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Category: BSD Help

*BSD in home computer

I just wanted get this correct. I've surfed through some discussions in this forum. For the looks of it, *BSD suits better as server OS, not as OS for home computers. Is this correct?

>> not as OS for home computers

If you are comparing M$ vs. FreeBSD, that might be true.
As for Linux vs. BSD (just FreeBSD, because Net/Open is not for beginners), then that's not so true, except hardware support, in which Linux is slightly better than BSDs.

FreeBSD as a desktop OS:
- You have the same kde, gnome and all the appz as Linux
- You can be on the bleeding edge and upgrade to say kde sooner and easier than Linux
A question might raise, I thought Linux gets rpm sooner?
rpm is a precompiled binary, that is to build it from source. That said, the source must first be released and built before you can make a rpm.
BSDs gives you the software install option whether it's precompiled binary (.tgz extension) or building from src. Hence, the src is released prior to RPM, thus FreeBSD gets new software sooner than Linux almost all the time
- In Linux, when something is not available in RPM binary, then the nightware will be arrived to Linux users when they have to compile something from source.
You might say, well I don't mind to do that occasionally.
But several problems may arise:
1) Compilation failure
2) Unreliable and inconsistency because Linux installs files ALL OVER THE PLACES
3) Compatibilty - when files and dirs are all over the places
4) Most Linux users either don't hack the RPM's source or don't know how to. This eventually makes all configure options hidden. When you don't know the configure options, you have to accept the defaults which you might not have a clue until your software is installed. Often, Linux users would ask: where is my httpd.conf file? whereis can't locate it? where is my foobar file?
In BSDs, there is a consistent location. Files won't end up in the wrong place and running whereis, locate, man almost always locate the proper binary or manpage automatically without the need of adding additional MANPATH.

TO BE CONTINUED...heading to bed :)

Pretty intresting post. I've actually notcied personally that Linux has a habbit of putting things all ove rthe place. When it comes to KDE, I don't care. I actually want to use command-line interface. Call me wierd.

I'm mainly intrested in BSD 'cause, from what I understand, it seems to be a very popular and good choice for servers. And that's what I want to learn. I'm intending to get myself a interface for only learning how to run a server and a good enviroment to develop web pages. I had the second one in my old job and I liked it a lot. I just don't want to be wasting time learning first the deepest secrets of Linux, just to finally understand that BSD would've been a more ligical choice.

freebsd: you post shared a lot of light there. I've been reading some of your old posts in the *BSD forum and something stuck my eye. It seems that there are certain, heavy risks in having a partition of Windows/FreeBSD? I ask this because I still don't wish to leave Windows completely. I still have a lot of things I like to do with it: like playing games ;)

Hiya.

If you want to keep MS I'd suggest buying a new harddrive for your *BSD to avoid having two different filesystems on the same disk. They are so cheap nowdays so there is no justafiable reason not to get another one.

And I agree with freebsd about Linux. You want to install something in Linux, you often need to search for 5-7 libs that you don't have, which means you have to hunt and install them aswell. In my opinion, it's a shame that Linux haven't adopted BSD's way of handling this, if they did I'm sure alot of people would be more satisfied with it... especially newcommers.
If you want to install something from the BSD ports tree, and something is needed to run the app that you don't allready have, it'll get for you. Very easy and smart solution.

I used a laptop a while back during an educational period with BSD on it to see if we (me and classmates) could write java code that would run in both windows and Unix.
I used OpenBSD at the time, but that was becous I had used that system before... I'm sure FreeBSD would be more suitable to fool around with. It was a while scince I installed a BSD now, but as I remember it, FreeBSD has an alot easyer interface when configuring partions aswell... That might have changed though, I don't know. Like I said, it was a while back now :)

/Fjodor

>> When it comes to KDE, I don't care

Neither do I care about all that, I use win98se for desktop environments anyway.

>> I just don't want to be wasting time learning first the deepest secrets of Linux

It's a waste of time to learn Linux in which you won't gain any real UNIX knowledge.

>> I ask this because I still don't wish to leave Windows completely

Like what Fjodor mentioned, hardware is no longer expensive nowadays. So why can't you build another box dedicated for FreeBSD? Of course, like I always said, there no longer is such thing as Free Lunch, if you need to play this toy, you need to buy it. If you can't afford to build a 2nd box, just don't do it and you are not qualify.

>> it's a shame that Linux haven't adopted BSD's way of handling this

Because Linux is playing catch-up to BSDs in software installation and in security category.

>> FreeBSD has an alot easyer interface when configuring partions aswell

Configuring partition is extremely easy. The partition scheme or decision to make for optimization though requires a little plan. I posted a reply to "rod k" message at partition advice (http://forums.devshed.com/showthread.php?threadid=25110&forumid=31).

Hello ...
I have found the above statements to be pretty darn accurate. I am sort of new to Unix, but did enough DOS back in the early 90's to be comfortable with the command line.

Anyway, I installed freeBSD 4.2 on its own hard drive (sharing box with 98se with XOSL boot manager). Got that part down to a science. Setting up the network with 2 other w2k machines was a breeze. The hosts and rc.conf files take care of it all. The hardware on the bsd box is pretty simple so there were no conflicts. My intention is to set it up to be a local web server so I can test sites, formail.pl, mivascript, PHP etc before deploying to hosts.

I have two quick questions.
1. Why can't I telnet into the bsd machine with my root user/passwd combo? I boot with it but am refused from the other 2 machines? So I created another user and chown from the /usr/local on up. That works, but is that the right way to go?

2. Apache binary 1.3.22 binary installed in no time. I aliased the start/stop code so it gets up and running with a few keystrokes.

On the otherhand, while mysql-3.23.45 installed easily, it has been a bugger to get it to run. The documentation is confusing. For instance, to get it to start with bootup, do I need to put my.cnf in the /etc folder and if I do should the mysql.server script be in the same folder with it? That combination does not appear to be making any difference.

When I start the safe_mysqld process, I lose control of the command line. That I assume is not supposed to happen. Is there any way to regain control of my shell (csh)?

I am not looking for easy answers, and I am willing to do the reading, but I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions. I can't wait to do the PHP install. It seems even more cryptic.

By comparison, the install of the big three: Apache/mySQL/PHP on windows 2000 has come along way and is now very easy and reliable.

Thanking whomever in advance
Peter

1) Don't login as root, use su instead. Don't use telnet, use ssh instead.
>> created another user and chown from the /usr/local on up

Don't even mess with permission in such way.

2) The startup script for mysql-server and mysql-client can be found in /usr/local/etc/rc.d/ dir. This dir will be searched on startup by default.

Anyway your FreeBSD box seems to be messed up and require a reinstall. Before you attempt to reinstall, read thru the handbook.