FreeBSD 8.0 vs. Ubuntu 9.10

Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2009
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These two OpenSource operating versions, to become available over the next several weeks, demonstrated improvements over prior versions and compare well to each other.

I woul like to tell you that my preferred operating system, Ubuntu, came out on top …. and it did! But if you are selecting an operating system where speed is essential and there is a limited range of tasks to be performed regularly, you should compare the two more closely by looking at the review. While Ubuntu rocked, FreeBSD kicked butt in a few areas., especially pertaining to SQL related tasks.

Actually, there is probably enough overlap between the systems and obscurity to what you would use the computer to do that if you are a Umbuntusymp or a BSDsymp, you’ll find an excuse to use the OS you otherwise fetishize for purely cultural reasons.

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Comments

  1. #1 Phaedrus
    September 30, 2009

    When I was part of a team designing a network appliance, we chose a BSD derivative as a starting point because of its long history of security and stability. Also, I think the BSD license is much more business friendly than the GNU license (not sure what license Ubuntu is released under).

    The fact that Ubuntu ships with a desktop environment clearly makes a difference for the beginning user – especially any Windows convert.

  2. #2 Jim Hall
    September 30, 2009

    Phaedrus: Ubuntu is a Linux distro, so the kernel and core components are under the GNU GPL, same as any other distro.

  3. #3 gruebait
    September 30, 2009

    Co-inky-dink.
    The next-to-last click of my mouse was on a link to this comic from 2000:
    http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20000808

    Apparently, with BSD, you don’t have to be that smart.

  4. #4 Ray Ingles
    September 30, 2009

    One advantage to choosing a less-popular OS is that exploits for it are less common. My webserver runs an uncommon httpd on an uncommon OS on an uncommon hardware platform. The cost in time and effort to attack it exceeds any possible value to be gained from successfully subverting it.

    Which is the practical definition of ‘security’, if you think about it…

  5. #5 MadScientist
    September 30, 2009

    I doubt that anyone who is concerned with high volume network transactions would install Ubuntu, so the SQL comparison doesn’t really matter.

    @Phaedrus: *BSD runs all the same software as Linux – each bit of software has its own license (although the GPL2+3 dominate). The BSD kernel has a modified BSD license. It is not more “business friendly” than the Linux kernel but it is a more permissive license (you can grab the code and not share modifications). The “you don’t have to share” bit is probably a huge factor in why there are far fewer developers for *BSD. RedHat and IBM find the BSD license extremely unfriendly for that reason – why should they sink millions (hundreds of millions for IBM) into development if their competitors can grab it and improve on it without sharing?

  6. #6 Rorschach
    October 1, 2009

    I see this from a practical point of view these days.Computers are tools that I want to perform certain tasks, Windows is fucked up for way too many reasons and W7 doesnt rectify that, BSD while “pure” does not have good new hardware support or community support, so the middle way is something like Ubuntu, which gives me command line plus desktop plus community plus hardware support, so shit just works out of the box.Works for me.

  7. #7 Greg Laden
    October 1, 2009

    Mad Scientist: But wait. Ubuntu is simply Debian Linux with a fancied up distro wrapper, and can get a version that is difficulified (programmed to boot to command prompt so you have to “runx” to see a mouse cursor). Debian is a standard Linux based on the Linux Kernel, and the differences in network trasaction times is kernel related. Most network platforms are either plain old Linux of one kind or another or something else virtualized on a Linux platform.

    So almost everybody is doing what you say they shouldn’t do. Explain yourself!!!