What is your favorite BSD?

[Andrew Russell]

Linux is all well and good, but I think what everyone really needs to know is - What is your favorite BSD?

Myself? I'm running an OpenBSD development server (Apache, bunch o' web-apps, Subversion, etc).

[Matt]

Bah! I would not consider OSX a BSD just because they have some similar kernel bits...

I use OpenBSD on my internet-facing server for pf, snort, SSH, and (eventually) OpenVPN.

[pi11]

I love OpenBSD and have used it as my server for years. But I use OSX on my laptop.

I would have to disagree with the comment that OS X isn't really BSD. Sure technically, Darwin is the BSD. I would be interested to know the reasons for not considering OS X a proper BSD system.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by pi11

I would have to disagree with the comment that OS X isn't really BSD. Sure technically, Darwin is the BSD. I would be interested to know the reasons for not considering OS X a proper BSD system.

The OSX kernel is Darwin + Some Apple bits. The Darwin kernel is built from 4.3BSD + Mach kernel (from Carnegie Mellon). Technically, it shares very little code with the standard BSDs in use today. OSX is a unix-like desktop system, but to me it seems that the BSDs are more similar to Linux than they are to OSX.

Of course, I'm just arguing semantics. I just find it odd that everyone lumps OSX together with the other BSDs when that is a very small part of the system.

[pi11]

Originally Posted by Matt

The OSX kernel is Darwin + Some Apple bits. The Darwin kernel is built from 4.3BSD + Mach kernel (from Carnegie Mellon). Technically, it shares very little code with the standard BSDs in use today. OSX is a unix-like desktop system, but to me it seems that the BSDs are more similar to Linux than they are to OSX.

Of course, I'm just arguing semantics. I just find it odd that everyone lumps OSX together with the other BSDs when that is a very small part of the system.

Fair enough.

I find that OS X is a great desktop/laptop OS. I wouldn't use it on the server or as a firewall though. Even though it has the BSD bits. I think the answer to this poll questions is heavily dependent on the user's purpose for using BSD.

[Nico Kempe]

OpenBSD is my choice, I too use it on my internet-facing machine, I think it's just the best BSD (or OS even) for that purpose.

Also, it's quite funny to look at your logs and see those tons and tons of brute-force ssh attacks that failed..) (after which their IP is automatically banned ofcourse)

I wonder though what the arguments for the FreeBSD and specially NetBSD are, I don't see them in this thread.

[Doku]

Just a bit of info for the BSD/OSX mini-war... BSD is to OSX like Wine is to X11. The BSD "module" in OSX allows them to run BSD binaries like the Wine "module" in Linux/X11 allows them to run windows binaries. OSX is not built on top of BSD, and Linux is not built on Wine.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Doku

Just a bit of info for the BSD/OSX mini-war... BSD is to OSX like Wine is to X11. The BSD "module" in OSX allows them to run BSD binaries like the Wine "module" in Linux/X11 allows them to run windows binaries. OSX is not built on top of BSD, and Linux is not built on Wine.

I don't completely agree with that analogy. Apple (and NEXTSTEP before Apple) used the Mach Kernel code (which was based off of BSD code) because it facilitated development time. A lot of hard problems were already solved by Mach and it's license allowed them to take that code and use it for their own purposes.

I don't believe the decision was made so that they could achieve binary compatibility with BSD programs, and OSX ships with a relatively small amount of BSD-based apps.

Also, if you remove the Mach portion of the OSX kernel, the kernel will no longer work. It is not a module, it is an integrated part of the kernel. This is in contrast with WINE on Linux, which is a module that just maps some Win32 API functionality to the Linux kernel. The Mach portion does provide the POSIX API, but it also provides many other necessary parts (TCP/IP, VFS, crypto, IPC, user management, etc.).

Also, I was not implying OS X is inferior to the BSDs. I was just arguing that it was not similar enough not to be classified in that manner. No worries, though. It's all in good fun.

[Doku]

*shrug* A friend of mine is doing their BSD integration. I'm just going by what he told me. That's the analogy that he used. Also stating "BSD is a tumor stuck on the side of the Mach, and is basically there just to claim POSIX compliance"

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Doku

*shrug* A friend of mine is doing their BSD integration. I'm just going by what he told me. That's the analogy that he used. Also stating "BSD is a tumor stuck on the side of the Mach, and is basically there just to claim POSIX compliance"

Haha, he sounds enthused. Mach was actually written as a BSD replacement and was started with the BSD 4.2 kernel so it's been in there all along.

[Doku]

Yeah, he's not to happy with it... but it's employment, and the market is tight right now. He'd much rather be doing "actual BSD" work.