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FreeBSD As A Workstation For UNIX Newbies
JT writes: "OSNews features an article introducing the FreeBSD operating system to newbies and Windows users. The article describes the installation, its GUI, application base and it has some more information about Unix and *BSD in general." Since Linux (at least the varieties with cute installation routines) is often presented as the *nix beginner's best choice, it's good to see articles like this one pointing out a broader range of choices.
Unlike Red Hat, there is nothing on FreeBSD that takes away the true hacker-only nature of the system.
The partitioning, as the article points out is mostly manual, but only if you can't dedicate your drive... if you can dedicate you press one key and it does a default partition scheme, ditto mount points. This is not a problem for any but the types who can't RTFM long enough to find out what page of the FM they're on.
The package system vs. ports is slightly confusing, especially since so much stuff appears in both places, how do you know which to use when and why? I'm sure this confusion is cleared up by reading the Handbook in depth. Ditto the fact that the ports system isn't just a system for getting and compiling tarballs-- it's a whole packaging system unto itself, just a bit more CPU intensive than rpm.
Speaking of the handbook, here's my favorite line (from memory, may not be exact) "recompiling a kernel is a rite of passage for Unix users". There, they said it, plain and simple you *will* recompile the kernel... and they're right, the generic kernel has no support for sound, so off to the config files you go. Hello make and make install! FWIW, they're 100% right, compiling a custom kernel is just too important not to learn to do it on either BSD or Linux systems.
IMHO, FreeBSD is not a suitable system for a computing newbie, unless they have a patient, available hacker friend. It might be a good introduction to x86 Unix for someone who's used a Unix mainframe at school/work (where someone else was the sysadmin). And it might be a good introduction to Unix for an advanced Windows user. And for the hacker? Of course it's a great choice, especially that ports system. I've not seen a Linux distro with that level of commitment to the offsite code base.
But best of all, no one's running around saying it should be called GNU/BSD! And with good reason, if you're used to the GNU binutils and BASH, you're in for a bit of a surprise with FreeBSD.
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Kudos to OSnews.com for promoting FreeBSD as a serious alternative to Linux for users looking for an alternative OS. FreeBSD is fast, stable and has a great many experienced users willing to help out newbies. Sysinstall is easy to get going (just 2 floppies), supports FTP downloads of software packages, and resolves dependency issues quickly. However it is still no where near as easy as the GUI installer for current releases of Mandrake and Redhat. FreeBSD can run practically anything written for Linux after installing the Linux Binary Compatibility Pack.
I've even gone out of my way to pay for CDs etc.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"The ports collection sure is great! I just wish that FreeBSD had some kind of package management that didn't require building from source."
It so happens that FreeBSD does have package management that won't ever invoke gcc.
Try the package management tools (man pkg_create(1), pkg_delete(1), pkg_info(1), pkg_update(1), pkg_version(1) for more specific info).
In fact, FreeBSD is so bad-ass that you can type something like "pkg_add -r mozilla" and the system will download and install the latest mozilla. Carefull though, some packages require that you specify the whole version (i.e. pkg_add -r lyx-1.1.6.3). This will get all the dependancies you need in most cases.
The only real reasons to build from the ports are:
"FreeBSD is less user friendly than Linux"
This is highly subjective. I taught a class this summer to a group of people at my University who had never installed Windows, much less anything else. By the end of the first week, they were able to install FreeBSD, compile a kernel, and successfully manage packages. By the end of the second week, they all had their desktops going with the productivity apps they wanted. By the middle of the third week, I couldn't hold their attention because they were having too much fun playing with the OS.
FreeBSD belongs to the "it just works" school of computing. I don't know how to describe it. I've never had to worry about whether or not FreeBSD would correctly auto detect my USB optical mouse during the install (I've had a number of Linux distros both succeed and fail). FreeBSD Just Works(tm). No dicking around. "Does your system have a USB mouse attached to it?" "Yes?" "OK, we'll make sure and load usbd." If I've had "device pcm" in my kernel config file at build time, my sound has always worked.
As a workstation, FreeBSD performs very well. I don't have benchmarks for you, but I've never had a FreeBSD machine that has felt slower than any Linux distribution on the same hardware. Incidentally, FreeBSD starts notably quicker than any Linux distro newer than Slack 2.0.
I feel really good about the state of FreeBSD. They have made things easy by design, not by GUI abstraction. If you judge ease as being a point and click installer, then Linux will win every time. If you judge ease as simplicity and consistancy, FreeBSD is a clear victor.
-Peter
Just my $0.02
. Penguins Surely Ca
I had no problems with my ES1371 (SBPCI64). I just added the line "device pcm" to the end of my kernel config and it Just Worked(tm).
I think you real problem is that you want FreeBSD to work just like Linux. Well it doesn't. Otherwise it would be called FreeLinux. It took you a while to figure out all the arcana under Linux, so expect to spend some time figuring out the FreeBSD arcana. On the plus side, FreeBSD has top notch documentation. Try perusing it.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I won't deny that not have a FreeBSD user around to help answer questions can be very agrivating. I happened to be enlightened by a co-worker to the finner unix points of FreeBSD. I moved from RH6.2 -2.2.19 to FreeBSD 4.3-Release. I have since removed Windows completely from my computer except for a VMWare window of 98. (Windows was meant to run in a Window(TM)). Besides, with the improved jail capabilities of FreeBSD we have all but moved our entire unix OS's to 1(one) box. It actually runs about 7 virtual OS's, namely dns, imap, dynamic-www, smtp, database, information processing. The ideas that sold me on FreeBSD over Linux were, ports/packages, 1 distribution, stablility.
/stand/sysinstall. Once the OS is installed just browse for the package of your choice. The package is a snapshot of the current packages at the time of release. You can even change the settings in sysinstall to fetch older packages, if you want. The ports are great because you can search through a selection of software that you can be sure will work in freebsd. FreeBSD works on it's Linux compatibility, not getting people to code on FreeBSD unless they develop exclusively on FreeBSD. If you can run it on Linux, changes are it will be available on FreeBSD in a little time. BTW, the ports directory/tree is created every day at 9AM EST. New changes everyday.
Starting with 1 distribution, the OS has benefits out of the box. All kernel code is under peer-review. One person can't just say I want this to be this way. Any major additions are under peer scrutiny. Also the members of the core development team only got there because they have been and were submitters to FreeBSD for a long time. With have 1 distribution all the channels of the distribution talk to on another. You don't see Suse talking with RedHat. I didn't think so.
The stability issue is tied into the 1 distribution also. I feel sorry for Linus. He make a great kernel, but he can't do squat to make the surrounding distribution work if it breaks. The distro is only as good the surrounding subsystems. In my opinion FreeBSD leaves newer features in the CURRENT tree structure a little longer than Linux. Thus when a release version is created the release versions tend to have less problems.
Finally the ports and packages. It took me a few months to fully understand ports versus packages. I actually install the bash-2.05 package on any new installation so I can use the shell from the start. The packages can be accessed from
"You must unlearned what you have learned!" - Yoda
What I am I once was. What I now become I long to be. Life is a journey not a destination.
Without seeing the error logs, I cannot comment on your problem. I found FreeBSDhelp on Efnet to be quite useful.
The kernel wouldn't boot. And the instructions in the FBSD handbook on how to recover from a bad kernel didn't work, because the sendmail daemon kept locking up whenever I tried to run the original generic kernel.
You couldn't boot into single-user mode?
I love freebsd, but I'm putting it on hiatus until 5.0 comes out. It's not a good choice for a laptop workstation, that's for sure, unless you have the blandest of vanilla laptops. I demand cardbus. :-)
One thing not many people have mentioned is how clean and simple the base installation is (after you've installed it). Core system with X windows, add what you need afterwards. This is a clean methodology, it allows a newbie UNIX user to find out exactly what the system *is*. if they went for a default linux install, however, they'll end up with 500+ packages to deal with. I have problems telling what is a 'system' package and what is an 'add-on' package on my linux laptop. If it wasn't for up2date or ximian's red carpet, a user would be screwed, security-wise.
mike
Ok, then tell me how I can use my PCI Modem with FreeBSD (no, it is not a winmodem). I've never been able to get it work work under BSD, and I haven't found any clear instructions on how to get it to work.
The middle mind speaks!
Funny I couldn't find much documentation beyond the FBSD handbook. Yes there are several email lists and Usenet groups - but when you're looking for an answer to what should be pretty simple problems, it should be pretty easy to find - after all, it's been asked thousands of times in the years since FBSD was started, right?
So why is it that literally hundreds of searches on Google, manual sifting through Usenet, and searching through freebsd.org's mail archives don't turn up answers?
<Sigh>... Sadly, your experiences are all too common. Particularly the impatience of the poster whom you responded to. In general, *bsd users are no more or less arrogant than *linux users. However, it's the outspoken minority that cause troubles.
I've said it before, but it bears repeating: the single most valuable resource you can get when installing/trying out a new OS is access to a friendly expert who doesn't mind you asking potentially dumb questions - and who'll let you repay them with a few beers or equivalent.
I, too, have struggled with the -questions archive, searching for answers. Eventually, I found them, either in the archives or in sections of the documentation. But it wasn't easy. Nowadays, I just drop a line to one of my mates who knows lots about FreeBSD, and make a note to thank them later in some tangible form.
If you've not got a similar friend, some of the IRC channels may help. FreeBSD-questions tends to be rather overwhelming, although there aren't too many arrogant answers there.
Personally, I find FreeBSD to be a useful OS and a rewarding learning experience. But I doubt I'll stop asking dumb questions of my friends any time soon. I hope you'll find some similar form of help, and not be discouraged by a few terse lines from a less patient person...
|>
Here be Dragons
The level-headed people are the ones who have traditionally been the "FreeBSD community." Over the last couple of years, a large amount of very vocal people, known as "zealots," have moved to FreeBSD from OSes such as Linux, and then they go around preaching FreeBSD in the same loud way they promoted Linux. Please consider where such users came from before judging everyone that uses FreeBSD. Thank you.
I install and run OpenBSD and FreeBSD (as well as Redhat Linux and Windows NT/2000) on servers all the time. But I'm like a one-legged man on a pogo stick when it comes to installing either as a workstation. OpenBSD apparently even makes me manually add the X package after the install. FreeBSD is a bit better, but the configuration is all very manual. To contrast, Redhat Linux correctly detects my mouse, video card and monitor and makes it somewhat hard to continue the install unless the settings actually work.
Out of my team of 10 developers, I doubt more than 3 other guys would be able to get FreeBSD running as an X workstation without someone to help them. And all of them, even me, would lose interest before getting it working. I can feel my interest waning right now. I'd rather play with OpenBSD's new pf than pretend it's 1996 and manually configure XFree86.
...and, like {Free,Net,Open}BSD, it's a volunteer project, not a commercial product. If somebody wants to compare the BSDs to a Linux distribution, Debian is probably the most appropriate one with which to compare them.
Usually this has to do with your network settings (yes, even if you aren't on a network).
/etc/hosts and make sure that 127.0.0.1 points to your host name as well as "localhost"
Check your
Hope this helps.
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca