From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Apr 23 8: 2:16 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from chmod.ath.cx (CC2-861.charter-stl.com [24.217.115.99]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B274637B424 for ; Mon, 23 Apr 2001 08:02:13 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from ajh3@chmod.ath.cx) Received: by chmod.ath.cx (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 58B1EA90D; Mon, 23 Apr 2001 10:01:29 -0500 (CDT) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 10:01:29 -0500 From: Andrew Hesford To: "Thomas (Matt) Barton" Cc: "SPEAKEASY " , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How Is The FeeBSD OS Like and Different Than Say Redhat or Suse LINUX Message-ID: <20010423100129.A1552@cec.wustl.edu> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: ; from matt@fear.net on Mon, Apr 23, 2001 at 09:30:05AM -0400 X-Loop: Andrew Hesford Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, Apr 23, 2001 at 09:30:05AM -0400, Thomas (Matt) Barton wrote: > The base install doesn't come with a butt-load of software like Red Hat. > I don't feel like I'm getting a bunch of software that I'm never going to > use. That brings me to my next point. > > My favorite of all is the port collection. It is amazingly simple. I > just go into /usr/ports and choose the category and software package and > type "make install" and it downloads the software, applies any necessary > patches, compiles, and installs. Everything that I have ever needed on my > FreeBSD box has been found in the ports collection. I have only once > needed to compile and install software outside of the ports collection. > > Overall, I find the OS to be very elegant and easy to manage. I know what how you feel. I administer my system like a Nazi... software I don't plan to use belongs in concentration camps. RedHat always gave me way too much shit, and I was never pleased. Besides, RPM is a terrible package system. I switched to Slackware from RedHat, which gave me Nazi control over the system, but no package system. Hence I had to build everything from source, and I had to control the retrieval and ordering manually. After Slackware came Debian, with a fine package system. I installed a base system--in debian, the base system barely boots, unlike FreeBSD--and installed the packages I want by hand. This handles dependencies and everything. I started with FreeBSD after Debian, which again gives me Nazi control over my system, and doesn't install too much shit to begin with. However, the programs included in the base system are far more extensive. A nice feature of the ports system is that I can compile everything for my system, unlike with prebuilt packages (although I can use those too, if I please). The only unfortunate part is that upgrading packages without breaking dependencies can sometimes be troublesome. -- Andrew Hesford ajh3@chmod.ath.cx To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message