Re: [9fans] UN to fund linux for the 3rd world

[Sam <sah@softcardsystems.com>]

> And the Linux dists come with *tons* of day-to-day useful software that
> I would have to go out and find and build were I running a commercial
> Unix system.

FreeBSD has linux binary compatibility.  Most of that "useful"
software is in the ports collection.

My affection for bsd over linux is two-fold.  Firstly, the
kernel is a mess.  If you've ever been on the linux kernel
mailing list for even a day you see that "development" is
nothing more than a thousand cooks tweaking concoctions to
throw into the stew.  You'll never see a 'design and
implementation' book for linux because you can't exposit
*how* the code works as there's almost no design.

This is my experience with the 2.4 kernel.  FreeBSD isn't
much better in places, but there are sweet spots.  I haven't
even cracked OpenBSD yet, which according to Geoff is
the cleanest of the lot.

Second, linux developers really want an ignorant user base.
The entire userland approach is to obfuscate hypothetical
complexity behind a new program and a dizzying array of
switches.  The ports collection is a simple example:

% cd /usr/ports/astro/sunclock
% make install
... (downloads and builds program)
% (done)

Compare that to the rpm -Uv -waitdoihaveallthedependencies
or even gentoo's attempted photocopy of the ports system
"portage" where you do everything behind an emerge program.
They take the learning curve out of one place, put it
in another, and call it an improvement because they have
something to put on sourceforge.  blech.

Both in the kernel and userland linux is all about
"doing things to you" instead of "doing things for you."

And every time I find a "new" program that won't write its
output to stdout I puke all over my desk.  Right after
flushing my TLBs a hundred times for good measure.

Sam