BSD family of UNIX systems is based on source code to real UNIX was developed at Bell Labs, which was later bought by the
BSD stands behind the philosophy of TCP / IP network and the Internet that, it is a developed Unix system with advanced features. Apart from proprietary BSD / OS, whose development was interrupted, there are currently four BSD systems available: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Mac OS X, which is derived from FreeBSD. There are also various forks of these, like PC-BSD - a FreeBSD clone, or Miro, an OpenBSD clone. The intention of such forks is to include various characteristics missing in the above BSD systems, which these (forks), regardless o
f how well they are designed, only strongly depend. PC-BSD, for example, has more graphical features than FreeBSD, but there are no significant differences between these two. PC-BSD can not breathe without FreeBSD, FreeBSD or OpenBSD are independent of each other.
What is Linux?
While users like to use the term "Linux" for all Linux distros including packages (Red Hat Linux, Mandrake Linux, etc.) for IT professionals Linux is only the kernel. Linux started in 1991 when its author, Linux Torvals began work on a free replacement of Minix. Developers of a lot of Linux system utilities used source code from BSD, as both these systems began in parallel at approximately the same time (1992-1993) as Open Source.
Today there are a few if not many developers of their own kernels / operating systems (FreeDOS, Agnix, ReactOS, Inferno, etc.) but these guys simply missed the right train in the right hour. They had not lost anything, except that they may be even better programmers, but without public opinion recognizes this as a whole. Linux built his fame also from the work of many developers, and he went on board in time. Linux deserves credit as a software idea policy makers, and he helped a lot in this area.
(Open) BSD vs Linux
It is often difficult to say what is better if you compare two things without regard to the purpose of their application. Mobile Internet may appear better for someone who travels often, but for people working at home such mobility is not required. Against this background it is a stupid question when someone asks: "What is better, a mobile or static Internet?" It all depends ...
If you compare Linux and OpenBSD in their desktop environment features, Linux offers more applications than OpenBSD, but in a server solution BSD systems are known to be robust, more stable and secure, and without so many patches distributors release soon after their new version Linux slipped to light.
BSD systems are based upon real Unix source code, unlike Linux, developed from scratch (kernel).
Differences between BSD and Linux
1) BSD license allows users / companies to modify a program's source code and not to release changes to the public. In other words, the BSD license commercial use and incorporation of a code into proprietary commercial products. This is how Microsoft incorporated BSD networking into their products and how Mac OS X makes money through muscles of FreeBSD.
Linux uses the GPL license for most of the time (applications in Linux can also have a BSD license - or no license, and it is up to developers how they decide). With a GPL-licensed program anybody can change the source code, he or she must share it with the Open Source community to ensure that all will benefit from such a change.
2) BSD are the "core system" (without packaging). The core consists of basic utilities (like ssh, fdisk, various commands such as chmod or sysctl, manual pages, etc.) and anything beyond this is strictly seen as an add-on. Linux (not just the kernel, of course) is usually packaged as whole system where this difference is not visible.
3) On BSD systems, all add-on packages are strictly installed in / usr / local directory: documents to user / Local / share / docs / application_name, themes and other stuff to / usr / local / share / application_name; binary files / usr / local / bin / application_name. By application_name we believe a program name, so if you install IceWM, for example, the binary will be here: / usr / Local / bin / icewm. With Linux, on the other hand, all applications are usually installed in / usr / bin directory.
4) BSD systems use the system of "gates" which are fingerprints of applications in the / usr / ports directory, where a user can "cd" and execute a make command that will retrieve via a directive contained in such fingerprint's code, the program source and the system will make it so good. "Ports" are actually add-on packages for BSD systems, and they are packed in packages repository of a concrete BSD system. They can be installed as binary also using "pkg_add" either directly from the Internet or locally. But the "port" has the advantage that if an author of a package makes a new version, a user can immediately get its newest / updated version. Packages released for a given BSD version (like OpenBSD 4.1) is not updated and users have to wait for a new BSD release (like OpenBSD 4.2).
5) BSD systems have also their stable version. With FreeBSD, for example you have a FreeBSD Release (a version that can be used normally), FreeBSD Stable (system more profound revision of errors and security holes), and a development version - Current, which is not steady and not recommended for a regular use. Some Linux distributions started to imitate this philosophy, but with BSD systems this way to make distributions has been a regular.
6) Of course the kernel is absolutely different.
7) BSD has FFS file system, it is the only filesystem on BSD's contrary to Linux, where you can use dozens of file systems as ext2, ext3, ReiserFS, XFS, etc.
8) BSD systems divide their partitions internally. This means that after installing a BSD system to a hard drive, programs like fdisk will PartitionMagic, Norton Ghost and many others do not see this internal division of a BSD (FFS) disk, so repartitioning of a disk is not such a pain when administrators require a rigorous partitioning (for / home, / tmp, / var, / etc directories). As a consequence, also naming convention differs slightly: a disk - / dev/ad0s3b in FreeBSD indicates that you are dealing with "slice" 3 ("s3") similar to Linux / dev/hda3, internal "partition" is the name in a letter: "a", "b", "e" etc. ("b" is a swap partition). BSD systems also use different naming conventions for devices (disks, etc.).
9) Unless you're doing a good kernel hack, BSD systems can be installed in the primary partition. It is not the rule with Linux. But as BSD systems offer above internal distribution of partitions, this is not any pain. Computer architecture for disks (IDE) follows the rule that you can only have four primary partitions. We will illustrate this on Linux: / dev/hda1 (note: the first partition on master disk on first IDE channel), / dev/hda2 (second partition) / dev/hda3 (third partition), / dev/hda4 (fourth partition). PC architecture allows creation of the "logical disk on a physical disk (/ dev/hda5, / dev/hda6, etc.). You can have as many logical disks / partitions as you want and you can also install Linux into these "logical disks". On the other hand, installing a BSD OS in such a "logical partition" is not usually possible.
10) System Configuration manual for most of the time, but the various clones like PC-BSD break this convention. The manual method is a very good thing, as administrators have everything under control without being pushed to waste time in a labyrinth of bloated configuration menus. A good comparison is to imagine a car mechanic repairing car engine covered by a thick blanket. To give yourself a little better example - you will hardly find a Linux distribution, not having a default X startup (graphical environment). Of course you can turn off your X environment during installation configuration, but if you keep just forget us and forget to turn this off or you have trouble finding it in the menu somewhere, you realize that most Linux distributors purely actually imposes on us only one way - to put our fingers first on the thick carpet, then on the motor. If you are a good administrator, you usually do not trust vendors who program how to use Linux - you're the boss, and you must have your own freedom. But in most cases you lose few hours instead of to disable various services that are unfortunately not necessary, but almost always enabled by default. Linux is praised both for being a good desktop and server, but administrators of a good server does not need X. The more software is stored on your hard drive, the more security problems you will face, because it is impossible to review every package in every conceivable situation. Good and secure systems are always tight, light and simple.
11) All BSD systems have a Linux emulation support. Running BSD binaries on Linux is a little harder.
12) BSD systems have less support from driver vendors so that they are behind with this view (they are not worse, but many vendors support only Microsoft and Linux). With a BSD system, you must carefully research the Internet for supported products / chipsets before purchasing any hardware.
13) BSD systems do not use Unix System V runlevel scripts "(initialization Start scripts) like Linux.
14) BSD kernels can be configured for multiple security levels. This is also possible with Linux, but BSD's has been a very good care of this kernel-tuning feature, which makes it even possible to alter any files in higher security levels - you can not delete them.
15) BSD's have everything under one roof. Different Linux programs are often not even compatible with other Linuces. For example, if you install a SuSE RPM package on Mandrake can not work. BSD's has a solid crown of power. If you move from Linux to FreeBSD, you will soon find out that you got out of this chaos. Want a package? Just visit: http://www.freebsd.org/ports/ and download it. Unless the developer made some programming error, it will always work.
16) General BSD systems boot and reboot faster than Linux. Linux can do this, too, but it must be stopped. It is very surprising that Linux is shipped on one side of the huge DVD and on the other hand, it has a compressed core. BSD systems do not use (but they can be) a standard core that is compressed, so the system boots always faster. Linux vendors program users to use different, often unnecessary services. We do not need SAMBA (file and print services) and many other things too. Linux reboot process takes longer because the various services that run on Linux will need time for deactivation. Many Linux users do not even know what is the purpose of these services.
17) In comparison to BSD, most Linux distributions is overbloated. Few good users noticed this some time ago and a new trend in the Linux world started with ideas to get closer to a BSD-style use. One of these distributions is Gentoo Linux, but also Slackware Linux, which has maintained a very good shape since its first publication (1993). Gentoo "About" page (http://www.gentoo.org) says that "Gentoo is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD ..." Therefore, if you use Slackware or Gentoo, they will Linuces always reboot faster than any other Linux.
18) When you compile programs from ports, you will not stumble in drafting error. BSD packagers prepare their packages thoroughly, so that users will always pick them luck. This does not always happen with Linux.
