Why I have decided to switch from Linux to BSD

[William Pullen]

Recently I have decided to switch from Ubuntu linux to Freebsd and here I am going to outline why.

1. The Ubuntification of linux: Lately I have noticed a trend on social bookmarking sites, mainly digg, which have people posting articles with titles like "Ubuntu Tutorials" or something similar. In fact most of these articles apply to any distrubution and very few have anything even remotely ubuntu specific. So I dont like the idea that linux users are being so divided over distros and also that now people are starting to see ubuntu and not linux. I am all for the advancement of linux and other free and opensource operating systems, but not with sacrificing the core idea of the OS.

2. The GPL: This is another thing that bothers me about linux is that the gpl is so restrictive on everything you do has to be opensource because that is better and produces better results. However people dont respond to this obviously, I personallty believe some open source projects are better than there coporate rivals but they are few and far between. It is simple economics that people see price as quality and they judge the quality of a good or service by how much a firm is willing to spend on advertising. So I think the BSD license is a far better idea. Having opensource projects is great, but I think that if someone has a vast improvement to the source code they should be able to fork it and if they choose to sell it. Normally this does not effect me, but recently I would like to learn about how unix operating systems are built and hand core functions, and eventually try and build a simple os(like im not talking tomorrow but mb after college) and if it grows to be something good enough maybe use it for commercial use. I just dont think that making a complete port of firefox because of licensing of the logo is really necessary and its acts like this that just make you say why does it matter. There is probably a large number of linux users that dont even know they are using the gnu operating system not too many people say oh im using GNU/Linux they just say Linux.

3. Too many distros and repositories: I like the idea that FreeBSD is a simple implementation of unix and does not have as many distros and as many repositories to keep track of. The FreeBSD ports has something like 60,000 software packages in it which seems plenty to me. Also the packages are almost all one file extension which is a problem that is plaguing linux. I dont know how many times I couldnt find the deb of a program but found the rpm and when trying to install it have it fail or vice versa when I used Fedora Core. I think it is not good for the different distros of linux to become so different from each other. As I mentioned before people dont search for linux tutorials as much as they used to, if you want to find out how to recompile your kernel you gotta look up "Compiling the Kernel: The Ubuntu/Debian/Gentoo/Centos way".

4. If it is good enough for Apple: If the BSD kernel is good enough for Apple to steal and slap a pretty gui on it and call it Darwin it must be good enough for me. Yea I usually dont agree with anything Apple does. I hate the arrogance of Mac users mostly because a lot of them brag about their macs, but are not very computer literate and dont understand what they are bragging about. You can say that the avg PC (oh im sorry IBM compatible PC to be correct because Apple cant admit their computers are PC's further adding onto the incompetence of the mac users. Although apparently Sony thinks a vaio isnt a PC either, but no one has much stock in what Sony thinks these days.) user, but then again the average windows based PC user is nto bragging about it. Im sure Mac users are proud of their operating system with its pretty buttons and its "UNIX core" but how many know what unix it is and that their UNIX core would be better described as a UNIX-like core. Also a computer is all it is you dont have to make it a life style.

Ok so I think I outlined my points good enough, got a good ammount of Apple bashing in so im gonna call it a day.

[TheNNS]

I don't agree with you, expect the last part, those mac people think their superior to anyone that doesn't use a mac.

Why is it a bad thing that there are so many distros? I like been able to have a choice and not just have limited. It's true that it's heck trying to install rpm's, but not under fedora or red hat. Ubuntu, and many others have their nice little repositories.

Last of all, why should people care if it's called GNU/Linux or just Linux? call it what you want.

[mikeandike22]

Well for the Distros part its because you are splitting the operating system like for example there is no longer one common way to compile a kernel for each distro if you read all the tutorials that are out there. I just dont think they should splinter it that much because people will be confused when they want to decide to move to linux and they dont have any idea wat distro to choose. I can see why you disagree thats your opinion. For the GNU/Linux thing I recently watched a video on the history of linux I believe it is on google video in its entirity and there is some hostility for the people who created the GNU OS and get little credit for it.

[Mushy-pea]

I agree. BSD is definitely better than Linsux. I just installed netBSD 3.1 on an old PII with 64 MB RAM today. Got the Xwindows desktop going easily. I tried to run X on Slax Linux a few weeks ago on the same machine and it was like "Arrrggg?!? Not enough memory, I'm going to crash now!". Also, netBSD has a translation layer that (is supposed to) let you run other BSD and Linux apps with no hassle. I don't know why people bother with the penguin so much.

[hollywood529]

note: Apple doesn't use the BSD kernel, it uses the the Mach kernel with a BSD userland

[mikeandike22]

oh all it doesnt specifically say on the Apple site it just says
"With its open-source core based on FreeBSD 5.0 and the Mach 3.0 microkernel, Mac OS X is the best Macintosh operating system ever for UNIX users." So I assumed it was using parts of both kernels.

[Junyah]

I wanna try BSD out of curiousity ... if I like it i'll switch

I'm one of those computer illiterates .. or novices ... I used to be a hobbyist from the old z80,6502, and 8080 days. You deal with the computer cards your dealt with a you go from there. I am a ranger first and computer dude when the call arises. i just can't get our IT contractors to go to our remote locations."

I worked my way to ubuntu by accident. But do you recommend BSD for us beginners. I heard about BSD from one of my coworkers but he was talking above our heads. So he did not communicate if we could easily install it and it would work right away. and he would not be doing the installation the individual teachers and interpreters would be doing it.

My motivation for going to ubuntu linux was budgetary adn my last ditch effort - I was experimenting with fedora. But I had to find a distro that 1. Could get our resource centers computers working right away. 2. Any staff member could install 3. could understand multiple hardware configurations.

ubuntu also mailed me a bunch of disks and a bunch of edubuntu disks for my education department. does bsd have an educational package? that would be a prerequisite for my teaching staff.

I don't beleive in bashing computers makes .. it goes back to do you like apples oranges or pears. Whatever works, whatever cards your dealt you use. I don't put myself on a pedastal cause i own a mac ... I spend time using my mac for work, music studio and photography. I use dells, toshibas, HPs and palms also but they each have their jobs to do run records checks, checking water levels, databases .. but I can also do that on my lowly G4 PPC Mac. I don't talk above the other staff members about brands of computers software distro's ... I spend more time helping them with what they want to do with their computers so they can get to doing what they are doing.

Before I tranferred from Law Enforcement to Parks my Sgts. and Officers were arguing what guns were better.They were wasting time agruing before they qualified.. Glock, S&W, Colts, Barettas, SIGs, Browning or H&K. While they were arguing ...I asked if I could use theur weapons. I went out and shot each of their weapons and there targets ... The rangemaster laughed and when I was finished we left to the cafeteria when we came back they were still arguing ..so the rangemaster pulled in the targets for them.... I shot high scores with all their guns. Moral of the story.... None I just like telling the story

[pty]

Your reasons are stupid. "I'll stop using ubuntu cos there are too many Digg headlines about it! oh noes!".

Use the best tool for the job at hand and stop moaning about what other people are saying/doing.

If this was Digg I'd bury you

[mikeandike22]

It isnt that there are a lot of stories about it. I think that distros like Ubuntu have split linux so now there is an ubuntu way of doing everything and its not just ubuntu im just using it as an example because it is most common.

[jwenting]

So you're opposed to Linux because one distro is gaining the upper hand (at least among new users), and at the same time you're opposed to Linux because there are too many distros out there.

Which is it?

I do agree with your statements about GPL and OS in general, that neither is a guarantee of quality and that the GPL is too restrictive to develop software under it.