Starting with FreeBSD

kansloos

I want to try out FreeBSD in a week or so, for a not-to-old comp, that once runned a linux server for testing purposes. But it died due to harddrive failure and now it's fixed again I want to try something else...

What I really need to know is how the packaging system (if any) works. Compiling always seem to fail whatever I try and it takes a lot of time to.

Also I'm looking for tutorials that might come in handy.

Thanks in advance...

xbcd

ok if you don't like compiling then Opensuse or Ubuntu is a definite package of choice. Also since you would want to build from source when possible for best performance Ubuntu will be you best friend with the command "apt-get build-dep" and if Ubuntu is not how you roll any debian based system will do cause they all have apt-get program which will remove all dependency problems when compiling from scratch.

infobankr

OpenSUSE and Ubuntu are linux, not FreeBSD.

With FreeBSD, you have the option of using the ports collection, which is what Gentoo's portage is based off of.

You basically switch to a folder:

cd /usr/ports/net-im/p5-djabberd/

then type:

make install

and it will take care of dependencies and all that. Its like compiling made easy. Smile

The problem with compiling is that it takes awhile, so you can use their package system, which is very straightforward, and somewhat similar to debian's apt-get.

pkg_add blah

I mostly use ports though.

I like FreeBSD a lot and encourage you to give it a try. The docs are very good, so check out the handbook. You'll also want to know about "cvsup".

mehulved

This might be useful - http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=263648
I hope this I am allowed to post external link.
I started following this thread when I last tried FreeBSD.
BTW, what are the specs of the computer you're trying it on? Just want to know how it performs once you've tried it.