bogomip Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 So I got this old Dell Dimension XPS300 with 128mb of Ram, 15gb HD, PII400 and a Rage crap card. It was my sister's old system, but I took it after I built her a new one. I've always been intrigued with FreeBSD. I've wanted to try it for the longest time, but until recently I only had one computer so I didnt want to dualboot BSD. I've used Linux a few times before, starting way back in Redhat 5.1, and I had RH9 a few months ago, but kinda got bored with it after a while. So now I have a spare computer sitting in my closet and I'd like to put it to use. Mainly I'd like to set it up as a simple Apache/mySQL/PHP server so I can have a localhost webserver to test my scripts/web stuff etc. I wont serve any pages outside the LAN. I already have a firewall so using BSD as a firewall doesnt interest me (for now). Since I have another 30gb spare HD, I could throw it in there and use the box as a backup fileserver while I'm at it just in case, via Samba. I've got enough NICs as well. I dont plan on using BSD as a desktop, just server, so I doubt I'll even install X. I'll use webadmin and SSH to administer it. Now that I have that out of the way, what am I looking at? I realize FreeBSD may not be as newbie friendly as Redhat 9, but I dont care as I'm willing to learn. For example, the latest release is 5.2.1. Do I go with that, or an older version from the STABLE releases? How easy is compiling? I've searched a bit and it seems FreeBSD seems rather easy to compile a new kernel etc? Also how is upgrading? Is upgrading really involved or a snap? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted April 13, 2004 Veteran Share Posted April 13, 2004 I have heard that, in many ways, *BSDs are very similar to Linux. If you can compile a kernel on one, you are pretty much set. Some directory and command differences, but that's it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boomn Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 Kernel compiling is actually pretty different in Freebsd from Linux, and a lot simpler. Check out the FreeBSD Handbook for detailed help about almost everything FreeBSD. This section in particular should help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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