Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 07:29:47 +0200 From: Saad KADHI <obsidian@cybercable.fr> To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Re: new books, changing my pt. of view Message-ID: <39753CCB.91AB1120@cybercable.fr> References: <000b01bff0cb$f90fe8e0$57e17ad1@beefstew>
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Hi there ! > Isn't anybody worried that the new O'Reilly books in the making will leave > the newbie w/the short end of the stick paper documentation-wise? Imo, this > is the current state of affairs. > > wait a second, > > But upon refection, I have been realizing that I am DIRECTLY comparing WinNT > and FreeBSD and I now think it's apples vs. oranges. A fairer comparison is > FreeBSD WITH KDE vs. WinNT. > > I know I'll be publicly flogged for saying this but NT is easier to learn > and is apparently an easier OS to document for the newbie ( by is very > nature and culture ) than Unix a.k.a. FreeBSD. I am primarily talking about > CLIENTS - yeah I think NT workstation is a good client. Kneejerks that it > crashes is not true Imo. It's true that Windows NT is a somewhat easier OS to learn that *BSD because of the GUI that puts an "abstraction" layer between you and your OS. But the problem is when you start learning way too much for the GUI bells and whistles to cope w/. My first 'real' OS was Ultrix and then I discovered other things like Solaris, Linux, SCO, AIX, and the BSDs (Free & Open). I learned Win 95/NT later. For the basic tasks, once you learn two or three flavors of Unix, you start getting the 'big' picture. I found it relatively easy to switch between OSes. I was extremely surprised with FreeBSD & OpenBSD. I felt they were a different breed. IMO they are better designed and more stable than the other herd players. But I think they are not for Joe Coworker yet, unless he is willing to learn and to RTFM a lot. Though there are no O'Reilly books or the like on the BSDs, I learned OpenBSD (and I'm still learning it) from the mailing lists + the excellent FAQ. For FreeBSD, I had a sensei that pointed me to the right direction and then after I wandered the newsgroups and read the excellent handbook (which is sitting in my bookshelf now). Believe me, if you are a Win user and you start using FreeBSD (any BSD is ok. NetBSD is more elite than the others actually as it starts w/ few apps ...), you'll feel there is sth different: stability, performance, no (very) weirdo hex messages that need Zeus to resolve then, infinitely customizable. Of course a minimum of unix luggage is necessary. but it really worths it ! I even felt this "power-under-the-hood" when I tried FreeBSD after a year or so of Penguinista. > I think I should get w/the program and start thinking of FreeBSD as a server > and NOT continue trying to configure and learning it as an ultra-stable > ( x ) windows client machine - cause I'm in that "mode" and I saw the > "answer" months ago - KDE w/all the bells and whistles - truly amazing. well FreeBSD as a client is a bit harder to configure/use than FreeBSD as a server. KDE is nice but I hope that one day we will have the excellent HelixCode GNOME Desktop on top of FreeBSD. I'm running Linux & FreeBSD as a client. And I'm getting my job done on both. May the source be w/ you Luke ! -- Saad KADHI -- Security Consultant --------------------------------- "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message
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