h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Following on from a diversion in an other thread, it has been put forward that BSD is much better for server security...

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When ever I ask what an alertive to windows is I here Linux, it's so well suported and from what I've seen is bigger with server firms, the only thing I know about BSD is that they used a version for Max OS X.

-- DoctorMO --

Well this list is meaningless now

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html

because Linux does not report an uptime of over 500 days (it rolls back down to 0) and neither do newer releases of BSD for that matter. But it still shows some interesting sites that run BSD.

But look at this:

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.yahoo.com&submit=Examine

You will find that many other major sites choose BSD when they are concerned about stability and security.

You also have to keep in mind that Linux is just the kernel. Much of the software running on a BSD system will be from GNU, just as it is with Linux, although BSD has it's own versions of many utilities.

the main difference between bsd and other versions of unix seems to be in how they handle multithreading.

linux and most other versions of unix are based on the system 7 version of at&t unix. This was written with a shared memory implimentation of multiprocessor support. the multithreading options were implimented with this in mind.

bsd on the other hand was implimented at berkley, where they were doing research on distributed computing, and thus shared memory wasn't an option.

recent changes mean that you can now choose to run linux binaries on bsd, so that becomes mainly irrelevant.

however, openBSD has had every line of code security audited, and thus it is a good choice for implimenting a secure system.

see http://www.xyroth-enterprises.co.uk/posixos.htm for a fairly big list of different implimentations of unix if you are really interested.

What is BSD?
Try reading http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,555451,00.asp

BSD Security?
http://www.netbsd.org/Security/
http://www.freebsd.org/security/
http://www.openbsd.org/security.html
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2002/02/28/openbsd.html

Distributions
http://www.netbsd.org/
http://www.freebsd.org/
http://www.openbsd.org/
http://www.microbsd.net/
also sort of http://www.opendarwin.org/

Finally ... wouldn't this thread be busier if it was on either the Linux or Unix page (or even ask h2g2)

also see
F19585?thread=202588&post=2307652#p2307652

Post 101 - 129

Posably, anyone could start a thread there if they like, just I didn't know there was a Unix part to H2G2 (although this says more about me than H2G2).

-- DoctorMO --

*giggles*

There are, I'm just not sure i anyon visits them
A369678

yes, people do visit various bits of the h2g2 linux and unix stuff.

for example:

A311130 - the edited entry on gnu/linux
A458228 - the linux users group
A681473 - the linux newbie's guide (part 1)

I'm not suprised though. it's got a masive fan base of suport.

anyone seem the 'we like MSwin here is how to recompile it' page?

-- DoctorMO --