Dave Anselmi wrote: >Thanks for the post, I'm much more likely to try *BSD now. Perhaps either Open of >Free the next server I need. Since there is less hardware support (video, audio) and >the main desktop/window managers seem to be developed for Linux I think I'd stay away >from a desktop machine (just me, my brother-in-law uses FreeBSD on a laptop). > I use FreeBSD on a desktop system as well as a laptop. While the hardware support is getting better, it is, IMnosoHO, about where Linux was 2 -3 years ago. Since most of my computers are 2 - 3 years old, this is no problem <g>.
The biggest problem I have had with installs is with network cards. While FreeBSD supports many, many brands, most of them are not available during installation, including Tulip-chipped ones (I use Netgear 310's almost exclusively). This is easily corrected with a kernel recompile, which I think is even simpler than with Linux, but a nuisance to have to do right off the bat! (There may be a way around this using modules, but I just do the kernel recompile since I end up doing one eventually anyway). The most difficult thing with installation is the disk partitioning. Luckily, FreeBSD will do a good job by default, and I suggest this for a newbie, as long as there is not going to be a lot of customization to the system. In that case, then I would take the time to set up the drive the way I wanted it. I say this because I almost always end up installing a new OS twice: once to get it up and running and learn it and thereafter to set it up the way I want it. This is not the most efficient way to do things, but when starting out I try for as little as stress as possible by avoiding creating problems for myself: my hair is gray enough already without having to add to it by trying to get fancy when I don't know what I am doing. <g>. >I also hear that, like Debian, it's easy to get the bare minimum installed with >FreeBSD. > Actually, this is very easy: FreeBSD does this by default <g>. After setup, I found FreeBSD to use about 400 MB. Post-installation, the user must then install almost everything else, including bash. While some of the programs (such as bash) are included as precompiled binaries (called packages), many of them (such as the Ksh shell, vim, and emacs) must be downloaded over the Internet and compiled. FreeBSD uses an apt-get-like concept called ports, where someone has written a small script file to seek out the needed files, adapt them to FreeBSD, compile them, and then install them. The ports collection is extensive, and can be installed on the system hard drive during setup, along with the packages collection. For the most part, the process is painless, although there are occasional hiccups, such as with Ksh. In fact, if one gets brave enough, the entire system can be uprgarding from version to version by using the porting concept. (I tried it once: it took about six hours, four of which was recompile time). After installing what I wanted (bash, ksh, vim, emacs, Gnome, KDE, netscape, latex and a few other things), I found my installation to have grown to about 1.2 GB. This is about the same size as a stock Slackware or RedHat installation. I will be glad to meet with you and help if you wish when you decide to try FreeBSD. I am really impressed with it, and if I can venture an opinion without starting a flame war, find it to be in some things better than Linux. BOF _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
