What's so compelling about FreeBSD?

[Simon Gao]

Nathan Vidican wrote:
>
> In one word... stability. Seriously, it's matured better than linux. Based 
> on a codebase tested and depended upon for a lot longer than linux has been 
> around. BSD is here to stay, even if linux is becoming more mainstream. 
> Simply because it works, and has worked for years and years.
>
>   
Probably true.

> FreeBSD is an entire operating system. The 'commands' you run (ie: shells, 
> tar, disk utilities, filesystems, etc) are all bundled in the same code as 
> one offering. Linux is a kernel, and a filesystem - each individual 
> distribution therefore consisting of the kernel and various (mostly third-
> party/gnu) utilities to make up an O/S. Since there's no real 
> central 'standard' set of utilities, each distribution varies not only in 
> what it supports, how it works, but also where and how everything is 
> configured from the install. FreeBSD on the other hand, stays tride and true 
> with the same structure and only minimal variances (ie: sysinstall moved 
> from /stand to /usr/sbin in version 6).
>
>   
Linux is all about choice. Yes, there is no single filesystem to stick
with Linux. You have ext2/ext3, reiserfs, jfs, xfs you can use. However,
each filesystem has its own advantages and disadvantages. Depending on
what's needed, one can have different filesystems on one machine. If one
looks for a whole OS, Solaris, AIX, OSX, or  even Windows will work
better at least you do not have to worry about device support problem.

Even though there are many Linux distributions, but Linux core pacakges
are the mostly the same. The differences are mainly in window manager
and GUI applications. No matter which Linux distribution, kernel 2.6.16
is always the same. When it comes to X window, it's xorg across the board.
 
> On a more personal note, I prefer *BSD to linux because of the simplicity; 
> too many variances between different linux distributions. With linux 
> everyone and their brother has a different distribution out there; differing 
> releases move configuration files to different places, each vendor makes 
> their own package management, etc. I know the same could be argued about 
> FreeBSD vs OpenBSD vs NetBSD, etc... but it's been my experience that linux 
> has no real standard that all distros follow where *BSD does in terms of the 
> userland, and let's face it - the userland is what we all have to work/live 
> with the most.
>
> (just my two cents)
> --
> Nathan Vidican
> nathan at envieweb.net
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