applications

Adam McLaurin blueeskimo at gmx.net
Wed Sep 3 09:34:33 PDT 2003


On Wed, 2003-09-03 at 12:01, Doug Love wrote:
> A friend recommends your OS over Linux for my home system.
> I've taken a 2 day Linux Admin course, and know just about that much.
> I don't see a quick answer on your webpages to my questions.
> Where can I find
>    Fortran
>     Basic
>     A Database similar to Access
>     Spreadsheets
>     Pkzip

You can search the FreeBSD ports collection here:
http://www.freebsd.org/ports/
http://www.freshports.org/

As for databases, I'd recommend using PostgreSQL with a nice GUI/web
frontend. There are several available that works on FreeBSD, including
PGAccess and phpPgAdmin. However, I would NEVER consider PostgreSQL to
be "similar to Access". That'd be a huge insult to PostgreSQL. 

For spreadsheet, there's none better than gnumeric2. I think you'll be
very happy with that one.

For compression utilities, you'll find yourself using tar, bzip2, gzip,
zip, and unzip, which are all included in the base OS. There's also a
RAR compression tool in the ports, if you need it.


> I hear a lot about the system being a server, but all I need to do is
> browse the web and use email similar to Netscape.  How easy is it to set
> up?

FreeBSD is a fantastic OS for a workstation. For web browsing, I'd
recommend either Galeon2 or Epiphany, depending on your needs. For
email, go for either Evolution or Sylpheed, or the new Thunderbird port
(once it's available).

It's quite simple to set up, and there are dozens of pages out there to
pretty much hold your hand on every step. You'll just need to make the
effort to search and read!

-- 
Adam McLaurin <blueeskimo at gmx.net>
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