From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Jan 17 3:45:27 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mailb.telia.com (mailb.telia.com [194.22.194.6]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 08E4D1513A for ; Mon, 17 Jan 2000 03:45:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from james.wilde@telia.com) Received: from ents02 (t2o73p105.telia.com [62.20.218.225]) by mailb.telia.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id MAA25593; Mon, 17 Jan 2000 12:45:21 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <005d01bf60e0$71ab3650$8208a8c0@iqunlimited.net> From: "James A Wilde" To: , "Corey C. Foegen" References: Subject: Re: About free bsd Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 12:46:08 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG ----- Original Message ----- From: Corey C. Foegen To: Sent: Monday, January 17, 2000 04:41 Subject: About free bsd > We hope you would answer some questions we may have about Free BSD. It sounds like a great product and we would like some clarity. It is a great product. The more I learn about it the greater I think it is. > We are presently running Windows 98 as well as other MS product software. Being an operating system, would Free BSD replace Windows, supplement or otherwise be found as a replacement for the DOS. On the literal level, FreeBSD is a replacement for Windows and/or DOS, in that all three are operating systems. On FreeBSD, as in Windows and, to a certain extent, DOS, you can compose documents, you can use spreadsheets, you can make presentations, you can read and send e-mail and you can surf. But not with your Microsoft products like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and Internet Explorer. There may be Windows and DOS emulation in FreeBSD but why run an emulator on FreeBSD when you have a very good Windows 98 setup? However, on the practical level, for the 90% of the computer using public, who use Microsoft or Apple products and don't want to know what goes on under the hood, FreeBSD is not where they want to be, nor is any UNIX, not even Linux. And having now tried to frighten you completely, let me say that, if you would like some fun, give it a try on a spare machine, and see what you think. > Another question would be how greatly improved will security be from hackers (we were hit once before)? And if not,would you have any recommendations for security and fire wall? Neither the one nor the other is intrinsically safe in itself. They have to be made safe. I have the strong feeling here that Microsoft products are designed with functionality as of paramount importance and security in very much of a Cinderella role. And it is in this area that you could derive great benefit from FreeBSD, if you used it to protect your Microsoft environment, by using FreeBSD and firewall software on a machine between your Internet Service Provider and your internal network. > And the final question- if we decide to persue with Free BSD, could you tell us the price for the CDROM (we have a Creative Labs 8X CDROM drive) and to whom we can send a check as well as the time expected time frame for delivery? ca US$40 from http://www.cdrom.com but I don't know about delivery time. mvh/regards James To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message