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

Patrick Useldinger wrote: 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. 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