Well, I doubt anyone cares about my revelations, but I feel like sharing.

I just finished trying to install FreeBSD on my (previously) RH 7.3 machine. It took me about an hour and ended with a blank screen of impenetrability, wich I think was supposed to be the X11 setup.

I realized something. I've been trying to get this Linux thing going for a year. It's allways been "Man, when I get this going it's going to be really great." I just realized, I've never "gotten it going." It's never been great. It's always been a headache. Always!

I spent $700 on a Playstation2 Linux rig and all that's happed is I've become addicted to Dance Dance Revolution.

I'm a geek! I can't just ignore Linux, but I don't know what else to do.

Dude.......FreeBSD is hard. Not like SuSE or Redhat.

Redhat and SuSE should both satisfy you. If you haven't gotten it going in a year......try Mandrake.

We don't wanna lose ya. Keep trying. This community is great.

Anything we can help you with?

Let me know It's all good bro!

Heck, I'll even send you some linux CD's if you need 'em!

first of all: freebsd is not linux.

second thing is: what the hell is the problem? you cant setup X11 in linux? you dont know howto setup your network? the setup fails? what do you mean by "get it going"?

Hi Travis

I'd go for something like Mandrake 9.1 -

You can check out all the major Linux distributions and more at Distrowatch - currently around 140 of them :

Click here to go to Distrowatch

FreeBSD is an advanced operating system for x86 compatible, DEC Alpha, IA-64, PC-98 and UltraSPARC® architectures. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley.
http://www.freebsd.org/

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...ooks/handbook/

The other posters are right. It is not Linux and it is not necessarily easy.
Good Luck.

Ok, ok. BSD is not Linux. It's Unix. You know what I mean.

And to show I'm not a quitter, I'm downloading Mandrake now... only 632 mb more. Thanks for offering to send me some CD's, whitehat. That was nice of you.

Travis86...

You're welcome. Whatever it takes! I can help you out. I don't have a ton of knowledge. But I can help when I can. If you think it will take you a long time to get Mandrake, I can send you 9.1 if you want?

I don't know if you have dial-up or broadband.

Peace

unix and bsd are both unix based, little in common, I recommend you actually try linux, i recommend slackware, not just because it is what I always recommend, but because of your situation:
1) x does not autoconfigure, thus use one that does not need it (redhat and suse and most default to gui screwing you.) sackware does not rely on gui, you configure after
2) slackware has a bsd-style init, it will be closer to the bsd you work with
3) it didn't delete the text-based gui config like most distros, once you are in type: xf86config then if you know your hardware/monitor even basically you can do it, then startx when you are ready. simple! then you can learn whatever after it


I have been using linux almost 5 years, slack the whole time, I tried others and hated them (specially redhat) I learned on slack at age 15 never having seen linux/unix/anything liek it before, but it was on a shelf and had a free book with it, i red the book on the car ride back home (trip) and compiled the kernel and nvidia stuff my first day and started playing ut, about a year later windows was gone, never gone back, sampled redhat, suse, gentoo, debian. with exception of gentoo I hated them all, gentoo I could not install because I have 56k and it requires a lot of d-loading during install. I do know source though, I use no packages, compile everything.

If you want a distro that is really easy to install and setup get RH 9, It is flawless, and really easy to install, Theres internet updates that are great cuz they let you know when an update is availble. You`ll be up and running in no time. Its only like 30 to 50 bucks and its well worth it.

Or you can get it from an online seller who only charges for post and packing for £6 (roughly 15 US dollars)

www.yourlinux.com

Ok, got Mandrake 9.1, got it on a disk, got the disk in my drive. Now, I've got it frozen - for the second time. The first time it froze when I tried to set the graphics options, now it's frozen trying to install xinitrc. Is it this hard for other people?

In the words of Ellen Feiss, "It's kind of ... a bummer."

I guess I'll download Slackware tonight....

I feel your pain......went through much of the same stuff when i was first trying to get a distro going.

good luck,
trinity

Keep trying!! We are here to help you.
I recommend Red Hat 9.
If you have any problems, ask away. That's the purpose of this forum. If you have any problems configuring X, let me know. I'm not on the boards all the time so I could miss your post. Email me a link to a post at darthtux@linuxmail.org

The only good use of Windows is that in device mangler you can get a list of your hardware drivers. Write them down, so when you load your flavor of linux you will know exactly what drivers to select. Your monitor should have the specs listed on the back. If you are using a flat panel or laptop, use the generic flat panel option with your screen resolution.

Hope this helps.

iv never had a problem getting any distro going, from SuSE (the first one i installed) to Slackware (which i just installed tonight, i like it actually)

iv never had a problem with hardware, is Linux really as incompatible as some people seem to find it? iv never had any problems with it

What problems are you having exactly? im sure there are people who would be around here to help you out