bsd questions
 

Hi guys at moment im using ubuntu but i downloaded live cd of netbsd looks cool and extremely but i would like to try freebsd couldnt find a live cd tho but i have a few questions

1: Installing BSD on a dual boot comp with windows is it same difficulty as linux i have used linux for about a year now but i prefer the gui installation compared to the console?

2: i have a 10gb partition for bsd what would be the best setup for bsd on ubuntu its 448mb swap and rest /

2: i have a ati radeon 9800 is this supported by bsd or will i have to download drivers for it. also will i be able to get into kde straight away with generic drivers installed.

3: in terms of installing apps etc does bsd have some kind of tool like apt-get install for ubuntu

any help appreciated

thanks

Multi-boot with BSD is almost exactly the same as with Linux. Installation in FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD is all done from the console. The reasoning behind this is that it imposes fewer restrictions on the target computer. The process can be somewhat daunting, but if you just take a second to think about what you are doing before you start, you'll be just fine. Help is available at every step in the way, plus there is great online (internet) documentation. If you still feel uncomfortable with it, you can try PC-BSD or Desktop BSD, both of which use graphical installation tools.

Usually the recommendation is something like "use twice as much swap as you have RAM". This should give you plenty of space for software and data. As far as partitioning goes, it's up to you. Some people say split it up into / /usr /var /tmp /home but it's basically a personal choice for desktop use.

This isn't really a BSD question per se; if X.org supports it, the card will work in anything using X.org (including Linux and BSD). But X.org does not have much 3D acceleration capability to speak of, because of the closely-guarded specifications of the hardware. Binary drivers for FreeBSD may be available from ATI (I'm not sure) if you want 3D acceleration, but I don't recommend using them. Using KDE with the generic X.org drivers will work just fine, because AFAIK KDE doesn't use much 3D graphics.

Yes, absolutely. FreeBSD and OpenBSD have the Ports tree, and NetBSD has pkgsrc. These systems build software from source, and allow more customization of the build process. Binary packages are also available for most popular software on all systems.