*BSD News Article 49753


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From: MICHAEL <michael@gnj.or.jp>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: FreeBSD - Very easy to install!
Date: 30 Aug 1995 13:09:46 GMT
Organization: GNJ Spectrum
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I still don't know if FreeBSD is more stable than Linux, but I'll say
this much: FreeBSD is 10 million times easier to install than Linux was!

The 2.0.5 CD-ROM took me less than an hour to install, as opposed to
four days for Linux. 

The FreeBSD installer automates quite a lot: the partitioning and
formatting, setting up the X configuration file and so on. 

Also, setting up an automatic boot record in the master disk is
completely painless, unlike Linux's "LILO" system.

Also, all my devices were recognized to start with.

The Linux setup seems to handle setting up of the Ethernet card more 
automatically
though...I still haven't figured out where that setup is.

Some suggestions/comments:

o The partition feature in Install is a bit cryptic. The help for
partition doesn't explain what the size units are, nor does it 
say that in the next step sub-partitions will be made for swap
space, etc.

o As someone mentioned elsewhere, the mouse device name does not
seem to be mentioned anywhere (for X configuration).

o The "boot from DOS" feature does not seem to work -- at least for
me. It keeps booting DOS again, as opposed to booting FreeBSD. However
it was quite easy to make a bootable floppy that worked the first
time (as opposed to trying half-a-dozen variations of boot floppies
in Linux).

There are all minor comments though. I think the person or people
who wrote the automatic installation procedures are really to be
complemented. They have made installing a Unix system as easy as
it can be.

MICHAEL __________________________________________
GNJ Spectrum Tokyo +81-3-5377-2401 (I%(J michael@gnj.or.jp
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