BSD For Linux Users

Dru LavigneChair, BSD Certification GroupOntario LinuxFest 2009

This presentation will cover...

What is this BSD you speak of? (frame of reference)

How is it different? (will I like it?)

Release engineering? (behind the scenes)

Any features unique to BSD? (am I missing out on anything cool?)

Books (some recommended reading)

What is this BSD you speak of?

aka What is this Linux you speak of?

kernel?

distro?

Ubuntu?

Back to BSD....

Since we only have 45 minutes.....

We'll start with an overview of the BSD projects

Then concentrate on some differences between the BSD and Linux way of doing things

Back to BSD....

Differentiated by focus:

NetBSD: clean design and portability (57 supported platforms)

FreeBSD: production server stability and application support (20,715 apps)

OpenBSD: security and dependable release cycle

Dragonfly BSD: filesystem architecture

PC-BSD: anyone can install and use BSD

How is it different?

Gnome on Ubuntu vs.

KDE on PC-BSD

device names

startup (no runlevels)

one config file philosophy

kernel configuration

consistent layout (man hier)

BSD vs GNU switches

working examples

Release Engineering?

Release Engineering

Complete operating system, not kernel + distro: one source for security advisories, less likelihood of incompatible libraries

Integration of features not limited by copyleft: e.g. drivers and features are built-in

High “bus factor”

Consistent separation between operating system and third party and between BSD and GPL'd code

Release Engineering

● While each BSD project has a separate focus, the communities share ideas/code

● FreeBSD 408 commit bits● NetBSD 259 commit bits● OpenBSD 122 commit bits● plus thousands of contributors for

software, docs, translations, bug fixes, etc● Linux has 1 committer, 547 maintainers

Release Engineering

Principles used by the BSD projects reflect their academic roots:● well defined process for earning a

“commit bit” includes a period of working under a mentor

● code repository from Day 1 and can trace original code back to CSRG days

● no “leader”, instead well defined release engineering, security, and doc teams

Release Engineering

● development occurs on CURRENT which is frozen in preparation for a RELEASE

● nightly builds (operating system and apps) help ensure that upgrades and installs don't result in library incompatibilities (safe for production)

● documentation considered as important as code

Features unique to BSD?

securelevels

FreeBSD jails

NetBSD build.sh

pkgsrc

PC-BSD PBIs

VuXML and portaudit

or pkg_admin audit

for pkgsrc systems

NetBSD veriexec

binary emulation

FreeBSD netgraph

ZFS support

FreeBSD dtrace suport

CARP

FreeBSD superpages

OpenBSM

FreeBSD snapshots

ALTQ

DragonFly HAMMER

Books:

BSD Hacks

Best of FreeBSD Basics

Definitive Guide to PC-BSD (early 2010)

Absolute BSD

Absolute FreeBSD

Absolute OpenBSD

Questions:

dru@osbr.ca

Stop by the BSD booth and say hi!