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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mel.aone.net.au!grumpy.fl.net.au!news.webspan.net!ix.netcom.com!newsfeeds.sol.net!newspump.sol.net!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!not-for-mail From: tundra@MCS.COM (Tim Daneliuk) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Trying to decide Date: 1 Jan 1997 03:20:57 -0600 Organization: TundraWare Lines: 44 Message-ID: <5ada9p$gfb@Mercury.mcs.net> References: <32bd870f.1033785@news.senet.com.au> Reply-To: tundra@tundraware.com NNTP-Posting-Host: mercury.mcs.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:33415 In article <32bd870f.1033785@news.senet.com.au>, <ann@senet.com.au> wrote: >After reading a couple of hundred messages and reading the FreeBSD handbook >(which was not straight ASCII by the way) I have some questions before I run >out and buy FreeBSD on CDROM. There is no way I'm downloading the whole 2.1.6 >release. > >Is FreeBSD a good introduction to the world of free Unix-like PC operating >systems? > Yes. I have installed and run almost every PC version of Unix except Linux at one point or another and FreeBSD is hands down the best game in town - I have no comment on Linux, obviously. It is small, reliable, very well supported. Also, unlike Linux (this I have read), FreeBSD has a rational release program, just like a commercial package would have. IMHO, FreeBSD is easily the equal of almost all commercial OS on the market today, and better than most. >There seems to be different views on whether FreeBSD's handling of MSDos file >systems is safe. (I got this impression from reading messages in FreeBSD groups) > >At this stage I would be looking at sharing a hard drive with FreeBSD and Dos, >and I'd like to set up a logical Dos partition that both OSs can access. > When I used to do this ages ago it worked just fine. I dunno if the current release can read the bastardized long filenames generated by Win95 though. >Don't ask me why I want to setup FreeBSD because I don't know myself. I have a >friend who is always talking about Linux and I'd like to annoy him by using >something different. > Linux by reputation is a fine system. I have met its author, Linus Torvalds, and he certainly appears to know what he is doing. The most common complaint I've seen viz Linux is that it has the "release of the day" syndrome. That is, it does not have a stable release roadmap. Linux is also probably more popular. The reason I never switched to Linux was that I *hate* System V type Unix and love BSD derivatives. This is purely a matter of taste. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tim Daneliuk / tundra@tundraware.com Voicemail/FAX 847.827.1706