# How you came to unix world!



## sk8harddiefast (Jul 5, 2010)

I want to learn how you decide to make the step to delete windows and install your first unix os


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## derekschrock (Jul 5, 2010)

Installing m68k/Linux on a Performa 640CD in 98.


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## oliverh (Jul 5, 2010)

First Siemens Sinix, then SGI Irix in the early 90s, at the same time early experiments with Slackware Linux at home and some NetBSD on a Amiga (68K with MMU and 68882 FPU)


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## chalbersma (Jul 5, 2010)

2006 My parent's couldn't afford to buy me a new computer so I had to use one that ran Win NT or XP (extremely slowly). So I started to look around for fixes. I needed to write papers for class really. Didn't and couldn't spend all day in the HS library.
Found Damn Small Linux from a book in the Lincoln Library. I really liked it and started using it regularly.
From there it was Slackware to and old version of FBSD (can't even remember what version I started with now). Then to slax. Got a new computer (new for me) moved to DSL. Tried Ubuntu and Fedora Core and kept moving around. Eventually settled on BSD freshman year of college 2008. Tried PC-BSD for a while but decided that I liked the control of FreeBSD and now I'm using it on an older desktop computer (But I'm finally getting a new as in new computer just ordered it .
Unix just clicked with me.


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## nestux (Jul 5, 2010)

One day I was working on my PC with Windows XP when I saw the famous Blue Screen Of Dead, at that time i had no idea what that was and I had to format my PC.

I lost my music, pictures, movies and manny other information and while the format run i thought: "Windows is the only SO in the world?...I hope no".

After format I spent 3 days searching on the Internet and I read about Linux, 2 weeks later I had Linux install and i love it since the first time ]=)


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## ckester (Jul 5, 2010)

As someone who taught himself to program in C back in the 80's, I've always felt that Unix was my native OS.  Nowadays it's been obscured by the prevalence of GUI apps and IDE's, but a C programmer moving back and forth between his code and the commandline never experienced an abrupt change in environment.  When you know C, a lot of things about Unix make more sense -- and vice versa.

My first Unix was Interactive 386/ix and I didn't delete Windows in order to install it.  Windows had never been on that machine!  I'd read the Dr Dobbs articles about the work the Jolitzes were doing to bring BSD to i386 machines, and briefly considered going with their stuff, but decided to stay with something more fully baked instead.  

Later on, my career -- including a stint at Microsoft -- forced me to use and program for Windows.  But that's behind me now, thank God.   I came back to Unix and BSD in particular by way of OS X, after toying around with a few Linux distros and finding all of them unsatisfactory.


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## respite (Jul 5, 2010)

The relentless frustration caused by the instability of windows 95.


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## fronclynne (Jul 7, 2010)

In addition to fiddling with zipslack on an old 80486, I was trying to get something to work on an old DEC Multia.  Technically, Windows NT4 should run on it, but I didn't have a disk handy and FreeBSD was free for the downloading.  Sadly it succumbed to the famous Multia Heat Death.


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## sk8harddiefast (Jul 7, 2010)

Well mine story is this:
I was a Windows user about a year. From the first time i loved computers and i wanted to learn everything about them.
I always was asking my friend (is a programmer) how to do things. For one day and after i start asking things that was impossible to be on windows because were from unix world.
So my friend tells me: You don't need Windows. You need Linux. E??? What is linux?
This have programs? Is anyone else using this?
He installed me Ubuntu. When i saw compiz my eyes were out of my head! Ouaou! This is better than Windows!!!!
For about a week i didn't sleep! I was 24 hours per day on my computer!
After this week i said. What is the most difficult distro? I really love this OS and i want to use this. Not Windows. Also i can do everything for here. I don't need windows!
A google search show me Gentoo. I say to my friend. I want to use Gentoo. He starts laughing.
But i was very sure that i want to do the step. This was the beginning. I start learning Linux from the hardcore side 
And i really liked it too much. My friend told me that he couldn't believe that i made it and suddenly stop laughing.
From this day i start install every unix i know to my desktops, laptops, virtual machines. I loved solaris and Freebsd but Freebsd was that i was looking for.
The first post in my life on this forum was if this Os has future because i don't want to use any other and i want to stay here.
You make me believe on this Os and here i am 
Now after half year i am still in love with freebsd and i don't want to change to other OS


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## Anonymous (Jul 7, 2010)

One day I want something new on my computer but I didn't want Windows and because I was IBM DOS user I installed OS/2. I think it was a 1993  when I installed Debian and I hade dual boot: OS/2, Debian. 
Now is just FreeBSD on my machine.


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## kpedersen (Jul 7, 2010)

I left Windows as soon as it introduced online activation making it into a toy operating system.

I left Linux after I realized that every single distro makes you completely reliant on their online package servers and as you know, making the whole IT infrastructure rely on a free community project's server is not ideal

I came to FreeBSD and found that with the Ports framework, it simply shows me the changes that I need to make to any 3rd party source code for it to compile. This IMO makes FreeBSD the *only* operating system that can be used offline.

Though I do find it funny... Download a single OpenOffice package for windows... it installs... Download a single OpenOffice package for Unix and you get thousands of errors saying that the package is lacking the actual software... I do know the reasons but it does make Unix particularly unsuited for running large applications e.g OpenOffice, VirtualBox etc...

*I tried Mac OS X for a few weeks but realized that as soon as a new Mac OS X comes out, Apple and the rest of the world completely stops supporting the previous version making it useless for anyone other than children.

*Arch linux is not a solution for "Ports on linux" because rather than compile all the required software, it instead downloads dependencies via its community web server and only compiles the originally single bit of software, not its dependencies recursively.


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## jumbotron (Jul 7, 2010)

well...dunno why do u like so much about an OS(in this case fbsd)that doesn't have flash and it is difficult to install-flash-! gnash is SO buggy,crappy,slow,heavy,lousy,blablabla...
:OOO


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## sk8harddiefast (Jul 7, 2010)

> well...dunno why do u like so much about an OS(in this case fbsd)that doesn't have flash and it is difficult to install-flash-! gnash is SO buggy,crappy,slow,heavy,lousy,blablabla...


Because this is not Freebsd's problem. Is Adobes's problem that don't release flash for BSD.
Also if you finally install flash you will have no problem because is responding just perfect to everything.
And bsd have ufs/zfs/dtrace/, is more secure, more stable, has not 1000000 distros, excellent community, don't like to be easy 0S with gui apps and easy setup, over 21000 packages on ports, no binary packages but source to compile, flags, compelete pure unix and a lot more.
If you don't like it, don't use it (don't take it personal). Everyone make his choices. But from my turn i will stay here


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## sossego (Jul 8, 2010)

Topic answer: The old astlavista site, searching for "portable OS", a blurb.

Basically, the BSDs are fun to use. Interactive learning.

It's been posted multiple times, someone from this community tried to get adobe to make a bsd compatible flash plugin.
The excuse? Basically, not enough people that use the system.
That's bobagem.


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## Crooksey (Jul 8, 2010)

Was using gentoo 2005, someone mentioned freeBSD 4.6 in irc and been using linux/freeBSD ever since. Laptops run Linux and my desktops run freeBSD/linux. Servers run free/openBSD and my cluster runs freeBSD.


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## nestux (Jul 8, 2010)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> ...Though I do find it funny... Download a single OpenOffice package for windows... it installs... Download a single OpenOffice package for Unix and you get thousands of errors saying that the package is lacking the actual software... I do know the reasons but it does make Unix particularly unsuited for running large applications e.g OpenOffice, VirtualBox etc...



Haha I'm totally agree with that ]=)


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## Anonymous (Jul 8, 2010)

jumbotron said:
			
		

> well...dunno why do u like so much about an OS(in this case fbsd)that doesn't have flash and it is difficult to install-flash-! gnash is SO buggy,crappy,slow,heavy,lousy,blablabla...
> :OOO



I ask myself the same. On Linux works much more applications better and faster (GNOME, KDE, OO..., flash...K3b...)


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## sk8harddiefast (Jul 8, 2010)

```
I ask myself the same. On Linux works much more applications better and faster (GNOME, KDE, OO..., flash...K3b...)
```
I don't belive that. Will work perfect if you know to setup everything correctly.
Well that needs a lot of time because there are a lot of things that we don't even know that they exist (including me)
It's a pure unix & open source. That means that you can configure & change everything as you want.
The point is to know to do it.


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## kpedersen (Jul 8, 2010)

In risk of this topic becoming an all out linux vs freebsd war...

we shall all agree that linux is an unusable mess, and move on


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## jumbotron (Jul 8, 2010)

i prefer penguin! i hate to death the million distros...(puke)

i like bsd cause just only 10 distros!(please stop it there-i mean NO MORE distros-)


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## sk8harddiefast (Jul 8, 2010)

jumbotron i am not attacking you 
Both of them have good and bad things.
As any OS. Just everyone choose that he thinks is the best solution for him.


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## Anonymous (Jul 8, 2010)

sk8harddiefast said:
			
		

> jumbotron i am not attacking you
> Both of them have good and bad things.
> As any OS. Just everyone choose that he thinks is the best solution for him.



It is the same question as is BMW better than Mercedes...for example.


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## ckester (Jul 9, 2010)

lumiwa said:
			
		

> It is the same question as is BMW better than Mercedes...for example.



Well, not to fan the dying embers of an incipient flamewar, but I think even the BMW vs Mercedes question is objectively answerable.  But first you have to specify: better for what?

FreeBSD is better than Linux for some purposes, and Linux is better for others.

Another meaning of the word "better" refers to aesthetics.  An operating system, like an automobile, can have a certain elegance and sleekness that make it a joy to behold.  But here again, you can't have a rational debate without first specifying the aesthetic criteria you're using.  If others don't agree on those criteria, there's really no point in arguing about whether A meets them better than B does.


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## rbelk (Jul 9, 2010)

ckester said:
			
		

> Well, not to fan the dying embers of an incipient flamewar, but I think even the BMW vs Mercedes question is objectively answerable.  But first you have to specify: better for what?
> 
> FreeBSD is better than Linux for some purposes, and Linux is better for others.
> 
> Another meaning of the word "better" refers to aesthetics.  An operating system, like an automobile, can have a certain elegance and sleekness that make it a joy to behold.  But here again, you can't have a rational debate without first specifying the aesthetic criteria you're using.  If others don't agree on those criteria, there's really no point in arguing about whether A meets them better than B does.



Ckester, I fully agree with you. I use FreeBSD because it fits my preferences.

Let me explain.
I use Windows on our families PC because of the games and applications that we like. Some of them require Windows. At work I have to use Windows because it is the required Campus OS and for the applications I have to use.

I use FreeBSD on our home's NAS and Server because it runs UNIX applications better than other OS's I have tried. For me Linux does not. I am not saying Linux is bad. I admin around 120 Linux/Solaris/AIX/SCO/HPUX/SGI servers where I work. They were picked because of either vendor preference or because the project required a certain OS.

Now before I get flamed please re-read what I said. It's either a user preference or a vendor/project requirement.

Admin, if this thread starts to be only a flame war, please disable posting.


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## jumbotron (Jul 9, 2010)

> Admin, if this thread starts to be only a flame war, please disable posting



i dunno think so! let them argue...


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## DutchDaemon (Jul 9, 2010)

Flame war threads, and threads that become repetitive are always terminated. Everybody knows that. Other than that, there is no reason for this thread to become a Windows vs Linux vs FreeBSD thread at all. So don't try.


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## ckester (Jul 9, 2010)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> *I tried Mac OS X for a few weeks but realized that as soon as a new Mac OS X comes out, Apple and the rest of the world completely stops supporting the previous version making it useless for anyone other than children.



Yeah, I got burned by that too.  I bought one of the first Mac Mini's because I wanted to see what they were able to do with Unix under the hood.  But now they've abandoned support for PowerPC CPU's and forced me to decide between buying an Intel Mac or switching to another OS altogether.  More and more software for the Apple is for Snow Leopard only and won't run on my old machine.   

So guess what, I've been buying little Intel Atom boards and putting FreeBSD on them.    Same small form-factor and low power requirements, but an OS that isn't going to leave me stranded after an "upgrade" designed to force me to replace everything and start over.  BSD's continuity is a major "selling point" as far as I'm concerned.

I'm about 3/4 done migrating all the stuff I had on that Mac over to FreeBSD.  Last week I finally got around to reformatting my iPod so it will work with gpodder and gtkpod  (and I've been meaning to explore some commandline alternatives to these).  I'd already moved my music library from iTunes over and have been using audio/mcplay and mpg123 with it.   The only big task remaining is migrating some stuff I have stored in DevonThink; most of it is PDF's or easily converted to PDF's, but there are a few .weblocs and other Mac-specific things I'll have to figure out how to convert.  I also need to decide what to do as far as indexing all this stuff.  I'm inclined to just use the filesystem to implicitly sort and "tag" it, but I'm open to other ideas...

The only Mac app I'll sincerely miss is OmniOutliner.  There simply isn't anything in the Unix free software world that compares.


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## Chuchubi (Jul 13, 2010)

My first contact with unix was installing an unix like OS on a Atari Falcon030. This OS was named MiNT and it was my first experience with Unix. After that I installed Redhat Linux 7.2 on a pc. Two months later I was experimenting with FreeBSD. I love Unix!!!!!


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## Anonymous (Jul 13, 2010)

ckester said:
			
		

> Yeah, I got burned by that too.  I bought one of the first Mac Mini's because I wanted to see what they were able to do with Unix under the hood.  But now they've abandoned support for PowerPC CPU's and forced me to decide between buying an Intel Mac or switching to another OS altogether.  More and more software for the Apple is for Snow Leopard only and won't run on my old machine.
> 
> S
> 
> The only Mac app I'll sincerely miss is OmniOutliner.  There simply isn't anything in the Unix free software world that compares.



I have iMac (24" monitor) at work and I love it. Everything works.


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## kpedersen (Jul 13, 2010)

ckester said:
			
		

> So guess what, I've been buying little Intel Atom boards and putting FreeBSD on them.



Hmm that is very interesting. Do they come with required things like vga out etc? Or do I need to be a hardware hacker to get most use out of them?

Could you please post some links of the places you get your hardware from?

Cheers!


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## zspider (Jul 13, 2010)

For me I became fed up one night with Windows XP a couple of years ago, I had just finished setting up the system and almost immediately the system was crushingly slow but only while the internet was connected...:\. I had already been messing with Linux for the last 6 months at that point so I threw on Ubuntu and used that for a while till settling on Arch Linux and eventually migrating to FreeBSD after trying it and finding that it suited my needs much better.


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## ckester (Jul 14, 2010)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> Hmm that is very interesting. Do they come with required things like vga out etc? Or do I need to be a hardware hacker to get most use out of them?
> 
> Could you please post some links of the places you get your hardware from?
> 
> Cheers!



I get mine from http://www.mini-box.com.  If I were in the UK, I might go with http://www.mini-itx.com instead.

In previous threads about Atom-based boards, some people have expressed a preference for http://www.supermicro.com because their boards have more SATA ports.

These aren't the only and perhaps not even the best sources for Atoms.  Try googling for "mini-itx" to find more.

Most of these sites give detailed specifications for their boards, which should answer your question about whether they come with "required things like vga".   They certainly do -- or at least, they come with everything *I* require.  As they say, your mileage may vary.   Some people think the lack of support for ECC memory is a showstopper.  Others might balk at the fact that the built-in video controller on the "Pine Trail" Atoms isn't supported by the Intel drivers in the current FreeBSD port of Xorg; you have to use the Vesa driver instead.

As I said, I'm buying these to replace Mac Mini's, which aren't exactly high-end or cutting-edge machines either.


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## teckk (Jul 15, 2010)

Looking for a replacement for microsoft, with it's malware problems, it's ever increasingly rigid registration requirements, the inability to change hardware on my own machine without a re-register, and after installing a firewall with outbound port monitoring to see all the phoning home it and win software did, I started surfing through the various Penguin flavors in 2002. I settled for Centos for a while. That was 8 years ago. Windows has become worse since.

I did an install of Freebsd 5.1 and after a few months I knew that it was just what I was looking for. Stable, great documentation, knowledgeable user base,  project maintained software repository, all the tools one needs to admin, code, study, build, learn etc.

I use BSD as my main desktop all the time. I don't really care about flash. I have cclive, wget, curl, tcpdump and all the tools to get the video if I want it. I also have Firefox in wine that works. Then there is great little Dillo to browse through pages in a jiffy and get things done.

I did an install of win7 just to look at it and keep up. All though it is more responsive that Vista, that thing can be shut off by microsoft any time you update if they don't like something. If you are not always up to date then you are vulnerable.

It made me even happier that I took some time to get to know Unix a little bit and familiar with a lot of OSS. In fact a lot of the OSS will make a windows box run better. Like mplayer for example. It is so much superior to any bloated heavy resource win software I have seen in use. I use windows versions of curl, wget, mplayer, audacity, etc.

Lot of hard working people making BSD happen. I appreciate this forum too.


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## avkhatri (Jul 25, 2010)

I came to the "Unix World" a couple of weeks ago, and I have nothing but good things to say. The main reason I switched was that I wanted to try something new, and I had an 3 year old Dell pc just sitting around ever since I built my first computer a year ago. I wish I started using Fbsd a lot sooner because within the two days that it took to install and properly setup a working desktop I learned so much. It took 5 tries to get it right since I would end up breaking something after the install, but each time I would learn why it broke and what to do the next time. Before trying freebsd I was a debian lenny user, and I remember if something had gone horribly wrong I would get overwhelmed when seeing a black screen with all kinds of text and errors, that I would forget trying to fix it and just reinstall the entire os. After setting up my first freebsd install, I can feel comfortable editing config files and doing ANYTHING at a terminal without a gui. I can truly fix the problems I encounter, when I got an error after running "startx" a few days ago, I understood the error, edited xorg.conf and it worked! Switching to Fbsd has gotten rid of my dependency on big desktop environments in general. Since I use this as a main desktop I need some kind of graphical desktop so I can browse the web, watch movies etc., but I no longer HAVE to have gnome or kde installed to get things done (I really didn't want to bother compiling it either haha). I have the blackbox window manager, along with a nicely configured aterm...it's simple, blazing fast, and all I really need now . Also, I'd like to say that the ports system is phenomenal.


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## sk8harddiefast (Jul 25, 2010)

```
nicely configured aterm
```
Also you can try rxvt-unicode. Is really good


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## sirinon (Jul 29, 2010)

Was working as a MS admin for the first two years of my IT career , as a junior  i was asked to do AIX DR restores , since then have done everything in my power to never administer a windows box again !!


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## GhettoBSD (Jul 31, 2010)

Hmm, I thought I had mentioned this before, but here it is again...

Many years ago, while visiting a friend in college (UCSB) I asked him about a big book he had. He responded, "nah, you wouldn't understand it. It's like windows." Well, that didn't go over very well with me lol. At that time I had been writing scripts for mIRC (YES I KNOW!) and needed a way to distribute them better than the free web hosts. So as I tell everyone, I literally did everything but provide the domain name and Internet service. I had a need and FreeBSD filled that need the best. I tried several linux's (debian, redhat, slackware) but fbsd was the best. I also tried OBSD, but it was a little too hard to move around in at the time.

But the experience was hard, but good and has served me to this day. The knowledge I gained is invaluable; configuring BIND for my own DNS needs (including rDNS), sendmail, apache, ftp servers, and wow, a lot really haha. But still, it's a lot!

As a matter of fact, about 4 months ago I just finished an AWESOME script (program) that does something in ~2-3 mins that would take 2 weeks before! Ah, the power of BSD!


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## Savagedlight (Aug 4, 2010)

I never really deleted Windows, since it's better for *my* desktop use.

My induction to FreeBSD began back in 2001 (I was 15 at the time). This was more of a "sneak-FreeBSD-isation" than anything else; I was chatting with a bunch of people who used FreeBSD for pretty much anything. After trying to run it on some spare hardware, to no avail, I was advised to install Linux as a starter. I was recommended to try Mandrake (Mandriva now), and so I did. I was overjoyed with the interface and how easy certain things were to do.
After feeling comfortable with this distribution, I asked 'so what do I do now?'. The answer was Slackware. That I did. I was guided along the way on setting it up, and was quite happy with it. After a couple of months, I was trying to install some software which was basically a PITA due to dependencies (I think.. I can't really remember). After certain people kept saying how easy this would be on FreeBSD, I wanted to try FreeBSD again. So I did.

The base system was up and running within 20 minutes, and... Looking at the command line, I felt lost, and were stuck.  After some help, directions where to look for info, some examples... I was once again stuck. But this time, I was stuck on FreeBSD. I loved it. I've used it for home servers ever since; And it's my preferred server OS for anything which doesn't serve windows-specific applications (such as certain economic systems etc).

Right now, I'm handling three FreeBSD servers. One at home and two elsewhere. And I wouldn't have it any other way. (except maybe *more* FreeBSD servers )


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## zspider (Aug 5, 2010)

For me running Windows as a desktop became a non option due to all the constant security issues, viruses, random breakage which would result in me having to move everything off the machine and reformat. Windows 7 has broken 3 times in the last year with only light use. Eventually I had to say enough was enough so I started using Linux as a desktop. Eventually the package manager begun to break repeatedly so I installed FreeBSD and have been using it for everything(including a desktop) other than games since.. It has yet to fail me. I took it on a vacation and it worked 100% of the time.


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## kpedersen (Aug 5, 2010)

zspider said:
			
		

> I took it on a vacation and it worked 100% of the time.



Lol, that is a sure test for a robust operating system, because normally *EVERYTHING* breaks on holiday


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## zspider (Aug 6, 2010)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> Lol, that is a sure test for a robust operating system, because normally *EVERYTHING* breaks on holiday



it is . I did not expect the wireless to work as well as it did, but I had absolutely zero problems with it even with hotel wifi. Also when i got home i had discovered something has broken on Windows 7 so now I cannot surf the internet with it. It will have to be reinstalled since I really dont feel like trying to find out why. Also I recently discovered timidity works out of the box on FreeBSD whereas it would not play on Linux.


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## mauser1891 (Aug 7, 2010)

Hello Folks,

I maintain a XP partition for a few games.
I use sidux, a Debian sid based distro.  MyBook 1T is formatted with ext3 fs for now.
FreeBSD is coming along.  I just finished my KDE4, Firefox35, flac, pacpl, and a few other ports.
Firefox35 with IPv6 disabled is smoking fast.  
I am slow to migrate.

Win - 3.1 with DOS, 3.1 w/MSDOS 6.22, Win95UG, WinNTWS, WinNT Server, Win98, WinXP Pro, VistaHE...  Currently XP Pro + SP3
linux - Slackware 1st 1998...  various but always back to Debian...  *buntu makes for great coasters.  Currently sidux
FreeBSD - didn't want KDE from a "blob", thus FreeBSD was the easiest *BSD.


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## fx4 (Aug 9, 2010)

I was 13.  I had been using RedHat Linux for about a year, so for my birthday I ordered a Slackware CD along with FreeBSD from Cheapbytes.  Everybody talked about how hard those two were, so of course I had to try them out.  In those days it took a week to download an iso, so paying for shipping was very much worth it, and often times faster.  I installed Slackware first, and that was my first real experience with the command line.  A few days later, I sucked it up and installed FreeBSD and found the ports management system superior to anything else at the time.  I think it was version 2.2.

I had a 486 DX4 that I took to 100MHz, maxed out RAM at 40MB, and ran KDE 1.0.  I may have gotten WordPerfect working through Linux emulation, I can't remember.  In those days there was some commercial software for FreeBSD since a lot of big name companies used it.  Applixware had an office suite, and you could even get CDE for FreeBSD from a couple of places.


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## pokraka (Aug 15, 2010)

My first UNIX-like OS was Mandriva Linux in 2007. Before that I was a Windows XP user.
I switched to Linux because I wanted to learn more about computer science and I thought trying to learn Linux could be a good idea (and I think I was right). Also, of course, I was tired of using Windows XP, because it is bloated and was running slow on my then-old computer.
I stayed on Mandriva only for a few months and then switched to Ubuntu, which I used for about a year. After that I switched again to Debian and finally to Arch Linux which I still use today as my daily OS for my desktop computer.
I am now experimenting with FreeBSD on a eeePC 701 someone gave me, at the present time I only intent to use it as a toy and learn it, but it's possible that someday I'll switch to *BSD for my everyday OS.


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## shitson (Aug 17, 2010)

For a long time i wanted to be a Windows System Administrator, I had a mate who works in the business and was keen to get my Windows Certifications done. After a long love hate relationship with nix/Linux (i'd never seem to understand it and would never know how to fix problems) i left it for a while until a while later i came back and i started doing some basic installs and finding my way around.

Once i got to University it became a very important OS due to most of our work requiring either Linux or Sun Solaris environment for code. After a while in this space and learning a lot about it i started to loose my interest in the way of Windows and started to love how flexible, modular, how roll your sleeves up and down to earth nix/linux way of doing things was. 

Currently i'm looking for a stable platform to learn and become highly proficient in which i can see after research is the BSD family. This is what i will want to hone my skills using. I've come here to learn and become a real sys Admin. Not one of those point/click jokers. 

*PS. *I've worked with Windows, Linux, Mac and my opinion professionally is that they all are good tools for certain people for certain tasks. If your view is anything else (Windows vs. Linux) etc your just not experienced enough of an I.T. person. If i see a good version of Mac OS X and it suits my needs i will use it. Windows or Linux/Unix alike. If you want to live in a cave and only love one OS you will really limit yourself.

Just like a race car Driver or Tennis player... Do you think if there was a better brand of Car or Ball/Racket that a player would be so stubborn not to utilize it? The skill is playing tennis not who has the better racket.
_*
Let your skills talk. Not your OS.*_


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## zspider (Aug 17, 2010)

kinda sad in NETW class in college the professor was going on about how Windows Server was more secure than Linux because the gui will crash the server if someone tries to mess with it...:stud. But I seem to remember on FreeBSD you can choose to compile xorg without the suid bit so it does not run as root  Windows Server was alright but id rather have *BSD/UNIX any day.


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## sim (Aug 17, 2010)

ckester said:
			
		

> ...even the BMW vs Mercedes question is objectively answerable...



Yes. BMW.


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## aragon (Aug 17, 2010)

zspider said:
			
		

> kinda sad in NETW class in college the professor was going on about how Windows Server was more secure than Linux because the gui will crash the server if someone tries to mess with it...:stud. But I seem to remember on FreeBSD you can choose to compile xorg without the suid bit so it does not run as root  Windows Server was alright but id rather have *BSD/UNIX any day.


Even with suid unset X must run as root.  It just gets root privileges by some other means...

As for your professor's argument, you should tell him that unlike windows, Linux/Unix doesn't need (and shouldn't have) a GUI to be a fully functional server.


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## zspider (Aug 19, 2010)

aragon said:
			
		

> Even with suid unset X must run as root.  It just gets root privileges by some other means...
> 
> As for your professor's argument, you should tell him that unlike windows, Linux/Unix doesn't need (and shouldn't have) a GUI to be a fully functional server.



Yeah the gui on the thing can be really annoying to put up with. I guess running xwrapper is better than running x directly as root no?


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## yoshisakan (Aug 24, 2010)

I was using windows 7 and couldn't get the damned os to stop forcing a driver install, even after editing group policies. That and someone once said "It's a sad day when you tell your to allow, instead of what not to allow." I just wanted more control and security.


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## Caliante (Sep 1, 2010)

I have been installing Linux since the mid '90's, being able to crash it within 1 hour after install. So much for 'the rock solid alternative to Windows' as it was advertised back then :stud

Tried to install FreeBSD for the first time in around 2000. Stress the word 'tried'.

XP was a big improvement over 98SE, but through the years I started to dislike it more and more. Installed DesktopBSD some years ago and was impressed by the responsiveness of FreeBSD. Unfortunately, that project died (I recently learned they are trying to revive it - they have my support, as it is a great experience for newbies) but the 'passion' for FreeBSD has remained ever since.

And here I am, struggling to get it the way I want (still in XP dual boot until I feel I can safely migrate to FreeBSD - I need to do some work to make a living also, so until I have found suitable replacements for the applications I am used to working with I will have to use XP as well). But I will not ever buy Win7, let alone OS-X, so my path forward definitely is FreeBSD. And to ensure this is not only blabla I also donated to The Foundation, because I really like FreeBSD - am in love with it. Although it often feels like when I was in puberty and a most beautiful girl walked by but didn't even bother to see me: 'she's there, but she seems so out of reach' :e


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