FreeBSD beginner (NetBSD advanced)

[Eric Crist]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of
> Wojciech Puchar
> Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 1:30 PM
> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: FreeBSD beginner (NetBSD advanced)
[snip]
> my questions:
>
> 1) what is Buf and Cache in top exactly? why buf on 96MB
> machine gets to
> near 20MB and never goes down? it's almost 1/4 of memory size.
>

Don't know.

> 2) can i compile kernel with -march=pentium,pentium[234] -O2
> optimization? in NetBSD 2.0 doing -march=pentium produces
> kernel that doesn't boot at
> all, just resets.
>

Don't know.
> 3) how can i disable compiling, using etc.. all that LKM (KLD) stuff?
>
> i really prefer one static kernel.
>

There are many klds that are capable of being statically compiled.  I
can't say for certain that all of them are, but the one or two I've
needed are statically compiled.

> 4) is IPv6 working well? (i mean no crashes etc...) i will
> get real IPv6
> zone allocation soon and want to use it.
>

AFAIK, it works perfectly.

> 5) what is used in FreeBSD for traffic management. NetBSD has altq -
> please just give me a name i will RTFM.
>

Don't know off hand, I haven't had to do much of this yet.  Everything I
do is with ipfw.

> 6) how to turn using serial port as console on i386? my home
> machine is
> headless, i'm using X terminals to access it.


For a headless system, create the file /boot.config and add the
following characters to it: -Dh

Then, in /etc/ttys, edit the line(s) for your appropriate serial
consoles.  Mine looks like this:
ttyd0   "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"   vt100   on secure


> 7) does FreeBSD support 2 CPUs on i386?
>

Yes, it does.  It even supports the Pentium 4 HT processors.

> sorry if too much questions at once, i would like to move my
> home machine
> to FreeBSD tomorrow, test it at real for a month and then (if
> it will be
> better than NetBSD for my needs) replace other machines.
>
> should i go to 4.10 or better 5.2.1? stability is really
> important to me.

If I were you, I would use 4.10.  Keep in mind, though, that the upgrade
process from 4.x to 5.x is a complete reinstall, for the most part.  I
guess there are some people that have been able to do it, but never I or
anyone I know here.  I've used 5.2.1 on my home machines, but they're
just a little too buggy for my liking.  ACPI can cause problems, and
seems to be the biggest source of bugs.  On the other hand, if you need
power management, I've never been able to get APM working in 4.x.

I hope this helps to answer some of those questions.

Eric F Crist