Bug 160241

How does your OS compare?
Well, in the year 2011, we have FreeBSD, we have Linux 3.0, we have Windows 7. It seems, FreeBSD's marketing webpage has been stuck as several OS aspects has been stuck for years as well.

Comparing the three OS, of which two are very popular major operating systems  and FreeBSD is now one of the more endangered species, some changes need to be made.
I will suggest some and using the same non-sense "Smileys" as the original offering does:

:-) for good
:-| for intermediate
:-( for not so good

Reliability:
FreeBSD :-)
Linux :-)
Windows 7 :-)

Performance:
FreeBSD :-|
Linux :-)
Windows :-|
Comment on that:
FreeBSD has lost terrain against Linux over the years. Linux now does have with kernel 3.0 a very good TCP/IP stack implementation, a very good scalability with CPU cores and memory and a very innovative memory subssystem, which in many aspects outperforms any other opponent. Many years has passed by since FreeBSD was the choice of OS for HPC computing. Nowadays FreeBSD lacks essentially in support for nearly everything modern like GPGPU. No OpenCL, no CUDA. Not even compilers capable of compiling OpenCL/CUDA. The backend-situation, meanly drivers for GPGPU capable graphics boards, is worse and there is no sight getting the situation fixed for the next 24 months. The situation for high-performance compilers for C, C++ and Fotran has rendered bad over the past 15 years. Except PathScale, there is no compiler for scientific use on FreeBSD and PathScale's ENZO 2011 project seems not to be ready soon. On Linux and Windows 7, one will have CUDE, OpenCL support and a lot of high pe
 rformance mathematical libraries useable on GPUs. HPC compilers as well.
The operating systems themselfs are well prepared acting as HPC backend/backbone OS, even Microsoft is pushing hard to get into this market (which was once a domain of the OpenSource development as far as I know).

Security:
FreeBSD :-)
Linux :-)
Windows 7 :-(
Comment: Most trojans and viruses infect badly installed Windows boxes. Linux has done a lot to secure the OS and FreeBSD is not that popular any more thta it could be seriously compared. But unpopularity is sometimes an advantage with respect to security. Look at OS X. The more OS X becomes popular, the more it gets infected. The arguments for freeBSD's excellent packetfiltering system also applies to Linux. Be fair!

Filesystems:
FreeBSD :-)
Linux :-)
Windows :-|
In terms of "how mahy filesystems does my OS support" Linux will definitely win. But FreeBSD has ext4 and soon BTRFS. They have ReiserFS, XFS as well, GLUSTERFS and other modern, threadsafe filesystems. FreeBSD has ist "old" UFS2/FFS2, the "rescue in last second-pod" ZFS. UFS2 is a kind of outdated on very large devices and with ZFS I see still some problems in terms of performance and NFS, but why do need an OS more filesystems if two span all needs? Windows has only NTFS. Maybe that's enough, but it seems to be a little bit inflexible.

Device drivers:
FreeBSD :-|
Linux :-)
Windows :-)
Well, there is not much to say. look at the graphics cards ...

Commercial applications:
FreeBSD :-(
Linux :-|
Windows :-)


Development Environment:
FreeBSD :-)
Linux :-)
Windows :-|
Comment: On Linux, the mentioned negativa isn't true and applicable any more. On Windows, the situation has dramatically changed over the past decade.

Development Infrastructure:
FreeBSD :-)
Linux :-)
Windows :-(
Comment: No comment. Linux has GIT. Linux has improved massively and I think with the great support for GNOME/KDE environments, Linux is ahead of FreeBSD.