Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 06:56:45 -0400 From: Glenn Sieb <ges@wingfoot.org> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Cc: metaridley@mchsi.com Subject: Re: When Unix Stops Being Fun Message-ID: <415FDAED.8060307@wingfoot.org> In-Reply-To: <415FA64E.8010708@optonline.net> References: <20041002225028.05205e9a.metaridley@mchsi.com> <415FA64E.8010708@optonline.net>
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bsdfsse said the following on 10/3/2004 3:12 AM:
> Ironically, I'm switching to FreeBSD because I'm already tired. My
> bones are aching from years of abuse. I'm tired of..
<MuchSnippage>
Hear Hear!!
> ..of Linux distributions with fatal flaws. I went on a giant search
> to pick the perfect Linux distro, and I ended up selecting FreeBSD.
> Every single distro had some aspect I didn't like.
I started with FreeBSD in the Fall of 2000, when I started at Lumeta. I
loved it so much that when I built my personal server, I used it (and
Wing's now running on 4.10-STABLE, and when 5.3 is out of BETA I'll most
likely upgrade it...). I had played with RedHat (3 or 4.. I still have
the CDs somewhere!), I had used Unix System V (on a Unix PC (AT&T PC
7300) no less!) in the early 90's, but had ended up working with Windows
mostly at my jobs, and thus, at home. Every time there was a new version
of Windows, there were new idiosyncracies and more bullshit to cram into
my head. When I started at Lumeta, I found those old Unix skills
creeping back out of my memory--and they STILL WORKED! *gasp* ;)
Things that attracted me to FBSD:
1) The ease of the Ports collection. No messy rpm commands to have to
memorize or read man pages on--just cd /usr/ports/tree/package && make
install clean -- Wow. How much easier can it get? Oh I know... when you
don't want the port anymore? cd /usr/ports/tree/package && make deinstall ;)
2) The support in the community--I've never lacked at being able to find
help. Granted, this is more Unix-oriented than FBSD-oriented.. But I
have to admit that the mailing lists have been a *HUGE* help when I've
needed it.
3) Finding that O'Reilly hosted articles about *BSD (Like Dru Lavigne's
many articles discussing the ports tree and other nifty things in
FreeBSD, and how to maintain & keep them in tip-top shape)!
4) Finding that I could actually *run* more than, say, 2 or 3 services
on a particular server! (The first FBSD server I helped configure at
Lumeta served as our: general development, Samba-shared, user home,
network print server, DNS, DHCP, Apache, RT, email server--I was amazed
you could run all that on one box without it crashing daily, like
Windows would at the time!)
5) The ease with which I was able to take an existing port
(misc/instant-workstation) and make a Lumeta package which would run
over the course of a weekend, hands-free, and build a developer's
workstation to our specs! For free! I didn't need to learn any weird
packaging script language (read: InstallShield), nor did I have to worry
incessantly about "how many licenses do we have left for ..." like I had
to with our Windows boxen.
(There are others, of course, but these are what come to mind
immediately...)
> ..of proprietary formats. All the emails I lost over the years that
> were in some kind of Outlook format that at the time I was either too
> lazy or too ignorant, to make a back up of.
Yeah--early on I switched from Outcrack to Eudora, which, though better,
still wasn't perfect--but at least it was in a Unix-like format! :)
> My point is, the knowledge you gain about UNIX is your's forever. The
> freedom is forever. The control is forever.
>
> If want to be a sysadmin, you don't have to be master of everything.
> You just need to be on the path - and you are.
It's not all about what you have memorized. It's knowing where to look
for the information. I have *no* qualms telling people in interviews,
when they ask me a question I don't know the answer to off the top of my
head, that I could easily find that information via man <command> or a
Google search. In general, I have found that if the person interviewing
you Has Clueage, that's better to them than someone sitting there
scratching their head going "Um.. let me think... um... " for a few
minutes.
Myself, I am preparing to migrate my home PC from WinXP to FreeBSD 5.x
soon. Mostly because I'm sick of the stupid driver conflicts,
spontaneous reboots where M$ blames my NVidia drivers, and software that
ceases to work because of SP2 (my screensavers, no less. And--do they
cease to work gracefully? Noooooo--that'd be too polite--it just locks
the PC with a black screen and a mouse pointer which is the only thing
that responds to anything, forcing a reboot. Nice eh?). I'm already
using Firefox, Thunderbird, and OO.o, so the switch shouldn't be too bad :)
Best,
Glenn
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
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