Slashdot Mirror

Here is how I usually install FreeBSD over my 56k dial-up (Note: I use a seperate slice to store some of the files. Other than a native FBSD slice, I know a FAT32 slice will also work.):

Download all the bin.* files from here to a directory called bin. Place bin/ on the seperate partition (If you monuted it to /mnt/tmp, then bin/ would be moved to /mnt/tmp/bin). Then download the 2 floppy images here and here. Assuming your floppy device is /dev/fd0, you can image copy the files to the floppies using the command:

dd if=kern.flp of=/dev/fd0

(for DOS, get fdimage and use the command "C> fdimage kern.flp a:")

Then repeat that command replacing kern.flp with mfsroot.flp.

Boot off of the first floppy, and then insert the second when it asks for it. Select "File System" as the installation media, and then select the partition bin/ was placed on. For "Distributions", select "custom/bin". After it has finished installing bin, (configure any last minute options, and then) reboot. Log in as root, dial-up to the net, and then start "/stand/sysinstall". This time, select "Configure/Distributions" and mark anything else you want to install (don't install bin again). Select FTP as the installation method.

Have Fun!

ipfw is the standard firewall in FreeBSD (and it is more advanced than ipfilter, which is also in FreeBSD). See the latest release notes (search for ipfilter in this page). The FreeBSD Handbook doesn't even mention ipfilter, only ipfw.

ipfw is the standard firewall in FreeBSD (and it is more advanced than ipfilter, which is also in FreeBSD). See the latest release notes (search for ipfilter in this page). The FreeBSD Handbook doesn't even mention ipfilter, only ipfw.

Using this, you could set up a virtual machine, similar to the way the Openroot Project does.

Consider this hypothetical situation. You go to one of the numerous electronics or computer retailers across the fruited plain and you buy a computer off the shelf. (Please...you can stop laughing now at the absurdity of this possibility.) The thing's preloaded with the latest bluescreen inducer. (We're also assuming that, for whatever reason, thinking different isn't an option.) You'd rather replace the preloaded software with something that's a little more reliable. You borrow a copy of $LINUX_DISTRO|$FREEBSD_DISTRO from a friend and blow away Win$YEAR when Billy sends some attack lawyers down from Redmond and slaps you with a lawsuit for depriving him of any future revenue when Win`expr $YEAR + 1` comes along.

How is the above hypothetical any different than what Gracenote is trying to pull off here? They seem to be under the impression that once you use their service in your software, you're stuck with them forever.

(Does anybody have a tool and/or a project (probably of a distributed nature) going to brute-force CDDB for all possible data and pass the info along to one of the free (as in speech) alternatives?)

All things aside, all questions of Linus, Bill, Mac, etc. aside, the Microsoft backdoor does illustrate a major advantage of Open Source:

Security.

While I can see the theoretical, practically this is not true. In practical terms almost no one actually analyzes the source with any intensity apart from the people who are the primary programmers (hence the ones who would likely be planting the backdoors). I do CVSups on my FreeBSD fairly frequently and I'm basically entrusting that machine absolutely and entirely to the FreeBSD CVS controllers (which of course means if they were compromised I'd be ownzed). I'd wager >99.5% of open source users are exactly the same way: You presume that because the source is available there are tonnes of selfless individuals busily auditing it, but the reality is quite different.

The simple reality is that most current software projects are HUGE and there simply isn't enough time in a lifetime for each of us to analyze all of the code we run with anything more than a cursory glance. And if anyone thinks they'll scan through and see

// Embed backdoor
if (strcmp(password,"REDHAT")==0) {
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp iPriority=1000;
}
then they have a enormously naive impression of how a backdoor would be embedded in code subtly. For all you know a number of the software products you are running might be waiting for a magic byte string to come along when it bows to its real master.

Check out the FreeBSD SMP Mailing list. Around friday, April 20th. Check THIS out! :)
Dual Athlon 1.2GHZ CPU's, FreeBSD SMP, stock -current branch.

teknoenie wrote:
> is this something that can be proven to the openbsd team.

Yes.

OpenBSD 2.7 was vulnerabile about remote root exploit with the default install. Please look at this advisory and compare it with the fix by openbsd.

cperciva wrote:
> I'm not sure about this, but I think what they mean is that there
> have been no vulnerabilities discovered before they were fixed

Actually above exploit is fixed by NetBSD people before OpenBSD. You can confirm this by the cvs log.

bolverk wrote:
> Well, we can force ssh _clients_ to do X11 forwarding... not a root
> flaw, and not remote... so on to the next.

The above problem is a remote root flaw. Due to the reason I don't know, this flaw is not listed in OpenBSD's security page. Perhaps OpenBSD people don't have an ability to know their security information unlike they claimed?

Anyway, the "4 Years Exploit Free" message is just wrong.

teknoenie wrote:
> is this something that can be proven to the openbsd team.

Yes.

OpenBSD 2.7 was vulnerabile about remote root exploit with the default install. Please look at this advisory and compare it with the fix by openbsd.

cperciva wrote:
> I'm not sure about this, but I think what they mean is that there
> have been no vulnerabilities discovered before they were fixed

Actually above exploit is fixed by NetBSD people before OpenBSD. You can confirm this by the cvs log.

bolverk wrote:
> Well, we can force ssh _clients_ to do X11 forwarding... not a root
> flaw, and not remote... so on to the next.

The above problem is a remote root flaw. Due to the reason I don't know, this flaw is not listed in OpenBSD's security page. Perhaps OpenBSD people don't have an ability to know their security information unlike they claimed?

Anyway, the "4 Years Exploit Free" message is just wrong.

I use FreeBSD, so don't let other know what I am about to say. :)

I believe NetBSD would support all of those hardware platforms you mentioned. Unfortunately, I do not believe it has support in Samba concerning ACL's, but I do not know for certain. Check out Samba to see what OS's it supports ACL's.

FreeBSD is mainly an x86 OS with some support for a couple of other platforms.

No, not quite true. FreeBSD supports multiprocessor x86 and has for awhile, NetBSD is rolling out SMP on x86, alpha, sparc, and ppc (see this post for links.

NetBSD took longer, because portable code that will support many platforms easily is their grail. Writing that type of code naturally takes more time.

FreeBSD is also available via anonymous FTP from mirror sites in the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, ... Thailand, Elbonia, the Ukraine and the United Kingdom, among others.

Makes it easier for Dilbert to get his FreeBSD when he's working on site.

FreeBSD has SMP support and I'm pretty sure various BSDs have had SMP support on various architectures other than the Alpha.

The release announcement didn't go out until the iso was available at: ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/IS O-IMAGES/4.3-install.iso .

Check this man page, and the links from it.

On the other hand, both Linux and FreeBSD have been able to deal with the problem you describe like forever. Just set limits on login.conf for FreeBSD, and probably something similar on Debian.

1. Download an iso for 4.2. Burn and install normally. Read the faq and handbook at www.freebsd.org for instructions.
2. Now, upgrade that 4.2 using cvsup . If you installed supplemental documentation, you can do a one-liner. Just type in something like sed -e 's/CHANGE_THIS/cvsup4/g' /usr/share/examples/cvsup/stable-supfile > /tmp/stable-supfile && cvsup /tmp/stable-supfile . Substitute in cvsup[1-6] for that cvsup4 reference, since we all don't need to hit cvsup4. Or, read the darn file and learn what cvsup does, and then select an appropriate mirror. You get the idea. The cvsup mirrors are freebsd.org all have it.
3. This will give you the incremental changes between 4.2 and 4.3. Now, build it with something like cd /usr/src/ && make world . Be sure to run mergemaster, etc. and rebuild any user profiles. Now sure what that means? If this is your first build world, Read the handbook on building your world.. It's actually easier than a linux kernel build.
4. Stuck? Read the www.freebsdiary.org, which details one (once novice, now fairly proficient) bsd user's experience with install, use and fun over the years.

After using assorted Linux distributions, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, and other operating systems for the past few years, I've started tinkering with RTOS' (Real Time Operating Systems) such as QNX, dabbled with ChorusOS for a month or two, and have looked into a few others (Nucleus, ThreadX).

Some RTOS' can be used, for a typical production server running http, mail, etc, often faster and more productive than most other OS', and I'm sure there has to be advocates of RTOS' with a comment or two. There are benefits to making a switch or are RTOS' a high tech OS solely geared for companies needing higher computing standards, but I can see many here trying to advocate Linux, Linux, and oh yea Linux, and I'm sure there are those who will mod unfairly. whatever

Don't get them confused, a lot of THESE OS's are not free to download, and they're not the same as using redcrap, or dumbian progeny. The article itself though didn't mention that some of these are pricey OS' it seems like they just jumped on another "Oh ... OpenSource" for attention.

Is our soldiers forthcoming homecoming?

They're just going to drive more and more users like me to Free OS'es more and more.

Subscribeware? bye.
Digital Content Protection? bye.
Messing with my MP3's (Many of which I legally own.)? bye.

I think Microsoft's got it all wrong. Oddly enough, the consumer market is about choice, not oppression. Bye bye Microsoft.

Windows 2000 was a fairly decent OS (although it made NT4 look lightweight). Stable, reasonably speedy...the whole NSA key issue really chapped me off. It was at that point that I really decided to bring my unix boxes to the desktop.

An operating system that doesn't limit me.
An operating system that doesn't police me.
An operating system that lets me know what's really going on under the hood.
An operating system doesn't suck.

FreeBSD

TGG
(And yes, sometimes even that other obscure OS, what's it called? Linux?)

It's nice to see that the folks at this Open Source Directory are modeling the software categories after Sourceforge'.s Software/application taxonomies typically vary from site-to-site and distribution-to-distribution. While I appreciate that all the site maintainers out there take time to organize information about software applications, the diversity makes it difficult to synthesize materials from multiple sources. I applaud this directory's deference to a previously-existing taxonomy.

A while back, I started creating a list of software categorization schemes/systems relevent to Linuxland:

http://freshmeat.net/browse/627/
http://apps.kde.com/na/2/categories&nav=f
http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Softwa re/
http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/potato/main/ binary-i386/
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/
http://www.gnu.org/gnulist/production/index.html
http://www.userfriendly.net/linux/RPM/Groups.html
http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-category/
http://www.freebsd.org/ports/
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/media- types/media-types
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/
http://www.labs.redhat.com/gug/users-guide/main-me nu.html
http://www.linux.com/links/Software/

Point taken. However, if this page is correct, there are efforts under way to port it, and OpenBSD apperantly has been ported. The bottom line is that BSD is plenty available on PPC hardware, and if Apple had wanted to use a different flavor they could have done so.

From the FreeBSD home page:

FreeBSD is an advanced BSD UNIX operating system for the Intel compatible (x86), DEC Alpha, and PC-98 architectures.

...if it ran on PPC I would likely be using that instead of Linux/PPC.

Sure, linux could go all cloistered and slow like *BSD and only release the occassional new update, but then, this is slow precisely because there aren't thousands of users helping find the bugs.

Actually, you are completly wrong and ignoring the fact that due to their more open developement process *BSD is "faster" since you can get a new current Kernel (and OS) every day (Or with anon-CVS every few hours...) and don't have to wait for Linus or Alan to anounce a new (test-)version.

• http://www.netbsd.org/Releases/release-map.html
• http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/cutting-edge.html
• http://www.openbsd.org/faq/upgrade-minifaq.html#1. 1

I found this pretty cool site through a comment or sig here IIRC... Either way, it covers all sorts of things (incl. ppp setup): FreeBSD Cheat Sheets. As far as the word processing thing goes, if you're laptop is beefy enough give StarOffice a try. If not, try AbiWord.

The ppp setup described above is for 3.x and it's for a lan2dial home gateway. You may wish to try looking at chapters 15 (Serial Communications) and 16 (PPP and SLIP) of the FreeBSD Handbook for more up to date or generalized instructions.

FreeBSD's Linux binary compatibility is not emulation. Its not even really abstraction. Linux binaries don't have to go through any extra layers in order to execute on FreeBSD than they would in order to execute on Linux.

Linux binaries can run natively on FreeBSD because the FreeBSD kernel contains all the necessary ABIs, and the filesystem contains all the necessary libraries, and there is even now a linux procfs that runs alongside FreeBSD's procfs for the benefit of Linux binaries. FreeBSD simply executes a native FreeBSD binary one way, and native Linux binaries another way. There is no performance penalty for running a Linux binary on FreeBSD because nothing has to be emulated or translated from a Linux-style execution to a FreeBSD-style execution, it is simply executed as-is.

Maybe try to understand it this way: FreeBSD can run Linux binaries not because it emulates the way Linux executes binaries, but because it has implemented the way Linux executes binaries alongside its own implementation of binary execution.

So to ask "Why should I run linux programs on FreeBSD when I could just run them on their native OS?" is a question based on misunderstanding. The simple answer is that even when they are running on FreeBSD, the are running on their native OS.

For a more technical explanation, read http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/x19213.html

There is even an Official Port of Sun's JDK. It's been covered in a Slashdot article in the past.

<RANT>
The only reason FreeBSD even needs to run anything in "Linux emulation mode" is for software where the coders are either so shortsighted that the only release Linux binaries, or the source code is so Linux-centric that porting isn't worth the effort.
</RANT>

I'll second that, especially regarding not going for hype. A Redhat-using friend of mine claims that BSD (as a whole) is losing server market share. He didn't cite any evidence, and I would be skeptical of such a general claim anyway, but either way, my response is "So what?" It's not as if the volunteer projects are going to die anytime soon (e.g. FreeBSD's developer base keeps growing). As for BSDi, earned reputation for excellence, not hype (or lack thereof), will give them a niche big enough to survive.

I am an inexperienced unix user with FreeBSD on my desktop. As long as the hardware is supported (most, including mine, easily is), asking why I chose FreeBSD is no more relevant than asking why someone chose Debian or Slackware or any other Linux distribution. As a "desktop OS", there is virtually no distinction between any of them--I'll let the paid veteran sysadmins argue the comparative merits for applications beyond that (e.g. keeping 50 boxes up to date).

Also, for those who don't know, FreeBSD's "text-based" install does not mean a command line; it means an ncurses interface. In other words, it may offend your artistic sensibilities, but it will be just as easy to use as a gui. Afraid of needing to know your hardware? Don't be; even Windows can tell you what you have, complete with IRCs (Start-->Accessories-->System Tools-->System Information).

To my friend and every other Linux "zealot": you run a powerful, versatile OS that's here to stay, be it a desktop or server; so do we BSDers--don't believe the hype that tells you otherwise.

Although my main use of FreeBSD is for hosting, I use it as my desktop OS as well. Having tried Linux before (Mandrake 7), I didn't find it to be a better suited desktop OS. However, even though FreeBSD in my opinion is easier to use and maintain, I was never able to make the sound work or print a color page from Netscape... With Linux, multimedia and printing were better supported at installation time.
I would still prefer FreeBSD over Linux for my desktop though, because of it's reliability and the fact that you can install an application so easily from the ports collection, and it works flawlessly every time!
Moreover, after installing Linux, I end up removing a bunch of stuff I don't need... With FreeBSD, I actually add the applications I want! I like the ports system much better than the rpms, which always gave me trouble.
Both systems can do the same thing, and I think FreeBSD can be made as desktop friendly as Linux with a bit of work. For me, the payoff came later with less maintenance...

Anyways, I've always wanted to play with FreeBSD, my reluctance has been based more on device drivers, and the ability to get an X or whatever FreeBSD uses for a GUI operating with my hardware. It's always been my understanding that FreeBSD was limited in this aspect.

For the most part, if XFree86 has drivers for X11, it is supported on all platforms they support. The exceptions are mainly around nVidia which has a kernel (binary-only) driver for Linux. I am still able to run 2D and 3D (utah driver) applications on my FreeBSD box, but I do not see the extreme speed of this chip. Otherwise, all my hardware is supported on this box. Check out the Supported Hardware for FreeBSD to determine if your hardware is supported.

After using Linux since the days of v0.99.14?, I made the switch from Linux v2.2.12. Once I had my system nice and steady--a geek must tweak things--I found I did not miss Linux. Manual pages for almost anything, the ports system, and a more secure system allowed me to do other things like actually developing software in my free time.

One thing you will like a lot: all of the source to FreeBSD is in CVS.

Personally, I like the central development model that FreeBSD uses as opposed to Linux. FreeBSD uses CVS for the entire tree of code. This is the kernel and the user-land software. The ports system is quite easy to use.

For me, the only thing I miss from Linux is some of the drivers. The nVidia driver would be nice, especially if they would just license the source under the MIT license for inclusion into XFree86. I am not bitter at nVidia! Grrrr!!! :)

For a true comparison, you would have to try it out yourself as my needs are probably different than yours. I had nothing to hold me on Linux. FreeBSD had everything that I needed. As for you, I don't know your requirements for a Unix system.

Your first step is to check on the FreeBSD website for hardware compatibility. You should do this for any operating system. I learned that lesson when I first started using Linux during the 0.99.14? days. Anyone else remember the SLS distribution? :)

Personally, I like the central development model that FreeBSD uses as opposed to Linux. FreeBSD uses CVS for the entire tree of code. This is the kernel and the user-land software. The ports system is quite easy to use.

For me, the only thing I miss from Linux is some of the drivers. The nVidia driver would be nice, especially if they would just license the source under the MIT license for inclusion into XFree86. I am not bitter at nVidia! Grrrr!!! :)

For a true comparison, you would have to try it out yourself as my needs are probably different than yours. I had nothing to hold me on Linux. FreeBSD had everything that I needed. As for you, I don't know your requirements for a Unix system.

Your first step is to check on the FreeBSD website for hardware compatibility. You should do this for any operating system. I learned that lesson when I first started using Linux during the 0.99.14? days. Anyone else remember the SLS distribution? :)

This is the problem. People just don't understand. GNOME and just about every other package/application runs under FreeBSD w/ minimal effort compaired to GNU/Linux. Packages/library upgrades are one of the most easy things with FreeBSD. http://www.freebsd.org/ports/.

In a few months a similar program will be in Debian and everybody will be rejoicing it as the greatest thing since apt-get.

Great innovation by the BSD guys. Unfortunately, they never get any publicity for getting things right...
Give us free!
GIVE US FREE!

--

In a few months a similar program will be in Debian and everybody will be rejoicing it as the greatest thing since apt-get.

Great innovation by the BSD guys. Unfortunately, they never get any publicity for getting things right...
Give us free!
GIVE US FREE!

--

Then I guess MS has seen the light? I haven't played with 2k enough to find this stuff out, as the only 2k machine I have access to is a q3a server that I'm hosting with only a single 3 gig drive. The machine is unstable as all hell and needs to be rebooted daily, but this is probably a messed up install by the box's owner. No wonder he wants me to wipe the drive and put a real OS on it.

I refuse to ever install any MS software ever again, because, imho, it fucking sucks.

No Windows for this server...

PicoBSD

CIA director George Tenet said individuals such as Osama bin Laden - the man alleged to have been behind the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa - are using the internet to cloak communications within their organisations. "You recruit people on internet sites and you use encryption," Tenet said. "You move your operational planning and judgements over internet sites' use of encryption. You raise money."

Bin Laden inspires particular alarm in the US. National Security Agency chief Mike Hayden says his own organisation is "behind the curve in keeping up with the global telecommunications revolution", which bin Laden is able to exploit. Hayden blamed this gap for the US's failure to prevent the 1998 embassy attacks, which killed 224 people.

Newer Stealth Arrangements

Never See Anything

Next Superpower Agency

New Snooping Applications

Nothing's Secret Anymore

while($information =~ /[a-z]['")]*[.!?]+['")]*\s/g) {
$conspiracy++;
}

print "Your $information is filled with $conspiracy theories\n";

Where in the world is SpeedyGrl

And Japan has an awesome group of *BSD hackers. Most of the mobile stuff for FreeBSD comes from Japanese hackers (PAO. (The Japanese are really crazy about mobile computing.) I love this quote from Warner Losh:

WL: Itojun-san of the Kame project in Japan seems to be six different people inhabiting one body, as far as his ability to hack [the network protocol stack]. He makes sure that FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and BSDi remain in sync with the main Kame repositories. For the OpenBSD Crypto2000 sort-of-mini-conference, he attended and got no sleep. When his roommate went to sleep, Itojun was hacking. When he woke up in the middle of the night, Itojun was hacking. When he woke up in the morning, Itojun was hacking.

---
In a hundred-mile march,

How hard would it be to write a script to replace "man", in say, perl, and this script would perform the function of converting man pages into browsable HTML pages (using Lynx?) or automatically use Lynx if the page is already in HTML, or if the page is info based, convert that? Something like this should be possible.

You mean like man.cgi that all of the BSD projects use?

How hard would it be to write a script to replace "man", in say, perl, and this script would perform the function of converting man pages into browsable HTML pages (using Lynx?) or automatically use Lynx if the page is already in HTML, or if the page is info based, convert that? Something like this should be possible.

You mean like man.cgi that all of the BSD projects use?

WE all have the same feeling here on /. it seems... IP laws and copyright laws are simply being pushed beyond thier limits after all they have been around simce umph-te-um and they were certinly not thinking of GUI design and Complex Theming when they were written... so the answer here is apple is just doing business as usual and trying to prevent others from gaining the little market share that they have. I think that while this attemt is not noble it is understandable... but hey if everthing went my way there would be new IP laws and legitimate uses. In the end Linux will prevail because no AMERICAN law is stronger than the freedom that an INDIVIUAL feels they have... Linux users and hackers will continue to hack GUI code with or without government support because hell we are INTITLED to resonably priced stable software and nobody-- not Apple, not Micro$oft, not even the drones who claim to be part of our own movement. This is not going to be stood for and if Microsoft doesn't fight it (fat chance) then WE will.

--OStone
"The Devil made me do it"

This page from over at freebsd.org states:

"The earliest (and most popular) renditions of the BSD Daemon were created by John Lasseter. [...] The copyright holder and creator of the daemon image is Marshall Kirk McKusick."
(Emphasis mine.)

He spelled it wrong, is actually called 'softupdates' and AFAIK is only available for FreeBSD.

It's time for you my friend to switch to free software. Linux(Debian is the best) and FreeBSD.
__
Debian

__

As the other reply pointer out -- if you want to stay updated on the ports collection, you should use CVSup or the like. Both Apache 1.3.17 and mod_php 4.0.4pl1 have been in the ports collection since February 12 and February 5 respectfully. You just have to have some patience. When a new port is released (and in particular if the port is sort of big and/or complex) it takes a bit of time for the port maintainer to ensure that the port compiles and runs on all supported versions of the OS (remember that they should work on both the 3.x, 4.x, and 5.x branches). There might also be times when a FreeBSD porter does not include a new version into the port collection for a reason (i.e., it contain bugs). Usually you can send a mail to the port maintainer listed in the Makefile and ask him/her if they have any plans to upgrade a particular port.

I've only been using FreeBSD for 2 days, but I get the impression that the BSD crowd is unfriendly and snotty compared to the Linux crowd - although I haven't talked to any other BSD users, I have read on the net that the BSD crowd can be snotty/rude.

Er, well, what can I say? You seem to have managed to give an answer your own problems in the second part of the sentence. Quite an amazing feat ;-).

I'm giving up my ability to moderate this thread by posting, so listen up! For those of you who don't understand why this got modded up, go read the end of the FreeBSD FAQ. It has a whole segment on "How many FreeBSD Programmers does it take to change a Lightbulb?". The AC is doing a cheap impression of this joke. Go check it out at www.freebsd.org.

I must disagree. I used linux (slackware) for ~2 years, before making the move to FreeBSD. Generally, I found it hell to find docs for slackware. (i realise other distro's have better docs/etc)
Since moving to FreeBSD, I've found that I've learnt a hell of a lot more in the short time that I've been using it, compared to the time I spent with linux. I've also found that it's *much* easier to administrate.
Aside from the abundance of docs distributed with the release, and that on the homepage, I've found their mailinglists an invaluable source of information. A quick search of the lists, and one is generally furnished with something appropriate, otherwise, the community is always quick to respond to a post to freebsd-questions with concise and accurate information.
As for ease of administration, I must point you to ports and the make world process. If for nothing else (there was a lot more) these two things would have been enough to keep me away from linux forever.

I must disagree. I used linux (slackware) for ~2 years, before making the move to FreeBSD. Generally, I found it hell to find docs for slackware. (i realise other distro's have better docs/etc)
Since moving to FreeBSD, I've found that I've learnt a hell of a lot more in the short time that I've been using it, compared to the time I spent with linux. I've also found that it's *much* easier to administrate.
Aside from the abundance of docs distributed with the release, and that on the homepage, I've found their mailinglists an invaluable source of information. A quick search of the lists, and one is generally furnished with something appropriate, otherwise, the community is always quick to respond to a post to freebsd-questions with concise and accurate information.
As for ease of administration, I must point you to ports and the make world process. If for nothing else (there was a lot more) these two things would have been enough to keep me away from linux forever.

See the SMPng and KSE project pages.

See the SMPng and KSE project pages.

switch abck to Linux.
Localization in Linux is improving, but how close is total Linux support for languages like Japanese and Hebrew that are difficult to fit into your normal, left-to-right, single byte character infrastructure?

So why the Linux adjenda? The origianl author went out of his/her way to NOT mention Linux.

FreeBSD's ports collection supports 400+ Japanese localizations, 70+ Chinese, 20+ Russian, 9+ Vietamese, 2 French and 2 Hebrew. There is a reason for $10 million in investments from Japan in FreeBSD in the past few months. Combined with the 15-20% of the Open Source OS market FreeBSD has, FreeBSD is making fine progress in internationalization, thank you very much.

The people who *WRITE* code need to think a far bigger picture than the closed-world Linux only mind-think of Cliff and dvk. Show that you are a 'think big' kinda coder. Read up on unicode, usage of I18N/L18N or even the physically impaired. Such is not done by most code authors.

WinterKnight, the computer is a tool for communication. So you have a choice: Use the tools you have, *OR* (re)write tools to do what you want to do. Contact Mozilla, and see who has expressed an interest in making hooks for hebrew. Pick the tools you need, then make ports happen to unicode. And, try to get authors of code to design for Unicode/physically hampered and to write portable software. Having a 2nd machine and using VNC so you have one display, a switchbox to the 2nd machine (one display, one keyboard), or using a product like VMware and running Windows as a virtual machine are other options besides multiboot. These solutions avoid the time multibooting takes.