Getting FreeBSD 7.0 running on an IBM Thinkpad T40
I've been experimenting with various operating systems on my Thinkpad and have been trying to get a Unix-like system on there. I've played with Ubuntu but the battery life is abysmal. I can get around 3 hours with Windows XP installed and barely half that with Ubuntu 8.10 installed.
Just for grins, I decided to see how difficult it would be to get FreeBSD 7.0 working on this machine. After I was done, I decided I'd share the knowledge:
Moved to new hardware
So over the past few days, I've moved my websites to new hardware. I got a used Sun Enterprise 420r and decided it was time. Pretty nice box: 4 UltraSPARC II processors at 450Mhz each, 1 Gig of RAM, and 72 GB of drive space. Of course it's running my favorite server operating system - FreeBSD. I considered and even tried to install Solaris 10 but it was being a PITA so I threw my hands up and just downloaded the FreeBSD ISO instead. In the process, I've learned how to move a site and minimize the impact of doing so (not that I have a heavily trafficed site anyways). For the curious, my old hardware was a PIII 800 with 512 MB RAM and 160 GB of drive space. If the day ever comes that I need more space I can always pop in another drive. I don't see that happening soon though.
BSD is fun!
I've been experimenting with FreeBSD and OpenBSD lately and they're both quite enjoyable, especially coming from the GNU/Linux world. I'm especially fond of the ports collection. Ports is basically how you manage the software on the system and includes everything from web servers to desktop environments. It's similar to the APT or Yum utilities commonly used with Linux systems. The major difference is that instead of simply installing pre-built binaries, Ports compiles the source code. I won't argue for or against this method for performance improvements but it works for me even on a low end system. My favorite BSD feature by far is the PF firewall. PF is a firewall "for the rest of us". Very simple syntax yet very powerful. You could even block computers running that "other" OS from reaching your system.
FreeBSD has come a long way as has OpenBSD. I encourage you to check them both out, especially if Vista isn't the killer upgrade from XP that you thought it'd be...
Sun Launches Hardware Compatibly List (HCL) Program…
Finally, a real HCL for Solaris on x86! Looks like Sun is finally doing something with Solaris on x86. If you've never used Solaris, you're missing out. It's one of the best Unix's (Unicies?) I've ever tried. Also one of the most secure out of the box. Check it out.