Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 23:14:29 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net> To: katz@robotics.Stanford.EDU (Edward P. Katz) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Newbie 3 questions. Message-ID: <199806080414.XAA01195@dyson.iquest.net> In-Reply-To: <199806080349.UAA29145@grebe.Stanford.EDU> from "Edward P. Katz" at "Jun 7, 98 08:49:11 pm"
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> Hello, > > I'm considering plunging into FreeBSD rather than LINUX and would like > to ask 3 questions: > > 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)? > If the Xserver supports it... Otherwise, I don't know... > > 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? > FreeBSD's niche is server applications, but as a workstation, it is also really good from an OS standpoint. FreeBSD can usually run popular commercial Linux apps, even out-performing Linux at times. FreeBSD has a massive "ports" collection, consisting of ported applications. Current count is >1500 applications pre-ported. The biggest minus (performance wise) that you'll likely notice about FreeBSD is that we have more synchronous metadata update policy on our filesystems. This can have a performance impact for massive filesystem manipulations. FreeBSD consiously chooses the conservative policy though. John To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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