Migrating from BSD 3.1 to Linux?

Slain asks: "I've searched the internet looking for information about migrating from BSD to Linux. I have not found anything on the subject. Is it something that is just not done? What if you wanted to switch for cost reasons? Is it not done because you are already running a flavor of UNIX so why switch? I have a BSD box which is used as the primary internet mail server for the company. It has about 700+ users and grows about 20+ a week. Why do we want to migrate? The reason are as follows: newer hardware, user maintenance and we want to reduce services to the users (eg. make them POP only accounts). Anyone out there have any suggestions?

FreeBSD?

[platinum]

Not to be anti-Linux, but have you considered migrating to FreeBSD? Other than FreeBSD's ability to run BSDi binaries (in case you have software that cannot be easily ported or is not open source) and Linux binaries, compile most applications with little or no changes, and similiar in many aspects of configuration, FreeBSD is, like, Linux, open source. In addition, FreeBSD has proven itself time and again running high-profile sites such as ftp.cdrom.com [cdrom.com], www.yahoo.com [yahoo.com], and even the Microsoft-owned www.hotmail.com [hotmail.com]. See www.freebsd.org [freebsd.org] for more information.

Keep it at BSD. Its good.

[the_ed]

If you a truly bent on migrating to Linux, please do let us try to stop you first. :) If you're actually running BSD3.1, then I recommend you upgrade it, cause that is really old. Otherwise, I'll assume thats its FreeBSD3.1, which is new a good.

FreeBSD's TCP stack is more robust than Linux's, and it handles disk I/O well, making it ideal for things like mail servers. I havn't had any problems with lack of support for hardware, and like everyone else mentioned, it can run all kinds of apps.

As far as your want for POP3-only users go, I have a solution for you. First thing to do is install qmail [qmail.org]. Its more stable, more modular, more easily configurable, less crackable, and leaves a smaller footprint than sendmail. Then, follow these instructions [tibus.net] and set yourself up with enought POP accounts for all the users you could want.

Have fun.

--Ed Bardsley

Don't throw out the baby...

[Guruzilla]

Unless you're changing for ideological reasons (usually not the case in most business settings), stop while you're ahead, and stay with a BSD. As the nice man above says, FreeBSD most likely. Except for the very most bleeding-edge HW, it should run whatever x86 boxen you have, as nicely as Linux will.
Naysayers will deny that, but I do know net shops that've moved from Linux to FreeBSD for more stability. I'll let the flamers and the benchmarkers decide that.
If you switch between Linux and [Free|Net|Open]BSD, you're more liable to forget, say, where those config files are supposed to be, and more likely to have to re-work all your pet sKr1p+Z that make things happy, at least to a greater degree. Add an order of magnitude onto your usual config-change/upgrade odd behaviors. Sticking in the *BSD family, with FreeBSD for instance, will save you at least a bit of heartache. You're also perhaps less likely to be that lucky guy who finds the rare but deadly bug in 2.2.297....
Either way, you'll just have to resist the temptation to get the VERY latest gadgets for your server -- like, oh, say, umm, an SiS 6326 video card! %^*$%@#$!!! *ahem*
Summary: 'Stick with the family, Vito'

Some Background

[Joe_NoOne]

In O'Reilly's "Essential System Administration" book, the first chapter gives a good history of the development of *nix systems. BSD is along a different development path from linux (Unix system V).
To swich from BSD to linux is a paradigm shift - not necessarly going from better to worse or worse to better. BSD is more stable, but is a different development from Linux and Unix system V.

First understand this before switching -- commands will seem similar, but there will be differences. One obvious differencing is BSD versus SYS V printing. Also, command flags are different and file locations are different.

I would guess there is realy too much differences to be able to do a "conversion" FAQ...

Moving from BSD 3.1

[trotsky]

I'd suggest you consider sticking with (I assume Free)BSD 3.1 and consider moving applications. For example, if you want to deliver POP accounts rather than SMTP why not look at Fetchmail rather than Sendmail? There is also a hardware question - BSD is better at handling the sort of SCSI based disks that you are going to need for speed and reliability than Linux, especially if you are shoving a number of SCSI interfaces in. We've got a FreeBSD 2.2.8 box that has been trundling along quite happily for eighteen months now providing (admittedly *very*) basic services to a number of users. I've restarted it once in that time and only because I started messing around with it and screwed up...

..and another thing..

[trotsky]

Oh yeah, I forgot, I also stuck FreeBSD 3.1 on a newly built PII350/Gigabyte AT format motherboard with two Adaptec 2940U and one 1542 cards, three Seagate 4GB SCSI disks, a 100MHz 64M DIMM, and ATI AGP card and an old four speed toshiba CDROM. RedHAt Linux barfed when I tried to put it on that and FreeBSD went on first time, so what's all this about up to date hardware?