Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 07:55:02 +1300 From: Jamie Walker <jamiew@clear.net.nz> To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: About Unix Message-ID: <3AA7D586.B6DCEE34@clear.net.nz>
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Jesper Holmberg wrote: > So my question to you would be: can you tell my just why I should hang > in there? Why do you prefer FreeBSD? What will I discover if I stay > that is not obvious at first sight? > > I know this could be regarded as flame-bait, but since this > Linux-bashing was already started, I was thinking I could perhaps jump > in and ask that the discussion be steered towards some information for > us FreeBSD-newbies. The reason I stuck with FreeBSD, and moved my main machine over to it, is discovering after using it for a while that it makes most admin tasks a *lot* easier than with Linux. I like the ports system, I like the way lots of little things are setup to work from the start (tcp wrapping is a good example - no messing about, just edit /etc/hosts.allow and most things are setup to use it by default etc). I like the cvsup/make... way of upgrading, I like being able to set up more than one machine with similar configuration just by copying /etc/rc.conf around and changing only the network address etc. The reasons I see commonly given by FreeBSD fans - better performance and stability - simply haven't been a factor for me. It's hard to improve on a perfect reliability record (which I had and still have with Linux at home and work) and I've yet to notice much of a performance difference either, except that Linux seems to cache disk I/O more aggressively than FreeBSD on the same box. FreeBSD isn't perfect though; my second machine is a Linux Mandrake 7.1 box, and much of the extra software on that is more nicely setup by default than the same apps from the FreeBSD ports tree. What it comes down to in the long run though is that what I don't like about FreeBSD is easier to fix than what I don't like about Linux. :-) -- Email: jamiew@clear.net.nz ICQ: 5632563 or shout loudly To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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