*BSD News Article 44880


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From: tim@maths.tcd.ie (Timothy Murphy)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Slight flame from Linux user
Date: 3 Jun 1995 23:49:15 +0100
Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <3qqotb$sla@hamilton.maths.tcd.ie>
References: <3ql3gd$je2@bell.maths.tcd.ie> <D9K4Iz.BJM@midway.uchicago.edu> <3qo2af$nqo@bell.maths.tcd.ie> <3qq5i8$2jj@anshar.shadow.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: hamilton.maths.tcd.ie

dwhite@anshar.shadow.net (Don Whiteside) writes:

>: >People who aren't ready to get their hands dirty shouldn't
>: >be installing or administering Unix.

>: Fortunately, your patronising attitude does not seem typical
>: of FreeBSD people;

>  I don't think such a comment is patronizing at all - it's at least 
>unrealistic and at worst outright foolish to expect installation of an OS 
>as complicated as Unix with as varied a device support list as FreeBSD to 
>be a full walk in the park. 

I guess your attitude, and that of the original poster,
encapsulate for me why 10 times as many people run Linux as FreeBSD.

There is no reason at all why installing Unix should be particularly difficult.
It's not meant to be an obstacle race.
You sound to me like one of those people
who thinks if they make something sound complicated enough
everyone will think they must be terribly clever.

The Linux Installation Guide makes starting and running Linux a pleasure.
I didn't find it any more difficult than installing Windows.

Does FreeBSD support a larger number of "devices" than Linux ?
It didn't seem to support my Pentium/PCI chipset (SiS)
until the latest version, 2.0.5 .

I'm all in favour of healthy rivalry between Free Unixes.
That is why I hope FreeBSD will put together some decent documentation.

I'd love to run both Linux and FreeBSD on my PC.
I can't see why they shouldn't share the same file-system --
but I guess I'll have to look to Linux for that.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: tim@maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland