FreeBSD as the only operating system for you

FreeBSD is my main box at home but I do have a *doze laptop when I run into compatibility issues and I happen to Need It Now™. But I also do a ton of outsourced systems operations / security work and I've never been a huge believer in choosing the job for the tool-- I'd rather pick the right tool for the job and sometimes that means using *doze devices when working with an MS shop, or using Linux for clients that prefer certain COTS server software that just isn't ported to FreeBSD for whatever reason. But I've done pretty well at having all of my own servers in the datacenter running FreeBSD when I can.
 
I replied on this thread when it was new but I'm now running FreeBSD 13.2, latest GhostBSD and OpenBSD as well. The GhostBSD machine has it installed because I was testing something..install media maybe..I don't remember. But when I realized it was just FreeBSD with a theme and some autoconf scripts I just left it on the machine. Haha and I'm using OpenBSD on an atom machine that needs the 32bit efi in order to boot.

EDIT: I just remembered what I was testing. It was wifi dongles. There's no difference in supported devices that I could find. But I just left the install on there and continued the customizing where they left off. Got it dark themed and lato regular system fonts and some librewolf browser action going on. 😄
 
meine said:
I'm glad to be only responsible for my FreeBSD box. Yesterday's upgrade to 13.2 just worked and was only triggered by me. No prior unanticipated drop in performance 'because an update was waiting' [/rant]
This morning however, the redmondisized boss box barfed again -- 'hard error'

Very Hard

View attachment 16223
Click to expand...
My... never knew such type of error existed :D
 
meine said:
I'm glad to be only responsible for my FreeBSD box. Yesterday's upgrade to 13.2 just worked and was only triggered by me. No prior unanticipated drop in performance 'because an update was waiting' [/rant]
This morning however, the redmondisized boss box barfed again -- 'hard error'

Very Hard

View attachment 16223
Click to expand...
Hard error, as apposed to a soft error? That is a new one for me.
 
  • Thanks
Reactions: dnb
I have a X1 Carbon Gen10, long time FreeBSD user. Went from FreeBSD to Ubuntu, to Fedora, to Arch, to Void Linux and now I'm back on FreeBSD. Everything else just feels "gross". The only thing I miss are appImages. And for some reason the audio on this device doesn't play with with the mixer. But man it feels good to be on FreeBSD. The all in one core os just feels so much better than Linux.
 
I do all my real dev on Debian Linux, am sometimes forced to use a locked down windoze craptop to access company infrastructure resources, but am playing with freeBSD as a potential for more focused embedded systems...not seeing much support for embedded BSD though so it may turn out to be a fools errand. Tried to use freeBSD as a workstation OS, but too many things it doesn't support, so I'm moving it back to a VM for when I need to test something out the BSD way.
 
  • Thanks
Reactions: dnb
  • FreeBSD on a remote rack-mount server,
  • NomadBSD live on a portable USB stick,
  • NomadBSD on a home desktop laptop.
I am not a programmer, I do not play games, and retired from a small business. The main job now is a scientific research (historical grammar), so my server runs for WWW publishing and community needs (Cyrus, Hiawatha, Nextcloud, Textpattern). I am new to FreeBSD (and to Unix environment) — it is not even a year since I have been here.

My laptop has two internal hard disk drives, the second of which I rarely run MS Windows 10 on.
 
Well, FreeBSD && Windows, and i also have a old mac with 10.8.5, i love FreeBSD, but i have a kid who wants to play LOL on windows:D:D:D:D
 
  • Thanks
Reactions: dnb
I ran a lot of Linux in the past. These days the Desktop is GhostBSD ( need to move to FreeBSD at some point ). I also have a Raspberry with Raspberian os ( Debian ) to host my Federation software. Works nicely.
We do have a chromebook, older one, that I plan to root ( stupid thing is locked ) so I can install some kind of BSD on it.
 
hansw said:
I ran a lot of Linux in the past. These days the Desktop is GhostBSD ( need to move to FreeBSD at some point ). I also have a Raspberry with Raspberian os ( Debian ) to host my Federation software. Works nicely.
We do have a chromebook, older one, that I plan to root ( stupid thing is locked ) so I can install some kind of BSD on it.
Click to expand...
I have a chromebook with FreeBSD. The only issue is having to use a USB soundcard since the internal isn't working with FreeBSD.
 
hansw said:
These days the Desktop is GhostBSD ( need to move to FreeBSD at some point ).
Click to expand...
In theory should be a simple lift. My understanding of GhostBSD is that is has a good set of detection scripts (especially around video hardware) plus other scripts to configure. A lot of effort to get there, but one should be able to replicate the effort on a pure FreeBSD system.
Look at package lists after an install, look at /etc/*.conf files, look at sysctls, /boot/loader.conf.

My opinion:
Projects like GhostBSD, I can see them being a port/package, upon install asking the right questions, pulling in the dependencies, configuring the right things.
Easy for me to say, not so easy/trivial for someone else to do.
 
I'd just like to point out that Linux is NOT an operating system the way FreeBSD is. It's basically a kernel bundled by various vendors with sundry apps and various pkg managers into some sort of distro. FreeBSD is clean and elegant especially the way the base system is split off from applications, and there is so much included in the base, unlike various 'Linuxes' which constantly require various additions to do the simplest of things using sundry repositories or 'mirrors'. After trying to install various Linuxes which keep end up with a lot of hair pulling, it a relief to boot up FreeBSD.
 
hansw said:
Good to know. This is an older one ( I think an R11 ). Might try it in a few weeks
Click to expand...
Google has a guide that I used a long with other guides. It's a real mess getting another os installed but it's not too terrible. There are key combos you press to unlock a Linux terminal and other weird steps. In some cases there is a physical switch on the hardware that needs to be flipped. There are many guides across the internet. In my case it took several steps from various guides before I could even boot from a USB drive to install FreeBSD. It can be a chore.
 
LibreQuest said:
Google has a guide that I used a long with other guides. It's a real mess getting another os installed but it's not too terrible. There are key combos you press to unlock a Linux terminal and other weird steps. In some cases there is a physical switch on the hardware that needs to be flipped. There are many guides across the internet. In my case it took several steps from various guides before I could even boot from a USB drive to install FreeBSD. It can be a chore.
Click to expand...

I know I need to remove a screw internally since it locked the booting process. Already running Linux on it. I think it is core boot, but I will see
 
FreeBSD is not my only operating system because..
- steam and gaming
- my laptop is so fancy with led lighting. FreeBSD wouldn't support that, I think.
- commercial windows-only software (e.g. beA which is required by law, for sending documents to German courts)

But I still loooooooooooove FreeBSD :)
FreeBSD is fully sufficient for watching twitch, youtube, and xxx.
 
George said:
FreeBSD is not my only operating system because..
- steam and gaming
- my laptop is so fancy with led lighting. FreeBSD wouldn't support that, I think.
- commercial windows-only software (e.g. beA which is required by law, for sending documents to German courts)

But I still loooooooooooove FreeBSD :)
FreeBSD is fully sufficient for watching twitch, youtube, and xxx.
Click to expand...
OpenRGB works very well and may provide support for your onboard RGB. If you try it and it works that would be really cool.

And all my steam titles are so far supported. Though I do have to use both the linuxulator and Suyimazu. But they run parallel just fine.
 
LibreQuest said:
OpenRGB works very well and may provide support for your onboard RGB. If you try it and it works that would be really cool.

And all my steam titles are so far supported. Though I do have to use both the linuxulator and Suyimazu. But they run parallel just fine.
Click to expand...
After testing my entire steam library I did have about 50 unsupported titles. I just saw this old post and wanted to update it.
 
FreeBSD only..in my work the servers are FreeBSD,Linux and Windows, so..ssh and rdesktop , and a windows7 virtual machine with virtualbox, nothing more
I have vlc,audacious,firefox,pcmanfm..dont need more
Not long ago I have made a windows7 baremetal machine for games..but now is gone 🤣
 
dnb said:
Is FreeBSD the only operating system you use?
Click to expand...

No.

On real computers devices I also use Android, Apple iPadOS and macOS (Mac OS X), Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 11 on the horizon.

In Oracle VirtualBox I have a variety of other OSes, including GhostBSD and Linux.

Tell me, what system do you use in dual boot with FreeBSD and why?
Click to expand...

On computers that normally run Windows, I rarely boot FreeBSD because Secure Boot is enabled.

<https://wiki.freebsd.org/SecureBoot>

Are you forced to use Linux distributions to make money?
Click to expand...

No.

Could you be uncompromising and abandon systems other than FreeBSD?
Click to expand...

No.

iPadOS is a convenience.

Essentials include Citrix Workspace, and a provided VPN solution. Neither one is possible with FreeBSD. Related:

Have you thought about refusing to use some feature if it's not supported by FreeBSD? …
Click to expand...

Not really.
 
At work I use a Windows Dell laptop and connect to various Linux servers for development and testing. I can't imagine using FreeBSD at work.

At home I have a MacBook (with macOS), two old workstations, one with Solaris 11.3 and the other multiboot FreeeBSD 14.0 Fedora 38 and Windows 10 (mostly runs FreeBSD). And lastly a Raspberry Pi, again mostly FreeBSD but occasionally Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi OS.
 
SirDice said:
… quite a bit of Sun Solaris but most companies nowadays have all mostly switched to Linux. …
Click to expand...

<https://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/FTSE_100?orderby=os_name&pageoff=50> for the period beginning 07:54 yesterday, Netcraft suggests just one FSTE 100 company using Solaris 9/10:

1711700991281.png

I wondered whether it might be a candidate for approach by the FreeBSD Enterprise Working Group. Sadly not. On closer inspection, the measurement of 100% failed requests is consistent with the site disappearing a few years ago (RECOMMENDED ALL-SHARE ACQUISITION OF FRIENDS LIFE GROUP LIMITED BY AVIVA PLC in 2014; Friends Life is now part of the Aviva Group in 2016; and so on).

Paul Floyd said:
𠉥… I can't imagine using FreeBSD at work. …
Click to expand...

Amongst thousands of members of staff, I'm possibly/probably the sole end user of FreeBSD.

Connection to secure network infrastructure was encouraged, when I last aimed to do so it was unreasonably difficult with FreeBSD (please, no argument about this). I'll retry in the future, in the meantime my use of alternative infrastructure is conscientious (with fairly secure remote connections to Windows 10 devices that are within the secure infrastructure, and so on).

Touch wood, never any complaint about my maverick choice of primary operating system. Possibly partly because there's a long history of me taking responsible private and public approaches to security issues (a recent report from me to be used as a case study). More likely because my use of FreeBSD is not a significant hindrance …

grahamperrin said:
… Web-based systems are quite a godsend. …
Click to expand...

… Microsoft Entra, Microsoft Intune, and so on.

There's evaluation of a system to complement what's impossible with Microsoft Configuration Manager, which we still loosely refer to as MECM. Both systems require Windows.

Standard disclaimer: all views are my own and not those of my employer, et cetera.
 
I've had an on-again/off-again relationship with FreeBSD. I'm currently running 14.0 on a spare laptop, and I think I finally have it working correctly. Mostly. But Linux (I use Void on my main machine) works really well, and it would be tough to replace it. For example, I need Mixxx DJ software for my radio work, and until it works on FreeBSD I'm staying with Void as my main machine. Besides... there's nothing wrong with it :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top