Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:07:53 -0400 From: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc@msu.edu> To: Simon Gao <gao@schrodinger.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What's so compelling about FreeBSD? Message-ID: <20061016210752.GA40064@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> In-Reply-To: <4533C553.3040609@schrodinger.com> References: <af8b40ce0610151526h6aba1785mb77eb2a76e69fdfa@mail.gmail.com> <80f4f2b20610151556l18c5adcci4196ab107b6b9907@mail.gmail.com> <4533C553.3040609@schrodinger.com>
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On Mon, Oct 16, 2006 at 10:45:55AM -0700, Simon Gao wrote: > I have a few FreeBSD machine from 4.x to 5.x. I have asked people how to > upgrade them to latest version 6.x cleanly. All I was told is that I > need to wipe them out and reinstall. However, this is not the case with > Gentoo Linux. With Gentoo, version release does not matter that much, > you can always keep your system up to date if you like. Of cause, you > can also choose staying at a certain version. You don't have to do a fresh install. Just follow the upgrade instructions in the handbook and it will probably work. But a clean install might be good. I think there may be some file system changes that you won't get without a clean install because the file systems would be already built so the new version would use the existing form, but I don't remember if that is between 4.x and 5.x or between 5.x and 6.x. Anyway, the original question wasn't why you don't like FreeBSD, it was why people do like FreeBSD. ////jerry > > Linux supports more devices than FreeBSD, especially new devices. > > Simon > > > > Jim Stapleton wrote: > > Well, in my case: > > > > - No matter what method I use to install packages in Linux (Apt-Get, > > Yum, Deb, RPM, and to a much lesser extent, Emerge, and to a *MUCH* > > greater extent src tar.gz's), I tend to have a lot more trouble > > getting installs to finish than with BSD in ports. > > > > - The FreeBSD community is much more friendly and helpful than the > > Linux community, in my experience. Gentoo's is better than other Linux > > communities, but still not quite up to FreeBSD. > > > > - I notice a lot smaller number of "It's 'X' liscence, therefore it > > has to be good", or "It's open source therefore it has to be good" > > fanboys in FreeBSD. The users tend to be more of a "It works, so it's > > good" type. This really makes the commmunity pleasant. > > > > - The documentation of FreeBSD is much better in both organization and > > detail - while good documentation can be found for Linux, FreeBSD just > > takes a lot less searching. > > > > - I've found a lot of breaks in Linux where I couldn't find anything > > short of a system re-install to fix them without a lot more effort in > > searching for some obscure piece of documentation. Aside from once > > when I blew up my kernel build, I didn't have that problem in BSD. > > > > - It's less popular than Linux, so it's less commonly known/accounted > > for, and it makes you just that much safer from hackers. > > > > > > > > Note: that's not to say it doesn't have it's issues, like every other > > OS, I could name a few dozen issues I've run into with FreeBSD without > > much hassle (mostly related to drivers, UI, and parts of the > > installer), but that's a different topic alltogether. > > > > -Jim > > _______________________________________________ > > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > > To unsubscribe, send any mail to > > "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"
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