Most of my time these days is spent on OpenBSD, but the recent announcement that the Linux kernel is now 22 years old makes one realize that there are other viable open systems out there including Opensuse, Ubuntu, and Android.
But the main issues I have had with Linux are the user fragmentation and what is the purpose of Linux besides being a free Unix alternative? Ubuntu wants to move in the direction of mobile devices; where is Opensuse going?
I was considering the opposite, and trying a BSD. Mainly because I wanted to test out the ULE scheduler on FreeBSD. Though I found openSUSE is much easier to install and maintain. The really killer reason I use openSUSE is the superb package management and ease of creating packages. Also the open build service.
I’m interested in trying BSD, it doesn’t seem to be infected by Redhat or the militant ideology of the FSF.
But I only use a laptop. And BSD will definitely give you headaches on a laptop. Browsing through support threads on that subject, it appears the BSD developers either don’t care, don’t have the manpower/financial resources to address it, or are simply proud of the fact that they don’t support fairly modern hardware for laptops.
I had to give up, maybe FreeBSD 10x will come around in this respect.
How does OpenBSD fair on laptops? I’ve read that it’s a little better than FreeBSD, but haven’t bothered to try because I’m almost certain I would bork my machine in the process.
I think it is best with thinkpads, pre-uefi.
You might want to consider PCBSD. It might
Work well on laptops. Otherwise stick with ubuntu
Or opensuse…who needs trouble?
Linus rather jokingly said in the mid-90s ‘world domination’ - seriously, I think it is to facilitate rapid software development. That is why it has been taken up by pretty well every community from embedded to high performance. The time to implementation/market is so much quicker than any other OS partly because the ecosystem is so big that any problem you encounter has already been solved by someone else or is being actively worked on by someone else who won’t mind you pitching in if it is solves the problem more quickly and more effectively.
When Joshua Kiepert needed a supercomputer to finish his research, he was able to use the Linux based Raspberry Pi to do it Build your own supercomputer out of Raspberry Pi boards | ZDNet.
Not sure he could have done that with Unix.
I doubt it.
The only thing PCBSD really offers beyond FreeBSD is a desktop environment or window manager selected during installation. Which is fine, but there are no additional drivers compiled into the kernel that would support hardware specific to desktops or laptops. Wireless, acpi, touchpad… all the exact same.
It’s really kind of obnoxious the way PCBSD tries to sell itself as a “better BSD for desktop use.” It’s really not, in my experience.
I do know the PCBSD developers (only 2 of them as far as I can tell) have decided to slightly break from complete dependence upon FreeBSD, with their rolling-release branch. I’d be willing to bet it’s wrought with problems though.
I found PCBSD to be a rather nice system to use but probably not for a laptop. It has its own package management system which is nice and like someone already said it comes with an actually desktop installed (KDE 4.9) so you do not have to fiddle with it. I used it for a couple of months with no problems at all but I have not tried the rolling release out yet.