Good bye!

I've used FreeBSD for 1-2 days now and I must say it's great, it got all what I feel is missing in GNU/Linux but have not the stuff that GNU/Linux actually does have. I really love the ports system and it was very flexible. If I will run a server in the future this is the best choice. What I miss though is the non-free video driver for my ATI card. In the future when I'm more mature and don't play games or when I switch to Nvidia I'll comeback, and if I stay when I will try to contribute to the project.

I also love the installer.

Thanks.

Bye.
 
kalle97 said:
I've used FreeBSD for 1-2 days now and I must say it's great, it got all what I feel is missing in GNU/Linux but have not the stuff that GNU/Linux actually does have. I really love the ports system and it was very flexible. If I will run a server in the future this is the best choice. What I miss though is the non-free video driver for my ATI card. In the future when I'm more mature and don't play games or when I switch to Nvidia I'll comeback, and if I stay when I will try to contribute to the project.

I also love the installer.

Thanks.

Bye.

It's good to have diversity and choices. Enjoy your studies. You seem to have hit the ball on the head. FreeBSD is the right choice for servers; will always be. It's fun to hack around with a client sided box or laptop but there may be issues which can't be resolved. For clients sided it's nice to know that OSX and GNU systems exist instead of being forced to run windows with putty or what not. I've run Funtoo( a Gentoo derivative) on one of my laptops for a bit and found it to have a BSD like feel. Unfortunately though it feels like BSD it doesn't have the same elegance as FreeBSD does.

There is a project called PC-BSD which has a beta version of the newer drivers. It might be something you may want to look into to see if it works for your needs. None the less. Feel free to hit the forums again when you return.
 
Run FreeBSD on VM, over a Windows system and take advantage of both system, simultaneously;
I do the same thing:

Windows(Host) for:
  • Common/Daily Ordinary User tasks and Gaming
  • Syncing Windows mobile, printing, scanning and so on.
  • Running some Engineering Applications, and of course running my business-oriented softwares(DAW, NLE, ...) for composing/Editing Music.
* FreeBSD(Guest) for:
  • Personal home-made laboratory for my university's stuffs and research (Electronics Engineering), especially Embedded Systems
  • Fun, enjoying and learning more about IT, electronics and computer science fields
 
When I used to use linux, the hardware was an important factor for choosing an OS. This obviously led to distro hopping which was quite a (extremely fun) waste of time.

But I since came to realize that hardware is very easy to come by and it should not be a limiting factor on the software (which for me as a software engineer was the important part). Hardware also inevitably breaks so never become attached to it in that sense either.

So I say shelf the ATI card for now (until it is supported) and buy yourself an NVIDIA card. :beergrin
It will be a lot less of a stress and worry to just have hardware that works. (Which is why Apple does so well afterall).

(this is coming from someone who still thinks a GeForce 4 is "advanced" so if you have committed to an expensive graphics card, you may want to take my suggestion with a pinch of salt :))
 
I'm not sure that's a completely fair statement. The fact is, AMD pays quite a number of developers (both within AMD, as well as external contractors) to work on open source drivers and actively reviews and releases specifications without an NDA. Frankly, this is something I'd like all hardware manufacturers to do. While the open source drivers may be lacking in some areas, they are quite capable. Sadly, no one from the FreeBSD project has the time, inclination and ability to port those drivers to FreeBSD.
 
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