[wplug] comparing distros (was: iso small distros)

[Person, Roderick]

I've used only FreeBSD now for almost 3 years. You would have no problem
installing FreeBSD on that machine. The first time I installed it was on
something similar. Depending on what distro of linux you use the installs
for Net and Open can be a little rough. FreeBSD is the simplest of the 3 to
install but it installer is 'somewhat' like slackware.

I have install cd of versions 3.3(i think) all the way to the current 4.4,
if you need to get a copy.

Roderick P. Person
Programmer II
personrp at ccbh.com

'I really miss the rollerskating Satanists with their Nephilim sweatbands
from the old days.'
- Volker Freitag 



> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Gerard Matthews Jr. [mailto:dgm4+ at pitt.edu]
> Sent: December 09, 2001 10:56 PM
> To: wplug at wplug.org
> Subject: Re: [wplug] comparing distros (was: iso small distros)
> 
> 
> While we're on the subject of comparing different small distros for
> wierd old machines, could anybody recommend the best *BSD 
> variant for a
> 486SX?  I was digging around in my parents' attic this afternoon, and
> found my old 486 (which I thought they had given away years 
> ago) sitting
> there all packed up.  It occurred to me that it might be fun 
> to try some
> random OS's and distros on it, and I thought *BSD might be a 
> good place
> to start, but I know bloody little about the BSD's and almost nothing
> about the differences between them (except that NetBSD runs on
> everything, OpenBSD's security obsessed, blah; blah.)
> The box in question has 12 MB of RAM (I don't care about X although I
> did run X on the machine a few years ago when I put RH 5 on 
> it), a 1 gig
> HD and a 200 MB HD, and a Creative CD-ROM (does *BSD support
> non-IDE/SCSI CD's?).   It doesn't have a NIC, so a network install is
> out unless someone feels like loaning me a supported ISA NIC.
> Thanks,
> dgm
> 
> mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu wrote:
> > 
> > On Sun, Dec 09, 2001 at 10:25:08AM -0800, Elwin Green wrote:
> > >
> > > Greetings, all -
> > >
> > > First, thanks for the responses to my previous post. I've 
> decided to go with
> > > debian for now, because I really liked the documentation 
> given at their
> > > website.
> > >
> > > However, I want to emphasize that that was my ONLY reason 
> for choosing
> > > debian over slackware in this instance. Otherwise, I know 
> next to nothing
> > > about the differences between them. Which leads to my 
> next question: can
> > > anyone point me to an aricle, website, or book that 
> offers detailed
> > > comparisons between distros?
> > Hrm, plenty of flamewars =)
> > 
> > >
> > > The key word there is "detailed". All that I've read so 
> far comes down to
> > > statements like "distro x is easier to install," or 
> "distro y is better for
> > > the enterprise." I'm looking for something that would 
> say, "distro x uses
> > > runlevel 4 for a graphical login, and distro y uses 
> runlevel 5," or "distro
> > > x and distro y both place xFree's config file in location 
> abc, and distro z
> > > places it in location def." Or for that matter - 
> something that would tell
> > > me the functional difference, if any,  between a deb and 
> an rpm (and not
> > > just tell me that one format is debian's and the other is 
> red hat's).
> > If it's information like this, I suggest consulting the 
> various distributions'
> > documentation and analyzing it yourself.  I can tell you 
> right away that you
> > will find information about things like "where is 
> such-and-such file" and
> > "this is how packages lay things out" for Debian in the 
> Debian Policy Manual
> > and related documentation (mini-policy guides, etc), 
http://debian.org/devel.
> Redhat must have something similar, I imagine, as do other distributions,
> to one extent or another.
> 
> I know a good site comparing package formats:
> http://www.kitenet.net/~joey/pkg-comp/
> 
> But your best tool is going to be Google, and the documentation of the
> distribution in question, I imagine.  Or simply install them all, which is
> what I did several years ago, when I had gotten my new laptop.  I got the
> cheapbytes mondo pack of Linux and BSD and went through every CD.
> 
> --
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
> ;; Matthew Danish                         email: mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu ;;
> ;; OpenPGP public key available from:        'finger mrd at db.debian.org' ;;
> ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
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