I went full-time FreeBSD for a couple weeks. These are my takeaways.

[AlfredoLlaquet]

Isn't that how my chainsaw/bicycle analogy came across? -i.e. sometimes i think it's necessary to slow down to go fast.

Your analogy coincides with my division, yes. Curiously, it doesn't coincide with yours.

 

[balanga]

Recently, Jupiter Broadcasting's main show had a week-long challenge where the hosts and many of the audience tried switching to a BSD for a week. While it seems that 2/3 of the

ISTR having a Jupiter Boadcasting channel a long time ago when I first started using KODI and often watched BSD Now, but when I check the website

BSD Now

A weekly podcast and the place to B...SD

www.bsdnow.tv

I don't see any videos.

Is it just me that can't find them?

 

[waym0re]

I've been using linux as a main or secondary computer for 25 years now (started with Debian), and experimenting FreeBSD at least 10 years, probably more. But always, I had to use Windows at work. Well, in the past 6 years I've been on posix systems only, mostly running terminals in i3. This past month, I had to use Windows to deal with a few things. I couldn't believe how ridiculous all the icons and apps are. I could excuse free apps of having unpolished UI, but this was ridiculous. And by far the worse was Adobe Reader (yup, my problems had to do with filling pdf forms). The entire UI is designed to get you to upgrade. On the left, options that are all unavailable in the current edition, and on the right a "This document is long, want AI to resume it for you?". Like, no? I care about my work and need to carefully read and fill up. If I wanted AI I'd copy/paste it to some AI. And everything a user COULD want, like selecting a specific page, zooming, adjusting the page display, was hidden and hard to find. As in, if you've ever read a book on UI, it would make you depressed. By my estimate it must literally designed to make the experience frustrating with the belief that upgrading will smooth things, which I doubt it does.

I really don't think I could use FreeBSD exclusively. For one thing, ZFS, as good as it is, isn't flexible enough for my data needs. Could it be my daily driver? It could, but I honestly prefer the bleeding edge of Arch.

I see FreeBSD more like my Debian. It's a sacrifice PC, the one you use to make sure things are kosher and won't screw up on the production server. It's not the lab workstation I'm running my skunk-work experiments on. Although, actually, I am running skunk-work experiments on, but either on a VM or ssh-ing into a mini-pc running FreeBSD. I'm sorry if it turns out my views aren't that positive.

 

[LibreQuest]

"Getting a graphical desktop was as easy as following a youtube video"

:/

Chapter 5. The X Window System

This chapter describes how to install and configure the X Window System providing a graphical environment

docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 6. Wayland

This chapter describes how to install and configure Wayland and compositors on FreeBSD, which provides a graphical user environment

docs.freebsd.org

"I regretted my decision to install Ghost-BSD for the last challenge, since it wasn’t a pure ground-up freebsd install and could be considered cheating"

But why?

"Prerequisites are simple: to enter the competition, just install BSD. Any BSD"

In my opinion the challenge was failed by not using the handbook and possibly by not using GhostBSD if it were your first choice due to ruling it out as being cheating when the defined prerequisites were met.

 

[hedwards]

I'm so very much confused by things like this. Also, I've seen terms like "Linux nerd" or "Linux poweruser" or "guru" or whatever but at the same time, the "requirements" are childish. -e.g. "install a package" or "start a service" or "install a ''container''". That label (those requirements attached to it) seem so very demeaning! Please stop using that label--if those are the requirements to obtain that level--for yourself or others (in either Linux or BSD none of those requirements should be unattainable in very little time and I have confidence you can be far above that in no time). As far as I could tell, a few hours reading the handbook (for any of the BSDs) would have gotten you to "level 11" in one shot.

Oh, and stop trying to find the equal of X on Y. Pick a task and find the section in the handbook (-i.e. don't try to find "sysctl" in the handbook; find "service management"). "connect to the internet", "install a desktop", "service management", etc.

A lot of that has to do with the way that computers have been dumbed down over the years and the users infantilized. I was able to use the Apple ][ for basic things when I was in elementary school. The degree to which people are allowed to pretend like typing a few basic commands that don't change much is some sort of God-like ability is deeply problematic.

IMHO, there's not much point in pointing out such things unless you're pushing things a bit by at least doing more complicated stuff like scripting, jails or at least customizing your install in some interesting way. It's not elitist, it's just that if you're just using the computer for normal computer things, you're just a normal user and there's really no shame in that at all.

 

[AlfredoLlaquet]

IMHO, there's not much point in pointing out such things unless you're pushing things a bit by at least doing more complicated stuff like scripting, jails or at least customizing your install in some interesting way. It's not elitist, it's just that if you're just using the computer for normal computer things, you're just a normal user and there's really no shame in that at all.

+1

Very true.

I think this all has to do with misconceptions and stereotypes. Before, Linux was the arcane thing, and if you managed to use it in any way, you could boast about being a computer god among the other normies that hadn't even tried. Now that Linux is mainstream, the BSD family has taken its place in the collective imagination of the normies who use computers for common things.

 

[hasbeen]

+1

Very true.

I think this all has to do with misconceptions and stereotypes. Before, Linux was the arcane thing, and if you managed to use it in any way, you could boast about being a computer god among the other normies that hadn't even tried. Now that Linux is mainstream, the BSD family has taken its place in the collective imagination of the normies who use computers for common things.

Before, there were SLS, Slack and RH. My personal fav then was Slack distribution on several 3.5” 1.4 MB diskettes downloaded from the fastest FTP Internet host, at the time, called ftp.sunet.se, at the blazing speed of 28.8+ kbps, over dial-up connection. After that, all I had to do was to boot, offload Linux kernel into my i386 with128MB of RAM, slip stream correct VGA and CD ROM drivers into the kernel, then re “make” the kernel, write onto new boot diskette, and then reboot back with VGA and CD ROM support. 30 years ago, Linux installation process required a full day of continuous tweaking of scripts and kernel parameters to make things work. Those days, installing Linux server was an interesting and involved project.

Today, Operating Systems self-install with help of few keyboard strokes or mouse clicks, so there’s very little to talk about that process. Nowadays, post-install doesn’t require any tweaking either, outside of basic configuration, as per well written instructions, in any OS, unless one needs to customize or develop things. I’m not a coder or software developer, so I don’t get into those discussions. But, I make things work for me. Thus, my FreeBSD, Kali, Darwin/MacO$ with Open Core and brew, plus NT/MSO$ with WSL are working as intended, including Open Source software that I utilize with Apples and Windows, and virtualizations in all of them.

In my view, selecting the best Operating System with supporting applications depends on user’s requirements, knowledge of their computer hardware's, capabilities, compatibility, and willingness to read and learn when required ;-)

 

[msplsh]

I stopped reading at
"I don’t want to use FreeBSD on that one, being that it’s the Ubuntu of the BSD world"

WTAF, Ubuntu's only differentiation to me is that it's run by Canonical which is a for-profit entity, so a bunch of linux business oriented software targets it. What does this statement even mean?

 

[skhal]

Wow, they survived for 1 week and that's impressive. FreeBSD is great once you get the idea of the basics and how things work in general - it becomes transparent and easy after the click-moment, which happens, IDK, maybe after O(months) or maybe event O(years). Really, it takes time to absorb all of that information.

IMHO a good analogy is the first experience with Vim: tons of users (including myself) hate it (and the moment they opened it in the first place) after the first struggle to move around or even exit the app... After N-months/years the very same users become Vim-yoda-jedi-experts and there is nothing that can convince them to switch to anything else from Vim/Neovim.

 

[LibreQuest]

Wow, they survived for 1 week and that's impressive. FreeBSD is great once you get the idea of the basics and how things work in general - it becomes transparent and easy after the click-moment, which happens, IDK, maybe after O(months) or maybe event O(years). Really, it takes time to absorb all of that information.

IMHO a good analogy is the first experience with Vim: tons of users (including myself) hate it (and the moment they opened it in the first place) after the first struggle to move around or even exit the app... After N-months/years the very same users become Vim-yoda-jedi-experts and there is nothing that can convince them to switch to anything else from Vim/Neovim.

I wonder if anyone is using vi still? I only use vim if I forgot to install nano.