Kuvaton has a picture of operating systems, comparing them with cars. Or should I say, a picture of cars compared with operating systems?
FreeBSD: Like Linux but takes more cargo on the expense of being less customable.
I like the VMS one. What do you think of these comparisons? OK, fair or ridiculous?
This picture reminds me of the OS user mugshots that I posted a while back.
Dru Lavigne has uploaded her presentation done at Ohio LinuxFest. This slideshow describes the differences between (Free)BSD and Linux.
Some say comparing FreeBSD vs Linux benchmarks is unreliable and is as it were, comparing apples with pears.
For what it’s worth: the Phoronix team has done some FreeBSD 8.0 RC1 vs Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 6 benchmarking:
Both FreeBSD 8.0 and Ubuntu 9.10 will be included in our upcoming big operating system comparison, but for now we are just focusing upon comparing Ubuntu 9.10 and FreeBSD 8.0, but have also added in FreeBSD 7.2 for reference and to see how the performance of this BSD operating system has changed. With FreeBSD 8.0 we were using the AMD64 DVD of the first release candidate using a stock installation. With Ubuntu 9.10 we were using the x86_64 server CD of the Alpha 6 build. With FreeBSD not shipping with a desktop environment by default, we used the Ubuntu server CD so that both could be tested just from the terminal in a similar environment. All of the FreeBSD and Ubuntu options were left at their defaults. One of the package versions worth noting is that GCC 4.2.1 is used in both FreeBSD 7.2 and FreeBSD 8.0 while Ubuntu 9.10 is using GCC 4.4.1. FreeBSD was also using the default UFS file-system while Ubuntu 9.10 is running with EXT4. Each operating system was tested with its default settings (including any debug options) and packages to test an “out of the box” experience. We will be back with more benchmarks once each of these operating systems have been officially released.
and concludes that,
… more times than not, Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 6 came out on top compared to FreeBSD — both the 7.2 and 8.0-RC releases. Only in the 7-Zip, C-Ray, John The Ripper MD5, BYTE Unix Benchmark Dhrystone 2, and SQLite tests did FreeBSD outperform Ubuntu Linux. Between FreeBSD 7.2 and 8.0, the newer release generally did better but it had regressed with the 7-Zip, Gzip, MAFFT, and Threaded I/O Tester Read tests. That’s how the story pans out on a dual AMD Opteron quad-core workstation, but shortly we will be back around with our large operating system comparison on different hardware and with the final releases of these different operating systems to see how they compare.
Please note that 1) the inner workings of the two operating systems are different, and 2) neither of the systems are ready for release yet, so a lot of things will change and improve.
The well-know bench marking website Phoronix has carried out a benchmark run between Kubuntu 9.04 and PC-BSD 7.1 (20/04/2009)
Earlier this month PC-BSD 7.1 was released, which is based upon the FreeBSD 7.1 stable release, but of course with the extra packages and changes that make PC-BSD an easier to use BSD-based desktop operating system. PC-BSD 7.1 ships with X.Org 7.4 and KDE 4.2.2 installed along with many other packages when using the x86 or x64 DVD installations. Though with the Phoronix Test Suite now having enhanced support for PC-BSD, we decided to see how well PC-BSD 7.1 performs against Kubuntu 9.04.
Both systems perform almost equally (only seconds of difference), but Kubuntu scores more points in this test than PC-BSD.
I’d say that this test is not altogether “fair” as different versions of GCC and X.org have been used. This could easily have quite an impact on the results.
It would be interesting to see if Phoronix did this test again later on this year when FreeBSD 8.0 has come out.
Great Bay Software has announced (Press Release) that it has migrated their the OS of their appliances from Linux to FreeBSD.
The decision was motivated by FreeBSD’s license, stability and version control.
… In addition, the Great Bay has changed to FreeBSD® for all of its appliances, a move motivated by a quest for greater performance, more stability in terms of licensing, and better version control.
“For us, running on a generic Linux variant was no longer enough”, said Pettit.
“In our move to FreeBSD, we’ve seen dramatic improvements across the board. For example, in our most frequent database transactions we’ve actually tripled the performance of the system.”
Great Bay Software is the company behind Beacon Endpoint Profiler™ which is used for the deployment and management of 802.1X and Network Admission Control (NAC) systems. Their product is used in authentication-enabled networks, compliance initiatives, and incident response processes.
Links:
The open-source Debian operating system (Linux) gained support for the FreeBSD kernel last weekend (unstable / experimental), allowing users to run the same operating system on two different software cores.
The project was announced in a message to the Debian developers’ announcement list.
Will it be useful? Time will tell – internetnews.com
The Debian kFreeBSD Team have listed their reasons for enabling the FreeBSD kernel.
As of 21 March 2009 Linsux.org is no longer hosted on Linux, but proudly powered by FreeBSD.
According to this press release Tomahawk Computers has changed its Tomahawk Desktop from Linux to FreeBSD.
Tomahawk Desktop switches to BSD and raise funds
Tomahawk Computers Pte Ltd, Singapore, the makers of the Tomahawk Desktop operating system, is pleased to announce that the next version of the Tomahawk Desktop operating system would be based on the rock solid BSD code.
Tomahawk Desktop operating system is a general purpose operating system for personal computers/laptops based on BSD code with K Desktop Environment (KDE).
Current predicament of the desktop operating system market is people are in fact left with only two choices, either live with very serious security issues or buy software tied to hardware at high premium. This situation obviously create a lucrative and large market opportunity for us.
Our mission is to offer a secure operating system for desktop, laptop and mobile devices markets based on widely known Unix strengths for both closed source as well as open source applications and drivers to flourish without any legal hassle on wider choice of hardware.
Tomahawk’s main reason for switching is the GPL license and the Linux kernel:
Linux is an operating system kernel. FreeBSD is a tightly integrated operating system release.
Links:
Geekmalaya has a post with 18 points on why the writer thinks FreeBSD is better than Linux.
I’m only linking to this article for information – please don’t start a flame war here. Read the whole article and the reasoning here.
Source: geekmalaya.com – 22/01/2009
The discussion on GPL vs BSD licensing will probably never end, unless one or both licenses cease to exist.
There’s an interesting post about the GPL license and BSD license, and the writer’s suggests that the public domain license is the license to be chosen for real freedom, as the other two lay restrictions on the user.
About the GPL license he notes:
That’s what the GPL really is. A binding contract : That is a set of restrictions on those who use, develop or modify content licensed under it. It is not now or has ever been a formula on “freedom”. The GPL is not the definition of “generocity” that is giving without expecting any return. I hope all you GPL advocates would stop treating it as such and call it what it is. A license and a binding contract. Nothing more.
I.e. GPL restrictions are there to keep the freedom to change, modify, and share the code.
With regards to the BSD license he remarks:
Unlike the GPL, the BSD license doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t and users of BSD license are well aware that, like all licenses, it is a binding contract between developers, distributors, and users. They have no delusions about how much “freedom” both licenses afford however the BSD still being a license it still has usage restrictions. Namely the copyright and disclaimer.
Developers using the BSD license don’t care nor want to police the actions of users once the source is copied. They’re not interested in “freedom” through coersion, which is actually slavery. They just want to make sure their products and sources are available from them regardless of need or future availability. If the users want to share their own modifications, then more power to them. But they’ll be damned if it’s by force.
I.e. the BSD license lets users do whatsoever they want with the software, even using it commercially (in closed source).
If real freedom is to be chosen, the author suggests going down the public domain route. This license places basically no restrictions whatsoever on your software. Anybody can use the software, may sell it or do with it what (s)he wants.
Read the post in its entirity.
Talking about blog posts discussing GPL vs BSD, here’s another recent one: BSD vs GPL (nevali.net – 30/12/2008)