I want to try BSD

[jackthomas]

Ok guys here I go. I want to try BSD but I'm not sure which one to try. You've probably heard this before but I'm a Linux guy and I am really just curious. I would prefer to just do a clean hard drive install and have BSD function as a desktop. I will not dual boot, it's got 2.4 Ghz, 40 GB HD, and 512 mb of RAM. I do not need wifi or printing or some ridiculous proprietary drivers. What I will need is flash, mp3/mp4, and dvd playback support.

I was looking at PcBSD because it seems simpler to use and because it comes with multimedia and flash codecs already. Then I did some reading that FreeBSD is the mother of that "distro" (or whatever they are called) so I was wondering what the difference is.

I noticed on distrowatch.com that FreeBSD is more popular than PcBSD. Is that because FreeBSD can do everything PcBSD can do and more?

Lastly, I understand BSD is not Linux and I can accept that there will be some bit of a learning curve and that is ok it is why I want to do this. What does package management work like in BSD? Does package management work in a similar way as apt-get or yum? Or is it from source and more like Slackware tarballs? In other words do the BSD package managers resolve dependencies for me?


I know I have a lot of questions and I apologize for it. I appreciate any help you all can offer.
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[DaveD]

Sorry for the delay in an answer, I don't come to the forums as much anymore.

FreeBSD is what you should use, it has the biggest support base and will run on pretty much anything.

You will want to use the Ports directory.

Do a HOWTO search for the use of the ports directory. Porting is getting software already specifically compiled for your system.

Good Luck, let us know if you need more help.