Forum Moderators: bakedjake
To be more specific, when you compile from source, what is the next step to install that on say debian, this sounds great, nothing like staying on the edge.
What about dependencies issues?
any further input is greatly appreciated, thanks
FreeBSD Rocks :)
FreeBSD Rocks :)
Hear Hear!
With a continuously updated ports and packaging system, with rock-solid performance and ease of use, I'd definitely recommend it as well.
We use all FreeBSD boxes for our systems, except Sun Solaris for special requirements. I used FBSD on my desktop at work, and my desktop at home.
My 2 cents. ;)
FreeBSD would be cool to check out, but I'll have to wait until I have an extra box to play with that I think, I only have room for one more os on my main box, but thanks for the suggestions.
I think overall I'd rather stick to the main alternative os to windows for now, linux, another reason for me to learn this stuff is to hopefully be able to start switching people from ms in the future, so time spent on learning how to configure and use a *nix system should reflect that goal too, but I'll definitely keep the freeBSD option in the back of my mind.
Distro wars are legendry, and your choice is difficult because folk are so staunchly protective of their own choice.
Personally, I use Debian for my two headless servers. However, I would never use it if I wanted to run a desktop, because I think other distros do X-windows so much better, and configuration for sound and video can be a major problem for Woody. And also, a major downside for Debian is that Woody is so hugely out of date. Don't be worried about latest versions of apache and so on, Debian is still releasing updates and upgrades for all of its software, it's just that the latest version appears to have stalled. This might not bode well for Debian's future though.
I tried Redhat's Fedora and was very impressed, but I'm used to the way Debian does things so I'll stick with it for a bit longer.
Whichever you choose, it sounds like you've got the right tinkering outlook to make a go of it, good luck!
owever, I would never use it if I wanted to run a desktop, because I think other distros do X-windows so much better
Flash, thanks for more input, I'm trying to get as much as possible, plus some research. The thing that really impressed me with the latest debian is the knoppix linux on cdrom distro, I find that I actually like it, so I'm not sure if debian is doing that badly.
Re the distro wars, I have no interest in them, what I'm trying to avoid is having another fairly useless installation that I never use, such as redhat 8. I know I want something like apt-get, I know I can't stand RPM, my research suggests it's probably not a good idea mixing two package managers. SUSE charges for their latest desktops, which I understand from a business point of view, so that seems to really cut things down to very few choices. FreeBSD does not appear to support reading NTFS, and doesn't have much desktop development, although it is intriguing from a purist perpective, which i might want to explore one day, just not today.
On the downside, I guess the main debian guy moved on, that could be the cause of the slowdown, that's definitely a minus, especially if it's actually having results.
I read a convincingly negative review of gentoo to put me off that distro, arguments that seemed adequately based on firsthand experience and testing, plus I don't want to spend a day or two installing an os as a rule.
I read horrible reviews of Fedora desktop's Gnome package, but haven't tried it, but they were also fairly convincing, since the reviewer started out wanting to like it.
isitreal- You're right about not mixing package managers. Don't do it.
It sounds like you're looking for a good all around distro that's geared towards desktop productivity - that is, you don't want to think, you just want a "click click install" type package. The hands down, best package out there for this is Linspire, which dumbs Linux down to a point where a monkey could use it. There is absolutely no offense meant by this, in fact, I do believe we need distros like Linspire to actually help the Linux desktop marketplace.
Mandrake is another great "click click install" distro, but it uses the RPM system which you mentions you don't like.
I would not recommend Gentoo to you. It's a fantastic distro, but it's at odds with what it sounds like you're trying to do. Debian is much like Gentoo, it'll be at odds with what I think you're trying to do.
Fedora is mediocre, IMHO. It doesn't do anything particularly well, it just does a lot of things "good enough". Don't go with it for what you're trying to do.
Let me revisit FreeBSD here, because it sounds like you have some misunderstandings about what it can and cannot do.
First, FreeBSD can read NTFS just fine. It has been able to for years (since something like 2.2). While both Linux and FreeBSD have had stable NTFS read support for a long time (3+ years), both of them have absolutely experimental "will trash your hard drive" write support. I strongly recommend against using the write support.
Second, FreeBSD runs the same desktops as any of the Linux distros. They may not have the icons arranged the same way, but KDE 3.1 on Linux is KDE 3.1 on FreeBSD. So they have the same desktop support.
Third, I personally find FreeBSD to have the best package system. I don't think it's the easiest to use out there, but I think it's pretty darned close (second only to Linspire). For example, to install apache, one might do:
cd /usr/ports/www/apache13
make install distcleanTo upgrade apache:
portupgrade apache13That's it.
I've started to recommend curious new Unix users to FreeBSD lately, rather than Linux. In the past, I've always referred them to Linux rather than FreeBSD even though FreeBSD is my preference.
Why the change now? Well, for one, FreeBSD has enough ports in the ports system to give you anything you could possibly need. It wasn't always that way.
Two, the Linux community can often suffer from a disease I like to call MAHTNV (pronounced "mot-niv"), which stands for "Must Always Have The Newest Version". The FreeBSD camp often preaches the "don't upgrade until you need it", which I believe is better for new users and for system stability.
If you are looking for a "click click install" method, you won't find it in FreeBSD either. It's much like Gentoo and Debian in this respect - it's got an awesome package/ports system, but it's just not as automatic and graphical as it sounds like you would like.
If you're worried about installing another distro you won't use, I'd encourage you to make whatever you choose your primary OS. Move all of your email, transfer all of your files, and make your default boot OS the Unix distro. Moving to Unix is sort of like using a PDA at first - you have to force yourself for the first few weeks to do things other than "play".
that is, you don't want to think, you just want a "click click install" type package.
I'm willing to do a reasonable amount of work to install an os, this is definitely aimed at permanently moving from w2k, which I like, but I also know it's the last windows os I'll use for my desktop development. The way I look at it, I'm going to do that one time, so it's not that important in the long run how long that one time takes. What I don't want to ever have to do is do it again because the system failed.
The thing that made me decide against gentoo was a pretty decent review where the guy had to do reinstalls of the os because of emerge failures, no recovery possible. 2 day reinstall, maintain 2 gentoo boxes to guard against failure, that's not my bag, I want the thing to work once it's set up (I'd say that's my number one priority, not the click click install itself), I want it to be like windows 2000, where once I install it, that's the last time I think of my os when it comes to work, and it will keep working for me as long as can reasonably be expected.
I never want to have to reinstall the os because something failed unrecoverably. Call me lazy.
I skimmed through the freeBSD documentation for installing, seems fairly reasonable to me, about like debians more or less, which also seems fairly reasonable to me. I did catch the part about enabling linux component support during the installation, I didn't know that before.
it uses the RPM system which you mentions you don't like.
The reason I don't like it is that it has never worked for me, things as simple as getting a redhat rpm for mozilla failed, when I saw gentoos emerge in action I was impressed, even if it does have problems, the idea seems much better thought out.
The only components I really care about having the latest versions of are Apache, 2 is fine. Since most hosters still use php 4, that doesn't really matter yet, gd 2 is pretty old at this point, I use that sometimes. Then of course I have to have the latest firefox, maybe bluefish, wine, things like that, otherwise I don't need the latest and greatest, I need stability, that's why I've never been tempted to move from w2k to xp, zero advantage that I can see. I want to install an OS, get to know its ins and outs, so it works for me.
The rpm methods just seem to completely fail in this regard, whereas apt-get and maybe the freebsd ports systems don't? I'd be interested to see if anyone here has had a real failure, that was not their fault, of the ports system, like say upgrade to apache 2 when it first came out, then need a reinstall?
I have a completely open mind on this subject, and am happy to listen to carefully reasoned advice, if it looks like freebsd is the best option then I'll do that [it definitely attracts the purist in me, plus all my sites are hosted on freebsd], currently debian looks best from what I've seen, but I'm not attached to that view.
Ideally I'd try both, linspire or debian [if linspire has something like apt-get] and freebsd, but I only have room for one more os on my box I think, maybe if I move stuff around I could squeeze in one more, but I like to have about 6 gig for the main os/programs.
If you're worried about installing another distro you won't use, I'd encourage you to make whatever you choose your primary OS.
Yes, that's what I'm thinking too, which is why I'd like to be pretty solid on one choice before I started, I keep all my data in separate partitions so that's not an issue, and if NTFS really isn't working for write [I thought that was fixed in 2.6? I tried an rpm for that feature in redhat 8, 2.4 kernel, of course the rpm failed several times, but I think it was working at one point] I can always change my other NTFS data partitions to Fat32, although I don't like fat32, it's not very efficient.
No matter what I'm going to need to keep the windows stuff, there just isn't any way to do dreamweaver/photoshop/fireworks, which *nix doesn't have even remotely adequate subsitutes for, and if I remember right, wine requires photoshop 7, I think it doesn't support fireworks, not sure. Also openoffice.org still isn't able to open complex worddocuments without major errors.
