Introduce yourself, tell us who you are and why you chose FreeBSD

exorcist said:
There's one thing though, you daemons be careful not to get too close! You may go up in a puff of smoke or return whence you came...
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I am not native English speaker, so that sentence was a bit hard to grasp. What do you mean by that? Too close to what?
 
Many have tried and failed, blamed FreeBSD for it and we sacrificed another virgin penguin to Beastie as they wept.

Best of luck, exorcist.
 
I'm professionally from a devops/system administration background and that world can be somewhat chaotic and frustrating at times (FreeBSD isn't used). On my personal systems (and as a hobbist) I appreciate FreeBSD's simplicity, good documentation, sane design and stability as a refuge.
 
So, I used FreeBSD back in the day in mid 90s to about 2005. At that point I switched to Fedora and then eventually to CentOS for the past 8 years or so. Since CentOS was depreciated recently and I was thinking of upgrading any servers anyway. I figured it was time to return to FreeBSD. So, here I am again. It will take me a while to adjust again; but I am starting with compiling many of the main server software manually. So, crossing my figures that will not be as hard as it used to be...LOL :P
 
xavi said:
I might be being a little pedantic, but I think it might read more idiomatically if 'chose' is used instead of 'choose'.
'Chose' implies past tense, as in already chosen, whereas 'choose' implies currently choosing.
However, ignore me if this was your original intention.
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well we are all constantly choosing repeatedly on the OS we use. Esp. some of us that have several environments that need installations.
 
Hi all, I'm a 3D CG Graphist. Started BSD/Unix in 89 (if i remember correctly). NetBSD/ARM (was named RiscBSD) somewhere between 94/96. After that, end 90, was GNU/Linux which i call "the siren call". Between 2006 and 2010, used FreeBSD on a laptop and GNU/Linux on the workstation. And GNU/Linux until systemd. Tried many distribution without systemd. But it's a real nightmare. New version of software ask for systemd or elogind.
Now i'm a proud user of FreeBSD (13 for compatibility with my new computer) only. Will install 13-release when available on my main SSD.
My computer (AMD ThreadRipper 3960X and Radeon RX 5500) work perfectly (the GFX driver can be enhanced). Blender, my main tool, work perfectly. And it's almost as fast as under Linux OS.
 
Hello, I'm a software developer. I started with FreeBSD after the "great XF86 breakage" on Linux, and I'm a "full-time user" since 11-Release.
I work with research compilers and Lisp (usually R7RS Scheme for embedded systems in critical mission). Features like Jails, BEs and BHyVe really saved my time (and my life), and I'm pretty happy with the system state, nowadays.
 
Argentum said:
I am not native English speaker, so that sentence was a bit hard to grasp. What do you mean by that? Too close to what?
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He was making a joke about being an exorcist and if a Daemon like me got too close to him he would send me back from whence I came. I wished him luck:

root@jigoku:/ #

jigoku is Japanese for Hell. I'm root. ;)
 
TL;DR : I switched from fedora in 2018. FreeBSD just works and is stable.

I started with fedora 24 in 2016, and the OS itself was fine but wifi did not work, so I looked it up and made it work, but then along the way, with updates and upgrades, I always had issues with wifi, and random crashes.
I got tired of it and looked for another OS in 2018 and decided to go with FreeBSD. I was amazed there was no desktop environment out of the box but wifi worked, and it was stable, so I just went through the handbook and the forums and tuned the system to my liking, it took me a week, it was fun and I Iearned a great deal. I became over confident and broke my system because I did not understand well the difference between /etc and /usr/local/etc, once I understood that, I felt like I knew some kind of secret :), So I am very happy with this OS, and never had to ask any question because I read the docs and the forums and I always found an answer or something helpful. So well documented.
The most amazing thing is that this machine never crashed randomly, it was always my fault when it did. I don't think I ever played with another OS that never crashed randomly.
So I decided to post here to say a big thank you to everyone involved in making this OS. I can't really give back cause I don't have this kind of skills, so I just buy some stuff from the store and proudly walk around in FreeBSD branded.
In case someone is interested :
intel core i7 2600k on motherboard asus p8z68VLX from 2011, 16gb of ram, AMD firepro w7100 (amdgpu broke between 12.1 and 12.2 but ah well, it works with mesa for now.. ), 1TB dedicated slow HDD, and a cheap USB wifi dongle : realtek NETGEAR WNA3100M, it has good performance overall and excellent stability.

On my laptop which is one year old : HP pavilion gaming laptop 17-cd0077nf with an intel core i5-9300H and 16GB ram, wifi did not work out of the box with FreeBSD 12 the card is an intel wireless 9560N, but someone had a solution and it worked fine, it now runs FreeBSD 13 beta 3 on a dedicated 500GB Sandisk SSD(no dual boot) and everything except screen brightness works out of the box, even the speakers and their keyboard fn keys. Wifi is slow on this computer, I wish it was as fast as windows average 30MB/S download speed, but really it's stable and that's what is important.
turn-off-gpu.sh is mandatory for the battery life of this computer. I did not even bother trying to make the nvidia card work on this thing as it would not be useful for me. I tuned it and I have an average battery life of 4h30, which is expected, it's a small battery. Performance is really great, it runs very fast and is stable.
 
ikbendeman said:
Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?
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Hello folks,

Completely new to FreeBSD, although my desktop and laptop's running linux since 'bout 1995
Starting with looking to my dad with his ZX Spectrum, then when i was young enough trying RedHat 5.2 which i got through a fancy magazine at the time. Over the years and tears hopping trough most of the known linux distributions, ending earlier this year with (again)vanilla debian.
If you ask me why i did not try BSD earlier, i don't know(linux was getting easier while the time passed and privately i only used the OS for desktop use.).
And now, since a few weeks i'm running FBSD13 beta's on my daily machine, with Mate as DE.
I must say, i'm positively suprised by the overall speed for a desktop user.
In this context i don't use benchmark tools, i only feel it in the fingers and the view from my desktop.
Second, i'm more suprised by the stability and the simplicity.
Mayby it is me, mavbe i'm looking at the PC, an sich, with different eyes then the past years.
The (in my eyes) linux frase "DO ONE THING AND DO IT WELL" , finally i know where that comes from.
Shame on you Paddy ;)
As a desktop user i have no programming skills, other than a few rc and xml files or html 0.1.1 ;) but i'm very willing to learn.

Greetings to all and see you in my next question
or answer ;)
Paddy
 
Welcome twpaddy
I'm a linux user since 1999 i lived the internet revolution on linux , i tried to use freebsd but the bootable cd freezed tried to get help from the forums but the only thing i got was jokes about my bad english ( i don't speak english very well) so i haven't tried again. I have more than a year that i learned more about freebsd it is a very good alternative to linux for sure i love it.
Of course i have a passion with simplicity and thats why i love openbsd , of course the software selection and performance is not like freebsd , but i love it.
If you have any problems we would love to help you , KDE is Great on FreeBSD but of course mate or xfce seems to be faster but KDE is sweet on FreeBSD no problems.
After so many years i want to try something less mainstream and its good to learn new things .
After many FreeBSD installations and trials i think i have perfected it ,i can have sweet desktop on freebsd and openbsd.
FreeBSD has kdenlive ,shotcut,olive,openshot video editors with gpu acceleration enabled they have ported gpu acceleration frameworks .
For development is very good also it has the tools you need.
FreeBSD can run Steam and some games (linux) runs very nicely on FreeBSD
FreeBSD can run many linux applications also
 
debguy said:
Linux is unfortunately totally hacked to become owned by UK who didn't pay to produce it.
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What do you mean by "UK" in this sentence? United Kingdom? I don't see what the United Kingdom has to do with Linux. Linux itself is a kernel and a trademark, which is owned by Linus Torvalds, who is originally from Finland, but has lived on the US west coast for the last ~20 years. No UK there.

debguy said:
RISC was made in USA not CHINA, Dec Alpha (use to have HQ near where I lived - until Bill Clinton and closure).
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RISC has an interesting history. It probably started at IBM research, under John Cocke, on the US east coast; that was part of the IBM "Future Systems" project. The first viable RISC microprocessors came out of what today is called Silicon Valley, two groups spearheaded by John Hennessy of Stanford (MIPS) and Dave Patterson of Berkeley (RISC-V, later became SPARC and inspired ARM). Digital came much later.

The closing of Digital had nothing to do with Bill Clinton, and everything with Ken Olson.

CHINA didn't even make CPU in 1989. Neither did the UK. Fujitsu? Japan and russia made SPARK chips.
I don't actually know when China started making computers or microprocessors. The UK was one of the first countries to have computers, for example the EDSAC in the late 40s or early 50s. They did a lot of ground-breaking stuff in chips and microprocessors too.

The SPARC was designed in California; actually my former manager was the chief architect of it. Fujitsu then invested heavily into turning it into a 64-bit machine (through their subsidiary HAL), but they came significantly later. The Russians cloned the spark (I don't whether with or without license) in the late 90s, much muc later.

debguy said:
yes. that is because it's made in CHINA and they don't share the drivers. they have deals with Microsoft (who is more close to china than you'd think and has HQ there).
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China has nothing to do with non-shared drivers. Those have existed since long before China was a force in computing. Microsoft headquarters are near Seattle, nowhere near China.
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mod3777 said:
I am a student of mathematics. I am familiar to UNIX user-land, it's simplicity, FHS. Linux is way too much fragmented for me. I prefer BSD license philosophy. I also use Windows and macOS casually. FreeBSD for daily usage on desktop. I am learning system programming here (I use jails for that). Very cool OS.
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Try Mathematica. They have excellent deals for students (esp. for Pi running FreeBSD) and the math is unbridled. If I don't say "Maple" Canada might be angry I don't want Canada angry.
 
debguy said:
""Hi all, I'm a 3D CG Graphist. Started BSD/Unix in 89 (if i remember correctly). NetBSD/ARM (was named RiscBSD) somewhere between 94/96.""

NO. RISC was made in USA not CHINA, Dec Alpha (use to have HQ near where I lived - until Bill Clinton and closure). CHINA didn't even make CPU in 1989. Neither did the UK. Fujitsu? Japan and russia made SPARK chips. they were not called ARM. ARM/UK, british, was not making production graphics machines in 89 or 94 if i am correct.
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I do not speak about chinese computer/cpu. Acorn Computer. Ltd (a British company based in Cambridge) created the first ARM CPU in 1985: Acorn Computers. RISC iX, BSD/Unix in 89/90: RISC iX. The first version of NetBSD on Acorn Computers come from 94 and was named RiscBSD: NetBSD/acorn32.
For my 3D CG work, i've mainly used Silicon Graphics, Inc (SGI) workstation (Personal Iris, Indy, Indigo, Indigo 2, O2, Octane, Octane 2 at work). Next i've used Apple Intel Mac (~ 2006). And only Linux since. Now FreeBSD.
 
vigole said:
I can confirm one thing though: this "Introduce yourself ..." thread which I loved, is ruined for good.
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Actually a good point. Perhaps we could filter off some of his "blog posts" into their own section. I am also quite fond of this thread, especially since it often includes loads of history of ancient and interesting platforms people have been migrating from. We don't want others to be scared of posting here in fear of a response of... oddness.
 
i tried to use freebsd but the bootable cd freezed tried to get help from the forums but the only thing i got was jokes about my bad english ( i don't speak english very well) so i haven't tried again.



I'm surprised to hear that and didn't see it happen or it wouldn't have been funny to me, christhegeek. Please accept my apology in place of those of limited English vocabulary not containing one.

This being a community in multi-lingual origin English is preferred but I always try to help people who for English is not their mother tongue. ILUXA translated all the Russian on my watches for me and a friend who lives in the Ukraine I talk to often by email.

"pussyfooting " was a new word for him so I gave examples of it being used properly and provided some words and phrases he might not have heard before.
 
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