2024: The year of desktop FreeBSD?

piizog

piizog

Yeah, I went there with the title, but don't worry, the reference is both deliberate and self-aware.

I'm actually about to write an article about this very subject to a Finnish computer culture magazine, from the viewpoint of a newbie-ish, enthusiast, non-sysadmin, desktop user. When I got my new used laptop, I wanted too test it out as a lark, thinking that my double-boot to Linux would be my daily driver and FreeBSD would be a testing playground.

However, the opposite happened. Linux has faded into the tail end of my bootloader and I daily drive FreeBSD 14 with i3wm for all my general computing needs. I've found the experience extremely smooth and the performance snappy. And FreeBSD uses way fewer resources as well. I am naturally lucky in that all the requisite drivers came with the kernel so everything on the laptop worked out of the box.

Despite this, I've noticed that a lot of folks don't bother with FreeBSD as a general desktop OS. I would be very interested in hearing of your reasons why people do or don't daily drive FreeBSD. This question is both out of general curiosity and as background for the article. Are you double booting with something else, for example?

Full disclosure, I still do run Linux on my desktop since I do a bit of gaming and I do media production as my line of work, so the added hardware support comes in clutch.
 
You may want to search the forums, there are a few threads asking similar.

I've said much the same but I'll repeat myself here.
Applications. Must have applications drive the base OS you use. Your last paragraph is a good example of this.

I've been using FreeBSD as a daily driver for a long time, probably since 3.x days. Originally dual booted with Linux of the day, by 5.x only FreeBSD.
Typical usage:
Web browsing, email, code development, light digital photography stuff (darktable, poking around with rawtherapee, gimp), home "bookkeeping" (gnucash), VPN to work.
 
Sorry, but I'm getting bored of this. The entire forum is full of discussions about "desktop" usecases which turn out to be actually laptop!
There is no sharp distinction between desktop and workstation, but the distinction between laptop and desktop is very clear: while a desktop uses industry standard hardware (you can often swap boards between desktop, workstation and server), a laptop is full of specially crafted stuff.
 
PMc said:
Sorry, but I'm getting bored of this. The entire forum is full of discussions about "desktop" usecases which turn out to be actually laptop!
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Ah! Interesting point. In my circle of nerd-dom, "desktop" usage has been understood to mean any use with a desktop environment, as opposed to purely command line based systems.

That being said, I've also ran FreeBSD on the desktop without issue. It all works out of the box so very simple indeed. It's the driver support for media production peripherals that's the issue for me, but that is a fairly niche usage requirement.
 
wolffnx said:
with all the respect, what are you drinking??
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Today, I've been mainly drinking water and coffee. I don't touch alcohol, tastes wretched and the effects do not appeal to me.

However, if you look at the very first paragraph of my initial post, you'll see that I am deliberately referencing this meme-worthy phenomenon.
 
mer said:
You may want to search the forums, there are a few threads asking similar.
Click to expand...

I actually did search and read a bit, but with the pace of development in many core parts of the system (especially Wayland this past year), this is quite the moving target. But always a prudent reminder, don't want to retread ground if it's too thoroughly covered. I'll leave it up to the moderators to decide if there's further value in this opening.
 
I am using FreeBSD as my primary desktop OS on both "real desktops" and laptops for three years now and I am extremely happy with it. I very rarely boot anything else these days.
I enjoy it exactly because it is FreeBSD: It's stable, it's no-bullshit and it's pretty much "my system" (i.e. I'm not the victim of someone else's choices). Back in my Linux days I honestly never knew whether I am waking up to a broken system or whether the init system changed yet again let alone the audio sub system.

My personal experience with FreeBSD as my main desktop OS has been nothing but a joyful experience rewarded with minimal to no headaches along the way. I'd say that my FreeBSD desktop experience is about as good as my FreeBSD server experience. Rock solid, no drama, just works.
 
piizog said:
Ah! Interesting point. In my circle of nerd-dom, "desktop" usage has been understood to mean any use with a desktop environment, as opposed to purely command line based systems.

That being said, I've also ran FreeBSD on the desktop without issue. It all works out of the box so very simple indeed. It's the driver support for media production peripherals that's the issue for me, but that is a fairly niche usage requirement.
Click to expand...

so, for what you follow the trend and ask the same thing that linux users ask every year?
FreeBSD not follow the trends or the "topic of the moment"
2014 and the years for coming are the years for FreeBSD and that's it 🤷‍♂️ , desktop,server or toaster
(only I wish to see it in mobile phones..but is hard)

edit..wow 2014...I mean 2024 🤣
 
I can see a thread like this as simply being a 2024 edition "How do you use FreeBSD?" with an emphasis on "daily driver" or workstation rather than server purposes. I am more than happy to participate, as I feel that seeing current examples of how FreeBSD is used can be an encouragement for others.

I have two main personal computers running FreeBSD for "desktop" usage. I have one at work for specialized tasks. I do have other systems that run FreeBSD (Home server, firewall, testing systems) but these are not regular "desktop" usage. Both of my personal computers have been updated to 14.0-RELEASE, while the work computer is still running 13.2-RELEASE.

My personal desktop computer is a Ryzen 5600, 32GB RAM, dual 512GB NVME (dual booting Windows and FreeBSD, each NVME is dedicated to its respective OS), with an AMD 5700XT GPU. It is this system that I spend most of my non-working computing time. I boot Windows for when I want to play Minecraft and Crusader Kings 2. For serious work, I boot into FreeBSD. My serious work case is much "less" than some. I primarily do a lot of word processing (I teach Bible classes at our local church) with a little bit of audio and video work. For a brain break, I have several native games, DOSbox and WINE games installed and running. My FreeBSD software setup is XFCE, with OpenOffice, bibletime, Handbrake, Audacity, Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenShot getting the bulk of my work. I really don't need anything more, though I do prefer MS Word over OOO Writer. If I need Word bad enough, I guess the online edition would work.

My laptop is a Dell Latitude e5570. I don't use this much, but sometimes I do need a computer when I am not around my desktop. It gets lighter use than the desktop, but is otherwise the same. I haven't messed around with WINE, since I won't be doing much gaming on this computer. It works as I need it to. Yes, Wi-Fi is slow, but it works, so I am patiently waiting for the improvements that are coming. I haven't really tested out sleep/resume, since I normally just turn the computer off when I'm not using it.

After the how, now to the why I use FreeBSD on the desktop, to answer the basic question from the OP. I like FreeBSD for many reasons, and it does everything I need it to do, save running a few optional programs. I don't need an OS to hold my hand or auto configure everything (though granted, the autoconfiguration of xorg is a massive Quality Of Life improvement in setting up the workstation). I like knowing what my computer is doing, so that when things break, I can easily troubleshoot and (hopefully) fix. Linux does not do this for me. Windows "just works" but I find it boring, and while I like Windows 10, it does not offer the flexibility that FreeBSD does.

A short answer could be - FreeBSD does everything I need it to do for desktop usage, so why do I need to bother with anything else?
 
jbo@ said:
My personal experience with FreeBSD as my main desktop OS has been nothing but a joyful experience rewarded with minimal to no headaches along the way. I'd say that my FreeBSD desktop experience is about as good as my FreeBSD server experience. Rock solid, no drama, just works.
Click to expand...
I went past the Debian>Devuan days and now joyfully playing with my laptop ( with fixed limited resources ) and desktop ( improved powerful and expandable resources ) , on both openbox ( not full blown desktop environment ) installed. Some time I have to use windows 11 for Disney+ others . Linux and Win are more hardware and games friendly. In my old age these are my daily rock solid partner . Servers are also used on daily basis ( with DE ? ).
 
piizog said:
I'm actually about to write an article about this
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With this headline

2024: The year of desktop FreeBSD?​

you surely will produce enough cognitive dissonance for click baiting. While the question mark denotes the distinguished writer, it misses the reader's mind on the spot.
 
Since the headline seems to bring out unexpectedly strong reaction, allow me to explain the logic behind it.

It is indeed a reference to the age old question on the Linux side of thing. Partly to draw attention (no clickbaiting though, this is a print magazine I'm writing for) and also because I often hear people saying that for the average user, the experience of dealing with wifi adapters and driver support is about where Linux was 10-15 years ago. That's also my experience - FreeBSD is often said to be the new "enthusiast" operating system now that Linux is very smooth and easy. Therefore I expected people to see the headline more as a historical injoke than a continued bugbear.

And indeed, I have not heard this question phrased like this on the Linux side of things in at least 5-10 years. And the reason is that, well, Linux is already there. It is and it has been the year of desktop Linux for quite awhile. Unless you're running something exotic, running Linux on almost anything is as plug-and-play as Windows. Pretty much the only reason to stay in Windows if your work is dependent on the few software suites not runnable even with Wine. Main examples being the Adobe behemoth for design and graphic workflows and Waves plugins for me as an audio engineer. For at least 90% of people, Linux works out of the box and easily fulfill all their computing needs.

I'd argue the only reason for the poor adoption rate of Linux is that it doesn't come pre-installed on practically anything. We know the vast majority of people don't even change their default browser, let alone their default operating system.
 
I didn't win the New Years Powerball Lottery Jackpot?
So maybe next year will be the Year of FreeBSD Desktop.
Somebody has to pay for this thing.
 
Linux started with hardware testing labs and deep corporate pockets.
We have Deb at the foundation and Netflix. Started with Rodney and Walnut Creek.
Core Developers have to beg people to contribute to the foundation where the financial goals are rarely met.
What do you expect? Maybe another WhatsApp guy will give 1 million dollars? How far can that go?

With Wayland distracting the whole discussion too. That could tear the desktop down.
Many prefer Xorg to Wayland.
We live off Freedesktop.org and with IBM bouncing we could be in for a rocky road.

BSD is the original Unix alternative. Still purring along just fine.
Remember the slogan. The Power to Serve.
 
I'm running GhostBSD on my two desktop pcs (fanless mini towers with intel celeron j processors) and
FreeBSD on my HP Elitebook. GhostBSD/FreeBSD are the only operating systems that I use privatly on the
desktop.
All machines are running the XFCE desktop environment. I like FreeBSD and I don't need any other OS. I use my
machines for internet surfing, email, video and audio streaming, office works, financial accounting and
coding in Tcl/Tk.

My file-/database server runs with OmniOS.
 
piizog said:
Since the headline seems to bring out unexpectedly strong reaction, allow me to explain the logic behind it.
Click to expand...

I only see one 'unexpectedly strong reacter'. See how it's looking after a week ...

piizog said:
Therefore I expected people to see the headline more as a historical injoke than a continued bugbear.
Click to expand...

Indeed, within a huge range of senses of humour.

So far so good.

For better or worse, 2024 is the year of everything happening.
 
piizog said:
I'd argue the only reason for the poor adoption rate of Linux is that it doesn't come pre-installed on practically anything.
Click to expand...
Wondering why this is not addressed in print media and elsewhere? If ever running out of ideas on what to write here are some ideas:

Why does Microsoft still dominates the market and which cartel agreements are keeping this schema alive and running?

How much does a preinstalled Windows system add to Microsoft's profits regardless if it gets deleted after purchase?

Where can you buy laptops/notebooks without a preinstalled OS and what is the expectable price difference to the consumer?

Why is this monopolistic business ignored by government antitrust institutions?

Why do hardware vendors rarely provide drivers for Linux distros and almost none for the BSDs?

Which hardware vendors do sponsor Open Source communities when they develop drivers for their products?

Can such stuff pass the conference of the editorial staff of your publishing house or would they fear loosing advertising revenues?
 
It's there already. FreeBSD is on my desktop since 2006. Now it's XFCE after trying a few other DE's in the past. It runs 24/7 (Apache and Sendmail) and has all apps for daily use and hobby (audio). Very solid and stable. Upgrading is a breeze. Just did a major upgrade to 14.0, with these upgrade tools I will have to wait for my rootdisk to crash before I get to use ZFS.
Hardware support does indeed lag somewhat behind. The good thing about that: By the time FreeBSD supports it, it will be much cheaper. So it's all there and it's really good.

I doubt whether it's fit for a "a newbie-ish, enthusiast, non-sysadmin, desktop user" though. You have to install it all yourself, no one to do it for you. Good documentation is available, but there is a learning curve. See below.

:wq!
 
getopt said:
Can such stuff pass the conference of the editorial staff of your publishing house or would they fear loosing advertising revenues?
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In this case, I can indeed! Only it's old hat for them. The magazine, Skrolli, is a community project and it is pretty knee deep in these issues. It calls itself "volunteer-based", but the writers are paid (even above the standard rates), so professionals like I like to pitch stuff. They even have a couple IndieGoGo-funded English issues!

If interested, they're now available as free PDF's (not an ad as they're now free and I didn't write for those issues, so I have no skin in the game): https://skrolli.fi/en/international/

Tieks said:
I doubt whether it's fit for a "a newbie-ish, enthusiast, non-sysadmin, desktop user" though. You have to install it all yourself, no one to do it for you. Good documentation is available, but there is a learning curve. See below.

:wq!
Click to expand...

From a hobbyist perspective, I must commend the quality of the Handbook. It pretty much covers everything in an understandable language. I found the install to be much simpler than Arch, for example.

:helpg ;)
 
piizog said:
… I would be very interested in hearing of your reasons why people do or don't daily drive FreeBSD. …
Click to expand...

piizog said:
… did search and read a bit, …
Click to expand...

Thanks, and if you haven't already been here: <https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/634238> includes some recent words from The FreeBSD Foundation, and a link to a 2022 topic that you might not have seen. Most of my thoughts are probably in those two topics.

I daily drive FreeBSD 15.0-CURRENT. <https://forums.freebsd.org/members/grahamperrin.35084/#about> puts this in context; if I recall correctly, PC-BSD was based on CURRENT.

From <https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/18slzge/-/kfagos2/>:

… Some people run -STABLE in production. Heck, some people run -CURRENT in production. Different risk appetites…
Click to expand...

Quick cherry-picks from the past year in /r/freebsd (chronological order):

old.reddit.com

When to Daily Drive FreeBSD over Linux

I see posts here frequently about people looking to move to FreeBSD from Linux, but I don’t often see any “why” posts. What are the reasons...
old.reddit.com old.reddit.com

old.reddit.com

FreeBSD as a daily driver

I am a intermediate Linux user and wanted to try out FreeBSD (which I discovered about a year or two ago). I tried to install it only my main...
old.reddit.com old.reddit.com

old.reddit.com

What are you guys working on your daily drivers?

Hi, I got a bit curious about what kind of work the community has being doing on freebsd as daily drivers.
old.reddit.com old.reddit.com

old.reddit.com

Anyone here daily drive FreeBSD as their operating system?

Hey all, ubuntu user here curious if anyone uses BSD as their main operating system and if so, have you ran into any issues whilst doing so. Im...
old.reddit.com old.reddit.com

Last but not least, a significant upgrade to NomadBSD flew under people's radars, so I gave it a toot in BSD Cafe:

Graham Perrin (@grahamperrin@bsd.cafe)

NomadBSD is now based on FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE: <https://nomadbsd.org/#20231127> ❝… persistent live system … automatic hardware detection and setup, … desktop … (also) for data recovery, for educational purposes, or to test FreeBSD's hardware compatibility. ❝… A system with a 1.2GHz CPU and 1G...
mastodon.bsd.cafe mastodon.bsd.cafe

HTH, happy writing.
 
Been using the CURRENT branch as a desktop for about 18 months now. No real system issues.

I will admit that sometimes, as a product of my own doing, I venture down little rabbit-holes and make changes that usually end up in some calamity, I get fed up and the machine gets left for a bit. For example, I recently tried to get widevine working, despite me not having any of the services which require it, and broke my chromium installation. pkg is completely confused due to my ABI version and at the moment just wants to remove everything so I stay clear of that. Building chromium from ports hit loads of errors and after a month of "I can't be bothered", I'm trying to tackle them now.

It's situations like this where I do envy those who buy a laptop, use Windows 11 and think "wow this is great", and live contently in blissful ignorance and just buy another one on a credit card when it gets "slow" instead of running an unsupported version of an operating system on a used machine I bought for $30 that went off sale in 2007. But that's not me, and here I am, happy, in general.
 
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