> Message: 14
> Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:46:20 +0100
> From: Alessandro Baggi <alessandro.ba...@gmail.com>
> Subject: FreeBSD Decision
> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Message-ID: <4d3099fc.10...@gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1;
> format=flowed
> 
> Hi list, I don't want make a flame post but I would ask an
> objective 
> opinion, then not a camp opinion, about using FreeBSD or
> Debian Linux in 
> a production environment for solution as such as cluster of
> some 

> Mail Server (qmail), raid software, security support and
> hardware 
> support. 

I prefer Debian and lurk on the list because I want to use FreeBSD for my 
fileserver (which has been a multi-year project, still not in production). I 
originally chose BSD "for security", but have decided to stick with it to 
benefit from learning a slightly different way of doing things.

The main flame-worthy difference between the two is licensing: Linux uses the 
GPL, FreeBSD uses a simplified BSD license. You can probably find flame-wars 
about it on the Internet yourself :)

The culture between the two groups is also a little different. Debian actually 
has an IRC channel where users are encouraged to ask questions (#debian on 
irc.freenode.net). Here, they prefer you use this mailing list. The difference 
may be that Debian has a larger community that can support an IRC channel.

The way packages get installed is different as well. Under Debian you are asked 
a series a questions (with user-settable verbosity), and many services are set 
up as automatically as is possible given your answers. Under BSD, services are 
installed disabled by default. This is annoying, but good for security. In 
theory you shouldn't be able to get it working unless you know what you are 
doing.

One thing to keep in mind is that BSD speaks a different POSIX "dialect" than 
most Linux distros (though that is likely true between Linux distros as well). 
This means things like NFS/NIS won't work without tweaking. One thing I also 
ran into is that md5sum (Debian) ~= md5 (BSD). I suppose you are supposed to 
use SHA2 these days anyway :P

Regards,

James Phillips


_______________________________________________
freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"

Reply via email to