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Date:      Sat, 27 Jul 2002 08:00:19 +0200
From:      Steve Mazerski <smazerski@yahoo.co.jp>
To:        Peter Leftwich <Hostmaster@Video2Video.Com>, FreeBSD LIST <FreeBSD-Questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Peter heads back to M$FT WinBloze
Message-ID:  <200207270800.19935.smazerski@yahoo.co.jp>
In-Reply-To: <20020726195011.N18019-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net>
References:  <20020726195011.N18019-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net>

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On Saturday 27 July 2002 02:06, Peter Leftwich wrote:

(...)
> Well at some point recently I ran `boot0cfg /dev/ad0s2` which wiped my =
MBR
> completely (I just wanted to boot straight into FreeBSD but still keep =
the
> DOS slice around as mountable).  So now I'm on an old 8.4gb HD that I
> booted to absolutely $FREE$ :) floppies and put 4.6 onto, however, XFre=
e86
> 4.2.0 now suddenly works as does KDE and a very "krashy" Konqueror brow=
ser
> (sigh).

Konquerer is nice but still not quite perfect, alas.

Have you tried Mozilla or Opera?

> Realizing that plugins are impossible (Flash), and the hassle of gettin=
g
> sound players working and my Canon scanner and webcam and PDF readers a=
nd
> *.DOC readers, I think I may be out of the FreeBSD workstation game.
>
> Finally going from UNIX user (since 1992) to sysadmin was a terrific
> learning experience, but a "learning XP" seems more attractive for now
> especially as XP is built on (sort of) NT and is 32bit and uses protect=
ed
> memory ... until FreeBSD is 34,523,455% more of an OUT-OF-THE-BOX-GUI O=
S.
> :(

How about... Linux? (duck for cover). The main Linux distros are pretty g=
ood
at installing a working desktop right out of the box and have fairly usab=
le
configuration tools (i.e. not just vi) for various types of hardware.

That still won't get you a 100% compatible .doc reader (there is no such
thing, I believe...) but you do then have a nice UNIX-style environment
which won't try and phone home ;-).

FWIW I've just converted my desktop from Linux to FreeBSD, which was=20
quite painful (got stuck on a couple of hardware problems) but works a=20
dream :-). The only things I haven't got working are the sound card and
a Flash plugin (but as I wouldn't shed a tear if I heard every Flash
application has been abducted by space aliens and incarcerated on the
Planet Qeeb, it doesn't bother me much ;-).

Mind you I still have access to a Windows installation when=20
something (.doc files) really doesn't work=20


S.Mazerski


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