Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 00:40:33 -0400 From: "Eric A. Griff" <eric@cfpower.com> To: <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: kudos on network install Message-ID: <000801bfbef0$dfb9fdc0$6a0ffea9@cfpower.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10005152313100.2650-100000@karma.wheres.com>
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Hi Dennis,
Well here's my story.
After quite a while offline, I got a packard bell BL210 60Mhz Pentium,
with 8M ram, and Win3.1 for workgroups, and quickly a prodigy account (as
soon as cash permitted).. Had a few bad years, and it bumped me from
computers let alone The internet (IE circa 1995 at this point)..
Originally at that point I wanted to setup a localhost webserver.. I
tried one which was a port of NCSA for 3.1, and it kept ticking me off. Even
if the webserver was local, it insisted on dialing up an ISP, and even tryed
routing localhost thru them, lOL...
Well, with some searching, I first found Linux (who knows what dist, or
whatever it was).. Though they probably had the best marketing look then
even,. hehe..
Well after some extensive digging, I saw mention that the files could be
downloaded from the internet, but, no followup on that...
Somewhere I found a link to www.freebsd.org, and at this point I was so
frustrated, that I went directly to the FTP, and found a readme..
The readme covered a lot. Including how to download the tarballs, and
where to put them on floppies to install, and fips to make space, hehe..
It was 2.1.5 Release.. And old SysV thoughts came back to me... Well, it
took about 8 hours to download all the floppies on my 14.4k modem, that was
actually only doing 9600 (nobody supports 14.4, hehe).. The next day I ran
fips, and got the install to work after 2-3 trys..
Well, I dropped Prodigy for a regular ISP quick, since they only
supported Windows, and well, the years go on, and new solutions are made,
and crap happens, etc, and well.. The crap was NT, LOL.
I still used that P60 even as a email server, and some routing/firewall
stuff...
I've been thru this extensively for over 4 years now, and well, I still
see no reason to change to other OSs, and with some remote experience
w/linux, still see that the install capabilities of FreeBSD isn't aren't in
linux (redhat or otherwise). Nor the stability.
And over the last couple of years, I've got called in emergency "unown"
situations, and guess what? Never a FreeBSD.. Always Redhat. hehe.
Most of these are now FreeBSD, without situation since then.. One has
about 150 days uptime now. I need to update that a bit =( Though it would
seriously benefit from 3.4-STABLE at this time, though I will need to
rewrite a driver a slight bit (Sangoma Wanpipe) before I do that..
It's a router/V.35 connection to the internet for a Decent sized
ecommerce company... They have never had complaints.. It's also there proxy,
and email server. And actually handles 2 intranets (server, and
workstation).. It kicks but. Too bad I need to totally update it.. It would
be nice to have it hit 365 DAYS..
The old Pentium 60 is now up to 104M ram, and does things real well.
Though it's about to be replaced w/a 400Mhz Pentium II, and 256M ram..
Hehe on the NE2000. Yah, they can be painful though even on Win95, LOL.
As long as JKH, POUL, DAVID, etc... Keep kicking, I'll keep ranting =)
Those guys made my piece of mind only shattered by Microsoft's OS's, and
linux, hehe. And were tryin to convert those along the way, hehe.
Peace
Eric A. Griff
setjmp
181 Genesee Street
Suite 504
Utica, NY 13501
(315) 734-1668x205
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis S." <dws@gonif.com>
To: <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG>
Cc: <jkh@FreeBSD.ORG>
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2000 11:52 PM
Subject: kudos on network install
>
> I've been a fan of FreeBSD since a fellow named Eugene Pisman introduced
> me to it several years ago. I chose it as my OS for many new workstations
> (overwriting Windows 95/98/2000) needed for work, and when I put my own
> co-located server up, I chose FreeBSD 2.2.8. One thing I love about
> FreeBSD is you just pop in the root/boot (or now, mfsroot/kernel) disks,
> choose network install and the next day I'd have a new UNIX server up,
> with basic sendmail and so forth already installed, and many other
> functions just a make install away in the ports directory. In fact,
> thinking back to the early days of Slackware, I liked FreeBSD a LOT more
> than Linux.
>
> My home machine runs Windows 98, and I just got another Intel machine at
> home, so instantly I decided to put a free UNIX OS on it. Unfortunately,
> I felt pressured to put Red Hat on it, because that's what everything is
> pushing nowadays and because my co-lo'd machine was FreeBSD already this
> would add some variation.
>
> For a long time there was no (anywhere near) easy installation of Linux.
> I remember well the days of Slackware disks - A1, A2, A3, A4...or the X's!
> X1, X2, what did it go up to, X24? X44? But now Red Hat has a network
> install disk, I don't know how long it's been around, not that long. They
> certainly don't even document it's existence that well. And of course
> it's an entirely seperate install disk from a "normal" install. If a
> network install for Red Hat was simple, why buy their CD-ROM's at $100 a
> pop?
>
> Well I put it in, and it didn't recognize my crappy NE2000 ethernet card,
> something even Windows 95 did. I have a small, cheap network at home, two
> machines, a small hub, and a 56K modem, so even this install was going to
> be a pain, I'd probably have to ftp the Red Hat distribution to my Windows
> 98, install an FTP server on it and ethernet it off that. But Red Hat
> would just not recognize my ethernet card. After some frustration, I
> decided to give FreeBSD a try.
>
> Well once again, FreeBSD's easy, especially network, install came to the
> rescue. I noticed I could install over a modem in the install! There's
> no way this will work I thought, but I'll give it a try.
>
> Well, lo and behold, after several tries the system started downloading as
> normal, albeit at my 5 Kilobytes/sec. I dozed off, woke up this morning,
> saw my modem connection hung up, turned the monitor on, it looked good,
> rebooted, and my system was fully installed. I'm amazed.
>
> Kudos to the people who worked so hard on the install programs, the ppp
> programs, all the related programs and on all of FreeBSD. I did a make
> install in the ports directory of bash, less, ssh and some of my other
> favorite programs and am now ssh'ing into my machines on the net and doing
> my business. Tonight I'm going to push my luck and install an X-Windows
> interface.
>
> Thanks,
> Dennis
>
>
>
>
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