From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Mar 29 16: 8:50 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from janeway.vonbek.dhs.org (bgm-24-24-79-198.stny.rr.com [24.24.79.198]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 29A0537B400 for ; Fri, 29 Mar 2002 16:08:44 -0800 (PST) Received: by janeway.vonbek.dhs.org (Postfix, from userid 12347) id 56926E77B54; Fri, 29 Mar 2002 19:10:02 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by janeway.vonbek.dhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 53FC96A86AA for ; Fri, 29 Mar 2002 19:10:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 19:10:02 -0500 (EST) From: John Bleichert X-X-Sender: syborg@janeway.vonbek.dhs.org Reply-To: John Bleichert To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: <20020329233921.94706.qmail@web21306.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Fri, 29 Mar 2002, Louis-Philippe Groulx wrote: > Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 18:39:21 -0500 (EST) > From: Louis-Philippe Groulx > To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG > > > I am currently using Microsoft Windows98, but I don't > know what operating system is the more powerful and > easy to learn between: FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, QNX > or Linux. > > Thank you for your answer > > ______________________________________________________________________ The answers are highly subjective, but these have been my experiences (I'm intentionally leaving out which one is more powerful): Linux: Assuming you have zero Unix/Linux experience, RedHat is really easy to work with. So is Mandrake. A large range of hardware support. Not always very secure in a default install, although you *are* given options during install. Suse is nice too. I liked Debian too although I have only a little exp. with it. Slack is coom, minimal like OpenBSD. I like it - dunno if I would suggest it for a newcomer. But all people are different ;-) FreeBSD: I like the system installer for FreeBSD more than any of the others, but it *does* assume a priori knowledge of the system. As a user I really like FreeBSD a lot - it's slim, fast and the ports and package systems are really easy to work with. There's a huge amount of ported software. OpenBSD: Very tight, secure, minimalist Unix install. I run OpenBSD on my Thinkpad. The install is non-trivial, especially with a large disk. That said, I like OpenBSD a lot - there's quite a bit of supprted software there too. NetBSD: I have only installed NetBSD once to try (in IRC) and help a friend install it on an ancient Zenith laptop. He seems to like it a lot. It will install on anything, but it's not the most polished BSD. No offense - that's not it's intention, and I could be wrong. QNX: We installed it on some boxes at work and it's impressive. Nice interface, small footprint, fully functional browser with plugins. Impressive system, but I don't know what kind of user software is available for it. Hope this helps. I say go with FreeBSD. JB |-John Bleichert----syborg@stny.rr.com----------------| |-------------------http://vonbek.dhs.org/latest.jpg--| To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message