Hi. I use both. BSD more regularly than Slackware mostly because I have three Linuces (currently) and BSD is unique to me but why choose especially if only two; also, agree in the solar system of choice you plant the,,, *Rutabaga? Best wishes and have fun.

Slackware has much more packages in the "base system", for example web browsers. In FreeBSD, you have to install those from Ports.

2 members found this post helpful.

I look at it like this UNIX is the father of Linux. "Linus Torvalds has said that if 386BSD or the GNU kernel had been available at the time, he probably would not have created Linux"(from Wikipedia). But Slackware predates FreeBSD which is the oldest maintained open source BSD derivative (though not 386BSD, which NetBSD and FreeBSD were based on, released in 1992).

Now, FreeBSD is the closest thing to UNIX you can get for free and it's considered the most secure Operating System available to many.

I've used FreeBSD and NetBSD and I like them for a multiple reasons.

1) They don't start many services by default (you have to manually start the services you need i.e. hald, dbus, sshd etc..)

2) The process is very similar to starting services in Slackware. FreeBSD uses rc scripts (i.e you just add lines to your rc.conf like this --> sshd_enable="YES" <-- to have the ssh deamon start with the system)

3) It's based on UNIX where Linux got its whole style from so to speak, so using it can only result in more insight and knowledge.

4) FreeBSD's package management is pretty awesome IMO. It has a very a large variety of apps available within the ports that can be accessed immediately oob with this simple command "pkg install firefox" (FreeBSD) or "pkg_add firefox" (NetBSD) for example. Not to mention, for all the ports, the sources are also available for each binary package and are tailor made to be compiled very easily on your system with dependencies if you so desire!

5) BSD based distros have the ability to check for security vulnerabilities in the ports packages with an application called "portaudit" before you even decide to download the package or "port" as they call it, once again a nice feature for server or workstation.

With that said NetBSD and FreeBSD are really meant to be used as servers of some sort not workstations (though they certainly can be configured as such fairly easily). PCBSD, which once again IMO is pretty nice, has all the binary packages, which you download through the GUI, packaged independently, with their respective dependencies, so there is no modification to your base system for common apps like Firefox or games or open office etc....

So I think it's not so much about advantages, because both BSD and any Linux distro are a)FREE! to use and distribute and or modify and b) OPEN SOURCE! so these shi$$y corporations can't take it away from us!

I look at BSD as old school now with the explosion of Linux (IBM even switched from SCO UNIX to Linux in like 2003, and just spent one billion dollars on marketing(yes 1 billion :O) to convince their customers to switch as well http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-t...n-linux-2013-9).

Either way an OS is just a tool. Both BSD and Slackware are excellent because they make you learn about the system you are using and stay true to the "roots" from which they came, which in turn, I believe, makes people want to give back to the community, helping not just people in your country, but others from around the world, developing a border-less learning environment for everyone, and bridging a social gap that otherwise might have never existed (keyword "community" the very thing that these globalist corporations and governments destroy).

To state 2 major advantages for Slackware, its Linux! Linux is newer and isn't going anywhere, however BSDs future, I believe, is much less certain (with 1% of the total worldwide server market and even less desktops), but that remains to be seen. If your using it for a potential career, than I think Slackware wins by default. Linux knowledge is a MAJOR advantage now for sys admins and developers, and its only getting stronger.

Also Slackware enables more flexibility for package management. More than any other distro I've used in fact.

So I say, use what what works for you and do what you believe is right. At the end of the day, modern BSD and Slackware were both created to avoid the constrictions that corporations place on education and development, giving the power to regular people like you and me granting us the ability to learn, create, and harvest the power of technology however we see fit!

3 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for this!

Didn't know this but always suspected it! I have used and built hackintosh systems and it has always been my opinion that IBM was instrumental in apple's resurrection as well as the obvious development of all 3 modern major consoles.

When jail breaking a PS3 you have to modify the usb.sys driver by adding the hardware id's to it in order to use a non Sony branded external hard drive, just as you modify the hardware id's for drivers on a hackintosh to enable support for non apple branded hardware and chip sets.

So strange that IBM pushes Linux so hard on its customers yet uses FreeBSD to help redevelop apple and Sony, WTF!

Perhaps this adds to the argument that FreeBSD is truly the most secure OS since these proprietary company's that don't want to share use it.

I say another +1 for Slackware for this reason alone!

SCREW these corporations and their proprietary garbage! Makes me want to stop using FreeBSD altogether!

Also the US governments hands are inside BSD using them for biotech and weapons development, plus quantum computing so if its a philosophical reason your looking for then Slackware gets yet another vote!

Hi, this sounds very interesting! Could you elaborate on this specifically and some steps I might take to accomplish such a task. Just for fun of coarse

FreeBSD 10.0 is about to be released tomorrow I believe and the new package management system will be the default. The new package system works great and I've been using it on my own FreeBSD boxes and building packages on a poudriere build server. You don't need to do that -- the project now has updated packages available and they are rebuilt every 2 weeks or so. The Linux compat layer works pretty well, although it's based on Fedora 10 which is getting long in the tooth. There is a way to update it to a later CentOS. FreeBSD jails are a killer feature for a server and ZFS is a close second. Anyway, this is a great time to try out FreeBSD.

OpenBSD is awesome as always. It Just Works. Not as many packages or ports when compared to FreeBSD but close enough. Their Linux layer is even older than FreeBSD's and doesn't work as well as FreeBSD's.

I know all three systems (Slackware, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD) well and I love them all and use them all. You'll just need to try them out for yourself and judge.

OpenBSD is having serious financial problems:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01..._money_appeal/

Yup. I bought a CD and a T-shirt last Thursday. It will be a shame if OpenBSD shuts down!

Wonderful news, chess!
I also really like FreeBSD. I will try out 10.0 when released.

The main difference between Linux and the BSDs is not so much technical as on a licence level. The BSD licence is more free than the GPL in the sense that users are pretty much allowed to do anything with the code, even cannibalizing it, e. g. modifying it and keeping the modifications secret. Which is basically what Apple did: take the FreeBSD code, add a graphical user interface named Aqua, put an Apple logo on top and then sell it. They couldn't have done this with Linux, where the freedom has a viral quality to it, meaning once it's free, it will remain free.

2 members found this post helpful.

Thank you Kiki. I was obviously unaware of this. No wonder the corporations use BSD to smuggle their namesakes. lol.

One advantage BSD holds is that you come off as an even bigger nerd (read: intellectual badass) than the Linux plebs.

There seems to be a general notion that if anyone uses Linux for some project they'll be forced to hand over their code via the GPL. I'll provide Steam as a counter example. As long as their code sits in it's own little world, you haven't gained any leverage over what they don't want to share yet. That may be easier to do in BSD-land, hence their use.

Further, I don't find that general attitude to be particularly constructive: we should be encouraging people to share, not demanding, resorting to name-calling and childish behavior. We're grown ups who use operating systems which are built by people who were nice enough to share; we should follow their example.

3 members found this post helpful.

Point taken. I guess I was out of line. I suppose that was a bit "fanatical". Too much coffee perhaps.

Correct, but they did not only add a GUI, but also the whole object-oriented infrastructure inherited from NeXT, with Objective-C and the COCOA framework. And it's mainly this framework that they protect heavily as their intellectual property along with some behaviour patterns of the GUI. The BSD license allowed them to combine their own stuff with a very solid OS base and make it all theirs. This is why (1) GNU GPL is un-popular among large software vendors and only used, if not using it would cost substantially more money and (2) Linux is so much more popular than BSD, because the GNU GPL protects the intellectual properties of the original contributors much better, which is a major advantage for a community driven project.

Regarding IBM: Their strategy regarding Linux was based on evidence, that in order to compete with their historic contenders Microsoft and (to a lesser degree) Oracle, they would have to attract developers first, and because of the license developers could be dragged more easily to Linux than BSD. I guess, they were right.

gargamel

Wow, what a fantastic discussion! It's fascinating to learn about the histories and philosophies that shaped both BSD and Linux.

By the way, I'm totally okay with our digression to Debian/kFreeBSD. I wondered what had happened to that project.

Also, for some reason I'm not receiving email notifications about new posts to my threads even though they are all set to "Instant" notification. Is there another setting I might have missed?