Re: FreeBSD has serious problems with focus, longevity, and

On Tue, 17 Jan 2012, Mark Felder wrote:

>> linux is, in fact, an operating system. debian, red hat, ubuntu, 
>> gentoo, etc are distributions of that OS.
>
> It's not really worth getting into this argument, but I'll reiterate 
> that no, it's not an OS -- it's a kernel. Without the userland utilities 
> the distros provide it's not very usable. Linus and co don't maintain 
> the shell or the rc subsystem or anything like that. They only work on 
> the kernel and in-tree drivers. We need to be comparing FreeBSD to a 
> full blown distro.
================

if it makes you feel better, then pick a distribution of linux, and 
compare it's successes and/or failings to freeBSD.

whether or not linux is an OS or "just a kernel" is irrelevant here, but 
at the same time an interesting distinction (and let's not debate it here, 
just acknowledge that it's been pointed out) since freeBSD is both a 
kernel and a collection of core utilities. in some ways freeBSD is like 
the linux kernel, in other ways it's more like a distribution of linux. 
would freeBSD benefit from breaking up those things into explicitly 
different projects? like linux & GNU?

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