Best way to switch from Linux to BSD

[Paul Schmehl]

--On March 29, 2011 2:37:07 PM -0500 Adam Vande More 
<amvandemore at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists at tx.rr.com>
> wrote:
>
> Go to Youtube and see if you can watch a video.  Ubuntu does it out of
> the box.  FreeBSD only does it after you tweak and tweak and tweak and
> google and google and google.
>
>
> Or just follow the instructions.  If people really find that difficult
> I'm not sure any OS is going to be the answer long term.  If you do
> enough computer use you'll have to follow instructions at some point.
>
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/desktop-browser
> s.html
>

Imagine that.  And yet you can find numerous posts in questions from people 
who struggle with it.  Must be stupid people then, huh?

> Java is a different matter.  Handbook should be updated to use the iced
> tea plugin since the other java plugin doesn't work on new FF plus it's
> other deficiencies.
>

At least you're willing to admit there have been some deficiencies....

> Comparing Ubuntu and FreeBSD is a false choice and if you want a rough
> equivalent of ubuntu, use PCBSD.  I don't agree with what you say is so
> hard, but there are options to take most of that overhead away.

Can we at least agree that the OP found it hard?  Could we further agree 
that he's not the first one to encounter problems?

Sure FreeBSD isn't hard for those of us who have used it for years, but 
seriously, to expect a newbie to just roll the OS out, get a desktop up and 
running, install a functional flash and java without encountering any 
difficult issues is a bit unrealistic, don't you think?

As I stated in another reply, I just got tired of the hassle of constantly 
having to fix things that were working fine before I ran portupgrade.  And 
I gave up on flash.  It simply did not work.  I just installed VirtualBox 
and ran Windows 7 in it.

I finally asked myself why I was wasting my valuable time trying to get and 
maintain functionality that "just worked" on the Mac.  The answer was, stop 
wasting your time.

Again, this is *not* a knock on FreeBSD, but there is a world of difference 
between installing an OS that runs a window display system (like Xorg) and 
a DM (like KDE) and flash and java and all the things that I am forced to 
use for my work out of the box and installing all those ports and 
maintaining them and fixing the problems that inevitably occur.

That's why my desktop OS is now a Mac.  Because when I have to attend a 
meeting using Adobe Connect (which I will doing next week), I can't do that 
in a FreeBSD desktop without a *lot* of work and tweaking, if at all.  When 
I need to do a remote session with a vendor to fix yet-another-problem on a 
stupid Windows server, I need Java to work flawlessly with Go To My PC.  It 
may or may not do that on FreeBSD.  No, it's not FreeBSD's "fault", but who 
really gives a damn when it needs to work?

And, after all, isn't that the OP's complaint?

-- 
Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst
As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions
are my own and not those of my employer.
*******************************************
"It is as useless to argue with those who have
renounced the use of reason as to administer
medication to the dead." Thomas Jefferson
"There are some ideas so wrong that only a very
intelligent person could believe in them." George Orwell