Free bsd 16

[Matthew45]

I red about all improvements that are planned for version 16 and i am stunned. From easyer installer to Better hardware support and most important are easyer pkg upgrade procedure, and Nvidia drivers auto adaptation..if that were accurate informations, free bsd from version 16 Will def. Become my only choice. The things from keeping me to this system were fiddling with Nvidia setup and upgrades with much manual intervention needed. Os is phenomenal as it is, but with those changes it Will become more desktop focused os, and ultimate choice, both for server and desktop use.

 

[SirDice]

Better hardware support

Every new FreeBSD version has had better hardware support than the previous version.

easyer pkg upgrade procedure

pkg(8) is universal across all supported versions of FreeBSD. But I suspect you actually meant the shift towards pkgbase for OS updates/upgrades instead of freebsd-update(8). Which also works for 14 and 15, you don't have to wait for 16.

were fiddling with Nvidia setup

Nvidia drivers have been working fine for as long as I can remember. Not entirely sure what version I had back then, it's been at least 20 years. Never had any issues setting this up. The modesetting(4) driver via DRM for NVidia is probably what you're getting at. Again, this also works for 14 and 15. There's nothing "new" about it.

 

[Matthew45]

My concern is something Like this:
15.1 → 15.2
↓
upgrade OS
↓
reboot
↓
Will NVIDIA still load?
↓
Will SDDM/KDE start?

 

[SirDice]

Will NVIDIA still load?

"Bare" x11/nvidia-driver, yes (nvidia-modeset). graphics/nvidia-drm might not though, but that depends on how much LinuxKPI will change between 15.1 and 15.2. And if the FreeBSD-ports-kmods repository kinks get ironed out beforehand then even that won't be a problem.

Will SDDM/KDE start?

Depends on the previous, if the graphics driver doesn't work then SDDM/KDE won't magically keep working.

 

[Erichans]

My concern is something Like this:
15.1 → 15.2
[...]

In general: if your system is ZFS on root based, you have definitely more "upgrade-comfort" around: if the upgrade fails and you don't get it to work you have a very comfortable easy fall-back to return to the previous Boot Environment (BE), before the upgrade (in comparison to a fallback to a adequate back-up restore.

If you are using ZFS on root and a package based OS-install, note that you have to create a BE before the upgrade process manually with for example bectl(8). Unfortunately, currently using pkg-upgrade(8) with respect to the FreeBSD-base repository) does not create a BE.

 

[Zare]

upgrade
↓
reboot
↓
Will NVIDIA still load?
↓
Will SDDM/KDE start?

I've changed upgrade OS to just upgrade.
Pkg upgrade and reboot, without pkgbase or touching the OS, is enough to have "no, not guaranteed" result from your workflow.

New nvidia driver can break something, new SDDM or new Plasma components can break something.

Know that we port the Linux stuff. In some cases a nasty bug goes through and it takes a while to be detected and fix (clock bug f.e.). And drivers are much more complex as they go through LinuxKPI kernel translator.

This is why you don't want a graphics boot or a X11 login manager on FreeBSD.

Another reason you don't want it, it is another type of login program for the user session and thus set only on a single vtty per default, so we don't have to "partition" between X11 consoles and text consoles. Without it, all your vttys are clean and can kick into X11 user session from the logged on console session. Thus X11 is way more flexible as a system component without the login manager.

 

[msplsh]

It took me a while to find this https://hackmd.io/@jhb/B1O5Wk9Wzg