Salubri's Journal: FreeBSD - Take 497

Okay... disgusted with the bloat that was Red Hat 9.0 after hearing friends talk about fully functioning desktop solutions the size of Red Hat minimal text based install, I decided to try different things.

Slackware was nice, light, and easy to get working. However, I was dismayed as they didn't have Ximian Evolution (or that it wasn't easly available, as Ximian's downloader, even for source code, requires RPM based distros and there was no package for it on Slackware's site). I've tried peanut, but it's shit. Debian never installs properly on my machine. All other distributions worth two shits cost money that I feel I shouldn't have to pay.

So, I decided to give FreeBSD yet another chance to perform. I did this mainly because FreeBSD did run quickly from one rememberance, and they now have NVidia drivers available for accelerated performance. And to FreeBSD's credit, things went very smoothly this time. I recompiled the kernel with minimal problems once I figured out to do things the old school way with the kernel compilation. I got sound working, I got network working, everything with such little fuss as to make Debian look amatuerish.

The NVidia drivers are locking up the system.

So today while at work I begin the quest for something new, good, and linux yet again. And it's not that Red Hat is bad at all. I actually really like Red Hat. For it's size, which is the same as a WinXP basic install, I get a fully featured system with CD burning, DVD playback, MP3 playback, the Open Office suite, Mozilla, evolution, and a HOST of other applications. It's just that I want things to run even leaner and smoother than it currently is.

If this search doesn't reveal promising results within a week, I'm going back to Red Hat for a while longer... at least until my urge to fuck around comes back.