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taiwan740 said:
Depends on the model of iMac - the model iMac 5,1 won't boot FreeBSD without some hackery because it doesn't have 64-bit EFI.

The later model iMac 12,1 has working EFI and the sound card does work in FreeBSD but the device isn't configured correctly and outputs all of the sound through the internal tweeters and doesn't use the woofers, therefore is more annoying than it's worth.

Models after that are more expensive/not worth it/out of support for macOS anyway.

Apple Silicon won't run anything other than macOS and even then, probably the most limited computing experience.
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Im seriously laughing out loud here. Why would I run FreeBSD on a Mac? The point is that the FreeBSD desktop is garbage. Struggling to try to use an OS designed to be a server as a desktop is just a waste of your time.
 
Barney said:
Im seriously laughing out loud here. Why would I run FreeBSD on a Mac? The point is that the FreeBSD desktop is garbage. Struggling to try to use an OS designed to be a server as a desktop is just a waste of your time.
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I've been using Linux on the desktop for many years, it is much more comfortable than Windows to me at this point (I have no experience with Mac). FreeBSD is not much different from Linux, certainly not when it comes to user interfaces. If you are unable to understand how to use it, or don't want to put in the time, that is not the OS's fault, that is your fault. FreeBSD is a fantastic OS, if you want something easy to use, then go for a system where everything is simpler and more straightforward, that is not FreeBSD. FreeBSD is for people that are willing to get frustrated if something goes wrong and are willing to put in the "elbow grease". I love FreeBSD on the desktop. There's no reason to be rude to people on the FreeBSD forum, telling them how awful FreeBSD is on the desktop.
 
Grell said:
FreeBSD is for people that are willing to get frustrated if something goes wrong and are willing to put in the "elbow grease". I love FreeBSD on the desktop.
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Me too, have done for over 20 years, including on systems that are also active servers.

Grell said:
There's no reason to be rude to people on the FreeBSD forum, telling them how awful FreeBSD is on the desktop.
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Some don't need a reason ;-)
 
Barney said:
I'm amused by people who use BSD or Linux as a desktop,. Used iMACs are cheaper than a good monitor and you don't have to spend your days complaining about a sound card.
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Barney said:
Im seriously laughing out loud here. Why would I run FreeBSD on a Mac? The point is that the FreeBSD desktop is garbage.
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You brought it up.

Intel iMac's aren't getting updates anymore for Mac OS. Apple Silicon iMac's are extremely expensive, and root access isn't root access.
 
I sometimes think of ditching FreeBSD, but for me it's like trying to switch from vim; I always come back in the end.
Maybe it's the n times smaller size of the kernel source tree, maybe it's the forums, maybe it's the "you'll never find out if you don't try it" approach, or maybe it's the built-in support for zfs;
Honestly I don't know what it is, but it just feels simpler to me than linux; maybe because it's one system, not just a kernel, so the way things are done are more uniform.
And I know this is not a real solution, but after fighting with over 10 laptops to get the gui / sound to work (I gave up on some of them), I came to a realization that perhaps it is better to buy / assemble a laptop (or pc) that has parts that work with bsd. Even now, I am thinking of building a pc, and for time saving reasons with driver mingling, I am going to go with AMD over NVIDIA. The point being, I've been around long enough to realize it's more convenient to tailor the hardware to FreeBSD, than to do the opposite. There are just too many vendors out there to support them all. And interesting consequence of doing this, is that you are supporting (usually) the vendors that embrace opensource drivers.
 
Watching this and alike treads, I wonder how I manage to install FreeBSD, reuse my config files on different boxes,

and everything just WORKS.

OK, I had some challenge to make the 5-1 sound work on a AsRock box (just nick a few config lines from the Arch wiki), tested my KeyChron keyboard before buying it (discovering that the hardware switch needs to be set on Windows and not MacOS as many Linux folks fought to frustration). Changed my monitor from 21" to 15" -- the i915kms.ko just sees the different dimensions -- hands free! Even the NVDIA-issues were solved easily by using the simpler xf86-video-nv driver, choosing Intel graphics on the next hardware.

DE's and WM's the same. pkg(1) just installs all the files needed and I'm up and running.

I'm not a computer wizzard, only a Linux and FreeBSD user since 2007 or so, keeping things as simple as they are. Deleting misbehaving programs immediately, blaming my own config before the Operating System.

Before I used Fedora, the 'bleedin edge' Linux, where broken parts were part of the advanced solution.

FreeBSD is just calm waters. Reliability First.
 
meine

Before I used Fedora, the 'bleedin edge' Linux, where broken parts were part of the advanced solution.

FreeBSD is just calm waters. Reliability First.
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I completely agree with this. I also came from Fedora Linux. FreeBSD is a very reliable system and that is why I have moved my systems over as well.
 
I'm all about the OS reliability as well.
As the odd duck here, all my real work is done on the Windows platform.
I use FBSD for what is does reliably... server functions.
 
bgavin said:
I'm all about the OS reliability as well.
As the odd duck here, all my real work is done on the Windows platform.
I use FBSD for what is does reliably... server functions.
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Interesting. I think alot depends on one's definition of "real work". Me, I keep a Windows laptop around only for video conferencing (Google Meet/Zoom) stuff. The rest of my real work done on FreeBSD systems (software development, testing, etc).
 
taiwan740 said:
You brought it up.

Intel iMac's aren't getting updates anymore for Mac OS. Apple Silicon iMac's are extremely expensive, and root access isn't root access.
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This may be the most ignorant, wrong thing ever said in this forum. I'm running Sonoma on a 2011, 2015 and 2020 iMac and I bought a pristine used 2020 i9 10 core system with a 5K display with 80GB for under $1300; less than the price of a 5K display for mini. OS update support officially ended for 2015 and older systems but you can get patches to run the latest stuff with minor effort.

Besides, here we go with "updates" again. Even if you have to run Catilina on an old iMac it's still light years better than the FreeBSD desktop will ever be. The only issue with running an older version of OSX is you can't get safari updates; I don't suspect many are using Safari on a FreeBSD desktop.
 
Barney said:
The only issue with running an older version of OSX is you can't get safari updates; I don't suspect many are using Safari on a FreeBSD desktop.
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The only issue with running a newer version of macOS, is that it is impossible to complete an installation on an offline machine since Ventura.

Internet Connection Required | macOS Ventura Install

That's a bit crap. So I guess FreeBSD wins by default for many of us.

And since you only have basic networking at that point, sing along with me:

SANE ? PEOPLE ? DON'T ? CONNECT ? UNPATCHED ? MACHINES ? DIRECTLY ? TO THE ?? INTERNET :beer:
 
taiwan740 said:
Apple Silicon iMac's are extremely expensive,
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That's relative. I just got one with a 15" screen for under $1000. It took a 2-hour drive to pick it up, but that's only because I was not willing to wait for a week for the store near me to be restocked. With a 13" screen, I could have had it in 5 minutes for $750, but at my age, a bigger screen is really important.

Admittedly, that's still considerably more than a generic Chromebook (about $300) or a Windows laptop (about $400).

and root access isn't root access.
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Explain please? I do "sudo bash" on my MacBook all the time, and I have yet to find something that I can't do as root there.
 
ralphbsz said:
Explain please? I do "sudo bash" on my MacBook all the time, and I have yet to find something that I can't do as root there.
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Try this command:-

sudo ln -s /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/bin/python3 /bin/python

Should create a symbolic link so that the "python" command in CLI uses the python3 binary at that location.

Code: 
ln: /bin/python: Operation not permitted

I'm the root user, I've given the root password. Just do it!

Apparently related to this: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchl0f9af76f/mac - so basically I'm not trusted to run what I want on a machine I paid thousands for.
 
Barney said:
Even if you have to run Catalina on an old iMac it's still light years better than the FreeBSD desktop will ever be.
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Dealing with old Macs is a nightmare: they could not be upgraded to a new OS, and the new versions of software I need refuse working.
I tried tricky ways to install a newer MacOS in an old Mac, but I got uncontrolled fan running like crazy and uncontrolled display backlight...

Barney said:
The only issue with running an older version of OSX is you can't get safari updates.
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Why would Mac tell me what browser to use? I use Firefox, and it won't run on older version of MacOS.
And we all can guess why it's happening, right? (-;
 
taiwan740 said:
I'm the root user, I've given the root password. Just do it!
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From a terminal window on mac do "ls -lOd /bin". It will show restricted & hidden flags. In Finder it will show a lock icon when do "⌘i" on it (but you have to "open /bin" as it is a hidden dir). You can unlock it if you want to mess with it. This is not unlike the "schg" flag on /sbin/init on FreeBSD. It is to prevent foot-shooting. Just because you know how to "sudo" doesn't mean you are savvy enough to avoid accidental foot-shooting!

Similarly, you have to jump through an extra hoop to run a random binary you downloaded (so if you get hacked via such a binary it is your own damn fault). In general it is very very difficult to come up with an user interface that satisfies everyone from a novice to an expert. A typical Apple user is far less computer savvy than a typical BSD user so Apple primarily caters to them. Still, it is getting more complicated.

Their h/w lasts longer than their support so I too put FreeBSD on a 2012 MBP.
 
taiwan740 said:
Try this command: ...

I'm the root user, I've given the root password. Just do it!
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Interestingly, I discovered a variation of this just a few days ago: You can not create a directory called "/home". Even though the / directory looks like it should be writeable by root, it isn't really. A little web search showed that it could be done if I disabled system integrity protection. And I decided to not do that, and instead live with using a different path.
 
cracauer@ said:
cracauer@ said:
ralphbsz said:
Interestingly, I discovered a variation of this just a few days ago: You can not create a directory called "/home". Even though the / directory looks like it should be writeable by root, it isn't really. A little web search showed that it could be done if I disabled system integrity protection. And I decided to not do that, and instead live with using a different path.
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Probably a protected location to allow a Linuxulator/WSL type linux implementation in the future.
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I have no idea what's going on with the formatting of that post but I can't fix it. I said the line above, not cracauer
 
the only thing that I hate on FreeBSD is using dual monitor with a intel graphic card,
with modesetting or the old intel drivers, allways something go wrong,and no sound via HDMI
is a big NO
so...in all my machines I have to put a nvidia card and problem solved
that is my only bad experiencie that could make me want to change to other OS
but FreeBSD is rock solid
 
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