# Why BSD?



## jokar (Mar 5, 2011)

Hello All.
I have some question about BSD OS.
1- Why BSD is created?
2- what difference between BSD and Linux is exist?
3- What BSD distro is good for PC?
4- can i run Linux software under BSD?

Thanks.
Best Regards


----------



## graudeejs (Mar 5, 2011)

jokar said:
			
		

> Hello All.
> I have some question about BSD OS.
> 1- Why BSD is created?
> 2- what difference between BSD and Linux is exist?
> ...



http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=9294


----------



## rambetter (Mar 5, 2011)

To answer #2, one of the differences that I personally find important is the license associated with the operating system.  FreeBSD uses a BSD license.  For example, Apple can use FreeBSD in their products and sell them.  Things are a bit different with Linux, because it uses GPL.

To answer #4, the answer is yes, you can run Linux software on FreeBSD, in general.  More info on that is here: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/linuxemu.html


----------



## Alt (Mar 5, 2011)

#2 Big ideology diffirence. Big license difference, so this 2 moments lead to many principial things
#3 Its not very good idea use BSD for desktop. But of course, you can do it. You will be need to change many configs (FreeBSD is OS, not desktop user-system)
#4 Typically you can just compile software for BSD and run in native mode. But if its not possible - you can use linux emulation


----------



## vermaden (Mar 5, 2011)

> 1- Why BSD is created?


BSD systems existed long ago before Linux, so question should be, _Why Linux is created?_



> 3- What BSD distro is good for PC?


Yes.



> 4- can i run Linux software under BSD?


Yes.


----------



## ckester (Mar 5, 2011)

To answer #3,

There are no BSD "distros".  That's a Linux-specific concept.

There are several BSDs:  FreeBSD, PC-BSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and (depending on how you look at it) OS X.  The first four I've listed are non-proprietary.  PC-BSD is based on FreeBSD, and is the most "user friendly" and the most similar to what Linux users expect from a distro.  Therefore it's probably the best choice for a desktop machine, with FreeBSD a close second.

_Later addition: I hope the DragonflyBSD folks will forgive me for forgetting them.  Thanks UNIXgod, for reminding me._


----------



## rabfulton (Mar 5, 2011)

2. Bsd is an operating system rather than a kernel. This gives a level of consistency not always found on linux. The man pages and handbook are a great reference and you will find that most questions asked in this forum can be answered by referring to them.
3. Freebsd is great if you want to setup and configure your system to work how you want it to. This can be quite a bit of work, but imo worth it. PCBSD is good if you want a complete desktop system setup for you.
4. Linux emulation works fine, but most stuff you will probably need has been ported to bsd.


----------



## oliverh (Mar 5, 2011)

> Why BSD?

Why? Because in the nowadays rare case you get it up and running on decent hardware, it is truly superior


----------



## UNIXgod (Mar 5, 2011)

jokar said:
			
		

> 1- Why BSD is created?



Actually it's the most influential and the greatest software ever written

http://www.informationweek.com/shar...WLXW1NQE1GHPCKHWATMY32JVN?articleID=191901844

The TCP/IP stack came from BSD.
Bill Joy's vi as well as Bostic's vi.



			
				jokar said:
			
		

> 2- what difference between BSD and Linux is exist?



Chaos VS Order:
http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/rants/bsd4linux/08



			
				jokar said:
			
		

> 3- What BSD distro is good for PC?



As it's been mentioned there is no such thing as a distribution. BSD is a complete operating system. Here is the list in what my opinion would be how one could view usage for different BSDs of course anything that can run x windows can run on as a desktop:

FreeBSD:
Security and Server
Desktop

OpenBSD:
security router

NetBSD:
Runs on anything including your toaster or nasa computers =)

DragonflyBSD:
Servers
Continuation of the 4.x FreeBSD:

OSX (Darwin):
apple computers fork of FreeBSD 5 or 6.



			
				jokar said:
			
		

> 4- can i run Linux software under BSD?



Yes there is linux emulation for drivers. You can run gnu variations of sed and awk if you want as well. It's open source so nothing is stopping you from installing and running bash or whatever software your comfortable with. The system is POSIX but if you've done some shell scripting on linux and used the extensions you may need to consider reevaluating how to keep your scripts portable across other POSIX compliant unixes as BSD uses Almquist's version of the Bourne shell vs Stallman's shell.

Here is a nice link to wikipedia if you would like to know more:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Freebsd


----------



## fender0107401 (Mar 6, 2011)

Wiki it!


----------



## swa (Mar 6, 2011)

*Why BSD ?*

Yes, why ? Why would _you_ run BSD. 
Why don't you tell us why you _would_ run BSD


----------



## fender0107401 (Mar 6, 2011)

> 1- Why BSD is created?

Why not?

> 2- what difference between BSD and Linux is exist?

Long story.

> 3- What BSD distro is good for PC?

There is no such thing as BSD distro.

FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD are independent projects, they develop the kernel and userland programs independently. In most cases, we call them BSD-branch instead of BSD distro.

In contrast, Linux distros share the Linux kernel and GNU userland programs. In most cases, we call them Linux distro or Linux distribution 

> 4- can i run Linux software under BSD?

In general, there is no such thing as Linux software. Most of the existing Unix software are portable. In other words, they are not limited to one Unix-like OS.

However, there do exist some software that is designed for Linux.

My suggestion is you should google or wiki the following terms: Unix, Unix-like, kernel, userland, Linux, GNU, BSD, BSD-branch...


----------



## DutchDaemon (Mar 6, 2011)

The forums are littered with answers to these basic questions, so no need to do it all over again here. Search the forums, read the Sticky posts, read The Handbook and the FAQs. Closed.


----------

