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Discussion on: Let's talk about Linux

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anon987654321 profile image
anon987654321

The great thing about Linux, and this is largely why it got so popular in the first place, is its support from the hardware industry. Another great thing is ofcourse the kernel itself. However, compared to other modern-day Unix-like kernels (ie. the BSDs -- OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, MacOS X etc.), it's mediocre at best.

What's definitely not great about Linux though, is its distributions. What ought to have been one complete OS with one competent leadership and one coherent brand, is instead split into thousands of distributions with varying degrees of quality, with the overwhelming majority all including unnecessary and overly complicated stuff by default, such as systemd, bash, OpenSSL, or iptables/nftables.

In the words of a great friend of mine:

Choose OpenBSD for your Unix needs. OpenBSD -- the world's simplest and most secure Unix-like OS. Creator of the world's most used SSH implementation OpenSSH, the world's most elegant firewall PF, and the world's most elegant mail server OpenSMTPD. OpenBSD -- the cleanest kernel, the cleanest userland and the cleanest configuration syntax.

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roelofjanelsinga profile image
Roelof Jan Elsinga

That's a very interesting take! I'll have a look and see what it's like, thank you for that comment!