Re: [tlug] BSD vs BSD vs Linux

[Ian Barwick <ianb@example.com>]

On Fri, 9 May 2003 patrick.niessen@example.com wrote:

(...)
> Why do Linuxers switch to BSD, and do they come back?

Now that Linux comes with point and click installers
free on every second computer magazine (at least
here in Germany) - to keep ahead of the herd ;-).

Seriously, I was a long-time SuSE user until
the beginning of last year, when I got to the
point where I needed a system upgrade. As SuSE had
abandoned their text config tool and replaced it
with something green and graphical I was after something
more vi orientated and after an odysee through the
usual suspects I settled on FreeBSD just for the
fun of it. The Linux compatibility layer eased the
transition and I like the ports system. No hardware
problems, apart from an IDE disk it refused to boot
from (though I am not exactly on the bleeding
edge here) .To my lasting surprise I even got
the motherboard's onboard sound working.

Since about last week I have returned to the penguin
pool, mainly because I have to run Oracle, which
doesn't work on FreeBSD very well at all (it might do,
but was more trouble than it was worth), and Java, which
does but isn't always current (1.4 isn't there yet).
There are also a few other Linux-only apps which work-but-not-quite
in FreeBSD, and a few minor general glitches and glitchettes
which are probably eminently solvable, but I have to sleep
sometimes too.

Actually, "returning" to Linux was a bit of a culture shock
because suddenly everything was so easy ;-).  I still
use FreeBSD on my workstation at work, the few Linux-only
apps I need there I can start over the network.

On balance, if the day had an extra two hours with which I
could hack FreeBSD, and wasn't quite as dependent on
Linux binaries, I would stay with FreeBSD.


Yours delurkingly


Ian Barwick