Linux, BSD Unix - Some of what I've Learned.

v0.3

04 Oct 15

You have a superseded desktop or laptop gathering dust.  Perhaps you have an itch, or you have a somewhat energetic and inquisitive young one who you would love to see entertained.

First off, if you just want to have a desktop with all the bells and whistles provided, then Linux Mint or Ubuntu are for you.

http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

If, however you want to dig a bit deeper then I have a story for you.  Navigating the Linux and BSD maze is a little like an adventure game, full of treading in cow-pats and "oh-wow" moments - and if you are caught off guard, full of career opportunities.

Before I start though, go to Wikipedia and look at the "Unix", "Linux", "Debian", "Slackware" and "FreeBSD"pages.  Having a look at "Distrowatch" wouldn't hurt either...

 So, what is the difference?  Which one to choose?  Here are a few random thoughts I have jotted down that you might find useful.

BSD and Linux

The first thing is that the "BSD" systems are direct descendants of the original Bell Labs UNIX.  If you want to run a Unix system, then choose one of these.  BSD Unicies are developed by a dedicated team to ensure everything works together.  Linux or more correctly GNU / Linux is a  collection of software pieces that together approximates a Unix-like system.  Whilst a person experienced in Linux would find a BSD system familiar, there are distinct differences.

Debian and Slackware

For many years, I ran both Debian and Slackware on various machines at home.  They are each excellent Linux distributions being the two oldest, and the basis for so many other Linux flavours.  One significant thing is that support for desktop features is far stronger in Linux than BSD.  Skype and Flash are two examples, although that "support" is not exactly strong.

Slackware is a KDE desktop-centric distro with no native support for Gnome or dependency checking.  It needs some tweaking of text configuration files - somewhat like Unix.  Debian is Gnome-centric and has excellent administrative tools with extensive dependency checking.

PC-BSD and FreeBSD

Even though I have a lot of respect for these Linux flavours, I now use FreeBSD - so how did that come about?

I moved from Slackware to Debian to get the admin tools and their integrated development cycle, but then gradually I started peeking at PC-BSD for its easy intallation and powerful ZFS file system.  Then Linux changed with many distros going for a new initialisation system called "systemd" which did concern me a little.  I thought of going back to Slackware but then tried PC-BSD for a bit and fell in love with Jails and ZFS.

Two things destroyed my PC-BSD experience.  Upgrades between versions were problematical, though I suspect that has been largely fixed.  The real killer was that it started mis-behaving after a graphic card replacement and then just plain refused to install.  FreeBSD installed fine, which was puzzling since PC-BSD is simply FreeBSD with lovely desktop polish and ease-of-use.

FreeBSD

Why do I like FreeBSD?

Unlike Linux, FreeBSD has a simple base installation.  It is a complete text environment with the Kernel and Userland (utilities) to allow you to use it as a C development platform.

All packages added by you the user are added under " /usr/local ".  I love this for two reasons.

• This allows sensible partitioning which I have used on an Asus eeepc to install a graphical environment.
• Updates are easy to understand and perform.  "freebsd-update" updates the base system and "pkg update" updates the user installed packages.

In order to make the most of the power of FreeBSD then the 64 bit version is preferred as the ZFS file system is not as stable on the 32 bit version and so the standard UFS file system is preferred on 32 bit.

ZFS - what is that?  Magic.  Pure Magic.

And for "Steak Knives" you get Jails.  A jail is a type of virtualisation with shared resources - those of you who know about jails will cringe at this but to get the idea across, that will do.

Don't expect to be up and running with FreeBSD in an instant.  Do some reading and watch some Youtube videos.  It is not hard to configure (there are two really important config files - /boot/loader.conf and /etc/rc.conf) and once you get the "zen" of it all it flows easily.

I really like FreeBSD for its stability and consistency - the more I use it the more I love it.



Later ...