DragonFly BSD?

I had a dabber with Fedora 8 on my old system and got fed up with the poor performance of it compared to XP and the inability to get my wireless adapter working and decided to revert to Windows.
I'm currently running a nice shiny dual-core system with plenty of RAM etc. with the windows 7 beta. I have tried the old Fedora live CD and discovered several things; its the cruddy i386 version, my newer system doesn't run it half bad and my new wi-fi card works out of the box.
I have been looking at Linux stuff for a while now and have decided because of the clever Kernel, file system, etc. DragonFly BSD might be worth a bash and wanted to know how it is. I have some understanding of Linux because of me running several distros inside VMware which went bye byes before I could try some proper stuff and DragonFly.

A few final questions:

How do you dual boot Linux and Vista on one drive (I'm assuming its the same on 7 and can probably find the instructions before anyone replies-why did I ask?)?

How do you get MP3's to work on Linux (well BSD)?

Are there any REAL differences between Linux and BSD(excluding the different base system crud)?

 

bsd.. is unix.. linux isn't.

the two are chalk and cheese.. and unix isn't anything like as user friendly.. want to start editing system config files with vi ..before you can get a working desktop?.. didn't think do.

dragonfly bsd eh?.. probably has about 3 users worldwide.. because it's the first time I (a free-bsd and open-bsd {which really sucks BTW open-bsd devs.. all your repos are busted} dabbler) have heard of it.

now about the old fedora live cd.. I never like fedora.. always seems to be drm'd and made usa restricted style... before you moan about i386.. does your new shiny dual core (overblown imho) system have a pair of 64bit cpu's.. or is it a dual 32 lied about in the specs?.. they do this.. if it's a dual 32 then you need the x86 if it's truly 64 bit capable then you need the x64 version of the OS.. try sabayon x64 live.. that will tell you if your hardware is what you thought you bought

only other x64 linux I have seen work is debian.. can't comment on n00buntu.. except that posts on their forums are full of complaints about the latest being broken again.

as for fista dual boot.. not a clue.. I wouldn't bother.. just get shut of windoze XD

 

Thanks for clearing some stuff up.

So what your saying is:

I should have a proper fiddle with Linux first before I bother with BSD.

I should get Free-BSD because DragonFly has no fan base and thus no support.

Fedora's poo so it doesn't matter how fast it ran or anything.

That my CPU might not be actually 64-bit even though I have ran 64-bit XP on it (a nugget of info on Everest has confused me by showing Instruction Set x86, x86-64........)-I'm not patient enough to wait for sabayon x64 live to download.

Final point-I use 7 for games.

 

A little linux know how will pay dividends when you start playing with unix.. The two are similar, but nothing like the same.. if you get my drift... the bsd partitioner is usually as far as people get before screaming and running for an xp disk.. last time I read the partitioner notes after 20 pages my poor brain was boggled XD

Lots of nice linux live distros to check what does and doesn't work with your hardware.. it's usually easier to find one which works pretty much out of the box than to struggle (sometimes for days fruitlessly) trying to get one which doesn't to work.

It's my opinion.. and only my personal view.. that bsd-unix is far more university/business oriented where there are people who can in-house write specific software on a demand basis. FreeBSD is probably the most complete and user friendly.. but last time I had a dabble the repositories were all messed up.. so I put it aside for a time when maybe I can be bothered to have another look.. and the continual "insert disk 1 .. or 2.. or 3" .. really started to annoy me after the 50th time.

best policy is to download a few different architecture distros and live boot them.. see what works and doesn't.. every one has their own forums and wikis with specific help and guides..

http://www.livecdlist.com/

And.. I think really.. if your hardware really is dual 64 then studio64 would pretty much rock. it's a multimedia oriented debian. as long as you read carefully because it's a little odd in places. http://www.64studio.com/

happy hunting

(see.. I can be nice when I want to be XD)

 

I has to agree with Paula on this. I thought my hardware was a dual core 64 bit CPU, recently I discovered that it wasn't (i actually read the specs on the AMD site D'oh). That said, it will run a 64bit distro (currently on Debian Lenny AMD64 rls) but can be funny with sabayon (that and Gentoo and I don't see eye to eye). I have also run this box on a 32bit distro but with an SMP kernel installed (another variant of Lenny when it was testing, and I think SID unstable as well in 64 flavour).

I was an XP numpty a couple of years back, and apart from having to use it on the kids laptops and in work, Linux is my OS of choice. Wireless under *nix can be hit and miss, but Ubuntu 8.10 worked out of the box on my youngster's Dell.

The live distros are a good pointer for hardware compatibility, then when you install it you can tweak to your hearts content

For games, you would be best to stick to Doze, although there are games available to run on *nix they are not the major ones that the likes of EA push out. Either that, or get a console....

 

The only difference I have found between 32 and 64 is raw render power for transcoding avi files... but even then it's only measured by minutes not hours.

Hmmmm.. If I can get my 1.6 testbed machine to boot reliably I might give freeBSD another shot as I'm out of work.. for the first time in 22 years.

 

Now it sparc'd (sorry) my interest http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.1R/announce.html
I should have a look at that grotty old sun server that I was given a few weeks back.. once it dries out. First glance inside it looks like a quad.. but I need to get the mouse nest and the fungus out of it before I dare to power it up.

I have been after a real chunk of sun hardware for a while to continue with my solaris learning... make myself more employable.

For now I think I'm going to give the 7.1 dvd image a shot.. swapping disks is too much of a pain in the backside.. and I'm sure I can hang a dvd drive in grace while I have a play.

 

With all the businesses going broke around here it's easy to get this old junk...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h226/janrocks/sun.png

Somebody pulled it out of a skip behind a factory.. didn't have a clue what to do with it.. so it's ended up in my kitchen..
I had a play with the pic.. so you can't see how the plaster on the wall behind doesn't reach the floor XD

1:40 left on freeBSD 7.1 dvd image

 

I have been experimenting with this dragonfly... apparently it will run live from the dvd .. not for me it won't..

it's crap.. the partitioner is garbage.. it's unstable to the point of being unusable... as usual.. the guides are pointless, and the in system help doesn't seem to exist..

I'm trying to install the damn stuff because X refuses to run from the live dvd.

I'm giving up with this hopeless exercise.. 3 hours and getting nowhere.. the partitioner doesn't work but there is no way to skip it.

 

I decided against DragonFly after I discovered it didn't come with a GUI (this was hidden really well).
I have found Debian which I like the look of but studio 64 is also pretty cool looking. but then mint would make a great replacement for windows (which I could use only for games) I can't decide....

I play games on computer because the console versions are epically expensive (!I'm not a pirate I'm simply stating PC games are half the price!)

A final question I feel was ignored in my first post how do you get MP3's to work on Linux?

Finally I like KDE although no decent distro's use it how hard is it to swap GNOME for it or do they not have it because it is simply poo.

 

what's this about mp3's? .. play them with amarok.. audacious .. vlc .. or a host of other media players.. but you will find ogg sounds better at the same bitrates.. and flac wipes the floor with them.. I don't use mp3 for anything.

Only suse doesn't support them (theres a surprise coming from novell.. a M$ group company)

 

fair does its just the fedora CD refused to play them and crashed when it went online to get codecs

 

I'm not surprised in the least.. fedora (free version of redhat) is just as restricted in it's own way.

Us people from debian world are used to being able to handle multimedia without those stupid restrictions.

I think your only real choice for a full working system with lots of info and easily available software is between debian and pclinux.
ubuntu will annoy you.. and mint/myah/dream and a host of smaller distros seem to be very "developers niche"

Of course you could be really brave and dive in the deep end with slackware XD

 

so debian's definently worth getting?

my brain hurts

 

I think Mick uses arch.. I use all sorts of things, but settled on debian about 4 years ago as something I found to work for me.. Ktulu.. also debian.. creaky I think uses pclinux or mandriva.. and there are some ubuntu users.

Debian testing netinstall iso .. that's an easy way to go. If ubuntu works out of the box it's a debian derivative and similar (some annoying restrictions about how you can configure it.. but a good start)

or pclinux .. but for a quick and dirty learning curve mimizing.. try puppylinux live.. that's a good way to see if you are going to run into any major headaches. Your most likely problems.. with debian and others.. will be graphics and wireless drivers.

Must just add.. FreeBSD 7.1 is good.. way easier to setup and configure than 6 ever was... posting from a p2 400 (ok 512 ram as well) running gnome desktop.. and it's all working.

 

-Downloading PClinuxOS
going to take 1:40 with my slowwww internet :-(
decided I cba with an x86-64 OS because of a lack of decent ones