Sat Jul 17 17:44:00 PDT 2004

hi,

1. i totaly agree with joshua!!!
i used 5 linux distro's and the 3 unix's (just to broaden my distro span) and i fell in love with the daemon!!!!!!
freebsd is no linux but compat is quite nice
i would recommend you be smarter then i am and run stable (4.9) rather then latest (5.2)
4.9 will give you much more stability and a heck of a learning platform , while 5.2 is abit faster and with more hardware support but it still has issues and you wouldnt wanna get caught up in those.

2. if xfree goes out? ok.....unix(&linux) run a clean kernel to which any new standard will have to comply , so - no wories there!!
besides - there was once an os called ........HMM........microsomething and people manage without it aswell :)

3. as for job ......... freeBSD is a VERY popular server platform indeed , HOWEVER getting a job would depend on the country your in! im in israel and (jobwise) freeBSD is hard to come by!(hence my being unemployed at the moment :(   )
but there are numerous countries throughout the world in which it is HOT stuff (europe mainly - i think)

BTW are there any other israelis here? id like to build up a freeBSD community here!

hope that helps,

Ron Ganzer 

On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 13:47:23 -0700
Joshua Tinnin <krinklyfig at spymac.com> wrote:

> *This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(tm) Pro*
> On Saturday 17 July 2004 12:48 pm, Arun Swarup <arunswarup at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > hi,
> >
> > i am considering moving over to FreeBSD from Linux (its too hot
> > out there.... esp the M$ bashing)
> 
> Eh ... well, I tend to ignore that when making a decision to use an OS or 
> other software. My concerns are: does it work? can I hack it for my own 
> purposes? does it suit my needs? etc. The politics aside from the basics 
> about open source can distract from the practical uses of the technology. For 
> instance, Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman tend to disagree on some 
> fundamental philosophical issues, but it's not as if they haven't helped 
> create some very useful stuff in the meantime (even if Richard still insists 
> people call it GNU/Linux).
> 
> > i have a few questions/concerns
> >
> > 1. I want a usable workstation   &   i want to prevent
> > script-kiddies ripping thru my system.   Is OpenBSD necessary?
> 
> Not necessarily. FreeBSD is already very secure, but if you're that concerned, 
> then I recommend setting up a separate box with OpenBSD to act as a firewall. 
> Are you in a situation where you need very high security? This is where 
> OpenBSD excels: security, and your network will be more secure by design if 
> you do firewalling on its own dedicated machine. Also, OpenBSD's excellent 
> firewall, pf, has been ported to FreeBSD 5.x. FreeBSD is not as picky about 
> code improvements (the team at OpenBSD analyzes every line of code before 
> committing, which does take some time), therefore you're more likely to get a 
> better all-around workstation with a FreeBSD system than an OpenBSD system, 
> depending on what you want to do on it. For example, FreeBSD can work on more 
> hardware than OpenBSD, and you can still use XFree86 or X.org, and whatever 
> window manager you like (sometimes I prefer using IceWM, and other times I 
> prefer KDE, so they're both installed and used on my system, and I just 
> switched from XFree86 to X.org today). Generally, FreeBSD is a server 
> platform, but its stability and compatibility with Linux makes it a good 
> workstation choice, as well. I was originally going to set up this box to be 
> an OpenBSD workstation, not having used *BSD before but wanting a secure 
> system, but it wouldn't recognize my network card (it's fairly new, but it's 
> very common). The choice was made for me, but I'm happier for it. In time, 
> I'm planning on setting up another box to be used as a firewall with OpenBSD.
> 
> > 2. What if x86 goes out-of-fashion?    what happens then?
> > Should i move to NetBSD?
> 
> What happens? Good question ... However, in such a situation, I doubt that 
> FreeBSD would just sit on x86 and let it go at that. NetBSD is known for its 
> wide hardware compatibility, but it trades off stability to accomplish this. 
> It's great for tricky/odd/old hardware and embedded systems, but it's not so 
> great as a workstation or for webserving where stability is crucial, IMO. You 
> should also know that FreeBSD supports SMP and 64-bit CPUs.
> 
> > 3. Will i get a job  if i learn FreeBSD  &  neglect the
> > inner-workings of Linux?
> 
> Another good question. Something you might want to consider is that FreeBSD is 
> very popular as a webserver. It's consistently and often profusely listed in 
> Netcraft's longest uptime list: 
> http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html
> 
> Hotmail used FreeBSD for a long time, and they may still use it. They don't 
> like to talk about it much, but it's not a rumor ...
> 
> Anyway, I would consider using FreeBSD to be extending your skillset (but you 
> should know I've become enamored with FreeBSD since installing it, and so 
> sometimes I evangelize about it). Since you're coming from Linux, you'll 
> probably still use a lot of Linux apps on your FreeBSD system, and you'll 
> likely learn a thing or two about both systems because of it. It's not all 
> that different - they are, after all, both *nix systems. And you can easily 
> do a multi-boot system ... well, it depends on some factors, but it's not 
> difficult. Mine is tri-boot: FreeBSD, Slackware and Win2k. No need to dump 
> what you have, but I would recommend giving FreeBSD a shot. It may not be the 
> right workstation OS for you, but there's a good chance you'll come to like 
> it more than anything you've used so far ... ah, see, there's that 
> evangelizing coming through ;)
> 
> - jt
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