[ale] Newbie Greg's Question of the Day - Smoothwall vs OpenBSD

[Greg]

Do your have any experience with NetBSD ?  Is it something designed strictly
for internet/intranet usage ?  Also, can I run Linux programs on FreeBSD ?
(ie. StarOffice, Gnucash, Win4Lin, etc ?)  I have noticed that there are no
books on OpenBSD, but several on FreeBSD. Are there any companies supporting
FreeBSD or is it something that is just "out there" ?

Sorry if these seem stupid questions, I give greater weight to someone is
using this stuff as opposed to strictly researching it on the Internet (and
I work in a 110% M$ IT shop where no one knows or cares about anything
except Microcrap...<rant>  though Bill has made it really simple and easy to
work with - Look Ma ! I can insert a disk, hit "install" and I am a sys
admin !! wahoo !) </rant>


TIA
Greg Canter


-----Original Message-----
From:	scott at smnolde.com [mailto:scott at smnolde.com]
Sent:	Saturday, August 11, 2001 7:50 PM
To:	Greg
Subject:	Re: [ale] Newbie Greg's Question of the Day - Smoothwall vs OpenBSD

Greg,

For a firewall and web server, nothing beats FreeBSD.  Linux has it's
great points, but for stability under heavy load, FreeBSD is it.
Installing FreeBSD is simpler than OpenBSD and nothing beats the ports
collection for installing and updating software.

BTW, OpenBSD and all the BSDs are real UNIX operating sytems whereas
GNU/Linux, is linux-like.  Functionality between the *nixes is very
sililar.

Feel free to visit #freebsd, #freebsdhelp, and #bsdvault on
irc.openprojects.net if you have further questions.

I don't want to seem like I'm busting on linux, but I'm not.  Linux is
great, but for ease of management, I find FreeBSD does an excellent job at
everything I need it to.

- Scott

On Sat, 11 Aug 2001, Greg wrote:

 >Apparently while playing OS roulette (I was replacing MS 2k & 98 Winbloze
 >with Linux on several of my home machines) and in the process hosing my
 >email my question never made it to the right place for this group.
 >
 >Does anyone have any experience with either Smoothwall or OpenBSD ?  For
the
 >OpenBSD especially when used as a firewall and hosting Apache with Jserv.
I
 >would like to start my home system small (read simple) with a DMZ and a
 >choke point and bastion firewalls with Smoothwall and a web server using
 >Linux in the DMZ and maybe later graduate to using OpenBSD for the web
 >server and an app server in the DMZ..  All of which I intend to run on
 >several P-133 and 486's I rescued from my company's dumpster.  Maybe later
 >converting the home intranet server to OpenBSD too.  I have been
researching
 >both for sometime and Smoothwall appears to be a pure firewall app using a
 >cut down Red Hat distro with a simple to configure interface and a kernel
 >stripped for firewalling and nothing else.  It is advertised to run on
 >low-powered (486 - 368) hardware.
 >
 >OpenBSD seems to be a more secure form of Linux that requires more
in-depth
 >knowledge to use - and the OpenBSD newsgroup that I subscribe to appears
to
 >be somewhat over my head and more interested in flaming those new to the
 >system rather than helping others and promoting their OS (oh my, what IF
 >they found out I used to be a VB / ASP programmer/scripter whatever....
They
 >might just form a lynchin' party an' come after me !!)  So, any help from
 >anyone on this newsgroup would be appreciated.
 >
 >Also, while I missed the ALE meeting (had to help fix my company's primary
 >mission - critical - gotta' - have -  it -  to - exist software) I would
 >like to help in the Install Fest.  Having left the Dark Side (M$) only
 >several months ago I can really relate to anyone just starting to look at
 >alternatives.
 >
 >TIA
 >Newbie Greg
 >
 >--
 >To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message
body.
 >


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