How rare am I?

M

Megameneer

Hello everybody,

I am 17 years old and running FreeBSD on my laptop because Linux crashes in very weird ways on this thing. As a "distrohopper", I have used FreeBSD in the past when I was 16. It was a little slow for browsing (but my computer was age-old) and word processing but it worked.

I've heard FreeBSD’s userbase is getting older and older due to the conservative approach. I don't know if that's true, but I've never met anyone who successfully installed FreeBSD on a machine. As a matter of fact, I've never met anyone who knew what FreeBSD was. Now, I am wondering, how rare are 16 year olds that have succesfully installed FreeBSD on a machine?

Cheers,
Dennis
 
Pretty rare, I would think. :)
Leaving out M.S.Windows, after Linux, the most used system for the home user is likely to be FreeBSD, but at what age a user installs it I have no idea.
Welcome aboard.
 
17? Man you are a late bloomer :)

ekaterina.jpeg
 
Don't forget Mac OS X, but I get your point, although I am wondering about the desktop market share of FreeBSD and if that's more than 0,1%. But hey, FreeBSD is (mostly) not build for that goal (I think), yet it still gives a kick to run the same software as the most busiest networks in the world...
 
Yet there are still some people on the Net who are claiming they use FreeBSD for the desktop, although I think they must be rather diehard. Or they experience significantly better performance - I read this once in a GhostBSD review
 
Megameneer said:
Yet there are still some people on the Net who are claiming they use FreeBSD for the desktop, although I think they must be rather diehard. Or they experience significantly better performance - I read this once in a GhostBSD review
Click to expand...

If you know what you're doing you can build your own desktop system using a BSD OS. It's not really for everyone because of the steep learning curve involved. If you're looking for an alternative (to MS Windows) and well supported desktop system your best bet is OS X at the moment.
 
And those iMacs look soooo nice. If you want to have an interior anno 2015, (I think) an iMac will really make the finishing touch. But I don't have the money to buy an iMac or even a cheap-ass Windows laptop. And if I had it, I wouldn't spend it, but save it up for a Burton car (Google that). I am running old PC's (Compaq Presario from 2003) daily and I am happy with it. I can do any homework I need on those things. Linux is my preferred choice but my laptop suffers from capacitor plague and Linux often crashes on it, the harder I let it work, the sooner it crashes. Then it gets into a state of zero activity (even the hard drive stops spinning after 10 seconds) and when I drag my finger over the trackpad, the computer springs back to life but then the WiFi is down. Also, when I don't have a splash screen installed, there is a chance (it occurs so randomly, I just can't determine how big it is) that my screen is black after switching to high resolution console. FreeBSD doesn't seem to have this, although I can't get out of X (can't go to a different terminal and whwn I exit X, the screen turns black)
 
kpa said:
If you know what you're doing you can build your own desktop system using a BSD OS. It's not really for everyone because of the steep learning curve involved. If you're looking for an alternative (to MS Windows) and well supported desktop system your best bet is OS X at the moment.
Click to expand...
And I know what I'm doing. At 17 year old, sitting behind a Fluxbox desktop with XTerm at the top of the menu. And XTerm is there not for nothing: I apply my command-line swag on it a lot during the day.

Little will achieve so many swag points at such a low age;)
 
Megameneer said:
Little will achieve so many swag points at such a low age;)
Click to expand...

"And, as a general rule, it is more advisable to show your intelligence by saying nothing than by speaking out; for silence is a matter of prudence, whilst speech has something in it of vanity. The opportunities for displaying the one or the other quality occur equally often; but the fleeting satisfaction afforded by speech is often preferred to the permanent advantage secured by silence"
Arthur Schopenhauer​

"Enemies of truth. Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Friedrich Nietzsche​

Never overestimate yourself.
 
A computer and an operating system are tools. The system administrator is a tradesman, not an artist. Be effective. Save the swagger for something else.
 
The main reason why I am using FreeBSD is because it is the best option for my computer: Windows is too slow and Linux crashes too often. The second reason is because using Unix is fun, and making old computers usable is fun too. It’s a hobby for me and I am good at it, that’s what I mean with swag. I am living a happy life because when I am doing things for school on my computer (and that’s very often), I am doing my hobby too. I don’t run FreeBSD to be “interesting”. Most people just don’t care about what operating system you run.
 
FreeBSD has a very small share--however, so does Linux when one counts all desktops in use. It can be more work than Linux, but so much depends upon what an individual wants (and has in the way of hardware) that it's impossible to make blanket statements.

It can be aggravating to buy a refurbished laptop at a good price from Newegg and then find, when you get it, that FreeBSD doesn't support the wireless card. (BTW folks, if you're looking at that Lenovo L420 at NewEgg for $249, the wireless card isn't supported.) :-( But I digress.

Seriously it seems to me that what I read years and years ago in a discussion of mutt vs. pine still holds--people look for all sorts of technical reasons to justify what is in the end an emtional one. For whatever reason, some O/S or another appeals to an individual.

TL;DR
You're not that unique, but not that common in your choice of systems.
 
Of course you are strange one, because all smart young people use and develop Linux. May be OpenBSD too. Sadly, you have no choice because of capacitators...
 
Megameneer said:
I've heard FreeBSD’s userbase is getting older and older due to the conservative approach.
Click to expand...
I don't think FreeBSD's conservative approach has anything to do with that.

I don't know if that's true, but I've never met anyone who successfully installed FreeBSD on a machine. As a matter of fact, I've never met anyone who knew what FreeBSD was. Now, I am wondering, how rare are 16 year olds that have succesfully installed FreeBSD on a machine?
Click to expand...
Don't worry too much about it. I'm 43 and have been working in IT for at least 20 years. The last decade I've been working for a contracting company specializing in UNIX and UNIX-like systems and even I don't meet a lot of people that know what FreeBSD is.
 
scottro said:
technical reasons to justify what is in the end an emtional one
Click to expand...
That seems to be very common in the Linux world: the buzzing off of other operating systems. . The BSDs are way more tolerant. And I'm glad with that, because I'm fed up with things like vim vs emacs and all that. I think everything has its niche and people should be respected for their choices.
 
SirDice said:
The last decade I've been working for a contracting company specializing in UNIX and UNIX-like systems and even I don't meet a lot of people that know what FreeBSD is.
Click to expand...
Your certainly not the first professional I've heard say that, and I personally find it very surprising given the relevant importance BSD had in the creation of the Internet. One would think more technology professionals would at least know what it is even if they've never used it.
 
Megameneer said:
I didn't know FreeBSD was that infamous...
Click to expand...

It's not really that. The problem with FreeBSD is that it missed the boat at the very beginning when open source OSes came on the scene because of the famous lawsuit that held off the development until the lawsuit was settled. Linux for example was written from the ground up around the same time and got a considerable headstart and overtook the competing open source efforts including FreeBSD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USL_v._BSDi
 
BTW, I should add (in case there _are_ people looking at that Thinkpad) that the very inexpensive Edimax USB wireless thing works. But, that is part of the price paid for using a less common O/S. And, if you like the O/S for whatever reason, you can almost always get it working with a bit of effort. In the same way, Linux users go to that extra effort to avoid Windows. (I guess Mac users do too--I remember some program my wife wanted that wasn't available for Apple, though that was at least a year ago.)
 
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