From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Jul 26 22:58:58 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9296A37B405 for ; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 22:58:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from post.webmailer.de (natwar.webmailer.de [192.67.198.70]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D85C443E3B for ; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 22:58:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from smazerski@yahoo.co.jp) Received: from ianb.local (pD9517E02.dip.t-dialin.net [217.81.126.2]) by post.webmailer.de (8.9.3/8.8.7) with ESMTP id HAA18061; Sat, 27 Jul 2002 07:58:48 +0200 (MEST) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: Steve Mazerski To: Peter Leftwich , FreeBSD LIST Subject: Re: Peter heads back to M$FT WinBloze Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2002 08:00:19 +0200 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.4] References: <20020726195011.N18019-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net> In-Reply-To: <20020726195011.N18019-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: <200207270800.19935.smazerski@yahoo.co.jp> 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 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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message