On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 2:37 PM, Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo@gmail.com>wrote:
Hello Joseph,
The answer to all those questions you have raised - it's why I never use Linux :-) This was a general comparison, not biased towards any single Linux or any single *BSD.
Honestly speaking, I don't understand the Linux development system. With FreeBSD, you have a group of people who are responsible for the Operating System, the utilities and the additional software (wether ports or packages). With Linux, you have a group of people who are responsible for the Operating System and utilities. And a group of people who are responsible for the additional software.... And a group of people who are distributing it..... And they all are different people..... And last but not least... which distribution should I take? If I choose Red Hat or Debian or Suse, what are the consequences for later? Can I run the program compiled with Debian Linux under Red Hat or Suse. Can I even get it compiled?
I'm not saying that Linux is bad, evil or something. There are just a lot of things I don't understand or agree with regarding it. Well, the same thing applies to other operating systems. Closed and Open.
Lol! I understand what you mean. But those are the exact reasons I go with GNU/Linux, and the Debian distribution for now :) The thing I like about GNU/Linux is that there are so many options available. It's almost like there's a distribution targeted at each and every "kind" of use. There are binary-based distributions (what most of us are used to), and there are source-based ones like Gentoo Linux (much like FreeBSD Ports). There are language-specific ones, LiveCD ones, ones targeted at all sorts of uses [1]. In GNU/Linux, the guys you deal directly with are the "distributions". They make sure that everything works together coherently, and take care of things like software bugs, security, feature updates, and such. They deal directly with the software developers, on your behalf. I don't think it's so much different from the way the xBSDs do it. Only that the whole "organisation" is distributed on a huge scale. I don't know if this makes them worse, in terms of quality. As for your question about running a binary from a different distribution - many of these distributions "package" (almost) the same software, so it's simply a matter of looking for it in the package collection and installing it. If you want to build your packages locally, there are distributions (such as Gentoo Linux) that are geared towards that sort of thing. And for packages not in the distribution's collection, you can always build and install it manually, as long as you can get the source code. I guess they're just different way of doing things. [1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions> Joseph.