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OS question

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Which OS do you like best?
Poll ended at 23 Oct 2011, 5:46 pm
Win 7 50%  50%  [ 13 ]
Mac 12%  12%  [ 3 ]
Ubuntu 12%  12%  [ 3 ]
Mint 4%  4%  [ 1 ]
Other Linux distro 23%  23%  [ 6 ]
Total votes : 26

lxuser
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18 Oct 2011, 4:05 pm

MadnessMaddened wrote:
Not quite what I meant, I meant KDE 4.7 was released at the end of July. We started seeing updates popping up here and there within a week or so (supported or otherwise).

How long did it take for 4.7 to show up in FreeBSD?
Is there generally a delay between software releases on Linux and FreeBSD? What sort of delay would it be?
You are asking the wrong person, I don't use KDE nor do I look to see what versions they have in the repo.

MadnessMaddened wrote:
I mean, you have the ability to install RPMs on FreeBSD right? Does something handle dependencies or do you have to go at it by hand for the most part?
To be honest I don't know. There apparently is a way of doing that, but I imagine there wouldn't be auto dependency resolution. Again I could be wrong on this, so don't take my word for it.



Orwell
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19 Oct 2011, 6:51 pm

MadnessMaddened wrote:
lxuser wrote:
Well Arch Linux keeps up rather quickly, depending on what software it is it can be a day or two. I would say that Arch Linux keeps up with the latest stuff more than Gentoo does. FreeBSD is different because sometimes they have to patch it because of the different libraries on FreeBSD compared to Linux, and they have to test it heavily too.


Not quite what I meant, I meant KDE 4.7 was released at the end of July. We started seeing updates popping up here and there within a week or so (supported or otherwise).

How long did it take for 4.7 to show up in FreeBSD?
Is there generally a delay between software releases on Linux and FreeBSD? What sort of delay would it be?

From what I understand, most software comes to BSD a bit later than it comes to Linux. This is probably more pronounced for large and complex pieces of software like KDE. I believe the upcoming version of FreeBSD (and by extensions PC-BSD) which is expected to be released soonish will still have KDE4.6, although most Linux distros with a recent release are now on 4.7.

Quote:
I mean, you have the ability to install RPMs on FreeBSD right? Does something handle dependencies or do you have to go at it by hand for the most part?

BSD systems use something called "ports." These are not binaries like the .deb or .rpm files a Linux package manager uses; they are basically automated scripts that will download and compile a package and its dependencies for you. I used a similar type of ports system for some time on OS X. It is about as user-friendly as the typical Linux binary package manager, but of course it is quite a bit slower because of the time required to compile programs.

I am told that FreeBSD includes a Linux binary compatibility layer; akin to WINE but presumably much more effective since the BSD to Linux gap is much smaller than the Linux to Windows gap in how the OS functions. I do not know if there is any way for BSD users to make use of RPM, but as I mentioned earlier, I am not a BSD expert by any stretch of the imagination.


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lxuser
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19 Oct 2011, 8:48 pm

Orwell wrote:
MadnessMaddened wrote:
lxuser wrote:
Well Arch Linux keeps up rather quickly, depending on what software it is it can be a day or two. I would say that Arch Linux keeps up with the latest stuff more than Gentoo does. FreeBSD is different because sometimes they have to patch it because of the different libraries on FreeBSD compared to Linux, and they have to test it heavily too.


Not quite what I meant, I meant KDE 4.7 was released at the end of July. We started seeing updates popping up here and there within a week or so (supported or otherwise).

How long did it take for 4.7 to show up in FreeBSD?
Is there generally a delay between software releases on Linux and FreeBSD? What sort of delay would it be?

From what I understand, most software comes to BSD a bit later than it comes to Linux.
You are quite right there. Its due to the fact that some of the software wasn't coded with *BSD in mind and it needs to be patched and tested before it can run on *BSD properly.

Orwell wrote:
BSD systems use something called "ports." These are not binaries like the .deb or .rpm files a Linux package manager uses; they are basically automated scripts that will download and compile a package and its dependencies for you. I used a similar type of ports system for some time on OS X. It is about as user-friendly as the typical Linux binary package manager, but of course it is quite a bit slower because of the time required to compile programs.
You can also use pkg_add to install pre-compiled packages too.

Orwell wrote:
I am told that FreeBSD includes a Linux binary compatibility layer; akin to WINE but presumably much more effective since the BSD to Linux gap is much smaller than the Linux to Windows gap in how the OS functions.
Yes FreeBSD does have a Linux binary compatibility layer. I have found it a bit unstable depending on what you run in it.

Orwell wrote:
I do not know if there is any way for BSD users to make use of RPM, but as I mentioned earlier, I am not a BSD expert by any stretch of the imagination.
There is a way of installing RPMs in FreeBSD (check out THIS and THIS). How ever I don't know how good it is because I have never tried it and never will.



lxuser
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23 Oct 2011, 6:48 pm

I have been fiddling around with OpenIndiana for a few days now, I quite like it.