FreeBSD is a really good operating system

bookwormep

bookwormep

One of the things I like best about FreeBSD is that when your system is tweaked to work correctly it is fast and reliable.

Another is the depth of possibilities and potentialities with which a user can create a great system.

Of course, all of the documentation that is made available online is remarkable, just wish I had more time to read even more!

Finally, with these forums and email subscriber lists, being able to reach one thoughtful and experienced for more technical help is great.

Thanks!
bookwormep
 
I agree! I have been a Linux user for nearly 20 years and have dabbled in FreeBSD on and off since version 4 or 5. I was never able to successfully get a full-on desktop install to replace my Linux desktop until recently (10.3). Not FreeBSDs fault - I never really committed to the change and didn't put that much effort into it. I can now say that I am 100% FreeBSD as a desktop machine and everything works, well I might add. The system is fast, stable and I like how it is structured with the core OS separated from user software. Well thought out. Thanks!
 
Yes, but unfortunately the common denominator for being a good desktop OS has more to do with hardware support than the OS itself. That's not the fault of the OS or people developing it. I think it has more to do with popularity and openness of hardware.

If I ignore software support and all the fancy features of FreeBSD, Minix3 would be my preferred desktop which has some pretty awesome ideas in it's kernel design... and as practical as it's intended, it's more suited to embedded because hardware support just isn't there.

I think i'm siding with the open hardware people the more I think about this sort of thing.
 
Not sure where this is going, but I will chip in. I recently returned to FreeBSD after a longish venture through enterprise class GNU/Linux operating systems. At some point it occurred to me that certain GNU/Linux OS's would be better off with the main system toolchain(s) and userland applications strictly separated. A lot less scary randomness would occur, I reckon. To me it just doesn't work when complexity is stacked on more complexity and/or lacking documentation. FreeBSD is the cure and colloquially speaking - my poison :). Gigantic props to the devs, contributors and helpful users.
 
I'm currently really in love with FreeBSD! I started using Linux with Slackware back in the 90's before switching to Debian and Ubuntu. I've been running my web server with Linux for a couple of years but recently I wanted to try something new and exciting to me and so I dived into FreeBSD. I setup my first FreeBSD web server a few weeks ago and I haven't had this much fun with an OS in a long time. I really love how FreeBSD keeps things separate and it's been so simple and easy to setup but at the same time there's a wealth of information (the FreeBSD Handbook has REALLY helped me out) and so much tuning you can do. I sincerely hope that I continue to have a great experience with FreeBSD :-).
 
I made the change from Linux world to FreeBSD before.... 6-7 years? Never looked back. I know that I am not very active on forum last years. Is just because all of you, speak English very good. A lot of time you use phrases or words and sentences that I don't understand and I try to understand using Translate. This really is so much difficult for me on a daily basis. But I am still an very active FreeBSD user where FreeBSD is my main OS on Server and Desktop computer. I just love the way it's made. I love the community. I know that may some things changed but FreeBSD people is more something like family. Here still exist this feeling of "I am home"
 
Before coming to the FreeBSD Camp I had been a Linux user for about 5 years. While I tried many different flavors of Linux from Gentoo to Slackware, to Debian.I like linux but after a while you get tired of stuff breaking "PulseAudio Anyone? :)" and trying to locate software is not always easy. In addition to that only a few Linux Operating systems have documentation that would come close to being as good as the FreeBSD Documentation. I Really like how everything is in /usr/ports and you can decide whether you want a compiled version of said software or you want a binary blob. I feel like you have total freedom with FreeBSD. It's fast and it's stable as all hell. The developers aren't interested in being political idealouges or evangelicals about the morality of licensing but rather on just making a damn good operating system, and i applaud them for that.
 
I agree! I have been using FreeBSD for 10+ years for server usage and for-fun projects, but have always been scared (for lack of a better word) of running it full-time on the desktop. Last year I pulled myself together and gave it a real chance, and all my prejudices were put to shame. Now I only keep my Arch Linux installation around for Flash and Steam games.

I was especially afraid of the audio stack. I had a funky idea that OSS was a sub-par solution, whereas ALSA was "audio done right". Turned out it's exactly the other way around - ALSA feels like a patchwork of code compared to OSS. No more fiddling around with hw:X,Y references and subdevices, now everything simply has its own /dev/dsp character device.

I used to love PulseAudio, but after switching to FreeBSD I haven't considered installing it for one second because everything in OSS is configurable out-of-the-box using sysctl(8). Especially the adaptive vchan mode is a brilliant feature.

A few weeks ago I was setting up both a Linux and a FreeBSD box with encrypted root partitions on RAID-0, and I realized how much more polished and coherent everything feels on FreeBSD. geli(8), gmirror(8), gstripe(8) and glabel(8) are very well-documented and they all follow the same syntax, whereas you really get that "patchwork feeling" with the Linux counterparts.
I mean,
Code: 
# gstripe label st0 ada0p1 ada1p1
# geli init st0
# geli attach st0
compared to
Code: 
# mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=0 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
# cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/md0
# cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/md0
Not to mention the ever-annoying initramfs... ;)
 
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abefar said:
I used to love PulseAudio, but after switching to FreeBSD I haven't considered installing it for one second because everything in OSS is configurable out-of-the-box using sysctl(8). Especially the adaptive vchan mode is a brilliant feature.
Click to expand...

Linux sound surely is a collection of parts - and probably too many to suit me. But, I can't always get OSS (by itself) to do what I want. I think TrueOS is working on a better Pulse integration, so things may improve, perhaps even including some upstream patches? Dunno, but guess it's possible.

Anyway, FreeBSD is free of cruft, so it seems to me to be (maybe) more trustworthy in its minimal configurations than some other operating systems. Who knows? It used to be that Arch was pretty free of cruft. Now, if I have to use Linux, I lean towards Alpine. But I use FreeBSD or NetBSD if at all possible, for whatever I'm doing. Using any other OS is a graceful (or not so graceful) fallback.
 
abefar said:
I used to love PulseAudio, but after switching to FreeBSD I haven't considered installing it for one second because everything in OSS is configurable out-of-the-box using sysctl(8). Especially the adaptive vchan mode is a brilliant feature.
Click to expand...
Oo-errr! Newbie to FreeBSD and have just installed xfce, nvidia, firefox ...etc .... and pulseaudio/pavucontrol. Know nothing about OSS but seeing your post makes me wonder about my choices.
 
Imho FreeBSD is a good operating system, since a year my wife and I uses it on our Computers and Notebooks, our NAS also works with FreeBSD 11.

But yesterday I've made some experiences with FreeBSD, OSS and my Soundcard M-Audio Audiophile ... and I had to boot my Arch installation to do following job: Recording some audios from DAT-Recorder with audacity for the broadcast station, I work for.

Under FreeBSD no chance, after reading the manpage to snd_envy24(), I've gotten the explaination:
Only analog playback is supported. Recording and other features of these cards are not supported.
Click to expand...

Under Arch I had to remove pulseaudio stuff first, then with native Alsa everything works good with my M-Audio Audiophile 2496: Playing sound, recording sound.

So I cannot agree that - prefering to OSS - Alsa for Linux is not as good as OSS drivers in FreeBSD. In some cases OSS works better, in some cases Alsa works better.

But apart from that this experience is not a reason for me to switch back to GNU/Linux. I've some further possibilities (a terratec PCI soundcard, a terratec Aureon USB soundcard, Build-In soundchip Intel) and with one of this I hope, I can record audio also under FreeBSD with audacity.

Kind regards,
Holger
 
newcomerFree said:
I doub it for mobile equipment !
Click to expand...

Why do you say that? Have you ever used a phone running FreeBSD?

Don't confuse "FreeBSD runs poorly as a phone OS" with "Locked down mobile pieces of sh*% will not run an open operating system"

Besides, what operating systems that can run on mobile hardware are classed as good operating systems? Android? iOS?

I am inclined to believe a "good operating system" and a "mobile operating system" are in fact mutually exclusive
 
kpedersen said:
I am inclined to believe a "good operating system" and a "mobile operating system" are in fact mutually exclusive
Click to expand...
Well, I've got castors on my main FreeBSD machine, so it is at least a little bit mobile.
 
kpedersen said:
I am inclined to believe a "good operating system" and a "mobile operating system" are in fact mutually exclusive
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. First of all, what "good operating system" means? To my knowledge a good operating system is a system that is:

- Reliable;
- Stable;
- Secure (always considering the fact that security is a never-ending journey).

And a "mobile operating system"? An operating system that can run on mobile devices (and supports the various features and technologies that are typical of them).

That said, theorically, nothing prevents a mobile OS from being a good one. However, in practice we have a different experience due to vendors that don't care too much of the previous characteristics that we have considered (this even thanks to the careless behaviour of the majority of end-users that just want their device work enough to let them do whatever they want, without even wanting to know how (or at which price*) their devices do it, leave alone doing it securely (IoT docet)). That's it. If one day I'll see a FreeBSD or OpenBSD based phone or tablet, it will be my choice.

Now, coming back on-topic ;), I agree on the goodness of FreeBSD, even if would like to see more memory protection tecnologies implemented (i.e. ASLR). :)

Cheers. :beer:

* not necessarily economically speaking (apps that require unneeded permissions anyone?).
 
Maxnix said:
I agree on the goodness of FreeBSD, even if would like to see more memory protection tecnologies implemented (i.e. ASLR). :)
Click to expand...

Perhaps FreeBSD will follow OpenBSD and implement KARL, or Kernel Address Randomized Link, instead.
 
Sorry if I'm dredging up an old thread, but came across it doing a topical search on the forum. Just want to put in my glowing remarks about FreeBSD as well. Been using it for a couple years now and there's a lot of love there.

I've had experience with various operating systems over decades now including several flavors of Unix like SCO and Solaris and even some obscure non-Unix ones like VMS. FreeBSD is hands down my favorite OS of all I've used. Pretty much for the reasons already stated, great organization and direction in both engineering and management.

I was using Linux quite a bit at one point, but I've sort of soured on it. It's become more chaos than organization in my mind. Wasn't like that at all first time I tried it when Debian versions still started with a zero.

I was really happy with Debian Linux all the way up to to Etch (v4). After that I could see things going downhill. When I tried Jessie (v8) a few years ago that was it for me. It had become so different I thought a jumped a dimension or something. I always thought Debian was by far the best Linux distro. Jessie was an awful experience.

I really, really like how FreeBSD is directly descended from the original Berkeley Unix and how they've stuck to those basic principles for decades now. I can always count on FreeBSD to be FreeBSD. Of course I don't use it exclusively, but if I could I would.
 
Another success upgrading to FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE on Thinkpad SL-510 and the refurbished desktop.
Thanks to the community, the administrators, the moderators, and of course the developers!!
 
FreeBSD always has been been great for me and lets hope to MAKE IT GREAT and better then others. as we go into 2020 FreeBSD will grow more in reputation and respect....
 
Nice smooth update to 12.1 here too. Been using FreeBSD for a year and finally flushed Linux out of my system. I said it before and I'll say it again, FreeBSD is the only operating system I've used since DOS 3.3 that doesn't give me high blood pressure. ?
 
tedbell said:
FreeBSD is the only operating system I've used since DOS 3.3 that doesn't give me high blood pressure.
Click to expand...

Haha, that's a great way to put it. I wish I had all the hair back I've pulled trying to get operating systems to behave the way I want. So far the biggest hair pulling experience has been w10.
 
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