FreeBSD vs Linux

[Philip Juels]

At the risk of getting flamed...someone somewhere in the Usenet universe 
summed linux as "the most self-incompatible OS."   It's one of the 
unfortunate side-effects of the myriad of different distributions.  And 
a lot of work must be done to compile apps from source in linux if you 
can't find an rpm bundle.  On the other hand, with BSD, when it comes to 
"apps", BSD either can't do it at all or BSD does it VERY well...better 
than just about any freely available OS.  Of course, that depends on 
your definition of "apps".

That being said, I use both linux and BSD.  At home, I use BSD for 
things like a firewall, website, fileserver, sendmail...common network 
applications where I want stability and simplicity.  For "playing 
around" I use linux...cause if I break it, I can re-install from CD/DVD 
quickly.  So, at home I use BSD for "production" systems, but linux for 
more "desktop" like stuff.

At work, its the opposite.  We use RHEL3 or 4 for production systems and 
use Fedora and SuSE for desktop.  That's primarily because support comes 
from an identifiable (call-able) source such as Redhat or Novell and 
patching of the systems is easy.  Not to mention the hardware vendor 
guarantee's compatibility (mention BSD to them and they look at you 
funny).  Also, some commercial enterprise applications like Oracle 
database don't run natively on BSD.  However, I do use the BSD's for 
custom things like firewalls and utility systems (cd/dvd burning, etc).

--PJ

poczta at gbkonto.net wrote:

>What is the essential difference
>between FreeBSD and Linux (Fedora for instance)?
>Where can I find any list of differences?
>What/Where are the advantages of FreeBSD vs Linux?
>Greetings
>Greg
>
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