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I don't use BSD, but I do run an operating system that gets a lot of BSODs. Does that count?
Well, if you're a bad typist...
Contrary to popular belief, BSODs usually indicate either crappy hardware or crappy drivers, or both; more rarely some app trying to do an illegal hardware access. Windows itself is seldom the actual culprit. I have WinBoxen that have run 24/7 for years on end with absolutely NO BSODs. The only thing that EVER crashed my W95 box in 7 years of hard use was... Mozilla 1.0, which was apparently trying to do something perverted to the network card. Yonder WinXP box hasn't crashed in 8 years (in fact it's only been restarted 3 times in the past 5 years, all for power outages). I consider this normal. Both rebooting and reinstalling are against my religion.
I've had more problems with linux -- when I had RH6 installed, the blasted thing froze up on me all the time. (W95 on the same box ... see above.) Mandrake and the Ubuntus have been somewhat better, but not bombproof.
Anyway, stability is why I've become an Intel CPU and chipset bigot, and why I prefer Tyan motherboards and Matrox video cards (if I'm paying money for 'em), and TOPower or Enermax power supplies while I'm at it. It really does make a difference.
Yeah I don't see any point in desktop icons myself. I always have half a dozen things going and a desktop icon just means I have to move stuff out of the way or go to another (empty) desktop just to click it.
While I keep some desktop icons, I probably use quicklaunch and the main menu more... depends what it is, and what else is likely to be running when I need it. And they're more or less sorted by program type. Frex, the oddities in the middle of my screen (and draining from Gremlin's cup of death) are all DOS stuff.
What does bug me is when someone keeps every freakin' document ON THE DESKTOP, so you can't find a damned thing. They could at least put 'em in folders, or sort 'em by function or type, but noooo, they're strung all over, in no order whatever!
Urge To Kill: whatever linux I messed with a couple weeks ago (by now I've forgotten) that put the menu bar at the top of the screen, which I hate... I moved it to the bottom. Next time I start up, it's back at the top. Rinse and repeat. I am going to find the coder and make him stand on his head.
Since learning from you that stability and good uptimes are important to you, I must again suggest that FreeBSD would be your thing. FreeBSD stability and uptime are legendary.
Since learning from you that stability and good uptimes are important to you, I must again suggest that FreeBSD would be your thing. FreeBSD stability and uptime are legendary.
Yep, I've had similar thoughts, that one of the BSDs would probably make me happiest, if we can get along in other ways. One of these days I need to string together some sort of media server, and that's the sort of thing I expect to do 100% uptime forever!!
If I know exactly what can cause an instability, I can usually work around it or fix it (even WinME can be made to behave with two simple tweaks; that's Gremlin's alt-boot and it ran 24/7 for 2 years without a single issue, once I got it beaten into submission). It's the random crashes that make me reach for FDISK!!!
My original 286 (M$DOS 6.00 and worked its little butt off), ran 5 years with only two restarts, both to do a fresh low-level format on the old MFM hard drive. I think this ruined me.
Now, back to those BSDs... DesktopBSD uses KDE 3.x, PC-BSD uses KDE 4.x. I've generally preferred KDE over other desktops... but every time it's upgraded I heard a raft of complaints about stuff newly busted. Anyone have any thoughts on these two KDEs?? usability, stability, compatibility, all those -bilities that make life more pleasant, and reduce swearing.
Oh, and I hate a laggy OS. I expect snappy performance. Otherwise I soon wish to hurt the programmer in newly creative ways!
FreeBSD is indeed legendary for stability. You should have no trouble with your hardware.
KDE is another story. KDE 3 is more stable than KDE 4. A lot of KDE fans do not like KDE 4 at all. I prefer the look of KDE 3 myself. My fave desktop environment was Window Maker, but there hasn't been an update to it since 2005.
There is nothing "laggy" about FreeBSD. FreeBSD holds several records for performace. I recommend reading a little history here: The BSD Family Tree
FreeBSD is indeed legendary for stability. You should have no trouble with your hardware.
Main thing being the current incarnations seem to need a lot of machine under 'em... and buying new hardware ain't in my cards right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scifiwestern
KDE is another story. KDE 3 is more stable than KDE 4. A lot of KDE fans do not like KDE 4 at all. I prefer the look of KDE 3 myself. My fave desktop environment was Window Maker, but there hasn't been an update to it since 2005.
Well, I suppose I'll have to give both KDEs a look, when I can. Who knows which one I'll prefer. -- Funny thing, linux zealots often whine about Windows users not liking change, then cry louder than anyone when their preferred desktop mutates.
I've gotten to where I want the desktop to be very finished and polished, with no holes or broken spots, and nothing that looks like an amateur designed it. But more than that, when I configure something, I want it to stick. One stupidly persistent bug that is an absolute killer for me is failing to remember how I set the blasted file manager... no, no, no, for the thousandth and last time I want list/detail view, NOT icons!!!
A new irritation as developers get huge screens at extreme resolutions... they design for that and never check how it looks at other settings. At a more standard resolution, the newer window widgets look like crap! Come on people, not everyone has teenaged eyes!
Quote:
Originally Posted by scifiwestern
There is nothing "laggy" about FreeBSD. FreeBSD holds several records for performace.
Yeah, remember when Hotmail was fast? It used to run on FreeBSD. And I've heard BSD uptime records of several years, almost rivaling Netware (which I vaguely recall holds a record of something like 13 years).
Were I to start a business and I needed servers, I would choose FreeBSD.
I used to work in Web hosting years ago, and I was always gobsmacked at the performance of the commodity x86 BSD servers. They often outperforned the high end proprietary Unix servers.
The old NetWare was bulletproof. I worked with it briefly in the late 90s. I still have find memories of NDS. It's a shame Novell has lost so much market share.
I'm one of those Linux guys who will complain when the new version of the kernel or something in userland breaks something I liked or used before. It's the nature of Linux. Linux is only a kernel with a userland. FreeBSD is a complete operating system. Linux tends to be fractured by nature, while the BSDs tend to be very unified. I think there is better QC done in the BSD camps than in Linux. Having said that, I like the bleeding edge nature of Linux on the desktop, but the rock-solid stability of BSD on the server.
The old NetWare was bulletproof. I worked with it briefly in the late 90s. I still have find memories of NDS. It's a shame Novell has lost so much market share.
Yep. A friend is a Netware maven (he's used it as his desktop OS!) so I get some regular exposure, plus Novell used to do regular seminars here that I'd go to when I could... it really was well-designed, for security, stability, scalability. I do think it was a big mistake when they ditched the old Netware OS and rebuilt it on top of linux. But that was back when linux (or at least its marketing hype) was going to take over the world. I doubt they'd make the same decision today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scifiwestern
I'm one of those Linux guys who will complain when the new version of the kernel or something in userland breaks something I liked or used before.
That's why once I get something working satisfactorily, I never update it again (it's not often that I really want or need some new feature). If it ain't broke... why risk it. I don't care if it's 15 years out of date, or if some security hole affects other folks... only that MY setup works as desired. I use a lot of fairly ancient software by choice, preferring its behaviour or efficiency.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scifiwestern
It's the nature of Linux. Linux is only a kernel with a userland. FreeBSD is a complete operating system. Linux tends to be fractured by nature, while the BSDs tend to be very unified. I think there is better QC done in the BSD camps than in Linux.
Oh, no question about that. I'm reminded of this old saw:
An amateur practices until he gets it right.
A professional practices until he can't get it wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by scifiwestern
Having said that, I like the bleeding edge nature of Linux on the desktop, but the rock-solid stability of BSD on the server.
Which I suppose is reasonable, being it's generally less costly (and easier) to trash and rewhack a desktop than a server. Unless they're gawdawful complicated creatures like my desktops wind up being... while my late media fileserver (which died of bad capacitors) was nothing but WinXP, two sets of rippers, and two large filedumps.
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