[plug] (Parrallel Topic) Which BSD?

[Cameron Patrick]

Adrian Woodley wrote:

> * NetBSD - tight IP stack. Designed primarily as a network services
> platform.

The only one of the three that I've actually used.  Some random
observations:

Insanely portable, runs well on low-memory machines.  Does not come
with bash or any other sane shell by default.  Last I looked no binary
packages available for most of the apps in pkgsrc (only for the old
NetBSD 1.6.2) but I /think/ that's just a matter of the autobuilders
not having caught up after the 2.0 release a few weeks ago.  Pkgsrc is
okay but seems rather unsophisticated compared to Debian packages :-(

Has some wacky features like verified exec (checks MD5sums of binaries
before running them).

The OpenBSD packet filter runs on NetBSD too.

The installation procedure is reminiscent of Debian woody, only with
fewer stupid questions and no 'dselect' horror at the end.

> * OpenBSD - focus on security and encryption.

"We can check out the NetBSD CVS repository" :P  Like NetBSD but with
more colourful personalities behind it, q.v.
    http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/01/msg00755.html

> * FreeBSD - has a devil as a mascot. :)

"We want to be popular like Linux" :P

Cameron.