I've been thinking of installing a Unix OS on an extra computer I have.
The obvious choice seems to be Linux, but I recently heard about this
FreeBSD.

Anyone know how it compares to Linux and is it worth getting?

-Mike

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Mike wrote:

> I've been thinking of installing a Unix OS on an extra computer I have.
> The obvious choice seems to be Linux, but I recently heard about this
> FreeBSD.
>
> Anyone know how it compares to Linux and is it worth getting?
>
> -Mike

Yeah. They have that little daemon guy, and not the cool penguin.
Go for the penguin.

:-)

It might help if you mentioned some of your requirements, etc. Personally
I've finally gotten into Linux at home a few months ago (started
developing for it at work a few years ago, but just recently put it on at
home). Anyway, I just get the CheapBytes version of RedHat. $1.99 + S/H.

In general, it's made somewhat for the same purposes, but is a completly
separate development. Also, the code is more centrally controlled, and
they have different licensing. BSD instead of GPL.

But they don't have the cute penguin.

CheapBytes also has FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD CD's. ($4.99 + S/H)


http://www.cheapbytes.com/


Ah, but for more info, see
http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/99mar/19990320.html and then
from http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/99mar/19990322.html on

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Nothing special.  Just need something to take up space. :)

Seriously though, the main thing I'd like to do is get X windows up and
running.  I had Red Hat installed for a short time some time ago, but I went
mad from the text mode stuff.  I couldn't get X windows to run becuase they
didn't have a driver for my video card at the time.   I was checking out
freeBSD and they have my chipset listed now.

Eventually I'd like to set up a server that I can send renders to, maybe run
software from....basically stuff I can't do with NT workstation.

-Mike

> It might help if you mentioned some of your requirements, etc.

Post a reply to this message

Mike wrote:

> Seriously though, the main thing I'd like to do is get X windows up and
> running.  I had Red Hat installed for a short time some time ago, but I went
> mad from the text mode stuff.  I couldn't get X windows to run becuase they
> didn't have a driver for my video card at the time.   I was checking out
> freeBSD and they have my chipset listed now.

I believe FreeBSD uses XFree86, as does Red Hat, which means that the
current Red Hat (or any other recent Linux distribution) may support
your card as readily as FreeBSD.

I've been meaning to get FreeBSD installed on my machine ... in my
copious free time.  I just upgraded both my machines to Red Hat 6.0 this
week.

BTW, even if Beastie the Daemon isn't quite as endearing as Tux the
Penguin (YMMV), it's worth noting (with some amusement) that the fellow
who drew the original Beastie, John Lasseter, is now a VP at Pixar,
where he directed "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life".  It all comes back to
computer graphics. ;-)

-- 
Mark Gordon
mtg### [at] povrayorg

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Mike <Ama### [at] aolcom> wrote:
: I've been thinking of installing a Unix OS on an extra computer I have.
: The obvious choice seems to be Linux, but I recently heard about this
: FreeBSD.

: Anyone know how it compares to Linux and is it worth getting?

  Since there is a lot more software which work only in linux than
software which work only in BSD (AFAIK), I think linux is the choice.

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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Now that's interesting.  Didn't he write, direct, and co-animate most of Pixar's
shorts dating back to '85?

-Mike

Mark Gordon wrote:

> BTW, even if Beastie the Daemon isn't quite as endearing as Tux the
> Penguin (YMMV), it's worth noting (with some amusement) that the fellow
> who drew the original Beastie, John Lasseter, is now a VP at Pixar,
> where he directed "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life".  It all comes back to
> computer graphics. ;-)
>

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Mike wrote:
> 
> Now that's interesting.  Didn't he write, direct, and co-animate most of Pixar's
> shorts dating back to '85?
> 
> -Mike

That may well be.  I'm not sure, but it wouldn't at all surprise me.

-- 
Mark Gordon
mtg### [at] povrayorg

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Mike <Ama### [at] aolcom> wrote:
> I've been thinking of installing a Unix OS on an extra computer I have.
> The obvious choice seems to be Linux, but I recently heard about this
> FreeBSD.

> Anyone know how it compares to Linux and is it worth getting?

I have used both OS's extensively. I would not use anything other than
FreeBSD for any 'serious' Unix work (in my case this means putting a system
on the net).

For example, this very newsserver is running under FreeBSD. As is the povray
and irtc webservers. Additionally, ftp.cdrom.com - the worlds busiest FTP
server - runs FreeBSD (4gb RAM, 200gb or so of disk, 10,000 users. It does
about 750 gigabytes of transfers per day). Guess what OS Microsoft uses
for Hotmail's web servers ? NT, you may think. Nope. FreeBSD. Yahoo - the
web's busiest portal site - also used FreeBSD. The list goes on.

I've got nothing against Linux - in fact, I quite like it, and for home use
(such as what you're doing) it's quite good. But my personal experience
has shown that the FreeBSD environment is more stable and more coherent
(this is helped by the central development model). It's also much easier to
keep up to date - almost automatic, for that matter. And the ports collection
is much nicer than using individual RPM's or equivalent.

One other point - FreeBSD is quite capable of running almost all Linux
binaries. In some cases it even runs them faster than Linux does ;). I
intend setting up the Linux port of the quake2 server here sometime.

-- Chris Cason
   [povray.org admin]

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Mike <Ama### [at] aolcom> wrote:
> Seriously though, the main thing I'd like to do is get X windows up and
> running.  I had Red Hat installed for a short time some time ago, but I went
> mad from the text mode stuff.  I couldn't get X windows to run becuase they
> didn't have a driver for my video card at the time.   I was checking out
> freeBSD and they have my chipset listed now.

If you're setting up X, be sure to check out KDE (www.kde.org). Windowmaker
is also worth a look (www.windowmaker.org). [Co-incidentally, windowmaker
is hosted on the same machine that housed povray.org up until a few weeks
ago]. I've been playing with KDE myself and it looks quite good.

-- Chris

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Chris Cason wrote:
 
> I have used both OS's extensively. I would not use anything other than
> FreeBSD for any 'serious' Unix work (in my case this means putting a system
> on the net).
> 
> For example, this very newsserver is running under FreeBSD. As is the povray
> and irtc webservers. Additionally, ftp.cdrom.com - the worlds busiest FTP
> server - runs FreeBSD (4gb RAM, 200gb or so of disk, 10,000 users. It does
> about 750 gigabytes of transfers per day). Guess what OS Microsoft uses
> for Hotmail's web servers ? NT, you may think. Nope. FreeBSD. Yahoo - the
> web's busiest portal site - also used FreeBSD. The list goes on.
> -- Chris Cason
>    [povray.org admin]

  There has been a noticable improvement in the access time to this server as
of late. Is this due to the changes made to the server and the software you
are running ?

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

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