[ale] BSD.v.Linux essay

[James P. Kinney III]

On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 14:38 -0500, runman wrote:
> You might want to re-check OpenBSD as they now have RAID support for some HW
> as well as more drivers.  Their support of RAID has changed by leaps and
> bounds in the past 6 months especially.  This weakness of OpenBSD is the
> result of their dedication to certain coding standards as well as their
> particular definition of what is "free" and what isn't.  It is neither good
> nor bad - just the way they do things.  All OS's have their particular
> strengths and weaknesses.
> 
Dell uses lots of closed stuff for their RAID components from Adaptec.
This makes having a working open source driver for OpenBSD basically
impossible.

However, I did see a OpenBSD Ports site (sorry, transient link for me)
where several of the PERC RAID drivers and management codes had been
ported to OpenBSD. This would give the same toolset to OpenBSD that
Linux has had for a while now (since RH 7.2 at least and backported to
RH6).

> - Greg  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of James
> Sumners
> Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 1:56 PM
> To: jloden at toughguy.net; Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [ale] BSD.v.Linux essay
> 
> The only problem I have had with BSD, specifically OpenBSD, is driver
> support. The last time I gave it a shot was about two years ago. I wanted to
> load it on an old Dell PowerEdge (a very big and heavy
> machine) and use it to run an in-house web server. I eventually got it to
> load but it would keep crashing because of the RAID controller.
> Evidently, there was some quirk to the hardware that the Linux drivers
> either work around or ignore but the BSD drivers crashed upon encountering
> it. When the hard drives won't consistently work because the controller
> drivers keep crashing the system then the OS is useless.
> 
> Admittedly, that is only one machine (well, machine type. I had multiple
> machines of the same model to work with), but the experience left me with an
> impression that the driver support is lacking even more than Linux's.
> However, I use a BSD derivative every day on my PowerBook and am quite happy
> with it. The cp command can be a little quirky (
> http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051112100007372&lsrc=osx
> ) but I get by :)
> 
> On 11/22/05, Jay Loden <jloden at toughguy.net> wrote:
> > I read this article a while back and it actually convinced me to give 
> > FreeBSD another try. The author is a pretty fair to both sides (though 
> > clearly somewhat biased to his choice, BSD). Mostly he just points out 
> > that BSD is all about a controlled development process and structure, 
> > whereas Linux grabs anything useful from wherever it can find it. It's 
> > not that one is better than the other necessarily, just different.
> >
> > Both have their merits, but certain people's personalities may fit 
> > better with one of the other. In a lot of respects, despite being more 
> > familiar with Linux, I'm finding a lot of things on my test FreeBSD 
> > install that I like. It took some getting used to before I realized 
> > they're not the same thing just because they both have *nix roots, but 
> > once I got over that hurdle things were easier.
> >
> > The best thing about FreeBSD so far has been documentation. Everything 
> > from man pages to the FreeBSD handbook has been clear, up to date, and 
> > useful. I appreciate that a lot, especially the handbook.
> >
> > On Monday 21 November 2005 7:31 pm, Cy Kurtz wrote:
> > > Here's an essay we might enjoy batting about for a while:
> > >
> > > http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/bsd4linux1.php
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >
> 
> 
> --
> James Sumners
> http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/
> 
> "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological
> personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the
> corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a
> condition to which they are quickly addicted."
> 
> Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto) CH:D 59
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-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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