FreeBSD for Linux Users
Over the past year, I've had the opportunity to teach introductory Linux and BSD classes. Since BSD users primarily attended the Linux classes and the Linux users primarily attended the BSD classes, both groups had an interest in finding out more about their open source counterparts.
Students expected to find differences, but they often found the particulars surprising. Some of the commands they customarily used had different switches or were missing entirely, and certain features had totally different implementations.
In today's article, I'll cover some of the big-picture differences from the perspective of a Linux user being introduced to FreeBSD. In Part 2, I'll discuss command equivalents between Linux and FreeBSD. Most introductory Unix courses start with the differences between SysV and BSD. Students, unimpressed by this fascinating bit of theoretical trivia, tend to jot down a few notes dutifully, and then wait patiently for the hands-on portion of the class. Within the hour, though, someone will make a panicked discovery and shout out, "Where are my runlevels?" There's an inevitable and incredulous follow-up of "What do you mean there aren't any runlevels?" and "Where'd all my startup scripts go?"
