[GLLUG] BSD Distro First-Try Recommendations

[Asenchi]

On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 10:59:20 -0400, Brian Hoort <hoortbri at msu.edu> wrote:
> Greetings Venerable GLLUG Members,
> 
> Being frustrated with some GNU/Linux distros, I'm considering trying a BSD
> varient.  I'm mainly concerned with stability and ease through updates.


This is tough for me.  It would be easy to recommend FreeBSD.  It is
probably the right BSD for you.  It is relatively simple to pick up,
and the FreeBSD Handbook is amazing.  But I must put in a
recommendation for OpenBSD (I notice at least one person has already
mentioned it). Here are a couple of reasons.  I prefer stability and
functionality (which in my head I mean 'ease through updates' as
well).  I started playing with FreeBSD first, before everything. 
Liked it, fast, easy to update (probably one of the easier in the
world).  Then I tried Linux, just to see, couldn't stomach it (just
look at the size difference of /etc on a Linux distro and a BSD
distro).  So I went back to FreeBSD.  Being the bleeding edge junky
that I am, I had to run -current (or at least 5.x release).  Well that
just wasn't a good experience, I am not sure where they were going
with it, but you'll notice the 5.x branch still isn't stable. 
Although I have heard recently that it is getting there.  So please
don't take that as a flame, I used it 2 years ago, just mentioning my
experience at the time.

So I tried OpenBSD, what an experience!  The installer is one of the
quickest, to the point installers ever (takes some reading to
understand fdisk at first, but after the first time it is a breeze). 
The system is absolutely rock solid, the security is unbelievable and
all of the tools you need are built right in.  All you have to do is
turn them on!  The man pages are spectacular and the FAQ (online) is a
great resource as well.  I will mention that the updating isn't quite
as 'point and click (metaphor)' as FreeBSD, but gets really simple
after the first time you do it.  Plus there are tons of documents on
how to do it.

If you really want to get to know your system, feel like experimenting
and love the feeling of a warm security blanket - give OpenBSD a try.

BTW, just to disagree, use zsh not bash and installing VIM is as easy
as `sudo pkg_add -v ftp.<fav mirror>/vim{version}.tgz`

If you would like more information you can find me here:
irc server: irc.freenode.net
channels: #fluxbox, #openbsd, #asenchi, #ruby-lang

I can give you more information on my experiences
Good luck.

-- 

      -Asenchi (Now a diehard OpenBSD advocate)