FreeBSD - yay/nay?

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Yeah, because packages don't exist.

Oh, I'm sure there are much better ways then what I was up to. But ports seemed to be where all the newb documentation in the handbook was steering me so I went with it for a while. Could I simply have not installed the ports tree and just read "man pkg_add" and been on my way?

Not sure, I don't generally use FreeBSD.

This explains things pretty well for Open.

EDIT: FreeBSD's pkg_add(1) seems to explain installing via packages instead of ports decently well.

 

[kamper]

I've got no problem with openbsd's package management. Comparing it to freebsd's is what made freebsd look bad to me. That and the confusing installation process

 

[extra]

It will work just fine once you set it up correctly.

However for a home user there would really be no advantage in using it over a Linux distribution. Why not just grab debian stable? It's very easy to use. I was able to figure out Debian easily, BSD (I tried freebsd to mess around with it a while back) confused me greatly... The text files for configuring stuff are, dare I say it, very easy on debian, and the package management is great. If you feel like it you can grab the GUI stuff, get it all configured, then just set the system to boot in text mode since your using it as a server. Debian is really easy and simple. Why not?

If you have time to figure out BSD and wanna go with it--it will work great for what you have in mind tho. But if you already know Linux, why not use it? And expiriment with BSD in vmware or somethin'?