Comparison between linux and BSD-type systems

[tom]

Greets List;

Please forgive me.  I've made a few incorrect comments, which I fell
must correct now.  My mistake...

tmarinis99 at netscape.net (tom) wrote:
>Here's mine then;
>
>FREEBSD is by far more heavily documented, user friendly, and
>easier to set up. OpenBSD by default is a locked down system, with
>the administrator being responsible to open/install/patch services
>when needed.  

However, Linux has more HOW-TO's than either of these OS's.  Linux
also has many more developers, maintainers, and press about it
than BSD.

>Application Source Code is also more troublesome on BSD, since
>compared to Linux the code is not based on GNU/GPL, but on
>the original AT&T Unix C code.  

The C library, the base API for the system. 
The BSD C library is based on code from Berkeley,
 not the GNU project. 

I meant something else, so this is what has occurred thus far:

The BSD operating systems are not clones, but open source derivatives
of AT&T's Research UNIX operating system, which is also the ancestor 
of the modern UNIX System V. 

AT&T UNIX is not open source, and in a copyright sense BSD is very definitely not UNIX, but on the other hand, AT&T has imported sources
from other projects, noticeably the Computer Sciences
Research Group of the University of California in Berkeley, CA. 

Starting in 1976, the CSRG started releasing tapes of their software, calling them Berkeley Software Distribution or BSD. 

Initial BSD releases consisted mainly of user programs, but that changed dramatically when the CSRG landed a contract with the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) to upgrade the communications protocols
on their network, ARPANET.

The new protocols were known as the Internet Protocols, later
TCP/IP after the most important protocols. The first widely distributed implementation was part of 4.2BSD, in 1982. 

In the course of the 1980s, a number of new workstation companies sprang
up. Many preferred to license UNIX rather than developing operating 
systems for themselves. In particular, Sun Microsystems licensed UNIX 
and implemented a version of 4.2BSD, which they called SunOS. When 
AT&T themselves were allowed to sell UNIX commercially, they started 
with a somewhat bare-bones implementation called System III, to be 
quickly followed by System V. 

The System V code base did not include networking, so all implementions included additional software from the BSD, including the TCP/IP software, but also utilities such as the csh shell and the vi editor. Collectively,
these enhancements were known as the Berkeley Extensions. 

[ Please note, this TCP/IP software was also borrowed from Microsoft ]


The BSD tapes containing AT&T source code and thus required a 
UNIX source license. By 1990, the CSRG's funding was running out,
and it faced closure, some members of the group decided to release
the BSD code, which was Open Source, without the AT&T proprietary code.

This finally happened with the Networking Tape 2, usually known as 
Net/2. Net/2 was not a complete operating system: about 20% of the 
kernel code was missing. 

One of the CSRG members, William F. Jolitz, wrote the remaining code and released it in early 1992 as 386BSD. At the same time, another group of ex-CSRG members formed a commercial company called 
Berkeley Software Design Inc. and released a beta version of an 
operating system called BSD/386, which was based on the same 
sources. The name of the operating system has since changed to BSD/OS.

Thus OpenSource BSD was born.

386BSD never became a stable operating system. 

Instead, two other projects split off from it in 1993: 
NetBSD and FreeBSD.

The two projects originally diverged due to differences in patience 
waiting for improvements to 386BSD: the NetBSD people started early 
in the year, and the first version of FreeBSD wasn't ready
until the end of the year. In the meantime, the code base had 
diverged sufficiently to make it difficult to merge. In addition, 
the projects had different aims.

In 1996, a further project, OpenBSD, split off from NetBSD. Theo
DeRaadt had a spat with the NETBSD maintainers, and it resulted
in THEO implementing his own version of NETBSD, but with security
the focus of his project.


>Caldera employs System V init scripts ( these are start up scripts
>like 'S10network' which exist in subdirectories of /etc/rc.d/
>rc.0, rc.1->rc.5 ). You  stop/start/restart processes from
>performing /etc/rc.d/init/<daemon> stop.  In BSD, this is not
>the case.  You will, I think, miss it :)
>
>BSD's use a BSD style init script scheme, where everything is run
>from a script, within rc.init file from within /etc/.  There
>are not a lot of individual scripts to start/stop processes, and
>therefore, you must in most cases send a SIGHHUP, or KILL to
>a PID to stop a process.  

OpenBSD command scripts are /etc/rc, /etc/conf, /etc/rc.securelevel,
/etc/netstart, /etc/rc.local, and of course /etc/rc.shutdown.

By comparision, Caldera and Mandrake have /etc/rc.d/init.d  directory
with about 2 dozen of more scripts, run levels 0 to 6 in directories
/etc/rc.d/rc0.d-rc6.d with links to all scripts pointing to the scripts
in init.d.  S will start the script, K will kill the script.


>The closest comparision to this form of scripting is Slackware
>Linux.  It also uses BSD init scripts, but not as heavily as
>BSD does.
>
>X is not installed by default on BSD.  Furthermore, there are
>libraries and other dependancies that are required for X to 
>be installed on the target system before X can be 'configured'.

For OpenBSD.  FreeBSD and NetBSD are far more 'GUI-friendly'
than OpenBSD, and have optional GUI installers.


>To date, there is no graphical system for OpenBSD, nor will
>there be.  The installation system is somewhat tedious and
>not very 'friendly' for those not familair with OpenBSD 
>installer.  It's numbering scheme is somewhat mixed up when
>installing on i386 systems. 

What I meant was you can install X, KDE, even Gnome, XFCE, Blackbox, etc,
etc, etc,, but there is somewhat more work involved in doing so.

However, OpenBSD does not have a GUI installer, and after being
a part of the mailing list there for over 2 years, there will likely
never be one created for it either.  AS Theo maintains, a graphical
installer are for people who don't know what they are doing...

Thank you...

__________________________________________________________________
The NEW Netscape 7.0 browser is now available. Upgrade now! http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp 

Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Mail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com/