FreeBSD Questions

I hope that someone can help answer a few questions about FreeBSD, I have installed various versions of Linux before into a Dual Boot setup with WinXP so I am familiar with partitioning and setting swap files etc. My questions might be a little off and if so please correct me if I'm wrong. From what I understand FreeBSD is more Unix based than Linux based so my terminology might be a little askew, since I'm not sure if they both have the same services. And yes I know I can do a search on Google for a lot of these questions, but I'm trying to get specific user input not broad generalizations.

1. Is it a stable OS?
2. Will I run into any problems setting it up for Dual Boot with WinXP?
3. Does SAMBA work well within FreeBSD?
4. Anyone run into specific hardware problems (i.e. problems with certain soundcards, video)?
5. Does it have kernel support for access of NTFS/FAT partitions?
6. Does anyone recommend any specific tips/tricks for configuring FreeBSD upon first installing it?
7. Is the learning curve extremely steep?

Any help you might be able to give me would be great. I have experience with Linux (Redhat, Mandrake) but have not delved into FreeBSD. I'm hoping that these questions will give a base for comparison. If anyone has the time to send a email about some of the Pro's and Con's I might run into send it to [email protected].

1. Is it a stable OS? Very
2. Will I run into any problems setting it up for Dual Boot with WinXP? Probably not, I didn't.
3. Does SAMBA work well within FreeBSD? Yes
4. Anyone run into specific hardware problems (i.e. problems with certain soundcards, video)?
Of course, usually fixed with a new driver, my card was configed w/out a hitch
5. Does it have kernel support for access of NTFS/FAT partitions? Yes
6. Does anyone recommend any specific tips/tricks for configuring FreeBSD upon first installing it? Not really.
7. Is the learning curve extremely steep? It's a little different coming from linux, but once you learn it seems more intuitive, to me, than most of the linux distros.

oh boy, this is a good question, Well, for stability, the only thing that can stand up to Free BSD, is open BSD,
if you wanna see how stable it is check out this site: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html
the top ten sites with longest uptime are almost all runing Free BSD, and that one has an uptime of 1,396 days at the top:)
iv installed free BSD before, ill tell you this much, its not like Linux, its harderto set up, but its awesome, as far as it playing nice with XP, im gunna put that in the i dont know but i doubt it categorey, but ir might, and yes its more UNIX based, Free BSD was in a lawsuite with AT&T for having the original UNIX code in the system, because it was actually just another version of UNIX but they had to redo the system to not get in trouble. Free BSD is amazing youll love it, but it is difficult to set up, so make sure you have a manual handy:) and i hope you have fun installing it and i hope you get it up and running, as for sound cards abd stuff, if it worked in Linux it will prolly be fin in BSD, if you wanna be sure check out http://www.freebsd.org and look at the hardware compatibility list. the learning curve, not bad, if youv used Linux and were ok, you should be fine, its similar in that you can use a command line if you wanna but dont have to.