Subj : *BSD
To   : Russell Tiedt
From : Roy J. Tellason
Date : Tue Jun 19 2001 06:05 pm

Russell Tiedt wrote in a message to Roy Tellason:

 RT> Hi Roy,

 RT> Something from a FreeBSD list I subscribe to

Particulars on the list would be of interest.

 RT> We have been working on NetBSD, with a little OpenBSD experience as
 RT> well, for a couple of years. Do yourself a favour: get a box up and
 RT> running and give it a look! Okay, let me try and be brief and
 RT> unbiased about the 3: 

 RT> FreeBSD: of the 3, this is the most supported and used, if you are
 RT> on an i386 platform. It has the most up to date software packages
 RT> available, good hardware support, and good docs and helpful people
 RT> out there.

That explains the enthusiasm seeming to lean toward that one.

 RT> OpenBSD: this is the security focused BSD. It has fewer software
 RT> updates and packages available, but all O/S code is audited so that
 RT> it will be secure. We have also found the network capability to be
 RT> very good, and have a whole stack of OpenBSD gateways that are
 RT> doing IP filtering, NAT, ppp, and VPN all over the place. Also good
 RT> documentation and helpful people here.

That explains the mention in the security-oriented lists I've seen mention it.

 RT> NetBSD: this is the O/S that our company lives in! One word:
 RT> portability. It runs on something like 42 different platforms, from
 RT> mainframes to PDAs to Sega Dreamcast Gameboxes! The packages and
 RT> software are a little behind FreeBSD, so you are likely to have to
 RT> fight with it a bit more, but once again friendly helpful people.
 RT> We write software for different platforms, and NetBSD is a dream:
 RT> one set of source code, many different platforms running it!

Hmm.  Sounds nifty!

 RT> Hope that helps a bit: give me a shout if you want to know anything
 RT> more....

Yes indeed,  that was a lot of what I was looking for.

 RT> Cheers
 RT>  Bruce

 RT> -----Original Message-----
 RT> From: owner-clug-tech@clug.org.za
 RT> [mailto:owner-clug-tech@clug.org.za]On Behalf Of Duncan Forrest
 RT> Sent: 14 June 2001 10:49 To:
 RT> clug-tech@clug.org.za Subject: [CLUG-Tech] Flavours of BSD

 RT> Hi

 RT> Having remained Linux-bound for a couple of years, I'm thinking of
 RT> playing with BSD on spare box I have lurking.  I realise this may
 RT> be opening a whole can of worms, but do any of you have strong
 RT> views on which of the (Net/Open/Free/Whatever) flavours of BSD is
 RT> best or, if not best, at least most familiar for someone with Linux
 RT> experience? Alternatively, pointers to an unbiased (is there ever
 RT> such a thing?) comparison on the Web might help.

 RT> Regards,
 RT> Duncan

 RT> Russell

For me it's not a question of "better" -- it's a question of which is better 
suited for what kinds of tasks and applications.  The above does help to 
clarify that somewhat.

I'm still at a bit of a loss as to why I might want to even ocnsider Solaris or 
any of the other traditional unices out there.  There are probably several I 
could get a hold of if I wanted to...

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