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BSD Operating Systems

FreeBSD As A Workstation For UNIX Newbies 78

Posted by timothy from the cpu-keyboard-os-go dept.
JT writes: "OSNews features an article introducing the FreeBSD operating system to newbies and Windows users. The article describes the installation, its GUI, application base and it has some more information about Unix and *BSD in general." Since Linux (at least the varieties with cute installation routines) is often presented as the *nix beginner's best choice, it's good to see articles like this one pointing out a broader range of choices.
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FreeBSD As A Workstation For UNIX Newbies More

FreeBSD As A Workstation For UNIX Newbies

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  • Maybe, maybe not... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ichimunki ( 194887 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @04:12PM (#2688773)
    Unlike Red Hat, there is nothing on FreeBSD that takes away the true hacker-only nature of the system.

    The partitioning, as the article points out is mostly manual, but only if you can't dedicate your drive... if you can dedicate you press one key and it does a default partition scheme, ditto mount points. This is not a problem for any but the types who can't RTFM long enough to find out what page of the FM they're on.

    The package system vs. ports is slightly confusing, especially since so much stuff appears in both places, how do you know which to use when and why? I'm sure this confusion is cleared up by reading the Handbook in depth. Ditto the fact that the ports system isn't just a system for getting and compiling tarballs-- it's a whole packaging system unto itself, just a bit more CPU intensive than rpm.

    Speaking of the handbook, here's my favorite line (from memory, may not be exact) "recompiling a kernel is a rite of passage for Unix users". There, they said it, plain and simple you *will* recompile the kernel... and they're right, the generic kernel has no support for sound, so off to the config files you go. Hello make and make install! FWIW, they're 100% right, compiling a custom kernel is just too important not to learn to do it on either BSD or Linux systems.

    IMHO, FreeBSD is not a suitable system for a computing newbie, unless they have a patient, available hacker friend. It might be a good introduction to x86 Unix for someone who's used a Unix mainframe at school/work (where someone else was the sysadmin). And it might be a good introduction to Unix for an advanced Windows user. And for the hacker? Of course it's a great choice, especially that ports system. I've not seen a Linux distro with that level of commitment to the offsite code base.

    But best of all, no one's running around saying it should be called GNU/BSD! And with good reason, if you're used to the GNU binutils and BASH, you're in for a bit of a surprise with FreeBSD.

    • Re:Maybe, maybe not... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jquirke ( 473496 )
      Sorry to nitpick, but the default kernel that came with 4.4-RELEASE does include support for sound, in the form of modules.

      It supported all the hardware out of the box on my notebook, with the exception of APM (and obviously not ACPI).

      Still, I agree, to get the most out of FreeBSD you need to build a custom kernel :-)

    • Re:Maybe, maybe not... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You no longer have to compile your kernel in order to support your sound card. Just add the kernel module. You can usually get along fine with the GENERIC kernel unless you want to make use of apm, but being able to build a more compact kernel than the GENERIC one is one of the triumphs of open source unix. The rc startup files are organized in a sane fashion too, so configuration's simpler. But the best part about FreeBSD is that they actually try to keep the man pages up to date so that you don't have to always run off to that gnu info monstrosity or various well-hidden HOWTOs and FAQs.

      I tried installing Slackware but gave up in disgust. It's disorganized as hell, but at least it only needed 1 cdrom for the (re)install. For some reason it had trouble finding and/or mounting my plextor cdrw that I use regularly with freebsd without a hitch.

      Unix is not for people who want to be spoon-fed everything.
      • You know I'm looking at the Handbook again, and either it's been changed in the last few days or (more likely) I totally missed the sentence that says you have TWO ways to install sound, listed first is kldload, then they mention recompiling the kernel. I think I'm probably biased in favor of recompiling custom kernels because they are usually smaller, faster, and that has to be better for everyone involved. Besides, having to monkey with the module load process is no more fun than putting that effort into recompiling.
        • The Handbook is now in version 2. It didn't ship with 4.4-RELEASE, but it is online and you do get it with cvsup. Perhaps the old handbook didn't mention it. I certainly haven't seen any mention of sound modules, so I'm assuming this is new.
    • I cant agree with all of this - a newbie may have to be handy with a command line, but aside from that its easy...

      the ports tree - a complete piece of piss to automatically download/compile/install anything in it (and there's a lot...)

      compiling the kernel - complete piece of piss... 2 lines or somethings...

      pratical stuff like setting up NAT, firewalling, stuff like that, takes seconds...
    • It is definitely "a good introduction to x86 Unix for someone who's used a Unix mainframe at school/work (where someone else was the sysadmin). And it might be a good introduction to Unix for an advanced Windows user."

      It was almost 5 years ago when I as an advanced windows user who had used unix at college (mainly for USENet.) Anyways, at the time I got my second PC and began to network the two, and for a few months it worked fine until an update to dial-up networking changed my network config and broke the network. I wasn't able to resolve the issue, so I looked into linux. Well after about a few days of trying linux I had heard about FreeBSD. I went out and tried it, and it worked a lot better for me. I was able to understand it a lot better, and even got sound working (eventually.) The important thing is that I got it to dialout to my ISP automatically and share the internet connection across to my other computer something I hadn't figured out how to do with windows at the time.
      While I have tried other linux distros since then FreeBSD has still been my favorite OS. While I ditched the dialup a long time ago, I still use FreeBSD at the heart of my home LAN.
      as of posting this my uptime on my server is
      10:01AM up 134 days, 22:50
      Linux has it's merits too, but if you're not satisfied with it try BSD.
    • And with good reason, if you're used to the GNU binutils and BASH, you're in for a bit of a surprise with FreeBSD.

      Yes, the binutils are surprisingly different from the GNU ones:

      > uname -sr
      FreeBSD 4.1-RELEASE
      > cc --version
      2.95.2
      > ld --version
      GNU ld 2.10.0
      Copyright 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
      This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of
      the GNU General Public License. This program has absolutely no warranty.
      Supported emulations:
      elf_i386
      > as --version
      GNU assembler 2.10.0
      Copyright 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
      This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of
      the GNU General Public License. This program has absolutely no warranty.
      This assembler was configured for a target of `i386-unknown-freebsd4'.
      > nm --version
      GNU nm 2.10.0
      Copyright 1997, 98, 99, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
      This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of
      the GNU General Public License. This program has absolutely no warranty.
      > ar --version
      GNU ar 2.10.0
      Copyright 1997, 98, 99, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
      This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of
      the GNU General Public License. This program has absolutely no warranty.

      ...

      (No, that hasn't changed in later releases.)

      Yes, it's not GNU/BSD in the sense that most of the utilities are not GNU utilities, but the BSDs do use the GNU toolchain.

    • Duh! In the worst case, boot up your Windows machine and subscribe to the FreeBSD mailing lists. Then you won't need any local hacker friends. Just be sure to set your mail client to "text only". Otherwise you'll get flamed:) Rob.

  • Kudos to OSnews (Score:2, Informative)

    by DeMorganLaw ( 543089 )
    Kudos to OSnews.com for promoting FreeBSD as a serious alternative to Linux for users looking for an alternative OS. FreeBSD is fast, stable and has a great many experienced users willing to help out newbies. Sysinstall is easy to get going (just 2 floppies), supports FTP downloads of software packages, and resolves dependency issues quickly. However it is still no where near as easy as the GUI installer for current releases of Mandrake and Redhat. FreeBSD can run practically anything written for Linux after installing the Linux Binary Compatibility Pack.
    • I agree. I have always thought Linux made for a great personal computer, while FreeBSD was a very effective server. After being an end-user on Solaris, SunOS machines, FreeBSD was my first admin. Having admin'd on Solaris, Linux, and even WinNT/2K I still prefer FreeBSD and in fact run it on my personal web/email server.

      Altho - I wouldn't mind if FreeBSD stays in obscurity to most. Popularity could result in more complex hack attempts, exploits, etc. So go ahead, give linux to the world and lets keep FreeBSD to ourselves ;)

  • First off, before the trolls get to it, no, *BSD IS NOT DYING. Ok, I'm donme with that part.

    I've been using FreeBSD since early 1994 and have grown up with ti, so to speak. Even back then, I tried Linux and ended up learning FreeBSD. I'm really glad to see people writing for newbies.
  • Given the Varieties of *nix out there, I tend to actuall prefer FreeBSD.

    I've even gone out of my way to pay for CDs etc.

    • Re:Preferances (Score:2, Informative)

      by atrin ( 541643 )
      The problem is Linux gets too much attention from the mass-media. My H'friends joke about me being the only one who uses FreeBSD. It's really hard to make someone feel, apreciate the "clean" feeling of FreeBSD, being built as _one_ project. That is why the dox are that good too. But for a newbie, who DOESN'T want to be a hacker, but only to understand the implications of "everyinthing is a file" (although he doesn't know it yet) and _maybe_ do some programming using sockets Linux is not much different from FreeBSD. Besides, the problems which arise with making a Linux box work smoothly get one to RTFM.
      So FreeBSD is a good choice but not the best for newbies.

  • FreeBSD myths. (Score:5, Informative)

    by pschmied ( 5648 ) on Tuesday December 11, 2001 @07:23PM (#2690007) Homepage
    O.K. There always seems to be a number of out right false hoods perpetuated about FreeBSD. More often than not, they are not malicious. More often than not they are perpetuated by casual FreeBSD users. Let me set the record straight.


    "The ports collection sure is great! I just wish that FreeBSD had some kind of package management that didn't require building from source."

    It so happens that FreeBSD does have package management that won't ever invoke gcc.

    Try the package management tools (man pkg_create(1), pkg_delete(1), pkg_info(1), pkg_update(1), pkg_version(1) for more specific info).

    In fact, FreeBSD is so bad-ass that you can type something like "pkg_add -r mozilla" and the system will download and install the latest mozilla. Carefull though, some packages require that you specify the whole version (i.e. pkg_add -r lyx-1.1.6.3). This will get all the dependancies you need in most cases.

    The only real reasons to build from the ports are:

    1. You need specific compile time options. (Install a custom Apache on RedHat then with FreeBSD's ports and come back and tell me which is easier)
    2. You have a multi architecture workplace and you want to use a central distfile repository. (Please note that this is rare.)

    "FreeBSD is less user friendly than Linux"

    This is highly subjective. I taught a class this summer to a group of people at my University who had never installed Windows, much less anything else. By the end of the first week, they were able to install FreeBSD, compile a kernel, and successfully manage packages. By the end of the second week, they all had their desktops going with the productivity apps they wanted. By the middle of the third week, I couldn't hold their attention because they were having too much fun playing with the OS.

    FreeBSD belongs to the "it just works" school of computing. I don't know how to describe it. I've never had to worry about whether or not FreeBSD would correctly auto detect my USB optical mouse during the install (I've had a number of Linux distros both succeed and fail). FreeBSD Just Works(tm). No dicking around. "Does your system have a USB mouse attached to it?" "Yes?" "OK, we'll make sure and load usbd." If I've had "device pcm" in my kernel config file at build time, my sound has always worked.

    As a workstation, FreeBSD performs very well. I don't have benchmarks for you, but I've never had a FreeBSD machine that has felt slower than any Linux distribution on the same hardware. Incidentally, FreeBSD starts notably quicker than any Linux distro newer than Slack 2.0.


    I feel really good about the state of FreeBSD. They have made things easy by design, not by GUI abstraction. If you judge ease as being a point and click installer, then Linux will win every time. If you judge ease as simplicity and consistancy, FreeBSD is a clear victor.


    -Peter

    Just my $0.02

    • Ok, then tell me how I can use my PCI Modem with FreeBSD (no, it is not a winmodem). I've never been able to get it work work under BSD, and I haven't found any clear instructions on how to get it to work.

      • Re:It just works? (Score:3, Informative)

        by pschmied ( 5648 )
        Ok, then tell me how I can use my PCI Modem with FreeBSD (no, it is not a winmodem). I've never been able to get it work work under BSD, and I haven't found any clear instructions on how to get it to work.


        Really? What modem do you have? I've got the ActionTec Call Waiting PCI modem and it worked fine.

        Check your dmesg (dmesg |more). Look for something like the following:

        sio0: [ActionTec 56k FAX PCI Modem] port 0xdc00-0xdc07,0xd800-0xd8ff,0xd400-0xd4 ff mem 0xe2001000-0xe20010ff irq 11 at device 7.0 on pci0

        sio0: moving to sio4

        sio4: type 16550A


        Actually, a good place to start would be to type "dmesg |grep sio" at the command prompt. I bet that FreeBSD has probably found it already. Remember that the serial interface "sio4" corresponds to /dev/cuaa4. You might also check to make sure you have enough software serial ports enabled in FreeBSD (do you have two unused serial ports on the back of your machine? I disable mine in the BIOS, but if you need them, you can just enable com3 & com4 which are disabled in a standard install. Read the handbook section on building a kernel. It's easy. I promise.)

        I hope this helps. If not, you can always send an e-mail to questions@freebsd.org. They are generally quite helpful.


        -Peter

    • I couldn't disgaree more !!!

      I have been using Linux & Free/OpenBSD for many years.

      It have never had so much trouble installing an OS as FreeBSD on my laptop. The USB keyboard was recognized, but wouldn't work, no matter what I tried. It would also be nice if they gave the option of installing X 4.1 or 3.3.6 (?)

      After 3 days of fighting, with a system that never worked properly I installed Mandrake 8.1. Everything worked first time (X, USB, PS/2, digital camera,sound etc)

      Using urpmi to install apps and dependencies makes it a breeze.

      I'm sure FreeBSD would make an excellant webserver, probably faster and more stable. However on a laptop, or a home system with more 'exotic' hardware Mandrake Linux was up and running fully in less than hour.
      • I'm running FreeBSD on my Sceptre (think Dell Inspiron clone).
        I re-compiled my first kernel to get the sound card to work, adding a line like "device pcm" or something.
        The only problem I have is KDE start up takes two/three "startx" to start. Some kind of DCOP server startup problem. Hunting through google didn't help. Anyone?
        • Usually this has to do with your network settings (yes, even if you aren't on a network).

          Check your /etc/hosts and make sure that 127.0.0.1 points to your host name as well as "localhost"

          Hope this helps.

          -Peter

  • waiting for 5.0 (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I love freebsd, but I'm putting it on hiatus until 5.0 comes out. It's not a good choice for a laptop workstation, that's for sure, unless you have the blandest of vanilla laptops. I demand cardbus. :-)

    One thing not many people have mentioned is how clean and simple the base installation is (after you've installed it). Core system with X windows, add what you need afterwards. This is a clean methodology, it allows a newbie UNIX user to find out exactly what the system *is*. if they went for a default linux install, however, they'll end up with 500+ packages to deal with. I have problems telling what is a 'system' package and what is an 'add-on' package on my linux laptop. If it wasn't for up2date or ximian's red carpet, a user would be screwed, security-wise.

    mike [mailto]
    • You'll be on hiatus till about November next year at the very least
    • One thing not many people have mentioned is how clean and simple the base installation is (after you've installed it). Core system with X windows, add what you need afterwards.

      This is partly true. However, even the minimal install does contain programs that you can rip out in special-purpose systems, like firewalls. The annoying part is that they don't get included as ports, but rather just left there. I wish the default sendmail install was listed in /var/db/pkg to make it more removable.

      However, I know that I'm probably too obsessed with maximizing available disk space. :)

  • I dunno (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ratbert42 ( 452340 ) on Thursday December 13, 2001 @11:11AM (#2698805)

    I install and run OpenBSD and FreeBSD (as well as Redhat Linux and Windows NT/2000) on servers all the time. But I'm like a one-legged man on a pogo stick when it comes to installing either as a workstation. OpenBSD apparently even makes me manually add the X package after the install. FreeBSD is a bit better, but the configuration is all very manual. To contrast, Redhat Linux correctly detects my mouse, video card and monitor and makes it somewhat hard to continue the install unless the settings actually work.

    Out of my team of 10 developers, I doubt more than 3 other guys would be able to get FreeBSD running as an X workstation without someone to help them. And all of them, even me, would lose interest before getting it working. I can feel my interest waning right now. I'd rather play with OpenBSD's new pf than pretend it's 1996 and manually configure XFree86.

    • OpenBSD apparently even makes me manually add the X package after the install.

      Ok. I was wrong. Booting from the CD makes it easy to install the X packages. Well, not as easy as Redhat Linux, but easier than ftp-ing them and untaring them in the right place.

      I got X running on OpenBSD on a laptop in about 20 minutes. The main problem was finding the mouse device and protocol (/dev/wsmouse0 and wsmouse). I picked the wrong video card, but the right driver (ATI) and made a wild-ass guess at the monitor clocks (not sure it matters at all).

      Still not for a beginner, but frankly I found the OpenBSD 3.0 install easier than the FreeBSD 4.4 install.

    • FreeBSD detected my mouse automatically, along with my sound card once I made snd0. X is a different story.

      There's a good reason for this: X isn't part of the operating system. It's a separate project with one set of sources for all supporting OSs. Many Linux distros like to write their own X configurator. But FreeBSD sees X as someone else's project and doesn't touch it. Making the base system automatically configure X would be like making the base system automatically configure sendmail. That's not its job.

      X comes with some configuration utilities that work quite well, as long as you know what hardware you have. I use these, even under Linux. But that said, I see no reason with a FreeBSDXConfig port/package available for newbies. I just don't know how well it would work. I haven't installed Redhat in a very long time, but I have had problems with Mandrake, SuSE and Corel trying to detect my video cards. Come to think of it, I had a bitch of a time with Windows detecting my Rage128. The problem is that there is no standard way of determing video hardware capabilities. Methods that work for most cards can crash or reboot a system with other cards.

      The way around this hassle is to do what Microsoft does: get the OEM's to preinstall the operating system. My friend had a computer that generic off-the-shelf Windows would NOT install, but where the OEM CD of Windows would. Overall, I think Mandrake, SuSE, Redhat, etc., do a *much* better job of hardware detection than Windows does, for precisely this reason.

      [sorry for the rant]
  • I liked the article, its great for newbies to have more references.

    However, i disagree with this guy, he says XP is "the most complete OS" he's used. WHAT?? Truly HE must be a newbie., not that theres any thing wrong with that but I thought it was kind of a contradiction, i dont know about you guys?

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