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Date:      Sat, 13 Jun 1998 11:24:13 +0100
From:      Nik Clayton <nik@nothing-going-on.demon.co.uk>
To:        Tim Parkinson <tim.parkinson@ccr.ntu.ac.uk>, freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: What do people on the list use FreeBSD for?
Message-ID:  <19980613112413.17708@nothing-going-on.org>
In-Reply-To: <000b01bd95ea$68bf5f20$92194798@stimpy>; from Tim Parkinson on Fri, Jun 12, 1998 at 11:11:04AM %2B0100
References:  <000b01bd95ea$68bf5f20$92194798@stimpy>

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On Fri, Jun 12, 1998 at 11:11:04AM +0100, Tim Parkinson wrote:
> I'm curious as to what people are using their FreeBSD machines for.  

Back in 1994/1995 when I was at university, I started up a project at the 
student radio station. We hooked up a FreeBSD box containing a soundcard 
to the network, and started multicasting the station's output around the 
network.  People could 'tune in' with a client I wrote for SunOS. This
was version 2.0 of FreeBSD.

This was my first experience with FreeBSD -- I'd had a pretty good grounding
in the Unix user experience, but this was my first exposure to admin'ing
a box, and I had to hit the ground running.

As well as serving the audio streams around campus, the machine eventually
ended up being the station's web server, mail host, irc server, and sundry
other bits and pieces. I also acquired a couple of dumb terminals and 
hooked them up in to the two studio's so the DJs could pull up the station's
record library (also on there, and web enabled due to some Perl I put
together), read mail that arrived as they were broadcasting, and so on.

Then I left university and got my first job. FreeBSD came with me, and was
pressed into service as

  - My desktop workstation
  - Internet gateway
  - Company mail server
  - Mail -> fax server
  - Web site development host
  - NFS server/client
  - SAMBA server to Win95/NT machines
  - CAP server to the Macintosh machines
  - Firewall

and probably other bits and pieces.

It's not used as much at my current job because we're pretty much a Solaris
shop. I do use it as my desktop workstation though.

At home, my (single) FreeBSD machine provides my Internet connection. I
develop web sites for friends on it, play around with fun and interesting
technologies (linking web pages to a Postgres database with PHP is my
current challenge) and other general bits and pieces. There's a BT848
TV card in there so I can put music shows on in one corner of the screen,
and I plan on experimenting with Amancio's suggestions for how to set up
a FreeBSD box+modem+soundcard as an answerphone.

N

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