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Revision as of 21:10, 13 April 2006 by RenamedUser2 (talk | contribs) (→Tables: - added technical info table)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)There are a number of BSD operating systems, the most notable being FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. They are descended, directly or indirectly, from some version of the original BSD operating system. Most of them are available to download free of charge under the BSD License, a notable exception being Mac OS X. BSD kernels are monolithic. Most BSD operating systems develop the kernel and userland programs together in a single source repository.
Names, logos, and slogans
The names of FreeBSD and OpenBSD refer to the fact that they are free, as in you don't have to pay to download them, and open source. The name of NetBSD is a tribute to the internet, which brought the developers together.
The original BSD mascot is the BSD daemon, named after a type of software common in Unix-like operating systems, which FreeBSD still retains (see FreeBSD art).
The NetBSD flag is based on a World War II photograph, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. The original logo included a number of daemons rasing the flag up.
The OpenBSD mascot (see OpenBSD art), Puffy, is said to be a pufferfish, but looks more like a porcupinefish. It is a reference to the puffer/blow/porcupinefish's strong defensive capabilities and to the blowfish cryptography algorithm. OpenBSD also has a number of other slogans including "Secure by default.", and "Power. Security. Flexibility." OpenBSD has released songs with every release since 3.0.
Philosophies
FreeBSD strives to be usable for any purposes. The FreeBSD team wants FreeBSD to run a wide variety of applications, be easy to use, contain cutting edge features, and be able to handle heavy-load servers. FreeBSD is, of course, free and open source, and they prefer the BSD license. However, they do sometimes accept NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) and include closed-source binaries in their source tree in order to support the hardware of companies who prefer not to publicly provide good documentation about their products.
OpenBSD focuses on security, correctness, and being as free as possible. Security includes full disclosure (hoping friendly people will find security holes before those who would exploit them), code audits (thoroughly checking code for bugs and formatting, and fixing things regardless of whether they are proven security holes), various security technologies/methods, disabling all non-essential services ("secure by default"), and integrated cryptography (which is possible due to Canadian export laws). As far as freeness goes, OpenBSD prefers a BSD or ISC license, with GPL acceptable as a last recourse (as with gcc), and NDAs never acceptable. This has lead to a number of projects being founded by OpenBSD to replaces less free alternatives, including OpenSSH and CARP, as well as campaigns to get hardware vendors to release better documentation. In keeping with the philosophy of its parent, NetBSD, OpenBSD also strives to run on a wide variety of hardware.
NetBSD strives to be highly portable, running on many hardware systems, and to interoperate well with other systems. NetBSD also prefers the NetBSD license, wanting to avoid encumbering licenses when possible. NetBSD also seeks to be well-designed, stable, and fast, and to conform to open standards as much as they can.
Tables
General info
| Developer | First public release | Based on | Latest stable version (release date) | Cost (USD) | Preferred license | Target system type | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FreeBSD | The FreeBSD Project | December 1993 | 386BSD | 6.0 (November 3, 2005) | Free | BSD | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance |
| OpenBSD | The OpenBSD Project | October 1995 | NetBSD 1.0 | 3.8 (November 1, 2005) | Free | BSD, see detailed policy | Server, Network Appliance, Workstation, Embedded |
| NetBSD | The NetBSD Project | May 1993 | 386BSD | 3.0 (December 23, 2005) | Free | BSD | Network Appliance, Server, Workstation, Embedded |
| SunOS | Sun Microsystems | 1.0 (1982) | 4.xBSD | 4.1.4 (1994) | |||
| Mac OS X | Apple Computer | March 2001 | NeXTSTEP, Mac OS | 10.4.6 "Tiger" (April 3, 2006) | $129 | Proprietary, parts APSL, GPL, others. | Workstation, Home Desktop, Server |
| DragonFlyBSD | Matt Dillon | July 12, 2004 | FreeBSD 4.8 | 1.4 (January 7, 2006) | Free | BSD | good kernel performance |
| FireflyBSD | Steven David Rhodus | 1.0 (September 14, 2004) | DragonFlyBSD | 1.4 | $12.95 | Commercially supported version of DragonFlyBSD | |
| PC-BSD | Kris Moore, Mike Albert, Tim McCormick, Dimitri Tishchenko | FreeBSD | 1.0 RC2 (January 20, 2006) | Free | BSD | easy-to-use graphical user interface | |
| DesktopBSD | Peter Hofer, Daniel Seuffert | (July 25, 2005) | FreeBSD | 1.0 (March 28, 2006) | Free | BSD | easy-to-use graphical user interface |
| BSDeviant | Unixpunx | FreeBSD | (June 2004) | LiveCD | |||
| ClosedBSD | various contributors | FreeBSD | 1.0B(floppy), 1.0-RC1(CD) | Free | BSD | firewall/NAT, boot floppy, LiveCD | |
| FreeSBIE | FreeBSD | 1.1 | Free | LiveCD | |||
| Frenzy | FreeBSD | 0.3 | Free | LiveCD, Russian | |||
| PicoBSD | Andrzej Bialeck | FreeBSD | 0.42 | Free | BSD | boot floppy | |
| Anonym.OS | beta as of January 2005 | OpenBSD 3.8 | none | Free | LiveCD, anonymous browsing | ||
| MirOS BSD | The MirOS Project | OpenBSD 3.1 | #8 (December 24, 2005) | Free | European | ||
| ekkoBSD | Rick Collette | OpenBSD 3.3 | Server | ||||
| MicroBSD | Bulgarians | OpenBSD 3.0/3.4 | 0.6 (Oct 27, 2003) | Free | small secure system | ||
| Developer | First public release | Based on | Latest stable version (release date) | Cost (USD) | Preferred license | Target system type |
Technical information
| Supported architectures | Supported file systems | Kernel type | Integrated GUI environmentTemplate:Fn | Package management | Update management | Primary APIsTemplate:Fn | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FreeBSD | x86, AMD64, PC98, SPARC, others | UFS2, ext2, FAT, ISO 9660, UDF, NFS, and others | Monolithic with modules | No | ports tree, packages | by source (CVSup), network binary update (freebsdupdate) | BSD, POSIX |
| Mac OS X | PPC, x86 | HFS+ (default), HFS, UFS, AFP, ISO 9660, FAT, UDF, NFS, SMBFS, NTFS (read only), FTP, WebDAV, disk images | Hybrid | Yes | OS X Installer | Software Update | Carbon, Cocoa, BSD/POSIX, X11 (since 10.3) |
| NetBSD | x86, 68k, Alpha, AMD64, PPC, SPARC, many others | UFS, UFS2, ext2, FAT, ISO 9660, NFS, LFS, and others | Monolithic with modules | No | pkgsrc | by source (CVS, CVSup, rsync) or binary (using sysinst) | BSD, POSIX |
| OpenBSD | x86, 68k, Alpha, AMD64, SPARC, VAX, others | ffs, ext2, FAT, ISO 9660, NFS, some others | Monolithic with modules | No | ports tree, packages | by source | BSD, POSIX |
Template:Fnb Operating systems where the GUI is not integrated into the core OS are often bundled with an implementation of the X Window System. However, installing X is usually optional.
Template:Fnb Most operating systems use proprietary APIs in addition to any supported standards.
Security
| Resource access control | Subsystem isolation mechanisms | Integrated firewall | Encrypted file systems | Data execution prevention | Known unpatched vulnerabilitiesTemplate:Fn | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| hardware | emulation | number | oldest | |||||
| FreeBSD | Unix, ACLs, MAC | chroot, jail, MAC Partitions | IPFW2, IPFilter, PF | Yes | ? | 0 | - | |
| Mac OS X | Unix, ACLsTemplate:Fn | chroot | ipfw | Yes | ? | 0 | — | |
| NetBSD | Unix, Veriexec | chroot, systrace | IPFilter, PF | Yes | Yes | No | n/a | |
| OpenBSD | Unix | chroot, systrace | PF | Yes | Yes | Yes | 0 | - |
Template:Fnb Comparison of known unpatched vulnerabilities is based on Secunia vulnerabilities reports with a severity of less critical and above. Updated daily.
Template:Fnb ACLs were added to Mac OS X beginning with version 10.4.
See also
| Unix and Unix-like operating systems and compatibility layers | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating systems |
| ||||||||
| Compatibility layers | |||||||||
