Linux distribution recommendation

Rather than muck about with Linux, just replace the WiFi card with one using a less "novel" chipset. I would much prefer to use FreeBSD even if it means having a cheap WiFi dongle sticking out the back. Luckily WiFi is one of the components that can be easily replaced :)
 
kpedersen said:
Rather than muck about with Linux, just replace the WiFi card with one using a less "novel" chipset. I would much prefer to use FreeBSD even if it means having a cheap WiFi dongle sticking out the back. Luckily WiFi is one of the components that can be easily replaced :)
Click to expand...

Computers made by Lenovo and HP have BIOS whitelists that only allow "approved" cards to work, or sometimes, prevent the computer from working unless an "approved" card is installed. Personally, I avoid those brands, and have replaced the wireless cards in Acer and Dell systems. Some cards are easy to get to, some are not. There are also variations in card size and number of antenna connectors. Still, for a system you intend to use a lot, I think it's worth it.
 
Everything does not run on a single OS or a single architecture.
  • There are two references here to installing a Linux distribution in a jailed environment.
    1. Debian
    2. CentOS
  • From working with building different applications on FreeBSD, I can understand why someone may just want a readily available version of the software.

I had run multiple BSDs and Linux distributions on the machines I have. My reasons were:
  • Performance testing
  • Building Gnome AT on OpenBSD on a B&W G3.
  • Package building.
  • Video server
  • SSH sharing between systems.
  • Et al. Et cetera.
 
Can anyone recommend a tested wireless USB dongle? I've been googling this today, but the Newegg listings don't usually list the chipsets. For example, I thought the EW7811Un would work, but I almost missed the fact that it was an OpenBSD man page. The urtw(4) page for FreeBSD doesn't list it. I've been going through Newegg, then googling with the model number of a likely looking card with FreeBSD as the other search term, but I'm not finding anything yet.

EDIT. Looking at run(4) is showing a few, such as the ASUS USB-N13 that may work. (That one is iffy though, it specifies ver. A1) At any rate, there's a long list of supported adapters on that man page that I can check on Newegg. If I buy one and use it, I'll post further.

I may just wait for CURRENT to be released, though. I don't use that particular machine very often.

Undecidedly yours,
 
I see a couple of Buffalo cards still available on NewEgg also listed there. There's one of the small profile ones, a WLI-UC-GNM that googling indicates might work. There's another, a bigger (that is, similar in size to a typical USB stick) USB, WLI-UC-G300N, that is listed in the run(4) page. I am, however, a very frugal person, and so I really think I may wait for CURRENT to become a RELEASE. It's loosely scheduled for next month, and I don't have any dire need to use the laptop away from a cabled connection right now.

Heh, I see the WUSB600N from the man page listing is out of stock at NewEgg.
 
I posted on the NYCBSD list, asking a little more about USB adapters, and one person was kind enough to post an eBay link to a possible working USB adapter. They believe it will work, but don't guarantee it. Here's the link in case @cookiemonster wants to try it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ralink-RT3070-802-11n-WiFi-USB-WIRELESS-N-card-adapter-/261117253939

It's only $10.00 but will take about ten days to get.

I also, in an "Eat your own dogfood," mood, tried running FreeBSD as a VirtualBox guest in a small Fedora installation on my Zenbook, as I'd suggested doing earlier. I gave it 3 GB of the host's 4 GB for RAM and two of the host's four processors. It ran at almost native speed, though I didn't run make buildworld or any other heavy duty work on it. To speed things up, as this was a test, I used PC-BSD's pkgng() repositories, and installed most things with pkg install <whatever>. However, on a few things, such as dwm(), I used the port for installation. (With dwm() I wanted to use a custom config.h and I don't know if one can do that with pkg install. If it can be done, I don't know how to do it.

For me, who is just waiting a few months for CURRENT, but wants a FreeBSD install on this Zenbook, that is sufficient. I won't be doing very much with this machine, so I can either use the VirtualBox guest if I want wireless, or the actual install if I'm going to be sitting by my desk where I have cables.

For what it is worth, a few other drivers that are already working in OpenBSD, such as urtwn, which supports several newer USB adapters, are also now in HEAD and should be in FreeBSD-10.

One does have to be careful. For example, one driver, which I've already forgotten, (possibly run(4)) supports an Asus USB-N13 version A1. I saw that B&H in NYC had a used adapter on sale at a very low price and brought my laptop there. They were very nice and let me try it, but it turned out that it was version B1 and wouldn't work. (There's a thread about someone who bought one of these, not realizing that they should be aware of the version number, only to find that it didn't work at http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=32071 ) Many of the adapters supported with with the existing wireless drivers are somewhat old, and many are shown as no longer in stock at various manufacturers.

This post is probably too long, but hopefully, it helps someone.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Code: 
$ uname -a
FreeBSD keeples 10.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 10.0-CURRENT #0: Sun Mar  3 21:07:59 EST 2013     root@keeples:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386
$

The only "problem" that I see with CURRENT is that
Code: 
USE_GCC= any
is needed with some ports.
 
Again, I don't want to hijack this thread. (And I know that CURRENT is not supported here.) I hadn't used the
Code: 
USE_GCC= any
which may be why several ports failed to build. I may give that a try this week.
 
Well, I wound up giving CURRENT a try again and this time, my necessary ports all installed. So, for me, the issue is solved. This machine won't be doing much, just some workstation type things, so I'm good.

The very good news is, I think, that aside from the AR9485, several other wireless cards and USB wireless adapters will be supported in FreeBSD-10.
 
Thanks again everyone. I've settled on Debian Wheezy which recognized and configured my AR9485 without issue.

I'll wait for FreeBSD 10 to hit RELEASE and then I'll give it another go.
 
germanopratin said:
Arch has a central config file like FreeBSD has, but this alone does not make for a lot of resemblance to FreeBSD.
Click to expand...

If you're referring to rc.conf it got canned for systemd, which seemed like a mess to me, I much preferred the old way.
 
cookiemonster said:
What Linux distributions would you recommend that are closest in philosophy and ideals to FreeBSD? I'm looking for organization, stability, security, and reliability, with the smallest amount of closed-source components as possible (preferably none).

Thanks everyone :)
Click to expand...

If I have to use Linux, it's probably for work, so I use CentOS for projects that do not need official support [1] and Oracle Unbreakable Linux when official support is needed.

Also Red Hat Enterprise Linux for all the projects that think they need support and want to pay extra for nothing [2].



[1] This means that if a DBA want to install an Oracle 11.2 database, they do not complain, that it is not supported ;)
[2] I have used Red Hat support several times, with small problems, you can find the solution in Google, with hard problems like HA NFS file locking and clustering they are useless at most.
 
cookiemonster said:
Thanks again everyone. I've settled on Debian Wheezy which recognized and configured my AR9485 without issue.

I'll wait for FreeBSD 10 to hit RELEASE and then I'll give it another go.
Click to expand...

I didn't switch yet but I am thinking because running CURRENT is so painful and
Code: 
USE_GCC= any
is also one of the reasons. I will go with FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE but the Radeon 4850 GPU is not supported.
Also not working sound system is painful which on Live Linux DVD works everything without problems (also bluetooth magic mouse).

Fernandel
 
adamk said:
FYI, the Radeon HD4850 is definitely supported on FreeBSD, and has been for quite a while.

Adam
Click to expand...

I was not lucky. I installed FreeBSD 9.2-RC3 on my iMac 11,1 with ATI Radeon HD 4850. Type: GPU graphics card, display is LCD 2560 x 1440 and I got just a black screen, built with HAL or without. It was the same.with ATI or RadeonHD drivers: black screen. If you have a suggestion how the settings should be, not VESA, but I don't need 3D acceleration. I will give a try again.

Thank you.

I forgot to write that Xorg didn't work (not built with HAL or without, no xorg.conf or with xorg.conf).
 
If all else fails try Xorg -configure -retro. You will have a text file to edit. Gyb - Google/yahoo/bing - for some examples to follow.
 
Arch Linux if you want a system that is up-to-date while being secure.
Gentoo if you want a system that tries to match FreeBSD structure, it's powerfull and very fast if well configured.

(off-topic) And of course FreeBSD if you want a rock solid system that serves anything since embedded devices to huge datacenters. :)

Even my toaster runs FreeBSD! ;)
 
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