From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 4 17:34:53 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 49F6C106566C for ; Fri, 4 Mar 2011 17:34:53 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EBC8B8FC18 for ; Fri, 4 Mar 2011 17:34:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-195-114-16.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.114.16]) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4852E1E9AA; Fri, 4 Mar 2011 18:34:50 +0100 (CET) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id p24HYnWp001618; Fri, 4 Mar 2011 18:34:49 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 18:34:49 +0100 From: Polytropon To: "Christopher J. Ruwe" Message-Id: <20110304183449.b2b4c1ac.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20110304152810.36060288@dijkstra> References: <4D700FA6.1030806@cox.net> <20110304152810.36060288@dijkstra> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: xdm-options - non-bsd user needs bsd rc.d advice X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:34:53 -0000 Readers will surely see more and more people having similar reasons why those who happily use FreeBSD do not want to go back to Linux, or even worse, "Windows". I may include myself here, with the special case that I've never been a "Windows" user, so my mind is clean and healthy and unspoiled of MICROS~1's strange ideas of how things work. :-) On Fri, 4 Mar 2011 15:28:10 +0100, "Christopher J. Ruwe" wrote: > I started with Linux when being in high-school out of frustration of > Windows forcing me to do things their way. In my case, it happened in school, simply because of the reason that I needed a versatile typesetting system (text, formulas, graphs) to print to a laser printer. As LaTeX was already available on Linux, I started with Slackware which was a very UNIX-like system (a positive opinion!) at that time. Later on, I did use PTS-Linux (derived from DLD, a german Linux distribution, if I remember correctly), as well as S.u.S.E.-Linux (its formal name at that time). While I found that generic UNIX knowledge was applicable everywhere, "Linux knowledge" was not, as you could see from file names and locations, procedures, and configuration statements which could not be transferred 1:1 between the systems. > When at university, I tried Gentoo Linux, learned a lot and solved > problems my way. Having bought a notebook later on, I decided trying > the then very much in vogue Ubuntu with a Xubuntu installation. > Although satisfied with the very usable defaults, I was quickly > unnerved by not being able to control things. University was the time when I found out about FreeBSD. Having generic UNIX knowledge already (Linux, Solaris, IRIX) I could predict (!) where things are on a FreeBSD system, how they act, and what they do. This was my main reason to keep using this system, exlusively as a home desktop since version 4.0, without any disadvantages so far. I doubt that Linux would have delivered the quality I'm looking for: The quality of not being forced to abandon fully functional hardware simply because new defaults tell me I need a plentycore CPU and tenmelonhundred GB of RAM, just to keep doing the same things. As a developer, targetting Linux (as a family of operating systems) is not very easy, as they all do differ in some way. At least there is source code to consult if problems arise, but sometimes you're searching through header files to find out what *foo() is today. :-) > What drove me away from Gentoo apart from that GPL-flu was deteriorating > quality of system tools. You install what is world in FreeBSD from > portage in Gentoo, so when updating your portage, necessary system > tools sometimes break. Linux does not differentiate between "the system" and "everything else"; even the kernel can be seen as a package on the system. Along with different packaging systems, distributions differ in what packages they use to make their "base system" (default amount of installation). For developers, FreeBSD is an EXCELLENT operating system as it offers consistency, compatibility and interoperatbility at a good speed ratio (won't run slower after upgrading). The code quality and the availability of good documentation (man pages, handbook, FAQ), even accessible LOCALLY with no Internet connection at hand, makes it a strong partner for DURABLE solutions in software development. A friendly and intelligent community adds to the sum. The sum is SUPERIOR to what I could experience in my "career". I know this is a quite general statement and doesn't help the OP in particular, but I thought it would be worth sharing it. I hope it was. :-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...