Different OS's? Marketshare

[Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor]

Different OS's? Marketshare...

any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market share
they have?

i think

WIN 70%
Lin 20%
Apple 5%
so who is the other 5 % ???

you realze the statisticians and economists hold that 2 percent is the
break point...



X----------------
Robert Kim,
Wireless Internet Wifi Hotspot Advisor
[url]http://evdo-coverage.com[/url]
<http://wireless-internet-broadband-service.com/>
[url]http://wireless-internet-broadband-service.com[/url]
[url]https://evdo.sslpowered.com/wifi-hotspot-router.htm[/url]
2611 S Pacific Coast Highway 101
Cardiff by the Sea CA 92007 : 206 984 0880

>>> "Wireless Internet Service Is ONLY Broadband with Broadband Customer

Service"(tm)

>>> OUR QUEST: To Kill the Cubicle! (SM)

---Shalommmmmmmm--------------------
---------------------------------;-)----

[David Landgren]

Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor wrote:

> Different OS's? Marketshare...
>
> any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market share
> they have?
>
> i think
>
> WIN 70%
> Lin 20%
> Apple 5%

Where did you get these numbers?

> so who is the other 5 % ???

Well, other than *BSD, names like Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and Tru64 spring
to mind.

David

[Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor]

AHA!
I knew something with Windows as AWRY!!! :o)

Ok.. More specifically... What percent of market share does FREEBSD
have?

X----------------
Robert Kim,
Wireless Internet Wifi Hotspot Advisor
[url]http://evdo-coverage.com[/url]
[url]http://wireless-internet-broadband-service.com[/url]
[url]https://evdo.sslpowered.com/wifi-hotspot-router.htm[/url]
2611 S Pacific Coast Highway 101
Cardiff by the Sea CA 92007 : 206 984 0880

>>> "Wireless Internet Service Is ONLY Broadband with Broadband Customer

Service"(tm)

>>> OUR QUEST: To Kill the Cubicle! (SM)

---Shalommmmmmmm--------------------
---------------------------------;-)----


-----Original Message-----
From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Bernt Hansson
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 9:02 AM
To: FreeBSD mailinglist
Subject: Re: Different OS's? Marketshare


Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor skrev:

> Different OS's? Marketshare...
>
> any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market share

> they have?
>
> i think
>
> WIN 70%
> Lin 20%
> Apple 5%
> so who is the other 5 % ???

Well. First of all "windows" is NOT an operatingsystem, it's a
windowmanager on top of ms-dos.

[Bernt Hansson]

Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor skrev:

> Different OS's? Marketshare...
>
> any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market share
> they have?
>
> i think
>
> WIN 70%
> Lin 20%
> Apple 5%
> so who is the other 5 % ???

Well. First of all "windows" is NOT an operatingsystem, it's a
windowmanager on top of ms-dos.

[Erik Trulsson]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 06:01:44PM +0100, Bernt Hansson wrote:

> Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor skrev:

> >Different OS's? Marketshare...
> >
> >any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market share
> >they have?
> >
> >i think
> >
> >WIN 70%
> >Lin 20%
> >Apple 5%
> >so who is the other 5 % ???

>
> Well. First of all "windows" is NOT an operatingsystem, it's a
> windowmanager on top of ms-dos.

That was true for Windows 3.x/95/98/ME.
It is not true for Windows NT/2000/XP all of which are "real" operating
systems, with a kernel that is actually fairly decent (unlike all the
stuff that is layered on top of it.)



--
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
[email]ertr1013@student.uu.se[/email]

[Anthony Atkielski]

Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor writes:

> any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market share
> they have?

Fresh stats from my Web server:

Windows . . . . . . . . . . 93.5118 %
Macintosh . . . . . . . . . 4.7794 %
Unknown . . . . . . . . . . 1.2731 %
WebTV . . . . . . . . . . . 0.2028 %
Linux . . . . . . . . . . . 0.1857 %
Sun Solaris . . . . . . . . 0.0289 %
FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . 0.0182 %

Of course, these are only client machines. FreeBSD is far more present
among servers. And remember that the FreeBSD figure represents just one
OS, whereas the Linux figure represents dozens of operating systems.

--
Anthony

[bob wifi hotspot n evdo wireless internet guy]

Anthony... WOW! You are good. whew

X----------------
Robert Kim,
Wireless Internet Wifi Hotspot Advisor
[url]http://evdo-coverage.com[/url]
[url]http://wireless-internet-broadband-service.com[/url]
[url]https://evdo.sslpowered.com/wifi-hotspot-router.htm[/url]
2611 S Pacific Coast Highway 101
Cardiff by the Sea CA 92007 : 206 984 0880

>>> "Wireless Internet Service Is ONLY Broadband with Broadband Customer

Service"(tm)

>>> OUR QUEST: To Kill the Cubicle! (SM)

---Shalommmmmmmm--------------------
---------------------------------;-)----


-----Original Message-----
From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Anthony
Atkielski
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 11:59 AM
To: [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
Subject: Re: Different OS's? Marketshare


Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor writes:

> any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market share

> they have?

Fresh stats from my Web server:

Windows . . . . . . . . . . 93.5118 %
Macintosh . . . . . . . . . 4.7794 %
Unknown . . . . . . . . . . 1.2731 %
WebTV . . . . . . . . . . . 0.2028 %
Linux . . . . . . . . . . . 0.1857 %
Sun Solaris . . . . . . . . 0.0289 %
FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . 0.0182 %

Of course, these are only client machines. FreeBSD is far more present
among servers. And remember that the FreeBSD figure represents just one
OS, whereas the Linux figure represents dozens of operating systems.

--
Anthony

[bob wifi hotspot n evdo wireless internet guy]

Ahhh gottit... So Server and Client OS distributions are majorly
different.. .wow.
Joe, thanks!
X----------------
Robert Kim,
Wireless Internet Wifi Hotspot Advisor
[url]http://evdo-coverage.com[/url]
[url]http://wireless-internet-broadband-service.com[/url]
[url]https://evdo.sslpowered.com/wifi-hotspot-router.htm[/url]
2611 S Pacific Coast Highway 101
Cardiff by the Sea CA 92007 : 206 984 0880

>>> "Wireless Internet Service Is ONLY Broadband with Broadband Customer

Service"(tm)

>>> OUR QUEST: To Kill the Cubicle! (SM)

---Shalommmmmmmm--------------------
---------------------------------;-)----


-----Original Message-----
From: Wood, Joe [mailto:jwood@youthranches.org]
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 12:07 PM
To: bob wifi hotspot n evdo wireless internet guy
Cc: [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
Subject: RE: Different OS's? Marketshare


Here is a link to some stats for WebServers



[url]http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/10824_1123171_3[/url]

OS group Percentage Composition

Windows 49.2% Windows 2000, NT4, NT3, Windows 95, Windows 98
Linux 28.5% Linux
Solaris 7.6% Solaris 2, Solaris 7, Solaris 8
BSD 6.3% BSDI BSD/OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
Unix 2.4% AIX, Compaq Tru64, HP-UX, IRIX, SCO Unix, SunOS 4
non-Unix 2.5% MacOS, NetWare, proprietary IBM OSs
Unknown 3.6%

-----Original Message-----
From: bob wifi hotspot n evdo wireless internet guy
[mailto:bob@evdo-coverage.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 2:59 PM
To: [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
Subject: RE: Different OS's? Marketshare

Anthony... WOW! You are good. whew

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Anthony
> Atkielski
> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 11:59 AM
> To: [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> Subject: Re: Different OS's? Marketshare
>
>
> Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor writes:
>

> > any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what

> market share

> > they have?

>
> Fresh stats from my Web server:
>
> Windows . . . . . . . . . . 93.5118 %
> Macintosh . . . . . . . . . 4.7794 %
> Unknown . . . . . . . . . . 1.2731 %
> WebTV . . . . . . . . . . . 0.2028 %
> Linux . . . . . . . . . . . 0.1857 %
> Sun Solaris . . . . . . . . 0.0289 %
> FreeBSD . . . . . . . . . . 0.0182 %
>

So, Anthony,

What website is this exactly? Would you like the stats to show
different? A few minutes with a script I can probably arrainge
them to say whatever you want. ;-)

If your site is targeted to Windows users I would expect it
to have a high percentage of hits from Windows.

Ted

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Robert Kim,
> Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor
> Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 7:49 AM
> To: List Free Bsd
> Subject: Different OS's? Marketshare
>
>
> Different OS's? Marketshare...
>
> any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market share
> they have?
>
> i think
>
> WIN 70%
> Lin 20%
> Apple 5%
> so who is the other 5 % ???
>
> you realze the statisticians and economists hold that 2 percent is the
> break point...
>

Break even for what? Oh I get it - break even to make a profit, right?

Hmm I wonder who gets the profits from the sale of FreeBSD? Do you
suppose
they would be overly concerned with the 2% rule?

This is one of the (many) problems with trying to hold a free OS up to
a measuring stick designed for measuring commercial OSes.

Note that Linux is doing much better against these measuring sticks
because
the Linux community, for all their loud proclamations about being GPL,
has been steadily making Linux less and less distinguishable from the
commercial OSs. When for example was the last time you saw a Linux
enthusiast with a burned CDROM of an ISO he downloaded somewhere? The
ones I see all have colorful cardboard boxes with penguins on them
that they bought at Fry's.

Consider that even if FreeBSD had 50% of all running computers - if those
50% of computers all belong to people that never buy software and only
run freeware, the people that create these measuring sticks would bend
over backwards to be sure those 50% were not counted. Not because they
have anything against FreeBSD, but simply because the customers of the
data these measuring sticks produce cannot sell anything to that 50% -
thus they don't care if that 50% exists or not.

Ted

[Glenn McCalley]

I think he said "break point" not "break even"
In a previous life, our stats guys in banking considered anything that had
2% share (although I think we used 3%, whatever) of a population was
"significant" and worth breaking out for study.
Glenn.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
To: "Robert Kim, Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor"
<robertk@video-phones-evdo.com>; "List Free Bsd"
<freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:30 AM
Subject: RE: Different OS's? Marketshare

>
>

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Robert Kim,
> > Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 7:49 AM
> > To: List Free Bsd
> > Subject: Different OS's? Marketshare
> >
> >
> > Different OS's? Marketshare...
> >
> > any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market share
> > they have?
> >
> > i think
> >
> > WIN 70%
> > Lin 20%
> > Apple 5%
> > so who is the other 5 % ???
> >
> > you realze the statisticians and economists hold that 2 percent is the
> > break point...
> >

>
> Break even for what? Oh I get it - break even to make a profit, right?
>
> Hmm I wonder who gets the profits from the sale of FreeBSD? Do you
> suppose
> they would be overly concerned with the 2% rule?
>
> This is one of the (many) problems with trying to hold a free OS up to
> a measuring stick designed for measuring commercial OSes.
>
> Note that Linux is doing much better against these measuring sticks
> because
> the Linux community, for all their loud proclamations about being GPL,
> has been steadily making Linux less and less distinguishable from the
> commercial OSs. When for example was the last time you saw a Linux
> enthusiast with a burned CDROM of an ISO he downloaded somewhere? The
> ones I see all have colorful cardboard boxes with penguins on them
> that they bought at Fry's.
>
> Consider that even if FreeBSD had 50% of all running computers - if those
> 50% of computers all belong to people that never buy software and only
> run freeware, the people that create these measuring sticks would bend
> over backwards to be sure those 50% were not counted. Not because they
> have anything against FreeBSD, but simply because the customers of the
> data these measuring sticks produce cannot sell anything to that 50% -
> thus they don't care if that 50% exists or not.
>
> Ted
>
> _______________________________________________
> [email]freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email] mailing list
> [url]http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions[/url]
> To unsubscribe, send any mail to

"freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org"

>
>

[Laurence Sanford]

Anthony Atkielski wrote:

>There have been a few exceptions. The Slackware site looked pretty
>spartan compared to most of the others.
>
>

I was converted to FreeBSD from Slackware. If you want to go Linux and
maintain the "freedom of configuration" you have with FreeBSD (ie, just
edit the text file, which is in a sensable spot) and get ...whatever it
is you hope to get from linux - don't get me wrong, Linux has a lot to
offer, I just can't personally think of anything it offers above and
beyond FreeBSD - Slackware would be the way to go in my opinion. But
that's holy war territory now, so I'll leave you with this: I switched
to FreeBSD from Slackware because of the ports/package system. They make
software installation so easy a Microsoft user could do it if they pay
attention.

[Anthony Atkielski]

Ted Mittelstaedt writes:

> What website is this exactly?

My own.

> Would you like the stats to show different?

I don't care what they show, as long as they are accurate.

> If your site is targeted to Windows users I would expect it
> to have a high percentage of hits from Windows.

It's not targeted to any particular operating system; it appeals to a
random cross-section of the Web population in terms of computers,
operating systems, browsers, and so on. The stats mirror what I've seen
for other sites of general interest.

--
Anthony

[Anthony Atkielski]

Ted Mittelstaedt writes:

> Note that Linux is doing much better against these measuring sticks
> because the Linux community, for all their loud proclamations about
> being GPL, has been steadily making Linux less and less
> distinguishable from the commercial OSs. When for example was the last
> time you saw a Linux enthusiast with a burned CDROM of an ISO he
> downloaded somewhere? The ones I see all have colorful cardboard boxes
> with penguins on them that they bought at Fry's.

I've been looking at Linux these past few days (trying to decide whether
to install FreeBSD or Linux on the machine I just freed up), and I've
noticed the same thing. "Free" appears to be a near-total illusion when
it comes to Linux. And hardly any distribution seems to require less
than 6 or 7 CDs. And the Web sites I visit are extremely circumspect
about exactly how to download "free" versions of their distributions,
when they even offer such free copies.

It all looks very much (too much) like Microsoft.

There have been a few exceptions. The Slackware site looked pretty
spartan compared to most of the others.

I still might try to get FreeBSD running on the desktop instead, since I
know FreeBSD better (but then again, perhaps I should be learning more
about Linux as well?). That depends on getting past the boot problem
and resolving another anomaly with the SCSI disks, though.

--
Anthony

[Jacob S]

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 04:30:35 -0800
"Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> wrote:

>
>

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [email]owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org[/email]
> > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Robert Kim,
> > Wireless Internet / Wifi Hotspot Advisor
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 7:49 AM
> > To: List Free Bsd
> > Subject: Different OS's? Marketshare
> >
> >
> > Different OS's? Marketshare...
> >
> > any idea how many major OS's are out there today and what market
> > share they have?
> >
> > i think
> >
> > WIN 70%
> > Lin 20%
> > Apple 5%
> > so who is the other 5 % ???
> >
> > you realze the statisticians and economists hold that 2 percent is
> > the break point...
> >

<snip>

> Note that Linux is doing much better against these measuring sticks
> because
> the Linux community, for all their loud proclamations about being GPL,
> has been steadily making Linux less and less distinguishable from the
> commercial OSs. When for example was the last time you saw a Linux
> enthusiast with a burned CDROM of an ISO he downloaded somewhere? The
> ones I see all have colorful cardboard boxes with penguins on them
> that they bought at Fry's.

You must be looking at a different Linux community than the one I'm
familiar with. I thought boxed sets of Linux had gone out of retail
stores years ago. Well, except maybe for a couple of Redhat choices. I
haven't even had reason to look for them. I'm having too much fun with
downloading versions and upgrading over the internet - yes, for free.

Linspire and Redhat tend to be Windows-like, in hiding their free
releases or not releasing them until the next version comes out, etc.,
but they're generally considered the exception in the Linux community.

Some of our webservers at work are FreeBSD, others are Debian Linux.
Don't shoot me, but I'm still using Debian on my desktop, too. If I had
to start paying for Linux releases and security patches, I would be
using FreeBSD faster than Windoze users can type "format c:".

I understand there's some competition between FreeBSD and Linux, but
Linux doesn't have to be considered evil just because they're not
FreeBSD fans.

Jacob

[Jacob S]

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:21:06 +0100
Anthony Atkielski <atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr> wrote:

> Ted Mittelstaedt writes:
>

> > Note that Linux is doing much better against these measuring sticks
> > because the Linux community, for all their loud proclamations about
> > being GPL, has been steadily making Linux less and less
> > distinguishable from the commercial OSs. When for example was the
> > last time you saw a Linux enthusiast with a burned CDROM of an ISO
> > he downloaded somewhere? The ones I see all have colorful cardboard
> > boxes with penguins on them that they bought at Fry's.

>
> I've been looking at Linux these past few days (trying to decide
> whether to install FreeBSD or Linux on the machine I just freed up),
> and I've noticed the same thing. "Free" appears to be a near-total
> illusion when it comes to Linux. And hardly any distribution seems to
> require less than 6 or 7 CDs. And the Web sites I visit are extremely
> circumspect about exactly how to download "free" versions of their
> distributions, when they even offer such free copies.
>
> It all looks very much (too much) like Microsoft.

You obviously didn't look at Debian then. The soon-to-be-released Sarge
version is currently 14cds, but you only need to download a 35MB or
110MB installation cd to get started. The rest of the programs are
downloaded from mirrors as needed. In fact, the Debian download page
_discourages_ people from downloading all 14 cds. The principles behind
Debian's apt-get is similar to FreeBSD's ports and portupgrade - but the
organization scheme is different.

As to which will suit your purposes better; why not do a dual boot
between Linux and FreeBSD? They can co-exist happily.

HTH & HAND,
Jacob

[Anthony Atkielski]

Jacob S writes:

> You must be looking at a different Linux community than the one I'm
> familiar with. I thought boxed sets of Linux had gone out of retail
> stores years ago.

I bought a copy of Mandrake Linux in a retail store yesterday. I saw
SuSE in the store, too. Computer stores have a wider choice.

> I'm having too much fun with downloading versions and upgrading over
> the internet - yes, for free.

That says a lot about the type of user you are.

> Linspire and Redhat tend to be Windows-like, in hiding their free
> releases or not releasing them until the next version comes out, etc.,
> but they're generally considered the exception in the Linux community.

I've looked at a fair number of Linux Web sites over the past few days.
Almost all of them seemed to be trying to sell something. It was often
extremely hard to find links pointing to downloadable free versions of
anything.

> I understand there's some competition between FreeBSD and Linux, but
> Linux doesn't have to be considered evil just because they're not
> FreeBSD fans.

It's not evil to sell software. But it's not free software, either.

--
Anthony

[Anthony Atkielski]

Laurence Sanford writes:

> I was converted to FreeBSD from Slackware. If you want to go Linux and
> maintain the "freedom of configuration" you have with FreeBSD (ie, just
> edit the text file, which is in a sensable spot) and get ...whatever it
> is you hope to get from linux - don't get me wrong, Linux has a lot to
> offer, I just can't personally think of anything it offers above and
> beyond FreeBSD - Slackware would be the way to go in my opinion.

I'm mainly debating whether or not some direct experience with Linux
would or would not be professionally useful to me. Were it not for
that, FreeBSD would be the obvious choice.

As it is, FreeBSD will probably be the desktop I end up running, in part
because I know it better than Linux, in part because I can actually get
it to install and boot (unlike Mandrake, which just left me dead in the
water 30 seconds after booting and showing a pretty startup screen), and
in part because I like to know what I'm installing instead of just
installing a black box.

However, an obstacle is setting up an X environment, which I don't know
much about, and which I don't have unlimited time to fool around with.
Some of the Linux distributions claim to be plug and play (although I
have serious doubts about this). Also, on my old hardware, I suspect
that hardly anything could be plug and play--there are just too many
weirdnesses on this HP Vectra.

> But
> that's holy war territory now, so I'll leave you with this: I switched
> to FreeBSD from Slackware because of the ports/package system. They make
> software installation so easy a Microsoft user could do it if they pay
> attention.

Does that include X and KDE? I'm getting wild SCSI errors on FreeBSD
trying to install stuff, and I don't really know what that means, but it
doesn't appear to be corrupting anything, and it seems to be installing
software.

--
Anthony

[Jacob S]

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:49:55 +0100
Anthony Atkielski <atkielski.anthony@wanadoo.fr> wrote:

> Jacob S writes:
>

> > You must be looking at a different Linux community than the one I'm
> > familiar with. I thought boxed sets of Linux had gone out of retail
> > stores years ago.

>
> I bought a copy of Mandrake Linux in a retail store yesterday. I saw
> SuSE in the store, too. Computer stores have a wider choice.

Good. I'm glad to see the average Windows user looking around the
computer store still gets to see an alternative once in a while.

> > I'm having too much fun with downloading versions and upgrading over
> > the internet - yes, for free.

>
> That says a lot about the type of user you are.

True, but I still see a lot of new users on Linux e-mail lists that are
downloading it for free.

> > Linspire and Redhat tend to be Windows-like, in hiding their free
> > releases or not releasing them until the next version comes out,
> > etc., but they're generally considered the exception in the Linux
> > community.

>
> I've looked at a fair number of Linux Web sites over the past few
> days. Almost all of them seemed to be trying to sell something. It
> was often extremely hard to find links pointing to downloadable free
> versions of anything.

So, where on [url]www.debian.org[/url] do you see them trying to sell something?

> > I understand there's some competition between FreeBSD and Linux, but
> > Linux doesn't have to be considered evil just because they're not
> > FreeBSD fans.

>
> It's not evil to sell software. But it's not free software, either.

But Linux was compared to Microsoft, which would indicate that some
consider it to be giving in to evil influences.

Or we could get into the whole free-as-in-speech or free-as-in-food
debate. There is a reason that you can buy legal copies of Linspire on
E-bay for $3/each. But I definitely think it's better when it's
free-as-in-food, too.

Jacob

[Anthony Atkielski]

Jacob S writes:

> You obviously didn't look at Debian then.

Yes, I did.

> As to which will suit your purposes better; why not do a dual boot
> between Linux and FreeBSD? They can co-exist happily.

I can't even successfully install a single OS on this machine, much less
two.

I tried to install Mandrake an hour ago, and not only did it freeze, but
it did something that prevents my CD-ROM from being visible to the
FreeBSD install.

--
Anthony