Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 12:38:12 -0400 From: Philippe-Charles Krug-Basse <pckb@as2.com> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: What Linux for me? Message-ID: <353E1CF4.80D43950@as2.com>
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Hello FreeBSD folks, For the novice that I am in the Unix environment, it is very difficult to understand and to choose what Linux or Unix product to buy! So, here is my PC configuration and there are three questions: I have an IBM Aptiva S9C with the following configuration: - Pentium 200 MMX, - 64 Mb of RAM, 256 Kb of cache, - 2 hard drives (4.2 Gb (original IBM) + 7 Gb (Maxtor)), - 1 ATI 3D Rage II SVGA adapter, - 1 17'' monitor with integrated speakers and microphone, - 1 3.5 and 1 5.25 floppy disk drives, - 1 20X CD-ROM drive, - 1 HP SureStore CD-W drive, - 1 56K integrated voice-modem (Lucent LTWin Modem), - 1 serial port, - 1 parallel port, - 1 Happauge WinTV PCI adapter, - 1 Crystal PnP sound card. My two HD are partitioned as follows: Disk 0: - 1 partition of 4 Mb for the OS/2 Warp boot manager. - 1 primary partition (C: FAT) of 1Gb for Windows95. - 1 primary partition (C: again, FAT) of 1Gb for the Beta 3 of Windows98 plus the dual boot for NT 4. - 1 extended partition of 2Gb with: - 1 logical partition (E: FAT) of 250 Mb for the different swap files. - 1 logical partition (F: FAT) of 1 Gb for NT 4 Workstation. - 1 logical partition (G: FAT) of 750 Mb for OS/2 Warp 4. Disk 1: - 1 primary partition (D: FAT) of 1 Gb for different Windows programs - 1 extended partition of 6 Gb with: - 1 logical partition (H: FAT) of 1 Gb for different Windows programs. - 1 logical partition (I: FAT) of 1 Gb for different OS/2 programs. - 1 logical partition (J: FAT) of 1 Gb for different Windows NT programs. - 1 logical partition (K: FAT) of 1 Gb for different Java developments. - 1 logical partition (L: FAT) of 1 Gb FREE. - 1 logical partition (M: HPFS) of 500 Mb for different OS/2 programs. - 1 logical partition (N: NPFS) of 500 Mb for different Windows NT programs. 1) My first question is: Can I install Linux on this system and what may be the peripherals that will not work with this OS (Modem, Sound card, TV Adapter, etc.)? 2) My second question is: Can I install Linux without blowing up all what is already installed, and install Linux especially on the logical drive L: or plan b, should I resize the extended partition of the drive 1 in order to let the 1 Gb of the current logical L: disk totally free (i.e. unformatted) to install Linux on a brand new logical partition (I use Partition Magic to resize and manage my partitions)? 3) My third and last question is: What Linux product to choose and buy? I have a "pretty good" experience with all the OSes installed on my system (as well as with the old DOS and even the ancient CP/M), but I have never ever played with Linux (nor any flavor of Unix) and it is definitely time for me to learn this OS. So can you help me in the right choice, by telling me for example what is the difference between FreeBSD and Red Hat version 5 or with the Linux OS Professional Version (which includes Slackware, Red Hat, Debian, Sunsite and TSX11, (by the way, what are all these different distribution versions)) or even the Linux Slackware 3.4 or even the TurboLinux products that you may find as separate products via Walnut Creek CDROM? What do you think also honestly about Open Linux Standard from Caldera Vs. FreeBSD? What are the pros. and cons. for these two different products? And what about SunSoft X86 Vs. the different versions of Linux? Same thing: pros. and cons? To give you a little more information why I want to install Linux, may I tell you what are my goals? I want to use Linux to: a) Learn Unix, and b) Develop cross-platform applications as I already do between OS/2, NT and Windows9X, and c) Eventually find some good “office like” apps to not re-boot all the times to use my desktop’s usual applications, and d) More important, build and manage my own Web Server! For that last purpose (my own Web Server), may I tell you that I do not trust Windows NT 4 at all for that purpose whatever M$ can say about the reliability and security of NT, that as you know Windows 95 is nothing but a piece of junk, that as you may guess Windows 98 is just a new piece of shit, and that very unfortunately OS/2 Warp that I love very much as a real rock solid 32-bit multi-tasking, multi-threading OS with a real object oriented shell (the WPS) does not provide enough software (and this is going to be worse and worse because of the lack of drivers and of support for all the new hardware available such as Voice-Modems, DVD, TV and radio adapters, etc.). So, I hope that Unix-Linux OS will answer to my needs. Please help me as I need to buy the best product Unix or Linux available and that I do not have (yet) any clue on this OS. Thanks a lot for your concerns, and thanks in advance for your help and advice. Best regards. Philippe. AS2 LLC. Phone & Fax: (561) 586-5308. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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