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Linux vs FreeBSD vs Solaris

B

Bryophyte

Lifer
What's the difference between Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris?

If a Windows user were to migrate towards one of these systems using a program such as Wine, which OS would be better, and why?

BigDan
 
The difference would be that they're totally different operating systems with different roots and development models.

Solaris on x86 is bad, very bad; Solaris on Sparc is good. I can run Solaris 8 on a Sun Ultra1 167Mhz 128M and it runs decent, but if I tried putting it on a P133 once and it took hours just to install. The hardware support is poor at best, if it's not on the HCL you have no chance of getting it to work.

Linux is considered easier than FreeBSD because most of the distros have the pretty graphical installers that do everything for you, all this does is make the OS harder to fix or use once you get it up and running and you're blind-sided with 'How the hell do I...' questions. Either would be fine as long as you're ready to devote the learning time required and don't go in whining and comparing everything to how Windows does things.
 
This is probably a FAQ somewhere, but anyway...

Linux, *BSD, and Solaris are totally different OSs though they share similar tools and applications. There's a long history behind each of them that I won't get into.

As mentioned, for the casual user (i.e. not running a high-load server), either Linux or FreeBSD are similar enough that it really just comes down to the installation, applications, and hardware support.

Linux is more popular and therefore has a lot more contributors (and thus more hardware and software support). Many programs like WINE are developed on Linux first then ported to other OSs like *BSD, so you get to stay on the bleeding edge (unlike the OpenBSD port of WINE, which is 3 years old...). Nevertheless, FreeBSD is also popular and keeps up fairly well with the versions, so it's a tough choice.

I currently am playing with Slackware Linux on my laptop. I wanted to try FreeBSD but it doesn't support CardBus yet 🙁
 
These are the types of things I need to know...thanks! I just don't want to jump into a new OS without exploring a few other options. I am just trying to migrate to Linux without having to dump all of my win apps right away. Now, which flavor of Linux would be good for a linux newbie? Redhat, Mandrake, Suse...? I frequently use HPux at work, but have very limited experience with Linux.

Thanks again for the helpful replies.
 
Originally posted by: BigDan
These are the types of things I need to know...thanks! I just don't want to jump into a new OS without exploring a few other options. I am just trying to migrate to Linux without having to dump all of my win apps right away. Now, which flavor of Linux would be good for a linux newbie? Redhat, Mandrake, Suse...? I frequently use HPux at work, but have very limited experience with Linux.

Thanks again for the helpful replies.
Click to expand...

All three would be great. They're free, so try them all.
 
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