[TriLUG] Slightly OT: Which *BSD?

[Matt Pusateri]

On Sun, September 19, 2004 10:17 am, Roy Vestal said:
> I'm wanting to learn BSD. I've been reading up on the 3 I understand
to be
> the "Big 3": OpenBSD, NetBSD, and FreeBSD.
>
> My question is 2 fold. If you use BSD, which do you use and why?
Again I
> want to learn *BSD and I plan to try all 3 eventually and play with
them,
> but I'd like an understanding from folks that use one or more of
these on
> the main differences they've seen.
>
> I'd like to see if I can use what I do under Linux on the BSD
> platform. I do
> lean towards Red Hat and Fedora only because I'm used to RPM and I
learned
> on Red Hat so I'm more comfortable there. I do need to use WINE or a
derivative to run a couple of programs that I still need.
>
> Now I'm not trying to start a holy war. I'm not trying to start a
"My *BSD
> is better than your *BSD". Please keep the flames and flamewars to
yourself,
> not here. And please don't say "Well if you like RPM based Linux,
why not
> try Mandrake?" This isn't about Linux but *BSD.
>
> With all that said, TIA
> Roy
>
> --
Ok, I throw my .02 in here.  I like FreeBSD.  It is rock solid. I have
looked at NetBSD & OpenBSD but they didn't seem as friendly as
FreeBSD.  FreeBSD's documentation seems to blow the others away.
Maybe they just have a better site.  FreeBSD seems easier to install
as well.  I run it on my companies web server, mail gateway, firewall
and file server.  I run it on my laptop. I go back and forth between
if I like Gentoo or FreeBSD on my laptop, but always seems I fall back
to FreeBSD. If you are thinking of FreeBSD then definetly go with 5.x
series as FreeBSD 5.3Beta5 is out, their will be one more beta before
5.3 will be officially realeased.  When 5.3 is released(+- couple
weeks), it will be the stable branch of FreeBSD, so that is where you
will want to head.  FreeBSD's ports collection is killer, it has more
software ported to it then OpenBSD. Also FreeBSD can run a linux
emulation layer which lets you run software thats only been ported to
linux and not FreeBSD. If you have any questions, email me offline and
I would be glad to help.

Matt Pusateri,