At the moment (app. 2y) FreeBSD is my only system for everything,
and
FreeBSD only.
One can be pretty happy with it,
if you are not expecting it to be or to convert it into some kind of Windows-, Apple-, or Linux-like,
but learn and think unix,
and convert yourself to FreeBSD (which ain't that hard.)
If you don't depend on some certain software not running under FreeBSD,
but may chose from the vast choices FreeBSD offers,
which covers pretty much everything,
which I can,
including the will to go and learn alternatives, and doing some config,
there is no real need to use something else.
Okay, gaming is not really perfect.
But since I disliked most of new games anyway, and gaming is not my primary use for computers,
I can do anything else I want/need/have to do with FreeBSD and its provided software.
So, why:
FreeBSD can be tailored exactly to individual needs and taste to the point.
FreeBSD is so heavenly silent.
If I don't ask the machine anything, it stays silent.
FreeBSD is so heavenly verbose.
If I ask the machine something, I receive as much answer as I need to understand the problem, and at least may work with it.
No demeaning, but informationless dialagous.
No annoying unasked popping up "yes, yes, YES!, OK!!, YES!1! I KNOW - DO IT FOR CHRIST SAKES!!eleven..." - shit
or
"Your last update was yesterday, if you do not do the 20 minutes lasting updates installation und reboot
NOW, your machine will die a sudden horrible death!!"-crap
No accusations, excuses, responsibility shifting, charges, noisy peeps, boings, whines, crys, burps, belches, farts,...
Silence.
Sweet, sweet, silence.
My responsibility (anyway).
My (full) control.
heaven!
Windows I disliked since I've started to use it with 95,
You cannot really develop a loving relation to Windows when you used Amiga OS and Sun's Solaris before,
had a sweet taste of good, and then been forced to face the bitterness of sucking bs.
So I was seeking for an alternative since then, because I disliked it even more and more.
Until I finally found FreeBSD
I simply didn't heard of it exists until app. 10y ago, because everybody (I know) is talking Linux, only.
I searched the internet for a real alternative. I already saw my need for a serious Windows-exit strategy.
[I'll take a peek on OpenBSD one day, because I find it very interesting what those guys are doing.]
and completely stopped using Windows when 7 was discontinued.
(Well, that's not entirely true, I have XP to launch 3..4 games within vbox, but that's not really using it, is it?)
Apple to me was always out of the question.
When Apple did not sucked that much, it was too expensive for me.
In other ways today Apple sucks even more than Windows.
One day those guys will finally choke on their own greed.
(Wouldn't be the first time. But this time there is no Steve Jobs no more, whon can be begged to leave his sickbed to come back and clean up the mess the greedy ones have produced.)
My wife has one of those M1 MacBooks.
She still uses her former 10y old MacBook, too, because the new one refuses the external DVD-drive.
Her job depends on using DVDs and CDs, but with Apple there is only a cloud, and Apple's cloud, only.
No access to our NFS anymore, SAMBA only, and very slow, (please don't link me How-Tos! I slaved weekends over this! Yes, the tools are still there. It's not working, anymore. Don't ask me, ask Apple!)
No access to media anymore, even the one you bought elsewhere, when you fall from Apple's favour.
To me this absolutely no-go.
I'm trying to convince her, that her next machine will be no Apple no more.
Either some FreeBSD or ubuntu, depends on how much I want to be her admin (and she let me.)
Both - Apple & Windows - are really pissing me of with their greedy personal data gathering, selling-out, and bombarding with ads.
I am not paying (a lot of money) for having disadvantages!
Linux is way too unprofessional to be used as a reliable everday OS for the common user.
Excluding those turn-key distris like ubuntu.
But those are too Windows-like for me, again.
(I once tried to install Open-Suse for a trial, which killed my other HDDs without any asking or forwarning.
Ultimate game over for Suse for me. Absolute total no-go!)
To me Linux is more some kind of an anarchic, experimental playground for anybody who may express everything freely about operating systems, as long as it fancies one, and then drop the mess to whatever consequences.
That's okay.
Many new, and many good, and many good and new things came out of this, and will come out this, no question.
But that's nothing for being used by an user.
Maybe that's why [according to wikipedia] Microsoft bought github.
They learned since it's nothing the common, stupid user will handle it's no danger to Windows,
which is ment to be the system for stupid, unwilling to learn users ("computer cattle"),
which they want to keep it that way, because stupid users are dependend, and dependend users can be milked.
And they have the surveillance over app. 90% of all free- and open-source software development.
I have a strong will for liberty and freedom,
I don't want to be milked, exploited, and kept stupid and dependend.
And I am fully aware of this means to make own efforts, such as learning.
As J.J. Rousseau said:
"Freedom is not to do what you want,
but not to do what you don't want."
A. Camus:
"Freedom does not consist primarily of liberties but of duties."
I am an user, not an operating systems developer or hobbiest tester.
My interest is not in developing, or experimenting with systems, being already satified if I got them up and running, being happy if something's not working, so I have something to fumble about, or trying how to crash it, or what else could be done with it...
I need to use it.
It simply has to work.
Installation and maintenance to me are necessaties to be kept small, but are not the main purpose.
The choice for and the operation system itself is very important, no question.
But it's neither the main actor, nor the plot.
The software being used is.
For that it needs to be a usable system.
A
reliable usable system.
And not some kind of experimental kit you don't know how it looks, how it feels, behaves, works, if it still works, or if it even exists, the next day.
To me a system simply has to work - reliably - and be reliable.
I don't care much, if the new look is cooler, or someone else thinks a new idea is much better,
especially not if I'm forced to the change,
and especially not if something else is not working anymore, or being removed.
For an user any change is annyoing, and in most cases not a profit at all.
It doesn't matter if an idea is better or worse.
It's new.
New means learning before usage.
If the old usage is removed it's even worse.
This means the user is interrupted in his producing process, what he uses the software for,
and forced to learn the new usage first, before he can continue his work.
Thus lowering the work efficiency with the software.
If this happens too often, one may think of using something else,
because I'm willing to learn, of course,
but learning is not the main purpose,
the usage is.
And FreeBSD is worth learning, because the usage does not change so quickly, often, or even.
New things are
added (unix philosophy), only actual obsolete things are really replaced.
And even then I have at least a theoretic chance to keep even that.
Learning FreeBSD is paying off, as already someone above pointed out.
Not updating the documention to an user is simply removing usage.
Because one cannot presuppose any user is in all source-code,
and checks it everytime something is changed,
just because writing documentation is below the dignity of posh programmers.
If the documentation lags behind two or more versions I call it Linuxism.
Linux always reminds me of the kitchen of the fraternity house I used to live at university:
Everybody wants to be the star-chef, jiggling the frying pans, experimenting with new recipes,
but being too swanky to clean up and doing the dishes.
So when two guys produced two plates of spaghetti the kitchen was taken out for the rest of the weekend.
Every
real cook knows:
80% of all kitchen's work is the "boring stuff":
cleaning, peeling, cleaning, cutting, cleaning, cleaning up, doing the dishes, and cleaning.
If one doesn't accept that fact, the result is a mess:
Like nearly all Linux-installations I had:
sudo apt get, sudo apt this, sudo apt that, sudo, sudo, sudo,...
and then: "schrammel, schrammel, schrammel, schrammel, warning, warning, warning, error, error, error, aborted."
UN-usable (to me)!
That's why I am so anxious about anybody comes here from Linux,
mentioning all the
great, fancy, and fanatstic fresh ideas Linux has but may be missed in FreeBSD.
If keeping the kitchen clean is "old-school" so call me an old fart!
But in my kitchen the rule is:
First learn to clean up.
Then clean up.
And when the kitchen is clean,
and stays clean,
then we can discuss further things.
That's why FreeBSD works.
because it's clean, and not a mess.
That's why I use FreeBSD.
Peace out, sorry for the long post - I hope it answered the question satisfactiory.
You all have a nice weekend!
P.
ajaxnwnk.blogspot.com
