Ubuntu first time

[Alejandro Imass]

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 10:03 AM, Lennart Sorensen
<lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 09, 2012 at 07:30:33PM -0500, Alejandro Imass wrote:
>> No man, you can't assert that just like that. We use Ubuntu on a daily
>> basis and for much more than just simple stuff. I did find 11 to be
[...]

> I can't honestly take any of the BSDs seriously anymore.  They are just
> so outdated compared to Linux.  I used to use netBSD but haven't for
> about a decade now.  There simply is not reason to.
>

I think this is a very  myopic statement and shows that the Linux
crowd needs to get out more, especially so in the Debian crowd.

Let me just point out *some* differences between FBSD and Linux. And
again, I'm not saying that Linux is bad, but since you have made it a
habit to throw careless FUD everywhere it is necessary to point just
some benefits of FBSD:

1) For starters, Linux's overly-optimistic vm is really crappy for
high-load systems and no matter how you tweak it you will never get
the high-load stability of a FBSD kernel. At least not to date. A
simple example, just push linux to near exhaustion of swap and:
*boom*, you will need to eventually reboot as it never recovers
completely. The over optimistic vm is a well known problem in the
Linux Kernel, and _any one_ can try this at home with ab or httperf
with a 2.6.x. Linux kernel running a memory hungry multi-threaded
Apache application.

2) Another problem with Linux is the mixing of base system and
applications. In *BSD there is a clear-cut separation between the base
system and the application world, making it not only extremely secure,
but very stable in upgrades. You can upgrade apps and system
practically independent from each other. This could easily be done by
any Linux distro, but none to date have.

3) FBSD Jails: There is nothing like this in the Linux world to date,
and it's a shame because it would be so easy as is nothing more than a
sophisticated chroot environment. Jails amongst other things (like
pseudo-virtualization without overhead) allows you to further separate
base system from running services with so-called "service jails"

4) The ports/package system. One thing that is superior IMO with the
FBSD posrts system is the way they are able to use packages directly
from source and use a very clever patching mechanism, which is a
*light* modification to the original package.This makes it relatively
easy to use the newest versions of the source paakcges. Debian, on the
other hand (and may other a Linux distro)  , tend to modify packages
extensively to make them *their way* and this is not only inefficient
and resource intensive, but brings forth may problems and goes against
common-sense and cost-effective maintainability.

These are only scratching the surface. The point here is not saying
that FBSD is better than Linux because they each serve a purpose and
should be respected for that. Linux may be great for some applications
but that also holds true for *BSD and other Open Source OSs; things
like MenuetOS, Open Solaris, etc, which most Linux enthusiasts ignore
altogether, living in their own little Linux world and fighting over
KDE vs. Gnome and Debian vs. Ubuntu vs. Fedora, Free Software vs. Open
Source, etc.

I use and love Linux on a daily basis, but also FBSD and MacOSX and
they are all great systems each with it's pros and cons, virtues and
flaws. And yes, it took me many years to abandon zealotry and discover
a broader and richer world in Free Software _and_ Open Source.

Best,

-- 
Alejandro Imass
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