Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 20:55:59 +1100 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: dkressman@foxinternet.net Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Lost Message-ID: <19981202205559.43497@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <3664F0A0.F0AF59FA@foxinternet.net>; from Donald C Kressman on Tue, Dec 01, 1998 at 11:47:45PM -0800 References: <3664F0A0.F0AF59FA@foxinternet.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tue, Dec 01, 1998 at 11:47:45PM -0800, Donald C Kressman wrote: > Hi, > Well I have read every word on your home page regarding FreeBSD. I > am your average run of the mill taught myself how to turn on a computer > old man. I bought a computer 5 years ago and proceeded to crash it many > times over the next two years trying to teach myself how it worked. I > can work it OK now but please don't ask me to explain what I did. It sounds like you enjoyed working things out for yourself but were frustrated by a system not working the way it promised. If you've also dabbled with DOS a bit, you're going to love FreeBSD. It's a big step. You'll either install it instead of your current operating system, or on a second unused hard disk, or use special software to shrink the partition on your current disk to make a large unpartitioned space to install FreeBSD onto. With the last two options you get a dual boot system: choose which operating system each time you boot. Sure, you're going to want a little taste first. On the FreeBSD site there's a short tutorial for people who have just finished installing. Don't expect to understand it now, but it'll give you an idea of what some of the commands look like. Text editors are very important, and there's an article about the traditional editors that are supplied with the system at http://www.daemonnews.org/199810/editing.html That article also has a link to the tutorial mentioned above. You probably ran DOS and Windows3.1 at some stage. Remember how easy it was to drop out of windows, run some commands, and fire up windows again, or just run a DOS window? Well, with FreeBSD you'll have similar conveniences, except it all works much better. You only leave the GUI environment when you choose to leave it :-). Did you ever go 'dir /?' and get excited about all the different ways you could list the contents of a directory? Well, our equivalent command is 'ls' and we type 'man ls' for help, and get several screenfuls of options! Most of the time 'ls' by itself is fine. You're going to want a good book on unix commands and a good book on FreeBSD. There are some book suggestions and links to info on the web at http://www.freebsd.org/projects/newbies.html which is probably worth looking at right now anyway. > System I am using > PC compatible clone 486 > 812 MG hard drive > 8X CD Rom > 100 MG processor > 16 MG ram > 640X480 ? monitor 256 color > HP 694C printer That's enough memory to run the X Window System over the top of plain FreeBSD, but you'll wish for more. Still, it'll use your memory better than win95 does now (how do you manage?!). I'm running on a 386 with 8 megs of RAM, not enough to run X, but in commandline mode (looks like DOS) it runs rings around a pentium running NT. Where you'll have real trouble is disk space. In rough terms, think of giving FreeBSD whatever you would give to win95, even though FreeBSD does more. FreeBSD isn't so heavy on resources, but it doesn't work miracles either. You have to study a bit to work miracles with it. You can do a very rough check on hardware compatibility by creating an install diskette and seeing if you can boot off it and get to the install menu. Then remove the diskette, reboot, and read up on doing a real installation if you're ready. Study the installation instructins off the main web page to find out about the boot floppy, and come back to freebsd-questions if you get stuck. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?19981202205559.43497>