| I might agree somewhat with the comments so far about the article lacking specificity for why FreeBSD is a far better choice that Linux. Of course, I cannot write an entire article in my comments but this topic has been floated to me recently as a article I should write. I've been a user of FreeBSD since the mid 1990's when I used it on servers that powered the ISP I ran. For operational environments I love that you can simply take FreeBSD to the bank everytime because it always has your back. It purrs like a kitten once configured and unlike people believe, its very easy to configure. It combines brick wall stability, top of the line performance, and incredible flexibility if you can program. FreeBSD follows a clean separation of the base OS and userland, making it very easy to strip down unnecessary components for embedded use. So is a minimalist customizable kernel a reason that makes it an excellent embedded systems programming candidate? You betcha. For fun I used to rewrite large parts of the UNIX kernel customizing so many different functions. TinyBSD/NanoBSD offer specialized FreeBSD-based lightweight distributions that are already optimized for embedded applications. Linux? Fails. Free BSD offers a monolithic kernel with modular components that are optimized for performance while allowing dynamic module loading. FreeBSD offers advanced file systems (ZFS & UFS2) so your choice of high reliability and/or lightweight and stable. The FreeBSD TCP/IP is well-optimized over many decades making it ideal for embedded networking devices. The low jitter & deterministic performance are ideal for real-time or latency-sensitive applications such as industrial control systems. Yes, the Open-Source & Permissive licensing are important but not as important as FreeBSD's preemptive multitasking, which is essential for real-time applications. Some real-time OSes, like RTEMS integrate FreeBSD's networking stack because it so darn near perfection. Common Address Redundance Protocol (CARP) provides high availability, which is useful for mission-critical embedded systems. Now I could go on and on or we could start getting down to bits and bytes but FreeBSD is used by people IN THE KNOW who want performance and stability. It's simply a fact. If you are interested, there is also a new startup built on FreeBSD but built for desktop users who want the GUI. It's better than Ubuntu by far and still comes with the built in stability of FreeBSD that just works day after day, week after week, year after year. However, it has some drawbacks. No reinstalling the OS everytime you turn around because some new - heedlessly written - code has hosed up the operation so bad reinstallation is the only choice. One thing for sure, its not about the true Open-Source licensing. Nope. |