tuxpenguin8 wrote:Hi,
So BSD and Linux are very simmilar with little differences, Linux is eaiser to understand, and is simpiler to use, but on the otherhand BSD is more complex and harder to understand. But is it worth it to learn how a BSD system works or is linux just good enough, and should i stick with Linux and not bother with BSD, or should I go onto BSD in the future? Is it like Plan9 Vs. UNIX, plan9 is superior to UNIX, but it is not superior enough to convert UNIX users, is it like that? Do remember I am 13, and I know not much about compters (I prefer critictism over praise, so I often self-critictise to play safe, and never exadurate) but I trying to find info to learn. And also if I learn how a linux system works, will it make it easier to understnad how a BSD system works?
Thanks,
What I really suggest you do is learn to read accurately.
I clearly elaborated where BSD and Linux would be similar, and where they are different. Linux is absolutely no simpler than BSD, but evidently does have some much better developed GUI configuration tools that some distros use but not all distros use. Thus, by picking a simple distro, the setup is simpler for the user. Also, all the major Linux distros that are aimed at the desktop expect a graphical desktop to be used, while BSD and all Linux server distros do not expect a graphical desktop to be used. Thus, the desktop distros have already integrated that desktop, while BSD, for instance, has it available as an add-on.
If you want to set up slackware, or centos, you won't find it any easier than setting up this BSD system. You will find it substantially similar in terms of complexity and in terms of the issues you encounter. If you want to build linux from scratch, you'll encounter the same level of complexity and the same issues.
If you want to compare Linux to BSD, compare a console oriented server Linux to BSD and you will see they are very very similar...until you get into the kernel, where they are completely different. If you want to compare BSD with KDE on it to Linux with KDE on it, you won't be able to tell them apart when you are just a user and they will be extremely similar (though not identical) when you are a developer (until you get into the kernel). When you start to be an administrator; BSD's graphical configuration tools are pretty much nonexistent (though, of course, the KDE control panel is available). There is no BSD equivalent of the Mageia control panel (drakconf) or of the OpenSUSE Yast. So BSD with KDE compares to slackware with KDE at the administrative level.
If you want a learning experience, BSD will certainly give you one. So will centos or slackware. And, when you have learned BSD, you have nearly learned Linux - and vice-versa. If you just want to use the system with minimal hassle, Mageia, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Mint are your choices (and I would never choose Ubuntu) because these systems have all had a great deal of effort put into hiding the underlying complexity from you.
Keep in mind that BSD and AT&T Unix were the original Unix systems, starting back in the 1970s. And remember that what we call Linux is properly called GNU/Linux - and the GNU part of the system is the biggest part of the system (everything below the desktop, except the kernel - which is the Linux part). The GNU toolset was built to be an open-source redistributable version of the tools available in AT&T Unix and in BSD Unix, so the GNU system is a clone of the BSD system. They look almost the same, they work almost the same. All are part of that family of operating systems that are collectively called Unix (or *nix, in recognition of the multiplicity).
All the desktops - ALL of them - as well as the X-windows environment came much much later, after AT&T and BSD were well established. Early Linux distros did not have graphical desktops, and those desktops have been grafted onto an environment that is inherently console oriented - and this is true of every *nix. The seams show, which is why X-windows will soon go away.
In the case of linux, distro developers have taken the considerable trouble to provide graphical tools to make using the desktop much friendlier for Joe Average user. In BSD, no one uses the desktop, the user base is all sophisticated and server oriented, so no one has made simple tools for the desktop. I'm putting together a graphical desktop BSD for a particular reason having to do with expected work, a need to work with BSD at its most basic levels, a strong preference for graphical desktops for a flexible development environment, and a growing realization that most of my Linux tools won't touch the BSD things I need to work on.