On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 6:47 PM, Paul graf <pj.world at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I spent last Saturday evening reading the installation manual pages for
> FreeBSD. It would be interesting to use on a Pentium 3 pc that I have here I
> thought. I know alot of the Linux/Unix is much over my head.

Quick tip... if Linux is over your head you may really struggle with
FreeBSD.  It's a very stable, powerful OS but not so friendly to
newbies.

 Would I be able
> to use the old Dell Optiplex as a good netsurfer email machine?

Probably.  I haven't checked the requirements for the latest FreeBSD
builds but that team prides themselves in a lightweight OS.  I'm
guessing it will run on a PIII just fine.

 Would a
> Ralink 2561 wireless card be your choices since the computer does not have
> any wireless card as of now.

A quick Google search turns up a few hints that the driver was built
into FreeBSD in the 7.0-ish builds of FreeBSD.  My guess is that it
will work just fine, but as with anything feel free to experiment.

 What could anyone really suggest as far as
> wireless card in PCI form be for FreeBSD? Again I am sorry for not properly
> responding to the TLUG digest before.

Check the HCL for FreeBSD.  I use Atheros based cards in Linux because
the Atheros driver is finally open and works very well.  Not sure what
the state of Atheros is for FreeBSD.

Brian