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Grex > Micros > #199: FreeBSD, Linux, or other PC Unixes? |  |
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jshafer
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FreeBSD, Linux, or other PC Unixes?
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Jan 21 15:58 UTC 1999 |
I'm trying to sort out all of the various Unixes
available for the PC. I was hoping for some help
sorting out the various incarnations of Linux, as
well as FreeBSD and perhaps the other PC-based
BSD's.
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| 257 responses total. |
jshafer
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response 1 of 257:
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Jan 21 16:01 UTC 1999 |
I recently put together a Pentium II, and am contemplating
installing some sort of Unix. I'm not quite sure what I want
to accomplish here, other than giving myself an environment
in which to learn more about Unix.
I have a 3Gig hard drive, with just over 2 Gig free. How big
a partition am I going to want for the Unix install?
Thanks a bunch!
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jshafer
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response 2 of 257:
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Jan 21 16:04 UTC 1999 |
(jellyware item 241 linked to micros item 199)
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jshafer
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response 3 of 257:
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Jan 22 19:23 UTC 1999 |
I have found the following web sites:
http://www.freebsd.org seems to be the most useful site I've found, which
means at the moment I'm leaning towards FreeBSD...
http://www.redhat.com sounds good, if I feel like spending $$$ for a CD...
Although that kind of defeats the purpose of finding a cheap Unix installation
to play around with...
http://www.slackware.org doesn't impress me that much, but that might be
because of my cluelessness and not any inherant problem with their site.
Anyone know of any other sites that a newbie such as myself could turn to for
more information?
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blight
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response 4 of 257:
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Jan 22 23:10 UTC 1999 |
The Unix Guru Universe page (http://www.ugu.com/) has links to web pages
for the various types of Unices out there. That site also has a link to where
you can get a Unix tutorial. Here are some others you might want to look into:
Cheapbytes Home Page (http://www.cheapbytes.com/). Here you can buy many
of the popular Linux distribtuions like Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Turbo
Linux, etc. on CD for only $2. You can also buy *BSD CDs for about $5.
The Linux home page (http://www.linux.org/). Has information about Linux
on it.
Debian Linux home page (http://www.debian.org/).
Turbo Linux home page (http://www.turbolinux.com/).
Stampded Linux (http://www.stampede.org/). This is a new Linux
distribution that I know nothing about.
Caldera Linux (http://www.caldera.com/)
NetBSD page (http://www.netbsd.org/)
OpenBSD page (http://www.openbsd.org/)
(In case you're wondering OpenBSD and NetBSD are both derived from BSD code.
OpenBSD was formed by a member of the NetBSD project and they have now become
separate entities. Other than that I can't tell you much about them.)
The only Linux distribtuion I'm familiar with is Red Hat. I got my copy of
Red Hat 5.0 wth a book on Linux. It's easy to set up. As far as other
Linuxes go I'm not familiar with them so you'll have to try them on your own.
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jshafer
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response 5 of 257:
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Jan 23 23:25 UTC 1999 |
Great, that should get me started!
I am interested in comments from anyone using any of these products - What are
you using now? Why did you choose that? And so on.
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kentn
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response 6 of 257:
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Jan 24 00:57 UTC 1999 |
I use FreeBSD at home. Chosen mainly because of its emphasis on x86
machines, its BSD heritage, and its relatively active Usenet group.
NetBSD and OpenBSD should both be comparable for learning Unix and all
three seem to have a good lot of application software available and use
each other's "good" system code changes. I don't know if you can tell
them apart so much any more except maybe in installation procedures and
the philosophy of their development groups--NetBSD strives for operation
on multiple platforms and relatively conservative code development,
OpenBSD more on system security but also multiple platforms, and FreeBSD
on more rapid development and a concentration on Intel X86 hardware
although there are a couple ports to other systems going on there now.
Even those generalizations, I'm sure, are not entirely correct. I think
you'd do well with any of NetBSD, OpenBSD, or FreeBSD for learning
purposes. Or Linux, for that matter.
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rtg
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response 7 of 257:
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Jan 24 05:12 UTC 1999 |
I've used Linux distributions from Yggdrasil, Slackware, RedHat,
Caldera, and currently S.u.S.E. I've had good experiences with all, and
each one is easier to set up and configure than the last.
If you're local to ANn Arbor, there's lots of local support. The
Washtenaw Linux Users Group meets monthly, and I maintain a majordomo
mailing list with ~150 subscribers currently. It's a great place to ask
questions and get help. There's also a metro Detroit LUG which meets in
Farmington Hills, and I just heard of a new one in Toledo. Quite often
at meetings, we'll have a stack of CD-ROM's to give away, with basic
distributions on them. If we can cross paths, I'll happily pass you a
recent one.
Check out http://www.lugwash.org for more info.
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