FreeBSD as desktop

JazzSinatra

JazzSinatra

I have used FreeBSD in my server about one year now. Couple of weeks ago I bought new hard drive to my desktop computer and installed Fedora Linux on it as a primary OS. Today I started to wonder, because I really like FreeBSD, should I switch Fedora to FreeBSD?

Software what I mainly use and what I do with my desktop computer:

  • Web browsing
  • Libre office
  • Steam (I like to game both on Windows 10 and Fedora)
  • LaTeX
  • Sometimes CAD softwares (although mostly in Windows 10, because of proprietary software)
  • Evolution
  • Clementine
  • Spotify
  • Programming
  • VLC
My hardware:
  • CPU Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 4x 3.40GHz
  • VGA 8192MB Gigabyte Radeon R9 390 G1 Gaming
  • MB Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H Intel Z97
  • DDR3 16GB (2x 8192MB) HyperX FURY
  • 3 Tb hard drive
  • 2 Tb hard drive
I also have Windows 10 on SSD as secondary Os.

Would I lose anything if I would switch to FreeBSD from Fedora Linux?
 
The only thing you may loose is the running CAD software, since the Linux compatibility layer doesn't always work for proprietary stuff.
The good thing is that you can run Windows in bhyve(8) in the base system, you don't need to install any extra software.
Regarding the Programming: it depends what you need, e.g. if you want to cross-compile Linux programs for, let's say, ARM, it, most likely, won't work.
But again, you can run a fully functional Linux in bhyve(8).

[EDIT] I don't know much about games...
 
aragats said:
The only thing you may loose is the running CAD software, since the Linux compatibility layer doesn't always work for proprietary stuff.
The good thing is that you can run Windows in bhyve(8) in the base system, you don't need to install any extra software.
Regarding the Programming: it depends what you need, e.g. if you want to cross-compile Linux programs for, let's say, ARM, it, most likely, won't work.
But again, you can run a fully functional Linux in bhyve(8).

[EDIT] I don't know much about games...
Click to expand...
Excuse me. I was little bit inaccurate. Most CAD programs like SolidWorks are Windows only without realistic hope to work even with wine and there are not really good open source CAD software. Not even mediocre. I sometimes run FreeCAD for learning purpose, but it is really, really bad compared to proprietary.

I'm actually going to program something for ARM based embedded systems (nodemcu) so that could be a problem?
 
I think all open-source compilers are available in FreeBSD, shouldn't be a problem.
Also, you can always install FreeBSD in VirtualBox to play with.
 
aragats said:
I think all open-source compilers are available in FreeBSD, shouldn't be a problem.
Also, you can always install FreeBSD in VirtualBox to play with.
Click to expand...
So, there isn't probably any problems if I switch from Fedora to FreeBSD. I have heard that there are some issues with AMD GPUs. Bad drivers? Is this true? Mine is Radeon R9 390. It's 2015 model.
 
JazzSinatra said:
So, there isn't probably any problems if I switch from Fedora to FreeBSD. I have heard that there are some issues with AMD GPUs. Bad drivers? Is this true? Mine is Radeon R9 390. It's 2015 model.
Click to expand...
Yeah... that could be a problem. Officially Rx models are not even mentioned here.
Probably somebody on the forum can shed more light on this, I haven't dealt with AMD GPU for more that 10 years.
 
I think your only issue is your radeon card and cad, as mentioned already in the thread. Radeon support is comically bad.
My intel HD 4000 something does better on freebsd than my radeon hd 5670, even for games.

but off topic: one thing you definitely need to do on your freebsd workstation is this ...

Code: 
sysctl kern.sched.preempt_thresh=224
 
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