FBSD or PCBSD?

[Zbigniew Szalbot-4]

Hello,

I have a basic Acer Aspire with Vista on it but I am very unhappy
about the speed of work on it. I do not want to wipe out MS system (at
least not yet) but would like to give FreeBSD or PCBSD a try.

1. Am I safe by installing FreeBSD alongside Vista? Will the
installation not destroy MS system?

2. I have installed FreeBSD a few times but only with console access,
never with X windows. Would it be better to install PCBSD on the Acer
machine? I have never configured X windows and not sure how long it
could take with FreeBSD (actually I mean things like Gnome or KDE).

3. The wi-fi card is probably Acer InviLink 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. Any
chance such wireless card will be supported by FreeBSD or PCBSD?

Which is a better solution for a home user?

Thank you very much for your practical recommendations!

Zbigniew Szalbot
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[Frank Staals]

Zbigniew Szalbot wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a basic Acer Aspire with Vista on it but I am very unhappy
> about the speed of work on it. I do not want to wipe out MS system (at
> least not yet) but would like to give FreeBSD or PCBSD a try.
>
> 1. Am I safe by installing FreeBSD alongside Vista? Will the
> installation not destroy MS system?
>  
Just make sure you have free space and go. You probably want to use the
FreeBSD Bootmanager but I'm not 100% sure about that ( Only running a
dualboot system with FreeBSD and WinXP for which the FreeBSD bootmanager
is required )
> 2. I have installed FreeBSD a few times but only with console access,
> never with X windows. Would it be better to install PCBSD on the Acer
> machine? I have never configured X windows and not sure how long it
> could take with FreeBSD (actually I mean things like Gnome or KDE).
>  
Depends on your needs. If you are planning on running an other WM/DE
than KDE (Or at least I thought PCBSD came with KDE by default ) and you
are familliar with the ports system you are better off choosing
FreeBSD.  Setting up X is a piece of cake nowadays. In most cases Xorg
wil generate it's own configfile at start and you don't realy have to
worry about it. If something doesn't work or you want to configure it
somehow you can just run 'Xorg --configure' which wil generate a
configfile you can edit by hand. On the other hand if you are completely
new to FreeBSD, the portsystem etc than I guess you're better off
installing PCBSD.
> 3. The wi-fi card is probably Acer InviLink 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. Any
> chance such wireless card will be supported by FreeBSD or PCBSD?
>
>  
I don't know in what way it is supported. Google will probably give you
an answer. If it isn't supported natively take a look at ndis

> Which is a better solution for a home user?
>
> Thank you very much for your practical recommendations!
>
> Zbigniew Szalbot
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-questions@... mailing list
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>
>  

Good Luck,

--
-Frank Staals


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[Ashish Shukla आशीष शुक्ल]

,--[ On Fri, Jan 18, 2008 at 10:10:11AM +0100, Zbigniew Szalbot wrote:
| Hello,
|
| I have a basic Acer Aspire with Vista on it but I am very unhappy
| about the speed of work on it. I do not want to wipe out MS system (at
| least not yet) but would like to give FreeBSD or PCBSD a try.
|
| 1. Am I safe by installing FreeBSD alongside Vista? Will the
| installation not destroy MS system?

Yup you're safe. But make sure you've read FreeBSD Handbook[1] before
proceeding to install.

| 2. I have installed FreeBSD a few times but only with console access,
| never with X windows. Would it be better to install PCBSD on the Acer
| machine? I have never configured X windows and not sure how long it
| could take with FreeBSD (actually I mean things like Gnome or KDE).

No ideas about FreeBSD supporting your Acer box. Anyways, it won't be
difficult configuring X in FreeBSD, but if you're new to FreeBSD, you
can try PC-BSD.

| 3. The wi-fi card is probably Acer InviLink 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. Any
| chance such wireless card will be supported by FreeBSD or PCBSD?

No ideas.

| Which is a better solution for a home user?

I never used PC-BSD so no comments.

References:
[1] - http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/

HTH
--
Ashish Shukla आशीष शुक्ल                      http://wahjava.wordpress.com/
·-- ·- ···· ·--- ·- ···- ·- ·--·-· --· -- ·- ·· ·-·· ·-·-·- -·-· --- --

[Robin Becker]

Zbigniew Szalbot wrote:
........
>
> Which is a better solution for a home user?
>
> Thank you very much for your practical recommendations!
.......

I have had great success using PCBSD on various acers, I eventually got fed up
with it being not quite identical to FreeBSD and I now have FreeBSD 6.2 on my
current acer laptop (a 1680).
--
Robin Becker
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[Manolis Kiagias-2]

Zbigniew Szalbot wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have a basic Acer Aspire with Vista on it but I am very unhappy
> about the speed of work on it. I do not want to wipe out MS system (at
> least not yet) but would like to give FreeBSD or PCBSD a try.
>
> 1. Am I safe by installing FreeBSD alongside Vista? Will the
> installation not destroy MS system?
>
> 2. I have installed FreeBSD a few times but only with console access,
> never with X windows. Would it be better to install PCBSD on the Acer
> machine? I have never configured X windows and not sure how long it
> could take with FreeBSD (actually I mean things like Gnome or KDE).
>
> 3. The wi-fi card is probably Acer InviLink 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. Any
> chance such wireless card will be supported by FreeBSD or PCBSD?
>
> Which is a better solution for a home user?
>
> Thank you very much for your practical recommendations!
>
> Zbigniew Szalbot
>
>  

I happen to have an Acer Aspire laptop with both FreeBSD and Vista. Have
a look at some of my past posts for hints on how to install both:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2007-December/164389.html

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2007-December/165171.html

As for your wifi, I can't really tell you. Mine has an Intel 3945 and
lately there has been a lot of progress on the driver (Thank you
Benjamin!). I do have a PCMCIA atheros based backup as well.
If you need to get to a GUI quickly rather than building it yourself,
PCBSD (or DesktopBSD, try www.desktopbsd.net) would be your best bet.
Depending on how you choose to setup your system, in pure FreeBSD, going
graphical will take you anything from a few hours (using precompiled
packages) to maybe a couple of days (using ports). Read the relevant
handbook chapters for information.
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The FreeBSD Laptop Compatibility List
http://laptop.bsdgroup.de/freebsd/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BSD_operating_systems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebsd

Both DesktopBSD & PC-BSD are suitable for home users.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-BSD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DesktopBSD

Architecture :
                  Desktop Environment
                           |
                     Window Manager
                           |
                X Server (X.org/XFree.org)
                           |
                      Kernel
KDE
=====
-  Memory consuming (but user friendly)
-  use QT library but may not free
(http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses)
-  Very suitable for home users - full multimedia support (eg. good CD
writer)
-  Highly customisable for window environment settings.

GNOME
======
-  Efficient memory usage (simple & fast)
-  uses Gtk library, is free & part of GNU project (http://www.gtk.org/)
-  major enterprise linux distributions (Redhat, Suse, Fedora, Debian,
CentOS,
-  Highest distribution due to popularity of Ubuntu
(http://distrowatch.com/)

KDE vs. GNOME, Which is better ?
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/article.php/3671906

Which Has the Best Applications? KDE or GNOME
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3673321


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zbigniew Szalbot wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have a basic Acer Aspire with Vista on it but I am very unhappy
> about the speed of work on it. I do not want to wipe out MS system (at
> least not yet) but would like to give FreeBSD or PCBSD a try.
>
> 1. Am I safe by installing FreeBSD alongside Vista? Will the
> installation not destroy MS system?
>
> 2. I have installed FreeBSD a few times but only with console access,
> never with X windows. Would it be better to install PCBSD on the Acer
> machine? I have never configured X windows and not sure how long it
> could take with FreeBSD (actually I mean things like Gnome or KDE).
>
> 3. The wi-fi card is probably Acer InviLink 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. Any
> chance such wireless card will be supported by FreeBSD or PCBSD?
>
> Which is a better solution for a home user?
>
> Thank you very much for your practical recommendations!
>
> Zbigniew Szalbot
> _______________________________________________
> freebsd-questions@... mailing list
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@..."
>  

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[John Nielsen]

Quoting Robin Becker <robin@...>:

> Zbigniew Szalbot wrote:
> ........
>>
>> Which is a better solution for a home user?
>>
>> Thank you very much for your practical recommendations!
> .......
>
> I have had great success using PCBSD on various acers, I eventually
> got fed up with it being not quite identical to FreeBSD and I now
> have FreeBSD 6.2 on my current acer laptop (a 1680).
> --

I was unable to even boot my Wife's Acer (an Aspire 5520) with FreeBSD
6.3-pre or 7.0-pre. I'm also pretty sure the Acer wireless is NOT
supported by any native drivers; I haven't seen any success or failure
stories from anyone trying NDIS. I expect the same will be true with
PC-BSD, since AFAIK their kernel is pretty much stock FreeBSD (main
differences are in the installer and package management).

JN

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[Tore Lund]

Frank Staals wrote:
> Just make sure you have free space and go. You probably want to use the
> FreeBSD Bootmanager but I'm not 100% sure about that ( Only running a
> dualboot system with FreeBSD and WinXP for which the FreeBSD bootmanager
> is required )

FreeBSD boot manager shouldn't be required for WinXP.  I am using the
Windows 2000 boot loader myself.  It's very simple as long as FreeBSD is
on the first disk.  Watch your steps if FreeBSD is on another disk:

http://www.unixguide.net/freebsd/faq/09.10.shtml
--
    Tore

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[Colin Brace]

On Jan 18, 2008 3:27 PM, John Nielsen <lists@...> wrote:

> Quoting Robin Becker <robin@...>:

> > I have had great success using PCBSD on various acers, I eventually
> > got fed up with it being not quite identical to FreeBSD and I now
> > have FreeBSD 6.2 on my current acer laptop (a 1680).

> I was unable to even boot my Wife's Acer (an Aspire 5520) with FreeBSD
> 6.3-pre or 7.0-pre. I'm also pretty sure the Acer wireless is NOT
> supported by any native drivers;

FWIW, my Acer Aspire 5500Z has Intel 2200 wireless chipset which is
supported by FreeBSD and runs FreeBSD and PC-BSD fine.

Sounds like Acer laptops don't all have the same wireless NIC...

--
  Colin Brace
  Amsterdam
  http://lim.nl
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[Chad Perrin]

On Fri, Jan 18, 2008 at 10:57:16AM +0100, Frank Staals wrote:

> Zbigniew Szalbot wrote:
> >Hello,
> >
> >I have a basic Acer Aspire with Vista on it but I am very unhappy
> >about the speed of work on it. I do not want to wipe out MS system (at
> >least not yet) but would like to give FreeBSD or PCBSD a try.
> >
> >1. Am I safe by installing FreeBSD alongside Vista? Will the
> >installation not destroy MS system?
> >  
> Just make sure you have free space and go. You probably want to use the
> FreeBSD Bootmanager but I'm not 100% sure about that ( Only running a
> dualboot system with FreeBSD and WinXP for which the FreeBSD bootmanager
> is required )

This should be emphasized more:

Make absolutely certain you already have free space on your drive before
trying to install a FreeBSD or PC-BSD OS on the system to dual-boot with
an already existing MS Windows OS.  This can be accomplished in a number
of ways -- you'll probably want to use a LiveCD with partition resizing
software (like QtParted, for instance).  Knoppix comes with this
software.  Before resizing partitions, though, make sure you defrag your
MS Windows drive so the data on it will be packed toward the beginning of
the drive rather than spread across the end of it.  If you cut into data
on the partition when resizing, you could lose the data.  If the data's
important to the OS, this could hose the OS.

Once you have the free space, though, installing into that free space is
a cake walk.

> >2. I have installed FreeBSD a few times but only with console access,
> >never with X windows. Would it be better to install PCBSD on the Acer
> >machine? I have never configured X windows and not sure how long it
> >could take with FreeBSD (actually I mean things like Gnome or KDE).
> >  
> Depends on your needs. If you are planning on running an other WM/DE
> than KDE (Or at least I thought PCBSD came with KDE by default ) and you
> are familliar with the ports system you are better off choosing
> FreeBSD.  Setting up X is a piece of cake nowadays. In most cases Xorg
> wil generate it's own configfile at start and you don't realy have to
> worry about it. If something doesn't work or you want to configure it
> somehow you can just run 'Xorg --configure' which wil generate a
> configfile you can edit by hand. On the other hand if you are completely
> new to FreeBSD, the portsystem etc than I guess you're better off
> installing PCBSD.

Someone else in this discussion said something about it taking days to
set up a complete GUI environment if installing from source.  For me, it
took less than an hour.  Of course, I didn't install KDE, either -- it
all depends on how much junk you have to install to consider it a
"complete" GUI environment.

PC-BSD is a very straightforward install, generally.  So is DesktopBSD
for that matter.  Part of the reason for this is that you don't have to
make any decisions at all.  The downside is that you don't get to make
any decisions at all.

FreeBSD has a quick-install port for GUI/desktop environments.  Once
you've got the FreeBSD base system installed, just do this:

  cd /usr/ports/misc/instant-workstation
  make install clean

Among other things, it installs emacs, xmms, and KDE.  I don't use it,
though, because I'm not much of a fan of any of those three.  If you like
KDE, though, that could be a quick way to get from zero to a usable
workstation for you.

--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Marvin Minsky: "It's just incredible that a trillion-synapse computer could
actually spend Saturday afternoon watching a football game."
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[Patrick Lamaiziere]

Le Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:18:33 -0700,
Chad Perrin <perrin@...> :

> FreeBSD has a quick-install port for GUI/desktop environments.  Once
> you've got the FreeBSD base system installed, just do this:
>
>   cd /usr/ports/misc/instant-workstation
>   make install clean

Yes but the port has been deleted (2006-12-01).
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