On Thursday 06 July 2006 10:58 am, Ian bell ianbell@ukfsn.org wrote:

<snip>

However, for me, the core of Linux is seriously disparate - endless kernel revisions, each distro with its own patches, file layout, start up scripts, endless dependency issues and so on. So I was very pleased to find this is not the case with the various BSD flavours. In fact I have just installed NetBSD on an old PC. It has a single source code tree that compiles on 57 different platforms which says a lot about the quality of the code. Its pkgsrc app is what gentoo is modeled on apparently and there are over 5000 apps to choose from (nearly as many as Debian).

Is 5000 "nearly as many as Debian", which has over 15490 packages? It would seem to be over 10490 short of "nearly".

I am seriously tempted to roll it out across my other PCs.

That is the main advantage of *free* software, everyone has the freedom to choose. One is not 'locked' into any particular software. the whole gamut as laid out here: http://www.freeos.com/ and probably several other URL's as well, HURD is one which comes to mind and I'm sure there are others, the 'Tunes' project for instance. All provide variety and *choice*.