Current Gentoo user

[Chad Perrin]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2007 at 06:12:55AM -0800, Grant wrote:
> 
> What about skype, wengo, and vmware workstation?  Do they work on FreeBSD?

I have no idea, I'm afraid.  Hopefully someone else on the list can
answer that.  I've never used any of the three.


> 
> >From what I've read, ports is much faster and generally much better
> than portage.

I certainly like it a lot more -- and it *can be* faster, at least.  I
haven't done enough comparison to really be able to answer that with
certainty.


> 
> >    * I tend to find that FreeBSD comes with much better diagnostic and
> >      monitoring capabilities built in -- programs like systat and gstat
> >      have no direct equivalents, and things like vmstat often seem to
> >      be missing from Gentoo boxes, although that is probably just an
> >      oversight by the person building the system.
> 
> Does FreeBSD take the nothing-is-installed-that-I-don't-want approach
> like Gentoo does?

Pretty much.  There are a few things in the base system that one might
consider "not necessary" to a minimal install, but there's little enough
there that it hasn't bothered me at all -- and I'm kind of a stickler for
keeping things relatively minimal in a lot of ways.


> 
> Am I likely to struggle with FreeBSD on a laptop?  I booted FreeSBIE
> just fine but I didn't test for sound.

I don't think you're likely to encounter problems any more than with
Linux, generally, unless you expect 3D accelerated graphics using a
Radeon adapter.  As for sound -- my experience is that sound
configuration on FreeBSD is much *much* easier than on Linux systems in
general.  ALSA has, from time to time, been the bane of my existence.
Getting sound working on FreeBSD (complete with multiple channels so that
more than one application at a time can produce sound) has never taken me
more than about three minutes.


> 
> I would imagine 64-bit support in FreeBSD is excellent, but what about
> support of 32-bit binaries (e.g. the above listed) on a 64-bit system?

I still haven't used FreeBSD on a system with a 64b processor, so I'm
afraid you'll have to get answers to this one from someone else, too.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Dr. Ron Paul: "Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when
terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons."