I like Arch Linux. Seems to be the easiest. There are several different kernels to choose from that are already compiled and you just pacman -Syu to update. The base system is so small that I only need to remove lilo, and some filesystem specific tools likes reiserfs stuff because I use ext3. I used to use rubix linux which in my opinion was awesome. Slackware + modular startup + pacman. It was great. :(

For all those that have tried FreeBSD, how does it compare to Linux vs the other BSDs? It seems like FreeBSD is the most Linux-like of the BSD variants.

Also, I agree with the people that said Slack is the best. If you stay Linux, there is nothing better. :cool:

There are some nice things about it - I like stuff like 'vidcontrol', but the tools are generally either 'more unix-y' or 'old-fashioned and less-featureful' depending on your angle. Hardware support is generally not as good - good, just not *as good*. Also, I have weird problems with my external USB drives that I don't have with any Linux. Apparently the IDE driver now handles USB instead of the USB driver (or whatever), so maybe it's better now. Slackware and *BSD get compared a lot but, IMO, Slackware's better. The thing FreeBSD is most like is Gentoo. Or, rather, Gentoo is most like FreeBSD.

Also, since FreeBSD is made up of gcc and groff and the X Window System and lots of other things and, as far as Linux goes, the FSF makes coreutils, bash, and a bunch of other junk, I find the 'Linux is a mishmash and BSD is a single coherent system' arguments to be overblown. Still, you do get a more coherent *feel* from the main source tree, the unified presentation of core man pages (unlike the hideous crap they generally are on Linux since the FSF likes to butcher them in favor of info), and so on.

If you've got run-of-the-mill hardware that is high-spec enough to compile a lot or you don't mind it in general and you're curious, then it's definitely worth a shot.

As far as it being the most Linux like in general, I dunno - I haven't tried the other BSDs except PC-BSD, which is frighteningly Windows-like. (Some people slam 'user-friendly' Linux distros with that but this isn't a slam at user-friendliness - I'm saying it's like a clone, complete with goofy messages, click-next software installations, gratuitous reboots, and so on.) But I gather NetBSD would be like Debian in a sense and OpenBSD would like some security-centric Linux distro. I don't know that you can say it's the most Linux-like - just the most suitable of the three for an x86 desktop. But, as I say, that could be wrong, based on general rep. I know people *do* use Net or Open as desktops.

I say if people want an OS like Windoze ... why not the real deal ? Why bother with Linux clones of Windoze ?

None of the BSDs are Linux-like- BSD is pure UNIX, you could say (and it is said) that Slackware is the most UNIX-like Linux.

All the BSDs have many similarities since they're all more or less related as forks of each other or predecessors. The main difference from a user's view is how packages are built and managed.

Beautifully said. The gnu gcc toolchain is the biggest thorn in BSD's side. Unfortunately, creating a compatible toolchain that will work with autoconf and all the other tools is not likely to happen. Because of this, Linux actually feels better integrated than BSD as soon as you start to compile anything manually. I suspect only a kernel dev would be able to see where BSD's overall integration is better. For the user, even a power user, he's not likely to see it.

I don't think NetBSD is like Debian at all. It's like any other BSD, only with a better package manager. pkgsrc is the best of the lot. OpenBSD is also not like Linux- it's like BSD, but everything is usually done with precompiled binary packages. The BSDs are much closer to each other (they're all related) than they are to any Linux. It's not hard to move between them except that OpenBSD does things a little bit differently in some areas than Free and Net.

I totally agree, that 'once you had Slack you never go back'. However, the lack of dependency tracking in the package management had been annoying me for ages.

Then I discovered Zenwalk. Slackware through and through, except the netpkg utility has dep-tracking. Only works with packages from the Zenwalk repo. The packages are in tgz-format, and the dep-tracking is handled by metafiles. You will still be able to install standard .tgz packages, only, dependencies won't be tracked.

After having moved to Zenwalk, I will truly never consider another distro again.

I haven't seen Zenwalk so I don't know if this is true but it seems that all of the package systems that manage dependencies end up dragging piles of rubbish along you don't want. For example if I build ROX-filer in Slackware from source, I can create a package with nothing but ROX-filer in it, and it works. If I build the same app on FreeBSD then I get a few thousand other packages that are considered dependencies:

ORBit2-2.14.7_1, atk-1.18.0, autoconf-2.13.000227_5, avahi-0.6.18, bitstream-vera-1.10_3, cairo-1.4.6, cdrtools-2.01_6, dbus-1.0.2_1, dbus-glib-0.73, dmidecode-2.8, expat-2.0.0_1, fontconfig-2.4.2_1,1, freetype2-2.2.1_1, gamin-0.1.8, gconf2-2.18.0.1, gdbm-1.8.3_3, gettext-0.16.1_1, glib-2.12.12, gmake-3.81_1, gnome-mime-data-2.18.0, gnome-vfs-2.18.1, gnome_subr-1.0, gnomehier-2.2, gtk-2.10.12, hal-0.5.8.20070403_1, hicolor-icon-theme-0.10_2, intltool-0.35.5_2, jpeg-6b_4, libIDL-0.8.8, libXft-2.1.7_1, libbonobo-2.18.0, libdaemon-0.10_1, libdrm-2.0.2, libiconv-1.9.2_2, libvolume_id-0.75.0, libxml2-2.6.27, linc-1.0.3_6, m4-1.4.9, p5-XML-Parser-2.34_2, pango-1.16.4, pciids-20070425, perl-5.8.8, pkg-config-0.21, png-1.2.14, policykit-0.1.20060514_3, popt-1.7_3, python24-2.4.4, samba-libsmbclient-3.0.24, shared-mime-info-0.21_2, tiff-3.8.2_1, xorg-fonts-encodings-6.9.0_1, xorg-fonts-truetype-6.9.0, xorg-libraries-6.9.0_1

WTF!!!

but they aren't required at all, it's just a necessity of how to do package management when you have to consider other apps and it takes 10x the disk space. I'm not criticising FreeBSD, it's a great OS. It's just to point out that dependency management has a price that alot of people don't want (or can't) pay.

Because of this I think most of the Slackers prefer to manage their own dependencies. I've broken things a few times, but I also fixed them :p If you don't like package bloat, Slackware rules.

The other problem with Zenwalk is the "one tool for one job" mentality. A very bad one I must say. Let's face it, tools break often :) If you have only one for the job, you are screwed :( That's why I always have at least 1 backup program at hand for a certain purpose, just in case. Of course, this is all IMO, believe whatever you want. From my experiences, "one tool for one job" is bad idea.

I find Slackware package management and its lack of dependencies solving infrastructure often misunderstood. It's very simple, smooth and functional nevertheless.

• Common installs are intended to be full so there is no case when stock package will miss some dependency whereas 99,9% of dependencies are solved by installing library packages from l/ subdirectory.
• Even if full install is not realized, dependecies are to be manualy solved only once and then it's just about brainless upgrading with updated packages from patches. To be correct almost brainless, reading ChangeLog.txt never harms - there are rare cases when upgrade might break something.
• In case of custom packages one need to track dependencies by himself like it does any package maintainer at other distro vendors like Debian or RedHat.

To sum up, there's no urge for dependencies mechanism to be included because Slackware is designed to get along without it and remain as simple as possible at the same time.