On 07 Dec 1998, Benjamin Edwards wrote:

> I have a SPARCstation 2 and was planing on putting Linux on it
> but was advised that BSD is more appropriate.

> I know very little UNIX but think I need to get hold of a NetBSD
> CD.  The Sun douse not have a CD drive but I think I will have
> to get one.  I do not know were to get one from and was wondering
> if anyone could tell me the relative merits of Linux/NetBSD?

It's largely a question of taste.  Although I haven't run the Sparc port of
Linux, I have run Linux, FreeBSD, and NetBSD, and largely prefer the *BSDs.
My main problems with Linux have more to do with the current state of (most
of) the distributions I tried.  From my experience, more of the common Linux
distribs seem to push for more of a SysV flavor.  While there are some
things about SysV that are nice (I really miss the multiple runlevels),
they're less important to me, in the long run, than the day-to-day operation
of the box.  I find that the BSD mindset seems to work much better for me on
that.

With regards to your specific question about CD-ROMs -- as long as you have
(or can get temporary access to) an Ethernet transceiver and a network tap
that gives you access to the Internet, then you most likely won't need a CD
to install NetBSD.  On my SS2, I was formerly running SunOS; all I had to do
was download the miniroot, place it into the swap partition, and boot the
machine off the swap partition.  The NetBSD miniroot came up, I pointed it
to the Ethernet interface and gave it a couple configuration parameters, and
voila!  NetBSD was on my system.

It's a very slick procedure.  The docs are a bit vague at times, but if
you're familiar with Unix -- especially a BSD variant such as SunOS 4.x --
then you should be fine.

--
Devin L. Ganger
Chief Systems Administrator, Premier1 Internet Services, Inc., Sultan, WA
"....yet he is not two, but one Chirst; one, not by conversion of
the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God...."
The Creed of Saint Athanasius, on the nature of Jesus Christ