Free vs Open

FreeBSD

Inferno

I really need to test this out soon. As much as I like FreeBSD, I think the core team would get on my nerves as soon as I talked to them.

You know, NetBSD seems very attractive right now since it's getting FreeBSD's ZFS.

OpenBSD is better on the desktop. It comes with X and three window managers, you don't have to install fonts, packages are not broken/outdated so you never have to use ports, and the FAQ and man pages are higher quality than FreeBSD's. It has great acpi too.

FreeBSD is better for servers though. It sucks on the desktop because the devs use Macs.

I'd just like to interject for moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!

Those window managers are pure shit and the packages aren't that up to date between 2 release. Also absurdly shit io performance. Maybe because the ffs belongs to a museum.
man.openbsd.org/amd
One of many reasons i will not touch OpenBSD again. Well TrueOS at least fixed it in their way, rather fucking around with obsolete tools.
That would need a good 3rd party support, but you know... I won't blame them for this one, though FreeBSD isn't that asshat in this case. I still don't get why FSF don't promote it as it's fully free and don't encourage recompiling with "blobs", but Beastie is on some of their merchandise along with GNU. Someone should ask rms about it.

FreeBSD ships KDE when?

*plasma

FreeBSD for Nvidia drivers and Linux compatibility. OpenBSD for everything else.

Yes, ree all you want, but there is no alternative to Nvidia for real-time 3d.

Illumos spanks them both. If you can run on ideal hardware, run Illumos.

Otherwise I stick to Loonix for non-ideal hardware, for SELinux MAC and ease of cross-compiling. I also have ZoL and I can run it just fine with CHOST set to i486.

Until you realize you need shit like "Apple's Disk Utility" for partitioning "New World" PowerPC Macs, I mean the most basic of shit even OpenBSD got done!

Also, to my knowledge no boot to cgd disk ability with ofwboot.

Linux pretty much has NetBSD's mission statement covered: "Of course it runs $OPERATINGSYSTEM!"

OpenBSD is a half joke. I say half because while they get the auditing and correct coding right, Theo's narcissistic butt can't come to accept a real secure modern OS will have a FLASK-architecture MAC system.

I wanted to love NetBSD, but then I realized Linux did everything better except licensing, NetBSD's is superior. Such a shame the Linux kernel didn't have better QA like Solaris did.

You're right about Linux being better for compatibility (you might have to use ancient kernels for some µarchs, though). Honestly, I never used NetBSD, but I've used pkgsrc and it was amazing. I thought the cleanliness of it might also be in NetBSD.

Currently using gentoo because it's not that hard and it gives me a sense of purpose.

Dude what, I mean pkgsrc is a good tool but when I came over from gentoo and portage over to netbsd it was a clear downgrade. pkg(src) and portage share a lot of functionality but portage is way ahead.

hail brother, I too am using gentoo because I don't have the energy to learn *BSDs' quirks right now.

Portage is slow python shit compared to it. Sure it has more functionalities, but it's horrible bloated. I say that while using Gentoo.

Where BSD really shines is its development model. You have the entire operating system developed in a single repo by a single team. This keeps the system consistent and easy to port to.

Compare this to Linux with its tons of distros which all run the same software but are slightly different. Part of the reason why Linux and BSD are roughly on equal footing technically even though the latter has a small fraction the developers of the former, is that Linux is chaotic and unorganized.

"Apple's Disk Utility" isn't some hard to find exotic thing. Its built in to OSX. Its on the OSX bootable install disk. And you don't need it. Its just a simple point-and-click way of getting it done. If you don't have an OSX bootdisk you could just use pdisk
>wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/how_to_install_netbsd_on_a_power_macintosh_g4_40grey41/

PPC macs look for the 1st Apple HFS partition for bootcode. Thats unique to Apple so its not in the generic netbsd 'sysinst' Lots of other arches have unique shit that needs to be done by hand that also is not in the generic sysinst program.

If a port doesn't work 100% OpenBSD won't ship it.If they can't get someone to support a port they drop it. They are going for a polished product that can be used in production.

NetBSD gets you 90% of the way there and you have to tinker to get the rest of the way. Its a tinkerers OS. No one is putting a 68K Atari or Sega Dreamcast in to production use. NetBSD/macppc is not a tier-1 port so they find the 90% acceptable.
netbsd.org/ports/#ports-tier2

I use NetBSD on 32bit macppc, 68K, and 32bit i386. I find the simplicity and "old school" unix way they do things comfy.
On my 64bit PowerPC mac I use FreeBSD because that is really the only option for an up to date 64bit OS right now. Gentoo has updated their 64bit PPC userland so I may give that another shot soon though.