Switching from Underground to Vector

[thetza]

Interesting, does the ports system do dependency checking? If so, maybe the better question is why would you use a BSD over Debian with apt-get? What about boot speed and system speed once it is running? I guess that is what I have been enjoying on Slack, old hardware runs snappy and quick boots to command prompt.

Of course it does dependency checking! And there are all sort of applications to help you upgrade/maintain your installed packages. And as far as I'm concerned debian's apt-get and freebsd's ports are the kings of package management, no other system comes close; gentoo portage is okay but there's too many ports broken at one time, and there are no binaries.

Final question for thetza, what OS do you run most often and why? This is the million dollar question for those of us who have wives who believe we already spend too much time in front of the computers.

Nope, not married, but I'm single, lonely, and a little drunk! I use freebsd at home, redhat (CentOS actually) and solaris at work. Though anything unix-ish is fine with me.

[Tsuroerusu]

FreeBSD ports. All 13000+ packages are available as binaries or source through a well managed collection. I have almost forgotten how to install software normally because of it. (thats a good thing I guess). NetBSD's pkgsrc is just as good, but fewer (~5000) ports.

Yeah and something that I like about FreeBSD's binary package system over Debian is that it has a lot of the controversial stuff, even libdvdcss is hosted on their main mirror here in the US! Them BSD guys got a lot of balls huh?

Are you sure? BSD can run any software linux can (excluding obvious linux-only utilities and that sort of thing). I guess someone needs to define what a 'modern desktop' is.

FreeBSD can actually run a lot of Linux software too, for examle you can run Mathematica and stuff like that, and even the Linux version of Sun's Java.

If it means a frilly eye-candy filled bloated 9gb distro like suse, I hope BSD never achieves it. (Tsuroerusu: zing!!!)

Yo dude, chill, SUSE is not bloated, and if you think so you need to go try out SUSE 10.0, it provides you with a lot of the good stuff out of the box, the reason it takes 5 install CDs to install 10.0 is because their disk layout sucks, the packages are spread all over the CDs, they have tried to clear a lot of that stuff up in the upcoming 10.1 release, only 3 CDs will be required for the basic desktop package selection. It's still not a 1 disk install live Ubuntu or Kanotix, but SUSE gives you both KDE and GNOME apps, for example you get Firefox under KDE, along with a few other GTK/GNOME apps.
And by the way, if you think about it, 5 x 700 MB is not 9 GB, if so you have a really weird sense of math.

If so, maybe the better question is why would you use a BSD over Debian with apt-get?

One thing I like about FreeBSD is that it's packages are very recent without being unstable, for example, they had KDE 3.5 only two weeks after it was released, Debian's current stable release has 3.3.2 or something like that.
Also, FreeBSD has ports and packages for all the controversial packages such as MPlayer, libdvdcss......

What about boot speed and system speed once it is running? I guess that is what I have been enjoying on Slack, old hardware runs snappy and quick boots to command prompt.

FreeBSD boots very quickly, what I usually do is that I just do a minimal install, and then I add in what I want manually using ports or packages.
On my old AMD K6 machine, FreeBSD takes like 8 secs. to boot up and give me a login prompt. You want commandprompt, you got it baby, remember the code within FreeBSD is decended from the original BSD developed at UC Berkeley in the 80' and back then, all people had was the commandprompt, one thing I don't understand about Red Hat, is that even if you choose a minimal install, you still get Xorg libs.

Final question for thetza, what OS do you run most often and why? This is the million dollar question for those of us who have wives who believe we already spend too much time in front of the computers.

I know you asked thetza, but I hope it's OK if I answer as well (This is a hub you know, everyone can hear what everyone is saying and answer back).
If I want a desktop OS that's very user friendly and has GUIs for stuff, Linux is the better choice (The new desktop oriented PC-BSD is actually very good in this area considering it's age), if I want a very robust server either one would probably be good, but this is where you get into the area of taste, I like both for servers and my pick tends to depend on the mood I'm in at the given situation, I usually run CentOS on servers, but at times I tend to run BSD, because I feel that it's better for the given situation caused by random reasons. And by the way, doesn't Slackware use BSD initscripts?

[mowestusa]

I know you asked thetza, but I hope it's OK if I answer as well (This is a hub you know, everyone can hear what everyone is saying and answer back).

Of course, you can answer, that is the beauty of a forum.

And by the way, doesn't Slackware use BSD initscripts?

Yes, it does. I guess now that I have tried Slackware it is hard to see a reason to switch. I miss the easy "apt-get install ..." of Debian that I still have on my home machine, but honestly I have added very little to the full Slackware install. I have added wallpapers, checkinstall from the extras directory on Disk 2, libdvdcss from Linuxpackages, and I have compiled Katapult for KDE, oh I almost forgot bashpodder which was just copy of the directory from my home computer. Really, FreeBSD, would make a few things more difficult for a full multimedia desktop experience, but I would gain the ports and package system which compares to apt-get.

Using computers and different OS come with compromises. With Windows XP I get easy install of programs, use just about any gadget and device with it, but compromise stability and security (although I have never had an issue with spyware or viruses). With Slackware I get stability but a little more difficult to install software, and a little harder to get most gadgets and things to work with it. With FreeBSD I would gain great and easy way to install software, stability, but would compromise some multimedia ease of use.

I guess it comes down to using the right tool for the job. Perhaps that is a better way to view our OS's as tools to get a task or job done. It is kind of like making things out of wood. You could probably get the job done with a circular saw, but a table saw would be better, faster, and easier to use.

[Gomer_X]

I put FreeBSD on my server and was impressed at the simplicity and power, but I just don't have the time to learn a new system. If you're looking for a good server OS, I'd definitely try BSD. Take the time to learn it a little and you'll like it.

I agree with that, although if you follow the FreeBSD Handbook in the beginning it's actually very easy to learn. For me personally, FreeBSD is eaisier to learn than Slackware.

FreeBSD isn't easier to learn that Fedora, though, because I already know Fedora. I don't have the time to learn ANY new OS. Since the one I know does everything I need, I'm sticking with it.

[Gomer_X]

O, to be young, in school, free of family responsiblities, and paying the bills, so that I could spend more time being a geek.

mowestusa

Truer words were never spoken (typed?).

[Tsuroerusu]

Yes, it does. I guess now that I have tried Slackware it is hard to see a reason to switch. I miss the easy "apt-get install ..." of Debian that I still have on my home machine, but honestly I have added very little to the full Slackware install. I have added wallpapers, checkinstall from the extras directory on Disk 2, libdvdcss from Linuxpackages, and I have compiled Katapult for KDE, oh I almost forgot bashpodder which was just copy of the directory from my home computer. Really, FreeBSD, would make a few things more difficult for a full multimedia desktop experience, but I would gain the ports and package system which compares to apt-get.

Why do you said that FreeBSD would make you "miss out" on multimedia stuff? You can run all your current multimedia apps from Linux, MPlayer, Xine, VLC and all that stuff all works great. I hear ya on missing Debian's package management in Slackware, I sure did too when I tried it, the pkg_add command in FreeBSD does a lot of the same stuff, maybe a little better in a few cases.

Using computers and different OS come with compromises. With Windows XP I get easy install of programs, use just about any gadget and device with it, but compromise stability and security (although I have never had an issue with spyware or viruses). With Slackware I get stability but a little more difficult to install software, and a little harder to get most gadgets and things to work with it. With FreeBSD I would gain great and easy way to install software, stability, but would compromise some multimedia ease of use.

I can't think of any multimedia issues at all, except for maybe CD burning, I think you need to do a kernel recompile to have that (Super simple 5-min guide for it: http://www.bsdguides.org/guides/freebsd ... urning.php) because FreeBSD primarily is a server OS, although it's also very decent for desktops, they try to keep the OS stripped down, but hey, if you follow that guide I just linked ya too, it's a piece of cake man!

I guess it comes down to using the right tool for the job. Perhaps that is a better way to view our OS's as tools to get a task or job done. It is kind of like making things out of wood. You could probably get the job done with a circular saw, but a table saw would be better, faster, and easier to use.

That could be a way to look at it, I normally use Linux in a situation where I require ease of use, and quick and simple set up of servers (When I'm lazy), FreeBSD when I feel it would do the job better, OpenBSD when I need security on steroids, and I think I'm gonna give NetBSD a consideration for the used Mac mini I'm considering purchase of.

FreeBSD isn't easier to learn that Fedora, though, because I already know Fedora. I don't have the time to learn ANY new OS. Since the one I know does everything I need, I'm sticking with it.

Yeah you're right about that, but that's not to say FreeBSD is hard to learn, because I don't really think it is, especially if you already know a good amount of Linux stuff, the only thing I havn't yet figured out is how to start/stop/restart/enable/disable services

[thetza]

I can't think of any multimedia issues at all, except for maybe CD burning, I think you need to do a kernel recompile to have that

nope, the GENERIC kernel handles that just fine

[Tsuroerusu]

nope, the GENERIC kernel handles that just fine

Hmmmm, with FreeBSD 5.4, it said it needed a kernel recompile, oh well, we're almost at 6.1 so that's irrelevant!

[dookiesmack]

Ok, I Know since my first post the conversation has changed a bit but I did decide to switch to Vector linux and it seems to be working REAL NICE!!!I will let you guys know how the upgrades go when I do them later.
Thanks for your comments.

[snarkout]

That's cool. Vector looks like a well put together distro.