Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 23:53:14 +0100 From: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> To: <questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Tiny starter configuration for FreeBSD Message-ID: <006801c160cc$7fc36030$0a00000a@contactdish> References: <1DA741CA6767A144BAA4F10012536C27A8E3@LKLDDC01.GARGANTUAN.COM>
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Michael writes: > I have a suggestion for you, though! If you are > just contemplating your first BSD/UNIX system, why > not get an evaluation copy of VMWARE and run > FreeBSD within a VM on your WINNT system? The Windows NT system is a mission-critical production system for me, so I don't want to do anything to it that might destabilize it, and that includes installing or changing anything that isn't absolutely mandatory. I'd rather get a completely separate machine, with no connection to Windows or my production machine at all, and install a pristine copy of FreeBSD on that. The only link between the two will be via the Ethernet hub (or rather switch) that I bought today. With 100 Mbps cards in both machines, it should be easy to transfer files quickly from one to the other, I should think. To simplify things, I plan to just use something like FTP. I'm not going to try to make either machine "aware" of the other in the usual file-sharing sense (that would require undoing a lot of security tweaks I made to Windows NT, anyway). > That is what I did from the start, and you have > the advantage of being at the console of both your > Windoze and BSD system without getting out of > the chair. I plan to put the machines more or less on either side of me at my desk, so I should be able to access either of them by just turning slightly in my chair. > If you find that you really like it, then get > dedicated hardware for it, or retire your current > Windoze hardware for use with FreeBSD and get the new > hardware for WINNT/2k/XP (God knows that they need it...). I already like FreeBSD, as I run my Web site on it. But the Web site is on rented server space, and I want to have a system of mine own that I can fool with freely, and that presents no risk to production (even if I had unrestricted access to the one running my Web site, I obviously couldn't afford to play around with it, since it is handling all my site traffic and e-mail). As for retiring Windows, that isn't likely to be an option for the foreseeable future. While UNIX is undeniably useful in server environments and other utility domains, it can't hold a candle to Windows on the desktop. And of the hundred or so applications that I use regularly on Windows, the great majority do not exist on any other platform, so Windows is the only option. Actually, Windows NT is an extremely stable and well designed OS, so it's not too bad. (I'd never risk my production on any of the inferior Windows systems, like 95, 98, ME, etc.) But with Microsoft bringing out a completely new OS each year, I'm just tired of being expected to chuck everything and upgrade every few months. A FreeBSD system could easily run for a decade with no changes at all. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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