Ubuntu Linux, FreeBSD, or OpenSolaris?

[BigToque]

I've got all three running on my computer and I've been reading about all of them.

For most of the basic stuff, they pretty much seem the same, so how does one decide which is the one they should stick with.

I'm just running a desktop pc (no gaming), I'd like to be able to remotely access my files (but not be hosting a server), I do like to develop in C (sometimes Java), and make websites (PHP, SQL, JavaScript).

Are there areas that one excels/lacks in that I should stay away from simply because it's not what I need? Or is it a decision on which license I like more?

 

[lxskllr]

I've settled on Debian based distros cause they just "feel" right to me. I'm currently using Ubuntu, and if I were to switch it would be to Debian. It mostly comes down to what you like working with, and what software is available. For compatibility, I'd say Linux has the most software available, but I honestly don't know much about BSD or Solaris.

 

[Nothinman]

Yea, Gnome or KDE looks exactly the same no matter what OS it's running on. The main differences are in the core tools and kernel, i.e. GNU cp on Linux behaves slightly different than cp on FreeBSD and Solaris. And the kernels are completely different so if you want to use something like the non-free nVidia driver or VMware you need to make sure it supports your kernel which is many orders of magnitude less likely on FreeBSD or Solaris.

Licensing should only matter if you plan to hack on the kernel or base userland. The Linux kernel and GNU userland will be GPL and some LGPL, FreeBSD's kernel and userland should all be BSD and OpenSolaris' kernel and most of the userland should be CDDL, I don't know if there's any BSD stuff mixed in with it.

 

[snikt]

I've played around with a couple of VMs of Ubuntu, Mint, and FreeBSD with KDE. Of those three I preferred FreeBSD with KDE and Mint above Ubuntu. If most of my apps I use at home weren't Windows based I'd go with FreeBSD or Mint as my main OS.

 

[Nothinman]

Oh yea and with the Oracle buyout of Sun I'd stay away from anything Solaris.

 

[VinDSL]

I've got all three running on my computer[...]

I'm just running a desktop pc (no gaming)[...]

I'd like to be able to remotely access my files[...]

I do like to develop in C (sometimes Java), and make websites (PHP, SQL, JavaScript).

Hrm...

I've run all three, also...

FreeBSD really isn't a desktop-orientated OS. It's my favorite server software, but you aren't interested in running servers, so I would cross that off my short list.

BTW, congrats on getting FreeBSD up n' running. LoL! Personally, I don't have a single machine in my abode that meets the hardware requirements. I use Slackware for my home box -- CentOS on my production server.

Still, I lust for FreeBSD...

I have OpenSolaris multi-booted on my lappy. As you said, it looks pretty much the same as everything else -- and it does -- but, it's an oddball, e.g. a niche OS. You aren't going to find a lot of support in 'the community', when you run into problems. Instead, ppl will slag you in the threads, for using it...

It's fun to play with, but as Nothinman said, I'd steer away from OpenSolaris, as my primary desktop.

That leaves Ubuntu...

Ubu has its quirks too. I used to h-a-t-e Ubuntu, but that all changed (for me) after 9.04.

I don't know if it was me or them, but their model suddenly started to make sense, and I learned to love the bomb... :awe:

After you get used to it, Ubu is simply a joy to use!

That would be my pick-of-the-three, given your parameters...

 

[SickBeast]

You'll have the least amount of hassle with Ubuntu, plus it will perform better than BSD. I'm not sure about Solaris, but I have heard a lot of complaints that it's too complicated and hard to learn.

I personally run Lubuntu, but I only have 512mb of ram and a single core Centrino processor.

 

[Emulex]

freebsd. you can take a 4,5,6,7,8 freebsd box disk and stick it in anything (server wise) and it will just boot and go. best for P2V - just P2V, edit fstab, edit rc.conf for nic, done.

linux hardware modules are a pita with P2V or dissimilar hardware.

graphics? screw that

 

[Nothinman]

freebsd. you can take a 4,5,6,7,8 freebsd box disk and stick it in anything (server wise) and it will just boot and go. best for P2V - just P2V, edit fstab, edit rc.conf for nic, done.

The same is pretty much true for Linux. Hell, I did a manual P2V of an old RH7.x era installation and it went without a hitch.

linux hardware modules are a pita with P2V or dissimilar hardware.
graphics? screw that

Again, I never had any problems with Linux modules on supported hardware. I've swapped all kinds of things around, booted installs on different or virtual hardware, etc and it pretty much works just fine. And

 

[BigToque]

Well, I've been sticking with FreeBSD for the past week, and honestly it's been nothing but a pain to use so far. I'm really trying to give it a proper try. Having very little experience with Linux and none with BSD or Solaris, all the things that have taken me a week are probably a 15-30 minute fix once you know the system.

I finally got into X (using gnome), managed to get sound, wireless and ntfs drives working.

All that's left to get working is the DVD drive and figuring out why X keeps crashing. I still can't get my DVD drive to auto-mount/unmount discs, which wouldn't be that bad except the system never wants to unmount the drive once I've loaded it. X crashes on me every time i logout forcing a hard reboot.

 

[Nothinman]

I have the exact opposite problem with automounting in Linux, I hate it and it keeps happening. But I haven't put any real effort into disabling it, so I can't complain too much.

And an X crash shouldn't require a reboot unless it's a side effect of a kernel problem.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Ehh ... I'd chose FreeBSD out of those options. I haven't ever run OpenSolaris, and I have messed with Ubuntu and with Xubuntu, and am frankly quite annoyed at the moment by Xubuntu. Pretty much decided I'll never get used to it.

That said, I'd seriously consider Slackware or OpenBSD. But, that's probably just my own personal preference. Slackware makes sense to me, things are where I know to find them, and everything runs predictably.
Ubuntu is wierd, it has things in the wrong place, it automatically tries to start the GUI on boot, it seems buggy and foreign to me.

 

[Nothinman]

Ehh ... I'd chose FreeBSD out of those options. I haven't ever run OpenSolaris, and I have messed with Ubuntu and with Xubuntu, and am frankly quite annoyed at the moment by Xubuntu. Pretty much decided I'll never get used to it.

That said, I'd seriously consider Slackware or OpenBSD. But, that's probably just my own personal preference. Slackware makes sense to me, things are where I know to find them, and everything runs predictably.
Ubuntu is wierd, it has things in the wrong place, it automatically tries to start the GUI on boot, it seems buggy and foreign to me.

Yea, I'd say you're the exception. Most people want the GUI to start on bootup and don't really care where files go as long as their shit works. I personally hate BSD init an would never recommend FreeBSD or Slackware to a new user, they're just way too much work for no real gains.

 

[zCypher]

it automatically tries to start the GUI on boot, it seems buggy and foreign to me.

lol. I'm gonna have to agree with Nothinman here. I want the GUI to start automatically.

Ubuntu is pretty nice. I'm searching for different ones to try though. Gotta find the best combination of speed/ease of use/features!

 

[BurnItDwn]

lol. I'm gonna have to agree with Nothinman here. I want the GUI to start automatically.

Ubuntu is pretty nice. I'm searching for different ones to try though. Gotta find the best combination of speed/ease of use/features!

I guess It just annoyed the crap out of me because it didn't install the Nvidia drivers by default for my video card, so the GDM couldn't start, and I couldn't login because at the login screen, keyboard wouldn't respond right due to constant errors writing nonstop to stderr... So I had to boot into recovery mode, get into /var/log/ and see ohhh ... it's trying to start X and it can't load the graphics because there's no drivers .... then install the nvidia display drivers, and finally it would boot.... Had it not attempted to go directly into X in the first place without me telling it to, It would have been much less of a hassle for me. I guess I simply just want more control over the install process, more control over what runs, and more control over the configuration of everything.... That's probably why I am so loyal to Slackware and OpenBSD. They give you lots of speed, but most of what they give is control and predictability. They certainly don't offer the general ease of use as Ubuntu, and while the ports tree is huge for BSD, there aren't quite as many features as you'd find in a ginormously popular distribution such as Ubuntu....
Sometimes I can be a bit OCD about things

 

[sourceninja]

I'm a ubuntu fan, but I only use the server distro anymore. I have not ran a linux desktop in the last year.

 

[Nothinman]

lol. I'm gonna have to agree with Nothinman here. I want the GUI to start automatically.

Ubuntu is pretty nice. I'm searching for different ones to try though. Gotta find the best combination of speed/ease of use/features!

You'll probably be better off just figuring out what is slowing down Gnome in Ubuntu. Mostly because it's the same Gnome in virtually all distributions and Ubuntu is still the most popular desktop distro so you'll have an easier time finding help for it.

I guess It just annoyed the crap out of me because it didn't install the Nvidia drivers by default for my video card, so the GDM couldn't start, and I couldn't login because at the login screen, keyboard wouldn't respond right due to constant errors writing nonstop to stderr... So I had to boot into recovery mode, get into /var/log/ and see ohhh ... it's trying to start X and it can't load the graphics because there's no drivers .... then install the nvidia display drivers, and finally it would boot....

That's odd because it should've used the non-accelerated nv driver at least. And if GDM can't start after 3 times it should use the framebuffer to display a dialog asking if you want to restart it in low graphics mode or something to that affect. The install I've got on a USB stick here did that for me because I had the non-free nVidia driver installed but booted it on a machine with just on-board Intel graphics.

I guess I simply just want more control over the install process, more control over what runs, and more control over the configuration of everything....

That's what the alternate install disc is for. The Live disc is meant to be as simple as possible.

That's probably why I am so loyal to Slackware and OpenBSD. They give you lots of speed, but most of what they give is control and predictability. They certainly don't offer the general ease of use as Ubuntu, and while the ports tree is huge for BSD, there aren't quite as many features as you'd find in a ginormously popular distribution such as Ubuntu....

Last time I tried OpenBSD it's I/O was slow as hell and I couldn't even imagine trying to set it up and maintain it as a desktop. And ports pale in comparison to a real package manager like dpkg/apt. I'd consider OpenBSD for a firewall/router, but that's about it.

 

[BurnItDwn]

That's odd because it should've used the non-accelerated nv driver at least. And if GDM can't start after 3 times it should use the framebuffer to display a dialog asking if you want to restart it in low graphics mode or something to that affect. The install I've got on a USB stick here did that for me because I had the non-free nVidia driver installed but booted it on a machine with just on-board Intel graphics.

Well, maybe Xubuntu's different than Ubuntu proper? It was a normal txt login screen that was flickering due to all the stderr proccing. I saw a bunch of errors with GDM in the log (several thousand lines), and I found no video drivers at all. It's crappy nforce 6100 onboard graphics, as I took my PCI-E card out of that machine long ago when I built my newwer quad core box ... and I'd never picked up another card for that machine... Anyhow, it was annoying, but it was easy to fix, but, it was a hassle and somewhat annoying.

That's what the alternate install disc is for. The Live disc is meant to be as simple as possible.

I wouldn't mind simple if it actually worked. (note: This is Xubuntu AMD64, which the installer probably gets a LOT less testing than Ubuntu proper.)

Last time I tried OpenBSD it's I/O was slow as hell and I couldn't even imagine trying to set it up and maintain it as a desktop. And ports pale in comparison to a real package manager like dpkg/apt. I'd consider OpenBSD for a firewall/router, but that's about it.

Well I used it in 2 different machines.
One was an old old 192mb 450mhz laptop. I used it mostly to surf the net and to run BitchX for IRC out of my living room. I also used it as a portable DVD player/CD player with headphones for when I was traveling. It worked quite well for those purposes.
My other OpenBSD box was a dedicated box, I set it up as an IP Masquerade box/firewall box using pf. I kept it up and running for a few years, but eventually, the mobo decided to stop working, and I had picked up a newwer laptop (in 2007, a p4 lappie) with 802.11g, so I wanted a wireless access point... and I was busy with other stuff, so I threw in the towel and just picked up a wireless router... And have lived without a good firewall ....


EDIT:
I am gonna keep this Xubuntu install for now, maybe I'll get rid of xfce and install fluxbox or blackbox as I'm more comfortable with them ... Just need to get used to / accommodated to how everything is different from what I'm used to ...

 

[Nothinman]

Well, maybe Xubuntu's different than Ubuntu proper? It was a normal txt login screen that was flickering due to all the stderr proccing. I saw a bunch of errors with GDM in the log (several thousand lines), and I found no video drivers at all. It's crappy nforce 6100 onboard graphics, as I took my PCI-E card out of that machine long ago when I built my newwer quad core box ... and I'd never picked up another card for that machine... Anyhow, it was annoying, but it was easy to fix, but, it was a hassle and somewhat annoying.

Yea, sounds like the Xubuntu devs screwed the pooch. I generally just stick with Debian myself because of the extra control of the installer and I don't really care about the usability mods the Ubuntu people do.

Well I used it in 2 different machines.
One was an old old 192mb 450mhz laptop. I used it mostly to surf the net and to run BitchX for IRC out of my living room. I also used it as a portable DVD player/CD player with headphones for when I was traveling. It worked quite well for those purposes.
My other OpenBSD box was a dedicated box, I set it up as an IP Masquerade box/firewall box using pf. I kept it up and running for a few years, but eventually, the mobo decided to stop working, and I had picked up a newwer laptop (in 2007, a p4 lappie) with 802.11g, so I wanted a wireless access point... and I was busy with other stuff, so I threw in the towel and just picked up a wireless router... And have lived without a good firewall ....

Exactly, it's good for that stuff because there's no real I/O necessary. As soon as you try to do anything that requires a bit of I/O you'll start to cry. I figure the OpenBSD devs put up with it either because they haven't used another OS in so long that they've forgotten how shitty it is or just out of blind loyalty.

EDIT:
I am gonna keep this Xubuntu install for now, maybe I'll get rid of xfce and install fluxbox or blackbox as I'm more comfortable with them ... Just need to get used to / accommodated to how everything is different from what I'm used to ...

If that's the cause you probably should've just went with Debian, you'd probably have been more comfortable with it's installer anyway.