From owner-freebsd-advocacy Sat May 8 21:11:49 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from obie.softweyr.com (unknown [204.68.178.33]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 04D4C15772 for ; Sat, 8 May 1999 21:11:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from softweyr.com (homer.softweyr.com [204.68.178.39]) by obie.softweyr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA18071; Sat, 8 May 1999 22:07:59 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Message-ID: <37350A1D.F97B1864@softweyr.com> Date: Sat, 08 May 1999 22:07:57 -0600 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 3.1-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Rahul Siddharthan Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: desktop, was linus on BSD References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > > I think one of the big differentiators between "desktop"users of > > FreeBSD and Linux is that many FreeBSD users never wanted a damned PC > > in the first place. FreeBSD makes a pretty crufty PC, but a fine UNIX > > workstation. For those looking for a workstation, installing XFree86 > > and {window manager of choice, WindowMaker for me} makes workstation > > enough, especially so now that one or two competent word processors > > and at least one usable spreadsheet are available for the typical > > "productivity" applications. > > Who talked about a damned PC. The talk was on desktops, and a > workstation (with Windowmaker, or whatever) *is* a desktop. In > academia, at least, a lot of users like to get their work done on > workstations without wanting to learn how to install everything > themselves. They're not unix gurus but they can compile fortran/C > programs, run matlab/octave/latex, check mail, etc from the > command line and that's all they want to do. FreeBSD is fine for > them if someone else sets up the system first. It would be even > better if an easy-to-set-up desktop distro was rolled out. > Desktop != PC. My point exactly. Those who want or need a Windows PC should just buy/requisition a PC and be happy with what they got. I pity them. For people who want a workstation, who need to the networking and applications that workstations are good at, FreeBSD is it. It's better than Linux, better than NT by a long shot, and mostly better than Solaris at a far less expensive price point. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC http://www.softweyr.com/~softweyr wes@softweyr.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message