Bernard said:
That's was a very fast respond. Thanks!
About myself. I already have decided to switch to BSD. This post it's not about me. It is about the rest of the world. In my opinion could and should everyone benefit from the BSD projects. I am newby and I am just trying to understand what FREEBSD is al about.
Please correct me if am wrong!
Here we go:
Bernard said:
Operating system
A bought copy of of Windows is rather expensive
A bought copy of FreeBSD is rather inexpensive
FreeBSD from Torrent or mirror servers is legal
Windows OS from Torrent or unofficial mirror servers is illegal
You can get free versions of Windows if you're in some parnerships with Microsoft, like MSDNAA, which is free. So change the "Legal version" to "bought copy", and the "Free version" to "Torrent version".
Also, when buying Windows OS you get it on a physical medium and can install it even without an internet access. For a physical medium of FreeBSD, you have to donate/pay something, too: See
http://www.freebsdmall.com/cgi-bin/fm/bsd8.2
FreeBSD is less expensive then windows, so call it "rather more" and "rather less" expensive.
Bernard said:
Games
FreeBSD support only very few Games
Windows support next to every Game
Some games can run on both operating systems.
There are only very few "linux games" that aren't "Windows games" too. On games, Windows is not only undoubtedly supperior to anything else, but also to anything else combined.
Bernard said:
Software
Windows software applications are usually priced
FreeBSD software applications are usually free
Windows software applications are usually closed-source
FreeBSD software applications are usually open-source
Whether software is commercial or not is irrelevant for charging purposes. Squid, Snort, Qt, ... are all commercially developed software that are both open source and free of charge to use. Note that those are also free for use on Windows OS.
Also, there's expensive software for FreeBSD.
Bernard said:
Marketing
Microsoft sell there product trough marketing.
The BSD community is not trying to sell you their operating systems.
Microsoft sign exclusive contract with company that will agree to sell Windows OS only.
The BSD community will advice you to use Windows when it will do the job better.
I don't fully get the second part, but the part I got I will disagree. Microsoft will not try to sell you Windows OS only - quite the opposite, they'll try to sell you Office right after that. Most OEM-installations of Windows even ship timed demo versions of Office.
Office is the "true monopoly" of Microsoft, and I think they would release a UNIX version of it if UNIX had more market share in the office world (the mainstream market isn't worth the effort because of the large amount of piracy). Microsoft FoxPro for example, has officially supported usage on FreeBSD.
Also, changed from FreeBSD to BSD. IIRC FreeBSD, was created as the effort to market BSD.
Bernard said:
Security(spam, malware, virus, hackers)
Using internet on Windows is as secure as the user wants to put effort into security
Using internet on FreeBSD is as secure as the user wants to put effort into security
Wine officially stated their goal to also run viruses and trojans, clicking on every banner in the web won't be alot safer in <your-browser-here>@FreeBSD then in <your-browser-here>@Windows OS.
Bernard said:
Stability
Windows with all updates is stable
FreeBSD-Release-GENERIC is stable
In fact I had more crashes with FreeBSD then with Windows lately.
Bernard said:
commercial Support
Windows has commercial support
FreeBSD has commercial support
community support
Windows has a large number support communities, of which most are useless
FreeBSD has a centralized community which is good, and few project-bound/decentral communities/usegroups which are also good
http://www.freebsd.org/support.html
Bernard said:
Employes
Windows employes are trying to make money.
FreeBSD employes are trying to make money.
Every developer is trying to improve his or her product. Any interpretation of what an improvement actually is, is subjective.
The difference is actually that only very few people involved in FreeBSD development are employed by [the] FreeBSD [Foundation], while only very few people involved in Windows OS development are NOT employed by Microsoft.
Bernard said:
Limitations
Somethings you can only do in Windows. Windows OS and license is very limited.
There's nothing that really can done only in FreeBSD. FreeBSD OS and license almost unlimited.
The fact next-to-everything that can be done by FreeBSD can also be done by OpenBSD, NetBSD and maybe OpenIndiana is (at least to me) a feature of FreeBSD: If the FreeBSD community was to go crazy, additionally to forking FreeBSD (which is not a viable option for most users), there is the option to move to an already existing alternative at considerably low efforts.
While I'm not a great gamer, and prefer both LaTeX and HTML over wysiwig documents (Word/Excell/Powerpoint/...) I think the most important point of Windows was not mentioned:
Hardware Support
Windows OS drivers are available for virtually any Hardware.
FreeBSD drivers are available for established Hardware.
For a desktop user in question, this is important because only nvidia tends to support new graphics cards, while support for "established" non-nvidia graphcis is rather poor, too. Also some WLAN adapters seem to be troublesome according to the mailing lists. And WLAN is _very_ popular at home-use.