k3b again

[jim smith]

On Sat, 10 May 2008 10:30:45 +0100
Richard Bown <richard.bown at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> On Sat, 10 May 2008 14:34:05 +1000 (EST)
> Ian Smith <smithi at nimnet.asn.au> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 9 May 2008, Richard Bown wrote:
> >  > On Fri, 09 May 2008 14:39:09 -0500
> >  > Thomas Donnelly <tad1214 at aol.com> wrote:>
> >  > > ><snip>
> >  > > > I'm sorry if my comments offend, they are not intended to.
> >  > > >
> 
> 
> But it looks like I've started a flame war.

Not necessarily, and I'm not going to perpetuate one.  I feel your
pain--I'm a ham [N0OCT], and FreeBSD isn't quite ready for many of the
apps available to it.  I did get LinRad running, but not with a decent
audio card.  One might explore running something under wine [windows
apps, obviously].  But until FreeBSD has good support for some of the
higher end audio cards [it's being worked on], I too will have a
computer set aside for ham radio apps running Linux.

It's not a big deal--it's just the way it is.

> 
> FreeBSD might be fine as a server, so are 99% or the linux distros 
> if you don't want to run X.

Here I'll mildly take issue.  For server software maintenance an
upkeep, FBSD wins hands down.   None of the kernel vs. userland
stuff--it's all a comprehensive release.  BTW, I run X on many of my
FBSD servers without any issues whatsoever.

> I've been using linux since kernel version 2.0.10 and Redhat 4.
> And as my main use was for Ham apps it meant recompiling a kernel
> every time, when machines were so slow it would take more than 4 hours
> to compile, so a lot of the basic unix commands are common to both
> systems. It is no a case of starting from scratch, maybe a case of
> dusting a few cobwebs off.

And in the end, that's ok.  Pick the right OS for the job.  I've got
one machine at work running NetBSD because nothing else in BSD world
will run on a Mac G4 like NetBSD.  I used to use Debian to do audio
processing for music, because many of the apps weren't yet ported to
FBSD.

> I did try PC-BSD to get the xorg.conf file as Xorg -configure would not
> set up the Graphics card.,
> To save time I bought a new card.
> It looks like to get K3b to burn I'll have to change the DVD r/w.

It's cheaper to change your mind.  ;-).  Why stuck on the GUI?  Use
growisofs to burn DVDs.  Use Kino to master your clips, DVDStyler to
make the .iso, and growisofs to burn them--I do it, and it works fine.

> To be able to use the sound system for what I want will mean 
> getting another sound card, as there there is no facilities in FreeBSD
> to support the M-Audio Delta 66 card to its full potential.
> There's a problem on its own, that cards used for its low noise and
> dynamic range, there are no longer made and as far as I know the
> Terratec boards don't have the same breakout box.
> To watch TV the DVB-T card cant be used as its not supported, I'd have
> to buy a USB DVB-T stick and be very careful which chip set it uses
> as there is only one driver. That DVB-T card is too expensive to just
> remove and not use.

Dual boot the machine based upon its use?  Have FreeBSD and Linux on
it?  My son and I are building a MythTV box this summer with
MythBuntu--FBSD just isn't quite yet up to speed on that.

<snip>

> you can see that its far from happy with the hardware on this machine.
> I only have three machines, this, a NSLU2,arm-processor, which normally
> is used as a DX Cluster server, an old laptop running win98 which had
> been on loan to  my mother.
> So this machine has to do everything, and it clear using FreeBSD it
> cant without a lot of time and major hardware changes.
> I should'nt have to rebuild this machine to use FreeBSD, only built it
> a month ago.

Again, since FBSD is targetted as a server OS, it's not going to keep
up with the latest and greatest video, sound, etc.  

> I can get around the nannified background software that run on the
> linux distro I've used for the last 5 years by using an external
> firewall and turning off all the security features.
> I'm just stuck with one Ham App which compiles on FeeBSD and not so far
> on the distro of linux I use.

Not flaming, but I think you should think strongly about either dual
booting this machine, using vmware, Xen or some other virtualization
software.

My recommendation, had you asked about this project *before* you built
the box, would have been to go over the hardware compatibility list
with a fine toothed comb, sift through comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc to
see what apps were up to speed, and *then* select your hardware.

> You can flame me much as you like

Nah, it's not worth it.
-- 
jim smith <n0oct at sbcglobal.net>