[PLUG] Anyone using / can advise on FreeBSD/NetBSD?

[Shridhar Daithankar]

On Friday 01 Jul 2011 8:13:32 PM Mayuresh wrote:
> I don't intend to start any BSD/Linux or anything vs anything flame.
> 
> There is ample material on such comparison on the web some of which I
> have browsed through.
> 
> If somebody has used any of the BSD systems (FreeBSD or NetBSD), I'd have
> just liked to know the experience with them, any significant advantages or
> pain areas felt etc.

My experience is fairly old, around 4.8/5.0, but I doubt freeBSD has changed a 
lot ;)

- its like slackware/arch-linux or they are like bsd. whichever way you 
prefer.

- man pages are good. I am still fan of 'man hier'. Nothing matches it.

- for a developer, it is a more correct system than linux. Porting my code to 
freebsd help me uncover plenty of bugs in networking etc. The code wasn't 
wrong, its just that it was not handling lot of cases it should be. On linux 
it just worked. On freebsd , I was forced to check a lot more, due to system 
defaults, restrictions/limits and what not. I learnt a lot on freebsd.

- freebsd is a different kernel than linux. Otherwise both of them are unix 
flavours on top. So if kernel matter to you,  a switch is worth. Thats the 
reason, I am on linux. KDE on freebsd is not much different than KDE on linux. 
So why should I go to freebsd really?

I know freebsd is a different userland too. But I prefer GNU userland. it is 
bit more user friendly than bsd one but both of them are good enough.

Besides, userland matters a lot less for a full blown GUI user. only command 
line I prefer is bash in konsole ;)

- I hate slices. Just a personal preference. partitions are lot better.

- I hate ports. I don't/didn't have horse power to compile everything I need 
from port and back then(2004-2005), using a 64 bit KDE desktop mean compile a 
lot of packages by hand because binary packages weren't available always.

I much prefer a distro. that puts out regular binary packages.

- freebsd is much more consistent than linux, unless you are using 
archlinux/slacware. That was the case then, I hope the gap is narrowed down.
 
> I am a largely command line user, never use any feature rich desktop
> manager. I use a regular x86 desktop computer / laptop. For such a usage
> profile and hardware, which flavor of BSD will be good to use?

freebsd may suit you if your network provider(modems,packages what not) 
supports it. Hardware support should be fairly on par but I don't know if 
need-binary-driver works that flawlessly.

As far netbsd, its the same deal between linux and freebsd. Do I care enough 
about a different kernel?
-- 
Regards
 Shridhar