There are many comparative of this type on the Internet, but the vast majority are made by staunch defenders of BSD. This makes them unreliable and impartial, so I have decided to make this personal comparison. As a user of Linux and FreeBSD distributions I can be quite clear when it comes to analyzing both systems, both their advantages and disadvantages. Beforehand I want to clarify that both are very good systems and, most importantly, free. With this I do not want to leave BSD bad for its own sake, but to explain why Linux has emerged victorious and is more widespread.
What flavor do you prefer? Linux has hundreds of distributions that are adapted to the needs of end users or to different unions. Instead BSD has variants that focus on something specific, such as performance (FreeBSD), potability (NetBSD), security (OpenBSD), etc.
El development in the case of BSD, it is carried out by groups of hackers (Core Team) and others who intend to carry out the complete operating system. Linux, on the other hand, is a kernel, not a complete operating system, and it is developed in collaboration with companies, hackers, kernel programmers, and other community contributors. Linux definitely has more contributions and advances more quickly.
With respect to licenses, BSD is a proprietary license for the BSD operating systems. This license is very non-restrictive, since it allows derivatives or forks to have any type of license, that is why there may be commercial and closed BSDs, an example the Apple Mac OS X (EULA licensed and paid). On the contrary, GPL is the license that Linux is under and this is more restrictive, not allowing derivatives to be closed. So we will never see a Linux that is not free.
La stability and robustness it's pretty good in both cases, both on Linux and BSD. But if one should be highlighted above the other, that would be Linux. BSD has stability problems when working with some modern programs. Being monolithic kernels, the drivers affect the stability of the kernel if a problem occurs. BSD has problems unplugging a USB without first unmounting it, generating a Kernel Panic. Linux, on the other hand, is more modular and allows you to remove or add modules more easily without affecting the stability of the kernel and without having to reboot.
El performance is another swampy terrain of which many legends exist. FreeBSD is a high-performance BSD that is specially optimized. But is it faster than Linux? It should be analyzed carefully, the truth is that many Benchmarks tests carried out by Phoronix have revealed that BSD is slower than Linux distributions. One of the reasons for dismantling the myth is because BSD is developed on Mac OS X computers that use the Clang compiler, a compiler that does not precisely stand out for being one of the best. Linux for its part is developed thanks to the GCC compiler and this one can claim to be the best and the one that generates the most efficient code.
Linux is traditional Safety for contributions such as SELinux and AppArmor, not forgetting the extensive community of developers who are constantly checking the code for bugs and vulnerabilities and improving it frequently. BSD is not so audited and therefore, although they say that in BSD it is easier to detect and correct errors by the hierarchy of the development team, it is not entirely true. OpenBSD is the BSD intended for security and therefore the most secure, but to what extent… and more knowing that Theo de Raadt, head of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH project, agreed to leave back doors so that the FBI could penetrate these systems.
In the section usabilityLinux has reached the masses with Ubuntu and today it is easier to use than many BSDs. Both are equipped with graphical interfaces that make everything more intuitive, but Linux has advanced further in this regard. In fact, not even PCBSD, GhostBSD or DesktopBSD, clearly oriented towards the home user, have managed to keep up with the vast majority of Linux distributions.
As for the hardware compatibilityLinux supports newer technologies and more hardware more quickly. In fact Linux does not have much to envy Windows or Mac OS X. In this field BSD is light years away, finding itself in the state in which Linux was a decade ago. Much of the problem with the BSD hardware comes from its development, since it is implemented using Mac OS X systems, the tests are carried out on these machines by virtualizing the system with VMWare. What works in virtualization may not work when testing the system on a real machine.
El available software for Linux it is broader than that available for BSDs, although in defense it must be said that Linux software can be installed on BSD by enabling compatibility for this purpose. In this field it can win BSD, since it also has projects like Wine and other emulators that make the software of other operating systems work. On the other hand, when analyzing the video game category, Linux wins by a landslide. There are more and more video games for the penguin system, while these are in short supply for BSD.
NetBSD, the system portable par excellence, it has been ported for more than 56 architectures or hardware families. Do you think it beats Linux? Well no, Linux has been ported to up to a hundred platforms (VAX, AMD64, x86, Itanium, SPARC, Alpha, MIPS, AVR32, Blackfin, ARM, ARC, Microblaze, SuperH, s390, PA-RISC, Xtensa, OpenRISC, PowerPC, m68k, etc.).
You can see the comparison BSD vs. Linux plus enlarged and complete at the blog Architechnology. I hope you liked this comparison and that you know how to appreciate the good of the GNU / Linux system, instead of criticizing the other systems without knowing what they are talking about.
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