[NTLUG:Discuss] The wrong computation example from the newsgroup

[Christopher Browne]

On Sun, 18 Mar 2001 15:12:27 CST, the world broke into rejoicing as
sysmail at glade.net  said:
> Hmmm...  Pardon spewage from a newcomer, but gcc is an application, not
> an operating system.

Perhaps...  It is a _crucial_ component of the Linux kernel in that it
is the only compiler that can compile the kernel.  So if there's something
broken about GCC, there is legitimate reason to watch this carefully...

> So not only was the criticism of Linux based on a GNU app, not the OS, but
> there is an interesting open software principle here.  Commercial
> operating systems tend to enforce boundaries, open source systems tend to
> enforce enlightenment and options.

> But, with all due respect to the organization hosting this entertaining
> and informative forum, FreeBSD is a nice system.  I found my life easier
> with Linux on my system, but if I were forced to muddle along with FreeBSD
> I believe I could still cope with life.  As I recall, I had just about
> everything I needed running just fine under FreeBSD - but it sure is nice
> to hitchhike along on the broad support Linux enjoys, and it has proven a
> more flexible tool for me.

I'm one of the "officer types," and would not disagree with you. Most
applications that run on Linux run as well on FreeBSD; it turns out
that there do not seem to be many BSD enthusiasts around NTLug, but so
long as everybody "plays nicely" (flaming one another ragged being "not
playing nicely") I doubt there would be massive problems with there
being BSD enthusiasts.
--
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