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I've been Using Linux for about a year now, and have a strong interest in freebsd. I love the concept of ports, and would love to try it, but unfortunately i rely on mobile broadband, and i don't think there's any way to connect to that on any bsd. If i am wrong and some one has more information on this, i'd be much appreciated. I think freebsd could be real nice. As long as there's someone that desires to use it, it will live; the beauty of open source, if the developers decide not to continue work, if the community desires it enough, they will pick up the project from where it ended. A good example of this is the Trinity desktop.
I've been Using Linux for about a year now, and have a strong interest in freebsd. I love the concept of ports, and would love to try it, but unfortunately i rely on mobile broadband, and i don't think there's any way to connect to that on any bsd. If i am wrong and some one has more information on this, i'd be much appreciated.
I've used mobile broadband on both NetBSD and OpenBSD. I currently use mobile broadband together with ADSL broadband in a dual-WAN setup on my OpenBSD 5 gateway. For me, here in Ireland with the operator Three, the steps are as follows:
1) Create a file in /etc/peers called three.chat:
Code:
ABORT "NO CARRIER"
ABORT "NO DIALTONE"
ABORT "ERROR"
ABORT "NO ANSWER"
ABORT "BUSY"
TIMEOUT 60
'' "AT"
OK 'AT+CGDCONT=1,"ip","3ireland.ie"'
OK "ATDT*99#"
TIMEOUT 40
CONNECT \c
3ireland.ie is my APN; you'll have to find out what yours is, together with the number dialled. For convenience get rid of the password on the USB modem if you have one.
2) Create a second file in /etc/ppp/peers called three:
/dev/cuaU0 is the modem device. I am using a Huawei e220. Again, you'll have to dig around to find out what your device is. Sorry I can't help you more with this but I forget how I finally worked this one out.
3) Create /etc/hostname.ppp0 so that the ppp0 interface is brought up at boot.
4) I use the OpenBSD firewall as a caching name server, so my /etc/resolv.conf contains just 127.0.0.1.
5) Restart networking:
Code:
sh /etc/netstart
6) Connect to your mobile broadband provider:
Code:
pppd call three
Hope this helps. There's a bit of tricking around with this but when you figure it out it works well, and mobile broadband is more stable on OpenBSD than any of the Windows machines I tried it on. Dual-WAN is great as well, and if your mobile broadband speed is limited you could try subscribing to a second mobile broadband ISP and pool your two WAN connections. Even if you used a low tariff with the second ISP it would help, because you could use PF firewalling to route all your DNS, for example, down the low-tariff channel and the rest down the other. This would have a very positive impact on web browsing, for example. Bear in mind that some protocols, such as FTP, HTTPS, and secure email do not work with dual-WAN. You need to route these down one channel only.
Last edited by Gerard Lally; 12-30-2011 at 07:33 PM.
Distribution: Slackware (mainly) and then a lot of others...
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Though I am a committed linux user I have a lot of respect for the people using *bsds. IMO you need to have more technical skills than an average linux user (apart from some extreme disros like LFS and slackware). The documentation for *bsds is excellent and perhaps something linux users will never have .
So I do not think the future of *bsds is bad. If I had the time I would have learned *bsds before I learned linux. Look at openbsd and their record for security - it is almost unbelivable on the other hand look at all the security patches for *bubtus or even debian for that matter and then *bsds would be something of a giant.
How are 'ports' of BSD different from repositories of major linux distros? Also, can *.tar.gz source packages be used in BSDs (if application in not available in bsd ports)?
The ports collection uses Makefiles arranged in a directory hierarchy so that software can be built, installed and uninstalled with the make command. When installing an application, very little (if any) user intervention is required after issuing a beginning command such as make install or make install clean in the ports directory of the desired application. In most cases the software is automatically downloaded from the Internet, patched and configured if necessary, then compiled, installed and registered in the package database. If the new port has needed dependencies on other applications or libraries, these are installed beforehand automatically.
As for the second question, as for linux tar.gz on BSD. They're a bit more tricky. I installed adobe flash player on firefox by following these steps
Enabling linux on FreeBSD
kldload linux
Install Linux Base (Fedora 10) pkg_add -r linux_base-f10
Edit the file /etc/rc.conf (this file is the central configuration file for all of FreeBSD) linux_enable=”YES”
You will also need to edit the file /etc/fstab (This file contains the list of file systems that can be mounted automatically) linproc /usr/compat/linux/proc linprocfs rw 0 0
mount /usr/compat/linux/proc
Installing Firefox and Flash on FreeBSD
1. Install Firefox pkg_add -r firefox or cd /usr/ports/www/firefox
2. Add the netscape plugin wrapper pkg_add -r nspluginwrapper
3. portsnap fetch extract update
4. Install the Adobe Flash Plugin 10.2 cd /usr/ports/www/linux-f10-flashplugin10
5. make all install clean
6. wrap the plugin: (make sure you do this as the regular user, doing it as root does not seem to work properly)
Thanks for giving a clear explanation. I think PCBSD (freeBSD derivative) is most desktop friendly, but it did not work on my average computer (which easily runs windows and ubuntu).
With PCBSD, you don't need to go through the steps above. PCBSD automates all the techie stuff for you.
I see PCBSD as the linux Mint for BSD users. As for your hardware, it's possible some of your hardware may be incompatible at the moment. Usually, this resolves with some time.
Linux has an advantage over the BSDs as it supports more hardware. PCBSD did worked on my system flawlessly.
However, I am a geek and I like to do things myself which is how I learn. PCBSD wants to do everything like in linux Mint. There is no challenged in there
However, I do like the ports jails in PCBSD. This allows installing FreeBSD apps without breaking/conflicting PCBSD's filesystem.
Distribution: Ubuntu n' Flavors, ReactOS, MINIX3, FreeDOS, Arch
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Well, Linux will, by my guess, crash and dissipate rather soon. Remember Linux is only a Temporary thing, it is a place-holder for GNU's Hurd. BSD as I see, will not suffer the same fate; although I see it moving a few spots down on distrowatch when the Hurd comes out then go back to normal.
Distribution: Ubuntu n' Flavors, ReactOS, MINIX3, FreeDOS, Arch
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I was talking about the kernel itself, Debian and such is here to stay, Debian actualy already has a port of itself to the Hurd kernel (and BSD's). The GNU website (man I say that alot) says thet GNU is commonly paired with a kernel named Linux because their kernel (Hurd) isn't done.
... and I asked what he thought about BSD's future. I was quite taken back by his response being that he was indeed a good operating system, yet Linux would be much better to master and BSD would be a "waste" to learn.
[ side note: I realize full well that OP wrote this back in '02 ]
I am deeply skeptical of folks who say things like, "[foo] would be a waste of your time to learn". If you glean new knowledge or - better still - new ways of thinking from a learning process, how can it be a waste?
Sorry to toss in a spiteful anecdote, but I worked with a bloke who spoke that way, for several months. He always "knew" which OS, language, framework et al. was going to win out, and he always had an intelligent-sounding assessment of every situation. Know what? He wrote unbelievably sloppy, crappy code, he couldn't get traction on his (rather simple) projects, and management squeezed him until he left. Point is: unless the gentleman you spoke with is an expert in both GNU/Linux and FreeBSD, and/or has a proven track record (not just hot air) of predicting future events in the technology world, forget him.
Getting back to the discussion at hand, I found the process of learning FreeBSD to be extremely rewarding. I didn't quite "get" GNU/Linux until I learned about FreeBSD's boot process, daemon management, and package building. Knowledge from one OS complements the other, and "ah ha" moments often mean knowledge gains on both platforms.
Distribution: Slackware (mainly) and then a lot of others...
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Comeon man, if something as stupid as windoze can stay I believe Linux has a greater chance. I have never heard that the Linux kernel was a placeholder. And I do not believe Linus started Linux with this in mind.
I do not want to get into flames over this but then I resent something like this being said in a linux forum. Linux is here to stay and will continue to live on - forever.
Distribution: Ubuntu n' Flavors, ReactOS, MINIX3, FreeDOS, Arch
Posts: 339
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My Last comment. Linus Never Made Linux because GNU was lacking a kernel, second, exactly windows is stupid an stupid/incompetent people want other things to be stupid so it would stop bothering them and just work, they don't want to burn a CD, partion the hard drive, play 20Q with the installer, and then ask "How do I install iTunes?", the win thin is a chicken egg problem for another time, and lastly: Software Has Inertia, there's a reason almost everything low level is written in C(++), theres a reason python got shadowed by java, Linux will take a while to be removed from office but it will start soon, and knowing Debian there will still be Linux-based OSs.
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