"For speed and security, FreeBSD is the way to go. In no way am I trying to say that Red Hat, or Linux, is inferior. Linux has very good desktop uses, and works well in some server situations. But, the FreeBSD 4.x tree is by far the fastest OS running on Intel hardware that I've ever seen."

This paper provides a short comparison and overview of six word

processor programs which run on Unix, specifically FreeBSD:

AbiWord, Applix Words, FrameMaker, KWord, StarWriter, and

WordPerfect. The goal is to save time for others looking for a word

processor by guiding them to the most likely preferred products

first.

FreeBSD 4.2 is a great addition to the series, but it may not be an essential upgrade for users running 4.0 or higher. If you haven't tried FreeBSD yet, there's no better time to try, as it is gaining momentum, which this release indicates.

Following the release of FreeBSD 4.1.1 in September, 2000, many bugs were fixed, important security issues dealt with, and a conservative number of new features added.

Is OS X just another fancy GUI-based operating desktop system like Windows or is it a more industrially useful server-centric operating system like FreeBSD or Linux-based OS's?

When you think of using pretty GUI administrative utilities, Unix is usually not the first operating system that springs to mind. However, the operating systems that do provide nice-looking utilities usually don't let you configure the system any deeper than the vendor wants you to. Fortunately, with FreeBSD and the ports collection, you can have the best of both worlds.

FreeBSD has a new core team which was elected by active FreeBSD

committers. According to the FreeBSD Handbook, the core team

"constitutes the project's 'Board of Directors', responsible for

deciding the project's overall goals and direction as well as managing

specific areas of the FreeBSD project landscape."

I've loved FreeBSD since the first moment I saw that devilish logo. The OS has always impressed me with its stunning performance and infallible stability. Of course, times change and for numerous reasons I've been running Windows 2000 lately. The other day I noticed that FreeBSD 4.1 had been released, so I thought I would give it a whirl on my spare hard drive.

The 4.1.1-RELEASE has been enhanced with cryptographic code and other new features like IDE ATA100 support, drivers for additional Gigabit ethernet cards and hardware watchpoints in gdb.

The buzz in operating systems today seems to center on Linux. But there's another OS generating a lot of interest - BSD.