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BSD, The Humble UNIX Family

Back in the beginning of the operating systems history, UNIX was the king of the scene. For the general public, UNIX might be the best known from Jurassic Park (“It’s a UNIX system! I know this!”). Although many use and know only Microsoft’s Windows operating system, UNIX (and alike) operating systems are still alive and well, and many might not realize they actually use UNIX systems every day - Internet literally runs on UNIX(-alike) systems. BSD is one operating system family that originates from the original UNIX source code.

BSD girls

You might have heard about GNU/Linux operating system which is a clone of and heavily inspired by of UNIX operating system. Because GNU’s Not Unix, but heavily looks like one, it’s usually called as “unix-alike” operating system, because it’s not UNIX, but looks like one. However, there is full family of open source UNIX systems that actually derive from the original AT & T’s UNIX source code - This operating system family is called BSD UNIX (BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution). Nowadays the BSD code base may not include much of the original source code, but its roots still are at the original source. Even the BSD operating system family is less fragmented than GNU/Linux scene, there are many different distributions of BSD available, and all of them have different goals. From time to time, the projects might share source code where they see it fit but the BSD family all have their strengths and weaknesses.

The Beginning and a series of Unfortunate Events

BSD UNIX started its life at Berkeley University at 70’s. Back in the day, Bell owned UNIX and there really didn’t exist such thing as “commercial software industry”. Operating systems and the source code was seen as educational, scientific tool which could be studied and extended. Also Bell shipped the source code of UNIX for universities so researchers, students and teachers could learn from and extend the UNIX operating system. Eventually, Berkeley University had extended the original (6th edition of) UNIX with several tools and hacks, which made the other universities interested in the software at Berkeley. In 1977, graduate student Bill Joy then assembled data tapes of Berkeley’s additions to UNIX, and named this package as 1BSD (First Berkeley Software Distribution). During the years, BSD got improved by the universities to the extend it could stand on its own rather than being an addon package to UNIX.

However releasing the source code got BSD to big trouble, as AT & T (Current UNIX copyright holder at the time) throw in a lawsuit in 1992 claiming copyright infringement. Although the lawsuit got settled eventually and only three files had to be removed, BSD had lost time and mind share. Timing was unfortunate for the BSD, as the development of BSD slowed down for couple of years, and caused Linux to gain mind share. Free from legal troubles and open BSD got eventually released in 1994 under very permissive, now legendary, BSD License. The history could have been very different if BSD had been released in 1991 instead of 1994, since Linus Torvalds has stated If there had been a free UNIX system on the i386 at the time, he likely would not have created Linux.

Current free BSD operating systems

Although BSD operating systems are less known than GNU/Linux systems, BSD undeniably has got a fair share of fame because of Linux, mostly credited to the fact systems are similar in many ways. When you introduce someone to Linux operating system, it’s likely that sooner or later (s)he’ll heard from BSD too. Linux does borrow some source code from the BSD kernel, and the BSD systems use some tools from GNU, like the GCC compiler. Flame wars between BSD and Linux users are common, but the actual developers tend to have cooler relationships, and the online flame wars between the users have little to do with reality. Both operating systems live happily side by side, sometimes borrowing either ideas, code or tools from each other.

The fantastic four

There are many more or less known BSD operating systems, but usually three biggest projects are referred as the BSDs, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD. However, in 2003 long-time FreeBSD developer Matt Dillon though FreeBSD 5 is going to wrong direction technically, and started his own project, Dragonfly BSD to implement his visions of what FreeBSD should be. Although many would argue that FreeBSD distributions like PC-BSD and DesktopBSD are more popular than Dragonfly BSD, these are merely modified distributions of FreeBSD making the desktop usage easier, whereas Dragonfly BSD has its own kernel design and goals. So when talking about the kernel which is the heart of the operating systems, these four are the leading BSDs.

Other operating systems using the BSD code

Many well-known operating systems also have started their life from the BSD code, or include significant amount of BSD code, most notably Sun Microsystem’s Solaris operating system, Hewlett-Packard’s Tru64 UNIX and Apple’s Mac OS X. These projects have grown far away from their original BSD sources, but nevertheless they own a lot for the BSD.

FreeBSD

FreeBSD running KDE desktop.

FreeBSD is most likely the most well known BSD system nowadays. It’s arguably most used BSD in desktop space, although some FreeBSD distributions such as DesktopBSD and PC-BSD have been gaining ground on desktop side. On server side, FreeBSD is also surprisingly popular as big names such as Yahoo! uses FreeBSD on its servers. FreeBSD is also the most common operating system in Netcraft’s list of servers with highest uptime.

OpenBSD

OpenBSD is well known within open source communities for two things:

• OpenBSD is insanely secure, with security as #1 priority.
• OpenBSD has unusually hot-tempered leader, Theo de Raadt

Theo is known as very straight-mouthed leader of the OpenBSD development team, and he usually manages to anger people with his comments. Theo’s hot temper aside, he usually tends to have real point with things. Lately Theo, and whole OpenBSD team have been less friendly towards wireless manufacturers due closed firmwares. All ego-competing aside, OpenBSD is very safe, with only two remote holes in default install in last 10 years. Not that other BSD’s aren’t safe - they are, but OpenBSD is very careful with default services. OpenBSD also has many security features in kernel level and regular code audits. Generally OpenBSD is very popular for firewalls.

NetBSD

NetBSD running DOOM and terminal application on HP Jordana handheld

Unlike other BSD-based operating systems which tends to target one or just a few different architectures, NetBSD has a humble goal to run on anything. Comparing to other BSD systems, NetBSD’s support for things like multicore cpu’s, newest graphics cards and other usual desktop hardware is a bit lacking behind which makes it a bit less appealing for workstation usage. However, It’s generally anknowledged that NetBSD has very clean kernel code as they aim to keep the kernel as portable as possible. NetBSD is also popular in scientific field as it is easy to port for experimental platforms. NetBSD also has something quite unique compared to other BSD’s, or even to other operating systems: a cross-platform package management called pkgsrc. It runs on all BSD’s, Linux, AIX, Solaris, IRIX, HP-UX, QNX and even Mac OS X.

Dragonfly BSD

Dragonfly is relatively new BSD operating system, derivered from FreeBSD 4.11. Dragonfly heavily targets for clustering environments. It’s still heavy work in progress and generally not recommended for production environments. Dragonfly’s different approach to server environments makes it interesting and if you’re working with heavy clustered environments, Dragonfly is the project to keep eye on.

Final words

Although Linux might steal most of the open source fanware, there are many other interesting open source operating systems to be excited of. BSD family has long, long roots in UNIX history, loyal users, good documentation and very liberal licensing. If you’re looking for alternatives to Linux in server side, look no further, BSD systems offer familiar alternative.