I tried FreeBSD! - here's what I think of it

Hello everyone. With the change of the code of conduct in the Linux programming world, BSD has gained a lot of appeal. I've tried the FreeBSD "distribution" and here's my experience, what I liked and what not. I hope you enjoyed this little talk and if so, please don't forget to support the growth of this channel, by leaving a like and subscribing!

MUSIC
Gee - Smooth Jazz

[saysay]

I had no issues installing FreeBSD. There is a learning curve. But if your patient you will find FreeBSD a rewarding experience.

[essetee]

It's FreeBSD, that's not a distribution. Welcome to the real unix world. Try again clean install. Then the first things you need to do : 1. pkg update 2. freebsd-update fetch 3. freebsd-update install 4. portsnap fetch 5. portsnap extract 6. pkg install desktop-installer 7. desktop-installer. Choose your desktop and you are done. Run it again for another desktop if you want. FreeBSD is much faster than linux, even programs running under linux emulation runs faster than on linux. Unix keeps the system files clean. Everything you install goes to /usr/local. Instead of searching in /etc for config files, you go to /usr/local/etc. Tharts not wrong at all, that's the way unix works. As user shell you get csh, as root you get sh. On unix, NEVER change the root shell to bash ! Bash is in /usr/local/bin, if you ever have to go in single user mode after problems, then you will have a great problem, root whithout shell. The difference between linux and freebsd is day and night. They only use in most cases the same open source software. The problems you mention are only problems due to the lack of your unix skills.

[dreammfyre]

Holy shit at the comments. Are all programmers and sys admins this aggressive? Or maybe they’re just having a bad day on the spectrum...

[esseteeserge]

I use FreeBSD since version 2.x For me Linux is a mess. If you approch a new OS with linux in mind, that's not the way. Think BSD to solve problems. The csh is more powerfull than bash, never change the root shell to bash on a unix system ! The bsd servers are not slow, think you have problems with your network. In Virtualbox choose bridge network, works fine. Try to compile a freebsd kernel ! Then compare that one to the linux one ! FreeBSD is faster than linux. Judging an OS after 1 hour try in a vm ?

[DaveGara]

"The community is more nicer than ..."
Most comments here are:
"You rarted if u can't freebsdm"
"Freebsd distro? U missed the poimt, stoped watching"

Yeah. Nicer.

[DGDG]

guys, freebsd is not targeted for desktop. This OS is perfect for server online.
There is minimum of 3 points of interest for that use:

1. stability (not so versatile than linux) and strong
2. safety and fast
3. jail isolation for servers

if you missed these points when you are talking about freebsd, it is just because you don't understand what is freebsd.
And if you are lazy, sure, freebsd and computer sciences are not for you... you should paid someone for do for you what you can not do because of to lazy...

[Артем-щшу]

Want user-friendly distro? - Try GhostBSD. Also there is NomadBSD which is designed to run from USB flash drive.

[schmirgo]

Please don't complain that systemd is not present. While i agree that parallel startup is needed, you might just use openrc and stick with SystemV style init systems. Nevertheless it is a nice review you made, good explanations and nice editing :) Thank you so much

[swytchyglytch]

I'm curious where you live that the servers are so slow for you. I've never had an issue with them. I'm surprised that you didn't have a better time with FreeBSD though because I find it to be very much like Arch in most ways and Debian in timescale.

By that, I mean that the repo packages are purposely a bit older for stability yet still a bit more up to date than Debian stable.
In most other respects, it reminds me very much of Arch. Minimal install, build it from the ground up, only install what you need, pkg is the package manager and ports are like the AUR. If you really insist on installing ports manually like you were doing, you can do a whereis command and one of the results will be the path for where the program is in the ports tree. But something easier would be a 3rd party program like portmaster which can be compared to yay installing from the AUR. Hope that gives you some incentive to try again. :)

[sixdroid]

the servers are fast now. installed yesterday

[novafire]

You shouldn't mix using ports and pkg unless you really know what you are doing. From where i'm at pkg mirror is really fast. In general best to stay with the package system to avoid installing dependencies compiled with incorrect options.

[TheDave]

FreeBSD is NOT a distribution !! If you are going to use it, you need to get the Linux-isms out of your head You need to watch Robonuggie's videos

[RHTORAS]

The lack of systemD is a good thing. But the bsd community i am not sure is friendlier than linux. I have seen a lot bsd users joking about linux and they are serious. I am a linux user bsd wouldn't be my go to. Are there any other unix systems available ?

[andzaa]

BSD is what you get when a bunch of Unix hackers sit down to try to port a Unix system to the PC. Linux is what you get when a bunch of PC hackers sit down and try to write a Unix system for the PC.
If you are using Mac OS, then you must know, that Mac OS is based on Darwin Unix which cames out from BSD, for more details google for it.

[userx]

Is it possible for u to share ur build of dwm?

[colydeane]

I tend to agree with you on most points having struggled with my own desktop setup and not being able to find one program I'm particularly fond of. I didn't experience speed issues downloading packages though, perhaps I used a good mirror close to me. I think your setup looks terrific and would love to know exactly how you did that?

[danaeckel]

I installed FreeBSD on a cheap SSD over Christmas break. Some parts was difficult like nVidia drivers, however now I have it setup with KDE5 and turned into a nice system. My installs were fast and I had no connection problems to the server.

[Shvmadogg]

The community is much nicer than in linux (mostly arch).
P.S. I am a rtfm by heart, but the attitude of arch users (mostly DWM users) is a bit crappy. And that is from a full dwm user

[MrDeejayjfx]

I just Freebsd + ZFS + i3-gaps and it's pretty good and easy to setup, I had issues with high ram issues taking. but that's what you get for running on zfs so I ain't complaining that much.

[gspapp]

Systemd is slowing down underpowered hardware suc as an intle atom with 2 gb ram (example)