[Lilux-help] FreeBSD, compile from source and Distributions

[Patrick Kaell]

Patrick Useldinger wrote:
> Patrick Kaell wrote:
> 
>> * No dependency hell! Slackware install tools, configuration tools and 
>> boot scripts only require the shell. 
> 
> 
> That's astonishing. My understanding was that Slackware does not manage 
> dependencies among packages, so you have to manage them yourself via the 
> error messages you get during installation.
> Is that incorrect?

You are right. But in practice this isn't a problem:

1. There aren't many package dependencies under Slackware (most are 
simply avoided). Under KDE and Gnome this doesn't work so well. The 
simplest way is to install all KDE or Gnome packages.

2. Slackware packages are grouped in sets. In every set you have 
required packages. For example, if you install the X Window system, you 
have to install set 'x'. In set 'x' you have packages which you can't 
deselect (for example xlib and xfonts). But it is perfectly possible 
under Slackware to install ghostview (the GUI) without the ghostscript 
(command tool). There is also a special option where you can deselect a 
required package of a set if I know what you do.

> ... and I thought that *BSD was more 'unix-like' than any Linux 
> distribution, because it has been around long before Linux started to 
> exist ?!

There are two main Unix lines: System V frpm AT&T and BSD. AT&T made the 
original system in the late 60's. In the late 70's and 80's several 
universities used the source code of AT&T Unix in operation system 
classes to teach students. The university of Berkeley did many 
modification and released the result as BSD Unix. BSD Unix was sometimes 
superior to System V (BSD was the first UNIX with a TCP/IP stack).

SunOS (Sun), NextStep, Ultrix (Digital), MacOS X were BSD based, but 
most commercial UNIX systems AIX (IBM), Irix (SGI), Solaris (Sun), HP/UX 
(HP) were System V based.

In the late 80's BSD was superior to System V and Sun was BSD based 
(SunOS). Because of that AT&T bought many Sun shares and cooperated with 
Sun. Sun helped AT&T to improve Sytem V. In the early 90's Sun migrated 
all his users from SunOS (BSD) to the new Sun Solaris (System V). Many 
people were angry!

BSD and System V were not completely compatible. Both sytems have common 
roots as both are based on Unix seventh edition from AT&T. But Unix 
seventh edition dates back to 1978. Most extensions from the BSD and 
System V lines were not compatible.

Today BSD systems also contain the System V APIs and System V systems 
conatin BSD APIs.

Linux is a System V compatible system with many BSD extensions.

There are however important differences between Linux and Unix in the 
area of raw devices. In Unix systems (System V & BSD) the filesystem 
does the caching. At the Linux side, the filesystems (ext3, vfat, 
reiserfs etc.) do not need to care about caching, othe parts of the 
kernel are responsible for this.

Patrick Kaell

> 
> Regards,
> -pu
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