Linux Users Try FreeBSD 5, Windows

uninet writes "Most people know what GNU/Linux is, but fewer know about BSD and fewer still have actually used one of the major BSD variants (other than the highly customized Mac OS X). Ed Hurst, a writer and a long time GNU/Linux user, decided to give FreeBSD a try. Will Ed join the ranks of happy FreeBSD users? Find out at OfB.biz." And our own Roblimo, Windows-free for five years, has spent a week learning Windows XP.

Comments

Re:GNU/Linux

[Sir Haxalot]

What is this GNU/Linux you speak of?
The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system. (GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix"; it is pronounced "guh-NEW".) Variants of the GNU operating system, which use the kernel Linux, are now widely used; though these systems are often referred to as "Linux", they are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems.

Re:My own experience from No Windows to XP...

[molarmass192]

Well, GnomeMeeting works with Netmeeting quite nicely, StarOffice is just as good if not superior to Office, and Mozilla renders pages faster than IE. Things have changed a bit since November 2002. The one thing I will give you is that XP does have more extensive hardware support but that's easily overcome by doing a little homework before buying any periphs. I don't know about XP having a "superior experience" to Linux, it's all about what you do with your OS, but it's certainly a different experience.

Roblimo's Linux--Windows Experience...

[John_Booty]

The first thing that happened after I fired up Windows XP is that it virtually ordered me to download a series of patches. I did so, but it wasn't like a SuSE update where you see every patch available and can say "yes" or "no" to each one if you like. The Windows update process told me nothing except that it was happening, and that I needed to reboot when it was over. A Windows-using friend said, "Yes, that's the way it works, and if you don't do the updates your computer keeps annoying you, so you have to do them even if they take hours like they sometimes do."

I don't know what he's talking about. By default (a stock Windows XPPro install) Windows will download updates in the background, and let you know when they're ready to install. You then have the option of saying "yes, install them now", "no, install them later", or you can click a button (labeled "Details...", I think) to see exactly which updates have been downloaded, and choose precisely which ones you'd like to install. I don't often give a lot of love to Microsoft, but I actually like the way they've handled the Windows Update thing- it's automatic and painless by default but you can have fine-grained control (or disable it totally) if you like.

So I find his claims really false- it sounds like he missed the "Details..." button. It's possible that the pre-installed copy of XP on his laptop was configured by the OEM (Toshiba) to work differently than a "stock" WinXP install, but if he's gonna write an article (and presumably get paid for it) then it's really his duty to figure that out.

I don't know if that's the case, just saying it's possible. In my opinion, anybody who is going to review an OS should really be reviewing a stock install, not some pre-configured OEM install that might differ from the "standard" experience.

At any rate, I'm only a couple of paragraphs into his review, and already I can't take anything he says seriously because there's such a glaring error right off the bat. Nice job.

Re:Ports vs. Apt-get

[UnassumingLocalGuy]

Go install portupgrade (/usr/ports/sysutils/portupgrade). Then, cvsup your ports tree, and run "portsdb -Uu". (You need to do this after every time you cvsup the ports tree.) After that, installing ports is as easy as typing in "portinstall foo". You say you like packages? Add the -P switch, as in "portinstall -P foo" to look for a package, and install from source if that fails, or "portinstall -PP foo" to install exclusively from a package.