Hello, Greetings & Self-Introduction Thread

[cheme]

Hello,

I've used some form of gnu/linux for the past few years, mainly debian based. I recently took a stab at ArchLinux. I liked the simplicity of the system and the BSD style. I decided to try out FreeBSD, and so far I am really impressed with the simplicity and elegance of this operating system. I may have to dump my Ubuntu and Mint partitions to make more room for my Arch and FreeBSD setup.

[jrd1]

Greetings everyone,

I would like to say hello and that I too, am a new convert to FreeBSD. I used Linux previously (numerous versions), but recently discovered the wonder and beauty that is FreeBSD - a marvelous piece of software that it is which I strongly believe others should know more about (which is another story).

Nevertheless, thank you for an amazing OS, your continued support and dedication to the ever continuing labor of beauty and love that is FreeBSD.

I look forward to working with you all. :D


Sincerely,
Jrd1

[natasa]

Hallo everyone, i'am a new member from Croatia!!!

[cspicker]

Hi all,

I'm a long-time Mac user just now getting into the OSS world. I've played around with a few Linux distros, but I must say I'm more impressed with FreeBSD, and am having lots of fun tweaking it for use as my primary desktop OS. I hope to see lots of continued development and support, and hopefully I'll be able to give back to this awesome community.

[KeresContorni]

Hi all, I just register to this forum. I'm Keres Contorni, from Italy, 33 years old. I'm a Linux server System Administrator from the age of 15/16 years old.

For several years (more than 5) I administered and installed Sun Solaris server on Sun hardware.

I also have some experience with FreeBSD but I would learn very well to administer and configure the following:

- Apache + php + mysql;
- Postfix + dovecot + antispam - ​​antivirus + webmail;
- Firewall with FreeBSD;
- VPN;
- eth and WiFi networks.

I really like the hardware sun. Now I try to install FreeBSD 8.2 on SunFire 280R Sparc III 800Mhz processor ... I write a howto if it is okay ...

Thank you all!

[mod81]

Hi everyone, here my first post. Some useful info on here for a newbie to FreeBSD like me :D

[Shensey]

Greetings -

I've been using FreeBSD since somewhere between 2002 and 2003. Insomnia has forced me to find something to do with myself, so what better than to say: "Me too".

Thanks core developers, and the rest of you who've kept me in a rock solid operating system that I am proud to evangelize about to the masses.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who publicly asks questions so I don't have to.

~Shen

[emc]

Hi!

I'm Enzo, from France (sorry if my sentences are a bit wrong).
I have FreeBSD since 2009 or 2010 but after a long period of non-use, I decided to resume with the new 8.2 version.
I have some of practice with GNU/Linux systems (Arch and Slack), but I'm a newbie with FreeBSD (and other UNIXes).

Sincerely, Enzo.

[GoofProg]

Working on a personal development workstation and maybe a virtual workstation too. ;)
Going to use FreeBSD 7.4.



:stud I graduated to keyboard pounder status! :stud

[fonz]

Going to use FreeBSD 7.4.
This thread will probably be moved to off-topic, but in the meantime: if I may ask, why are choosing 7.4 instead of 8.X?

Fonz

[egg3x]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post. I'm a newcomer to FreeBSD.

BR,
eggs

[rbelk]

Welcome egg3x.

[hopspitfire]

Howdy,

My name is Matt. I've been lurking here for a while, but I've never introduced myself. I've been using FreeBSD professionally for 6 years, managing many diverse systems and designing elegant solutions to fascinating problems. I hope to learn more, as one can never know everything :)

[DutchDaemon]

So, hopspitfire, the verdict? http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=20900 ;)

[hopspitfire]

So, hopspitfire, the verdict? http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=20900 ;)

I went ahead and updated the thread :)

[JohnCMcD]

Hi all.

[enCyde]

Hello all...

greetings from sweden!

[richardwagner]

Hello everyone,

I first used FreeBSD back in the 4.x days for a firewall for my dial-up connection (obviously for educational purposes) and haven't really used it since. I'm going to be building a few servers for home and the first thing I thought of was FreeBSD! I'll try to read and search more than I post :)

I'm from Brisbane, Australia if anyone is interested.


Richard.

[Terry_Kennedy]

Someone pointed out to me that I'm approaching 200 posts and still haven't introduced myself - how rude of me ;)

I'm in New York City and list my profession as "semi-retired Internet geek". I've worked in the computer business since 1976, and got my first taste of the 'net in 1974 (of course, it wasn't called the Internet then, and instead of saying "telnet" you said "@O", but that's another story).

My first experience with Unix was when one of my co-workers and I were out drinking, and got the idea to install 4BSD (when it was new) on a VAX-11/750 we had laying around. Eventually, that led to me being one of the first users of the BSDi BSD/OS (though it wasn't called that, then). After Wind River bailed out of that market, I switched to FreeBSD. The ISP I'm a partner in uses FreeBSD for just about everything (there are still some VMS systems for the back office, but we're moving away from those).

The computer part of my hobbies involves building very excessive systems for home use (right now I have 100TB+ of ZFS spinning in my dining room - a far cry from 1974 when I had an ASR33 teletype and acoustic coupler in my bedroom).

Aside from computer stuff, I'm into building / collecting clocks (mostly Nixie tube), photography, and an Ariel Atom race car that I drive all around the country. I also collect books about turn-of-the-century (I guess that's now "turn-of-the-previous-century") engineering projects in the NYC area, mostly tunneling.

For more info:
http://www.tmk.com/blog
http://www.atomacrossamerica.org

[rogue]

Hello!

This is a little bit of a delayed greeting since my registration, but better late than never. :)
I've been using FreeBSD since 5.3. Now running 8.2-RELEASE on laptop and servers at home and for business.

[ramonovski]

Hello.

I'm a:
- Mexican
- dude trying to get into a real Unix-based system.
- Colemak user.
- Musician.
- Previously Gentoo user
- frustrated user trying to figure it out how to mute the speakers when my headphones jack is plugged...

Hope I can learn a lot of stuff and give some feedback to the community.

Saludos.

[nnmiller]

I may have been registered here a very long time ago, back when there were no "home routers" and you had to build your own firewall/router to connect to your ISDN/ADSL "broadband". My choice at that time was FreeBSD 3.x or 4--when I was using SunOS 4.1.4 at work.

Now I'm up to Solaris 10 at work, but have decided to return to FreeBSD and migrate the home file server off of Solaris 10.

[Matera_the_Mad]

Howdo. I suffered from BSD-envy for a long time. I've pwned a few flavors of Windwoes and have Linux coming out of my ears, but BSD hated on me. It loathes my hardware. I finally resorted to virtualization. Even then it had a hissy-fit and blew everything up after I logged in for the first time. But once I edited out the sound card it settled down and behaved. Heh, I didn't do it so I could play music; I can do that in 9 or 10 other OSes.

So, no more BSD-envy, anyhow :D

I will probably be kind of silent too, but I just had to stick my nose in -- part of my celebration. ;)

[luca-b-1990]

hello!! guys
finaly writing a freebsd official forum

[draco003]

Hello BSD ^^

[hannibal80]

Hello all,
I'm Lorenzo from Rome. I'm really new to FreeBSD world so I'll bother you with silly question for sure.
Anyway I'm planning to configure a box (the hardware is a HP Proliant Microserver) as a NAS, Multimedia and p2p server.
For the NAS part I would like to use ZFS and for the multimedia I really need Serviio!

See you!

[Dies_Irae]

hi all,

after being a read-only, non-registered guest for over an year, I finally decided - or, to be fully honest, I imposed myself - to register to this forum.
I started using *BSD some years ago (FreeBSD 4.5 and OpenBSD 2.8 if i remember correctly) just to see "how they works", but my main OS has been Linux (Debian) for about 10 years.
Two years ago I took a "sabbatical year" from any Linux system because it was becoming an ever-changing shapeless thing.
So, about one year ago, I have replaced any Linux system (home & work) with FreeBSD, and I'm very happy with it!

I apologize from now for my poor english...

[Yacki]

Hello!

I'm introducting myself a little bit too late, but better now than never ;)

My name is Pascal, I'm 14 years old and I'm willing to learn more about the OS FreeBSD!

I already kept in touch with other Linux distributations like OpenSuSE, Debian & Ubuntu.

What can I say? The Power To Serve! :D

Regards

[DutchDaemon]

FreeBSD is not a Linux distribution (it pre-dates Linux), so "other Linux distributions" is an erronoeus statement.

[Tribio]

Greetings everyone, allow me to introduce myself here as well..

My (nick)name is Tribio, and I work as an IT engineer in a logistics firm, where my main tasks are to support end-users and participate in large IT projects. Also the system administration is on my task list, and one of my servers is a FreeBSD-device (setup by one of my predecessors), so that's the main reason I stumbled upon this forum..

I'm an expert in Windows, but I love open-source, so basic Linux is also one of my capabilities.

Furthermore: I like to spend my time on the internet, I'm a real social media pioneer for what it's worth. And I do enjoy a nice game of chess once in a while..

Howdy all! :)

[change]

Hi everybody!

I'm Yuanzhi Chai, a freshman to FreeBSD,
and it's very nice to meet you here!

[jimatqsi]

Greetings, all. I'm a self employed software developer / db designer / systems integrator. The death of a 15-year-old SCO Unix system has brought me to FreeBSD. Hoping to painlessly move my customer from SCO Unix Open Server 5 to FreeBSD. Tips and tricks gratefully accepted and acknowledged.

[crazychip]

Hi
I am not completely new to FreeBSD, but i'm no expert.
I have been using FreeBSD as my server OS of choice since i first tried it back in 2002.
Now i administrate my own servers as well as others.(purely on a hobby basis)
During my time with FreeBSD i have touched on many topics including:

NAS (with samba and ZFS)
Webserver(apache, php and MySQL)
Gateway(pf, dhcpd, squid)


Hopefully there will be many more happy experience with this wonderful OS. See you around.

[geodni]

Hi all,

I am a new subscriber here and I would like to thank you all for the great thing this forum is.

I am playing with Unices for 14 years and I'm glad to participate for the first time to a forum.
I Use FreeBSD as a desktop and servers since 2004 :

NFS storage for diskless NetBSD on Indigo2 and other Sun stations (tftp, dhcp)
gateway (pf and ipfw)
http, smtp, imap and ldap (apache, postfix, cyrus, dovecot, openldap)
jails on a ++To ZFS server
scripting sh, csh*, bash (work), sed and awk

I recently started using SAN environments with Sun StorEdge, SunFire T2000 (under Solaris 10, oups!) and all the cisc/risc platforms I have through FiberChannel to keep all my data (personnal and company) safe.

I'll do my best to contribute to this forum.

[nzcam]

Hello,
Just getting into FreeBSD after using Linux for 10 years or so ... have always used pfsense! I think it is the reputation for security that has drawn me to BSD.

Regards

Carrick

[party-G]

hello all, i've recently discovered BSD and i like it. and now i've discovered this forum and i've decided to join. why? well for a couple of reasons:
1: cuz it's fun to get in contact with other bsd-user
2:to expand my knowledge
3:to hopefully be able to contribute a little bit.
well that's it! my first post here!

[masayoshi]

Hi,all.
I fancy FreeBSD.:f
Fab forum!

[MP2E]

Hi all! Just wanted to introduce myself on the forums, I'm MP2E. I'm 18 and I've been using many different operating systems over the years since I turned 11. I was a huge Linux advocate and even went to the point of installing it on all of my computers, router, cell phone, and ipod. A couple of years ago I installed FreeBSD 7-CURRENT on one of my old PCs and fell in love with FreeBSD immediately. The entire project is much more unified and I love the philosophies behind Unix. However, unfortunately, due to FreeBSD not being compatible enough to the games I was playing at the time, I switched to Arch Linux since it seemed to be the most BSD-like Linux system. I used Arch for about 1 1/2-2 years and when I started using it I was finally able to put an end to my Windows use :P I always favor programs with minimalism and elegance, and the Unix philosophy to the most popular variants.

I decided to come back to FreeBSD when I saw 9.0-BETA3 announced and I saw that clang was added to the base tree. I have loved every second of using FreeBSD. Sure Arch Linux was nice, but I really forgot how much I loved this operating system. It's extremely easy to use, I love how "uniform" the entire OS is especially. ZFS support is fantastic, clang seems to have come along nicely and the Linux compatibility layer actually runs most binaries better than Linux itself could have!

I am fairly new to FreeBSD, however I would consider myself a Linux "guru" of sorts, so I've caught on very quickly to the concepts :) Thanks to the development team for providing such a free, fast, stable, simple and powerful Unix distribution.

See you around :stud
MP2E

[BinaryMage]

Greetings everyone! My handle is BinaryMage. I've always been interested in technology of many forms and flavors and I've recently been experimenting with different operating systems. I'm new to FreeBSD, with some Linux experience, but I will nonetheless probably be asking many stupid questions. Please try to have a little patience; I promise I will learn. FreeBSD looks like quite an interesting operating system and I can't wait to experiment with it!

Best regards,
BinaryMage

[LmaoTheKid]

Hey everyone, registered because I use FreeBSD on my home ZFS server. Been lurking for a long time, finally registered :)

[ecukalla]

Hi to all,

I started using FreeBSD ~7 years ago. The reason choosing it was because it has the most well written documentation I have ever seen. I use it for personal usage and it's great.

FreeBSD rules!

[Bart_]

Hi everyone,

I've registered here because I'm a migrant from Linux to FreeBSD. I work as a system & network administrator and the company I work for does work for our government.

We have a bunch of Linux servers (mostly for web applications/KVM virtualization) in our network but also FreeBSD servers for the more serious critical services (DNS, Nagios, Cacti, Syslog, DHCP, etc.).

My initial touch to Unix was Linux, from there I started to appreciate Open Source and the Unix systems allot. But now, mostly due to a very fanatic BSD sysadmin at my current job, I've started to appreciate BSD more and more. The installations are clean, I like the separation between system and user space, and overall I'm happy with the tooling at hand.

With that I'm now on these forums and hopefully in time I'll be at the point where I can be of service to others as well, though for now I'm absorbing allot of information on how things work :-)

-- Bart

[Auido]

Hello!

[GNowakowski]

Hello World!

My name is Glen Nowakowski (a shocker from my Nickname!) and I'm very new to BSD. I suppose you could say I've ran BSD software before OS.X albeit Mach underneath, FreeNAS, PC-BSD (and on various devices I'm sure). I am familiar with Linux (OK I've been running it for a few years) and while I enjoy the *nix-like universe, I'd like to step up to a system with Engineering rather than Design backbone. Hence, my arrival here! I am just downloading FreeBSD now - (I have done a PC-BSD install in the past on a Virtual Machine) and am looking forward to getting my installation up and running (Great Handbook BTW!).

I used to be a contributing member to a well known Linux distribution but am displaced with a lack of direction on behalf of its - er - directors? :) - - - - I would like to find a good avenue to contribution here. I do see there are many ways of contributing from the Website. I'll certainly explore them. I'm not a coder (although I wouldn't mind learning) but have been utilized in documentation before. Having little experience with BSD (my x is approaching 0!) I am humbly asking for a bit of direction.

* What are some good channels for fostering a future contributor?
*Are there any Good groups and Mailing lists that you would suggest a newcomer be familiar with?

I did join the freebsd hackers mailing list - and explored the others with little knowledge of what they were. Last but not least if you could mold a gumbi contributor - where would you start him, and where would you aspire to take him?

-GIN

[vicep]

Hi everyone!

I'm vicep and I'm new to Linux especially FreeBSD, well I tried some Linux variants before and I acquire some basic understanding about Linux, upon reading and searching it brought me here to "FreeBSD". As a new user of FreeBSD I'm seeking for your help guys to understand more about this OS.

For now, I see FreeBSD is just another variants of Linux and maybe sometime I can differentiate FreeBSD to other OSs. I'm not a programmer if coding is required to learn this OS, I will put a work on it.

I am fascinated with the works of this contributors to the open source community, and I'm looking forward to be a contributor and a help to the new user, and I wanna be part of the this community.

Regards,
vicep

[dtechnetics]

What's up everyone, I'm new to the forum and just wanted to say hey. Hopefully I posted this in the right section!

[DutchDaemon]

I'm vicep and I'm new to Linux especially FreeBSD, well I tried some Linux variants before and I acquire some basic understanding about Linux, upon reading and searching it brought me here to "FreeBSD". As a new user of FreeBSD I'm seeking for your help guys to understand more about this OS.

I'm not quite sure if you're being serious or not, but FreeBSD is not Linux, nor is it part of Linux, a Linux distro, or anything else. In fact, FreeBSD pre-dates Linux.

Be sure to read FreeBSD? So, what is it? (http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=9294)

[vicep]

I'm not quite sure if you're being serious or not, but FreeBSD is not Linux, nor is it part of Linux, a Linux distro, or anything else. In fact, FreeBSD pre-dates Linux.

Be sure to read FreeBSD? So, what is it? (http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=9294)


Thank you for enlightening me, your links can help me understand FreeBSD, even though it takes a lot of reading.

Thanks and see you some other time. :)

[delusion777]

Hi all

After wondering the internet on info about freebsd FreeBSD (as well as this site) I decided to join and check out what the community was like :D and hopefully get some answers to some of my questions lol.

:e

[Optometrics]

Hello everybody,

I'm currently in my first year of College and duo majoring in Computer Science and Biochemistry. After my professor gave us some information on UNIX, I decided to check out if any were still alive and kicking because he did say they were old. I was expecting them to have disappeared, but I see that they still leave a footprint in the threshold of many operating systems.

I'm currently trying out every UNIX-like operating system with the exception of Macintosh for at a bare minimum of 1 month to set up and do everything I normally do from making USB's work, setting up wireless (which I have successfully done in FreeBSD), and even printing regular documents so that way at the end of my "tests" I can judge for myself which operating system is best/right for me! That doesn't exclude other operating systems to be used as firewalls, routers or servers.

My journey started in June 2011 when I started off with Slackware since from Google reports that's the most UNIX-like Linux distribution out there. I stuck with it for a long time before moving onto Debian, CentOS, Fedora and now I'm here testing out the *BSD derivatives. I intend on using OpenBSD after FreeBSD as I've heard good reports about that as well, and then I will go on to Gentoo, which is apparently *BSD-like, but designed for Linux although I've heard the closest thing to both worlds is Gentoo/FreeBSD which is what I think I'll do after Gentoo Linux.

Anyways, I hope I can get help from this community. I've read through about 80% of the documentation and it's well-made and written so thank you for that developers (and editors). I'll try not to ask too many stupid questions, or any stupid questions at all.

[Cmay]

hi there. I am new to FreeBSD forums and the system as such but I would like to express a deep gratitude for the amount of work gone into creating the BSD system and the forums.

I been a Debian Gnu linux user for seven years and only used that as a replacement for windows ME. also by now have a mac OSX leopard tugged away I use only for making music on.

however I been interested in UNIX for some time and ran open solaris and solaris 10 to learn about the system. now I got my hands on a UNIX book that coveres BSD 4.2 and system V and with opensolaris being discontinued and openindiana not being supported on my hardware then I wanted to install FreeBSD to read and follow the texts in that book.

I am thankful that I can get all this software from BSD and also my main system Debian the opensource license.

thanks for all the effort , whom that helps othes on the forums , develop and made all this possible.

regards Carsten .

[athos]

Hi all!

Not much to tell here, I've been switching around some linux distributions, but I never found a operating system I could call home, but I think I might have finally found it. Hell, how can I call something home if doesn't even has something like a base system? I really like this philosophy, and thanks to some of the links DutchDaemon (wich, by the way, I've seen he does an awesome work as moderator), I decided to install it, and learn how FreeBSD works. :)

I've been some wanting to contribute to development at open projects. Now I know the operating system I'd like to contribute the most is this one, FreeBSD. The problem... my C skills are quite rusty, and I have to learn...

On the other hand, I really need to thank to all FreeBSD staff for the great system, and the awesome documentation... Heck, it's the best I've ever seen!

That's all, I'll try to ask the good way some questions if I have to :D

[jwmollman]

Hello all.

I'd like to introduce myself to the FreeBSD community. I have been a Linux user for the past ~3 years, jumping from many different distros overtime. I finally settled on Debian for about a year and a half, and was very comfortable with it. At one point, I decided I wanted to try out the *BSDs because I was interested to see what other Unix-like options were out there, and I also heard about their track record of stability, security, and power. I decided I'd try FreeBSD over the others because it seemed to be the most popular.

Now after working with FreeBSD on a somewhat older computer of mine for a few weeks, I can say that I've learned more about working with Unix-like systems faster than I did working with Linux in all those years. I feel more comfortable already working with FreeBSD. I guess it's the feeling of working with a wholly developed operating system. I know Linux is great and powerful, but it kind of feels like a kernel taped together with a bunch of other pieces.

I'd like to thank the FreeBSD developers and all other contributors for creating this solid piece of work operating system, and also for creating and maintaining the best documentation I have ever seen in any project.

John

[fnucc]

Hi to all here and my apologize, I posted on the forum without first introducing myself here. I'm and old programmer, some thing forgotten of course, and I'm also working as a website developer and editor in a daily business newspaper. Hope that I'll be able to give an advice or two here and of course to learn a lot.

Stjepan Skramic

[elfsechsundzwanzig]

Hello!

As I scroll through this thread, I notice pattern. A lot of people are switching to *BSD from Linux. So did I a couple of days ago. I was user of ArchLinux for the past 4 (maybe 5) years, and I really liked it. I still do. Well, I started studying Computer Science (sort of, at least) as 2nd subject, Philosophy being the first. This brought with it the eager to learn how my computer actually works and what a OS does. I don't know why exactly, but I once wanted to install a BSD and try it out. So I did.

I installed FreeBSD on my laptop (I have two machines at home, one desktop machine and my laptop), because it is my "well, let's try things, shall we?"-machine, whereas my desktop is the supposed to just work. And it hit me: I felt like using a decent and real OS for the first time. It's not that I stumbled over a lot of problems with Linux, I stumble over problems with BSD as well. It's more that I really like the concept of having a base-system installed and adding ports on top of it. It took me a while to grasp the difference between that and how Linux is composed (I never really thought about that, I have to confess), but once I did, I wondered how I ever wanted something else.

So.. my Laptop now works (more or less: I can't suspend or hibernate), so it's time to install FreeBSD on my desktop machine. This is my task for the days to come. Then my laptop will become my playground again, and maybe I will install OpenBSD on it. But well, we'll see, I really do like FreeBSD.

I'm not only new to the whole BSD-thing, I'm new to the community-thing as well. I never before used a forum (at least not a computer-related one) and never before used mailinglists. I was the passive-user-type, but that'll change, I hope.

The most important thing I have to say is a huge THANK YOU to all the people working on and supporting FreeBSD activly. You all are doing a great job and I really appreciate what you are doing. Keep it up, please!

1126

[chessmaster]

Hi,

I'm glad to be a part of this forum. I'm Arch Linux user and gradually making the change to FreeBSD. This has to be the most well organized OS even better than arch Linux. The documentation is well organized even better than wiki for arch Linux. I hope to learn a lot from the professional users on this site about this great OS. Thank you for providing a environment for new FreeBSD users.

[ctengel]

Hello all,

I am a mostly Linux user (Started RedHat, went Gentoo, Debian for things I didn't want to maintain as much, and Ubuntu when I've wanted a ready-made desktop OS with little configuration on my part.) and a professional Solaris system administrator for a large corporation (we are running mostly Solaris 10, about 2000-3000 instances, depending on who is counting, shared among a team of about 30 admins). I have used FreeBSD briefly as a home firewall/server (That was more than a few years ago and as much as I wanted to learn FreeBSD, I think I realized I'd get something up and running quicker with Linux.), and also my webhosting company gives me a FreeBSD jail, but I'm obviously not an admin of that.

Despite my having gave up on FreeBSD a few years ago, I have a new problem, setting up a NAS, that it seems FreeBSD will do well. While of course a great OS in its own right, it seems to also combine some of the best of Solaris (ZFS, dtrace, etc) and Linux (openness, good package management, etc). I honestly do not have any immediate intention of using FreeBSD as my primary desktop OS; honestly I've been growing lazy using Ubuntu these days, but it is a possibility down the road if my NAS project works out well. At work, unfortunately, I think FreeBSD is out of the question. My team runs the OS that the application teams ask for; I'll continue with Solaris 10/11 on my workstation because I find it good to use for my day-to-day office stuff, so that way logging into the servers it's not all of a sudden a different OS.

Anyway, I'm glad to be here; I've been reading alot of the other things posted on this forum, and I have another post pending which details my technical questions and concerns, so that I can try to get this right the first time! A big thank you, if any of you are reading, to those developers that make FreeBSD possible!

Chris

[simpa]

Hi all,

Few months ago I installed FreeBSD on my laptop and I really enjoy use it since. I had a few problems but it was actually fun to solve due to this lovely community and fine documentation. FreeBSD has very clean design and that "very special something" so hard to describe.

Before FreeBSD I used mostly Debian, Fedora and Arch Linux. Debian and Arch are still installed on the same laptop as FreeBSD, and there is also a little disk space reserved for Windows XP. I had a hard time to partition everything and manage to boot all of them with Grub, but it was worth it.

I have a daily job as database programmer (Oracle, PL/SQL). I've started open source project of web datatabase development tool but it is in very early stage. Of course project is developed on FreeBSD because it is a really nice OS for programming. :)

Simpa

[aligatormilk]

Hello FreeBSD world and its inhabitants!

I came here from Debian-land. It's a great OS, I'm not that much into GNU/Linux dissing game (though it may be that it's due to my technical ignorance), however some research did help me understand strong advantages of the BSD approach. Having said that, there is one thing that puts FreeBSD one step beyond most other OSen: documentation and the Handbook in particular. I've gotta say I jumped into the GNU/Linux wagon because of the philosophy and not the technicalities that I was unable to comprehend at that time; it helped me get to know the basics of Unix (note: be sure I'm not putting any ='s here), surely made computing much more fun, etc. But most of the problems I encountered were solved by finding ready-made solutions in some corner of the net. It is mostly my inability to learn on my own but in a sense it blocked too many chances to learn about those problems (and their solutions) in depth. Compared to this, the FreeBSD documentation works in a completely different way - it explains what's the deal in depth so in most cases I at least understand the problem fairly well, and this makes the search for the solution much more participatory and exciting. So besides everyone coding this giant shouts go to all the documentation people!!!

Thanks and be merry.

[throAU]

Hi there!

I'm new here but have been using FreeBSD for internet facing service delivery since 2000-ish starting out with FreeBSD 4.0.

My background back then was working in a small ISP, since about 2001 I've been working for an aussie mining company who has offices in Australia, Africa, Central Asia, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

Most of what I've used FreeBSD for is DNS/mail/caching, though I have dabbled with IPsec and dummynet for linking point-to-point wifi securely and simulating WAN links.

I did write a VPN howto for MPD a long while ago ('03?), but I suspect things have moved on since then (and the page is no longer available).

Currently running a few FreeBSD boxes for DNS/SMTP and a few other network tasks, used to run Linux/*BSD on the desktop but currently use Mac OS X there (though I check out the free unix desktop on a regular basis).

[throAU]

Compared to this, the FreeBSD documentation works in a completely different way - it explains what's the deal in depth so in most cases I at least understand the problem fairly well, and this makes the search for the solution much more participatory and exciting. So besides everyone coding this giant shouts go to all the documentation people!!!

Thanks and be merry.

Sorry for the double post, but a big plus one to this!

I too came from Debian (1996-2000 ish), and before that, Solaris 2.6 (though I was a total noob back then) and the FreeBSD documentation is second to none. Couple that with the fact that most of the info you read continues to apply and be relevant for several major OS revisions (most of my knowledge from the 4.x days still applies, for example - contrast with Linux where basically everything is thrown out the window every couple of years) and the end result is that FreeBSD is just so much easier to administer.

Again, big props to the documentation guys!

[hadrons123]

I have been using FreeBSD for the last 2 months on my spare laptop. I was using Windows 7 until 2010 and I switched to Linux in late 2010. Since then never had to go back to Windows. I started with Fedora and moved to Arch Linux for a while and now I am trying FreeBSD, but still ArchLinux is my OS for my primary PC. I still don't have the same control in FreeBSD as much as I have over Linux. Still learning. The learning curve is really steep. I hope to get better at FreeBSD.

I would have liked FreeBSD to have a detailed wiki like Arch Linux. Handbook is useful but not very much. I felt like something (handbook) is better than nothing during the installation and post installation too. Lot of things in the handbook are not current. Usual troubles are not listed anywhere. If anyone had used Arch Linux before they would understand what I am trying to say.

[Beastmaster]

G'day FreeBSDers,

I've been using Linux of various flavours for the last few years, mainly Debian and Arch these days. Now I'm trying to switch over to FreeBSD on my desktop at home.

It's already been an interesting learning curve. I'll post about one particular difficulty I'm having in another thread :-)

[puntocom]

Hi, I really like FreeBSD, it's very valuable to have my servers up & running. I'm a FreeBSD user since 2002 and I love to wear the FreeBSD clothes :)

[sqlpython]

and I love to wear the FreeBSD clothes

Justification of the highest order.. :)
must be the lil' devil in you... �jr

[mrtonyg]

Just signed up and saying HI!

Tony

[drlego]

Hi All,

I am new to the forum.
I have been using Centos for years (don't throw eggs) and I am really starting to get into BSD.
Hoping to learn a lot here, and even help if I can.

Peace,

Dr Lego

[White_Mad_Hatter]

Hello All,
I am going to try to make this short an sweet :)

[White_Mad_Hatter]

Apparently my tab button got the best of me. I have over 7 years working with Redhat/Debain Linux and 2 years working with Solaris UNIX. I am testing out FreeBSD because of the ports and I am trying to transition away from just Linux and Solaris operating systems and trying to get used to BSD. I also have 5 years of networking experience to boot.

[Lorem-Ipsum]

Hiah all!

I'm a student studying computer science. I've been using Linux exclusively for a few years and mainly use Archlinux on my machines. I've always wanted to try FreeBSD but never had the courage. However I've now got a spare machine to play with so here goes...

[aladedragon]

Hi all, I wanted to say hello to the community in my first post.

[drhowarddrfine]

There already is a useless thread (http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=351) for posting stuff like this.

[jrm]

Hi @aladedragon. Welcome.

[bsdnews]

Hi all,

I'm new in the FreeBSD world. At that time, I'm mostly using Fedora but I would like to discover FreeBSD. So yesterday, I installed it on my laptop and I’m here now :-)

[danaeckel]

Hello,
My name is Dana, and I am new to the world of FreeBSD. I have used computers since the days of DOS 5, and Windows 3.1. I used Linux as a desktop OS since Debian 2 came out.
My professional life, I am IT systems ADMIN, and we work mainly with Windows 2008, and Watchguard firewalls with VPN. I am a level III tech, and so I decided I would build a home server from FreeBSD, mainly for fun as well as a learning experiance that can help me out with my work.
At first I thought about Linux, but after reading on I decided to use BSD. Mainly since everybody said it is more stable, better performance. I agree Linux has more bloat now than it did 10 years ago, and BSD provides a nice simple base I can build on.
MY hardware is an old AMD 2700XP on ASUS A7V8X, Maxtor Diamond Plus9 200GB HDD. 1TB USB HDD for backups, 3GB of ram.
I plan to use this for firewall-NAS-Print Server, media server, backup server. I have no idea how much this old CPU can handle, but I sure will find out.

[rgoodson]

Hello to you all.

I've been using FreeBSD since 2.1.something when I used to get the quarterly set of CDs in the mail via my subscription (from walnut creek, maybe?). I still have a big stack of those FreeBSD CD jewel cases in a moving box somewhere. For the last 5 years or so, I've been working as an admin in a strictly Solaris shop, but recently, my ancient FreeBSD 6-stable machine that I have in a rack in the basement began to show signs of imminent hardware failure (to go along with its crufty ports), so along with my hardware refresh, I started to investigate what I had missed since 2006 or so, and it's been a lot, apparently.

-Rich

[luckylinux]

Hi all,
I'm a student in electronics engeneering and will beginning to learn FreeBSD after more than 8 years in the GNU/Linux world (5 of which using Debian and Gentoo). For now I'll be using FreeBSD for my backup server. I'm impressed on how fast you can be helped in these forums.

[sossego]

Name: Everyday Nobody
Occupation: Manual Laborer

I'm probably one of the more unconventional members of the FreeBSD community.

My focus/goal with/for FreeBSD is to increase the user base by helping people through installation tutorials or hands-on teaching. Yes, I do talk about FreeBSD, powerpc, OpenBSD, and other computer related topics in public.

In public: I like to ask people I don't know random questions.

[fullauto]

Hi,

Name is Tim and I used to use Unix back in the day, '98-99. Want to get back into it for different reasons, but found that I don't have the same network of people I used to have to bounce question off of, and the google/apply method isn't really teaching me much more than HOW and not so much the WHY, which is what I really need.

Not going to Lie: VERY newb at this and the HOW is going to be my first question, but why is very important to me as I don't want to learn how to do something without realizing why it's done that way.

Looking for someone to walk me through some of this stuff and be a FreeBSD Mentor! I have a teamspeak server available at all times: fullauto.no-ip.org with no password. Anyone here is free to use it. Looking for HELP!

My ultimate goal is to run my own successful FreeBSD server complete with FTPd, HTTPd, SSH, etc., basic stuff, but I am relly having a hard time with the google/apply method. So lend me a hand!

I remember the FreeBSD community as being the most generous OS community there is, and am looking foward to making a few new connections. :e

[Viatcheslav]

Hello, I'm from Russia.

From all systems which I need to admin (cisco, linux, window) freebsd FreeBSD is the best!


[prserver:~] $ sh
$ set -E

[yarnoiser]

Hi all. I come from an ubuntu/debian linux background. I was interested in seeing what FreeBSD was like. Got FreeBSD 9 with gnome2 running on my desktop. Much better installer than the old sysinstall by the way! I also like how things in the port collection like chromium and libreoffice are kept more up to date than debian stable versions. Still waiting on gnome 3 though. Also love the improved chroot and jail functions. Security FTW!

[Dead_Lemon]

Hi all

I'm reasonably new to FreeBSD, well unix/linux world in general, been fascinated with FreeBSD and ZFS for a while and finally built myself a 4x2TB file server, been fun so far, but still much to learn, so please be patient with silly questions :P

[anon12b]

I guess this is the done thing.

I have been interested in Unix-like systems for a long time. The first time I knowingly used Unix-like systems was around 2001. Before that I had used Unix, but did not actually realise what made it so different from MS-DOS 6 (my main operating system at the time). Since 2001, I have rarely been far from a Unix-like. My usage essentially went: OpenBSD (I bought several CDs, and I still have all my sticker sets unused!) -> Debian -> Linux From Scratch -> NetBSD -> FreeBSD.

My move to FreeBSD was cemented when I was looking for a lightweight virtualisation technology. I had been looking at Openwall GNU/*/Linux (Owl), as it offered a lot of features I liked, and had OpenVZ integrated. However, OpenVZ was a bit too heavyweight for what I wanted; it required a wildly different kernel to vanilla; the directory structure it uses seems convoluted. I had several different requirements: ranging from full system virtualisation, to single process setups. Only FreeBSD's jails met all of this when I was looking.

As I read more about FreeBSD's jails, I become set that this was the only solution that was workable. The only competitor still in the frame, is NetBSD, using KAUTH and RUMP.

If my mind was not made up enough, Linux just seemed to be getting worse. I say "seemed," it is not quantifiable (or perhaps even provable). It just seemed that the code quality was deteriorating; the community becoming more fragmented; the distributions not helping each other. A horrible air of NotImplementedHere pervades the atmosphere. Too much politics for me. Again, I am not stating it is worse, just how it changed in my perception.

So, FreeBSD is my choice going forward. I cannot see it changing any time soon.

[toroamericano]

Hello, I have used Freebsd FreeBSD on and off again for the last ten years. Never really got far with it as I use another variant now as well (shiny things those macs.) Now I am back again, posting on this website for the first time.

I have the original 4.4 disk set I bought in a Fry's electronics so long ago. I started with RH just before they did their IPO thing back in the day and I must say it was ok, especially after I got my "winmodem" in a Compaq presario laptop working...

I used to work with VAX VMS in real life, automated test equipment type stuff, but it has been a few years since I did that joyfull work.

Now I have Freebsd FreeBSD on an older Panasonic CF-48, and I am building a tinker toy out of an Optiplex 745.

Looking forward to meeting new people and hopefully learning a lot!

[sylvaingirard]

Hi! I don't know diddly squat about FreeBSD. I've got *some* experience with Linux (Ubuntu/Debian). I got myself a NAS box a couple of weeks ago, which is running FreeNAS, which kinda makes getting to know FreeBSD non-optional. :)

[miracle20003]

Hi! everyone I'm a rookie

[JakkFrosted]

Hello all. I'm just a guy looking to learn more by doing things the hard way. ./configure and yum install blah isn't teaching me much. With FreeBSD I feel like I would have to go out of my way to find an easy way. Furthermore, Linux techies are a dime a dozen, adding another to the bin isn't going to help so much. Or maybe I just want to shave against the grain.

[hipodilski]

Ehlo guys :)

[TheDreamer]

Hello all,

I first dabbled with FreeBSD back with 2.x, and now I'm back again with 9.0.

The Dreamer.