Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 17:22:27 +0100 From: Danny Pansters <danny@ricin.com> To: "Ben" <ben@cahostnet.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD and Linux (More Questions!) Message-ID: <01031217222700.22799@ricin.localnet> In-Reply-To: <02c401c0ab03$fd58ca00$6102a00a@nhqadmin17> References: <02c401c0ab03$fd58ca00$6102a00a@nhqadmin17>
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Hi, > These are my requirements for my desktop. First of all let me say > that this will be used for desktop purposes so It's important the > operating system of choice is user friendly and supports the desktop > hardware well, such as cd burners, sound cards and others. Here they > are: > Large hardware support > Large application support > Easy configuration and installation of OS and apps > FTP installs if possible > Ports collections for easy upgrades and installations After about two years of using Linux, I switched to freeBSD, also on my desktop. Generally you can expect to be able to run the same applications albeit that there are less of them. But for every purpose I can think of there is at least one application in the ports that'll do it. I use this box for everything.. cd burning, mp3 encoding, TV viewer, graphics, webdesign, ... without many problems. I even use it to upload mp3s to my Rio player. The only thing I miss, but that's also the case with Linux, are good applications for sound and video editing. That kind of software is just too complicated to be well maintained in a small volunteer environment I reckon. > I looked at slackware as suggested by someone on the list. Slackware > doesn't even have an ftp installation. Upgrades will be a bit tricky > and a hassle. The amount of support needed will not be there. I may > be wrong on this. My findings of BSD is that it's more of a server > based operating system. Is this correct? Yes and no. Much like Linux its also well suited as a desktop IMO. Opinions about this vary though. Basically, it allows me to do anything I did with Windows (seems ages ago :-) and much more. > > So the final question. Should I stick with Red Hat Linux, go with > slackware or go with BSD? What will you guys recommend and why. I Red Hat is really messy! Go for Debian Linux if you want easy updating through ftp. Again, opinions may vary but IMO Debian is by far the nicest Linux distribution. It actually resembles freeBSD a bit in the way it's organized I think. Here's a tip: If you decide to try Debian by the way, stay away from the dselect install program. Just use apt-get for everything. I tried Slackware once but Debian's way better. Slack has more of a snapshot-like release scheme I believe, so yeah, keeping it up to date might be a challenge. OK, finally some advocacy: FreeBSD is easier to configure than any Linux distro I've seen. It's very straightforward and tends to have sensible defaults. But I must say, had I never used Linux, I'd probably never have found BSD let alone understand what "UNIX" is about. If you want general "UNIX" knowledge then BSD is your thing I believe. One more suggestion: for a desktop, don't be cheap when it comes to RAM. Hope this helped :) Danny Pansters http://www.ricin.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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