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Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

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Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#51

Post by jvdh »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #11

As a Debian user who started on Gentoo, I think the linked article was very interesting in terms of at least getting an idea of what the differences in design are. I've never used a BSD or even looked into it... given what I read there, it seems like it'd be a lot nicer in at least one sense, since Debian releases die off and release-upgrade can be either perfect or very painful. On the other hand, I do love how smal…

> release-upgrade can be either perfect or very painful.

This seems to be in the nature of the task. Freebsd-update is also often perfect, but if it goes wrong it can be very painful as well.

On the other hand, you do have a rollback feature, but then you're back to a probably working, outdated system.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#55

Post by yellow_and_gray »

mattzito wrote: post #48
yellow_and_gray wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What stopped me from using FreeBSD a year ago was lack of automatic tab completion on the shell. I would like to try FreeBSD again. Does anyone know if this works now? edit: clarified the reason I ask is because I want to know.

The default shell in freebsd is probably still sh, which does not have tab completion. The Linuxes long ago moved to bash, which does. However, in the FreeBSD ports tree, I guarantee you there is a bash package you can install, and then you can just switch your shell to be bash instead of sh.

Thanks. This helps.

I didn't see tab completion when I was running the installer and I gave up.

Thank you for answering my question.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#56

Post by imanaccount247 »

obviouslygreen wrote: post #23
imanaccount247 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On the other hand, I do love how small and unassuming a basic Linux installation is There is no "basic linux installation". Every distro is its own thing. Size seems like a really odd thing to bring up since every mainstream linux distro's "basic" installation is larger than the full OS of any of the four BSDs.

So your contention is that there is no basic installation... followed by the assertion that the basic installation, which does not exist, is larger than that of any BSD. Sorry, I'm going to have a hard time taking this seriously. And, frankly, your statement about the "full OS" is meaningless, as unless you consider the "full OS" to be only the base system, it includes every possible package, which very obviously is…

>Sorry, I'm going to have a hard time taking this seriously.

That will happen when you don't read it. Allow me to repeat it for you: 'There is no "basic linux installation"'. Linux is a kernel. There is no "basic linux installation". I do not know how it could possible be stated any clearer. Each individual distro is its own OS, which may or may not have a installation labelled "basic". Most of those are larger than any BSDs full OS. This is very simple.

>And, frankly, your statement about the "full OS" is meaningless

No it is not. You are awfully hostile for someone who just wants to learn. BSD operating systems are operating systems. The full OS means the full OS. Plain and simple. The lack of distinction between the OS and third party packages is unique to linux distros, where the OS itself consists almost entirely of third party packages in the first place. In BSD systems as in most systems, the operating system is everything included in the operating system, and third party software is third party software.

>it includes every possible package

This is one of the fundamental differences, which is why it seems to odd that you claim to be talking about the differences but you don't even know them.

>I meant small in terms of packages. The kernel, a shell, and not much else unless you specify it.

There is no mainstream linux distro where that is the case. Only specialized micro distros intended for embedded use and based on busybox provide anything like that. Debian, ubuntu, fedora, etc all have a few hundred MB more stuff in their minimal installation.

>but the point was that I'm used to specifying exactly what else I want

It is unreasonable to expect me to understand that was your point when you said something completely different. Nonetheless, you do not get that unless you are doing a custom LFS.

>The point you ignored or missed is that as a Linux user with no BSD exposure there's a basic difference in philosophy

No, that's the point you missed and instead talked about being minimal.

>I'm not "bringing up" anything in terms of absolute pros and cons

Saying "I love thing that is my own misunderstanding" implies that the other option lacks that thing. That's what pros and cons are all about.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#57

Post by sergiosgc »

pellaeon wrote: post #24

I have few experience with Linux distros other than Ubuntu, so I'm only comparing FreeBSD with Ubuntu. Linux distros are so diverse I don't think you can just compare all of them with FreeBSD anyway. I have both FreeBSD servers and Ubuntu servers. Thing I like the most with FreeBSD is its further separation (compared with Ubuntu) of OS (kernel and world) from third-party software. In Ubuntu every package comes in mul…

If you have experience with ubuntu and the non rolling nature of the distro hurts you, then try debian testing. It's stable enough for desktop use, similar to ubuntu and has rolling updates. I personally run debian unstable (one up on the bleeding edge ladder), but I tolerate the occasional breakage.

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#58

Post by [deleted] »

yellow_and_gray wrote: post #39
near wrote: post #27

Like others have said, being unbiased is difficult, but I'll try. First, Linux v FreeBSD is really tough, so I will instead approach this from Debian v FreeBSD. I really like how easy Debian on the desktop is: install it, apt-get install xfce, and I have a nice desktop. It's very easy to add Adobe Flash, Steam, Skype, etc. The FreeBSD desktop isn't as nice. You can add things like Flash and Skype on FreeBSD, but you…

What stopped me from using FreeBSD a year ago was lack of automatic tab completion on the shell. I would like to try FreeBSD again. Does anyone know if this works now? edit: clarified the reason I ask is because I want to know.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#59

Post by sjackso »

Here [0] is a really extensive how-to for running FreeBSD as a desktop OS. It goes beyond the basics, including information about 3D graphics, printing, emulating Linux binaries, installing Flash, and running Wine. It's useful as a guide for someone starting out with FreeBSD, but it's also useful to skim over it in order to get a sense of the distance between the minimalist, base FreeBSD installation and a modern desktop environment.

[0]: https://cooltrainer.org/a-freebsd-desktop-howto/

Re: Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?

#60

Post by byuu »

arh68 wrote: post #22

BSD is often just a little bit different. Hard to be unbiased. Some people prefer GNU make, some like bsdmake. - kqueue is a very powerful event loop similar to epoll [1] - the FreeBSD ports collection is very simple to use as far as compiling from source goes. I only really prefer Debian's apt-get and Gentoo's emerge - the FreeBSD Handbook is a very well-maintained text [2]. I freely admit OpenBSD has the best man p…

> Some people prefer GNU make, some like bsdmake.

Is there really such a person that prefers bsdmake over GNU make?? I really don't mean this as a troll comment, but bsdmake has about 5% of the functionality of GNU make.

It's perfectly adequate if you just want to give it a list of files to compile, but it's a nightmare to do things like write a recursive directory scanner to auto-generate Qt .moc files, to scan PATH to find the location of Qt on Windows, to parse command-line arguments passed into make, etc. Sure, the GNU Lisp-like syntax is an absolute nightmare, but at least it's doable with a widely available build tool.

I would be seriously interested in hearing what someone likes more about bsdmake, other than simplicity (you can avoid using complex features in GNU make if you like.)

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