FreeBSD?

[Computer Hobbyist]

Well guys, I have two machines running linux. One, my main machine, runs Mandrake 9.1. The second, my test machine, runs RH 8.0 (with the kernal upgraded to the latest kernel.) Both machine are running great. I doubt if I would ever have to turn either off.

I have become a little restless, and have been wondering about installiong FreeBSD 4.8 on my test machine. I have been reading the install documentation on line, and find it to be similar but not exactly the same as Linux. Using the word "Slice" instead of one definition of Partitiion is a good idea. I like think the port tree system is very interesting.

My question: If I install FreeBSD what should I expect. What is FreeBSD good at and what does it not do so well?

[Statica]

Well, if you were out there looking for a server that was stable, secure and had mind-boggling performance, then you would probably be chuckling at Linux and going with FreeBSD. Linux so far has turned out to be trying hard at becoming something for everything (and not yet anything for anyone); at least FreeBSD is everything for most server users. FreeBSD is also as close to crash proof as you can expect. What you cannot expect is even the user-friendliness of Linux (wow! we've come full circle if we are to put that tag on Linux), you can however get a rather similar feel to Linux, especially if you havent spent your time fooling with those annoying GUIs . Security-wise, I'd hate to say that freebsd is in any way more secure than any linux, I just find it easier to secure than most of the newer linux distribs out there.

[kilgoretrout]

FreeBSD has the best TCP/IP stack going. It's great for servers and very secure. If your looking for a challenge in linux, try gentoo; you compile everything from source so it's optimized for your system. It also uses a system similar to portage called emerge which is excellent. Downside, compiling takes forever even on a fast machine.

[mairving]

It's been hard for me to warm up to FreeBSD. Nothing really wrong, just different than what I am used to. I think that most of the security issues with Linux come from the 'kitchen sink' installs that are done. You install everything and you have a ton of ports open and other unused programs that are security hazards.

After a brief flirtation with RedHat, I have gone back to Slackware. You can install it quite easy minimally and it closes some holes that others leave open. Plus I also prefer the adduser that Slack has. Plus like Statica, I have developed a strong dislike for RPM's.

[Statica]

Mairving, I am bordering on a strong dislike for Linux now Well most of the common flavors - RedHate and Mandrake. It's all just killing Linux isn't it? The bloated installations, the parasitic RPMs, the ho hum performance...

[mairving]

I haven't actually used MDK for awhile. RedHat is bloated and wants you to jump through their hoops. While building a fileserver, I tried to get RH not to install Sendmail by deselecting it. Every time it still installed it. The install was much easier than Slack, since it found out I had an Adaptec SCSI card and it had the driver for the Intel GB NIC that I had. The GUI looked pretty good in RH but it lacked much of the functionality of the shell.

[LocoCoyote]

I am currently testing FreeBSD 4.8 (along side with SuSE 8.2 and RedHqat 9) on my HP omnibook. My goal is to use it as a workstation first and then later try the server side. There are some issues, such as getting printintg to work, but overall I like it alot. It is almost identical to linux just take away the System V stuff (run levels mostly). If you are using X then I have found that KDE works well. The ports collection has many useful apps and utils.
I recommend that you set up a dual install and test it for yourself. Stick with 4.8 though. I have had some issues with 5.0 and 5.1

[Computer Hobbyist]

I have been reading about Gentoo (somebody recommended I think about it or OpenBSD, instead of FreeBSD.) It seems that it is a Linux Distro that you build to suit yourself. Not quite Linux from Stratch, but close.

My wanting to play with one of the open source BSD's is a desire to learn more about Unix. I imagine that I can obtain much the same result installing Gentoo.

My reading of Gentoo website seems to lead to the conclusion that it is really a toy. People who want to do real work go elsewhere. One guy summarized it by saying he uses Debian at work and Gentoo at home. Another guy I read said that he had been using Gentoo for months and there was only one month when everything was working. Sort of a tinkerers dream.

On the other side, what I have read about the various Open Source BSD's is that they are much cleaner. Really hardworking software able to be installed with relative ease and they do some things (server security) better than Linux. Somebody in this thread said that FreeBSD has the very best TCP/IP stack.

Am I missing something?

Remember I have pretty much come to the conclusion that RedHat and Mandrake deliver about the same promise as Windows XP (which is a good thing.) They also suffer from the same one size fits all bloat.

Btw, I hear a lot of grousing about RH and Mandrake. Having spent some time beating both up, I would have no problem loading grandma's internet cruisng machine with either RedHat 8 or Mandrake 9.1. Right out of the box they do lots and lots of things the average user wants and needs. Far more than Windows XP. Both, however, have adopted a "let's shiield the user from the Linux part of the Distro" attitude. Great for grandma, but not so great for the experienced user.

Thanks for your comments.

[Dswissmiss]

Statica: does SuSe fall into your category? I know very little about linux, but I've always had problems with RPM's, so I've been looking at the apt-get feature in Debian. Tried installing Deb, but that didn't go too well... should I try to install Knoppix on the HD or do you know of any easy online installation manuals for deb?

[LocoCoyote]

I am currently running SuSE 8.2 most of the time as my main working OS. It is a very good beginners Linux. I highly recommend it.
In addition to SuSE, RH9,and Win XP pro, I am using FreeBSD 4.8 alot.
While Linux seems to be a mix of both system V and BSD Unix, freeBSD is pure BSD. That means no run levels and all that. Many things are simular and yet I keep comming up with things that do the same things, but differntly. I have used the FBSD docs to teoubleshoot some of my RedHat problems...with sucessful outcomes. Of course I have found some intersting differences between RH and SuSE (such as the grub.conf vs menu.lst thing I keep going on about)
Bottom line...FreeBSD is a good destop OS..not just for servers anymore!