Introduce yourself, tell us who you are and why you chose FreeBSD

Good day! I have just joined, so a brief introduction is in order. I have been a Linux user since 1995 (Gentoo since 2004), and have always been interested to try *BSD. A "spare" laptop became available, so I have dropped FreeBSD onto it. I promise to do the following: (1) read the documentation extensively before asking a question, and (2) to not compare FreeBSD with Linux (different <> better). On the latter point - I am quite happy with my Linux setup, but want to learn *BSD because I hear it is better in some areas than Linux. I self host various applications at home, and could consider migrating these to BSD if I learn enough.
 
paul_j said:
Good day! I have just joined, so a brief introduction is in order. I have been a Linux user since 1995 (Gentoo since 2004), and have always been interested to try *BSD. A "spare" laptop became available, so I have dropped FreeBSD onto it. I promise to do the following: (1) read the documentation extensively before asking a question, and (2) to not compare FreeBSD with Linux (different <> better). On the latter point - I am quite happy with my Linux setup, but want to learn *BSD because I hear it is better in some areas than Linux. I self host various applications at home, and could consider migrating these to BSD if I learn enough.
Click to expand...
FreeBSD can self-host anything that Linux can. Hardware support is a different story, though - wifi and very recent GPUs. But if you're willing to do a bit of shopping, the available drivers do get good support - it's a set-and forget, just not for everything.
 
nxjoseph said:
POV: me when i used to use linux

I earned the ability to read manual pages/documentation after switching to FreeBSD. :D
Click to expand...

Well, yeah. Linux' tendency to invalidate pieces of documentation out on the web has accelerated. FreeBSD brings its documentation with it. Ubuntu in particular does everything new. Didn't they close their forum, too?
 
astyle said:
FreeBSD can self-host anything that Linux can. Hardware support is a different story, though - wifi and very recent GPUs. But if you're willing to do a bit of shopping, the available drivers do get good support - it's a set-and forget, just not for everything.
Click to expand...
Well if you are adventurous and want to spend $2k+ Nvidia is always here with very good GPU driver support, except CUDA though. 😅
 
LillieNB said:
Well if you are adventurous and want to spend $2k+ Nvidia is always here with very good GPU driver support, except CUDA though. 😅
Click to expand...
I have a $500 USD all-AMD rig, and it runs FreeBSD fine. I might buy NVidia GPU in the future - just to pay homage to Jen-Sen Huang, who happens to be an alumnus of my college, and no, it's not Stanford.
 
astyle said:
I have a $500 USD all-AMD rig, and it runs FreeBSD fine. I might buy NVidia GPU in the future - just to pay homage to Jen-Sen Huang, who happens to be an alumnus of my college, and no, it's not Stanford.
Click to expand...
All my current hardware is AMD based - I moved away from NVidia a couple of generations back. The laptop on which I installed FreeBSD is a Lenovo X270 with intel graphics, and so far it looks like the hardware is supported out of the box. From what I found on the internet, I think there may be issues with bluetooth, but I haven't got as far as exploring that yet. Currently it boots to a terminal, so the first step will be to get a desktop up and running.
 
cracauer@ said:
Well, yeah. Linux' tendency to invalidate pieces of documentation out on the web has accelerated. FreeBSD brings its documentation with it. Ubuntu in particular does everything new. Didn't they close their forum, too?
Click to expand...
I am not sure about Ubuntu. The Gentoo documentation is reasonably good, and if necessary the Arch wiki is well known for being pretty complete. However, if you just go around looking at webpages claiming to explain how to do something, they are often wrong, and sometimes in subtle ways. I found this particularly with Debian information. There are many websites with "How to do ... in Debian" which are out dated and often don't explain which version of Debian they are targeting. Keeping documentation accurate and fresh is a challenge I guess!
 
Hello! I've been tinkering in debian-based linux distros for around 13 years and freebsd for maybe 8 or so. My background is mainly audio electronics and so of course as others have also said in earlier posts, I was drawn to freebsd's implementation of OSS because I find the entire linux audio system unreliable and clunky. For the time being I will simply be trying to help out the LDWG group by testing software on laptops and desktops and maintaining data on any issues. My ultimate fantasy goal is to have native Reaper support. It runs terribly on linux and windows 7 is absolutely ancient!
 
Hello, I came to FreeBSD about two years ago, looking for a modern performant system to run my old Hardware. I am into electronics and computers for several decades now. Continuing, even improving support for old hardware seems important for me. Maybe the LDWG shares this goal to save lots of working computers from being useless.
Currently, I try to get FreeBSD 14.2 / XFCE on a 2007 MacBookPro 3,1 running as close to the original functionality as possible. This forum and the system documentation are helping a lot.
 
frarohi said:
Hello, I came to FreeBSD about two years ago, looking for a modern performant system to run my old Hardware. I am into electronics and computers for several decades now. Continuing, even improving support for old hardware seems important for me. Maybe the LDWG shares this goal to save lots of working computers from being useless.
Currently, I try to get FreeBSD 14.2 / XFCE on a 2007 MacBookPro 3,1 running as close to the original functionality as possible. This forum and the system documentation are helping a lot.
Click to expand...
Just installed FreeBSD i386 onto an old Thinkpad T60

pkg install xorg

no package found
 
audioeric said:
Just installed FreeBSD i386 onto an old Thinkpad T60

pkg install xorg

no package found
Click to expand...
Welcome.

But i386 is no longer supported, so there are no packages build for it. You would need to do that on your own. And the acpi of the T60 is no longer supported anyway, you will have trouble. I run my T60 with Haiku these days.
 
Crivens said:
Welcome.

But i386 is no longer supported, so there are no packages build for it. You would need to do that on your own. And the acpi of the T60 is no longer supported anyway, you will have trouble. I run my T60 with Haiku these days.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I figured that was the case since i386 is tier 2 now. Not sure I'm even interested in going through the trouble of installing and learning Haiku at this time. User Frarohi above might want to keep Haiku in mind though, thanks for the tip!
 
Hey, I live in Maine, USA and recently migrated from windows 10 to FreeBSD. Weird I know. But my computer could not run windows 11, It was a second-generation Ryzen CPU, which for some oddball reason FREEBSD supports out of box. Now I also have a Dandy GPU, 3070 GPU which Windows 11 also had issues with. Not sure why, but two strikes against windows 11, AND the final nail in coffin, Secure Boot Enforce = 1 was appended to motherboard during a FAILED upgrade. Now If I need to buy a new computer, every two years, shag that. Would rather run something solid, then pay out 2.5k every two years.
 
Hello, I live in Russia and I migrated from Linux to FreeBSD
Previously I used Slackware and Gentoo, but it wasn't enough for me and I liked BSD systems more than Linux
I already used NetBSD and a bit of OpenBSD, haven't used Windows for years and I'm glad that I don't use it
I don't hate Linux but I'm tired of endless number of distributions, systemd and things like flatpak
FreeBSD feels like heaven for me and I'm very happy that I can use it on my pc
 
voidnickel said:
Hello, I live in Russia and I migrated from Linux to FreeBSD
Previously I used Slackware and Gentoo, but it wasn't enough for me and I liked BSD systems more than Linux
I already used NetBSD and a bit of OpenBSD, haven't used Windows for years and I'm glad that I don't use it
I don't hate Linux but I'm tired of endless number of distributions, systemd and things like flatpak
FreeBSD feels like heaven for me and I'm very happy that I can use it on my pc
Click to expand...
It is nice to have here another russian, too :D
I am coming from Saint Petersburg, and Linus will regret it throwing out good russian linux kernel driver maintainer from the kernel driver maintaining list.
Actually I like void linux, it is systemd-free, minimalistic, and very performant, too.
But if I had the choice, which I have now due to internet support through ethernet adapters, I would choose *BSD.
My first choice is FreeBSD, but I like OpenBSD and NetBSD, too.

Another topic:
Your profile picture is the 3D-Cube from the LunarG Vulkan Cube demo executable, right ?
Do you have experience with the Vulkan API, by any chance ?
 
discopojo said:
But my computer could not run windows 11, It was a second-generation Ryzen CPU, which for some oddball reason FREEBSD supports out of box.
Click to expand...
Yeah, odd. I have a Lenovo laptop Ideapad 720S-ARR with a Ryzen 2500 series. It originally had win10, then I installed FreeBSD on it, then I installed win11 on it, and it's running fine, snappy, and gets all the updates, too.
 
LillieNB said:
It is nice to have here another russian, too :D
I am coming from Saint Petersburg, and Linus will regret it throwing out good russian linux kernel driver maintainer from the kernel driver maintaining list.
Actually I like void linux, it is systemd-free, minimalistic, and very performant, too.
But if I had the choice, which I have now due to internet support through ethernet adapters, I would choose *BSD.
My first choice is FreeBSD, but I like OpenBSD and NetBSD, too.

Another topic:
Your profile picture is the 3D-Cube from the LunarG Vulkan Cube demo executable, right ?
Do you have experience with the Vulkan API, by any chance ?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately no, I don't have experience with Vulkan API but in the future I wish I could learn GLSL too

Void Linux is great by the way, I agree
I tried it long time ago but I just like Slackware more, best Linux distribution for me and the most comfortable one

My first BSD system was NetBSD and I still love it
The only thing that kept me from using FreeBSD is Wi-Fi support, for example on NetBSD it works out of box very well and on FreeBSD it wouldn't work at all (I tried patching the kernel and recompiling it but issue won't disappear no matter what I do)
But now I have ethernet and it won't bother me anymore
I couldn't use NetBSD much longer because I have GTX 650 videocard, the nouveau driver on NetBSD for me is just meh
FreeBSD have proprietary nvidia drivers that work well for me
 
audioeric said:
Thanks, I figured that was the case since i386 is tier 2 now. Not sure I'm even interested in going through the trouble of installing and learning Haiku at this time. User Frarohi above might want to keep Haiku in mind though, thanks for the tip!
Click to expand...
haiku..jpeg

on my wife old laptop works very good.
 
Crivens said:
Have it on a Samsung NC10 and an old X230. Upto now I failed in a rebuild from sources, but hey - it works.
Click to expand...
I started with beta3 and than I use very long time beta4 and yesterday I upgrade to beta 5 and it works much better. It will be good that they have user and administrator separated like we have. They are talking about firewall too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top