From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 8 06:53:44 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDB3C37B427 for ; Tue, 8 Apr 2003 06:53:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mired.org (ip68-97-54-220.ok.ok.cox.net [68.97.54.220]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D7AB143FDF for ; Tue, 8 Apr 2003 06:53:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mwm-dated-1050242021.c1d244@mired.org) Received: (qmail 28247 invoked from network); 8 Apr 2003 13:53:41 -0000 Received: from localhost.mired.org (HELO guru.mired.org) (127.0.0.1) by localhost.mired.org with SMTP; 8 Apr 2003 13:53:41 -0000 Received: by guru.mired.org (tmda-inject, from uid 100); Tue, 08 Apr 2003 08:53:41 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <16018.54372.680235.909997@guru.mired.org> Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 08:53:40 -0500 To: "Steve Moss" In-Reply-To: <20030408110256.11656.qmail@linuxmail.org> References: <20030408110256.11656.qmail@linuxmail.org> X-Mailer: VM 7.07 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`; h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ From: Mike Meyer X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/0.73 (Jet Pilot) cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2003 13:53:45 -0000 In <20030408110256.11656.qmail@linuxmail.org>, Steve Moss typed: > So I got a CD of FBSD 5.0. I can't even find "makeflp" or whatever > you write the boot disks with on Windows. (too old to boot from CD) > (not me the computers). While I applaud your effort, I feel compelled to point out that you don't want to use 5.0 for this. It's not really ready for production. See for more information. You should probably be using 4.8 for what you are doing. > Is it worth me persevering with BSD? I do really need a GUI because > my customers aren't that pioneering - they've emerged from the 2nd > millenium like everyone else - as babies who can only point and > click. So what do you think? Shall I go on to ask how to make boot > floppies from my BSD cd? Well, the suite of window managers et. al. that run on FreeBSD and Linux are pretty much identical. The two are probably going to perform so similarly that it'll be hard to tell the difference under the light load you're talking about. That leaves two issues. One is that Linux is less "scary" to the typical user, since it's had some press. The other is which is easier for you to set up. On the low-end systems you're talking about, you don't want to set up something like Gnome or KDE - which is what a typical Unix distro is going to install for you. Instead, you want a lightweight window manager - I prefer lwm, though qvwm may be preferred since it looks like Windows 95/98/NT - with a menu to start a browser - say skipstone - and a mail reader - no help from me here. Since FreeBSD doesn't arrive with preconcieved notions about what your desktop should be like As a final aside, adding newlines to your mail every once and a while improves readability. http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.