Chad Perrin wrote:

Hi Chad,

Here is my honest opinion. I hope it will help you improve the post :-)

I didn't like very much the tone of the article as well as some pejorative conclusion. If you are going to post something even as a FreeBSD advocacy the tone of the article should be neutral and all claims verifiable. Do not get me wrong. I do not like Linux and more over I have never used it in my life but I would have hard time to swallow some of your claims.

How would you feel if I tell you that I use mostly OpenBSD because it is easier for work than FreeBSD and in my experience much more stable than FreeBSD. Those are my subjective feelings and probably have little to do with the reality. If anything statement like that are irritating and have no value to a person who is deciding between using OpenBSD or FreeBSD.

Try to find on the internet couple of advocacy articles by Greg Lehey. They are very well-written.

Example: Statement of the type BSD appears more stable than Linux is non-verifiable. Statement of the type FreeBSD is direct decedent of the BSD flavor of Unix started in mid seventies at the University of California Berkley while the Linux kernel is Unix clone started in 1993 based on the mixture of System V and BSD Unix is verifiable. Or 80% of all servers with longest up time run FreeBSD is something that can be verified.

You should definitely address the following things

1. FreeBSD is longer in the development than Linux.

2. Probably 80% of the servers with the longest UP time run FreeBSD. Give a link. Easy to find.

3. FreeBSD is a COMPLETE operating system GNU/Linux is not.

4. It has different development and engineering process than Linux.

5. It has better quality control at least because Linux has no quality control at all.

6. The Largest FTP sever on the world run FreeBSD (your beloved freebsd.org)

7. FreeBSD has one of the best systems for the installation of the third party software (ports and do not forget packages as some people will jump at you and make a claim that Debian has better packaging system as it is more efficient than compiling things from ports)

8. Most extensive collection of third party software (over 18000 ) only second to Debian.

9. One of the best documented systems

10. Mention the advantage of the BSD license comparing to GPL for the commercial use.

11. It is philosophically different than most Linux distros as all services are turned of by default.

12. Unlike Linux it doesn't claim that is the best and most suitable for everything. If you need security then Open is better choice. If you need something for embedded devices probably Net is better choice.

13. More secure than Linux if for no other reason but for PF which is ported from OpenBSD. Note that PF is not ported for Linux.

14. Kernel security level concept doesn't exist in Linux.

Try to disperse common myth that BSD doesn't support hardware but do not be shy to admit that lack support for things like video conferencing.

Do not be shy to admit that virtualization is poor and maybe intensionally as quite of few people do not believe that putting somebody's else cra*p on the top of FreeBSD will not make that cra*p working better or be more secure. If you need Window's application run Windows.

Does it make a good Desktop system? Depends what do you mean by that. If you need everything working out of box for your grandmother Mily probably not. If you need Flash and Java plug-ins probably not. But if you need ROCK solid workstation for academic work, occasional multimedia and want to be 100% in control of your computer like me it is the best desktop OS around.