I'm running a rather heavily modified version of Windows XP Pro. Too modified. It is running rather slow on my 1800mhz laptop. I'm thinking of switching my OS for a few months. Any suggestions for something that can be remotely useable as a desktop? I don't game on my PC, so I just need several web browsers to work on it and have a APT/YUM-like feature.

FreeBSD? SmallBSD? Some random..ugh..linux? Windows Server 2003? I actually like WS2k3. Blazingly fast. Also amazingly insecure. But fast!

Any ideas?

- Kyran

As I have mentioned several times before we are mostly bsd users, with windows boxes for work/testing, there are lots of reasons to run it, but none of them are just desktop reasons.

In the *NIX world the kernel and windowing systems arn't dependent on one another, so for my interface I use enlightenment because it has enough bling to make it look good, while still being fast and very usable. Admittedly I mostly just use a window manager as a means to launch lots of term windows, so it may not apply to you, but I do still use Opera, FF, gaim, gimp and thunderbird/evolution as graphical apps and they work fine. And they would work fine on linux, solaris, HPUX or whatever *NIX you care to use.

I use fbsd as my desktop because playing with the OS doesn't interest me, not that I don't have to understand or have to configure things, but when I do they just work as a whole, it's not trying to get various groups' toys to play nice with eachother. There is a reason the design of UNIX and it's derivitves is the way it is, Linux seems to not get it as much which makes it less coherent and less useful to me.

The *only* reason I still use windows for work is Visio for customers, and even in windows I have cygwin doing the vast majority of the work. Open source has a little way to go, but for most things it is more than adequate, and of course superior in more than not, or I wouldn't use it.

Note: Solaris/HPUX/AIX/IRIX > linux for production servers, UNIX's strongest point has been great hardware integration far beyond anything Linux/MS has ever had, and it still dominates that arena. IBM's has no business supporting Linux other than its buzz word fame, it's sad.

fukin beer making me rant outside of the topic, sorry

-id

oh, and my next server/test OS is going to be dragonfly bsd http://dragonflybsd.org

-id

I am suprisingly comfortable with using the terminal in various linuxes,(linux' linii? What is the plural of Linux? is it linux?) I think I will go with freeBSD.
Any good sites besides the main one for documentation, etc? How is it performance-wise?

- Kyran

FreeBSD's docs are better than any other open source OS period. If you have questions though http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/ is a great resource, or just ask me.

-id

Thanks for the help. :D
I'll start downloading the CD ISOs.
Does it have a package managing system similar to YUM or APT?
How is it on system resources when not doing much?

- Kyran

oh second question, performance is good, you won't see much variation between *NIX OS's on the same hardware.

old joke/truth:

You take Windows and put it on new hardware under no load, result: it's feels fucking fast
You take Solaris and put it on new hardware under no load, result: seems a little slow

You put the Windows box under average load, result: it feels a bit slower
You put the Solaris box under average load, result: seems a little slow

You put the Windows box under high load, result: unresponsive
You put the Solaris box under high load, result: seems a little slow

/told better by someone who cares to google it

-id

Ahaha. Sounds good to me.

- Kyran

Ports collection is way ahead of any other package management system, check out the docs on it. And porttools lets you manage it all after install including automated checks that email you when an installed port has a problem.

-id

Neat. Thanks for the help. Downloading at 400kb/s. God I love my 10mbps-down connection. I'm off to sleep now. I have to hand in Social-30 shit tomorrow.

- Kyran

I am in LOVE with FreeSBIE.... I've tried various *BSD's before but theres something about a liveCD that I love...

pheusion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am in LOVE with FreeSBIE.... I've tried various *BSD's before but theres something about a liveCD that I love...

Then you'll like http://frenzy.org.ua/eng/

I try to stay balanced in the force by attempting to know everything about every OS. Things like http://unit.aist.go.jp/itri/knoppix/xen/index-en.html might help with this... also http://securedvd.org is nice to have even if all of them are linux distros. It seems I use embedded OSes (Linux, WinCE) more than any others these days. I always wonder how many bugs there are in MultiIE, Opera Mobile, and Minimo.

Might i suggest http://mxmos.2ya.com...


hell who am i kidding..

I still want to roll my own someday.