Operating Systems > Linux and UNIX
BSD vs. *NIX
Master of Reality:
i want to try out alternative operating systems.
I have Red Hat as my main computer and server, but i would like to try an operating system that differs from red hat. Do any of the other *nix operating systems differ very much from Red hat? Has anyone else used several different *nix's?
How about BSD, I have a copy of FreeBSD and used it from the command line for a couple minutes, but thats it. Whats is the differences between NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD?
askani:
BSD is basically UNIX. That means waaaay better secrity than Linux and a totally different kernel. My recomendation for you would be to get Open BSD for your server, cause that's pretty much the most secure (free)OS for servers. If you wanna know what it's like without actually trying one out look at Slackware Linux. That's the Linux distro that most resembles UNIX. You'll se it's got a different strartup process and all, but the packages are pretty much identical to Linux.I'm personally running mandrake, but that's just because OpenBSD only comes on CDs when you buy it, no ISO images for download. :( Ah well, Linux ain't half bad.... :cool:
askani:
Oh, and that's pretty much it for the UNIXe. There's also Solaris but that's quite user-unfriendly, HP-UX but that's only on HP graphic stations, and IRIX which is used on SGI comps (most of these aren't even made for i386 processors).
voidmain:
HP-UX is not only for HP Graphics stations. HP has some massive hardware and most of it doesn't even have a video card. See http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/scalableservers/superdome/index.html usually used for very large scale Database servers and the like.
Then of course there is AIX (IBM RS/6000 servers and the fastest super computers in the world), SCO, Darwin, AT&T, Minix, Xenix, Alpha UNIX, and many many many others.. But you are limited on what you can run on x86 hardware. Most *NIX like OSs are designed to run on vendor specific hardware.
[ April 20, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]
MikeU:
BSD differs from linux in that BSD was derived from the original AT&T/bell labs unix. But was worked on so much at berkely that none of the original code exists within BSD today.
BSD is a microkernel, while linux is a monolithic kernel. microkernel = a lot of smaller programs, while monolithic kernel = one big program. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but BSD is a lot more mature than Linux, and probably more stable, secure, etc.
All BSD variants are pretty similar ( so I hear ), but I've only used FreeBSD. FreeBSD strives to be the best BSD for i386 and Alpha processors. NetBSD strives to be the most portable BSD, works on pretty much any processor, ( again, so I hear ), and I'm not sure about OpenBSD, I haven't read much about it other than that it is really secure.
I hope that helps.
Mike
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