From owner-freebsd-questions Mon May 28 7:59:32 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-26-235-186.mmcable.com [65.26.235.186]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 74B9237B422 for ; Mon, 28 May 2001 07:59:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mwm@mired.org) Received: (qmail 81002 invoked by uid 100); 28 May 2001 14:59:28 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15122.26576.889029.138962@guru.mired.org> Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 09:59:28 -0500 To: "Michael Ellis" Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD and other questions. In-Reply-To: <72482411@toto.iv> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ 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 Michael Ellis types: > I am starting to support storage equipment attached to various Unix > systems (i.e. Solaris, IRIX, HP-UA and AIX) and want/need to learn the > Unix operating system(s) using Intel/AMD systems. Any suggestions? > FreeBSD vs. Linux vs. Solaris? Value for the time and cost investment, > is as almost always, the most important consideration. Installing Solaris on Intel is a *very* trying experience. I wouldn't recommend doing that until you're already familiar with one of the other systems. Also, don't do it on a system that might boot Linux; Linux thinks Solaris data partitions are swap partitions, and uses them accordingly. If you're just interested in learning to use unix-like systems, FreeBSD is as good any of them. Personally, I find it easier to install than the others. That's because it's the easiest to install the way I want, whereas Linux distributions tend to only be easy to install the way the creators of the distribution want it installed. I also think that having a complete system from one source that includes most of the applications you want makes life a lot simpler than having one kernel, dozens of distributions, and even more application distributions. > If I purchased (BSDi) BSD Power Pack 4.2, is it easy to upgrade to > release 4.3? Yes. You might also look for the commercial release of 4.3. > Am I better off downloading version 4.3 from FreeBSD.org without the > application cd's? If you have good network connectivity, the application CD's generally don't matter. If you don't, they are a godsend. Having a "rescue CD" is also nice. I'm still waiting for someone to write up a handbook entry on how to create one of those, or to show me how so I can write it up. > Is there a simply way to upgrade the v4.2 release to v4.3 using the 4.3 > downloadable cd image? Yes. If you just boot it, it offers you an upgrade option. > Is it likely all the applications included with 4.2 compatible with 4.3? No. The base system gets bigger, and the mix tends to change with each release. > One more thing: any recommended books or publications for a newbie to > Unix? Depends on what you're trying to do. Chip already suggested some FreeBSD books. I've heard good things about "Unix for people", but can't recommend anything firsthand. > Thank you for any suggestions! I like to learn from other people's > experiences, saves TIME. One last thing: you're more likely to get a response in this forum if you configure your UMA to just send plain ascii, and not to send HTML - especially if you also include the ascii! http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message