Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Fri, 13 Sep 2002 07:54:49 -0400
From:      "Brian T. Schellenberger" <bts@babbleon.org>
To:        Bob Bomar <bulldog@fxp.org>, questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Windows as opposed to Other OS's
Message-ID:  <200209130754.49828.bts@babbleon.org>
In-Reply-To: <20020911035308.GA90385@peitho.fxp.org>
References:  <20020911035308.GA90385@peitho.fxp.org>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help


On Tuesday 10 September 2002 11:53 pm, Bob Bomar wrote:
| I am writeing a paper on the diffrences of various
| Operating Systems.  Mainly I am looking at Windows
| and Unix and Unix-Like operating systems, and Windows
| and Mac OS X.
|
| I am looking to gather information on how and why people
| choose an OS.  I am also looking to gather information on
| why other OS's were not choosen.
|
| Any opinions are appreciated.
|
| In my opinion, as a server, FreeBSD is a great choice.
| It is fast, reliable, and very well built.  But as a
| desktop choice, it leaves a little to be desired.
| Windows, IMHO will remain a main desktop choice for
| a long while, but I do belive that alternative OS's
| such as FreeBSD, Solaris, Linux, and other will become
| more and more popular.  As I have been going through
| a UNIX course at a local college, I have come to
| appreciate Solaris.
|
| I appreciate any comments that any one has to offer.

I prefer FreeBSD as my desktop O/S, and I've never supported a server.  
Why?

Well, it really comes down to personal prefernce.  Berkeley Unix was the 
first "real" o/s I ever used, back in 1981.  (Previously I'd used 
Dartmouth Basic and Waterloo's Widget O/S.)

So it fits the way I'm used to working.

Partly I really hate to repeat mundane and tedious tasks--I figure 
that's what the computer is for.  Thus, I prefer to have everything 
easily controllable through a command line so that it can scripted.  
This philosophy carries over consistently; thus, I use "plan" as my 
calendar program because it allows command-line entering of 
appointments as well as doing them via a GUI.

Partly I hate inexplicable crashes and the need to reboot every time I 
install something.

Mostly I like a system that allows me to set up things just as like them 
and automate and customize my system until it's just the way that I 
want it.

And Windows and Macintosh (at least until OS/X) simply don't offer that.

FreeBSD does.

Linux comes close, but I like FreeBSD better (especially the ports, 
packages, and kernel configuration method) than the Linux distributions 
I've used, and many of the Linux distributions have gotten too damned 
"user friendly", meaning that it's impossible the find the actual 
scripts that control the computer.  Besides, FreeBSD offers the Linux 
emulation feature so I don't have to give up the wide variety of Linux 
software out there yet I can still get the benefits of FreeBSD.

But Linux is the only other serious contender for me.

(Actually, AmigaDOS is the other O/S I like and I understand that it 
runs on non-Amiga hardware now, but I'm also sure that the software 
availability for it would be far lower than for FreeBSD.)


-- 
Brian, the man from Babble-On . . . .   bts@babbleon.org (personal)

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?200209130754.49828.bts>