From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Nov 19 17:41:31 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mail.nbrewer.com (sparge.nbrewer.com [208.42.68.70]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A49137B418 for ; Mon, 19 Nov 2001 17:41:29 -0800 (PST) Received: by mail.nbrewer.com (Postfix, from userid 1001) id AC9884B7195; Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:41:24 -0600 (CST) Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:41:24 -0600 From: Christopher Farley To: Dennis Logan Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: home pc use Message-ID: <20011119194122.A92015@northernbrewer.com> Mail-Followup-To: Christopher Farley , Dennis Logan , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <3BF9B12B.3D521A4D@nycap.rr.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <3BF9B12B.3D521A4D@nycap.rr.com>; from delogan1@nycap.rr.com on Mon, Nov 19, 2001 at 08:26:03PM -0500 Organization: Northern Brewer, St. Paul, MN 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 Dennis Logan (delogan1@nycap.rr.com) wrote: > Hi, > Can i use this operating system instead of win98 on my pc? > dennis If you view your computer as an appliance, then probably not. If you enjoy learning about somewhat technical subjects, don't want to be completely abstracted from the computer, and are willing to spend a little bit more time (but absolutely no money) learning how to use and install free software, then operating systems like *BSD or Linux are completely feasable home/small office desktop solutions. Since most people use their computers for web browsing, writing/reading email, and word processing, I can say with certainty that a FreeBSD or Linux machine will compare quite favorably with a Win98/ME/NT/2000/XP machine once you get it properly configured. Here are the major 'killer apps' in a BSD/Linux environment: Web browser: Mozilla, Netscape, Opera or Konqueror Email client: many, many available Office suite: Star Office (even reads/writes Word .docs) You will undoubtedly find it a bit harder to install and configure a FreeBSD system than buying a computer that runs Windows out-of-the-box. But you will learn a lot more. -- Christopher Farley www.northernbrewer.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message