From owner-freebsd-hackers  Sun Jun  7 21:14:51 1998
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From: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net>
Message-Id: <199806080414.XAA01195@dyson.iquest.net>
Subject: Re: Newbie 3 questions.
In-Reply-To: <199806080349.UAA29145@grebe.Stanford.EDU> from "Edward P. Katz" at "Jun 7, 98 08:49:11 pm"
To: katz@robotics.Stanford.EDU (Edward P. Katz)
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 23:14:29 -0500 (EST)
Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
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> Hello,
> 
> I'm considering plunging into FreeBSD rather than LINUX and would like
> to ask 3 questions:
> 
> 1.  First, does FreeBSD X windows support multiple monitors 
>     (e.g. 3 monitors and interface cards on one PC as in display:0.1,
>     display:0.2, display:0.3)?
>
If the Xserver supports it...  Otherwise, I don't know...

> 
> 2.  Can the COM1 serial port be configured as the console
>     (I.e. have no monitor, but use an ASCII terminal as the system
>     console)?
>
Yes.

> 
> 3.  Folklore has it that for server kinds of applications, that 
>     FreeBSD is the way to go.  But for an individual workstation
>     applications (e.g. X Windows, X Term, etc.) LINUX gets the 
>     popular nod (at least from the sample space I've already tapped).
>     What is your response to this, and how does X Windows under
>     FreeBSD compare to X Windows under LINUX?
> 
FreeBSD's niche is server applications, but as a workstation, it
is also really good from an OS standpoint.  FreeBSD can usually
run popular commercial Linux apps, even out-performing Linux
at times.  FreeBSD has a massive "ports" collection, consisting
of ported applications.  Current count is >1500 applications
pre-ported.

The biggest minus (performance wise) that you'll likely notice
about FreeBSD is that we have more synchronous metadata update
policy on our filesystems.  This can have a performance impact
for massive filesystem manipulations.  FreeBSD consiously chooses
the conservative policy though.

John


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