Is there any HUGE diifference between Linux and *BSD?

<ducks for cover>

Yes, and that is: The Playing Fields...


<entering the arena>

I like the OpenBSD packet filter ... it kicks ass. I miss something alike in linux. netfilter is not that powerful compared to that great packet filter. looking forward to the netfilter future speech at the LinuxTag though :-)

nope, no huge difference.

Ask a vague question, get a vague answer.


Im no expert, but maybe I can help.

One: They use completly different kernels. Im not a programmer, so I cant give you an exact comparision, but I think thats a pretty big difference.

Two: BSD seems to be more of a system than just a kernel. You may notice there is not so many "distributions", this is because the same company that packages the system, is also working on the kernel, unlike Linux.

Three: They use most of the same programs, so you probobly wont notice that much of a difference on the surface. You can run KDE and GNOME or xterm or whatever on BSD and Linux, and they will look/run the same.

Four: in my experience, BSD has been much faster. Can I explain it? No. Most BSD advocates say that its because the code is cleaner though.

Five: BSD has linux emulation, so even if a program you want to use hasnt been ported, you can still most likely use it. There is no BSD emulation for Linux.

Thats all I can think of. If you running a successful Linux system right now, I dont really see any reason to switch, as you will be running the same programs anyway.

BSD and Linux are friends, they play well together.

I know Linux is just a kernel... I should have said GNU/Linux. From what I understand, when Linux implements something new from other systems, and they have a choice between other *nixes and BSD, the use the BSD way. Sockets, for example, use the same interface as BSD.

I think Linux combines features from BSD and System V. The interfaces are presumbaly based on POSIX, more than any particular early flavour of UNIX.

Alex

Give this site a look, its pretty straight forward:

FreeBSD vs. Linux vs. Windows

for the most part, its just the name.

That's a very interesting comparison, and very in favor for freeBSD...is (free)BSD really that much better than linux as said in that link?

That comparison is flawed IMHO. Performance 20-30% below BSD? Geez...

Don't misunderstand me, I'm a (Free)BSD user myself, but I can't endorse that comparison. But in fact FreeBSD runs faster in my PII 300 / 64Mb RAM than any Linux distro.

does BSD have code from System V though?

No, in fact I think their was a big lawsuit which forced them to remove all System V code from it (this was in the early days, before FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD). Anyway, whatever the origins of the code, POSIX means that the differences between system V and BSD are not so deep anymore (mostly differences in the structure of init scripts, etc.)

Alex

Oh darn, SCO can't file a lawsuit against you then

quote:
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Originally posted by Keep Skankin
Give this site a look, its pretty straight forward:

FreeBSD vs. Linux vs. Windows
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IMHO, it is a bit outdated. Refering to the Filesystems part. Linux kernel 2.4.X has indeed include journaling filesystems. Which includes reiserfs, ibm journaling fs too.

And in my opinion, it is amazing for linux (kernel) to achieve so much although it is developed in the manner it was describe in the comparison.