Best way to switch from Linux to BSD

[Gour]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 01:32:23 -0400
Jason Hsu <jhsu802701 at jasonhsu.com> wrote:

> I've been trying to switch from Linux to BSD for my everyday
> computing (email, word processing, spreadsheets, etc.), but I
> couldn't get things to work properly.  

I'm in the same boat, and will try today again...

> Are there any good tutorials for using BSD on the desktop?  I'm
> having much more difficulty finding good information on BSD than was
> the case for Linux.  In retrospect, this shouldn't be a surprise
> given that Linux is relatively mainstream while BSD is very obscure.

I can recommend to take a look at PC-BSD (http://www.pcbsd.org/) and
it handbook (http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/PC-BSD_Users_Handbook)
which gives lot of information how to install & use it.

> 1.  Is it possible to install KDE, GNOME, or other DE from the
> FreeBSD CD in a reasonable amount of time?  KDE and GNOME are huge
> programs, and having to download them would take too long. 

Try latest PC-BSD 9-0 snapshot which offers KDE/GNOME/LXDE/XFCE for
install and some other WMs (awesome, etc.)

>  2.  What's lighter than PCBSD and GhostBSD?  I tried the live DVDs
> on my laptop (1.4 GHz processor, 1.25 GB of RAM) and found both BSD
> distros to be very sluggish.

Don't know. I just played with PC-BSD which I'll put on my desktop
(5yr old laptop is already running PC-BSD with XFCE).

Maybe the problem was KDE if you installed that DE.

> 3.  How do I triple-boot Puppy Linux, antiX/Swift Linux, and
> DragonflyBSD?

PC-BSD handbook gives information how to dual-boot with GRUB.

I personally did not try since I want to migrate from Linux and won't
keep GRUB.

> 4.  What are the Linux Mint and Puppy Linux of the BSD universe?  I
> consider these two distros to set the standard in the Linux
> universe, because they're so user-friendly.  These are the distros
> I've set out to compete against in developing Swift Linux.

I never used Linux Mint nor Puppy Linux, but I believe that
e.g. PC-BSD wants to be something like Ubuntu Linux in regard to its
usability.

In the last ~4yrs I use Archlinux for which I several times heard it
is "the most BSD-like distro" (Prior to Arch, I spent >5yrs with
Gentoo).

However, there is one nice feature of PC-BSD coming in 9.0 and may be
used in other BSD-es as well. Please, read this paper:

http://blog.pcbsd.org/2011/03/formal-paper-on-new-pbi-9-format/


All the best with your switch. ;)


Sincerely,
Gour
 

-- 
“In the material world, conceptions of good and bad are all mental
speculations…” (Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu)

http://atmarama.net | Hlapicina (Croatia) | GPG: CDBF17CA


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