DragonFly BSD

Comparison with Linux

 

Feature DragonFly Linux
Distribution formats ISO image, pkgng, tarballs ISO image, rpm, dpkg, tarballs
Distribution Depots Central repository with mirrors for base, several binary package repositories Debian: many mirrors; Redhat: central; Ubuntu: central; SUSE: ?
Number of Distributions one (3 sibs: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD; most popular: FreeBSD) hundreds (most popular: RedHat (sub-distro: Fedora), Debian (sub-distro: Ubuntu))
Update methods git, cvsup, rsync, pkg up2date, yum, apt-get, pacman, emerge, etc.
Xen not yet yes
Compiler gcc 8.3 gcc 4.7.2 (Debian 7), gcc 4.4.7 (Redhat 6), gcc 4.1.2 (Redhat 5), gcc 12.2.0 (Void)
Firewall default: pf; other: ipfw2, ipf default: iptables; other: pf
Livecd yes (DVD) yes, many sizes, versions
Kernel SCM git git
Default GUI none none, kde, gnome, xfce, etc. (depend on distro)
File systems UFS1, MFS, EXT2, FAT (16/32), NTFS (write experimental), HAMMER BTRFS, EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, FAT (16/32), NTFS (read-write experimental?), XFS, REISERFS, REISER4, JFS, ZFS, UFS2
Encryption Mechanisms LUKS, TrueCrypt (tcplay) LUKS, TrueCrypt (tcplay)
Kernel compilable from supplied source? Yes Yes (depend on distro)
Predominant Licenses 3-clause DragonFly, 3-clause BSD, 4-clause BSD, MIT, GPL GPL, Lesser GPL, MIT, 3-clause BSD?
Commercial Support Not yet many; leaders: RedHat, Novell?
Processor Architectures AMD64 x86, AMD64, Sparc, PowerPC, etc
SMP yes yes
NUMA yes yes (depending on kernel?)
Boot loader default: bsd boot block; lilo, grub work default: lilo, grub
Disk partitioning BSD-style: slices on fdisk'ed partitions fdisk partitions
Logical volume management vinum, LVM2 LVM1, LVM2,
Release schedule about twice a year (developer-driven) Redhat: 18 month; Debian: feature-driven; Ubuntu: 6 month; Fedora: 6 months;

DD:Distribution dependant

Advantages over Linux

Disadvantages compared to Linux

Most of these disadvantages are curable, not inherent.

Devices

Feature    DragonFly    Linux
IDE disk    ad0, ad1, ...    hda, hdb, ...
IDE disk partition    ad0s1a, ad0s1b, ...    hda1, hda2, ...
Ethernet    xl0    eth0

Commands

Feature    DragonFly    Linux
Manage startup scripts    rcrun    chkconfig (Red Hat)/update-rc.d (Debian)

*Some packages put their startup scripts in /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/. You can put a symlink in /etc/rc.d or copy the script there.