From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Jun 7 21:09:44 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA24464 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Sun, 7 Jun 1998 21:09:44 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from echonyc.com (echonyc.com [198.67.15.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA24435 for ; Sun, 7 Jun 1998 21:09:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from benedict@echonyc.com) Received: from localhost (benedict@localhost) by echonyc.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id AAA25774; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 00:09:28 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 00:09:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Snob Art Genre Reply-To: ben@rosengart.com To: "Edward P. Katz" cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Newbie 3 questions. In-Reply-To: <199806080349.UAA29145@grebe.Stanford.EDU> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sun, 7 Jun 1998, Edward P. Katz wrote: > Hello, > > I'm considering plunging into FreeBSD rather than LINUX and would like > to ask 3 questions: No problem, but for future reference, questions@freebsd.org is the place for this sort of thing. > 1. First, does FreeBSD X windows support multiple monitors > (e.g. 3 monitors and interface cards on one PC as in display:0.1, > display:0.2, display:0.3)? Yes. FreeBSD's X implementation is the same codebase as Linux's: XFree86. > 2. Can the COM1 serial port be configured as the console > (I.e. have no monitor, but use an ASCII terminal as the system > console)? Yes. > 3. Folklore has it that for server kinds of applications, that > FreeBSD is the way to go. But for an individual workstation > applications (e.g. X Windows, X Term, etc.) LINUX gets the > popular nod (at least from the sample space I've already tapped). > What is your response to this, and how does X Windows under > FreeBSD compare to X Windows under LINUX? There are more applications released for Linux; IMO, that is its chief advantage. However, FreeBSD can run most Linux programs under emulation, and many of them have FreeBSD-native or portable releases anyway. X itself is the same under FreeBSD as under Linux. The only exception would be if you had a window manager that runs under Linux but not FreeBSD; however, I don't know of any, and I do know of many popular window managers that run on both Linux and FreeBSD. Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems." To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message