend all my time installing drivers from source and writing custom scripts to control my backlight and CPU fan.

trothamel 8y ago

I'd say that Linux's popularity tend to translate to technical superiority, which then contributes to continued popularity. Take something like Docker. Because Linux is popular, it was initially developed for Linux. And because Docker runs (best) on Linux, you get more deployments of Linux, and hence whoever makes the next big thing is more likely to develop it for Linux. The end result is you have an OS that scales from smartphones to supercomputers, and so one needs quite a good reason to replace it.

kotharia 8y ago
The same argument could have been made for Windows not long ago
geggam 8y ago
The end result is you have an OS that scales from smartphones to supercomputers The end result is you have A KERNEL that runs on everything from smartphones to supercomputers The linux community and the direction the operating systems using that kernel are taking is "interesting"
jcranmer 8y ago
> I'd say that Linux's popularity tend to translate to technical superiority Linux isn't exactly technically superior to other OS kernels, and it's definitely lacking in innovation. You cite Docker as an example, but that's a shining example of Linux taking major innovations from other OSes and copying it badly. BSDs had jails and Solaris had zones long before Linux got containers, and whereas those were considered security features on other OSes, Docker containers are not seen as improving the security of systems. Other features like this exist too. Linux has refused to allow better IPC mechanisms such as what Android to be upstreamed, and the Linux replacement for select/poll is generally considered to be the worst of the bunch. Another consideration is that both smartphones and supercomputers tend to use lots of modifications to Linux not present in desktop kernels. Android, as mentioned above, uses a different IPC mechanism, while supercomputer applications rely a lot on libraries that bypass kernels because scaling to highly parallel 100,000-core systems requires breaking POSIX a fair amount (particularly the filesystem semantics).
8y ago

coverband 8y ago

"Unices"?

blattimwind 8y ago
Unix -> unices, much like index -> indices.

santoshalper 8y ago

The article is meh, but the nostalgia was off the charts. I miss people having their own personal web sites. I made my first in 1995. Good times.

ncmncm 8y ago

The actual content is supremely uninteresting, even ignoring its obsolescence. (And SCO never owned any Unix source code.) But what a tour-de-force of passive aggression! I kneel.

ThJ 8y ago

I had to stop reading when he claimed that the BSD heritage of macOS is only of academic interest. The guy has clearly never tried to use macOS.