Haha...you should have posted this to freebsd-users@ :-D


> So I've got a semi-brand new server here, Pentium III 733, 384MB RAM
> and two 30GB hard drives. The BIOS recognizes the hard drives as 30GB
> hard drives and every other OS I've installed on them works perfectly.
> Read: NetBSD, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Linux
> (RedHat 7.1, 6.2, 5.1, SuSE, etc etc).
> 
> Every single one of these others recognizes the two hard drives and
> installs perfectly. There are no troubles at all with the hardware.
> Ever. Not once.


I dunno, windows 95 tends to be anal about hardware sometimes...


> Today I decided to try to install FreeBSD on it because their ports
> system contains more of what I want (mpeg, video, brooktree supporting
> software, etc etc), and because I understand that FreeBSD doesn't need
> to be tuned for the larger badass server loads (no need to monkey with
> NMBCLUSTERS, tweaking BUFCACHE, etc). As I understand it, it just
> dynamically adjusts itself based on available ram and swap and scales
> up to heavy loads cleanly.


Who said NetBSD didn't?!  Just because the NetBSD website doesn't brag 
about performance as much as FreeBSD's does, doesn't mean it can't handle 
big loads ;)  I have a system here with a 9+ constant load that does smtp, 
www, samba, ftp and firewalling for at least 200 boxes and 500 users, and I 
haven't fooled with NMBCLUSTERS at all; this is the default install.

By the way, NetBSD does support brooktree cards, like WinTV and stuff, and 
the applications you're looking for that support the cards are 'fxtv' 
and 'xawtv'.  For mpeg, mpeg_play works and mpegtv (mtv) work fine under 
emulation, there is also xanim.  You just gotta look around in pkgsrc, 
there's tons of stuff for multimedia.

> I also heard that Google and Big Boy Friends use FreeBSD in their
>systems.


Yahoo uses FreeBSD, Google is strictly Linux boxes clustered together...


> So this morning being a Saturday I got up bright and early and popped
> in the FreeBSD 4.3 installation disk to get it on the computer.
> 
> Thus began my memory black-out. Under intense hypnosis and deep
> regression therapy I've learned that the bald patches at the sides of
> my head are the result of screaming, hand waving, wild, rolling eyes, a
> smashed set of CDs, something about a 30GB drive only being detected as
> a 2 GB drive no matter the combination of pfdisk.exe, BIOS
>settings, fdisk installer problems, and a strange laughing daemon who
>whispered taunts in my ear as I quickly went completely insane.
> 
> They picked me up five miles out of town, barefoot, bleeding from my
> eyes, twitching uncontrollably.
> 
> My friend knew what happened. With infinite wisdom, kind patience, and
> a brave heart he whispered the words that brought me back, "Come back
> to the fold. Come back to NetBSD purity. You know how to handle it.
> Don't you remember the millions of hits you coped with just two months
> ago? And SMP is coming. And UBC is coming.. Patience is a virtue. Have
> faith, NetBSD will always welcome a straying acolyte back to the
> fold."

Yes...NetBSD will always be number one, you can't escape it ;)


> FreeBSD might work for some. But after my experience of eight hours
> today of fiddling, I'm sticking with NetBSD and being patient waiting
> for the new technologies that will mean I don't have to gdb /netbsd
> anymore.

You can do most of the stuff with sysctl -w, I don't remember doing 
gdb /netbsd in a long long time (then again, I just recompile kernels).

cheers