Understanding Linux and FreeBSD Structure
Abstract Comparison
FreeBSD(Berkeley Software Distribution) and Linux are Unix-based, free, opensource operating systems. Linux and FreeBSD share similarities, but still, there are many considerable differences exist between them. Technically, Linux is just a kernel. As its name indicates, the operating system’s kernel is the core that makes it function. The software kernel is what manages the computer’s resources: it communicates with installed devices and applications, administrates the memory correctly, distributes processing time for all programs, communicates with storage devices for saving files etc.
Linux distributions have to do the work of bringing together all the software required to create a complete Linux OS and combining it into a Linux distribution like Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Fedora, Red Hat, or Arch. There are many different Linux distributions. Combine Linux kernel with GNU software and other components and you’ve got Linux ‘operating system.This is why Linux operating system called GNU/Linux.
FreeBSD, like Linux, is a free, open-source and secure Berkeley Software Distributions or BSD operating system that is built on top of Unix operating systems FreeBSD is one of the most popular operating system distributions of BSD and one of the complete open-source BSD operating systems.The biggest difference between Linux and BSD is that Linux is a kernel, whereas BSD is an operating system (also includes the kernel) which has been derived from the Unix operating system. While the specific licensing that each family employs differs both of these families of systems are free and open source. The overall feel and design of the systems are rather standardized and use similar patterns. The filesystem hierarchy is similarly divided, shell environments are the primary method of interaction for both systems, and the programming APIs share similar features. FreeBSD and Linux distributions are able to share many of the same tools and applications.
Both FreeBSD and Linux-based distributions are Unix-like in nature. FreeBSD has close roots to Unix systems of the past, while Linux was created from scratch as an open Unix-like alternative. This association informs decisions on the design of the systems, how components should interoperate, and the general expectations for what the system should look like and accomplish.
History(Lineage) of the Linux And FreeBSD
In order to understand the whole free software movement, we should go back to the late sixties, early seventies.
At that time, large computer firms did not give software the same value it has today. They were mostly computer manufacturers whose main revenue was generated by selling their large machines, which came with some type of operating system and applications. Universities had permission to take and study the operating system’s source code for academic purposes. Users themselves could request the source code from drivers and programs, for adaptation to their needs. Software was not considered to have an intrinsic value and simply came with the hardware that supported it.
In this context, Bell laboratories (AT&T) designed an operating system called UNIX, characterised by its efficient management of the system’s resources, its stability and compatibility with the hardware made by different manufacturers (to homogenise all their systems). This last factor was very important (before then, every manufacturer had their own operating systems that were incompatible with the rest), since it made UNIX extremely popular.
The FreeBSD project web site describes this OSS system as an operating system for x86 compatible (including Pentium® and Athlon™), amd64 compatible (including Opteron™, Athlon 64, and EM64T), Alpha/AXP, IA-64, PC-98 and UltraSPARC® architectures. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley.
Similarly, Linux is supported on various platforms including PowerPC, UltraSPARC® architectures, IA-64, etc. Linux was originally developed by Linus Torvalds, but has grown in size considerably thanks to the support of hundreds of contributors. FreeBSD and Linux are large and successful OSS system projects that depend on the contributions of its developer/user community to continue to evolve. The community of the FreeBSD project is made up of a group of core developers (7–9), a group of committers; which is a trusted developer community, and where committers may be nominated to become part of the core team. Linux follows a similar setup where the vast majority of contributors are volunteers. These communities are distributed geographically and culturally. FreeBSD and Linux are dependable descendants of the UNIX operating system.They run very well on standard PC hardware, and are widely used by the Internet industry. For many network server tasks, such as email, web-serving, and file serving, they not only represent the most economical solution, they also represent the most reliable solution.
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