# GNU/Linux, FreeBSD (and other BSD) and Free Software. Your thoughts?



## kuroneko (Jul 19, 2018)

So I've been using FreeBSD in the past and didn't have much time to play with it to understand everything. At that time I had no idea what libre(free) software was and now that I looked into it I agree with the idea that we should all have the freedom to run the software for any purpose, study it, make copies and sharing with others.

I really like the idea of knowing what you're running on your computer and learn how it works, that's pretty much what got me interested in computers in the first place. We can also create a dependence to some nonfree software. Social medias are a good example as we need it to contact important people. Also when you run nonfree software you don't exactly know what it's doing so it could be running malicious code without you knowing.I'm seeing more free software these days and that's great.

So yeah the reason I've included GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (and other BSD) in the title is that there are many GNU/Linux distributions that are running on nonfree software or recommending it to their users. Many GNU/Linux distro contain blobs along with FreeBSD and the others. I think this is why the Free Software Foundation don't recommend FreeBSD. I really like the FreeBSD operating system the way it works but for that reason I'd probably lean more towards a more free operating system and GNU/Linux have many of them.

So what are your thought on free software, are you okay with have blobs if it's for the convenience of having better driver support? Also I accept everyone's opinion on that, I don't mean to start some debates.


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 19, 2018)

The FSF don't recommend FreeBSD because permissive licenses (BSD/MIT and similar) it does not comply with the GPL *political* view. It has not to do with free software. Those called permissive licenses are close to public domain, while GPL and derivatives are about to impose and lock (the code) under their political view of what free software IS.

You should read the licenses to understand it better.

I am actually working on an anti-GPL license, to lock them out. Thread 66640


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## kuroneko (Jul 19, 2018)

Yeah it's true that they're under different licenses. While I agree that free software is a good thing I also think you should be free to choose what you wanna make but in the end it's the user who will have to deal with it. If you make the source code closed and only give binaries then if there is something wrong the user will depend on the developer to have their software working so they can have control over the users and this is the part I mostly dislike it's having to depend on the developers. While when I can edit the source code I can solve problems and then share it. When it's closed then it become all about money.


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 19, 2018)

kuroneko said:


> When it's closed then it become all about money.



Why do you think Linux is not all about money?

Who dictate what come or not to Linux these days basically is RedHat, who live of selling support contracts, and then the most complicated and obscure the OS become better to them - more people in need to pay for support services...


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## Deleted member 48958 (Jul 19, 2018)

IMO, if it is Free software, there is no difference what kind
of free license it uses, until you'll need to sell it in binary forms 
I believe any kind of blind fanaticism is ignorant, no matter what it is
about: religion, politics... or licenses  Free license differences
are for developers, but not for users.


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## kuroneko (Jul 19, 2018)

It's true most users won't need to play with the code and all but they could always get someone to help. I also didn't say GNU/Linux was about the money. I was talking about the software. The whole operating system is mostly free (as in freedom). I also personally really like to study how a program was made to then learn from it and there isn't any way to do that with closed source proprietary software as far as I'm aware of. It also happened many time that backdoors were found in nonfree software Windows is a great example. Maybe I'm a little too paranoid also I just know it already happened many times and that could cause some security and privacy issues. RedHat also has a good way to earn money by providing support which I have nothing against.


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 19, 2018)

Just for the record there is nothing holding you to release (your) proprietary code with the source code attached to it. This is just not a practice anymore, and IIRC Microsoft was the one who innovated on this, just releasing the binaries.


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## Chris_H (Jul 19, 2018)

kuroneko said:


> So what are your thought on free software, are you okay with have blobs if it's for the convenience of having better driver support? Also I accept everyone's opinion on that, I don't mean to start some debates.


FreeBSD developers go to great lengths to _eliminate_ the blobs that some software (mostly proprietary hardware drivers) manufacturers distribute.
As to freedom. I think it's safe to say that the MIT/BSD license provides greater freedom, in the sense of freedom, than the *GPL* counterpart. It is because of that freedom that Apple/MacOS (X) was born, and a lot of great free software, and technology came out of all that.

This only scratches the surface. But seems a couple of good examples. 

--Chris


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## cynwulf (Jul 19, 2018)

The FSF/GNU/Stallman term "blob" is a term born out of that particular ideology/politics.

A "blob" is in fact something like the Nvidia proprietary *nix, driver to name just one well known example - i.e. a piece of native code in the form of a closed source kernel nodule.

The "blobs" referred to by GPL fans are in fact device firmware (usually for NICs or some VGA adaptors or CPUs, etc), which is not even executable by the OS itself, but which is simply loaded onto and runs on, the hardware device itself.  If you're running re-purposed "Wintel" hardware (x86), chances are you have multiple devices already loaded with such firmware, which for the most part is proprietary and has no source code available.


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## Chris_H (Jul 19, 2018)

Indeed. Which was my point; as per reversing those blobs, for the sake of getting better hardware support, than the vendor provides for free OS's. The Nouveau project is a good example of reversing Nvidias (blobs) on Linux.

--Chris


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## ralphbsz (Jul 20, 2018)

kuroneko said:


> We can also create a dependence to some nonfree software.


You do understand that the computer you typed this on has a disk drive (perhaps an SSD), and that the disk drive contains probably somewhere between 1/2 million and 1 million lines of source?  The router you got from your ISP probably runs some version of Linux or Android or a network PS, and contains another few million lines of code.  While this forum probably runs on a FreeBSD machine (duh), most other things you use on the web rely on non-free software.  Anytime you use Google, Yahoo, Netflix, or Amazon, you are running tens or hundreds of millions of lines of nonfree software.

I understand the desire to use open source software where possible, but please don't think that you are making any dent in the amount of non-free software in the world.



> Also when you run nonfree software you don't exactly know what it's doing so it could be running malicious code without you knowing.


You as an individual have no chance at all to review the source code, even to a small and well-organized OS like FreeBSD, to search for malicious code.  Matter-of-fact, one of the advantages of OpenBSD is that a large team of very skilled programmers has audited all of the base system to look for malicious code; the effort took years, and does not include the packages.

Read the story of Ken Thompson's C compiler hack (which contained a malicious exploit to allow Ken to log into any Unix machine, when the word "Unix" still meant: machine that runs code written by Dennis and Ken).  In spite of the fact that the source code of Unix and the compiler was available to lots of people (fundamentally every computer research lab and university), the source code of the hack was never found.

Also look for the story of how disk drives from major vendors got infected with a virus in the drive firmware, which spied for some government.

To use a computer requires a certain amount of trust.  At some level, you need to either trust Seagate and Western Digital, or go back to storing data on punched cards.  You need to trust the people who wrote your OS.  You can not validate an OS at the level of being able to find malicious exploits any more; the world is too complicated for that.



> I think this is why the Free Software Foundation don't recommend FreeBSD.


The FSF is not interested in the general health of free software.  They are interested in pushing their own worldview.  One can agree or disagree with their worldview, but please don't think they are advocates for all of the OSS ecosystem.



> So what are your thought on free software, ...


I prefer to use it, when it is a good solution to my problems.  Which is why my home server runs FreeBSD.  At work, I use lots of Linux, and other free software (in addition to a lot of custom and non-free software).  At home, I also use a MacBook as my primary workstation, and I run Linux on one machine (a Raspberry Pi, the FreeBSD support for the RPi was too spotty to use it in practice.



> ... are you okay with have blobs if it's for the convenience of having better driver support?


I fear that blobs are a necessity for certain hardware.  That's particularly true for video and graphics cards.  For baseline motherboard, network and storage they are usually not needed (there are exceptions).  But believing that you have 100% control over the software that runs in those devices is insane anyway.  As I wrote above, the firmware that's in devices like high-end SCSI controllers or high-end network cards is at least as complex as a device driver, and that isn't a blob (but downloaded into flash on the card).  And blobs are no worse than firmware.


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 20, 2018)

Making it more clear, the FSF people is not different of any people working on the Third sector (anti-abort, pro-abort, #MeToo, anti-smoking, anti-guns, pro-guns, etc), they are all make a living of pushing those subjects and will still be pushing them ever in situations when it does not make any sense at all, and/or when they personaly do not support them, otherwise they will not make money.

My ex-girlfriend work on the Third sector and while she is a racist and xenophobe Flemish women ( who also is a devote of the Flemish Movement, btw ), she is often involved on NGOs supporting African people and Immigration because pushing those subjects make a lot of money.

People and corporations throw a lot of money on those NGOs. Corporations specially like those because it make them look great on the picture (in reallity, nobody cares).


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## Chris_H (Jul 20, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> . . .
> My ex-girlfriend work on the Third sector and while she is a racist and xenophobe Flemish women ( who also is a devote of the Flemish Movement, btw ), she is often involved on NGOs supporting African people and Immigration because pushing those subjects make a lot of money.


Ouch! my heart goes out to you. That had to be difficult for a person with your convictions.
Interestingly; the feminist movement wanted equal rights. Used to be that only _one_ person had to go "out", to make a living for the family. Now "both" must go out to make a living. Brilliant!
Sigh...

Sorry. I digress.

--Chris


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 20, 2018)

Those are things you just know when you are close related because she does not push or keep talking something about those subjects. I mean, didn't made or make any difference in my relation with her.

Most cases I know both people go out to make a living is because even doing that the money is still short for them. I also know others couples who both work on the same field/business ( usually lobbyists and consulting people ) and end up spending all time together.


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## Chris_H (Jul 20, 2018)

Oh good. That's good to hear.
As to feminist; I was suggesting that the early feminist movement, _ultimately_ lead to both parties being _required_ to work "out in the workforce".
Just a thought. 

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, lebarondemerde 

--Chris


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## cynwulf (Jul 20, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> Making it more clear, the FSF people is not different of any people working on the Third sector (anti-abort, pro-abort, #MeToo, anti-smoking, anti-guns, pro-guns, etc), they are all make a living of pushing those subjects and will still be pushing them ever in situations when it does not make any sense at all, and/or when they personaly do not support them, otherwise they will not make money.


This pretty much applies to the "blob"/firmware situation as well.  The people pushing this are quite simply agenda driven and those who lap it up just clueless and naive.

If you have a x86 made in the last 10 years or so with even a fairly recent Intel or AMD processor, you have the Intel IME/ AMD PSP, plus lots of other firmware/microcode running on the CPU, north bridge, NIC, etc, etc, plus a big lump of mostly proprietary UEFI firmware.  Eliminating a few blobs from e.g. the Linux kernel and then giving yourself a pat on the back for being "free as in freedom" just seems like an entirely token approach.


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## scrappywan (Jul 20, 2018)

I prefer the BSD license idea of free which, IMHO, is permissibly free. You can essentially do anything you want with the BSD license including building proprietary software around it (MacOS). The GPL is software freedom but with a gun held up to your head.


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## Crivens (Jul 20, 2018)

cynwulf said:


> .  Eliminating a few blobs from e.g. the Linux kernel and then giving yourself a pat on the back for being "free as in freedom" just seems like an entirely token approach.


This is somehow like "propagating the awareness regarding the n-word", and then patting themselves on the back because all the racists are gone. I just read a piece from a journalist about how this keeps you from writing and how the effect is similar to the MiniTruth of 1984. 

For us, we can't get along without blobs. We won't change anything and get nowhere. But we may try.


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## kuroneko (Jul 22, 2018)

Crivens said:


> For us, we can't get along without blobs. We won't change anything and get nowhere. But we may try.


Exactly what I think. We just have to keep trying. If we can remove the blobs and make a free replacement then that's better instead of being like "Well, non-free software is everywhere so why even try?" though certain companies are against reverse engineering their products to make free drivers for example and that's not nice (I could just do it for myself at home and no one will know). I'd like to write my own code for my hardware so I can have control over it and use it the way I want. If my hardware can't run without non-free software then I'll get it to make it work if it's necessary but I won't support them making non-free drivers because I want to be in control here I want to have the freedom to change what I want. I still understand that what you buy belong to the company and that without them you would have nothing but yeah I'd prefer having access to the code and having the freedom to change it so the hardware operates the way I want.


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## Phishfry (Jul 22, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> Who dictate what come or not to Linux these days basically is RedHat, who live of selling support contracts,


Let me help you there.
They live off the US Government. Checkout who is customer #1 for them.
In their defense it is all because the government wants a vendor to supply them.

I saw a piece about a software development center in Boston where USAF guys are learning to code 1:1 with trainers.
They wrote the whole AOC sortie software where Lockheed was coming back for more money after $750 Million dollars.
After review they could not use a single line of the Lockheed code.
The USAF guys did it for under 2 Million Dollars!
Talk about fleecing the government.

Can you imagine what you could buy in the commercial software world for $750 Million dollars.
And greedy Lockheed was coming for more at the same time the USAF guys had code ready.
Thank goodness somebody had the sense to flush the Lockheed mess.
https://www.airforce-technology.com...artnership-saves-big-us-air-force-fuel-costs/
http://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1518722/kessel-run-hits-hyperdrive/
So a 2 million dollar program is saving 1 million dollars a day.


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## Crivens (Jul 22, 2018)

Don't get me started on those clowns.
Or EADS, or BMW, or some other companies I had the recent misfortune to observe working. Sometimes I wonder how anything stays up there, or keeps it's wheels on, or does not explode when turned on...


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## Maelstorm (Jul 22, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> Why do you think Linux is not all about money?
> 
> Who dictate what come or not to Linux these days basically is RedHat, who live of selling support contracts, and then the most complicated and obscure the OS become better to them - more people in need to pay for support services...



Actually Linus Torvalds in the one who dictates what goes into the kernel, not RedHat.  He and...Keith Thompson (I think) handle the kernel itself, which is what Linux is...just a kernel.  I remember reading awhile ago where he banned someone who worked for RedHat from contributing to the kernel.  It seems that the Linux crowd is full of interesting personalities all driven by ego...but that's a different topic.



kuroneko said:


> Exactly what I think. We just have to keep trying. If we can remove the blobs and make a free replacement then that's better instead of being like "Well, non-free software is everywhere so why even try?" though certain companies are against reverse engineering their products to make free drivers for example and that's not nice (I could just do it for myself at home and no one will know). I'd like to write my own code for my hardware so I can have control over it and use it the way I want. If my hardware can't run without non-free software then I'll get it to make it work if it's necessary but I won't support them making non-free drivers because I want to be in control here I want to have the freedom to change what I want. I still understand that what you buy belong to the company and that without them you would have nothing but yeah I'd prefer having access to the code and having the freedom to change it so the hardware operates the way I want.



I am going to assume that you do not have a hardware background.  As such, I do have a hardware background.  The reason why most manufacturers will not allow you to access their source code is because if someone goes tweaking the code, it can cause the hardware to malfunction, or even be in non-compliance of regulations (WiFi is a good example of this).  With silicon, the manufactures do their best to minimize the hardware as much as possible using tools like Verilog and such.  Therefore the hardware is not going to check for invalid values written to registers.  Another reason is that the hardware can end up in an invalid state and can possibly be damaged by setting registers wrong.  FPGAs come to mind as they can be damaged by a bad config file.  Along those lines, I remember from the 1980's there was some viruses that tried to blow up your monitor by pushing the video card output frequencies to the maximum the card would allow.  So a binary blob in the context of a device driver is not necessarily a bad thing as the manufacturer may be trying to protect the consumer from themselves.

Granted, many of us who inhabit these forums of not your average end user, so I do understand your point.  The problem is that the manufacturers don't know who will buy their products, so they have to cater to the lowest common denominator.


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 22, 2018)

Phishfry said:


> Can you imagine what you could buy in the commercial software world for $750 Million dollars.



I am no expert but with this amount of money would more practical to custom develop everything in house, and probably would still save to maintain the software for several years.


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## scottro (Jul 22, 2018)

I keep thinking we should have a subforum marked something like I hate Linux, as it would be a convenient place to put many of these threads, say, any that has more than 3 I hate Linux posts in it.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 22, 2018)

scottro Remember when we used to consider Linux a cousin and they felt the same about us?


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## Crivens (Jul 22, 2018)

scottro said:


> I keep thinking we should have a subforum marked something like I hate Linux, as it would be a convenient place to put many of these threads, say, any that has more than 3 I hate Linux posts in it.


We have that. It's called "Trash Can", but it needs moderator privileges to see it.


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## Spartrekus (Jul 22, 2018)

The good thing with free software and free source code is that it is unlimited the possibilities and software range.

However most libraries that are public domain aren't efficient. Libraries use lot of processor,... and the whole system is slow.
Termcap is the king and build yourself you libs.
Compilers such as gcc,... are ok.

Well, graphics. gtk is okay, simple to use for everyone. 

FreeBSD, Linux,... opensource Unix like, they look the same and they are very close.
NanoBSD is a good way to think.


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## ralphbsz (Jul 23, 2018)

Spartrekus said:


> The good thing with free software and free source code is that it is unlimited the possibilities and software range.


Nice theory.  But 99.99% of all users of free software never even look at the source code, much less modify it.  The unlimited possibilities simply don't interest them.

And the same is true of any turing-complete (ha ha) machine.  If someone knows how to program well enough to modify Linux, Xwindows, KDE, or the C compiler, they don't absolutely need to start with free software.  With a little more effort, they can write their own code on any machine that has a source code editor, compiler and linker.  All free software does: it gives software developers a head start.



> However most libraries that are public domain aren't efficient.  Libraries use lot of processor,... and the whole system is slow.


Nonsense.  People who run supercomputers really really care about efficiency.  And 100% of all supercomputers (at least the 500 largest ones) run Linux.  That pretty much proves that Linux is neither slow nor inefficient.


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## kuroneko (Jul 23, 2018)

ralphbsz said:


> Nice theory.  But 99.99% of all users of free software never even look at the source code, much less modify it.  The unlimited possibilities simply don't interest them.


We do look at the source code I don't know where you got that from. The reason we want free software is exactly to look at the source code and change it how we want. We don't want free software to then not look at the code that would not make any sense. So I think you're wrong by saying the 99% don't. There are also a lot of people reverse engineering non-free software just for that. If we didn't care then there wouldn't be a free software movement at all.


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## ShelLuser (Jul 23, 2018)

kuroneko said:


> The reason we want free software is exactly to look at the source code and change it how we want. We don't want free software to then not look at the code that would not make any sense.


Actually ralphbsz has a very good point there. Although I don't necessarily agree with his 99% fact of the matter is that for a large majority (definitely most non-tech) users of open source software the most important aspect is the "free as in beer" part.

Most people use open source software because it's gratis. No more, no less.

And there are many examples which showcase this. Take for example Debian's OpenSSL disaster. It took years before someone actually spotted the horrendous flaw. Not just that: the flaw sat within the actual SSL engine itself, which would be _the_ part which people interested in the source code would study first.


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## kuroneko (Jul 23, 2018)

ShelLuser said:


> Take for example Debian's OpenSSL disaster. It took years before someone actually spotted the horrendous flaw. Not just that: the flaw sat within the actual SSL engine itself, which would be _the_ part which people interested in the source code would study first.


I could show many example of non-free software flaws. While there can be more people working on free software it's not 100% perfect, nothing is perfect. Some things can go unnoticed.


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## kpedersen (Jul 23, 2018)

ralphbsz said:


> Nice theory.  But 99.99% of all users of free software never even look at the source code, much less modify it.  The unlimited possibilities simply don't interest them.



Very true. Or at least until the company drops support or goes bankrupt and they suddenly need to maintain the software themselves. Then they will need to look at the source code very hard to actually be able to build it. Otherwise they will never be able to access that weird old file format they "used to use".

We recently had to access an old CAD related file that the original manufacturer had long since dropped support of the software (and long since stopped trading). It was a proprietary system and whilst we could have run it in a ratty emulator (which would have been extremely hard because VMWare, VirtualBox, Hyper-V are absolutely crap when it comes to supporting Solaris 9), we luckily found a package containing the leaked source code of the original software.
Building it was hard. The build system was old and pretty much needed replacing entirely. Luckily it was written in C rather than some old stupid Java <1.5 or Python 1.x (Those kinds of languages are terrible when it comes to lifespan).
We probably broke some law but luckily no-one is around to sue us (Though I have also been vague on details just in case haha).

That said, having to break (piracy?) laws because some nitwit would rather take some old useless source code to the grave with them rather than release it just seems like a sloppy, broken idea to me. I don't really care what license it is under, so long as I can access the darn thing.

I got paid a small amount for the work. I guess I am no longer a Pirate but a Privateer


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## rufwoof (Jul 23, 2018)

ralphbsz said:


> And 100% of all supercomputers (at least the 500 largest ones) run Linux.  That pretty much proves that Linux is neither slow nor inefficient.



Debatable! Linux is a kernel - not an operating system. The Linux kernel is a derivative of UNIX, created by developers at AT&T and modified into many "flavors"


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## rigoletto@ (Jul 23, 2018)

rufwoof said:


> The Linux kernel is a derivative of UNIX, created by developers at AT&T and modified into many "flavors"



*Linux != UNIX.* Linux is (more like used to be) a clone!


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 23, 2018)

rufwoof said:


> The Linux kernel is a derivative of UNIX


The Linux kernel is a derivative of Minix, or at least modeled after Minix, not ATT UNIX like FreeBSD is as a descendant.

Wikipedia


> Torvalds began the development of the Linux kernel on MINIX and applications written for MINIX were also used on Linux.



Torvalds himself said:


> I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
> (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).


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## kuroneko (Jul 23, 2018)

Linux contains none of the Minix code same as FreeBSD contains none of the Unix code. Torvalds did get his ideas from Minix though. Linux is a very good kernel with good hardware support Linux+GNU makes it a very good full operating system. As for FreeBSD I think it looks closer to Unix, well, Unix System V that is, it's the only one I tried so far and my experience was very similar to that of FreeBSD.


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