Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.Hawaii.Edu!news.caldera.com!enews.sgi.com!newshub1.home.com!news.home.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!torn!nott!statcan.ca!jeays From: jeays@statcan.ca (Mike Jeays) Subject: Re: Some questions about FreeBSD Message-ID: <ED6qwE.9Fv@statcan.ca> Organization: Statistics Canada X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] References: <33C3E848.BBF308F8@sover.net> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 1997 02:57:49 GMT Lines: 65 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:44294 Derek (destey@sover.net) wrote: : Currently, I am a win95 user. I am also a student. I am thinking of : installing FreeBSD onto my computer. I have a few questions: : Will it interfere with win95? : How does it deal with existing msdos/win95 partitions? : Can I uninstall it? : Is a book on unix worth buying? : Is there any way this can mess up my computer? : What about linux? : Any help would be much appreciated. :) : -- : !Notice!: In a few days/weeks I will be putting in a filter that deletes : all messages that do not have "Re:" or "Attn:" in the subject line. : Sorry for the inconvenience, but it is necessary to combat spammers. : +-------------------------------------------+ : |Derek | : |web: http://www.sover.net/~restey/ | : +-------------------------------------------+ : ____ _____ ______ _____ _ _ _ : | _ \ | __) | _ \ | __) | | / / | | : | | \ \ | |_ | |_) | | |_ | | / / | | : | | \ \ | _) | _/ | _) | |/ / | | : | | / / | | | |\ \ | | | ( | | : | |_/ / | |__ | | \ \ | |__ | |\ \ _ : |____/ |_____) |_| \_\ |_____) |_| \_\ (_) Yes, you can set up FreeBSD as a dual-boot system. I have been running one for over a year - and find I hardly ever use Win95 any more. It includes all the software to set up the dual boot. You need to install it AFTER Win95; it can be done the other way around, but is a bit trickier. You can mount the Win95 partition, provided it is NOT compressed, within FreeBSD. I have done this successfully, but there are some configurations where it doesn't work - if you get messages about 'cluster error' or some such, unmount the DOS partition before you attempt to write on it. Yes, you can uninstall it. One good book of very many is "Unix Secrets", by James Armstrong. It is a great introduction, and goes into lots of detail. Yes, you certainly can mess up your Win95 setup if you try! But it is not likely if you are careful. I have in fact had FreeBSD crash and burn when I had some faulty memory, but the Win95 partition was unharmed. FreeBSD is much more stable. You can run it for weeks if the hardware is reliable. I haven't tried Linux myself. I won't get into the differences, as it is one of the best ways to start a 'holy war'. Both are excellent operating systems. Good luck if you try it - I have been extremely satisfied. It has made home computing much more interesting, after using Microsoft products at work all day. Get the CD-ROM if you can - it has more software on it than you can explore in years, and licenses for equivalent commercial products would cost thousands of dollars. It comes with a complete C/C++ compiler to start with - of very high quality.