From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Feb 19 07:19:49 2004 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 1534A16A4CE for ; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 07:19:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.gmx.net (mail.gmx.de [213.165.64.20]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5E92143D1F for ; Thu, 19 Feb 2004 07:19:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from krylon@gmx.net) Received: (qmail 24336 invoked by uid 65534); 19 Feb 2004 15:19:45 -0000 Received: from B621a.b.pppool.de (EHLO wintermute) (213.7.98.26) by mail.gmx.net (mp016) with SMTP; 19 Feb 2004 16:19:45 +0100 X-Authenticated: #685629 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:19:25 +0100 From: Benjamin Walkenhorst To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Message-Id: <20040219161925.23349803.krylon@gmx.net> In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.8a (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386--netbsdelf) X-Operating-System: NetBSD 1.6.2_RC4 User-Agent: Sylpheed 0.9.8a X-Face: "G=jn*S]P-JmPX0[GAK; )7Yo0p?#U/0m{g!*j3XGvT80*#5pX0kPN$4+azk{O#@ZEZV9BS:4y; \9utXK@+?.mCT.k%G&Ix2XEj-`bBt{TituWYrQ5npZb+:ERfmRt-((lW:itQr$C|B~; vhJ:>2,{tA}#)P'g3h6eE8JT|Qfcm50pUoy{zb8=jvof2?lY}EYTEt4z=5*i%OJ136\?S8^g~^>,s&,jBb'=K|ryeVtUX5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: New 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: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 15:19:49 -0000 On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 19:25:23 -0500 "Patrick Rooney" wrote: > Want to give it a try! "it" is FreeBSD, I suppose? I hope you'll enjoy FreeBSD as much as I do. =) > Very experienced with all versions of windows, have been building > computers for 15 years.. Sick of the windows restrictions..... Well, I can see why. =) When I first came to non-windows systems, it was Linux, too. I was just curious, but I came to like Unix a lot. Doing any real work on Windows machines has become an annoyance to me. I mean, you can't even set the input focus to follow the mouse... > What am I in for?????????????????? > Have tried many versions of Linux.....There are too many anymore..... Well, what was it you did not like that much about Linux? FreeBSD is very similar to windows, in many ways, from a user's point of view. The basic command-line tools are more or less the same (differing in detail, though), X11 is the same, you got the same desktop environments and window managers available (like KDE, GNOME, Windowmaker, ...), mozilla's there, too, all the network services... Unlike some distributions of Linux, FreeBSD does not have any graphical tools for installing or configuring the system. It uses a text-based tool called sysinstall for installing and some system-configuration, but once you got the system installed, you're on your own, more or less. So far, this is pretty similar to Debian or Slackware. But if configuring the system by command-line and config-files does not scare you, you'll probably find FreeBSD very easy to configure. Unlike Linux, FreeBSD is a complete system which can look back on a long history, and you see that - FreeBSD is very tidy and reasonable in respect to what config-file belongs where, where applications are installed, and so on. Compared to Linux, FreeBSD has a reputation for being very reliable (not that Linux was entirely unreliable) and performant (though I don't know if/how much this has changed with Linux 2.6). Also, installing applications is very easy to do, as is upgrading the system. What you're in for depends on what you want or need. If you have some knowledge of Unix-systems already, you'll feel pretty familiar and will probably like FreeBSD a lot. If you want to do mainly desktop-stuff (office, email, mozilla, ...), you'll be fine - I do so, too. I also use FreeBSD to watch movies (DVD, DiVX, ...), listen to music and watch TV. If you want to do development, you'll find an excellent environment, the GNU C Compiler is part of the base system, as well as Perl, compilers, interpreters and libraries for a number of other languages are easily available. > Where is a good place to start? www.freebsd.org But since you're writing to this mailing list, I suppose you found that site already. =) > What's a good read to get up 2 speed??????? First, there's the FreeBSD manual, which is *great* - it's available online (www.FreeBSD.org -> Documentation -> Manual), and it's also installed with the base system. Numerous translations are available, as well. If you want a printed book, I can recommend "The Complete FreeBSD" by Greg Lehey. Mr. Lehey is an active developer of FreeBSD, and a great author as well. "Absolute BSD" by Michael Lucas is said to be very good, too, I don't own that book myself, though, so I can't tell for sure. If I'm not mistaken, you'll find more tips on books on the FreeBSD-website. > (work) I have time to read That's good. Unless you have much experience with Unix, you'll have to read a lot. Whether or not that's bad depends on you. I'm a big reader, so I even enjoy it, mostly. > patrickrooney1@msn.com (home) I have > time too play with new operating systems Well, as I said, I hope, you'll enjoy FreeBSD as much as I do. I like playing around with different operating systems, too, Linux distributions mainly. If you like FreeBSD, you might want to give one of the other free BSD-based systems a try. There is NetBSD (www.netbsd.org) and OpenBSD (www.openbsd.org), plus some 'spin-offs' (DragonFlyBSD, EkkoBSD, to name just two, there's more...). Before someone thinks of flaming me, I should hasten to add that FreeBSD - in my view - is the best system for 'first-contact' among these. It also somehow feels like it is the best *BSD-system for desktop-work and especially multimedia, but I might be wrong here. =) If you give FreeBSD a try (CDs are available for free download as well as from several vendors), you'll probably run into further questions. Before asking the mailing-list, you should consult google, or this mailing-list's archive (which you can find at the FreeBSD-website, too), as well as the manual. This is considered an act of politeness by some, but it tends to be the faster way, too, since with google/archives/documentation you find your answer pretty quickly in most cases, while on the mailing-list you have to wait for someone to look at your problem and answer. Also, if ask the mailing-list, you should include as much of the information you have on your problem, as is possible. This greatly helps solving it. =) You'll find the mailing-list to be a very friendly one, though. It's rare for people to get flamed here, and the crowd is very kind in general. You might also consider looking at other FreeBSD-mailing-lists like freebsd-newbies. > thanks > pjr Kind regards, Benjamin -- If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. -- Dorothy Parker