LINUX, WINDOWS, BSD WHERE ARE THE SANE PEOPLE?

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BSD is obviously where the sane people are.... 

Well its been a while since we last had our "geek-talk" Lockdown is gone and its time to looks for cash.

Let me start by saying that I don't mean that literally. What I'm talking about here is design and development decisions from the point of view of system administration and coding.

Contrary to the Linux distributions the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) is not a fragmented project. The BSD projects maintain the entire operating system, not only the kernel.

BSD was an operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berkeley. Today, "BSD" refers to its descendants, such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and DragonFly BSD. These projects are real operating systems not just kernels and they are not "distributions".

Linux distributions, such as Debian GNU/Linux and Arch Linux have to do the work of bringing together all the software required to create a complete Linux operating system. They need the Linux kernel, the GNU tools and libraries, an init system , and some amount of third party applications in order to end up with a functioning operating system.

In contrast, as mentioned before, the BSDs are both a kernel and a complete operating system. For example, FreeBSD provides both the FreeBSD kernel and the FreeBSD operating system. It is maintained as a single project.

No one person or corporation owns BSD. It is created and distributed by a community of highly technical and committed contributors all over the world.

Companies also use and contribute to BSD, but contrary to Linux, a company cannot "hijack" BSD. A company can make their own version of BSD, such as Sony Computer Entertainment has done for their PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita gaming consoles, but because the BSDs are complete operating systems, and because each BSD project is maintained and developed by Open Source enthusiasts, not companies such as Red Hat, the BSD projects are really and truly independent.

As a result of this organization structure you don't normally find crazy opt-out settings in your basic installation, no matter what BSD project you choose, and you don't find privacy compromising solutions integrated into the operating system components. On the contrary, because these projects are developed and driven by skillful and enthusiastic people who care much about operating system design, security, and privacy, you will often find that even the third party software that are available for installation using a package manager gets patched so that these problems don't exist, such as the disabling of DNS over HTTPS by OpenBSD, as mentioned.

Another great benefit from all of this is that the communities that surround the BSD projects consist of experienced, helpful, and (for the most part) kind people. The FreeBSD community is especially kind and helpful.

I  for one have never used NetBSD or DragonFly BSD, not because these projects are bad, but simply because I prefer FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

I still like both Debian GNU/Linux and Arch Linux very much, but I don't want to worry about possibly new privacy problematic settings in default installations of systems, I don't want to worry about all the bloatware that goes into the kernel, such as the kernel forcing adaption of DRM, I don't want to worry about whatever the next problematic thing is going to be.

As an operating system Linux is becoming more and more of a mess because of the fragmented nature of the project and because of the jerking around by commercial interests, such as Red Hat with systems.

 

If you have any comments or corrections please feel free to email them to me. Also, if you found this content useful consider highlighting it too,its very motivating

 

Comments

  1. Kuteesakwe David Bagenda17 October 2020 at 15:20

    Great ideas over there Godfrey. My observations however; 1- if Linux does still struggle with marketing, then BSD...? And of course with more usage comes more application development and increased number in the "kind" community.
    Secondly, please highlight more on the privacy vulnerabilities of Linux coz then I'm bringing my laptop for a special uninstall/delete/erase/format 😂😂

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kingodfrey17 October 2020 at 19:34

    Thank you David
    Linux still remains an insane decision for many administrators because it has been hijacked already.Even the best GNU/Linux distributions, such as Debian GNU/Linux and Arch Linux, that are still driven by Open Source enthusiasts, are not immune to this problem because they still depend heavily on the fragmented tools.I will definitely highlight these in my nbext article as i do the comparisons

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown17 October 2020 at 20:55

    I think at the moment, I can't even breath if I am not using Unix based OS. I always have fun with it Goddie

    ReplyDelete

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