BSD = BloodSheD

Recently got an opportunity to try BSD (FreeBSD to be exact). Considering myself comfortable with Linux and all, I thought it would be a joyride.

Let's just say, BSD is Linux about a decade back. And as I have stated elsewhere, those who say that Linux is not ready for the big time, should spend time with BSD.

I am not sure about the origins of the disk partitioning scheme in BSD. Why make a simple task of partitioning, complicated by bringing in "Slices"? I would hope there is some performance advantage. There better be.

With a partitioner that does not do resizing, FreeBSD simply cuts off a vast proportion of people with little knowledge of manipulating partitions. Linux scores high here, since even novices can easily create blank space by squeezing existing partitions, and the tool is quite reliable as well.
Then there is the slicing operation which confused me a bit.

The whole OS installation is primitive, brought back memories of the CGA esqe Slackware installation routine. This was a bit more haphazard. There are three CDs (or a single DVD ) containing the packages, and the installation is not properly scheduled. So, try installing the KDE package, and the dependencies are sprawling over all three CDs requiring switching CDs furiously. It would seem more orderly to organise the packages sequentially on the CDs to reduce this switching.

Post installation, even if KDE is installed, you are dumped to a boot prompt. Unless you have already read about the editing the ttys file. In which case, the installer will launch a text editor to do the editing. I must stress here that this is the only area where BSD trumps Linux by a vast margin - the editor. vi is so annoyingly thick, that ee (the editor) seems like a genius. And ee is not there in my Opensuse 10.3. Sad indeeed.

Even after editing the ttys file, and getting into KDE, the lack of proper integration between the windows manager and the kernel leaves one returning to the command line for many tasks - some as routine as mounting a thumb drive (no automouting please, we are BSD). wvdial didn't work but pppd did, K3B would not recognise the PATA writer (requiring a lot of googling for an answer), wine installed and the only bright spot in the experiences, besides discovering ee, was I could install and run Opera 10 without hitch.

Eventhough I had downloaded the three isos over a GPRS connection (30 hours in all), I deleted them since I had no plans to return to BSD. The history is quite interesting - BSD v/s Linux, that is.  It would not require great intelligence to see that the only thing that differentiates between BSD and Linux is the large band of contributors backing the latter. And the hand of fate, that took the form of a lawsuit to temporarily thwart BSD when Linus was seeking contributors for his pet project is for conspiracy theorists to ponder on.

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