I've been using Linux since I was 12 years old roughly, my first distro was LinuxPPC, this was back in 1996. Solidly in the era of desktop computers when they totally sucked and were being crushed under the weight of inappropriately intensive GUIs, multitasking that felt like being lied to, and 'multimedia' which was an experience as rich as watching a stuttering, extremely poor quality vhs on a very tiny TV while reading a book at the same time filled with abrasive, pixelated letters flickering at 60Hz. I got it but I really had no idea what Linux even was, except that it was an operating system that was free, and the word 'Linux' meant it was good, kind of like natural. It's natural, grass-fred Linux, so it must be good and I want it, even if I don't know why its good. Never got far enough to ask IF it was good.
Anyway, Linux was, like, amazing, it was really fast and you could do like multiple tasks at once, but the problem was all of the possible tasks were ones I didn't want to do because there was like 5 programs for Linux back then and 4 of them were calculators. But that potential, that promise, of a computer that didn't cause physical pain just to use, kept me peeking back in at the Linux situation every couple of years. The huge irony is that this wasn't the first time I had used a computer this responsive and nimble. The community college in my town had a 'Children's College' program where you could do cool elementary school level activities during the summer. One of them was an intro to HTML, and we used these *pimp* Silicon Graphics workstations, all running System V. But I was misinformed about their precises nature, I had the notion that they were awesome entirely because they had sports car insides, and were not really desktop computers, but things you might get to use at a company, but that was it. But in reality, their innards had all their power proportioned for graphics rendering, and the awesomeness was good ol Unix.
Then, I started using OS X, and Linux started getting really popular and getting loads of software, and used it too, but I thought Unix had died before I was born, and Linux was a volunteer attempt to keep the flame alive or something silly like that. And this is bringing me to my point: Linux really was that, kind of, but not because Unix died, because Unix was closed source at the time, so Linux was created because Unix was such a great piece of kit that a guy wanted to duplicate the entire operating system with totally original code from scratch. Linux was conceived as functionally identical to Unix, but entirely original code. But Unix shortly became open - and more open than Linux, which had a more restrictive (albiet with the intention of aiding open source) license. I grew up hearing about linux and knowing about linux and that was the hot stuff going on, and that's how it was for most people I think. I don't think, if Linux had never been, BSD would have ever had any comparable amount of steam, I don't know why, only that the reasons are irrational, emotional bad ones, ones that shouldn't be reasons for things but are. Linux, to me, isn't really about Linux, it's about making the open source community as large and powerful as it is today. I don't think *BSD could have done that.
And now, Linux is diversifying and becoming unix-like, but where unix ain't. And Unix continues to do what it always did - be awesome and be unix. I hope it keeps on like that forever. The origins and functionality invite comparisons far more often between BSD and Linux, and from that, you quickly see comparisons develop into competitions, which we tend to call comparisons, but comparisons contrast differences, not say which of two is better. It's just human nature.
Now, I will say one thing: I have been all up inside and around the kernel and basic OS of all 3 BSDs and Linux. The Linux kernel is exactly what, well, what it is: a confusing piecemeal patchwork of a thousand different people who have never talked to any of the others ever, have never documented anything, and shockingly, somehow smash all their different bits into a box that compiles. It is a nightmare, and it is not Linux so much as it's open source nature and, uh, overeagerness and widely accepting standards of code it accepts. The documentation of Linux as a whole is universally poor to appalling when it exists at all, and there is often little consistency or logic in the wider structure (speaking of a given distro, of course different ones are inconsistent with each other). I have been using linux since I was 12, but I just started using FreeBSD, and OpenBSD and NetBSD to lesser degrees, as of this writing, about 2 years. I still use Linux because it has its places, but Unix has supplanted all my computing needs, and it happened organically, like, slowly, *BSDs just were the obvious choice in more and more things. The documentation is spectacular, FreeBSD has a well written, easy to read and understand book that is free that tells you how to fix all the things that might ever go wrong with it, and do all the stuff you want. OpenBSD is not quite as friendly, because you have to guess the man page, but it is just as complete. NetBSD is also as throughough with its man pages.
Unix kernels are a *dream*. They are not even special from anything else, you edit a conf file, build them, just like it should be. Linux has a program dedicated entirely to configuring the kernel, and it is definitely a necessity, not there to be user friendly. FreeBSD specifically is the most logical, consistent, well-thought out, rational piece of software, in code and in function, I have ever used, and that is what makes it great. Linux does all the crazy new things that are beyond BSDs reach, and for that it is great, but in a totally different way. Neither can do one without losing the other quality. Basically, Linux and Unix are like two sides of a mobius strip shaped coin: the same side, but coving the surface the other one isn't at the moment, and different but the same. I guess.
My point is that saying one is better than the other just means you're stupid but it's ok, I'm stupid too, just about different things. Not this one
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