Gentoo vs FreeBSD

d_klusenerx · n00b Joined: 05 Mar 2005 Posts: 7 Location: India

hello , between these two options what do you recommend

1. gentoo and freebsd on seperate partitions but on same system
2. gentoo/FBSD project

if I am not running a server and basically just using linux as a desktop and for programming, is there any value going into FreeBSD?

SJR3t2 · Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2005 2:56 pm Post subject:

eerok · n00b Joined: 14 Feb 2005 Posts: 69 Location: Canada

Hmm, this thread reminds me that I couldn't get freebsd to install on my newer box, which is why I ended up trying gentoo in the first place. I tried netbsd before gentoo -- the install went fine, but it just wasn't the same.

The problem I have is that freebsd won't accept the disk geometry of the hard drive. Versions before 5 won't even boot from the install cd (they freeze up probing the hard drives); 5.3 boots but refuses to write a partition table. This leads me to believe that freebsd just doesn't like my disk controller.

Anyway, it's interesting to see that so many gentooers seem to like freebsd. I used it for years, and rather liked it myself.
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noobus perpetuus

racoontje · Veteran Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 1290

By the way, Netcraft stats showing that BSD/OS is on top and not Linux doesn't mean that Linux is unstable, unless of course you don't know what you're talking about. Most of the Linux kernels that run on these high-availibility servers have uptime variables that overflow at around ~497 days. If you would have bothered to check the information your sources give you before you try to use it as an argument, you would have known this:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/accuracy.html

Arainach · l33t Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 609

Or are running 4.10, the Super-Stable release.
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Gentoo: Stage3 w/ NPTL & udev, gcc 3.4.4 full rebuild
Kernel: 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 w/ 1G-Lowmem Patch
System: Athlon XP 2.2Ghz/1GB Corsair Value/160GB, 250GB WD IDE/128MB GeForce 6800/Sony 17" Trinitron G200 @ 1280x1024x75Hz

racoontje · Veteran Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 1290

lefsha · Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2005 11:44 pm Post subject:

Arainach · l33t Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 609

Here's my opinion. I've used FreeBSD, Gentoo, and other Linux Distros, and I'll just say this:

Other Linux users will talk about how tough it is to Install and run a Gentoo system. Well IMHO FreeBSD makes Gentoo feel like Windows. FreeBSD is a rock solid OS for what it's designed for - running servers. I would never use it as a Desktop because it's just too restrictive and too much of a pain. If I was building a server, I'd use FreeBSD or Hardened Gentoo (I run servers on both). I'm not certain which is better; I give my preference to hardened Gentoo because it's easier to install, configure, secure, and maintain. But I've never had a security issue on any of my servers, so I can't say for sure which is more secure. For a Desktop? Gentoo, hands down. Absolutely no competition.
_________________
Gentoo: Stage3 w/ NPTL & udev, gcc 3.4.4 full rebuild
Kernel: 2.6.15-gentoo-r1 w/ 1G-Lowmem Patch
System: Athlon XP 2.2Ghz/1GB Corsair Value/160GB, 250GB WD IDE/128MB GeForce 6800/Sony 17" Trinitron G200 @ 1280x1024x75Hz

titan100 · n00b Joined: 06 Sep 2004 Posts: 61

falcon_za · Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 9:36 am Post subject:

I saw a lot or answer in here saying things like "i like gentoo better" "bsd makes a better server" "portage ownz ports" "ports ownz portage" and so on.

So I am not going to ask again which one you think is better. What I'd like to people who hage used both long enough to know them, is what consider as strongs points and short commings in both. Not like "portage is a strong point" but more like "feature XXX in portage rocks, but then YYY is better under bsd's ports because it has ZZZ"

I am mainly intersted in the differences between portage / ports, init scprits, system configuration, kernel features (not stability, this has been widely covered).

Multiple languages support including asia languages chinese and japanese is also a requierement for me. for ports, i can check what's available, but how well does the base system handle this (utf8 filenames, ...)

j79zlr · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:52 am Post subject:

Here goes, I've used FreeBSD for a few years, and Gentoo about a year. I'll start with Ports vs. Portage.

Ports:

* Things are tested before making it into the ports tree, sure things fail, but nearly as often as ebuilds.
* It doesn't take months for new versions to be stable, they are tested and updated, no silly ~x86 masks. e.g. Gnome 2.10 is in the FreeBSD ports tree and is fully stable, it will be 95 here in Chicago before it is on Gentoo.
* Working recursive dependency checking, this is nonexistant in Gentoo.
* Working program to remove old distfiles, I know there are scripts to do it in Gentoo, but none seem to work perfectly.
* /usr/ports/UPDATING explains any wierdness you might expect with changes in the ports tree, and how to fix it, with Gentoo you are on your own.

Portage:

* Use flags are convienent, but you can accomplish the same thing with /usr/local/etc/pkgtools.conf on FreeBSD.
* CFLAG filtering, right now on FreeBSD, you can safely set CPU_TYPE [effective to -march=] and -O2 -pipe, anything else is unsupported.

My main differences:

FreeBSD:

* Hierarchy is strictly followed, system items go into /usr, /etc/, X11 stuff into /usr/X11R6, local ports into /usr/local, /usr/local/etc. I am never trying to find anything in the FS, I know exactly where it will be.

Gentoo:

* Just plain better support for the desktop, e.g. Flash works flawlessly on Linux; on FreeBSD it is hacked in using linux emulation and is terribly slow.
* In general, better support for the latest hardware on Linux, simply because it is more popular.

labrador · Guru Joined: 04 Oct 2003 Posts: 316

The killer for me is software RAID. I've got IDE disks, so I need
redundancy. Linux has it, and it is stable. BSD has dabbled
in something called vinum. The web page for the project scares me:

http://www.vinumvm.org/vinum/how-to-debug.html

Boinky · Apprentice Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 256 Location: Almere

Hello there,

I've read this often with regard to FreeBSD: GNU/LInux is supposed to be much more "chaotic" and the code looks less professional.

I don't see the underlying code as an end user and I don't notice anything of Gentoo being chaotic, on the contrary!

How would one notice something of the underlying code being not very good looking when using a system such as Gentoo? What does that mean anyway: FreebSD's code looks more professional? Does it mean that for example the code of the Linux kernel contains a lot of redundant or unused stuff or what? Or is it like HTML code being less tidy?

Can someone give me an example of Linux code being less professional or more chaotic than its FreeBSD counterpart?

Cheers,

Robert
_________________
"RTFM!", the Gentoo Guru said, "although you shouldn't pay too much attention to the guides because they're all extremely outdated..." -- I like that kind of absurd humour!

SJR3t2 · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 4:11 pm Post subject:

Good request Boinky. I have also had many FreeBSD advicats state the same thing.

Anyother thing I have hurd from FreeBSD advicats say related to programming code is the following. Gentoo/Linux kernel programmers do not engineer it's code but only think about it as they write. Contrasted with FreeBSD, they engineer the code, then write it. Which is a much better practice. I do not beleive this statement is true. I would like to know Gentoo Community response to this.

Steven

defkewl · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 5:42 pm Post subject: Re: Gentoo vs FreeBSD

SJR3t2 · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 5:48 pm Post subject:

A very important thing for me is to find a place that will lease a Gentoo or a FreeBSD box with lots of bandwidth for a very good price. The places I have found that will lease a Gentoo box do not give much bandwidth without high prices. I would like to be told I am wrong, and where it is true.

Steven

Boinky · Apprentice Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 256 Location: Almere

Hello there again,

one more thing: I installed FreeBSD-5.3 a while ago and it takes quite some work in order to update the ports and sources. You have to use cvsup files to do that and it takes quite a while before everything is updated. It gave me the impression of a chaotic system, unlike Gentoo where everything concerning software is done through the central portage system.

On FreebSD if you want something installed, you need to go to the corresponding ports directory and do a

j79zlr · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 10:40 pm Post subject:

Cmon, cvsup is not that difficult to set up. Copy the sample file and edit the default host line.

I don't buy the compile errors argument either, I use both FreeBSD and Gentoo daily, and ebuilds break atleast 5x's more often then freebsd ports. I find compiler errors very rare on FreeBSD, and if there is one, it is usually caused by someone not reading /usr/ports/UPDATING and following directions.

IMHO the reason for the stability of FreeBSD is that the base system is seperated from the software. GCC is not going to get updated without doing a buildworld, and it isn't put into the system source until tested and working against everything. Without having to worry about 5 different versions it helps alot with the overall stability. Lets take another example, you update perl on FreeBSD, so you have to reinstall all perl dependent ports, so you run portupgrade -f `(pkg_info -R perl\* | tail +4)` how would you do that on Gentoo? You can't, no recursive dependency checking.

I am not a FreeBSD zealot, I love and use Gentoo as my main desktop, simply because there are some things lacking in FreeBSD for that, I have never argued against that. But, when it comes to stability and servers, FreeBSD is the OS I would choose 10 times out of 10.

Remember, without FreeBSD there is no Gentoo.

Boinky · Apprentice Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 256 Location: Almere

eerok · n00b Joined: 14 Feb 2005 Posts: 69 Location: Canada

Boinky, get rid of those compiler flags and portage; then you might find that there's nothing wrong with freebsd's behavior.

I ran freebsd for years with none of your problems.
_________________
noobus perpetuus

Boinky · Apprentice Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 256 Location: Almere

Hi there Eerok,

Portage is being ported to FreeBSD and is supposed to work eventually. Get rid of it? Why not get rid of whatever?

I already tried to strip all CFLAGS and COPFLAGS from /etc/make.conf. Same result. I'm really not doing anything weird. It's not the first time I'm compiling stuff, you know and it's not because everything always goes fine for you on FreeBSD that the same should apply to me.

Just accept that nothing is perfect, not even FreeBSD. Is that so difficult? ;-)

Cheers,

R
_________________
"RTFM!", the Gentoo Guru said, "although you shouldn't pay too much attention to the guides because they're all extremely outdated..." -- I like that kind of absurd humour!

eerok · n00b Joined: 14 Feb 2005 Posts: 69 Location: Canada

j79zlr · Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 9:59 pm Post subject:

The only supported compiler flags on FreBSD are -O2 -pipe along with the CPU_TYPE, I stated that above.
You have: -O2 -mmmx -msse -pipe -fno-strict-aliasing -ffast-math -malign-double -funroll-loops

First off, I believe -mmmx and -msse are implied when using the CPU_TYPE=p4 [aka -march=pentium4], and -funroll-loops is pointless since it would create larger binaries, and cause alot of wierd things to happen, not limited to compiler errors. EZM will _ALWAYS_ fail with aggresive CFLAGS.

Second, you don't have an up-to-date ports tree, or else you would have perl 5.8.6 not perl 5.8.5, again, the unzip error is because it is at version 552 not 551.

Thrid, I never said the directions in UPDATING were easy, but at least they exist. There is nothing of the sort on Gentoo.

Boinky · Apprentice Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 256 Location: Almere

Let's not get upset about something so stupid as a mere operating system. I'm going to keep using Gentoo as a desktop OS anyway, not FreeBSD.

Cheers
_________________
"RTFM!", the Gentoo Guru said, "although you shouldn't pay too much attention to the guides because they're all extremely outdated..." -- I like that kind of absurd humour!

myuser · Apprentice Joined: 31 Jan 2004 Posts: 218

FreeBSD just seems to have what I want in an intuitive low level way. It is odd but everything from a server perspective seems to work very well and very logically.

Only problem at the mo is backspacing in VIM it seems to be intermitent.

You can turn off parts of the ports tree for cvsup to quicken that process and all the info is contained in the conf file.

Doing a make instead of an emerge offers a degree more flexibility and also keeps you closer to a tool you can use in other areas.

I like both, and yeah Gentoo on the desktop FreeBSD on the server works out very well for me.

With that said I would put Gentoo on server and BSD on a desktop, but each would offer a less useful paradigm, as I would become very cautious on the server and probably get too frsutrated with lack of support for the toys on the desktop.