whether BSD is better is debatable…if you want to look into bsd without going through a major pain in the a$$ check out PC-BSD personally i like linux better. But BSD’s hardware support is pretty good for the most part
That really depends on you. Linux distros vary, though the hardware support is much better than it used to be. I really don’t think FreeBSD will ever catch up, though it is really quite good. As an example, I have it installed in a machine I haven’t plugged in in almost a year. One reason I haven’t plugged it in is this livecd:
I think the best reason to “switch” is to learn more about computer science. I remember sitting at a Linux User Group meeting watching a guy sitting next to me install it onto an old Thinkpad laptop using a USB Flash Drive. Given that, you should reasonably make the attempt to support your hardware yourself. FreeBSD and most versions of Linux are NOT consumer Operating Systems.
Most of the people I know who have switched, given who they were went through periods where they thought FreeBSD was much butter, but came to the conclusion that their reasons for switching were entirely personal and subjective. My family, which has been heavily involved in computers since the sixties, tends to enforce on each other the idea that the use of ANY Operating System is a subjective and personal choice. I’m certainly as guilty as the rest of us, so would deny that Linux or FreeBSD or Hurd or Leopard are “better”. There’s no such thing. Just as when you are willing to use a Mac, though, the wait for public computers is much shorter, there are advantages and times to use all the operating systems.
I’d download a liveCD right now, do a test run, and see if you can understand it. MAKE SURE, if you do install it, you put your userid in the group “wheel” because if you don’t, even su won’t work. And you may prefer it or not.
It doesn’t have as much software available as Linux does. I would recommend you dual boot for a while so you can make your own choice.
whether BSD is better is debatable…if you want to look into bsd without going through a major pain in the a$$ check out PC-BSD personally i like linux better. But BSD’s hardware support is pretty good for the most part
That really depends on you. Linux distros vary, though the hardware support is much better than it used to be. I really don’t think FreeBSD will ever catch up, though it is really quite good. As an example, I have it installed in a machine I haven’t plugged in in almost a year. One reason I haven’t plugged it in is this livecd:
http://www.freesbie.org/
I think the best reason to “switch” is to learn more about computer science. I remember sitting at a Linux User Group meeting watching a guy sitting next to me install it onto an old Thinkpad laptop using a USB Flash Drive. Given that, you should reasonably make the attempt to support your hardware yourself. FreeBSD and most versions of Linux are NOT consumer Operating Systems.
Most of the people I know who have switched, given who they were went through periods where they thought FreeBSD was much butter, but came to the conclusion that their reasons for switching were entirely personal and subjective. My family, which has been heavily involved in computers since the sixties, tends to enforce on each other the idea that the use of ANY Operating System is a subjective and personal choice. I’m certainly as guilty as the rest of us, so would deny that Linux or FreeBSD or Hurd or Leopard are “better”. There’s no such thing. Just as when you are willing to use a Mac, though, the wait for public computers is much shorter, there are advantages and times to use all the operating systems.
I’d download a liveCD right now, do a test run, and see if you can understand it. MAKE SURE, if you do install it, you put your userid in the group “wheel” because if you don’t, even su won’t work. And you may prefer it or not.