FreeBSD (and the other "flavors" of BSD) is fine. However, with the
tremendous focus on Linux development, it represents a constant "hot
bed" of development beyond what the BSD folks can produce.
That said, Free BSD has a well-deserved reputation for stability and
is the choice of quite a few folks who have mission-critical servers,
for example. Last I heard, for instance, Yahoo was run on it...
Both Linux and the BSD variants share many worthwhile innovations over
time, anyway. For example, the networking stack in Linux originated on
BSD.
Dedicating an older machine to running Linux is surely a popular step
for many. However, I also believe that it is quite worthwhile to set
up a primary machine in a dual-boot configuration so you may do some
direct performance comparisons using a single platform. For example,
when you find out how much faster it is to do your Web surfing on
Linux, you may find as I did that becomes your preferred web platform.
In addition, there are many "eye candy" kinds of interface options
available that run much better with ample memory and CPU cycles
available. These are by no means necessary, but it can be fun to
compare them with Windows--again on the same machine.
For example, I remember vividly some screen shots of a system that had
a totally Gothic desktop...with very ornate window frames and a Gothic
castle theme in the background.
There are many different desktop "themes" downloadable from
www.kde-look.org, among others.
The point is that with Linux, *you* are in control of the way your
computer looks and how it acts. Once you get a taste of what it is
like to have a wide variety of choices in computing, you may find
yourself "getting the bug" for sure...
David
>
> Anyone mind if I concatenate all the Linux posts and upload them to a new
> WikiPage in the PC Wiki?
> This is some of the best Linux info for novices I have seen. Glad to see
> there are so many subscribers
> interested in this topic; I agree that it meshes perfectly with
> Permaculture.
>
> I have a spare older pc and will convert it to Linux. What about FreeBSD?
>
> LL
> --
> L.F.London
> lfl@intrex.net
>http://market-farming.com
>http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech
>
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>
> End of permaculture Digest, Vol 24, Issue 14
> ********************************************
>