From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Feb 23 16:53:55 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA14181 for questions-outgoing; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 16:53:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from seabass.progroup.com (catfish.progroup.com [206.24.122.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA14172 for ; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 16:53:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from seabass.progroup.com (seabass.progroup.com [206.24.122.1]) by seabass.progroup.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA28198; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 16:51:40 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <3310E61B.284797A9@ProGroup.com> Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 16:51:40 -0800 From: Craig Shaver Organization: Productivity Group, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1.5-RELEASE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "John R. Martz" CC: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Linux versus FreeBSD??? References: <3.0.1.32.19970223171857.006a3c40@pop01.ny.us.ibm.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk John R. Martz wrote: > > Folks, > > I probably should just RTFM instead of just glancing at it, but ... > > I'm still trying to put the pieces together in my head about what running a > "free" Unix-like implementation on my PC might entail. Can someone comment > on the differences between FreeBSD and Linux? One difference I'm really > curious about is that I see lots of Linux books published, but haven't > found one for FreeBSD yet. > > You may have to know a little more about hardware and Unix to run FreeBSD. I would consider it a production/server type of platform, compared to Linux. I tried Linux first, and found too many bugs. I had some software running on Solaris that I tried to port to an ISP box that was running a *stable* version of Linux. It wouldn't work there, but would work on another ISP that was running FreeBSD. I've heard Linux has gotten better, but then I've heard that for some time now. I think the device support and games support is much better on Linux. So, if you are going to go with FreeBSD, then read the notes on the web pages about supported hardware. And then ask in questions, scsi, or hardware about something you have that is not listed. It may be supported but not listed. Decide whether you want stable or experimental. (see the web pages :) I recommend FreeBSD, especially if you are a professional in the computer field, and you need something solid to do some real work on. Not to say that you can't do some good work with Linux too. "Books!? We don't need no steenkin books, we got source ... " -- Craig Shaver (craig@progroup.com) (415)390-0654 Productivity Group POB 60458 Sunnyvale, CA 94088