How is freebsd different than linux

It's so free you can make it not free like apple did. Practically it probably has no impact on me, but I prefer it on principle and was one of the reasons I chose to use FreeBSD over Linux. Another reason is I wanted to tinker, I find when when I use Ubuntu I'm not putting on my unix hat; instead I'm just using the GUI everywhere as if I was in windows which is not necessarily a bad thing just different. FreeBSD is an operating system. Linux is a kernel.

So in your question you're comparing apples and orange seeds. Licensing and device support would be my two top reasons why someone would choose one over the other. Here's something I wrote about BSD unix variants in answer to a similar question on serverfault. Broadly, the code base of BSD systems is more tightly controlled than a typical linux distro.

You will get something a bit more like a traditional unix and the system is very robust with a more conservative change policy. If you're a pure open-source shop and not dependent on any commercial software like Oracle then a BSD unix system will give you a very stable, well understood and controlled software platform, more so than Linux.

Most of the historic issues like poor driver or SMP support have been resolved years ago, particularly on mainstream server hardware. If you want a traditional unix desktop then a BSD unix will give you this as well as any linux distro. If you're after an end-user system you might be better off with Ubuntu or Fedora. Gentoo Linux was based on a derivative of the BSD 'ports' packaging system.

Due to this, they licensed Unix to Berkeley. Enter a bit later, Linus Torvalds was in an Operating Systems class working with an incomplete Unix clone called Minix, which was meant to train students in building an OS. Linus took off with this idea and founded the Linux branch. Now my experience lies more with OpenBSD, and from that perspective the difference is staggering. It's been mentioned that OpenBSD is more secure, with only 2 exploits in its history it's earned that right. The founder Theo de Raadt believed that security should be a primary focus and that many Linux and other BSD systems were not dedicated to writing good code, and instead focused too much on adding new features just to add them.

OpenBSD has a release schedule of 6 months, anything that cannot be implemented fully and securely within that time period is not added. Compared to Linux distributions like Ubuntu, who never test a danged thing before releases, this is a huge key to peace of mind for many sysadmins and server ops.

I can't help it. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

The views and conclusions contained in the software and documentation are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing official policies, either expressed or implied, of the FreeBSD Project. For a long time, FreeBSD's 'ports collection', which means the software available for it through its package manager, was bigger and better than what was in the Linux repositories. I would imagine that's not true now, although i don't know of any statistics. Sign up to join this community.

The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. The kernel and a collection of software, many of which are created by the FreeBSD developers themselves, are maintained as a unit. It is not as simple to swap out components that are part of this core collection because it is, in a sense, a monolithic set of software.

This allows the FreeBSD team to very closely manage the main operating system, ensuring tight integration and more predictability. The software that is included in the core operating system is considered completely separate from the components offered as optional additions. FreeBSD offers a large collection of optional software, just as Linux distributions do, but this is managed separately.

The core system is updated as a single unit independently and optional software can be updated individually. Most Linux releases are the result of gathering software from a variety of sources and modifying it as necessary.

The distribution maintainers decide which components to include in the installation media, which components to include in the distribution maintained repositories, etc. After testing the components together, a release containing the tested software is created. These qualities lead to a different approach to releasing software than most Linux distributions. Because FreeBSD organizes things on the operating system level, all of the base components are maintained within a single source code repository.

This has a few important implications. First of all, since these tools are all developed in tandem in a single repository, a release is formed simply by selecting a revision of one of the branches of the repository. This is similar to the way that most software is released in that a stable point is selected from an organized code base. Users do not have to wait for developers to sanction changes to get them on their system. This is somewhat similar to users tracking different repositories organized by stability in certain Linux distributions.

In Linux, you track a package repository, while in FreeBSD, you can track a branch of a centralized source repository. The remaining differences that we will discuss will be related to the software itself and the general qualities of the system. While most Linux distributions provide only pre-compiled binary packages of the distribution-supported software, FreeBSD contains both pre-built packages as well as a build system for compiling and installing from source.

For most software, this allows you to choose between pre-compiled packages built with reasonable defaults and the ability to customize your software during the compilation process by building it yourself. These directories contain a few files that specify the location where the source files can be obtained, as well instructions for the compiler about how to properly patch the source to work correctly with FreeBSD.

The packaged versions of software are actually produced from the ports system, making FreeBSD a source-first distribution with packages available for convenience. Your system can be comprised of both source-built and pre-packaged software and the software management system can adequately handle a combination of these two installation methods.

One decision that might seem a bit strange to users familiar with some of the more popular Linux distributions is that FreeBSD usually opts to provide upstream software unmodified where ever possible. Many Linux distros make modifications to software in order to make it easier to connect with other components and to try to make management easier. Good examples of this tendency are the restructuring of common web server configuration hierarchies to make server configuration more modular.

While many users find these changes helpful, there are also drawbacks to this approach. One issue with making modifications is that it presumes to know what approach works best for users.

It also makes software more unpredictable for users coming from other platforms, as it diverges from upstream conventions. In general, the modifications to software in the FreeBSD ecosystem are those necessary to make the software build and run correctly in a FreeBSD environment and those required to define some reasonable defaults. Another aspect of FreeBSD systems that might cause confusion for Linux users is the availability of familiar tools that operate slightly differently than they would on Linux systems.

The FreeBSD team maintains its own version of a large number of common tools. There are a few reasons for this decision. Since FreeBSD is responsible for developing and maintaining the core operating system, controlling the development of these applications and placing them under a BSD license is either essential or useful. Some of these tools also have close functional ties to the BSD and Unix tools from which they were derived, unlike the GNU suite, which in general tends to be less backwards compatible.

These differences often manifest themselves in the options and syntax of commands. You may be used to running a command in a certain way on your Linux machines, but these may not work the same on a FreeBSD server. It is important to always check the man pages of commands to get familiar with the options for FreeBSD variants.

A related point that might cause some confusion is that the default shell in FreeBSD is not bash. Instead, FreeBSD uses the tcsh as its default shell. This shell is an improved version of csh , which is the C shell developed for BSD.

This allows users to have free access to the operating system and they can modify the code as they see fit. If they want to, they can release and distribute this source code.

Alternatively, they can keep it to themselves, they have that right. Users are free to modify the source code under this license. The main difference is that if you make adjustments to the Linux source code you legally MUST release your source code. There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach.

But an advantage is that other users are able to build off of the work of others and develop the system further. This is a major reason as to why Linux has such a vibrant community.

Most users will not need to worry about this distinction, because most users will not modify the source code. The BASH shell is incredibly versatile and allows users to do nearly anything on compliant Unix systems.

It just requires more knowledge and understanding to utilize. This is absolutely one of the best systems for long-term data storage. It includes a built-in volume manager. This allows users to create multiple file systems that share the same pool of available storage. Ext4 is the default file system for most Linux distros. Linux wins this round. When considering updates, you have to look at two different aspects: convenience of updates and the speed at which those updates become available.

FreeBSD wins when it comes to convenience. You can choose only core components, such as the kernel, src, and world, or you can just select sub-components. Or choose them all. Linux wins when it comes to the speed at which updates are available.

The FreeBSD Ports collection features nearly 40, ports which can be installed quickly by users and administrators. Some are excellent and some are not. It all depends on your distro. Some of the best include:. This group debugs, develops, and improves the master source code repositories.

Most committers are unpaid volunteers. The Core Team members are voted in by active committers every two years. In comparison, the Linux kernel is controlled, modified, and maintained by Linus Torvalds the original creator. He has the final say when it comes to new features for Linux updates.