Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 16:45:40 -0500 (CDT) From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Daniel Schrock <dschrock@enteract.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org, fuzzybuffalo@mmcable.com Subject: Re: Non-biased FreeBSD vs. Linux comparision Message-ID: <14769.29956.459083.96405@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <87005372@toto.iv>
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To get this out of the way now (and justify posting to -questions): > On a semi-unrelated note, does anyone know of a FreeBSD app that would > boot me directly to an X-login? Look for the line in /etc/ttys with "xdm" in it, and change it from off to on. Personally, I don't run that way, so I haven't tried it. Daniel Schrock writes: > Nimrod Mesika wrote: > > On Wed, Aug 23, 2000 at 11:33:39AM +0930, Greg Lehey wrote: > > > On Tuesday, 22 August 2000 at 18:30:33 -0300, Christian Jacken wrote: > > > I like to think that http://www.daemonnews.org/200006/dadvocate.html > > > is relatively unbiased. > > Personally, I like the way the FreeBSD project is managed using a > > single CVS repository. The build-everything-from-source attitude is > > what really made the difference for me. That helps, yes indeed. I also like the ports system as compared to the RPM system. It's not at all clear I *can* compile all the rpms I find from source, due to differences in Linux distributions. > Personally, I think the best way to get a non-biased opinion is to run > both yourself and do your own comparison. Yup. That's the only way to compare it to *your* needs. > My gateway is FreeBSD-4.1 and my workstation is Mandrake-7.1. I also > have a Quake3 server running Mandrake 7.1 as well. > As a workstation, I prefer Linux. My soundcard was setup > automatically. Mandrake gave me every window manager by default and > X-Setup was hassle-free. And I actually like the X-Windows Login, no > need for straight command line unless I want to. Well, I installed Mandrake 7.1 on a test system (it currently has -current, Mandrake 7.1 and Win98SE on it, and I overwrote BeOS partition when I installed Linux). I wanted to check on Linux support for USB modems, as the one I have works fine on Windows (but I don't have source), isn't recognized by BeOS, and is flaky on FreeBSD. <RANT REASON=INEEDTO> The first thing I found was that the default install *insisted* on having two partitions. BSD's slice mechanism is *much* saner. I can use multiple partitions (in fact, I have one disk on my workstation that for legacy reasons has two BSD partitions), but if I only have one to spare, things still work. So I went with the "install it in a Windows file" option, and then went away to do other things. Well, it installed a GUI by default - which I didn't want. It installed a boot manager (never mind that I already had GRUB installed) and screwed up my boot sequence. It didn't install sources, and it wasn't at all clear where the documentation - if any - was installed. It very much reminded me of a well-known legacy desktop OS. To fix the boot sequence I copied an image of the Windows partition back. I then tried a second install, using expert mode. This worked better - it didn't insist on two partitions, but would run without swap. It still wanted to install GRUB, but let me tailor it. However, it didn't give me enough control to boot the FreeBSD partition - even though GRUB knows how to boot that. I did manage to install it without starting xdm (as an aside, I don't install the X server on the FreeBSD install; I just install the X clients). However, I could *not* convince the install process that I didn't want to configure the X server. I had to quit before it could complete. Gru knows what that broke. It did install sources - well, kernel source, anyway. Everything else seemed to be missing. It still wasn't clear where the documentation was. I then went through the process of configuring the thing. NFS mounts from my workstation, networking, and such like all went fine. No sshd, though :-(. That meant my standard access methods wouldn't work. Oh well. It also insisted on putting up the Mandrake/Linux logo on the top half of the login screen, which is a nasty thing to do to an innocent monitor. There were some other oddities, but they weren't bad enough to stick in my memory. The ls defaulted to an incredibly ugly color thing, which drove me crazy. Turning it off in my .profile wasn't enough - it had to be turned off in /etc/profile *as well*. Even that wasn't enough - it's also in /etc/rc.d/<blather>.sh, or some such. In order to make the system more colorful, they alias ls to the same thing *four times*. Bleah. On to the real work. Checking the sources, I find support for USB modems that support ACM - which is what FreeBSD supports. However, on boot, I get a long string of error messages from the modem, and no modem. So I dig up the ISBN from the box, and sign up for support. After registering, I send them a note saying "This USB modem isn't working, here are the boot error messages." Answer: "We don't support that modem." Ugh. Ok, they answered the question but didn't help with the problem. Another reminder... I ask how to tell which USB modems *are* supported. The reply that comes back tells me how to recognize WINmodems that work, and talks about internal cards! They didn't even answer the question this time! So I sent back a reply pointing out that this was *not* a winmodem; it wasn't even an internal modem. It was an *external* modem attached to a serial line on the computer. No response as yet. I've used Linux before - back before there were any commercial vendors for it. Getting X setup and working well was a major PITA. However, the results looked more like Unix than Mandrake did. The sources were there; the documentation was where I expected it to be. It was something I recommended to people with no qualms whatsoever, knowing that what they were getting was enough like a Unix system that I could help them with it. This, on the other hand, was something else. I know I'm a grey-bearded old curmudgeon, but I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending this to someone. My overall impression is that, in the rush to be as "friendly" as Windows, Mandrake has adopted the worst features of Windows. Mostly, that's configuring things the way *they* want them, without any regard for how someone else might want them. But it includes a support system that's absolutely useless except for the most trivial problems. If I don't get an answer from them on the "What USB modems are supported" soon, I'm going to reinstall BeOS over this stuff. </RANT> <mike To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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