[leglug-users] BSD vs. Linux

[Hisham Mardam Bey]

Hello,

First of all, let me just point out that your email seems extremely
defensive and does not follow in the spirit of this mailing list. We
are attempting to spread our knowledge and experience in any and
everything that is open source (and sometimes not) and had you
noticed, none of the emails have had the "bashing" nature that yours
had. Stating the downsides of something is just fine, as long as it
backed up with evidence, specially if you are comparing it to
something else. You will notice that in the couple of emails I wrote,
although they had an objective twist to them, not once did I berate
the Linux kernel or the distros that use it. You, on the other hand,
seem to enjoy doing that when it comes to the BSDs. I am not here to
lecture you, so I will just reply to some of the points you so
eloquently mentioned.

On 2/28/07, Denys (VISP) <nuclearcat-lelug at nuclearcat.com> wrote:

> My new computer, with I965 chipset is not supported well on FreeBSD, ATAPI on
> Marvell PATA chip (embedded to Mb, only one PATA bus by the way) not working
> well. System just hangs on atapicam.

Tough cookie, welcome to opensource,if you really need it, donate (or
do it yourself), otherwise, wait (or use something else). We all know
that hardware gets supported in due time when the developers get a
chance to try it out.

> FreeBSD missing 64-bit drivers for Nvidia. No monitoring mode for Intel
> wireless (2200).

Rome was not built in a day. No one said FreeBSD supported every piece
of hardware on the planet. Again, I said, it worked fine for "me", on
"my" hardware. Did you see me saying that the Linux kernel did not
support X, Y, and Z and therefore it was not good enough? No, you did
not. Why? Because thats not the purpose of this thread.

> There is no option for Hibernate/Software suspend (very
> useful to restore fast laptop and to save when battery is almost out).

zzz(8) -- suspend an ACPI or APM system
apm(8), zzz(8) -- control the APM BIOS and display its information
acpi(8) -- Advanced Configuration and Power Management support

Don't be impulsive.


> No graphical installer (sometimes required for beginners and just to impress
> people).

Have you taken a look at PC-BSD (FreeBSD aimed at the desktop)?
http://www.pcbsd.org/

And I quote: "PC-BSD has been designed with the "casual" computer user
in mind. Installing the system is simply a matter of a few clicks and
a few minutes for the installation process to finish. Hardware such as
video, sound, network and other devices will be auto-detected and
available at the first system startup. Home users will immediately
feel comfortable with PC-BSD's desktop interface, with KDE 3.5 running
under the hood. Software installation has also been designed to be as
painless as possible, simply double-click and software will be
installed."


> While on Linux, let's say debian, you can find more than 20000
> packages, for FreeBSD
>
> Linux on old kernels even working well, if kernel dont have even support for
> Marvell PATA chipset, there is a flag (smth like all-generic-ide), usually it
> happen with installation CD's, and then i just upgrade kernel to latest, and
> it works without any workarounds.

Refer to above comments.

>
> > a remote installation option, making it a la apt). So between excellent
> > hardware support, a stable and secure system, wonderful package
> > installation options, and the largest (i think its the largest)
> > package collection on the planet, whats not to love? (=
> 16500 ports in the end of 2006
> Debian + apt-get.org = over 20000
>

Your point being? More packages? So?

> > I have been researching and building this set up for the past year,
> > and to tell you the truth, Linux has not been the best pick. I am
> > finding myself more and more inclined to go with OpenBSD for
> > everything these days. The OpenBSD team has a very high commitment to
> > security, making things work well, and their concept of a hackathlon,
> > something they do every few months, is wonderful (they all gather in
> > a certain country and decide to completely finish a certain function
> > / subset of the OS that is lacking).
> >
>
> Just things what i DONT like in OpenBSD. FreeBSD since my last tries of
> "stable" brances in 5.x, and it is paniced on some new hardware in
> installation, i just dont take serious. Maybe i will check it soon... but for
> now i dont see reason to do that.
>

Matter of personal preference, good for you.

> 1)Much less than Linux drivers. For example no drivers at all for DVB cards.
> There is no support for modern Atheros chipsets (AR5413 - at Jan 23 b mode
> still was broken)

http://www.propolys.sg/wordpress/2007/02/13/run-linux-drivers-on-freebsd/

If you really need something, you can make it happen (perhaps donate
if you don't have the know-how or time), or again, wait for it. I
understand that you might want this hardware to be supported in your
case, eventually we all do, but the point is not to take whatever
operating system and just say it does not support X and Y. The point
is to show those that have not used it why it exists and what are its
advantages and strong points.

> 2)Low performance. Just when you really face real challenge, you will see big
> difference, between Linux and others. Even just look old syntetic benchmarks
> http://www.benzedrine.cx/pf-paper.html . iptables much better than pf. And
> right now i am running hardware really close to it's limits. (for example
> 300+ req/s on proxies with compression enabled, loaded Gbit/s interfaces with
> Netflow + stateful filtering + QoS and etc).

Firstly, the paper is not about the most recent versions of both of
the software. Secondly, I did not in any way negatively talk about
Linux's firewall features. I chose OpenBSD for several reasons that
suited "my" needs. My needs from a firewall setup don't exactly have
to match your needs. Again, this is not a flame war, don't turn it
into one.

> 3)Lack of advanced features. Just example. Now maybe it appears, but on linux
> since long time ago if i have two IP on interface, let's say 1.1.1.1/32 and
> 2.2.2.2/24, my default gw 2.2.2.1, and i want when i request let's say
> www.google.com (let's say ip will be ip 3.3.3.3), source address to be
> 1.1.1.1. On linux, without NAT (!important) i can do just
> ip route add 3.3.3.3/32 via 2.2.2.1 src 1.1.1.1

Look at pf's route-to feature (amongst others).

> 4)Is there stable journaling filesystem, or still it is in stone age? With
> lebanese electricity problem it is very actual subject.

http://ivoras.sharanet.org/freebsd/freebsd7.html

Look for ZFS and gjournal.

> 5)As i know not complete Speedstep support (actual for Core 2 Duo and Pentium
> M laptops).

I have not looked into the matter.

> 6)I feel it will be impossible to setup properly Nvidia TwinView in my
> difficult configuration (DVI + Analog VGA - 19' LCD + HDTV LCD 1080i).

I have a similar set up running perfectly.

> 7)It is just zoo. If on linux i can have all different features of different
> distro's in one(mainly because kernel is same), on *BSD it is different
> animals,

Now see, this is what takes the cake. I really think you need to tone
down your attitude a bit and approach us with a more professional
(dare I say polite and respectful?) manner. We are not your enemies,
and you most certainly are not ours.

> and features from NetBSD cannot be moved to OpenBSD easily. Let's
> say if you like netgraph in FreeBSD and open-sources atheros driver of
> OpenBSD, you cannot have both features in one PC.

Actually, porting drivers across the BSD's is a very simple (in the
eye of kernel developers of course, I would not expect the average-Joe
to be able to do it) and recommended way of getting drivers into your
preferred *BSD. If you read around you will find that a lot of the
features and drivers have been moved and ported from one of the BSDs
to the other, starting from network interface drivers (OpenBSD to the
rest), strange hardware support (NetBSD to the rest), ALTQ (NetBSD /
FreeBSD to the rest), PF (OpenBSD to the rest). So I would think that
it is fairly simple to port code between the various *BSDs.

> For now thats all. Linux sometimes dont have some advanced features of
> *BSD(if it is critical, you can hire developer and implement it), but in
> complete view much more powerful than BSD.
>

Glad you think that way, more power to you. Thank you for your insightful email.

Best Regards,

hisham.

-- 
Hisham Mardam Bey
MSc (Computer Science)
http://hisham.cc/
+9613609386
Codito Ergo Sum (I Code Therefore I Am)