my two big problems with bsd are: 1) hardware - unfortunately, much of the hardware that my laptop has is not supported by any implementation - net, free or open - of bsd. that severely limits the amount of time that i can spend in bsd, so i decided that it wasn't worth the disk space usage. 2) nobody else would know what to do with it in case they had to use my laptop. a few people in my dorm are fairly proficient with linux, but if i asked them, oh, could you take care of such and such, trust me, they would not have the faintest clue how to start x, let alone do anything with it.
agreed, hardware is a concern. although my hardware is all fully functional now. i tried configuring x during the install, that didn't work so well - it kept screwing up my monitor's sync, so finally i just did a post-install configuration, which was suprisingly easy. although it probably helped that i had my XF86Config-4 file from my mandrake install :) my sound card also wasn't auto detected, but there's a module for it that ships with freebsd, so i just had to add one line to my boot file so that it would be loaded. all good :)
yeah, but like i said a whiles back in an entry, the latest slackware distro, with absolutely the latest drivers doesn't still support my 2 year video card, nor anything the cd-writer, nor dvd access nor the sound card or modem. and possibly the worst piss off for a laptop user is that it runs a but like nt4 on a laptop - it runs at full power till its dead. so a question for you: is bsd better in that respect? I would assume so based on the fact that it is a managed operating system, but, again, my main interest to date in *nixes was Linux and Solaris (which, btw, is one beautiful beast of an OS)
in that case, i'd suggest googling around and checking to see if freebsd supports your hardware before installing it. although the video card being supported or not is dependent upon X, not the OS. it's X that installs graphic drivers, and they have a pretty extensive list of what's supported. my cdrw is supported fine, but i haven't tried out the dvd yet. there are some ports for apps that play dvd's, i just haven't had the time to try it yet.
as for running it on laptops, i can't say.. i do think its more efficient than linux, at least, just judging by response time/CPU usage.
Re: oh, one other pointstakJanuary 28 2004, 16:17:21 UTC
the whole point of compiling is just that: everyone's system config is different, and compiling it on your machine specifically makes sure that it works the most efficiently it possibly can. it's tailored specifically for your machine. making programs compatible the way windows does also makes it hugely bloated and inefficient. both methods have their advantages and disadvantages - its your call if you want to stick with windows
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Re: oh, one other pointvnangiaJanuary 28 2004, 17:05:02 UTC
there is quite some truth in the fact that if you write a program and then optimize it for your machine and then use it, you would end up with a very much more optimized system than if you used a pre-built program, because pre-builts have to worry about a bunch of different systems to run on - but you see, i don't see the point of compiling a generic code on your system. what i mean is: the code you downloaded for each port is the same, no matter which system you're running - it's code. the libraries that you've downloaded are generic as well. as such, the port that you compile will be identical to 99% of other such compiled ports - because you're used the same source code both for the port and for the associated libraries. so to me, it seems wasteful to have to compile something that normally shouldn't vary from system to system
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Re: oh, one other pointstakJanuary 28 2004, 17:17:03 UTC
The code that you download is the same, but the code that gets compiled is not. The magic of ifdef's and the wonder of system variables make all the difference.
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1) hardware - unfortunately, much of the hardware that my laptop has is not supported by any implementation - net, free or open - of bsd. that severely limits the amount of time that i can spend in bsd, so i decided that it wasn't worth the disk space usage.
2) nobody else would know what to do with it in case they had to use my laptop. a few people in my dorm are fairly proficient with linux, but if i asked them, oh, could you take care of such and such, trust me, they would not have the faintest clue how to start x, let alone do anything with it.
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my sound card also wasn't auto detected, but there's a module for it that ships with freebsd, so i just had to add one line to my boot file so that it would be loaded. all good :)
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as for running it on laptops, i can't say.. i do think its more efficient than linux, at least, just judging by response time/CPU usage.
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