From owner-freebsd-questions Tue Jul 16 15:21:53 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA01227 for questions-outgoing; Tue, 16 Jul 1996 15:21:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gallup.cia-g.com (root@gallup.cia-g.com [206.206.162.10]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA01220 for ; Tue, 16 Jul 1996 15:21:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gallup.cia-g.com (gallup.cia-g.com [206.206.162.10]) by gallup.cia-g.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) with SMTP id QAA11258; Tue, 16 Jul 1996 16:21:23 -0600 Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 16:21:22 -0600 (MDT) From: Joel Yancey To: john goerzen cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Ideas on FreeBSD In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk hey, as far as the DOS EMU i hear their going to port BSDI's DOS EMU for BSDOS which by far, is WAY better then the linux DOSEMU. and the linux one is fair. if you wait around a bit, it'll pop up im sure. But i dont know if this is a rumor or not, if anyone knows about this, could ya send me somethign on it? cya joel yancey On Tue, 16 Jul 1996, john goerzen wrote: > NOTE: please CC a copy of replie to me via e-mail (jgoerzen@cs.twsu.edu or > jgoerzen@complete.org) as I am no longer subscribed to this list. > > Let me give a bit of background info first. I have been using FreeBSD on > my computer since last November, when I switched to it from OS/2. I had > really enjoyed the OS, but there was one problem, and it seemed to get > bigger as I went along: there was no good way to run DOS programs except > by actually booting DOS. Put another way, there was no decent DOS > emulation in FreeBSD. > > I am the first to agree that there is a lot of quality Unix software out > there. But the fact is that there are some DOS programs that just don't > have Unix equivolents, and this is what has caused me to turn to Linux. > A few weeks ago, I put Debian 1.1 (Linux kernel 2.0.0) on my system. > > The thing I miss most about FreeBSD is that it has very few bugs, when > compared to Linux. (Except in the PPP area, esp. demand dialing) Linux > has some bugs esp. with the display system. > > But looking at Debian, I see a much better package system that FreeBSD > has. It is easier to use, and has more power. The kernel compilation > was particularly nice. (It has a nice "dialog" type of configuration, > with online help, rather than making you generate your config file by > hand like in FreeBSD). > > Also, the Debian system allows PPP install, which FreeBSD does too. But > Debian is much more resistant to problems (I unfortunately use an ISP > that is not exactly reliable) Debian's install program is very nice. It > will automatically configure a lot of stuff for you, and some packages > even come with a nice script to prompt you for the info it needs to > configure it. > > I have been using FreeBSD and waiting for DOS emulation to come out. I > remember the excitement when FreeBSD was supposed to get BSDI's DOS > emulator. And FreeBSD got it. But what happened? Nobody actually > ported it to FreeBSD! It's just sitting there. (Before somebody tells > me to "port it yourself", I have neither the expertise nor the computer > to do that) > > So why am I writing this? I am trying to provide some constructive > criticism concerning FreeBSD. I hope that by pointing out some flaws in > FreeBSD, they can be fixed, and will benefit everyone. > > I also wanted to let people know why I left the FreeBSD camp, so that > perhaps those specific problems can be fixed so others don't leave as well. > > I believe that FreeBSD is a very nice operating system, probably the most > stable OS I've ever used, but, IMHO, it sacrifices too much to attain > that level. For instance, it would seem to me that it wouldn't be too > hard to make certain things be optional in the kernel config. If > somebody wants the most stable FreeBSD they can get, they leave some > things out. Otherwise, they can get some other features like DOS > emulation, etc. > > Best regards, > John Goerzen >