Re: need help choosing appropriate BSD distro

t2000kw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
(You may see a repeat of this message on some of the related BSD
newsgroups since there are a few different distros out there of BSD).

Those are not 'distros' [1], and if you want to post to more than one
group, you should crosspost, not multipost.

I have this scenario. I am considering trying a version of BSD instead
of Linux.

Old Dell laptop, about 3.5 Gigs of space available on a small hard
drive. No option to add a larger hard drive at this time, no
additional investment can be made right now. Processor speed is 300
mhz (Pentium II), memory 380 something MB.

I have tried Ubuntu and Dreamlinux, both of which recognize my
wireless card, a Netgear WG511T.

See http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html to find out what hardware is
supported (this particular one is a good example of why product numbers
don't mean anything in the wireless world, so do look at the page).

The problem is that the version of Wine that installs with these locks
up the system. To use my preferred Email/Newsgroup reader program,
Agent, I need to have a Windows "emulator" like Wine to install and
use my program. So, even though those two distros support my hardware,
something is incompatible with Wine. I do have a dual-boot setup with
Windows 98 SE but prefer to stay out of there if I can.

Wine works fine in Ubuntu on my desktop, so that's probably what I'll
stick with on that computer.

First, is there a Windows emulator that works with BSD like it does in
Linux?

Is it different or the same program (Wine)?

Old versions of WINE worked with OpenBSD; newer versions do not,
although some work is being done to fix that.

An alternative is some form of virtualization-ish solution; on OpenBSD,
the easiest way to do that is installing qemu and installing Windows in
the virtual machine.

Do note that qemu is rather slow even on a good day, and even slower on
systems where the kernel component (kqemu) is not supported - systems
such as Open- and NetBSD.

Second, does any of the BSD distros support wireless cards "out of the
box"? To be successful I have to have a wireless connection working
right away (after entering the WEP key). I won't be able to download
support programs for the wireless card since I won't be able to
connect to the Internet. I would, however, be able to do so with the
desktop computer, but I don't think I can count on sending anythng
over the home network (perhaps on a CDROM using sneakernet).

That's nonsense, if you can use one of CD-ROM or a USB stick, or even
floppies, you should be able to complete a install without needing an
internet connection.

Any comments on tis, suggestions on which distro to try, or am I out
on both counts (Windows emulation and wireless card support)?

Try Ubuntu or FreeBSD. OpenBSD is a very good system, but it's not
primarily focused on the desktop experience, and it doesn't have a
really good Windows solution. If you ever need a secure, stable,
well-documented system, though...

Joachim

[1] Unlike Linux distributions, which use pretty much the same software
and are differentiated by default settings, some administrator tools,
and the package system, the *BSDs have - sometimes very - different
code. The closest thing to a 'BSD distribution' would be something like
PC-BSD, which is a FreeBSD clone for the desktop and does share almost
all code with FreeBSD.
.

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