Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 23:52:55 -0400 (EDT) From: "Dennis S." <dws@gonif.com> To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Cc: jkh@freebsd.org Subject: kudos on network install Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.10005152313100.2650-100000@karma.wheres.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I've been a fan of FreeBSD since a fellow named Eugene Pisman introduced me to it several years ago. I chose it as my OS for many new workstations (overwriting Windows 95/98/2000) needed for work, and when I put my own co-located server up, I chose FreeBSD 2.2.8. One thing I love about FreeBSD is you just pop in the root/boot (or now, mfsroot/kernel) disks, choose network install and the next day I'd have a new UNIX server up, with basic sendmail and so forth already installed, and many other functions just a make install away in the ports directory. In fact, thinking back to the early days of Slackware, I liked FreeBSD a LOT more than Linux. My home machine runs Windows 98, and I just got another Intel machine at home, so instantly I decided to put a free UNIX OS on it. Unfortunately, I felt pressured to put Red Hat on it, because that's what everything is pushing nowadays and because my co-lo'd machine was FreeBSD already this would add some variation. For a long time there was no (anywhere near) easy installation of Linux. I remember well the days of Slackware disks - A1, A2, A3, A4...or the X's! X1, X2, what did it go up to, X24? X44? But now Red Hat has a network install disk, I don't know how long it's been around, not that long. They certainly don't even document it's existence that well. And of course it's an entirely seperate install disk from a "normal" install. If a network install for Red Hat was simple, why buy their CD-ROM's at $100 a pop? Well I put it in, and it didn't recognize my crappy NE2000 ethernet card, something even Windows 95 did. I have a small, cheap network at home, two machines, a small hub, and a 56K modem, so even this install was going to be a pain, I'd probably have to ftp the Red Hat distribution to my Windows 98, install an FTP server on it and ethernet it off that. But Red Hat would just not recognize my ethernet card. After some frustration, I decided to give FreeBSD a try. Well once again, FreeBSD's easy, especially network, install came to the rescue. I noticed I could install over a modem in the install! There's no way this will work I thought, but I'll give it a try. Well, lo and behold, after several tries the system started downloading as normal, albeit at my 5 Kilobytes/sec. I dozed off, woke up this morning, saw my modem connection hung up, turned the monitor on, it looked good, rebooted, and my system was fully installed. I'm amazed. Kudos to the people who worked so hard on the install programs, the ppp programs, all the related programs and on all of FreeBSD. I did a make install in the ports directory of bash, less, ssh and some of my other favorite programs and am now ssh'ing into my machines on the net and doing my business. Tonight I'm going to push my luck and install an X-Windows interface. Thanks, Dennis To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.4.05.10005152313100.2650-100000>