FreeBSD and TrueOS

I was trying out TrueOS a few weeks ago and one thing that really stood out to me was that I HAD to reboot after installing/updating some. I can't recall exactly which packages but I know it shocked the hell out of me.

The OpenRC system is very noticeable on booting as soon as the dmesg starts scrolling you know something is completely different than FreeBSD boot, but the interaction via the command line is still pretty much the same. At least from my limited testing. You still use commands like service [I]service_name [/I]restart.

Honestly after a week of using TrueOS I didn't like it at all, it seems that different to me. And I don't even want to talk about their forums...when my little ponies started walking across my screens I was effectively done with them.

Other people experiences may be different, but I have been using FreeBSD as a desktop for close to 18 years so I might have come at TrueOS from a different perspective.
 
I believe the TrueOS installer also only allows ZFS for storage, which significantly increases its minimum system requirements.
 
balanga said:
Can anyone tell me how TrueOS differs from FreeBSD? Is it basically FreeBSD with a preconfigured Desktop Environment?
Click to expand...
Why not simply check their website? It's all there.

So they base themselves of FreeBSD-CURRENT.. I suppose they could have good programmers and such working for them, but for me this would be a very compelling reason not to use it to be honest. I understand the urge for "bleeding edge" in some cases, but still consider it a bit awkward to base your OS on an unstable environment to begin with.
 
TrueOS is FreeBSD with a few key changes:
1) Rolling release of FreeBSD-Current
1-NOTE) 2 pkg repos, "STABLE" gets updated every couple weeks to a month, "UNSTABLE" gets updated much more frequently.
2) ZFS-only (for base system at least - you can use UFS elsewhere as needed)
3) OpenRC is used instead of the current FreeBSD RC.
4) LibreSSL-only (OpenSSL is still in ports/packages as needed). All pkgs are built against the ports-version of LibreSSL.
5) No compiler in base system. Need to install llvm from pkg before doing compiles locally (llvm40 is the default version setup in /usr/bin/cc right now)
6) pkg-base: No freebsd-update anymore.
7) pc-updatemanager for all updates:
- Ensures all updates are performed in a new boot environment (for security in a rolling-release model)
- Ensures that all pkgs (both "base" and "ports") are always in sync with regards to ABI compatibility (needed for tracking FreeBSD -Current)
 
Is it just me? Or does this feel a lot like Fedora. :-)
BTW I didn't intend this in a disparaging way. I just couldn't help but notice how much it looked like:
RedHat/Fedora
vs
FreeBSD/TrueOS

--Chris
 
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