The FreeBSD Project - Take 386BSD base and improve it - Concentrate on PC systems only - (Later decide to support Alpha also) - Aim to support all common peripherals - Use Walnut Creek for CDROM distribution - Funding from sales of CD.s etc - Good project organisation - Core team - decide project direction - Developers - write the code - Initial release FreeBSD 1.0 Dec 1993 - Available on CD / via the net - Project forced to move to BSD-lite base - Much boot code had to be rewritten - FreeBSD 2.0 shipped Nov 1994 - unified source code tree - branches for development/stable base - Latest stable version FreeBSD 4.7 --- IPV6 --- support for gigabit NIC.s --- ATM --- SCSI raid controllers - development version FreeBSD 5.0 (incl. o.a. sparc) The FreeBSD Project Strengths - Easy installation - Good documentation - FreeBSD Handbook - Support for multiple processors - Widely use for .large. servers - Native threads => wine etc - Most popular *BSD system - commercial support from BSDi The NetBSD Project - Formed at the same time as FreeBSD - Aim to support different platforms - follow original Berkeley Philosophy split machine dependant/independent code - Emphasis on clean, well structured design - Code portability for new platforms - Good project organisation - Core Team - decide project direction - Portmasters - head up platform teams - Developers - write the code - initial release NetBSD 0.8 Apr 1993 --- I386 only - BSD-lite release NetBSD 1.0 Oct 94 --- I386 Amiga HP300 M68K SPARC - Unified Source Tree - Production/Development branches - Latest Version 1.6 --- IPV6 --- VLAN support --- Strong Encryption --- new VM system ---- 15 supported architectures (52?) The NetBSD Project Strengths - Available for a wide range of systems - Easy to port to new platforms - Used in several commercial products - Good USB device support - Excellent support for non-native binaries - Reliable and secure - Commercial support from Wasabi Systems The OpenBSD project - A spinoff from NetBSD in 1995 - Idealogical split in the .core. team - Focus on improving security - CDROM distribution funds development - Canadian Base sidestepped export regulations - Similar platform support to NetBSD - General goal is to be .most secure O/S. - Current record --- 3 yrs without a remote exploit (default install) --- 2 yrs without a local exploit (default install) - Security achieved by: --- extensive source code audit --- provision of cryptographic interfaces --- Support for hardware cryptography - Unified Source Tree - Latest version 2.8 (2.9?) --- IPV6 --- Over 500 prebuilt packages --- OpenSSH /SFTP server --- better hardware crypto support --- console mouse support on i386 The OpenBSD Project Strengths - Security - Available for a wide range of platforms but not as many as NetBSD - Excellent support for non-native binaries Reliability - Commercial support available Comparision with Linux - Licensing issues vs Linux - BSD license for kernel code - BSD license for most utilities - Can be used as commercial base - Long Term stability - NFS code very reliable - good memory management - Each BSD has a single distribution - Each BSD has a single bug/security repository - Less hype - Trackable code base - Negative points --- not as well known --- fewer commercial applications --- BSD religion sometimes unhelpful --- no BSD documentation project ! Installation may frighten unix newbies