[tarballed]

Hello everyone. Im getting another computer that I can monkey with at work and I cant decide whether to put OpenBSD on it or FreeBSD on it...

Wanted to get some feedback on which one I should choose and why. I realize it is a matter of personal preference, but I feel caught in the middle. Ideally, i'd like one of both. :) But for now, I have to choose.

I'd like it to be a pretty universal Desktop computer and at the same time, allows me to learn a ton. I also may run Apache on it, so I can test out a few things, while learning apache.

So, any thoughts? :)

Thanks

[frisco]

Do you admin (or plan to admin) more OpenBSD or FreeBSD machines? If you are still in the early to mid learning stage on either OS, then it makes sense to use the one that will be more useful to your work.

[soup4you2]

you've done free and open.. why not give net a try?

[tarballed]

Do you admin (or plan to admin) more OpenBSD or FreeBSD machines? If you are still in the early to mid learning stage on either OS, then it makes sense to use the one that will be more useful to your work.

Currently, we have the one OpenBSD box on our network, acting as our Mail Gateway. I have been able to crack the armor on management about *BSD and explain to them, just how much better it is than Linux. They are now open to using it more, which is why they gave me the ok to use OpenBSD.

We are going to use OpenBSD as our web server here soon, so that will be two OpenBSD boxes on the network. They like the idea of OpenBSD being secure by default, but they also want to learn more about FreeBSD. So, yes, in the future, I can see more *BSD boxes popping up on the network.

you've done free and open.. why not give net a try?

Absolutely. I really wanna give Net a try. I'm planning on putting up a NetBSD box at home, so I can test it out a bit. I am very intrigued by it and plan to first try it at home.

[Former Member]

Why not try a lesser known bsd? I'd suggest dragonflybsd but yea...not _quiet_ ready yet, just a few more years :P

[tarballed]

Thanks for everyones input here. I feel torn here on a couple of things.

If I may quote Michael Lucas in his book, "Absolute BSD":

"The total immersion method provides the fastest possible training and is the approach I took to learn UNIX. By running FreeBSD exclusively on my desktop, I learned how to make a UNIX system do anything I needed, and I became a much more powerful server administrator as a result."

Makes perfect sense really. The fact is, we run a lot of Linux here, and one OpenBSD box here at the moment. I'm happy to run Linux I'll take it any day over Windows. But, recently, i've seen and learned a lot about flaws with Linux, especially with Red Hat (which im really becoming disgusted with.)
So, if possible, i'd like to have a workstation running a *BSD flavor and a second running Linux flavor. That way, I can reap the benefits of learning both.

Im excited here. I love to learn new things and really hope that I can put up more *BSD stations as we expand (we are opening 12 offices in the next 18 months) I should note here, i've convinced them to let me use OpenBSD boxes as firewalls/routers at the branch offices. Woot!

But just wanted to get some suggetsions here. I respect everyones opinion here and everyone has always been very cool with their feedback.

Thanks everyone.

[jlam]

As the local NetBSD advocate, I recommend running NetBSD. You already have experience with the other two BSDs, so learning the third would be easy. NetBSD also has more evolved 3rd party software package management system than the other BSDs, so you get the benefits of using NetBSD's pkgsrc. The latest paper detailing the differences between pkgsrc and similar systems in other Oses can be found at:

http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/software/pkgviews.pdf

[bsdjunkie]

Nice paper! :D

[tarballed]

Thanks guys. I really appreciate everyones input here.
I was leaving work today when management gave me another workstation to play with.

Pretty cool box: Xeon 2.4ghz, 2gig RAM, 1 36.6 320 Ultra SCSI disk...
Its pretty long tower server.

So now, I have 3 stations to play with. :)

So I can put two *BSD's on. :)

[SolarfluX]

If you're already running OpenBSD, FreeBSD is the most logical choice as a desktop. Why? It has the most software, duh. NetBSD is fine, but not really user-friendly, although that's good from a learning standpoint. If you get a THIRD workstation, then NetBSD would be good to put on that one.