Beginning Modern Unix: Learn to Live Comfortably in a Modern Unix Environment

Part 2Preparing for Part II

Preparing for Part II

Very soon, we will be hitting the world of real Unix. This perhaps is just the right place and the right time to ponder: Which Unix?

Wrong answers are permitted—you can always try something else if you don’t like what you have. The question itself can be rephrased as a two-pronged poser:

• FreeBSD or Linux?

• For Linux, which distribution?

FreeBSD offers:

Pros: 1. Standardization 2. Higher level of maturity in the code base 3. A ports system to build stuff from sources

Cons: 1. Supports less hardware 2. A pure-text setup process 3. Fewer applications vis-a-vis Linux

Linux offers:

Pros: 1. Supports almost all current hardware 2. A graphical setup (except vanilla Arch) 3. A few more applications vis-a-vis FreeBSD

Cons: ...