Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 07:35:15 -0500 From: John Duncan <jddst19+@pitt.edu> To: "freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Questions (technical and non-technical) Message-ID: <01BC0F49.6E0CE7A0@ehdup-c2-16.rmt.net.pitt.edu>
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---------- From: Stephan R. Hecker[SMTP:bebest@es.com.sv] Sent: Thursday, January 30, 1997 10:31 PM To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Questions (technical and non-technical) 1. Is FreeBSD a Unix-based Operating System? Yes. It is derived from the 4.4BSD-Lite distribution and runs on i386/pc98 machines a. For what is Unix specially designed (Networking? Internet?)? Unix is specially designed to be a timesharing operating system without much overhead. Aside from that, unix has been extended in many ways to provide excellent networking features. 2. What is the difference between the X Consortium's X-Window and XFree86 (not including that XFree86 is a portation to the PC)? XFree86 is merely an xserver that should run on most i386 machines. Aside from that, XF86's distribution includes the standard X. 3. Where can I get Unix SYSTEM V Release 4 (or higher)? This doesn't mean that I am not interested in your operating system. Look into the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), or Sun Microsystems (Solaris 2.5), or OSF. FreeBSD also supports pretty well the running of SCO binaries with an emulation package. In fact, in some cases, FreeBSD has actually been more compatible with SCO binaries than SCO. 4. Is FreeBSD the same as BSD/386? FreeBSD is more recent than 386BSD, and is not the same. It is, however, similar. There are three similar BSD-derived free operating systems, and they are NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. If it isn't... a. Is it compatible? There is a compatibility package, yes. TECHNICAL QUESTIONS 1. Do the bin (bin.xx) files include the whole operating system, or just the kernel? Do they include XFree86? The bin xx files include a variety of minimally necessary files to run FreeBSD, excepting a few other packages. For starting out, we strongly recommend installing FreeBSD from a cdrom or FTP, and using one of the pre-defined install sets. 2. When I installed (or tried to) FreeBSD, as I already have another operating system installed (non-Unix), I had to divide my partition with the FIPS program. When I had already created the FreeBSD partition (with 'Novice' installation), and I was already at the beginning of the real installation (where I am asked if I am sure that I want to continue), I put OK, and the machine said that the 'usr/' and 'var/' were not found. The description I gve may be more or less correct. I couln't get an exact definition of the problem, since I would have to go through all the installation again. What could have happened here? How can I fix this without destroying the information in my first partition? (I use a floppy installation - with 12 disks of bin.xx files and one installation disk - FreeBSD Release 2.1.6). For the most part, a single-user system can make it pretty well using one partition for the entire system. But for anything more than a small system, we recommend dividing the partitions out and mounting them as /usr, /var, /rmp, etc in varying sizes depending on whether or not the machine will be a server, etc. 3. Is it impossible to merge the partition I created (after an unsuccessful installation) with the first partition (the one that contains all my data)? There is a program called: Partition Magic. It should work. I don't know the price. 4. Won't I have to buy a new hard disk for FreeBSD? No, not necessarily. You will need approximately 200MB of space to get the system up and running well. Please, I hope you answer my questions. It is very (I mean VERY) difficult to find any information about Unix-based OS. I will thank you for the help. This information may even help other users. Stephan R. Hecker
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