[Wolves] Linux firewall in 16MB ?

[Simon Burke]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 09:24:41 +0000 (GMT), chris procter
<chris-procter at talk21.com> wrote:

> 
> As a workstation its limited by software availability
> but it depends what you want to do, you may struggle
> with Java support for example, but gcc, apache, php
> etc are available. You can get Bash from the packages
> collection (its on the cd or downloadable from
> www.openbsd.org) and  KDE/Gnome are available as well
> (although thinking about it ice ages will come and go
> before they start up on a 486) certainly Windowmaker
> is in the packages and runs nicely on my 233MHz 64Mb
> machine under OpenBSD 3.5. Anything that isn't
> available natively can in theory be run using its
> Linux compatability mode, although I havn't managed to
> get java to do anything more the crash using it yet.
>
I did eventually get java working fine. Though it can be a bit of a
headache. The native JDK ports work pretty well though they may be
removed soon thanks to problems with Sun. Unless they start shipping
an alternative.
The problem is with the linux compat libraries i think.I personally
seem to have problems with compiling software that use these
libraries. So i just install th packages most of the time. Though i
did install x.org, gnome 2.8 and dependancies from source and it took
me less than a day, so im best pleased with that.

Generally BSD can pretty much be compared to Gentoo. Most things are
compiled though packages are availble. A bad point i admit is that it
si quite asy to get the kenrel and userland apps out of sync, but that
can be fixed with the occasional download of updates and buildworld.
Sounds worse than it is really.

> Personnally I think learning the BSD way is well worth
> it, it certainly gives you a good view of whats right
> and wrong with the Linux way of doing things. The BSDs
> have a different culture to Linux and as we all know
> travel broadens the mind :-)
> 
> chris

BSD generally can make a good all-round open source server, but as a
desktop it's generally not even average. It lacks the auto
configuration and installation of X, which is a must have for most
users. All the usual desktop apps need installing, no GUIs for the
basic stuff like setting up printers, NIC IP addresses or software
updates. The BSDs as an OS have their strengths as tools for
experienced users or people who want to become experienced. I know
people like me use it as a desk top" Well that's Ok for some but it
took more than a couple of hours to install it from scratch, configure
X, get it to go out onto the Internet with firefox et al.

Compare it to most linux distro's. They come with nice pretty GUIs
almost from the start of the install, Software to update both the
programs and the dependencies, it will even tell you if things
conflict.

As a simple to install, simple to use office and Internet/email box
you just can't beat some Linux systems.

-- 
Theres no place like ::1

Thanks,
SimonB

Ps this is th second time i tried to type this, as i had a biref
powercut just beofre i snet last time and lost it  :(

Pss,
Also i know that this didnt go donw well last time i mentioed it but
seriously, there is a UK BSD Conference later on this year. Probably
in Manchester. I just mention it with this discussion of BSD. So
please be gentle with me :P