From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jun 7 6:22: 4 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mail.the-i-pa.com (mail.the-i-pa.com [151.201.71.132]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 551DC37B408 for ; Thu, 7 Jun 2001 06:22:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wmoran@iowna.com) Received: (qmail 3715 invoked from network); 7 Jun 2001 13:30:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO iowna.com) (151.201.71.193) by mail.the-i-pa.com with SMTP; 7 Jun 2001 13:30:23 -0000 Message-ID: <3B1F7F79.4932AEDA@iowna.com> Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 09:19:53 -0400 From: Bill Moran X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (X11; U; FreeBSD 4.2-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: PaxJanet@gateway.net Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD choices References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG PaxJanet@gateway.net wrote: > > Hello, I hope that I've sent this to the right place. I have done some > reading on two versions of FreeBSD-- "FreeBSD Desktop 4.1" $99.95 |and| > "FreeBSD Powerpack4.2" $49.95. I am currently using WinME and would like to > move onto FreeBSD. My question is, can I use "FreeBSD Powerpack4.2" as a > replacement for WinME or will I have to use FreeBSD Desktop4.1. Depending on what you mean by "replacement" you may be on the wrong route. FreeBSD can not "replace" any version of Windows, because it can't run Windows software. Especially if you use your computer to play games that are written for Windows. However, FreeBSD is a MUCH more powerful system than Windows, there are over 5000 free software packages available for FreeBSD. If you want to do web browsing, email, and word-processing (which is what people generally need a computer for) FreeBSD will work much better than WinME. (since FreeBSD can't run windows programs, viruses written for Windows don't affect it, for example) If you have any programs written specifically for Windows that you need to run, stick with WinME. The best option is to install both WinME and FreeBSD on the same computer. I recommend this if you've never used FreeBSD before. Either product includes _The Complete FreeBSD_, which will explain the installation. Make sure you get a product that has FreeBSD version 4.3, which is the latest release. If your local store doesn't have it, order from http://www.freebsdmall.com If you have problems when you get started, this list is the place to ask. -Bill To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message