Welcome to the "freebsd-questions" mailing list

[Sean Cavanaugh]

> Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 12:55:52 -0400
> From: jerrymc at msu.edu
> To: korikov.zk at gmail.com
> CC: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Welcome to the "freebsd-questions" mailing list
> 
> On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 08:33:44PM +0530, Shakil Khan wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Can anyone let me know how can I download FreeBSD kernel source code. I am
> > on Linux and am not able to download using CVS. Can someone point me exactly
> > and also if some links are available where I can download tar ball of
> > FreeBSD kernek source code.
> 
> My suggestion would be to download the latest ISO and install it on
> a machine with full source.  Then you will have kernel and everything
> to make a FreeBSD including the correct compilers and libraries.
> 
> Kernel is really dealt with differently in FreeBSD than in Linux.
> Although there is a kernel, it is intimately part of the whole
> operating system, not a kernel which someone grabs makes up a separate 
> distribution with.   
> 

to piggy-back a little more, FreeBSD is an entire Operating System whereas Linux is just a Kernel used to run the GNU Operating system (The true nomenclature is GNU/Linux when refering to a Linux based OS).
the GNU project is currently working on writing their own Kernel named Hurd based off the mach kernel.