What are you doing with FreeBSD?

[MartijnAtLico]

I'm pretty curious what the audience is here, so if you feel like it please describe what your primary use for FreeBSD is. Are you a kernel hacker, curious Linux user or a Fortune 500 sys admin?

I myself use FreeBSD on the servers of our small hosting business and at some client sites for running Java applications. We've used FreeBSD ever since Linux didn't support our Promise ATA RAID controller back when we purchased our first server and fell in love with it immediately. My desktop is OS X powered though :)

[SPlissken]

Desktop usage

[cajunman4life]

Hosting various services (web, email, DB) for individuals and small businesses.

[SeanC]

C programming. For fun on a dual-boot with XP. Work laptop is Vista.

[Barnie]

I use freebsd for desktop things like EMails and Web. I hope I can do writing letters if I setup my printer.

[Djn]

My file server / web server / database server / second desktop has been FreeBSD for ages. It's currently running 6.1 (i386 - it's an old dual P4 xeon), with samba/NFS/PostgreSQL/apache+PHP and mod_python, with storage on a hardware mirror, and KDE 4 for desktop use (I wanted to test it, and then never got around to stop using it). A bit overloaded, but it works oddly well.

The newest desktop PC runs 8-CURRENT. I'm writing a thesis on it at the moment, so text editor + LaTeX and a web browser. KDE 4 - the exposé clone in kwin is really quite handy, and the nvidia drivers are good enough to keep it enabled.
It also sees some gaming - World of Warcraft runs fine in Wine. Sure, it's markedly faster on Vista, but it's still perfectly playable. A bit of DLL copying got ventrilo working as well.

Getting WoW working was apparently enough to keep me from dualbooting, as I haven't used the Vista install for a few months now.

My laptop runs XP, though. It's got some programs I know don't work in Wine (e.g. Lightroom), limited disc space (so dualbooting is inconvenient), and XP is better at battery life, wiFi and suspend/resume on this hardware.


As for why I run FreeBSD, well. I did the usual round of linux distros some years ago, but ended up with FreeBSD 4.7, and I've sort of stuck with it for my toy server since. Using it as a desktop started when I swapped my "server"-hardware for something fast enough and found it convenient to do things on the always-on machine instead of booting the other (windows-)PC, and then I started keeping a FreeBSD partition on the other one as well, to play with it on a reasonably current computer. It sort of escalated from there.

Oh, and I just remembered. My router runs m0n0wall, which is technically FreeBSD as well. ;)

[Freehill]

I'm not using it for anything in particular. Just learning something new, and testing to see if it will be a suitable desktop replacement once XP is no longer supported.

It's also nice to have a secondary OS installed just in case. ;)

[tbyte]

I'm using it for almost everything. Border routers, NAT gateways, Access concentrators (all of those routing more than 7GBits/s and about 15000 home users), Databases, Hosting servers, Desktops (including gaming), 3D Render farms, Large file servers ... uh probably and many other things, prety much everything You can use an OS for :) .

[marius]

Using FreeBSD on my laptop, if it had real Flash support (no linux/wine stuff) it could soon become my main workstation (that's actually a lie since I'm tied to a few Windows-only programs). FreeBSD is also on my server, and I will soon try to use it on a commercial project if we get the hardware to work. I've used FreeBSD since 4.x but never really had the chance to learn much since the server never really needed much attention except for some updates. Using it on my workstation lets me get much more time with it, and therefore I hope to learn more in the future. It's simply a brilliant operating system.

[SaveTheRbtz]

I'm ISP Admin. Why FreeBSD? case one 1,500$ well-tuned FreeBSD server can pass 400Mbit of traffic with NAT, firewall and shaping. And what is the cost of equivalent Cisco/Juniper?

[dsitco]

using as desktop os (freebsd & gnome) for laptop as well as
for servers web, mail, etc.

[rliegh]

I'm a desktop user; I use some form of Unix when I can because I like not having to worry about security issues (eg firewalls, services) when I'm cruising around the net.

I still need windows for the odd things (office -OOo doesn't reliably cut it) but when I'm just listening to music and surfing the web I'm using FreeBSD.

[ninjaslim]

I use FreeBSD 7-STABLE on my workstation back at home. I absolutely love it because of the little maintenance that it requires. I use it for programming, watching videos, listening to music, surfing the internet, schoolwork, and SSH.

[nintendo]

I'm using FreeBSD as a Samba/NFS Server. Used to be my Desktop OS but due lack of some features and/or software, downgraded to Windows XP :(

But I'm still thinking of a FBSD Desktop revival ;)

[michaelrmgreen]

Servers at work replacing SCO OpenServer (iBSC2 ftw), running applications written by me in MS FoxPro Unix. Also file server to Win2k clients via Samba and printer services likewise.

Never a moments downtime, what more could someone want?

[edhunter]

router, firewall, web, mail, samba, dhcp, vpn server and other server usage :>
I am intending to use it as a desktop system at home, but so far freebsd nvidia-driver is not usable for me.

[tangram]

I use it on an old headless 266 Mhz Celeron. This old timer runs Samba, SSH, MLDonkey, FTP and IPFW.

I'm thinking of upgrading it to an Asus board with an integrated Celeron 220 with 2GB and a couple 1 TB disks which will, of course, run FreeBSD with the same services plus webserving.

I also have FreeBSD on my desktop where I dual boot with Gentoo. In this desktop I use FreeBSD mainly to play ET while Gentoo is used because of Virtualbox and flash.

[developer]

Desktop
Write c and php program

[roddierod]

I use it at home as a Desktop OS

[hitest]

I use FreeBSD 7.0 as a desktop at home. Image editing, web page design, chat, etc.

[lyuts]

I'm using FreeBSD for almost everything i need. Internet, multimedia, development. I want to get ardour working for recording guitar.

[fender0107401]

FreeBSD is stable, it does not need any antivirus software, but I configured IPF firewall just for fun. :e

I run FreeBSD release version on my desktop, I like gcc gfortran and gnu_octave.

Programming with Vim/gVim is interesting, and GNOME is very beautiful.

The system have everything that I need, except video card driver support with 3d acceleration, it is the imperfect in the perfect for desktop users. :(

[LordZ]

I use mostly for studying, playing with software and as a desktop for surfing web, reading e-mail and watch movies and listen to music. I also work with FreeBSD web, DNS, mail servers. For NAT and firewall I use OpenBSD.

[Alt]

Using for www/db/ftp/dns server for my own small bussiness.
At work, used as www, dns, database, backup, firewall, nat... Everything! =)

[BuSerD]

I am in technical support so i use it to pay my bills primarily but after a younger newer employee asked me why I don't run it on my work station and that he had been running it for years on his desktops I gave it shot on my home desktop and never looked back. I always loved freebsd on the server but over the last 6 months or so I have become quite an advocate of it on the desktop. I do program & script for fun on my desktop and I am introducing my 12 year old step son FreeBSD, Postgresql and other FLoss via DesktopBSD. He loves it as well.

[darkstar]

I'm using FreeBSD for almost Service server, such DNS Server, Mail server, File server, FTP server, Proxy Server and Routing Dynamic (BGP), Etc.

[bojan]

1 home server DNS and sendmail
1 work server which has 2 jails for FAMP
1 home laptop currently my main desktop

[Eponasoft]

I run FreeBSD 7.0 inside of vmware 5.0.0 inside of Windows XP. Primary use? Programming a new compiler, and general desktop frivolousness. Running KDE 3.5 because GNOME irritates me and I can't stand any other setup except windowmaker and fluxbox. Once my current Windows-based project is completed in the spring, I will deepsix Windows and install FreeBSD on top of its ashes.

My wife and I run a small web host, but we use CentOS servers rather than FreeBSD. I hope to change that someday.

[mfaridi]

I use FreeBSD 7 for Desktop and manage some sites,

[mathiasp]

Secured server(s) (MAC, geli) used via NX, laptop use. Running ERP (openerp), openoffice, django, seaside, erlang on server, f-spot & gimp for my photos on laptop.

[kbw]

My file server runs FreeBSD on an Athlon. It has a couple of SATA RAID5 arrays using a High Point RAID card.

My experimental replacement runs ZFS on FreeBSD on an Athlon64 using the onboard SATA.

I also use OpenBSD and PF on my firewall using the slowest machine I have. It's recently been upgraded from a 486 to a P4.

[estrabd]

learning, playing, bounce box (screen, mutt/fetchmail), ftp

[cpeterson]

We use FreeBSD for making a VERY widley used family of commercial anti-spam RBLs. We have something like 100 FreeBSD 4.10 and 6.3 systems.

On top of that we have a SaaS anti-spam system that's another few dozen FreeBSD MTAs and a few FreeBSD postgres databases backing it up.

I couldn't be happier with the outcome.

[brd@]

For $REALJOB I use it for Secure Database Servers (GELI and MySQL), Web Servers(Apache), DNS(TinyDNS & DNSCache, Mail(Postfix), Monitoring(Nagios, Cacti, Smokeping, NfSen), and Jails for running creepy PHP apps. We see a decent amount of traffic, 60k+ mails/day on the primary machine, 6 million web hits across 4 machines (2 in each datacenter+2 datacenters to give us the redundancy we like). All running FreeBSD 7.0

For home: ZFS for my file server, web, mail, dns, etc. All running FreeBSD 7.1-PRERELEASE

[bsdforever]

Desktop and programming environment.

Programming => Java, C, C++, Perl, bash and Cobol.

Desktop => day to day use.

[tomh009]

A mini-server farm (half a dozen servers) to run a fairly busy web site (with Apache::ASP for the pages), associated databases and content management. All amd64 (except our online backup server) and all FreeBSD (except for one Linux back sheep, shortly to be addressed!).

[CyberCr33p]

I use it for shared hosting (freebsd + lighttpd).

[nabsta]

I work for an ISP, so i use it for everything:

Mail Server
DNS, DHCP
WEB, Billing
Routing
PABX

i dont use anything else except BSD;)

[r1der]

Hi, I`m useing FreeBSD now for quite a while I started with 4.x long time ago, because FreeBSD is like lego, it gives me hundreds of possibilities. Mostly I use it as Desktop System (Fluxbox + Rox). And I love it, FreeBSD is the only reason for me to have a Personal Computer ;-)

cheers

Daniel

[gnemmi]

Main Desktop OS.
Lots of text writing ...
C, Perl, Shell programming (recreational porposes).
Studying, playing with source code (recreational porposes).
Some gaming ... Quake3 mostly ... Frets On Fire, Doom 3 and some others too.
Music, Mail, Web ...

Every day stuff :)

[Nulani]

Mimisbrunnr: NFS and Samba
Nidavellir: XMPP
Ginnungagap ( once I get around to replacing Debian with FreeBSD ): HTTP, XMPP, and FTP
Bifrost: Firewall ( Pfsense )

[hydra]

Desktop mainly.

[darkskye]

running freebsd as a FAMP server, mostly with drupal and my hand coded sites.

squirrelmail and postfix for the users, sendmail and dovecot for myself.

I would be using it on my laptop if it wasn't a toshiba with the accursed bouncy keys problem.

[marius]

Using FreeBSD on my Soekris, router/nat/gateway/firewall, whatever is needed.

[kujirasan]

I used it for common Internet and desktop tasks, however I would like to use it for Educational Purpose but have problem with installing software! My aim is to make it for university level use by installing Mathematical and engineering software on it!

[MorgothV8]

Simply:
It is my main OS: doesn have M$ home, only in work
So: programming: c/c++/java/opengl, watching movies, listening music, storing photos and simply ALL

[Bruco]

At home my FreeBSD box is my file server for some Windows desktops, it runs apache for some very simple webserving, and I also run squid with SARG for reporting so I know when my 12-year-old stepson is looking at porn! It also runs Transmission for torrents, as it's the only box left on all the time.

At work I have an old PIII that I run as a syslog server for some network equipment. It also does some monitoring and even logs into some Cisco equipment in the case of a WAN outage to make some changes I simply couldn't do with redundant routes! I also run network scans from it, it runs arpwatch, and I will possibly be making it a secondary SMTP gateway.

I run VMware's ESXi on an old server at work and have several virtual FreeBSD builds on it so I can learn PF. When I feel confident with it I'll replace my router at home (currently a Buffalo router running DD-WRT) with an old P4 box running PF for my router/firewall solution. (And make the current router just an access point!)

I just started getting into FreeBSD about a year ago, and I'm no expert. But I've found I really admire the philosophy behind its design. I'm not ready to go full desktop at this point (still using Windows for that), but for a fairly static role like a server I think it's just fantastic, and I love the consistency and simplicity it has.

[prettya1]

i used it as desktop with freebsd-6.2 and enlightenment 16,but there will have some problem about desktop font that i think.

[Sfynx]

At home:
Home server for file sharing, web development (Apache/PHP/MySQL, Ruby on Rails), storage for external backups, acting as local DNS, DHCP, SMTP and IMAP server aswell. RAID-1 using gmirror, it already saved the day a few times (you coming back from vacation, seeing a degraded mirror on a running box instead of a dead box).

At work:
FreeBSD intranet boxes. We're doing all our web development, external backups and file storage on them. RAID everywhere (gmirror on some, hardware RAID-5 card on the biggest one).

Absolutely not thinking of going back to Linux for this kind of server stuff, FreeBSD rocks... I like the clear operating system structure :D I tend to do X.X-RELEASE upgrades whenever they become available, using freebsd-update... great tool, never went wrong.

[l2f]

Hello,

at home (FBSD 6.3):
- desktop, laptop
- print server (cups) (with my own FreeBSD liveCd)
- firewall (with my own FreeBSD liveCd)
- wifi-vpn server (with my own FreeBSD liveCd)

at work (FBSD 4.11, 6.3):
- desktop (xp to FreeBSD via vnc, never lost a document, xp crash not my FreeBSD box :) )
- database server (MySQL)
- Web server (Apache - tclhttpd)
- cvs repository

Still love it since FBSD 4.8

[sverreh]

I use it at work for everything: Perl scripts to extract human readable output from very user-unfriendly physics codes (written by physicists, mostly for themselves), preparing articles and presentations with PDFLatex, Xfig and Gimp, surfing with Opera and Konqueror, sending/reading E-mail, reading nonstandard E-mail attachments (.doc, .ppt, .xls ;) ) with OOo .....

I also use it as my desktop at home: Surfing, paying bills, E-mail, retrieving music and movies (ctorrent), listening to music (Amarok and xmms), watching movies (Xine, Mplayer), editing pictures (Gimp), watching pictures (GQview), storing music on IPod (GTKPod). I also write scripts in perl and sh, mostly to amuse myself, but sometimes they turn out to be useful. :e

[Weaseal]

In my house, the rule is, if it's not a desktop system (so any kind of server), it runs FreeBSD exclusively. My desktops also frequently flirt with FreeBSD (time limitations have slowed me from installing it on my newest machine).

Currently, for my personal work, I run: A FreeBSD router/firewall (actually this is pfSense but I have had to manually copy over some ndis drivers from a FreeBSD virtual box that resides on my desktop system).

I also run a FreeBSD web/file-server that hides behind the router/firewall.

Everything is 7.x and since it's all fairly critical, I don't move away from RELENG_7_X (-RELEASE-pX only, no -STABLE).

[plemo]

Desktop usage

[dclau]

Using it for:
firewalling (pfSense (http://www.pfsense.org/) box)
seedbox (rtorrent (http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/))
file serving (Samba (http://us1.samba.org/samba/))
webserver (Hiawatha (http://www.hiawatha-webserver.org/) + php via fastcgi rocks, you should give it a try)

As desktop i use Xp Pro, in tandem with Xfce (and previously Fluxbox). About 99% of adminwork gets done over ssh (thank God for putty), but it's a matter of taste, i guess :)

[blackjack]

Router to internet with nat.

[sugar]

Web Server, Backup server, and trying to setup as a RADIUS and Kannel servers as well...

[axbat]

Desktop at home/work, full-flavour servers at work.

The only thing that makes me keep a remote XP box is lack of Alladdin eToken support for emailing.

[r-c-e]

Our preferred hosting platform is FreeBSD, so I probably see inside 50 FreeBSD machines a day :)

[rambetter]

Video game server.

I am running a small power-efficient dual-core Xeon FreeBSD server which is colocated in a datacenter with a very good internet connection. I have this server so that I can run video game servers. I run a couple of server processes for the video game UrbanTerror (/usr/ports/games/iourbanterror). I am hosting custom maps for this video game via Apache HTTP server.

[alie]

i am using my FreeBSD as a desktop to launch my Windows via QEMU. I need to do this since Windows is suck, i need to reformat my Windows every 4 months since its getting slower because my Symbian development compilation. So i put all of codes in shared folder inside FreeBSD and compile that code inside Windows :D

[DutchDaemon]

In my ISP days: mail (smtp (Sendmail/Postfix)/pop3 (built-in, UW, Dovecot)/imap (built-in, UW, Dovecot)/virus scanning (ClamAV, BitDefender, McAfee)/spam filtering (MailScanner, SpamAssassin + blacklists)), news (news serving (INN)/news feeding (Diablo)), authentication (Radius etc.), web hosting (Apache/PHP/MySQL etc.), NFS, DNS (BIND, rbldns), rsync servers, mirror servers (incl. FreeBSD and TUCOWS mirrors), NTP, firewalling (PF, IPFW), routing (incl. Zebra), all in all about 125 servers in several countries/continents. At home: two mail/web/DNS/SSH servers, laptop (X, WindowMaker). 100% FreeBSD, historically from 2.2.5 to the most recent STABLE.

[gullit]

I use it as a "study environment" and a small server at home.

[Maurovale]

Hum lets see...Web Servers (Apache, Ligthy, and testing nginx), Mail Servers, Database Servers (MySQL, PostgreSQL), IDS, Monitoring servers (nagios).

For everything that needs very stable systems and lots of uptime, I don't consider linux for this kind of projects, there is nothing like bsd.

[awyeah]

I run it at home, mostly for file storage. It's 7-STABLE on a 2.0GHz AMD Sempron with 2GB of RAM, running zfs and samba, a couple of mirrored disks. I also have a few other things, like MRTG (gets SNMP stats from my Tomato router). Also, I like to play around with it, because I'm a geek. :)

Previously, I've used FreeBSD as a router/firewall solution, at home. My first system was a 486 DX/2, 66MHz, probably 4 or 8MB of RAM... A 14.4 modem and a NE2000 NIC, I think 2.2.5 was the first version I ever used.

[Tirranesh]

I use FreeBSD only 4 work, Database server and Web server.
at home i prefer XP
:)

[nsayer]

I use it as a general mail, shell, DNS and www server. It used to also act as an IPv6 router and firewall, but the Airport Extreme I bought does a good enough job that it took over that role.

[LeFroid]

I use FreeBSD for desktop use and as a web developer. Browsing the internet, checking my mail, etc.

[cipher]

I've got the following:

1 desktop running 8
2 webservers, one development and one live running 7
1 nfs server running 7.1

Been thinking about putting fbsd on my laptop, but last time I tried it I couldn't get the fan to calm down.

[cpcnw]

Are there no polls on this forum?

We could have had this categorised :)

1) Desktop
2) Server
3) Development
4) Storage

and ability to multi-select would be good.

I use 3BSD as my webserver and sometimes on desktop!

[fBSDmon]

I've used FreeBSD for:
- setting up public services: WEB, DNS, FTP etc.
- PhP and Perl development
- hosting MySQL and PostgreSQL
- network monitoring with Cacti
- Asterisk module development as well as production Asterisk
- CDR log and reporting for Avaya DEFINITY PBX's
- firewalling with Packet Filter
- Sharing my home internet connection and ssl tunneling to my home net
but most of all I've used FreeBSD for Learning.

I've never used it as a desktop though :-|

[aries]

instead of the Windows OS

[f-andrey]

desktop and laptop usage

[gentoobob]

I'm using FreeBSD for a web, ftp, NFS, and DB server. Use Ubuntu on my other desktop and Dell laptop.

[BSDKaffee]

I use FreeBSD as my primary desktop. I only have a laptop right now, but FreeBSD is the only OS on it. :)

[fleshm]

Well, I am a newcomer when it comes to FreeBSD. Honestly I tried 5.5 FreeBSD but then it didn't work with my mobo. But now I installed 7.1 and I am intending to replace Fedora 10 with it for my everyday use : email, browsing internet, c++/c/java/bash/perl programming, music in the background, video, experiments with networking . Too bad 64 bit geforce drivers haven't been released by nVidia and I'm stick with 32 bit version.

Cheers :)

[jurrie]

I use FreeBSD 7.0 for my home server, serving files via NFS/SMB, running Apache + PHP + MySQL for the rare web development I still do, torrent daemon (BTG), sabnzbd, and mediatomb.

[orasis]

I use it for Desktop and server use.

I have one website running on a PII 300mhz with FreeBSD purring along fine with no slowdown or trouble even though the site is somewhat popular.

I also use it on the desktop for the usual - movies, music, email, browsing etc -- But I think that I will migrate to Linux for the desktop soon because of the absolute lack of a Flash plugin and my affinity for full-screen flash movies.

Sure they are not pretty but they are quick and useful :)

[t4z3v4r3d]

Destop , bash scripting (learinig), web hosting, clustering, and ....

[Markand]

I use it for the moment only for my server, on my laptop it's not fully supported and on my desktop computer it always freeze, if not I will use it for desktop use :)

[r0ute]

At present I am only using it for kernel development. Still running my own modified version of 6.1 as I haven't got the time to port my networking code up to anything newer. Must say how much more I like doing kernel development in FreeBSD than linux though, and soon my code might even be complete.....

[paean]

streaming audio and storage

[vivek]

I work for an ISP kind of setup and we use FreeBSD as UNIX platform for shared hosting, jails and stuff like that. We run ngnix, lighttpd for rails apps and apache for other stuff. Our anti-spam email gateway including smtp, pop3s, imaps services run out of FreeBSD only.

However, all databases (Oracle, MySQL and others) are hosted on RHEL / CentOS coz of their good support.

HTH

[Roydan]

I have been using FreeBSD since 4.6. Came from Linux Mandrake on the advice of a friend. Never looked back. I am a home hobbyists.

Apache/MySQL/PHP for my web sites.
Samba for my family file sharing and such.
Postfix / Dovecot for my IMAP SSL email server.
Dynamic DNS with ISC bind and dhcp.

I have not jumped on the desktop replacement yet, but have toyed with it.

[mjkerpan]

I'm using FreeBSD on my desktop/graphics workstation. I edit my photos using it and when school starts again in Fall, I'll do my papers on it. I'm also planning to create an electronic catalog system for my home library using PostgreSQL on the backend and either HTML and PHP or Python+Qt4 on the front end... If it's any good, I may even release it ;)

[ericturgeon]

I use FreeBSD for gaming desktop, sever, router and for programming. 3 computer one running gnome2.26.2 gaming and programing, one running fluxbox for programing,router and try new stuff and one to run web and email server.

FreeBSD save my brain from microsoft.

[LateNiteTV]

I'm using FreeBSD on my desktop/graphics workstation. I edit my photos using it and when school starts again in Fall, I'll do my papers on it. I'm also planning to create an electronic catalog system for my home library using PostgreSQL on the backend and either HTML and PHP or Python+Qt4 on the front end... If it's any good, I may even release it ;)

i did the same thing for all my CDs, dvds and old vhs movies.
i wrote it in python and Tk but i use a flat file db that i slapped together.

[jimmy1971]

Like virtually all of the non-IT workforce, I spend my weekdays chained to Windows XP. At home, however, I'm using 7.1-RELEASE on an elderly Dell Latitude CP M233XT laptop. (Okay...stop snickering, already. There's a much newer machine in my home, but it's for family use. As the sole Unix zealot of the house, I'm outnumbered.)

Thanks to the design philosophy of FreeBSD, one can customize the OS to fit the hardware, rather than requiring the hardware to fit the OS. Even though I'm looking forward to getting newer, faster and better machinery, it is nonetheless a point of geek pride that I'm able to keep a 1997 laptop updated with a 2009 OS.

Even after I get my new computer, I'll probably keep the old one around just to see how long I can keep it current.:)

[Beastie]

I'm able to keep a 1997 laptop updated with a 2009 OS.

Reminds me of my 1998 celeron 333MHz desktop. It has always worked fine with anything between FreeBSD 5.x and 7.2. Every hardware is supported and works perfectly. There's only problems between Xorg (i.e. not FreeBSD's fault) and my video card, so I use VESA instead.

On the other hand, Win9x has power management problems and sometimes fails to shut the machine down and both Win9x and Win2K lack drivers for the sound card and NIC.

[phospher]

some of the services i'm running on freebsd include several firewalls, a samba server, http servers including apache and lighttpd, sendmail, NTP, openfire IM server, sftp, nessus, nagios, mysql, and of course a few sand boxes. i also have a few site-to-site vpn connections using ipsec which runs on top of the firewalls.

[anomie]

I'm pretty curious what the audience is here, so if you feel like it please describe what your primary use for FreeBSD is. Are you a kernel hacker, curious Linux user or a Fortune 500 sys admin?

I administer a couple FreeBSD servers (Nagios, http proxy, data crunching for perl programmers) for a small department within my organization. Nothing too major.

I continue to study FreeBSD and look for places at work where I can squeeze it in to projects.

[user_not_expert]

I put PC-BSD on my eee just for the fun of putting the big 4 ('nux, 'nix win & mac) on such a small beast. I now find they all do/don't do different things, so specific use is emerging. When I discovered that (at the moment), the Jaunty rt kernel won't let OOo install (or even exist if set up on a different kernel), I moved all my family and career admin, plus the design of my web-site over to the BSD partition. When I set it up, I didn't think I'd use it much, but I love it and am now wondering which other machines I can run it on.

[rbelk]

Here's a quickie list of my systems.

1. old PC - FreeBSD 7.2 - Home Server with 4 jails
2. old PC - pfSense 1.2.2 - Firewall and wireless AP
3. old laptop - FreeNAS 0.7RC1 - My 2 terabyte storage solution
4. old laptop - AskoziaPBX 1.0.3 - Home PBX and VoIP solution
5. old laptop - FreeBSD 8 - for testing purposes
6. new laptop - Windows Vista
7. Kinda new PC - Windows XP
8. Amiga 3000 - it is connected to the network :e

[hedwards]

Too bad 64 bit geforce drivers haven't been released by nVidia and I'm stick with 32 bit version.

Cheers :)
That should changes, I know that there's been quite a bit of progress on that in recent months, and from what I gather most of the necessary changes are in HEAD.

Personally, I use FreeBSD for most of my desktop needs, with Win XP running in virtualbox. The only time I really log into Windows is when I need 3d graphics or am working with photos. It's a shame that as of now there isn't really any support for color profile hardware in FreeBSD.

[avilla@]

i've been using freebsd 7-stable for one year on my lenovo laptop (perfectly supported) for things like music, quake 3 :P, video editing and projection, as well as software development or engineering studies... i've tried ubuntu, arch linux, debian and opensuse, and none of them will ever be able to replace this wonderful system! also, i run windows xp in virtualbox, but i really never log into it

in the future, i plan to migrate my home server (files, internet and mail) to freebsd (it's running fedora). at the moment it's not under my control...