Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 07:32:18 -0700 (PDT) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG, osc20@yahoo.com Subject: Re: difference between freebsd & linux Message-ID: <199909081432.HAA49084@pau-amma.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <19990907070845.17602.rocketmail@web123.yahoomail.com>
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>Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 00:08:45 -0700 (PDT) >From: Oscar Urquidy <osc20@yahoo.com> >What i found too, is that most of the people using FreeBSD, are network >administrators, webmasters, and things realted to use the FreeBSD as a >server, on serius jobs. So what about FreeBSD workstation? Well, the concepts aren't quite completely at odds. :-) Many of the folks I support here at Whistle use FreeBSD machines on desktops; some of us use nothing else on our (work) desktops. At home, I recently had occasion to buy PC hardware for the first time in my life (and I've been working with UNIX since '86, and computers since '69), to build a firewall for the DSL connection, and a second system to serve as my wife's desktop (replacing the Sun 3/60 that she had been using). She says she likes it well enough, but has recently asked to be able to take a break (from jam-making -- end of summer over here) by playing a game on the desktop that I use (at home) -- a Sun SPARCstation 5/110, running Solaris 2.6. I did ask her why she didn't want to use her own machine, and she said something about liking the room where my desk is. (Not sure I want to pursue that much further than I did, which was to offer to swap rooms; the one I use is smaller. The offer was declined.) Naturally, nearly all the applications that run on either machine can be xhosted to any other. (This even includes the 3/60; it's soon to be retired, but it still plays an active, though diminishing, role in the home net.) So I can build and run games on the FreeBSD box while seated at my SS5, for example. This is by design and intent. I should mention that one of the reasons I chose FreeBSD for my wife's desktop was that she had been using tvtwm as a window manager on the 3/60; since I use tvtwm here at work on my FreeBSD box, I knew I could get it to work OK for her, so the transition would be less painful. (Yes, I have heard that there are fancier/more fetureful/wierder window managers out there. She hates PCs and despises Macs; I see little to be gained by emulating such an environment for her.) >By now i'm installing FreeBSD on my home pc, and obviously planing to >use it as "home pc", and i don't doubt about the capabilities of >FreeBSD as a server, but i would really like to hear an opinion about >FreeBSD as standalone system. I already browsed the package collection >but haven't installed nothing yet (i'll get there soon). I saw some CAD >software, lots of games!, and a lot of another stuff. At least i saw >netscape so later i will post from FreeBSD. Well, by having the (limited) variety of systems I do at home, I get a fair degree of flexibility. I do some of that here at work, too: we use some (commercial) applications that run on SPARC/Solaris environments, so we have a couple of those machines locked up down in the server room... but we can run programs on those machines, while interacting with them from our (FreeBSD) desktops. (This type of flexibility was designed into the X Window System, and would seem to be adequate reason in its own right that the X folks received the "Keeper of the Flame" award at June's USENIX in Monterey. I think it was well-deserved.) >So i would like to now if there is anybody there happy with his (or >her) FreeBSD workstation. Basically, yes. For me, the PC hardware is very strange, but running an OS with a somewhat familiar "feel" helps alleviate that. >Do You Yahoo!? Uh, no; I doubt that I'd be seriously tempted to do so. :-} Cheers, david -- David Wolfskill dhw@whistle.com UNIX System Administrator voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (888) 347-0197 FAX: (650) 372-5915 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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