Re^2: What *nix do you recommend for a laptop?

[tirwhan]

so I decided to try Ubuntu. Hated it. They've managed to completely screw up the administrative privilege system of *NIX. Can't log in as root, can't su -, same p/w for admin as for normal user,

Huh?

marc@deadpool:~$ su -
Password:
root@deadpool:~#

You must have been on a different Ubuntu from the rest of the world. And changing the root password shouldn't be beyond someone who has used Linux for over a year now. The privilege system on Ubuntu is pretty much the same as it is on all modern Linux distros.

The FreeBSD philosophy is also NOT to do things like automounting USB keys and wireless connectivity.

That's certainly a real incentive to use it. Users have been crying for this nonfeature for ages now... </sarcasm>

From an expert's perspective, the underlying mechanisms of FreeBSD are so much more efficient and tunable than (any) Linux that it's worth the effort.

Care to point to some concrete examples here? Otherwise I'll just have to call bollocks on this and almost the entire rest of your post. I certainly don't want to start a "my-OS-is-better-than-yours"-flamewar here (and there are certainly valid reasons why one could choose say, FreeBSD over Linux as ones OS), but your post rates a bit high on the FUD-ometer to go by unchallenged. Anyone who claims that their "Celeron blows modern dual-core CPUs out of the water" is either full of bs hyperbole or needs to learn how to benchmark.

[samizdat]

I made it sound like I was comparing BSD to Linux on the dual core. Mia culpa. I still think FreeBSD will be faster, especially after tweaking, but not THAT much faster. :)

[samizdat]

Whew! Remind me not to get in the way of tirwhan rolling out of bed in the morning... <G>

Obviously, this was One User's Experience(TM), tirwhan, and did I or did I not make it clear that I love FreeBSD? Also obviously, any geek worth his salt knows that a Celeron is a slug, but that makes my point. Tuning your OS so that it appears to be running rings around a dual core machine is a real rush. And, I believe I stated, sorry if I didn't, that I was comparing it to WinXP on said dual core.

My point was that FreeBSD is tunable as well as fast out of the box. Its networking stack is still the envy of all *NIXen, and the VM algorithms implemented and improved since 5 are reputed to be the best. I compared three basic userland tasks (very subjectively): web browsing, USB-key-to-disk reading, and Blender3D. Would you agree that those three activities exercise a lot of a desktop system? In all cases, FreeBSD rocked. This is with a streamlined kernel but not yet any tunables tweaked.

It's Gnome that automounts USB keys, not Linux. Might I remind you that Linux doesn't do a whole heck of a lot by itself? That's not meant as a slur on Linux, just a reminder that Linux is only a kernel. The FreeBSD team does a lot of the work of the distro-creators like RH, Fedora Core Team, and Ubuntu's creators. I have my l/t set up with one-button mount and unmount of my key, and I prefer it that way. If I wanted auto-mounting, I could easily add that feature, because, yes, I do know a little bit of programming. I could also load Gnome and have my little key automagically appear as well.

I do not know why I couldn't su on Ubuntu. It wouldn't let me log in as root, su, or sudo the way it was set up, and I doubt I mistyped my password all 40 or so different ways I tried.

It's not my place to tell you not to love Ubuntu. Go right ahead. I do like Linux a lot more than I used to, and I'm sure that if I had the time to learn it to the degree that I know BSD UN!X, I could tweak it just as much. Certainly Linux has matured a whole bunch, and its end-user install experience (as implemented in Fedora and other desktop-oriented distros) is much superior to FreeBSD... for desktop users who want to stay casually acquainted with their OSen. As I said, for such users, the subject of the OP's quest, Fedora is a better choice, even in my own biased opinion. Certainly there are times when I want to act like a casual user and have things 'just work' myself, too. :D