[opensource]

Well, I am very new to BSD and have only been working with linux for one year maby two. Right now I am running Slackware and Windows XP on a 80 Gb WD hard disk. I want to try BSD but I would rather keep those two Operating Systems there. So my question is how much space should I get for freeBSD and is freeBSD the best for a person just learning BSD? Please be paitent as I am just learning :) Thanks for providing a great forum too!

[bmw]

FreeBSD can be installed in a very small space, but you want to play and learn. I'd recommend 8 Gig or more so you can install X and the ports tree.

If you had a specific targeted use, eg a firewall, you can easily fit the relevant bits of FBSD on an old 500 Meg drive. I've got an old DEC P133 here with a 1.7 Gig drive. I'm using it as a VPN end-point and PPPoE router It can easily rebuild its kernel with room to spare.

is freeBSD the best for a person just learning BSD?Now there's a question! :-)

I'd say any of Free, Net or OpenBSD is great for learning BSD; but that would be a bit of a cop-out. In my not so humble opinion, FreeBSD may be a closer environment to somebody used to Linux already, if that helps. I mean that in the relative size of the ports tree and the amount of pre-compiled packages and stuff that's available for FreeBSD.

But OpenBSD is the simplest to install (again in my opinion) and if you want to get into security aspects more, there's a much larger security "community" built around OpenBSD.

You aren't trying to run this on your Gameboy, so NetBSD's multi-platform angle isn't useful to you. NetBSD is more marginalized then the other two these days. But there's nothing wrong with it, it's a good BSD. Lots of network development is done on it (eg the Japanese IPv6 team).

[opensource]

wow - Ill probably get a 10 Gig drive then. Can it read the linux FS too because then I would also be able to write to that

[bsdjunkie]

FreeBSD has excellent Linux support.

[bmw]

Can it read the linux FS too
If you use ext2 yes.

[opensource]

awsome thanks for the help!