I will not buy this harddrive, it is scratched.

ataraxia · #1 2008-11-22, 20:56

So my hard drive is scratched (unreadable, even by the knoppix I'm using at the moment), and obviously that means my Slackware installation is no more.

While Slackware worked pretty well for me, I've decided I may as well try either Zenwalk, FreeBSD, or something of totse's choice, and I'd like to know a: what to expect and b: any recommendations.
Anyone who mentions Ubuntu or CentOS will be shot, by the way. And my USB port is indeed full of eels.

Fate · #2 2008-11-23, 15:15

How about Gentoo? It's sort of like BSD, only Linux.

ataraxia · #3 2008-11-24, 03:56

I looked into Gentoo. I found this. Makes it sound like Portage is kind of resource-intensive, which is something I'd like to shy away from.
Barring that, I guess I'm currently looking at Arch, Zenwalk, and FreeBSD. The issue with FreeBSD is this: the only way I can get wifi support for my Intel 4965 AGN is with FreeBSD -CURRENT, and I've been told to be wary of installing FreeBSD -CURRENT, especially as a BSD n00b. Anyone here have any experience with that sort of thing?

zeusy · #4 2008-11-24, 15:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by ataraxia

I looked into Gentoo. I found this. Makes it sound like Portage is kind of resource-intensive, which is something I'd like to shy away from.
Barring that, I guess I'm currently looking at Arch, Zenwalk, and FreeBSD. The issue with FreeBSD is this: the only way I can get wifi support for my Intel 4965 AGN is with FreeBSD -CURRENT, and I've been told to be wary of installing FreeBSD -CURRENT, especially as a BSD n00b. Anyone here have any experience with that sort of thing?

Zenwalk is basically a minimal Slackware with user-friendly GUIs, you probably won't learn much from it if your already familiar with Slackware.
Slackware is the most UNIX-like distro, you'll pickup FreeBSD pretty quickly.
I like Arch Linux, it's the type of distro that doesn't treat like a complete idiot.
There's pretty much always a backport available:
http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.c...freebsd-stable

Expect it to be more stable than iwl4965.

ataraxia · #5 2008-11-26, 04:31

I've decided on FreeBSD.
As such, I'm wondering if any of you know of a guide that's more-ahem-concise than the FreeBSD Handbook (which is 300 pages longer than my attention span and a lot of it is information I don't need, like how "ls" works.)

Also, one thing in particular I'd like to do is have a more advanced (and thereby secure) partition slicing system than just swap and /. I'd like /home to be in its own slice, at least. How do I do this?

EDIT: One more thing: How does Flash work in FreeBSD? I tend to watch a whole ton of flash videos.

Prometheum · #6 2008-11-26, 19:28

You only need to use one slice. And I don't know if flash works on FreeBSD; though gnash and swfdec might be in ports.

I'd just use Gentoo, to be honest. FreeBSD can be a great desktop system if you want to spend a lot of time on it, but it's better on big iron.

And really, if you do stick with FreeBSD, just read the goddamn handbook. It has a table of contents for a reason.

ataraxia · #7 2008-11-26, 21:38

I checked Adobe's page; they don't offer Flash Player for FreeBSD.
If there's no Flash, I may well not be able to use FreeBSD. I need to view Flash content for class; besides, I play FFR all the time.
I could triple-boot, I guess, as I'd still like to learn a *BSD.

There is a gnash port as well as a few other things. I've heard gnash is slow, and I was wondering how powerful it is (I know FreeBSD is faster than Linux, but I don't know how much that will help).

Prometheum · #8 2008-11-27, 01:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by ataraxia

I checked Adobe's page; they don't offer Flash Player for FreeBSD.
If there's no Flash, I may well not be able to use FreeBSD. I need to view Flash content for class; besides, I play FFR all the time.
I could triple-boot, I guess, as I'd still like to learn a *BSD.

There is a gnash port as well as a few other things. I've heard gnash is slow, and I was wondering how powerful it is (I know FreeBSD is faster than Linux, but I don't know how much that will help).

It's no slower than mainline flash. Quite faster on occasion, as well. It also doesn't put a backdoor on your computer, unlike mainline flash.

beatmeofficer · #9 2008-11-27, 16:27

I ran FreeBSD for a little while. It was okay. I missed some of the utilities I'd grown used to in Linux-- like NetworkManager. Erlang was broke in the CURRENT ports when I used it, which bothered me. Otherwise, it's fast and not overly complicated. You ought to be able to install the Linux version of Flash and use it with the Linux compatibility layer.

ComradeAsh · #10 2008-12-02, 10:32

My CD drive is full of eels.