which os is more developed: bsd or linux?

as far as i know, bsd is like an open source spinoff of the original unix(it was made for at&t or something), and linux is a from-scratch linux clone.

speaking in terms of the packaging - linux is ahead of bsd (well, i've tried freebsd and i don't want to call it linux ).

bsd is very different if u are going to compare with Red Hat or Slackware or Mandrake. But it is very challenging to administer/configure.

experience is the best way to see the distinction so try it first. BSD does come with the GUI the you'll find in most distro so i suggest that you compare them in terms of the CLI. :P

As stated previously, BSD is from the original AT&T Unix. There are plenty of differences throughout both projects, but the biggest in my eyes is the philosophy behind them.

FreeBSD is much more rigid. You can't just drop off your source and have it added to the source tree. This rigidity helps keep the OS very stable and goal oriented. Basically, the programmers are very experienced and professional and are not going to drop a trojan into the source trees as a gag. The downside is the release time cycle. FreeBSD is developed as a whole and therefore released as a whole. This can seriously delay any new releases. BSD licenses are truly "free" also. Nobody owns them.

Linux can be developed by anyone and patches for software can be released at anytime whether the dependencies are there or not. This can expose some serious issues at upgrade time for a serious "backoffice". The upside is that bug fixes come almost overnight! Linux licensing is given by Linus himself. While it's "free", all of you programs must be "donated" to Linus first in order to get included on a CD.

Bear in mind that this is just a crude explanation. Sure some of the tools are different, but essentially they are the same to use and administer. BSD gets some bad press because it makes no assumptions as to how you want your box to perform. Linux does which can make initial setup easy to "get it running", but if you really want control of your box, you'd have to setup the exact same stuff in Linux also.

Depends...FreeBSD is much more tidy and logical than most Linux distros (or so I think, anyway), so once you're happy with using a command line, system configuration is very easy (especially with ports for installing new apps). Also, FreeBSD has a lot good documentation, so although you might need to edit/create the odd config file by hand, there's clear instructions on how to do so.

Alex