hmmmm...

[Bully_Crist]

well, I just picked up the FreeBSD 4.2 Powerpack, and I just finished burning the Progeny Debian 1.0 cds...

seems like I'll have quite a bit to play with for the next couple months :cool:

not to put a damper on things, but FreeBSD is intended more as a server than a desktop OS (even though it can clearly be used as such), right? of course, I'll find out myself in due time, but I'm just a little curious as to what the general consensus was on this...

[Beowulfs_Ghost]

FreeBSD can be used as a desktop OS, just as easily as Linux can. Most of the software for Linux has either been ported to FreeBSD, or can be compiled from source, or can be run as a Linux binary (I've used the Linux versions of Flash, Real Player, and Mocasoft 5250).

The thing about FreeBSD is that it tends to be more quality oriented then Linux. So its rock solid, and thats why it is so popular with the server folk. But it lacks the bells and whistles of Linux (usualy the cause of crashes), so the latest hardware is as supported. But your milage may vary. I actualy found FreeBSD to be a better desktop OS then Linux, simply because things just tend to work, and everything is where it should be.

Hoped that helped.

[Bully_Crist]

thanks, Beowulfs_Ghost :) that did help...quite a bit, actually

however, I have a new problem... X keeps dying on me in BSD... I don't know why this happens...I did a fresh install and as soon as I typed 'startx' things started heading south...

so, I have a question for y'all... what configuration/s did you use to gain the most favourable results in your initial install? I don't really know what I did wrong (everything except X is working now), although it might have had something to do with installing the wrong packages...

[Bully_Crist]

hmmm...is there a reason why X can't recover from a forced reboot? this is driving me insane!! FreeBSD is losing points just for making me reinstall components every 40 minutes :mad:

[Bully_Crist]

Free crashed on me while using Archiver to decompress a Mozilla nightly... not only that, but the included version of GNOME+Sawfish won't even LOAD!!!

how can performing such simple tasks be so difficult?

[Beowulfs_Ghost]

I had a problem getting X to work, but that was because I kept picking the wrong chipset. FreeBSD doesn't do alot in the way of auto-detection.

How did you install Gnome/Sawfish? I did it through the installation app, and had no problems what so ever. You may have to edit .xinitrc. But like I said before, your milage may very. The reason your milage may vary is because FreeBSD doesn't do alot of hand-holding.

Try the <A HREF="http://"http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/index.html"" TARGET=_blank> Handbook</A>.

[Bully_Crist]

well, I'm 99% sure I had it configured correctly (I have a Voodoo3; it's kinda hard to choose the wrong chipset here)... it worked in the setup, and it worked again after I'd rebooted for the first time (using KDE), but it seems that once I'd logout of X, and tried to log back in, it would give me some wild error that wasn't there before... something about a KDE-something.something file not doing what it was supposed to... anyhow, hand-holding or not, it's still irritating to think that you've configured something properly, have it work fine a couple times, and then bomb out on you :mad:

[Bully_Crist]

ok... I tried out Progeny... and...now that I figured out how to get X working in FreeBSD... hmmmm...

I think I'll stick with FreeBSD... :) :cool:

[RTFM]

I'm liking NetBSD so far. Still need to setup a lot, but its pretty good.

[EscapeCharacter]

the only problem ive had with freebsd is my linksys LNE100tx which was running perfectly for the past 3 months just stopped working for no reason. the card is fine just locks up freebsd any time i try to use it, i had to put my crappy dlink back in :(