OS Installations
 

I'm going to install a number of different operating systems on a spare system and document the experiences. The initial exercise will be a BSD from among FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. Any comments or suggestions as to why one would be preferred over another?

I've been looking at this a lot this week, though I am definitely not an expert.

You can more easily boil this down into two questions.

What is different between FreeBSD and NetBSD?

NetBSD's motto is "Of course it runs NetBSD". It was made to be extremely portable. It is also more focused on security and is supposedly more geared towards developers than the end-user.

FreeBSD was based on 386BSD. It is supposed to perform better and be the most stable operating system. My instructor worked for NASA in 1965 when he was only 17, and then as CIO(?) of a Fortune 500 company, so I imagine he's got some credibility. He would rarely talk about OpenBSD and NetBSD, but would often talk about FreeBSD.



What is different between NetBSD and OpenBSD?

I'm not exactly sure, but my research seems to suggest OpenBSD gets a lot more development than NetBSD, so it's basically a more advanced version. On the development side, OpenBSD uses only open-source software. NetBSD will use closed source third party drivers and


FreeBSD:
Stability
Performance

NetBSD
Security
advantage of closed-source software

OpenBSD
Security!!
Access to every single part of the OS

Hopefully this will help guide your research.

P.S. A lot of people are mentioning that ipsec doesn't come with FreeBSD.

Thank you for validating the things that I read in preparation. Was there a recommended choice in there somewhere?

Well, if you're taking suggestions for different OS's as well, then I would suggest comparing BSD with Linux. Maybe test out Solaris, as there seems to be some questions about that. Maybe you could also check out one of the Windows Vista betas and compare it with that of xp and/ or 2000. Hell, you could even check out some hobby OS's like Menuet, BeoS, ReactOS, AtheOS, or any of the ones here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operating_systems.

Maybe not all of those, but if you've got the time you could compile a list of operating system comparisons from an experienced computer user such as yourself ;).

Thank you for your suggestions. I have a Debian distro, which is why a Linux will not be the initial shot. I will probably not mess with any RTOSes, either, but OSes which modern young desktop/laptop users might choose. The "hobby" category does sound interesting, I must admit. Unfortunately, that would tilt the emphasis toward technical/experimental instead of generally useful. One of the important characteristics will be the availability of useful software for professional (but not computer-literate) people, as well as the average computer-illiterate home user.

If I can get some spare machines, I'm going to test a few Operating Systems as well. I'll probably be geared more towards the hobby arena with distros like Zeta, OS/2*, and SkyOS. If you would like to tell me what methods you are using to test them, I might be able to provide you some useful feedback.

As for the BSD distros, I would not recommend NetBSD. NetBSD was created by Theo de Raadt, who was subsequently kicked off the project. After that, it seems to have slowed development substatially.

I would reccomend FreeBSD if you want performance, or OpenBSD if you want to work on it or if you need security more. Both are rock-solid stable from everyone I have talked to. If it were me, I'd run FreeBSD though. I've used FreeBSD before in fact, but I have never used OpenBSD so I can't really compare.

For the home user, BSD isn't really a good distro. It's more for server use.



*I know OS/2 is commercial, but it's mostly used by hobbyists now.

If you wanted to go for one out of the three, I'd go straight for FreeBSD.

That is unless your 'spare computer' is a cardboard box with a gopher inside it. Then you *might* want to go for NetBSD instead. ;)

Theo now works on OpenBSD. The fork of Open from Net happened well over 10 years ago, so while development might have slowed, NetBSD has come a long way.

It would be nice to compare operating systems that are similar and different. I think you should make a list of the systems you test and share them with us. If you get a large enough list maybe you could get lucky and publish a book discussing the differences and similarities (sorry for spelling on that) between them.

There's another kind?? :confused:

so what's the end goal here? is there some big master mind plan you have to develop some thing or are you just checking out OS'es for useablity?