Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 21:23:53 -0600 From: David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Unix and FreeBSD Message-ID: <199811260323.VAA00991@n4hhe.ampr.org> In-Reply-To: Message from The Hermit Hacker <scrappy@hub.org> of "Wed, 25 Nov 1998 00:42:51 -0400." <Pine.BSF.4.05.9811250037280.457-100000@thelab.hub.org>
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The Hermit Hacker writes: > On Tue, 24 Nov 1998, David Kelly wrote: > > In my experience, FreeBSD is as different from SGI Irix as Irix is > > different from Sun Solaris, as Solaris is different from FreeBSD. > > Altho they are all different, they are built on the same > foundation/premise. In answer to the original question, yes...knowing > FreeBSD will *help* you in using commercial Unix later on...it will give > you the basics to build from, but be prepared to have to seek out answers > specific to each variant you visit...and each variant out there has their > "niceties". Yup, better said. Irix, Solaris, and FreeBSD are very much alike. But when they differ, they are about equally different. > Solaris has two things I wish we had...file system ACLs (makes > working with Samba beautiful) and what I consider to be a very nice print > daemon and interfaces (SysV?)... Arrgghh! You can't be serious about their print system? My worst nightmares with Solaris 2.5.1 has been printing. The only way I've gotten one printing The Way I Like has been to install Sun's SparcPrinter E package and to not configure any other network printer on the box. HP JetDirect software is essential for HP printers. Without special "drivers" from Sun and/or HP, was never able to convince its over-intelligent print system that the printer expected and only would accept PostScript. The default print system is OK for most printers if you don't mind stairstepped output if somebody happens to throw raw text at it. Or as long as you can convince your users to always run their text thru a2ps or similar. Big problem was our HP 4MV really blew up on whatever was being sent so 40 or 100 almost blank pages at the printer wasn't unusual. Have heard both BSD lpr/lpd and LPRng are ported to Solaris, and have a modest following. I can understand why. SGI Irix comes with the equivalent of apsfilter from the factory. SGI basically assumes all printers are Postscript. And has good filters for detecting Postscript and many different binary graphic formats. Final print job goes thru a shell script where one could insert Ghostscript in only 3 places to catch all routes to the printer, if that's what it takes to print on (say) a LaserJet III. BTDT. -- David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@nospam.hiwaay.net ===================================================================== The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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