Switching to BSD

DeletedAccount · Post by **DeletedAccount** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:23 pm

Hi Guys ,
I am currently using a dual boot system with windows and my favorite Slackware Linux ... I am planning to switch to BSD ... which BSD distro is the best

... I heard that BSD is not very friendly .. But i am prepared to tackle the beast .... anyone here think BSD is better ?

Brynet-Inc · Post by **Brynet-Inc** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 12:38 pm

I personally think so... but it there are several differences between the available BSD derivatives.

Some have good support for Firewire/bluetooth, others do not, some support 3D accelerated OpenGL, and some do not.

In the end, you'll have to pick the one that meets your expectations of an operating system.

I picked OpenBSD, and I'm very content with my choice.

SpooK · Post by **SpooK** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 1:23 pm

FreeBSD seems to be the poster-boy of that *nix flavor, probably due to having the most developers, support and running applications.

I personally use OpenBSD, but that pertains to desire to run rock-solid servers.

Some out of the box desktop distros (based on FreeBSD)
DesktopBSD
PC-BSD
DragonFlyBSD

As for the BSD vs. Linux (flame) wars and which one is the best, it is a matter of personal taste and experience... like just about everything else in life.

I would probably run Ubuntu Linux as a desktop before any BSD, but I'd use a BSD as a server before any Linux distribution.

HtH

Brynet-Inc · Post by **Brynet-Inc** » Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:34 pm

DragonFlyBSD is based on FreeBSD 4x SpooK, but it's not an "out of the box" desktop for novice users.

It's a genuine "BSD" like the other big 3, self-contained codebase etc.. (They actually do kernel development..)

DesktopBSD & PC-BSD are essentially just "FreeBSD" distributions, a Linux-ism that's unfortunately infecting the BSD world..

DeletedAccount · Post by **DeletedAccount** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:16 pm

Hi , i have a relatively slow connection ..i get download speeds of only 15 kb/s ... Can any one suggest a small BSD distro with C compiler ,nasm , and all essential text - mode utilies and a small window manager like fluxbox or icewm or fvwm95 or tvm ..... + source code of all of them including the kernel

ucosty · Post by **ucosty** » Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:36 pm

I took a guess and found Damn Small BSD.
http://www.damnsmallbsd.org/

DeletedAccount · Post by **DeletedAccount** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:12 am

Thanks Everyone

I will try to replace Linux with BSD

mathematician · Post by **mathematician** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:21 pm

When I read the BSD documentation, re installation, it told me to interrogate my current operating system to find out (for example) which port numbers my hard disk drives were hung off of. At that point I dropped any idea of installing it, because an OS which needs me to feed it that kind of technical information isn't worth a light. Even Linux can do better than that, which is (really!) saying something.

ucosty · Post by **ucosty** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:24 pm

Which BSD was that? I have found FreeBSD pretty easy to install in the past.

Brynet-Inc · Post by **Brynet-Inc** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:44 pm

mathematician wrote:When I read the BSD documentation, re installation, it told me to interrogate my current operating system to find out (for example) which port numbers my hard disk drives were hung off of. At that point I dropped any idea of installing it, because an OS which needs me to feed it that kind of technical information isn't worth a light. Even Linux can do better than that, which is (really!) saying something.

What the heck are you rambling about?

Every operating system on earth requires you to specify the drive you wish to use.. and it's never usually a complicated process.

If you were uncertain which drive to use with FreeBSD/OpenBSD etc.. dmesg output is always available for you to read over.. you could even use the included MBR fdisk application to identify the correct drive based on preexisting partitions.

You're trolling a lot lately "mathematician"...

mathematician · Post by **mathematician** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:50 pm

Brynet-Inc wrote:What the heck are you rambling about?

Every operating system on earth requires you to specify the drive you wish to use.. and it's never usually a complicated process.

Heck, if you were uncertain which drive to use.. dmesg is always available for you to read over.. or you could use the included MBR fdisk application to identify the correct drive based on preexisting partitions.

You're trolling a lot lately "mathematician"...

I have never yet installed an operating system which needed me to tell it that 1f0h was the port number it needed to consult in order to find my hard disk. I have heard of user unfriendliness, but that is surpassing itself even by the standards of Unix.

UCOSTY:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO885 ... l-pre.html

ucosty · Post by **ucosty** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:55 pm

All it says is that sometimes (and I have yet to come across this situation) it incorrectly detects some of the information.

B.E · Post by **B.E** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:56 pm

I've installed FreeBSD tons on times and never had a problem. I think FreeBSD is better than Linux, simply because, if you look at it's history, FreeBSD is derived from BSD 4.4, and also I can chuck anything at it and it won't have a problem.

Also FreeBSD, teaches you how to configure Linux (yes Linux, FreeBSD supports all of the Redhat stuff) and customize services without using a GUI.

crazygray1 · Post by **crazygray1** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:24 pm

I think I might switch to OpenBSD

crazygray1 · Post by **crazygray1** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 5:11 pm

I just got my system multibooting OpenBSD and Ubuntu. How would I install KDE?

OSDev.org

Switching to BSD

Switching to BSD

I have a relatively slow connection .....

Thanks everyone ...