I just love FreeBSD

[Mike Doyle]

Horror-story time

I want to change ISP, from an isp where all the techies are not even
in the same country as my co-lo facility, to a nice new ISP with knowledgeable
techie support staff here in the same City that I'm in, one that offers 
dedicated
servers for half the cost of the old ISP co-location facility.

There is one ISP that seemed to fit the bill, and they even promised to set 
FreeBSD
up on a new server for me.

They couldn't. (Their techie is a linux-guru but failed to get FreeBSD 
running on
the box. I don't know why)

He installed RedHat 7.3. Binary packages only. Four days later, and I still 
can't
get anything to install from sources. I didn't like RedHat three years ago 
when I first
looked at it, and I absolutely HATE it now.

While I admit that a certain amount of the problems I'm having this week 
stem simply
from unfamiliarity with the specific assumptions that the RedHat people 
make, and
assumptions that the ISP made in installing a binary only version, I am more
and more impressed with how cleanly everything under FreeBSD works on hardware
that it runs on.

Anyway, enough venting. Suffice to say this experience has made me even more
of a fan of our favourite OS that I was before.

Is there any kind soul on the list who knows enough about FreeBSD, and enough
about RedHat, that if I send them the DMESG output from the RedHat box,
could tell me if it's possible to get FreeBSD to run on it? It may well 
need a custom
kernel, as there were (so I'm told) problems getting FreeBSD 4.7 and/or FreeBSD
4.8RC to install. I'm under time pressure here - in that the old ISP is 
going to
send me an invoice on Monday, and I'd like to be able to say "NO" rather 
than paying
TWO ISPs at the same time for four months! (i.e. 1 full quarter)

<>< ============================================================= ><>
Michael Doyle                    email: relyod at cooperationireland.org
Network Administrator            personal email:     relyod at indigo.ie
Co-operation Ireland	           http://www.cooperationireland.org/
Phone: +353-1-661 0588                           Fax: +353-1-661 8456

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