Which bsd to use

Search forums. Log in. Install the app. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Which BSD system choose? Thread starter pirmat Start date Jul 17, What are the main differences, and what system could be a better choice? SirDice Administrator Staff member. Click to expand What are the main differences. Comparison of BSD operating systems - Wikipedia.

George Aspiring Daemon Reaction score: Messages: Zirias Son of Beastie Reaction score: 1, Messages: 2, I would say all BSDs have some focus on code quality. If you want to try a Desktop installation somehow quickly, yes, one of the FreeBSD-based Distributions might be a good choice. You can of course have "vanilla" FreeBSD work on a Desktop just as well, it just needs quite a lot of configuration, requiring you to learn a few things about how the system works before having a Desktop ready to use.

It also has a few unique features that can be extremely useful, like virtual kernels run kernels as userland processes , variant symlinks and process checkpointing very cool!

I've tested the main BSDs and my opinion on them is: - FreeBSD : very good base OS, very good documentation, wide choice of well maintained applications as up-to-date as on Linux - NetBSD : good documentation, very interesting philosophy, problematic quality e.

If you want the latest version of your favorite app and you want it yesterday, Linux allows you to live life on the bleeding edge moreso than FreeBSD. Still, most major applications make their way to FreeBSD in very little extra time, and most of us using FreeBSD prefer stability over getting the latest new feature immediately.

It is also not free, and will only run on Apple hardware which is more expensive than comparable PC hardware. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft. Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple. Linux and the BSDs are both Unix-like operating systems.

It eventually grew into a complete operating system and now there are multiple different BSDs. The FreeBSD handbook will, greatly, help you. Or just use both. Like Windows, Linux happened to be in the right place at the right time and gained market share much quicker than BSD. This caused more drivers and applications to be developed for it, giving it even more momentum.

Privilege separation , privilege revocation, chrooting and randomized loading of libraries also play a role in increasing the security of the system. If you are in search of an operating system that is very secure, then OpenBSD is perfect for you. In fact, it is so secure that you may even get annoyed when working on it a little bit. Just remember in the end it is all about keeping your machine, and in turn your data, safe.

NetBSD will run on over 50 different hardware configurations making even more robust than many versions of Linux. The operating system is very portable and lightweight too, making it great for older machines. It is a fork of FreeBSD 4. The entire system can be built with just a few commands much like FreeBSD. Designed with former FreeBSD users in mind, it runs in a much more similar fashion to past versions of FreeBSD before they moved into new territory with version 5 and above.

As good as FreeBSD is, it does not target desktop users. Its focus is on simplicity. On top of that, much of the desktop software the average user will need will be installed when you setup the operating system, making this version of BSD much more user friendly compared to all the others on this list. Now that you know what some of the most popular versions are, the time has come for you to make a decision on which one you will use.

However, if you are looking to setup your own server, then you may want to consider OpenBSD if you want to really tighten security or you can always go with FreeBSD for all of the above if you want to make sure you have easy access to help when you need it. A lot of it depends on how you will be using BSD, the level of expertise you have, and how easy you want it to be to find the help you need when you need it.

This can be a tough one I know. Why bother switching when you already have a working system running the major operating systems? Like Linux, there is a definite niche when it comes to servers and those just wanting to stay away from the major players such as Apple and Microsoft.