4/9     ok, briefly, why FreeBSD is so much superior than Linux?
                                        -the ignorant
        \_ My personal reason (there are others) is that FreeBSD 'makes sense'.
           They don't dump random config files all over the place, you always
           know where an otherwise unfamiliar binary will be installed, and
           they don't decide willy nilly to throw away and redo everything you
           once knew because someone came up with some 'cool idea'.  FreeBSD
           is for people who want their machines to just work with no bullshit.
           Others will tell you about tcp/ip stacks, memory management, file
           system differences and other stuff which is all nice but not why I
           like it.  Call it 'consistency and ease of maintenance' for me.
           \_ Why do you assumme that the FreeBSD file system layout is the
              right way? There are plenty operating systems other than Linux
              that look -nothing- like FreeBSD. Do you not use them too just
              for that reason?
              \_ Poster didn't say canonical, s/he said consistent.  Duh.  -pld
              \_ What pld just said.  +FreeBSD fan
              \_ solaris' file hierarchy makes more sense than a typical
                 linux distribution's does to me --Jon
                 \_ Solaris is not bad, but I prefer OpenBSD. OpenBSD's
                    file system layout makes the most sense to me and
                    the ports collection is well integrated into the
                    fs layout. --ranga
                    \_ I use OpenBSD and Solaris.  I prefer O but S isn't that
                       bad.  It's usable.  I do hate the /opt concept though.
                       \_ The idea of /opt (which is now completely lost) is
                          that you install your pkgs on a central server and
                          you mount /opt on all your clients, which allows
                          users to continue using /usr/local for truely local
                          pkgs. In concept it was a good idea, but then you
                          get this really screwed up PATH with lots of dirs
                          in it. The other main problem with /opt (and even
                          /usr/local) is that most pkgs won't put config files
                          in /etc, which means you can't use the central NFS
                          server model, which just sucks.
              \_ You forget working SMP support.
                 \_ Yes, and that and many other technical reasons.  I was
                    not giving technical reasons but my personal ones.  Since I
                    don't run SMP BSD boxes, it didn't make my list but for
                    others, yes, you're right.
        \_ On a related note why are some reasons (valid or not) for some
           companies to choose Linux over FreeBSD?
           \_ In no order:  Marketing Bandwagon.  Linux has a threaded
              kernel (how good that threading is, that's another thing ..),
              The linux kernel tends to be quicker in supporting new cards
              and the like, but not that much quicker.  Some people prefer
              a GPL style license over the a BSD style license.  The Linux
              kernels tends to have more "neat whiz bang" features, though
              they may not necessarily be generally useful.  I tend to think
              that Marketing is the major reason and the reasons behind why
              that is a[re partly historical, dating back to lawsuit between
              USL and the UC Regents of use of ATT Unix code in BSD 4.x
              as well as use of BSD code in ATT Unix. --jon
              \_ Ugh, tell me about it.  Solaris is expensive so the engineers
                 get on this 'let's use linux' kick knowing nothing about it
                 or any of the alternatives.  This is the same batch that I got
                 into it with over using Oracle on NT vs Oracle on Solaris for
                 a non-critical project.  Engineering of course 'won' and then
                 minutes before the box is going into production at a remote
                 site said to me, "So it has ssh installed, right?"
           \_ Mindshare. Linux has "mindshare", BSD does not. PHBs know
              that linux is "good", which is why companies choose to use
              and deploy it over BSD.
           \_ And binary software compatibility. Yes, *BSD has Linux emulation
              support but when a company pays thousands of dollars for a
              software package, they don't want to jeopardize the support by
              running it in an unsupported configuration because some sysadmin
              feels like doing it.
                \_ in a similar vein, there are a lot more sysadmins with
                   Linux experience than BSD experience out there.  -tom