Loving the FreeBSD

[Ramanan Selvaratnam]

Johnson David wrote:

>On Wednesday 20 August 2003 04:30 am, Jeandre du Toit wrote:
>
>  
>
>>          i would like you to keep you os of my front porch. if i see
>>windows in or near my house again there will be trouble.
>>    
>>
>
>Hee hee!
>
>I just built myself a new computer, and Windows is one of the OSs that 
>will run on it. My first experience with Windows XP leaves me less than 
>thrilled.
>
>Formatting a 20Gig UFS2+Softupdates partition: less than five seconds. 
>Versus. Formatting a 20Gig NTFS partition: ten minutes.
>
>Installing FreeBSD 5.1: about ten minutes, with zero reboots. Versus. 
>
To be fair and clear -- With a GUI 'desktop' environment and all in ten 
minutes?

>Installing Windows XP: 52 minutes, plus two reboots (fewer reboots than 
>with 98 though!).
>
>Security advisories: FreeBSD 5.1 none that affect my system. Versus. 
>Windows XP + SP1 + about 40Megs of critical updates. I haven't even 
>gotten around to the fixes for those two internet shattering worms that 
>hit during the last two weeks.
>
>Setting up a DVD player in FreeBSD: install MPlayer and everything just 
>works. Versus. Setting up a DVD player in Windows XP: Try Windows Media 
>Player 9.0. Media Player crashes. Try "demo" version of WinDVD. Doesn't 
>work. Still haven't gotten DVD playback to work under Windows yet.
>
>Yes, I need more technical savvy to use FreeBSD. But since I already 
>have some small modicum of technical savvy, the choice for me is clear. 
>The only thing keeping Windows around for me is a tiny handful of 
>applications and the occasional game.
>
Important -- you missed the important comparision about the system 
respecting the user's freedoms.

Less important -- Never run MS-Windows (if you have to) without 
Anti-Virus/Worm software (from Microsoft recommended vendors) if 
connecting to the internet :-)

Regards,

Ramanan