Choosing Your Unix the Smart Way

Choosing Your Unix the Smart Way
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Ultimately, the only thing that matters with respect to which Unix system you use is how well it runs the programs you need.

Many people make the mistake of choosing an operating system based on how "nice" it looks, what their friends (who often are not very computer savvy) are using, or how easy it is to install.

What's really important, though, is what happens after the system is up and running. The effort required to maintain it over the course of a couple years is by far the lion's share of the total cost of ownership, so get informed about what that cost will be for your particular needs before deciding.

Each operating system has its own focus, which may be very different from the rest.

The free operating systems include several systems based on BSD (Berkeley Systems Distribution), a free derivative of the original AT&T Unix from the University of California, Berkeley. It is the basis for FreeBSD, Mac OS X, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and a few others.

FreeBSD is the most popular among the free BSD-based systems. FreeBSD is known for its speed, ease of setup, robust network stack, and most of all its unparalleled stability. It is the primary server operating system used by Netflix, and WhatsApp. Netflix alone accounted for more than 1/3 of streaming Internet traffic in North America in 2015. (See http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/20/netflix-boasts-37-share-of-internet-traffic-in-north-america-compared-with-3-for-apples-itunes) FreeBSD is also the basis of advanced file servers such as FreeNAS, Isilon, NAS4Free, NetApp, and Panasas, and network equipment from Juniper Networks, and the open source OPNsense firewall.

The FreeBSD ports system makes it trivial to install any of more than 30,000 packages, including most mainstream scientific software. FreeBSD ports can be installed automatically either from a binary package, or from source code if you desire different build options than the packages provide.

Mac OS X is essentially FreeBSD with Apple's proprietary user interface, so OS X users already have a complete Unix system on their Mac. In order to develop programs under Mac OS, you will need to install a compiler. Apple's development system, called Xcode, is available as a free download. The free and open source MacPorts system offers the ability to easily install thousands of software packages directly from the Internet. The MacPorts system is one of the most modern and robust ports systems available for any operating system. There are also other package managers for Mac OS X, such as Fink, Homebrew, and Pkgsrc.

There are many free Linux distributions, as well as commercial versions such as Red Hat Enterprise and SUSE Enterprise. The most popular free distributions for personal use are currently Mint and the Ubuntu line (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu), which are based on Debian Linux. These systems are known for their ease of installation and maintenance, and cutting-edge new Linux features. Systems based on Debian Linux support the Debian packages system, which offers more than 40,000 packages available for easy installation.

Caution

Be careful about judging the popularity of different operating systems based on package counts. The Debian packages collection is somewhat inflated by the fact that they tend to split a single software distribution into several packages. For example, libraries are typically provided by at least three packages, a base package for only the run time components (shared libraries), a -devel package for building your own programs with the library (header files), and a -doc package containing man/info pages, HTML, PDF, etc. Some libraries are further split into single/double precision libs, core and optional components, etc. Many other package systems, such as FreeBSD ports and pkgsrc, tend to provide all library components in a single package.

Gentoo Linux is a Linux system based heavily on ports. The Gentoo system installation process is very selective, and results in a compact, efficient system for each user's particular needs. Gentoo is not as easy to install as other Linux systems, but is a great choice for more experienced Linux users who want to maximize performance and stability. Like FreeBSD and Debian, Gentoo's ports system, known as portage, offers automated installation of nearly 20,000 software packages at the time of this writing.

The NetBSD project is committed to simplicity and portability. For this reason, NetBSD runs on far more hardware configurations than any other operating system.

The OpenBSD is run largely be computer security experts. Core security software such as OpenSSL and OpenSSH are developed by the OpenBSD project and used by most other operating systems.

Redhat Enterprise and SUSE Enterprise Linux are more conservative Linux-based systems designed to provide the stability required in enterprise environments. They are popular in corporate and academic data centers, where they support critical services, often running commercial software applications. They do not include the latest cutting edge Linux features, as doing so would jeopardize the stability they are meant to provide. They are based on older Linux kernels and system tools, which have been well-tested and debugged by users of cutting-edge Linux systems over several years.