BSD for Linux Users: An Introduction

BSD means a few things in the Open Source / Operating System world:

The Berkeley System Distribution, a variant of UNIX that stemmed from the original AT&T UNIX, originally developed by Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) of the University of California, Berkeley [1]
One or many of a number of BSD distributions - a "flavour" of the original, modified by the vendor to suit the purpose of the distribution in question. Examples might be FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Dragonfly BSD. Note that these are not "Unix-like" as Linux is, but actually based from and including code from the original BSD - minus the code from AT&T, hence the version they are based upon is known as "4.4BSD-Lite".
The actual kernel of one of these distributions, in the same way as Linux is the main kernel of distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora or Mint, although there are other choices of kernel for some distributions.
One or many BSD communities around the world to support and help develop these distributions, such as forums, help desks, etc.
A set of permissive non-copyleft licences which said distributions and kernels are distributed under [2][3] which allow redistribution provided that the original copyright notices are left in the associated media, and pose no other restrictions other than an optional "no endorsement" clause.

Following is a summary of some of the main distributions.

FreeBSD: the most popular BSD distribution, recognised by its support for running servers and famously run on [4]

PC-BSD: touted as "user-friendly", offering an easy install process and simple package installations from self-contained packages. [5]

OpenBSD: supposedly the most secure operating system, boasting "Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!" [6]

NetBSD: a distribution with a small install size, a popular base and excelling at portability with "formal releases for 53 architectures [7], and has integrated ports for four others", celebrating 20 years since its foundation this year.

Dragonfly BSD: a 10-year-old (so still relatively young) distribution famous for its extremely speedy filesystems. [8]

Debian GNU/kFreeBSD [9], the Debian distribution compiled to work on top of a BSD-type kernel rather than a Linux one, which has the upshots of being able to be used on top of BSD-supported filesystems, those compatible with BSD licences (but not the GPLv2 [10] used by Linux [11]) such as ZFS [12] (edit 2021: archived) (licenced under the CDDL [13]), and all the while using the familiar GNU tools common to the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.

Next time: BSD Licences and why they are good, bad and/or certainly not ugly.

References

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution 4 [2] https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause

[3] https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause

[4] https://www.freebsd.org/

[5] https://www.pcbsd.org/

[6] https://openbsd.org/

[7] https://www.netbsd.org/about/portability.html

[8] https://www.dragonflybsd.org/features/

[9] https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/

[10] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

[11] https://www.kernel.org/doc/linux/COPYING

[12] [https://web.archive.org/web/20140908152050/http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/filesystems-zfs.html] (https://web.archive.org/web/20140908152050/http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/filesystems-zfs.html) (edit: archived)

[13] https://opensource.org/licenses/CDDL-1.0

Comments

No comments yet...

New Project: View and Share Media Online

Permalink | Author: Dan Dart | Published: 2011-10-01 21:58:00 UTC | Tags: audio broadcasting bsd free software gpl media mit open source recording sharing video

I'm announcing a new media viewing and sharing framework called ShareAV.

The features will include support for:

Uploading and downloading of media, including audio and video Viewing media privately Sharing media publically or to a group

Adding to your own library for easier access Re-sharing

Viewing media from other streams or sources: Last.fm Jamendo RSS feeds eg podcasts Radio Streams e.g. icecast Visualisations

User "profile" pages Shared Media Favourite media

Creating and removal of users with groups such as: Owner Admin Moderator

Creating and removing of friends Create and removing groups of friends OAuth/OpenID/Facebook/Google authentication (no one wants to register for things anymore!) REST interface for external API goodness Live updates for comments for groups Live updates for who's viewing media Live broadcasting and recording using JS Audio API Live notifications of when broadcasting or recording starts Live chat - IRC integrated - allow anonymous

Mobile support via PhoneGap

The frontend will be programmed in Static HTML + JS - suitable for non-PHP devices The backend in PHP, ZF and a NoSQL db

The project is being tracked on Github here: https://github.com/dandart/ShareAV

For anyone who wishes to have input / contribute / help / be awesome can do so in the following ways:

By adding a comment to this blog By adding and talking to me on G+ (gplus.to/dandart) by emailing me on shareav@dandart.co.uk

Comments

No comments yet...

BSD for Linux Users: An Introduction

Comments

Post a comment:

New Project: View and Share Media Online

Comments

Post a comment: