Hi!
I saw your review in Computer Bits, and here's my $0.02 worth regarding your
comparison regarding "package management" for Linux and NetBSD. Since Linux is
still beta for macintosh, i386 might very well have the limitations you
mention. Is this really the case?

http://www.freebsd.org/news/press.html
http://www.computerbits.com/archive/19981000/lnx9810.htm
> Linux/etc
> 
>                                          The other free Unixes, part 2 of 2 ... by Terry Griffin
> 
> Last month, I introduced you to the three free derivatives of 4.4BSD-Lite: NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. These operating systems along with Linux are given the generic name freenix. This month I give you my impressions from installing and configuring the freenix BSDs on my home PC. 

[snip]
> Common BSD Traits
> 
> Before I get in to the specifics of each BSD, I need to explain a few of their common traits. 
[snip]
> None of these OSs have "package management" in the Red Hat or Debian sense of the term. FreeBSD
> comes the closest with a pretty nice tar-file-based scheme along the same lines as Slackware Linux. 
> With NetBSD and OpenBSD you can only chose from a small number of very large packages, where each package
> contains a few things you want and a lot that you don't want. For example, all the XFree86 servers 
> are grouped in one package, so if you want one you get them all. 

Really? No package management like Debian? I run NetBSD and Debian's GNU/Linux
on my macintosh computer and BOTH have package management. NetBSD-1.3.2 uses
/usr/pkgsrc directory to install software packages, and Debian uses /var/lib/dpkg
directory to install software packages. Both retrieve archived software
packages via ftp, or cdrom. NetBSD uses linked
README.html files to introduce the different packages in a directory
heirarchy, and installs using 'make install',
which by default places new binaries, man pages, et.cetera into /usr/pkg and
/var; Debian uses dselect to install new binaries and friends into /usr,
/usr/info, et.cetera. Both Debian and NetBSD have the option to download
precompiled binaries. Although I'm just getting started on kernel compiling,
it appears Debian can also compile downloaded source code as can NetBSD. I
haven't detected much notable difference between the the two OSes yet...

The installation schemes are different, but both are automated. Inside NetBSD
pkgsrc directory is a tcl widget,
called "tkinfo" or something, that serves the same function as Debian
dselect's use of the Packages text file lising the complete description of the
software titles and dependencies. It also deinstalls packages you no longer
want, successfully
expunging all of a particular packages files, man pages, et.cetera. I'm not
sure which OS came up with package management first, but it appears that
FreeBSD programmers did the ground breaking and latter additions from NetBSD's
adoption of the FreeBSD port system for package management. Not much
difference here, just terminology...

And as far as a "nice tar-file scheme" both Debian and NetBSD distribute their
base in tarball format of foo.tar.gz, or foo.tgz--to avoid accidental
decompression while in the host operating system before a new installation.
Yes X is a major addition to the filesystem/kernel, but as complex as XWindow
system is, not all window related stuff is in one archive. Both NetBSD as well
as Debian have a ../x11 subdirectory of X related software, which includes the
server such as XF86Fbdev on Linux, or Xmac68k on NetBSD, or whatever xserver
you happen to choose. Still not a big difference...

It appears you article suffers a little from post-haste, while the
distributions you've mentioned go to great detail on how to setup and use the
different components of the operating system. I've made that same mistake in
the past, but that is my lack of reading, and nothing to do with both, or all
of these great systems for learning and using Unix.

Please take care to give credit where it's due, as most of the majority of
info is posted in INSTALL docs, compiled FAQs, and websites catering to all
who would like to install from scratch, or update their compter operating
system. 

Brian Wildasinn
bwildasi@csulb.edu

NetBSD:
http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/software/packages.html
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.3.2/mac68k/INSTALL
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/pkgsrc/Packages.txt
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/pkgsrc/x11/tkinfo/README.html

Debian:
http://www.mac.linux-m68k.org/docs/debian-mac68k-install.html
ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current/install.html
ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/hamm/hamm/binary-m68k/Packages