Comments on: FreeBSD 8.0 vs. Ubuntu 9.10

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:17:56 +0000

Mad Scientist: But wait. Ubuntu is simply Debian Linux with a fancied up distro wrapper, and can get a version that is difficulified (programmed to boot to command prompt so you have to “runx” to see a mouse cursor). Debian is a standard Linux based on the Linux Kernel, and the differences in network trasaction times is kernel related. Most network platforms are either plain old Linux of one kind or another or something else virtualized on a Linux platform.

So almost everybody is doing what you say they shouldn’t do. Explain yourself!!!

By: Rorschach

Rorschach — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:02:33 +0000

I see this from a practical point of view these days.Computers are tools that I want to perform certain tasks, Windows is fucked up for way too many reasons and W7 doesnt rectify that, BSD while “pure” does not have good new hardware support or community support, so the middle way is something like Ubuntu, which gives me command line plus desktop plus community plus hardware support, so shit just works out of the box.Works for me.

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:33:28 +0000

I doubt that anyone who is concerned with high volume network transactions would install Ubuntu, so the SQL comparison doesn’t really matter.

@Phaedrus: *BSD runs all the same software as Linux – each bit of software has its own license (although the GPL2+3 dominate). The BSD kernel has a modified BSD license. It is not more “business friendly” than the Linux kernel but it is a more permissive license (you can grab the code and not share modifications). The “you don’t have to share” bit is probably a huge factor in why there are far fewer developers for *BSD. RedHat and IBM find the BSD license extremely unfriendly for that reason – why should they sink millions (hundreds of millions for IBM) into development if their competitors can grab it and improve on it without sharing?

By: Ray Ingles

Ray Ingles — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:21:34 +0000

One advantage to choosing a less-popular OS is that exploits for it are less common. My webserver runs an uncommon httpd on an uncommon OS on an uncommon hardware platform. The cost in time and effort to attack it exceeds any possible value to be gained from successfully subverting it.

Which is the practical definition of ‘security’, if you think about it…

By: gruebait

gruebait — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:56:06 +0000

Co-inky-dink.
The next-to-last click of my mouse was on a link to this comic from 2000:
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20000808

Apparently, with BSD, you don’t have to be that smart.

By: Jim Hall

Jim Hall — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:28:14 +0000

Phaedrus: Ubuntu is a Linux distro, so the kernel and core components are under the GNU GPL, same as any other distro.

By: Phaedrus

Phaedrus — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:35:04 +0000

When I was part of a team designing a network appliance, we chose a BSD derivative as a starting point because of its long history of security and stability. Also, I think the BSD license is much more business friendly than the GNU license (not sure what license Ubuntu is released under).

The fact that Ubuntu ships with a desktop environment clearly makes a difference for the beginning user – especially any Windows convert.