Status on discussed merge between NetBSD and FreeFSD
Michael C. Newell
From your original posting, it sounds like we will
continue to have the choice to make between {386BSD, NetBSD,
FreeBSD}. This is fine; choices make life interesting. However,
you say the merger talks failed over some "technical issues",
but you don't say what these issues are. They are clearly
important, else they would not have derailed the merger. If
they are important, we need to know what they are so we can
decide which OS to choose.
I've seen a lot of "the difference between NetBSD and FreeBSD
is [pick one] is more stable." I've been using NetBSD 0.8 for
many months, and it seems pretty stable to me... Also, nobody
seems to define what they mean by "stable" - does this mean it
crashes with less frequency? The code doesn't change often?
Bug patches are posted more frequently? ???
I'm getting ready to upgrade from NetBSD 0.8 to either 0.9
or FreeBSD. I'd like to make a reasoned decision. To do this,
it would be nice if the NetBSD and FreeBSD teams would get
together and publish a joint statement, which includes
a. The philosophical differences between each product.
b. The technical differences between product approach.
c. The specific differences between the products.
- What does NetBSD have that FreeBSD doesn't?
- What does FreeBSD have that NetBSD doesn't?
- What's in the works for each system?
d. The COMPATABILITIES between systems. (e.g. "What
you need to keep in mind if you are writing an app
to run on BOTH FreeBSD and NetBSD.")
I understand there will always be technical differences between
groups of systems engineers. Often this is a Good Thing.
However, it would be nice for those of us that depend on your
product to understand what they are... :{)
Keep up the good work; it's MUCH appreciated!!
--
Michael C. Newell
NASA Advanced Network Applications
mne...@nsipo.nasa.gov
Sean Eric Fagan
>I'd like to make a reasoned decision.
I'm not jordan, but what the hey, I'll take a crack at it anyway :).
> a. The philosophical differences between each product.
netbsd wants to be a portable OS. This is a good thing. My apartmentmate
is running an early release of the mac version (on his mac, of course), as
well as 0.9 on his PC. (I'm still running 386bsd 0.1 + patchkits, because
my machine acts as a server for email and news to several people, so
upgrading without backups would have been a bad thing. Now I have a tape,
and will probably upgrade to freebsd-1.1 when it comes out.) Freebsd
started out as, basicly, the patchkits and has done a lot less R&D than
netbsd has. In that respect, it's "more stable." Both systems get pounded
on fairly heavily, so both are about equally "stable" in that respect.
Oh, freebsd has less people calling netbsd people bozo's in public :).
> b. The technical differences between product approach.
Hm. As I said, netbsd is "portable." They've also made some pretty stupid
design decisions, I think (the magic number, adding some system calls that
needn't've been such, some things like that), which the freebsd folks have
picked up, I think, to be compatible. Various portions of the code have
undergone extensive rewrites, and most of the utilities have been upgraded
to newer versions, if they are available. (Freebsd has done the upgrading
as well, I think, but less of the rewrites.)
> c. The specific differences between the products.
> - What does NetBSD have that FreeBSD doesn't?
Different ports. Extremely important if you have an amiga, a pc532, a
mac, an hp300, or a sparcstation (1-2, I think). Other than that, there's
not a lot that netbsd has that freebsd doesn't, or won't shortly. The
systems, as I think I tried to say above, feel slightly different. But I
go back and forth between my 386bsd and my apartmentmate's netbsd machines
all the time, and it doesn't bother me.
> - What does FreeBSD have that NetBSD doesn't?
That I don't really know anymore. The freebsd folks have a nice little
discussion going right now about some configuration/sysadmining changes
and tools; the impression I get from knowing some of the folks involved
is that the freebsd folks are less concerned with kernel hacking than with
system hacking (and the kernel is a small part of the system) than the
netbsd folks. (Heck, there's a kernel change I have been thinking about
making, and I would do it under netbsd, not freebsd, because of one of
those extensive rewrites I mentioned above. But, for reasons briefly
mentioned in another post, I won't. Bummer.)
> - What's in the works for each system?
Hm. Shared libraries for both. WINE for netbsd, hopefully dos emulation
as well. (Although cgd has stated that he wants to dump his x86 boxes,
and, once he does that, his concern for it will decrease dramatically.
That was a concern to me, but, well, again, not any longer.) More ports
for netbsd, probably a slow and constant change of the layout of the
entire system for freebsd. Nothing really major for either, at this point,
I think. Wait about six months :).
> d. The COMPATABILITIES between systems. (e.g. "What
> you need to keep in mind if you are writing an app
> to run on BOTH FreeBSD and NetBSD.")
I would have to say that you should compile to freebsd. Netbsd is, as I
said above, introducing new things, considerably faster than freebsd is,
so if you go for freebsd, things should always "just work" under netbsd.
Shared libraries may help that somewhat, but, then, once you have shared
libraries, you have to make sure that you don't try library routines that
are present on one system but not the other.
>I understand there will always be technical differences between
>groups of systems engineers. Often this is a Good Thing.
Yeah, true, but... *sigh* rifts are rarely good. Oh, well. Things are working
now, and will probably continue to work in the future. Various people are
doing active development on each, and some of the people are actually amenable
to sharing code 8-) 8-).
The long and the short of it is... I think you'd have to try both. Or find
an independent reviewer to compare both and write up a review. Until that
happens, you will have to rely on what the users say; I think both sets of
users are pretty happy with what they've got, so you won't really lose with
either decision.
Jordan K. Hubbard
FreeBSD}. This is fine; choices make life interesting. However,
you say the merger talks failed over some "technical issues",
but you don't say what these issues are. They are clearly
I did not say "technical issues" at all! I said "various problems and
fundamental differences of opinion", which is something else entirely.
The technical issues are, and have always been, the least of our
worries.
I've seen a lot of "the difference between NetBSD and FreeBSD
is [pick one] is more stable." I've been using NetBSD 0.8 for
I tried to make it very plain my my posting that "stability" is not
the fundamental differentiation point any more, and it's not (though
this did not stop Chris from going on to attack us on that point
anyway - sigh!)
I'll repeat:
"... some of the comp.os.386bsd.* newsgroups, both operating systems have
reached the point where they are both very useful (and relatively
stable) development platforms for the Intel architecture, and no one
would be wrong in chosing either of the two offerings."
Did anyone *read* my posting? :-)
c. The specific differences between the products.
- What does NetBSD have that FreeBSD doesn't?
- What does FreeBSD have that NetBSD doesn't?
- What's in the works for each system?
We'd have to update such a list once a week at the very least and it
just wouldn't be worth it. As always, the way to stay up to date is
to join one or both of the xxxbsd-hackers mailing lists since things
are just changing too rapidly for us to keep people updated any other
way! We could post a "new features/changes" list to this group once a
month, I suppose, and probably should - it's just that no one has
really had the time. I don't argue that the users who can't keep up
with the mail "firehoses" represented by the xxxbsd-hackers mailing
lists are somewhat deprived of other options..
Keep up the good work; it's MUCH appreciated!!
Thank you!
Jordan
--
(Jordan K. Hubbard) j...@violet.berkeley.edu, j...@al.org, j...@whisker.lotus.ie
Kaleb Keithley
Jordan: "blah blah blah white..."
chris: "blah blah blah black..."
Jordan: "blah blah blah white..."
chris: "blah blah blah black..."
Jordan: "blah blah blah white..."
chris: "blah blah blah black..."
Jordan: "blah blah blah white..."
etc., etc., etc.,
Could we have Hay-sous Monroy back. At least he, or more accurately the
flames he generated, was/were entertaining. ;-)
I really don't want to have to put you two guys in my kill file!
Obligatory *BSD content: How do I increase the number of ptys (in FreeBSD-1.0)?
Yeah, I know it's a stupid question, but I haven't gone looking yet and it
was an easy way to try and get this group back on track.
--
Kaleb Keithley