[Mike Meyer]

In <20030408110256.11656.qmail at linuxmail.org>, Steve Moss <stevem at linuxmail.org> typed:
> So I got a CD of FBSD 5.0. I can't even find "makeflp" or whatever
> you write the boot disks with on Windows. (too old to boot from CD)
> (not me the computers).

While I applaud your effort, I feel compelled to point out that you
don't want to use 5.0 for this. It's not really ready for
production. See <URL: http://www.mired.org/5.0-not-production.html >
for more information. You should probably be using 4.8 for what you
are doing.

> Is it worth me persevering with BSD? I do really need a GUI because
> my customers aren't that pioneering - they've emerged from the 2nd
> millenium like everyone else - as babies who can only point and
> click. So what do you think? Shall I go on to ask how to make boot
> floppies from my BSD cd?

Well, the suite of window managers et. al. that run on FreeBSD and
Linux are pretty much identical. The two are probably going to perform
so similarly that it'll be hard to tell the difference under the light
load you're talking about. That leaves two issues. One is that Linux
is less "scary" to the typical user, since it's had some press. The
other is which is easier for you to set up. On the low-end systems
you're talking about, you don't want to set up something like Gnome or
KDE - which is what a typical Unix distro is going to install for
you. Instead, you want a lightweight window manager - I prefer lwm,
though qvwm may be preferred since it looks like Windows 95/98/NT -
with a menu to start a browser - say skipstone - and a mail reader -
no help from me here. Since FreeBSD doesn't arrive with preconcieved
notions about what your desktop should be like

As a final aside, adding newlines to your mail every once and a while
improves readability.

	<mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.