[GLLUG] BSD Distro First-Try Recommendations

[Matt Graham]

On Wednesday 07 July 2004 13:50, after a long battle with technology, 
Adam McDougall wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 07, 2004 at 01:01:47PM -0500, Clay Dowling wrote:
> Brian Hoort wrote:
>>Being frustrated with some GNU/Linux distros, I'm considering
>> trying a BSD varient.
> I'll also chime in for FreeBSD here.  The only part that is really 
> stinky is trying to upgrade a major X windows system line Gnome or 
> KDE. Wiping out all X and starting fresh is the only practical way, 
> unless you want to dedicate a week to playing/fighting with it. I've 
> never met an operating system or distribution where upgrading the 
> windowing system was easy

??  "emerge xfree kde" has worked for me without any hassles through 
several minor releases of X 4.3.0 and KDE 3.0 through 3.2.2.  Gentoo's 
install can be intimidating if you're not used to command lines, but 
maintenance and upgrading are insanely easy.  (And unlike Debian, you 
can just do "emerge mplayer" instead of going through contortions.)

> I generally agree with that too, but often any FreeBSD code you can
> get your hands on is usable to some degree even if they claim
> it isn't done.

Also, remember that the default BSD toolset is pretty feature-poor 
compared to the GNU toolset.  You'll have to install the GNU tools 
separately if you want things like bash instead of sh and vim instead 
of vi.  That isn't a huge pain, but it's one more step to take.

-- 
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infinite bullet supplies.  Instead, they have Hong Kong Pants(tm) which
hold an infinite supply of loaded pistols.  --M. Sphar, the Monastery
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see