BSD as a desktop OS
 

Hi there! I'm fed up with Redmond so I was considering using BSD as a desktop on one of my machines (mainly for school work, internet, email, not really for games) preferably with KDE. A few of my friends use OpenBSD, some use FreeBSD and both groups say both are better for xyz reasons... one's also toying with Darwin...

Which BSD distro do you think would make the best desktop? Keeping in mind I'm fairly :newbie:

Thanks! :D

I have been using FreeBSD 4.10 since it's release and really like it. FreeBSD is well documented, which is a plus because you will need to learn new naming conventions (ie../dev/cdrom0 is /dev/acd0c) and other things under the hood in order to configure it to your needs.

I found this to be an extremely helpful series of how-to's for setting my system up. It is based on 4.9, but I have not had any trouble using it on 4.10.

http://screamingelectron.org/forum/s...ead.php?t=1222

TheBman

Thanks a bunch TheBman, just what I was looking for! :D Especially the note on the XFree86 graphical install; I did that and i crashed, so I´ll try the Text based setup next time.

Just one more question, I´m still a little confused about how BSD manages ´partitions´ -- are they the same as ´slices´? As in, can I make or do I need to make a logical partition then dump my other partitions, sorry slices, in that? I read somewhere that you just have one ´slice´ and then thats split up. I followed the instructions to do a generic install, but I would like to understand what I did!

Pardon my :newbie: -ness!

slice=partition
partition=logical drive
roughly.......

The documentation for all three main BSDs is extremely good. At this point I wouldn't expect Darwin to be a stable choice for a desktop OS (especially since i386 support was a third party port).

The differences between the three main BSDs has been extensively documented here (use the search function) and other places all over the 'Web. Any of the top 3 would make a good, reliable workstation.

You mentioned that you want to use KDE.
If you use it with Freebsd do not use the KDE user manager as it may
expire you user accounts and you'll have to wrestle them back.

I've heard that this was fixed in 4.10, does anyone know if this is true?

Free BSD is a fantastic os to use for a "desktop OS", It is the most widely used *BSD os, and most people seem to like it in genral if there *NIX skills are up to par.I say this because i have seen many people have quite the boxing match with it at times,but that has happend to all people who are learning true UNIX os'es....So if you have a firm grasp on youre mandables,,,,give it a go....