From: Michael Neumann Date: 2004-07-22T18:44:04+09:00 Subject: Re: [OT] FreeBSD <-> Debian Ralf M�ller wrote: > Am Donnerstag, 22. Juli 2004 10:22 schrieb Michael Mueller: > >>To make it short: I love it :-) >> >>I'm not using it as a server but as a workstation both at home and @work. >>I was always quite satisfied with woody on both my boxes but was since I'm >>not willing to use the old software woody provides (e. g. kde 2.2) I was >>using lots of backports. >>First I switched at home and after using it at home for about half a year, >>I switched at work too last week :-) >> >>The imho coolest thing of FreeBSD ist the strict separation between base >>system and Ports. I'm using 4.10 stable - let's say that's somehow like >>using Debian woody - but I can always install the lates software like kde >>3.2.3, ruby 1.8.1 etc.... >>One thing to consider is, that if you want new versions, you nearly always >>have to compile them by yourself... in the case of ruby no big deal, but >>when you want to compile kde or openoffice you can easily keep your box >>occupied the whole night or more... >>I'm using it on a celeron 1100 and it's ok to do such things at night.... >>but it wouldn't dare to compile big programs on let's say an P2-300... >> >>However FreeBSD when compared to linux lacks supports for some new >>hardware.. AFAIK there is no USB 2.0-support in the 4.X STABLE Line... But >>since I don't have any fancy Multimedia-equipment I don't care.. >> > > > sounds great, > what i wonder about is the linux binary compatibility. Do You know, what it > exactly means? Can i simply run binaries compiled for linux, or can i even > compile for linux on a FreeBSD machine? Is it possible to install rpm or deb > packages? Yes, you can run Linux binaries on FreeBSD. The linux syscalls are "simply" mapped to FreeBSD syscalls. But that does not work in any case. Mostly, the problems are due to missing shared libraries. But for example the Linux version of Mathematica 5 runs fine on FreeBSD, Maple, too. Regards, Michael