*BSD News Article 38407


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From: tzs@u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc
Subject: Re: Why *BSD's have smaller user base ? [WAS: Can we quit with "Linux Sucks" ?]
Date: 26 Nov 1994 09:57:52 GMT
Organization: University of Washington School of Law, Class of '95
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <3b70r0$26m@nntp1.u.washington.edu>
References: <3a9205$bqj@mall.sinica.edu.tw> <BENJY.94Nov15074901@blackjack.ai.mit.edu> <UWP.94Nov17173358@hydmech.fb12.tu-berlin.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein3.u.washington.edu

Udo Wolter <uwp@hydmech.fb12.tu-berlin.de> wrote:
>6) The status of Linux as a beginner system, where everything's easy, from
>installing up to the use. FreeBSD has the status of a system which only experts
>can install and use. This is definitely not true but in the beginning of the
>*BSDs the installing was very lousy and sometimes it was hard to handle. This
>changed since FreeBSD 1.1 (I don't know it from NetBSD) but it didn't make the
>way to the public.

FreeBSD 1.1 seemed to insist on installing onto my first hard disk.  Linux was
happy to install on my second hard disk.  (Furthermore, it was clear how
to boot Linux from DOS (bootlin.com), so that I could put Linux entirely
above cylinder 1023.  It was not clear if I could do this with FreeBSD).

This is the major reason FreeBSD didn't last on my system.  Is FreeBSD 2.0
better?  Can I install it on my second disk, and is there some mechanism
whereby I can keep my kernel image on one of my DOS filesystems, and boot
that from DOS?

--Tim Smith