turing freebsd into a viable workstation

[Guest_imported]

I would like to convert my desktop machine into a completly freebsd based system.
I was using freebsd last year as a webserver.
I'v kind of gotten tried of MS slowness.
Bascially I would like to know how to make freebsd as good as linux in terms of general desktop apps.
I use the following in w2k:
Staroffice
JBUilder
realplayer
powerdvd
winamp
netscape 6.2
blender
CUBAS

Are there any similair apps for freebsd.
Also I rembered from last year that I could not get full quality playback on videos(I'm using a TNT2 ultra).

Basically a type of MAC OS X on a PC.
thx

 

[rycamor]

Hey, was that a subconscious error, or what: "turing freebsd into a viable workstation" (lol)

Anyway, what you want is possible, but FreeBSD does lag behind Linux in the area of multimedia. This is because FreeBSD developers tend to focus on solving server-oriented problems first. Some of the newer video cards might be supported in Linux before they are supported in FreeBSD. If you do want to try Linux, consider using Slackware, because it is very similar to FreeBSD.

Other than that, here's what you would want to do:

1. Enable Linux compatibility mode when you install FreeBSD. This allows you to run lots of software that was written for Linux, such as the Linux version of Jbuilder. Don't worry, FreeBSD's Linux compatibility mode is not an "emulator", so it will not significantly slow down your system. In fact, I have heard that Linux binaries actually run faster in FreeBSD.

2. Install the latest version of KDE, with Koffice, and all the other KDE goodies. That alone is enough to keep you busy for awhile.

3.

http://www.OpenOffice.org

has the open-source version of StarOffice, and it is much faster and easier to use than Staroffice 5.0 was. Now, between KOffice and OpenOffice, you have 2 office suites to play with.

4. If you really want a fast X window manager, try WindowMaker (

http://www.windowmaker.org/),

Blackbox (

http://blackbox.alug.org/),

IceWM, or Sawfish instead of KDE. These don't have as many features, but they often start up in a second or two.

5. There are all kinds of audio, video, and DVD players for Linux, and a few that support FreeBSD directly. Either way, you should have no problem in that area. See:

http://www.opendvd.org/

http://xine.sourceforge.net/

http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/

http://www.videolan.org/

6. Don't get Netscape 6.2, Get Mozilla, at

http://www.mozilla.org,

or maybe Opera for Linux

7. Blender for Linux should work.

8. I have no idea what CUBAS is.

9. Enable the FreeBSD filesystem tweaks, such as DMA mode (see the DMA post in this forum), and softupdates.

With a bit of working at it, you should be able to get what you want. However, if you really just want it to be easy, then go get Mandrake Linux (

http://www.linux-mandrake.com),

and install using ReiserFS as your filesystem. It's not so bad as a desktop, and it gives you all the multimedia stuff right up front. It suffers from a little bit of "MS"-itis, since you have to then go and disable this or that feature after install, but overall, not a bad choice.

To sum up... if you spend the time to get your FreeBSD desktop right, it will probably run nice, fast and stable, but it will probably take a little bit of messing around. If you want instant gratification, get Mandrake, but I doubt the system will be quite as stable as FreeBSD. -------------------

Current reading --

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25456