I don't know, James. I've used BSD for a wide array of
functions. Seems to me that there's an equal amount of
software and utilities available for it as there is for
Linux. I even use it as an alternative to ancient Solaris on
my SparcBook 3GS, and it's fully useable as a workstation.
a reasonably quick system, it's even better.
BSD is "different", there's no argument about that. However,
it's not so different that Linux should be beating it out of
useful functions due to a lack of software.
Then the problem is clear. If someone like myself thinks that BSD
doesn't have a well rounded selection of software then how can we expect
average joes to know. Without a "company" and a marketing budget I don't
know how to get the word out, but it happened for Linux and I'm sure it
could happened for the BSD's.
My only experience with BSD is with "appliances" (F5 3DNS and such). I
liked it and found it to be very fast and stable.
GEEKS:

Wednesday 03 August 2005 09:13, James Fogg wrote:

Then the problem is clear. If someone like myself thinks that BSD
doesn't have a well rounded selection of software then how can we expect
average joes to know. Without a "company" and a marketing budget I don't
know how to get the word out, but it happened for Linux and I'm sure it
could happened for the BSD's.

BSD *DES NT* have as well rounded a selection of software in some areas
though, especially on the desktop, and certain realtime niches. Just because
the code is out there for UNIX, doesn't necessarily mean it is well tested
outside of the origin system.

A lot of new code now is developed on Linux rather than Solaris, DEC UNIX,
*BSD, etc. It is therefore usually much more fully debugged and polished on
Linux platforms. Things work smoother, have fewer system related bugs, and
are usually released for Linux first.

Linux is also pragmatic. Yes, there are some very vocal zealots who will
cripple software for political reasons, but most of them aren't like that.
Their primary drive is traditional UNIX: get work done.

BSD, especially in earlier years, was often hung up in ivory-tower snobbery,
and a reluctance to make drastic but necessary changes to the S. I think
the fast-forward drive of Linux has helped force BSD to progress faster, and
despite the chaos of FreeBSD 5.x, recently forward moves by both FreeBSD and
NetBSD have been good. NetBSD's team did a smoother job (they rule
of course), but I think FreeBSD 5.x is now starting to show the benefits of
the changes.

Not everything about Linux is bad nor is its popularity all marketing. It
does a very good job in a lot of areas, and there are perfectly valid reasons
for using it. The 2.6 kernel series in particular made big leaps forward,
especially on high end hardware, and their varied filesystems and large Linux
based projects have given people a lot of experience with high end
applications and the changes needed to support it.

I think in the near future we are going to see more of BSD, and already I've
noticed more participation in UNIX desktop programming from BSD hackers.
NetBSD 3.x and FreeBSD 5.x are critical releases, and should get more
attention than past releases. I'm hoping that we'll see more visibility in
spite of Linux corporate stupidity.

My personal hope is to one day be able to move my desktop to NetBSD. Right
now I just can't get the hardware support I need. All my servers run NetBSD
since I started replacing Solaris with NetBSD about 5 years ago.

But for PCs, right now, Linux does a better job. Driver support is the big
issue, and better testing of desktop applications.

GEEKS: