Re: Linux vs FreeBSD vs SCO

From: Joe Dunning (joe_at_dev.null)
Date: 05/28/05 

Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 18:38:41 -0500

On 2005-05-26, Bill Vermillion <bv@wjv.com> wrote:
>
> Another think I disliked was their 'better' way of firing off init
> scripts. Instead of the text oriented inted.con with one line for
> things they instituted the xinetd.conf file and xinetd.d diretory.
>
> Each file in xinetd.c has about 8 lines inside { and } with
> all it's options.
>
> disable = no, or disable = yes certainly is more complex
> than just commenting out, or adding a line in /etc/inetd.d

I think you have missed that it is more than just "more complex": it is
more flexible. You can choose which interface a specific service binds
to, you can do other things such as limit the rate of incoming
connections, redirect incoming TCP connections to another host,
define the user under which the service runs, etc.

All these combine to give more flexibility and, if used properly, more
security.

>
> I looked at the logs and 18 services started, and then it found a
> configuration error in the ftpd startup. What caused that error I
> never found out. BUT - when it found that error, it bailed out and
> took everything else with it.

OK, this is pretty bad. But bugs happen. I doubt it was designed to do
that.

>
> Then there is the rpm upgrade path. That also seems so MSish, as
> often you install an upgrade, and you find it needs something else,
> so you install that. And often you get library errors - just like
> MS gets those DLL things.

There are better package systems and apt-rpm, which manages
dependencies. If you use Gentoo, it has tools to find and resolve
library errors.

>
> In FreeBSD I almost always - with about 3 exceptions - build
> everything on the machine. I got to /usr/ports/<category><pgm>
> and type 'make'. These exceptions in case you are interested
> are things such as installing cvsup, which I do from a pre-built
> package, from packages otherwise it has to compile Ruby, and some
> other programs, that are used only for the compile, and that can
> take a long time.
>
> It goes to the net, gets the needed source code, sucks them in,
> compiles them, checks for all needed dependencies, compiles them,
> and then with make install it checks if there are other
> dependencies and brings them in and installs them. Some of the
> Linux dists are starting to adopt thins.

Gentoo is the prime example.

>
> With this method you almost never worry about outdated libraries,
> because we are compling on a running system. And often you get
> new libraries in addition to old ones.

But, because you get the newest version, there are more changes also.

There will always be conflicts between the need to keep things stable
and the need to update. Sometimes those updates require more changes
than one would like. In the chase to provide a compelling platform to
displace MS, one has to expect some bumps.

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