Original post by Tebriel Free/Open/NetBSD or any other alternatives? (Other than Linux...) (Already tried Mandrake but I use Solaris at work so I'd like to get closer to that if I can.)
What's the primary differences between the three BSDs?
Main usage will be as a "desktop" machine running X... I'd also like to try using a version of WINE to see if I can get a game or two running.
Also, how can I make sure that I don't screw up my boot sector and such when I install (whatever) if I want to dual boot to XP Home as well? Would not be good to end up with an unbootable Windows or unbootable system! :p
I'm pretty sure I have a few gigs worth of partitions (EXT2 I believe) so that's not the worry, just the dual booting stuff. Do any UNIXes have a problem dual booting with XP Home?
Sun makes their Solaris OS freely avaliable for personl, non-commercial, and educational use under their Free Solaris[sm] Binary License Program. You can find the information here.
Original post by Tebriel Free/Open/NetBSD or any other alternatives? (Other than Linux...) (Already tried Mandrake but I use Solaris at work so I'd like to get closer to that if I can.)
What's the primary differences between the three BSDs?
Main usage will be as a "desktop" machine running X... I'd also like to try using a version of WINE to see if I can get a game or two running.
Also, how can I make sure that I don't screw up my boot sector and such when I install (whatever) if I want to dual boot to XP Home as well? Would not be good to end up with an unbootable Windows or unbootable system! :p
I'm pretty sure I have a few gigs worth of partitions (EXT2 I believe) so that's not the worry, just the dual booting stuff. Do any UNIXes have a problem dual booting with XP Home?
Sun makes their Solaris OS freely avaliable for personl, non-commercial, and educational use under their Free Solaris[sm] Binary License Program. You can find the information here.
Hope this helps.
Yeah but if he's worried about messing up his boot sector he doesn't stand a chance installing solaris for x86. I've installed tons of linux distros successfully since redhat 5 and solaris by far gave me the biggest headaches! It's very picky about hardware. Of the 7 machines I tried to install it on I only got it to succeed on 1.
[size="2"]Don't talk about writing games, don't write design docs, don't spend your time on web boards. Sit in your house write 20 games when you complete them you will either want to do it the rest of your life or not * Andre Lamothe
- The trade-off between price and quality does not exist in Japan. Rather, the idea that high quality brings on cost reduction is widely accepted.-- Tajima & Matsubara
Well, I've installed FreeBSD. It's probably installed fine except for (what a surprise) the bootloader.
When I first restarted I had an odd-looking bootloader (FreeBSD bootloader?) and two choices. First one was some kind of mini-Dell DOS partition or something, the second one was my Windows partition on the main drive.
BSD is installed on the -second- drive. Now, I was pretty sure I replaced the bootloader on the first drive with BSD's bootloader, but maybe I forgot something else. I tried rebooting by BSD's CD to fix it, but now I'm just booting straight to Windows without even getting a strange bootloader. lol
So now I've gotta figure out how the heck I get proper boot sectors set on on these drives. It's been so long since I've messed with them I've forgotten it all. :/
This is the first free UNIX-like operating system I ever ran. I love it. I still run it on my main machine, my NAT router, and on my HP ZD7000 notebook.
Why? I'm going to go FreeBSD evangelist here, so don't flame - he asked for it! :D
1. Performance. FreeBSD is designed for performance. NetBSD was designed for portability, and OpenBSD was designed for security. Unless you need to run ONE OS on MANY machines all with different architectures, I would not recommend NetBSD. I've written drivers for NetBSD, and comparing my experience in NetBSD to FreeBSD, I still like FreeBSD more. NetBSD kernel hacking and driver development was A LOT of fun though! If I had to set up a machine protecting a corporate network, I would use OpenBSD or FreeBSD. FreeBSD has inherited a ton of security features from OpenBSD though - and FreeBSD is very secure! How can you beat a secure, stable, mature, fast operating system?
2. Execllent package system. FreeBSD's package system is called "Ports". "Ports" is an extensive and comprehensive package system that has nearly always had what I was looking for. I usually do not have trouble with things from Ports compiling. I do however, recommend that if you are going to set up a secure HTTP server, or other applications like that which require attention to detail and security, compile it from the very latest *stable* source from the product's website. As for the comprehensiveness of FreeBSD's Ports system, I will quote from the Ports searchpage (www.freebsd.org/ports): "There are currently 10796 ports in the FreeBSD Ports Collection." If you have used Gentoo Linux, the FreeBSD ports system will not be entirely foreign to you. The Gentoo Ebuilds "Portage" system concept was borrowed from FreeBSD and improved some.
3. Good Linux binary compatibility. I run the Linux version of UT2004 out of the box on my FreeBSD machine. It is quite stable. I play online n-weekly, and have for a couple months.
4. The FreeBSD Handbook. It is a still-active *incredible* resource. If you run into something that you need to do with FreeBSD, it is probably discussed in the FreeBSD handbook. Take a look. www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html
5. Great hardware support. FreeBSD 5.2.1 even supports SATA now. I have rarely had trouble getting hardware to work with FreeBSD. I have only had trouble with my notebook's PCMCIA/CardBus - FreeBSD's support for ACPI, cardbus, and other notebook things is not so great! Still, I run it on my HP ZD7000, and I am very pleased with it.
6. When (if I have the time to!) I release a game, it will be for Linux AND FreeBSD. FreeBSD has been in the server market for a long time, and it isn't backing down any time soon.
7. I have had no trouble getting FreeBSD to install cooperating with the XP bootloader. My systems are usually UNIX-only however. I would advise using GRUB, which can be installed with FreeBSD.
Ask people why the love FreeBSD. I even know die-hard GPL Linux gusy who can not deny that - even though they hate FreeBSD for political reasons, they still like it very much as an operating system.
One hint, if you're on xp, if you end up trashing your mbr, make sure you repair with the windows xp cd that came with that system. Cds that have service pack 1 require repair differently than those that don't have it. I learned the hard way about that :(
My laptop is an old Dell and had XP installed when it first came out, and my Dell Desktop had Xp installed with SP1. I tried using the laptop's cd to repair my desktop's mbr - no go. Anyhow, if you can't find the correct one for your system (I know it took some hunting on my part to find my other cd), I believe you can also download the repair utility from Microsoft.
edit: Incidentally, the laptop Cd was an update from dell (the laptop originally had win 98), and the desktop system had Xp pre-installed. Both cds work fine for repairing master boot records for their respective systems. I've had lots of fun intalling linux systems, and have trashed my mbr a few times and have never had problems repairing them (though, I admit I sweat it out each time until I see the system boot fine after repair).
Original post by Xori Absolutely positively: FreeBSD!
This is the first free UNIX-like operating system I ever ran. I love it. I still run it on my main machine, my NAT router, and on my HP ZD7000 notebook.
Why? I'm going to go FreeBSD evangelist here, so don't flame - he asked for it! :D
1. Performance. FreeBSD is designed for performance. NetBSD was designed for portability, and OpenBSD was designed for security. Unless you need to run ONE OS on MANY machines all with different architectures, I would not recommend NetBSD. I've written drivers for NetBSD, and comparing my experience in NetBSD to FreeBSD, I still like FreeBSD more. NetBSD kernel hacking and driver development was A LOT of fun though! If I had to set up a machine protecting a corporate network, I would use OpenBSD or FreeBSD. FreeBSD has inherited a ton of security features from OpenBSD though - and FreeBSD is very secure! How can you beat a secure, stable, mature, fast operating system?
2. Execllent package system. FreeBSD's package system is called "Ports". "Ports" is an extensive and comprehensive package system that has nearly always had what I was looking for. I usually do not have trouble with things from Ports compiling. I do however, recommend that if you are going to set up a secure HTTP server, or other applications like that which require attention to detail and security, compile it from the very latest *stable* source from the product's website. As for the comprehensiveness of FreeBSD's Ports system, I will quote from the Ports searchpage (www.freebsd.org/ports): "There are currently 10796 ports in the FreeBSD Ports Collection." If you have used Gentoo Linux, the FreeBSD ports system will not be entirely foreign to you. The Gentoo Ebuilds "Portage" system concept was borrowed from FreeBSD and improved some.
3. Good Linux binary compatibility. I run the Linux version of UT2004 out of the box on my FreeBSD machine. It is quite stable. I play online n-weekly, and have for a couple months.
4. The FreeBSD Handbook. It is a still-active *incredible* resource. If you run into something that you need to do with FreeBSD, it is probably discussed in the FreeBSD handbook. Take a look. www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/index.html
5. Great hardware support. FreeBSD 5.2.1 even supports SATA now. I have rarely had trouble getting hardware to work with FreeBSD. I have only had trouble with my notebook's PCMCIA/CardBus - FreeBSD's support for ACPI, cardbus, and other notebook things is not so great! Still, I run it on my HP ZD7000, and I am very pleased with it.
6. When (if I have the time to!) I release a game, it will be for Linux AND FreeBSD. FreeBSD has been in the server market for a long time, and it isn't backing down any time soon.
7. I have had no trouble getting FreeBSD to install cooperating with the XP bootloader. My systems are usually UNIX-only however. I would advise using GRUB, which can be installed with FreeBSD.
Ask people why the love FreeBSD. I even know die-hard GPL Linux gusy who can not deny that - even though they hate FreeBSD for political reasons, they still like it very much as an operating system.
Good luck!
Does MACOSX count?
[size="2"]Don't talk about writing games, don't write design docs, don't spend your time on web boards. Sit in your house write 20 games when you complete them you will either want to do it the rest of your life or not * Andre Lamothe
Hah! Well you'll be pleased to hear I've installed FreeBSD, but I'm having bootloader issues with it. (There's another thread on this forum about that.) Thanks for the help everyone btw.
