Complete Noob

P

Peter Linu

Hiyall,
I have been a Linux user for 7 years and have enjoyed the ride and am now turning my attention to Free BSD.
I want to install it on my LEAST efficient hardware: Raspberry Pi 3b.
Please recommend:
1. Which format
2. Which O/S
Only safe and reliable, please.

Ancillary question: can it be installed in Linus Mint / Oracle VM VirtualBox?
 
Peter Linu said:
Which O/S
Click to expand...
FreeBSD, obviously. But I suspect you actually wanted to know what version? As a new user, stick to the latest -RELEASE version, which is 14.3-RELEASE at this time. Or, if you feel more adventurous, try the 15.0 BETA, it should be finalized soon.
www.freebsd.org

FreeBSD 15.0 Release Process

FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms.
www.freebsd.org www.freebsd.org

Peter Linu said:
can it be installed in Linus Mint / Oracle VM VirtualBox?
Click to expand...
docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 24. Virtualization

Virtualization software allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on the same computer
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org
 
In the world of FreeBSD there is only one OS: it's called FreeBSD, which comes in numbered versions. There are FreeBSD-derivatives, but those are *not* FreeBSD itself. FreeBSD does not have "distributions" in the same way Linux has.

If you want to run on a Raspberry Pi 3B (a 64-bit one), download the appropriate SD card image. This one should do it for 14.3-RELEASE:


From Linux you can decompress the XZ archive, then use dd to write the image to your SD card and boot the Pi. Upon first boot the OS will look around and reshuffle the disk layout to fit your entire card. Make your life easy and do this with a monitor + keyboard connected. If you are a complete Noob, stick with running RELEASE. Again: run RELEASE and nothing else until you know and can explain to yourself what the other branches are for. You have been warned. ;-)

Running FreeBSD from VirtualBox on Linux works just fine. Very useful for learning/development environments. You can download the appropriate ISO image from the same directory as the one given above and follow the installation instructions from the Handbook (chapter 2):

docs.freebsd.org

FreeBSD Handbook

A constantly evolving, comprehensive resource for FreeBSD users
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org

The Handbook, by the way, is your friend. Use it.
 
Peter Linu said:
Only safe and reliable, please.
Click to expand...
that would be -RELEASE

Besides the handbook, bvdw78 already mentioned, my advice was first skim through the FAQs - they are really worth reading, and answer a lot of questions.

Edit:
I'm not sure what you meant with "Which format", but if you meant the filesystem I recommend to start with UFS.
Many people chose FreeBSD for ZFS, and most(?) use it. But since ZFS is no rocketscience it's no "FAT32" neither. It needs a bit learning to get into it, and to know how you create your pools, and why etc.
While UFS is a pretty sophisticated, reliable, stable fs my recommendation was first get warm with FreeBSD.
First things first.
 
For a beginner transitioning from other Unixes or from Linux, UFS is easier: The commands to format, mount and manage the file system are traditional. In the long run, ZFS is the far better file system.

On a Raspberry Pi 3B (only 1 gig of memory), and running in a VM with a second operating system, it might get a little tight on memory. I've run FreeBSD on my RPi (years ago), and it worked fine in text mode, but without VMs.
 

ralphbsz,​

My fault. That shoulda said that I'm also trying FreeBSD in a VB on a different (Mint) computer. Should I use UFS on that too?
I forgot that the RPi3b has only 1Gb RAM. I don't understand "text mode". Do you mean that I won't get a normal desktop?
 
Trouble in paradise.
Copied the above RPi3b-specific file to the SD card. Fired up the RPi3b. It does it's thing however nowhere can I find a way of moving from ZFS to UFS.
Help!
 
You're going to need to get your hands dirty and put some elbow grease into it.

docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 4. Installing Applications: Packages and Ports

FreeBSD provides two complementary technologies for installing third-party software: the FreeBSD Ports Collection, for installing from source, and packages, for installing from pre-built binaries
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org
docs.freebsd.org

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 docs.freebsd.org
Don't know if Wayland works on a Pi, but for good measure:
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 docs.freebsd.org

Then you can move onto:
docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 8. Desktop Environments

This chapter demonstrates how to install numerous desktop environments, including web browsers, productivity software, document viewers, and financial software
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org
 
You won't get a "normal desktop" by default. It'll be a text-only environment that gives you a login prompt and a shell. It's like 1983 all over again. From there on out you're on your own to build your system as you see fit. My advice for this kind of learning would be to skip the Pi for now, and go for a VM on top of your Linux environment. Why? Because you can easily create snapshots of your VM so that if you goof it up, you're very easily back to a known-good state.

Do read the Handbook chapters that SirDice mentioned. FreeBSD is a very consistent system, but it does leave you to make your own choices. You'll encounter many different personal preferences from people across this forum. I'm currently typing this from 14.3-RELEASE running a full KDE Plasma6 desktop on Wayland using an old Ryzen5 box with a Radeon 550X from 2018. Still runs like the wind for me, but preferences vary.
 
SD card image (I myself never tried, as I don't have any computer in hand other than amd64 notebook) is "alreay installed" image, thus, no need to reformat it if it is working without problem.

If you want different configuration, you need to create your own SD card media on working FreeBSD installation.

Usually, it would be creating SD card image for deploying to other (but same arch) computers, but if only 1 computer is sufficient, you can partition, format and install (maybe copying everything other than the mountpoint of the SD card into the SD card and modify configurations if needed) would be quicker.

I've recently replaced NVMe SSD using UEFI-booted ZFS to larger one, and what I've done was quite roughly:
  1. to put the brand-new SSD into USB converter,
  2. partition with GPT scheme the same way except partition sizes,
  3. format ESP in new SSD as FAT32,
  4. create ZFS pool and datasets in it, the same way (sizes of each datasets are not needed to be specified unless you have any reason to do so),
  5. copy ESP (FAT32 formatted),
  6. send ZFS datasets to new SSD and apply bare minimal changes (basically partition label names in /etc/fstab of new SSD),
  7. shutdown and turn-off,
  8. then replace SSDs physically.
The above is quite rough step and need some special care, though (i.e., related with temporary mount point and zpool.cache).
 
Folks,
Thanks for all your serious and well-intentioned advice. I spent the whole day trying to get ANYTHING on the RPi3b & RPi4b. I was continually confronted with text and/or code. This is not what I want to do with the last 10 years of my life! I'm perfectly happy with Linux Mint and to a lesser extent, Puppy Linux. I didn't realise that FreeBSD is SO 'basic'.
So goodbye and go well.
 
Peter Linu said:
Folks,
Thanks for all your serious and well-intentioned advice. I spent the whole day trying to get ANYTHING on the RPi3b & RPi4b. I was continually confronted with text and/or code. This is not what I want to do with the last 10 years of my life! I'm perfectly happy with Linux Mint and to a lesser extent, Puppy Linux. I didn't realise that FreeBSD is SO 'basic'.
So goodbye and go well.
Click to expand...
If you want something ready for desktop usages based on FreeBSD, maybe GhostBSD would be the better startpoint. But it seems to be amd64 only.
 
Peter Linu said:
Folks,
Thanks for all your serious and well-intentioned advice. I spent the whole day trying to get ANYTHING on the RPi3b & RPi4b. I was continually confronted with text and/or code. This is not what I want to do with the last 10 years of my life! I'm perfectly happy with Linux Mint and to a lesser extent, Puppy Linux. I didn't realise that FreeBSD is SO 'basic'.
So goodbye and go well.
Click to expand...

Hey, you seem to be misdirected by Linux desktop affairs.
FreeBSD like all Unices is a server OS. This doesn't mean it's not very very usable on the desktop, but it is not an out-of-the-box desktop experience.

Let me just say upfront if you're happy with Linux there is no need to switch to FreeBSD. Linux is a libre OS, it's all good and cool.

Linux and FreeBSD are two different beasts of a car built on a same undercarriage. There are many many similarities but the end package is not the same.

Second, Raspberry PI and all other non-amd64 platforms are not as fresh in FreeBSD world as they're in Linux distribution world. Testing out FreeBSD is done on VM in most of the cases I've seen here. Not knowing FreeBSD and installing it on a RPI is not a good way to explore the system.

Third, this is why I mention misdirection by Linux distributions, Unix operating systems are not seamless desktop end-user type software. Not even 50% of Linux distributions are. So a small minority of Unix-like operating systems that ever were, are actually end-user desktops. But the mindset that regular 'tech-savvy' people have is that Linux = Unix, so if Ubuntu or Mint behave as Windows, other Unices should too.

I'm not trying to belittle anyone or anything, just saying if you came with presumption that FreeBSD will behave like Mint or Ubuntu out of the box, that is completely opposite from reality. In Unix-like world Mint and FreeBSD are in opposite corners. One is seamless end-user Linux desktop, the other is BSD server operating system.
 
I can just add - outside of OP's topic about FreeBSD - on the general subjects of server OS, you need to clearly understand heritage and market of some OS to be able to say this is "basic" or "advanced" over some feature.

For example, FreeBSD has sound but doesn't have graphics, Microsoft Server has graphics but doesn't have sound. To get FreeBSD graphics you must install some packages, to get Microsoft Server sound you need to activate some services and install DirectX.
 
Zare said:
the other is BSD server operating system.
Click to expand...
One correction.
FreeBSD is a "base" OS, not only for servers, but also desktops (adding 3rd party softwares via ports/pkgs) and embedded system (dropping unneeded default parts to fit into quite limited resources).

Even most of recent server components are needed to be installed via ports/pkgs (nginx, apache, ...).

This is why FreeBSD is a base OS. Anyone can customize FreeBSD as one likes.
 
Yeah, to be precise Unix is an integrated development environment that is as good for executing the software as is for writing it on ;) BSD/FreeBSD is no different, if anything we stick to Unix gospel today more than the others.
 
This opens the question of whether Apples are compare to Apples.

Does the OP really run Linux with a full DE on a 1 GB RPi3b?

If so, then FreeBSD can do it, too. Actually IMHO a bit better since I like FreeBSD's paging behavior better.
 
I cannot stop thinking that OP thinks web UI running on RPi to be fully running on RPi, including rendering and displaying on remote PC accessing to it.
 
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