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Questions tagged [bsd]

Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system

Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system developed from 1977 to 1994 and 4.4BSD is the last "original version" of it. Today, the term BSD is widely used to refer any descendants of the BSD and forks of its descendants that became influent enough.

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What do different BSDs have in common?

... and what are the differences between them? I formulated my question like this to make it clear I'm not interested in a flamewar of opinions, rather in an objective comparison between the different flavors of BSD Unix. Ideally I could get…
rahmu
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What are the differences between bsdtar and GNU tar?

I've always used GNU tar. However, all GNU/Linux distributions that I've seen ship bsdtar in their repositories. I've even seen it installed by default in some, IIRC. I know for sure that Arch GNU/Linux requires it as a part of basedevel (maybe…
strugee
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How do you choose a distribution?

I'm currently looking at putting a Linux (although BSD is still an option) distribution on my old laptop. However, I'm not sure how to wade through all of my options - rolling releases versus not, Distribution X versus Distribution Y (I, personally,…
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Easy incremental backups to an external hard drive

For a while I used Dirvish to do incremental backups of my machines, but it is slightly cumbersome to configure, and if you do not carry a copy of your configuration it can be hard to reproduce elsewhere. I am looking for backup programs for Unix,…
miguel.de.icaza
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Does hexdump respect the endianness of its system?

On my machine I get the following output when I run these commands: $ echo foos > myfile $ hexdump myfile 6f66 736f 000a The output from hexdump is little-endian. Does this mean that my machine is little-endian, or does hexdump always use…
Cory Klein
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What allows BSD to run Linux binaries, but not vice versa?

What allows BSD to run Linux (and other Unix-like) binaries, but Linux (and other Unix-like for the most part) cannot run BSD binaries?
No Time
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What is the difference between Unix, Linux, BSD and GNU?

What is the very fundamental difference between Unix, Linux, BSD and GNU? Unix was the earliest OS, so the term 'Unix like' is understandable, since they have kernel, file system structure, most of the commands, users etc are same as Unix. Still why…
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What are the main differences between BSD and GNU/Linux userland?

I've read a lot on Unix & Linux about BSDs and GNU, etc. But I still don't understand what some actual, practical differences are between BSD and GNU userlands, despite the fact that they are often mentioned. Can someone elaborate? When answering,…
strugee
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Where does Mac OS X come from?

Discussing with Mac owners, I got several versions of where Mac OS X comes from. It is known to have some root in BSD, but how much, and where? Some say that Mac OS X has a FreeBSD kernel, with all the utilities above that makes it an OS being Mac…
Didier Trosset
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How can I generate SHA3 if there is no sha3sum command in coreutils?

I have sha1sum or sha512sum on an average Linux distro. But where is the sha3sum command that can generateSHA-3 commands?
pepite
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What are the main differences between BSD- and linux-based operating systems?

I am a long time linux user and have recently become interested in playing about with BSD-based operating systems. What are the differences between linux and BSD-based systems. I am interested in learning about the functional, practical and also…
James Womack
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Conceptual difference between Linux and (Free)BSD Kernel

(I've already noticed that this question was asked before but I think it has not been answered in a way I'd like to understand the topic.) What are the conceptual and structural differences between a Linux Kernel BSD Kernel (let's say…
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Do the common programs (for example: "ls", "cat") in Linux and BSD come from the same source code?

Both Linux and BSD have common programs like ls and cat and echo and kill. Do they come from the same source code, or do both and Linux and BSD own their own unique source code for these programs?
user341875
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Modern OS on Ancient Hardware (i486SX, 8 MB of RAM)

I recently acquired an old Packard Bell machine with 8 MB of RAM and an Intel 486SX. I need to put an OS on that hardware. I know that FreeDOS might run on this system, but naturally, I am not nearly as familiar with the C-prompt as with bash. So,…
Slancaster
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BSD Kernel Vs. Linux kernel?

I wanted to know in technical terms; what is the difference between BSD Kernel and Linux Kernel. In Linux, we can download the source kernel then patch it and make and make modules it. Even we have multiple tools to edit the kernel config such as…
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