Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 13:37:45 -0400 From: Nathan Vidican <webmaster@wmptl.com> To: Shane Hagan <shane_64@hotmail.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: AMD processor's? Message-ID: <397C7EE9.560ECC79@wmptl.com> References: <F32B7oDaSeXnbnCndg50000a374@hotmail.com>
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Shane Hagan wrote: > > Can I run free BSD on an AMD k-7 processor? Or for that matter can I run it > on a K-6 2,3 500Mhz processor? I am thinking of purchasing the Free BSD > Power Pack for $99.95. Is this a good deal? Also they say there comming out > with power pack 4.1 in august 2000. Should I wait for that? I am just a > newbie so these questions may seem lame to you. I am kind of jumping into > this. I am currently running Windows 2000 pro and Win NT 4.0 at home and at > work. I keep hearing how good Free BSD is and how fast and stable it is. > Does it have GUI or would I be better off without the GUI? What do you > think of NOvell? > > Thank you for your time. > > Shane > ________________________________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message FreeBSD most certainly runs well with AMD CPU's, in fact I prefer them to most of Intel's stuff. I am currently running FreeBSD on about 30 webservers which are all AMD cpu-driven machines. For the most part these machines are AMD K62 500mhz boxes with 128megs RAM, and have yet to give me a problem. The CPU's are very inexpensive and they perform rather well. Most of the applications run on our servers don't chew up a lot of CPU power, so in an intensive load I don't know how well AMD's cpus really perform. I do know that from a performance aspect, I don't see much difference while running FreeBSD from our dual PIII 500mhz machines to our Athlon 700mhz boxes. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather put an AMD cpu into a box, and spend the extra money on faster/more reliable drives and networking equipment. -That's my two cents on AMD; take it or leave it, cause in the end it's your decision to make. I use an AMD K7 Athlon 700mhz system for my development/general day-to-day computing. I run X-Windows, with KDE. My system starts up and runs kdm upon booting so that I have a nice graphical system login prompt. The system runs very smoothly, and I have no real complaints, (except for the lack video cards supported with X-Windows -but that's what the svga server is for). I run Netscape Communicator 4.06 for my email and web-browser, and I use Corel Wordperfect 8, (a linux distribution), for word-processing. So to answer your question: yes - you can use a GUI. As far as the FreeBSD power pack goes; I too would like to encourage you to buy the product just because the proceeds help the FreeBSD project. Still, to be fair, I'm telling you not to just yet. The FreeBSD power-pack includes six cdroms worth of different code, ports (third party software/applications), and stuff like that. The actual distribution cdroms for FreeBSD come with the entire FreeBSD ports collection as well -trust me, as a newbie that alone can keep you busy for a long time. I'd suggest you buy the cd-rom distribution of FreeBSD, and utilize it's included online documentation. If you find yourself overwhelmed with using the online documentation, and/or you just want to fumble through a book -then go buy the book. You can purchase the cdroms for $39.99 us, from either http://www.cdrom.com/, or http://www.freebsdmall.com/. I understand there are other places where you can purchase the cdrom(s) from, but I do not know of, nor do I endorse them. As far as Novell Netware goes, I think it used to be a great product. I think that Netware 5.0's new GUI really sucks, that a lot of Netware 5's "new" features are just attempts to keep-up with some of the other stuff out there. As far as stability goes, if you're intent upon using Netware strictly as a file/print server it works great. I use IntraNetware 4.11, and Netware 5.0 on a daily basis, and regardless of what anyone else may say I like it. I'll take Netware over NT any day of the week. Of course though, Netware becomes REALLY expensive; for the cost of the licensing alone, we could have done much better here with BSD. If you're willing to pay for it, and don't want to actually have to work at setting something up, then Netware will be good for you. On the other hand, if you're willing to read a little, spend some time learning new software, etc. Then you'd be better off to skip Netware and run strictly BSD servers. Again, this is just my humble opinion -don't call me a hipocrit for using Netware myself either; I didn't implement it it was here when I signed on. I know you didn't ask, but while I'm offering opinions here, I think Win2000 really stinks. We're forced into running a few Windows 2000 servers here, (because of third party software we must run), and we can't stand them; they are unstable, unpredictable, and one never knows what exactly they are doing. They load too much (services), one has to actually go through the O/S disabling things left and right just to obtain a reasonable amount of control/security over a machine. Again, the cost factor on Win2000 really hits us hard us well. If only SparcStations weren't so expensive, cause' the software we use runs on Solaris/sparc instead. :( -- Nathan Vidican webmaster@wmptl.com Windsor Match Plate & Tool Ltd. http://www.wmptl.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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