Making FreeBSD my primary operating system

[Cedric62]

Well, right now I have a system which dual boots both Ubuntu and Windows 10, but I'm seriously considering ditching both of those operating systems, and going with FreeBSD exclusively. I have kept Windows 10 because I have some pretty good graphics software installed in it, but I can probably achieve most of the same results using Gimp, as I can with the software I have under Windows. Also, I never go online with Windows 10 anymore. I just use it for editing scanned documents, and that is about it. Also, I have been using Ubuntu for a number of years, and for the most part it has been a very stable and reliable operating system, and I'm somewhat hesitant to get rid of it, but if I do keep it, I will probably switch its desktop from KDE to Xfce. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that I want to completely get rid of Windows, but I'm not sure how doing so will affect my partition numbering system?

I have only one NTFS partition for Microsoft Windows, while the rest of the two physical hard drives I have installed in my system are ext4. So, now I have years and years worth of files and documents stored in ext4 partitions, and I'm not sure that FreeBSD will be able to reliably read and write to those documents?

Also, my motherboard has only three sata ports on it, and I installed FreeBSD by unplugging the sata cables from the previously installed hard drives, and then plugging the cable for sata 1 into the drive which now has FreeBSD installed on it. (I left the sata 2 cable going to the Windows hard drive completely unplugged during my FreeBSD experimentation.

So, now the problem seems to be that my Ubuntu installation thinks of itself as /dev/sda1, while FreeBSD sees itself as /dev/ada0p1. This seems like it would make it nearly impossible for me to create a situation in which my desktop is capable of booting both Ubuntu and FreeBSD, because they both consider themselves to reside on the first partition of the first hard drive. But, FreeBSD seems to perform so well, maybe I don't need Ubuntu anymore? Or, if FreeBSD cannot see ext4 partitions, what would happen if I leave Ubuntu in its current spot, and then I put my FreeBSD hard drive in the location previously occupied my Microsoft Windows? Or am I just better off ditching Ubuntu, and having FreeBSD as my sole operating system? Last year I found out the hard way that GRUB could not see my FreeBSD mbr, and now matter what I did, FreeBSD would not appear in my Ubuntu boot menu.

Additionally, I'm not sure what steps I've taken to get here, but at this moment I appear to have a stable reliable installation of FreeBSD running on my system, and Xfce seems to load perfectly each time I log in. Not sure if I should become more confident in FreeBSD before I take the plunge, or if I should just go ahead and do it sooner rather than later.

 

[bda65]

You can use label for your partitions. On Ubuntu you can use easily UUID in place of /dev/sdXY or labels.

 

[lgrant]

After using Adobe Photoshop for 30 years, I switched to GIMP. It is a little clunkier, and I have to retrain my muscle memory, but I can pretty much do anything in GIMP that I could in Photoshop. (I miss some of the Photoshop plugins, though.)

I am in the process of changing from Windows 11 and FreeBSD to just FreeBSD, and what is really nice is that GIMP runs on both (as well as Linux), so from the application point of view, it does not matter which operating system you are using, which makes the transition easier. Same deal with Inkscape (instead of Adobe Illustrator), Scribus (instead of Adobe InDesign), LibreOffice (instead of Microsoft Office), GanttProject (instead of Microsoft Project), LibreCAD (instead of AutoCAD or Draftsight). Oh, and PDF Arranger can do a lot of the functions of Adobe Acrobat.

Although I did get MathType to work under WINE on FreeBSD, I decided that learning LaTeX and using TexWorks (which also runs on FreeBSD, Linux, or Windows) was a more efficient workflow for me.

Someone was asking in another thread about an open-source replacement for Microsoft VSCode. I am currently using Geany for my Fortran coding, and I like it so far. It has a lot of plugins for various languages.

 

[jardows]

My Recommendation:

1. Back up those files to an external drive. Immediately. You are one wrong keystroke, one botched update, one hardware glitch away from losing everything. In my years of doing computer support, I have seen this scenario far too many times. I recommend using an exFAT formatted drive for this purpose. In fact, make two backups - one for the process and one to store in a safe location.

2. Take inventory of the Windows based software you regularly use, and any programs you use on Ubuntu that aren't ported to FreeBSD or do not work well in FreeBSD. Do you need to utilize GPU acceleration with any of them? If not, go to step 3.

3. Does your computer support virtualization? If not, pause, you'll probably need to setup multi-boot like you are doing. Others here are more skilled and experienced than I am for proper setup. If yes, make sure it is enabled in the system BIOS and proceed to step 4.

4. Blow everything away. Setup a FreeBSD only system, configured with all the programs you need. Setup VM's for Windows and Ubuntu - preferably using bhyve, but use QEMU or VirtualBox if you must. Setup RDP on the Ubuntu and Windows system, then use freerdp3 to access the systems for the exclusive programs you use. I have found RDP works much better than VNC. You might also consider setting up Sunshine on the VM's and using the moonlight client on FreeBSD. I personally haven't tried that yet, but I've read some success stories with that configuration.

5. Copy your files back in a good structure in the filesystem so you can have access.

6. Enjoy a much simpler and more reliable computer configuration using an awesome OS!

 

[lgrant]

My Recommendation:

1. Back up those files to an external drive. Immediately. You are one wrong keystroke, one botched update, one hardware glitch away from losing everything. In my years of doing computer support, I have seen this scenario far too many times. I recommend using an exFAT formatted drive for this purpose. In fact, make two backups - one for the process and one to store in a safe location.

2. Take inventory of the Windows based software you regularly use, and any programs you use on Ubuntu that aren't ported to FreeBSD or do not work well in FreeBSD. Do you need to utilize GPU acceleration with any of them? If not, go to step 3.

3. Does your computer support virtualization? If not, pause, you'll probably need to setup multi-boot like you are doing. Others here are more skilled and experienced than I am for proper setup. If yes, make sure it is enabled in the system BIOS and proceed to step 4.

4. Blow everything away. Setup a FreeBSD only system, configured with all the programs you need. Setup VM's for Windows and Ubuntu - preferably using bhyve, but use QEMU or VirtualBox if you must. Setup RDP on the Ubuntu and Windows system, then use freerdp3 to access the systems for the exclusive programs you use. I have found RDP works much better than VNC. You might also consider setting up Sunshine on the VM's and using the moonlight client on FreeBSD. I personally haven't tried that yet, but I've read some success stories with that configuration.

5. Copy your files back in a good structure in the filesystem so you can have access.

6. Enjoy a much simpler and more reliable computer configuration using an awesome OS!

I really like #1. In theory, ext2fs can read ext4 drives, but I have always been nervous about using an operating system to to read (and even worse, to write) another operating system's filesystem. Yes, they say ext2fs can access ext4 filesystems (actually, the man page says "It currently implements most of the features required by ext3 and ext4 file systems. Support for Extended Attributes in ext4 is experimental. Journalling and encryption are currently not supported."), but I always wonder if they got everything right, or did they miss something that will bite me in the butt sometime in the future.

I think exFAT is simple enough that anyone can get it right, so that is a good transfer format.

It could be I am overly paranoid, but I was a systems programmer for an IBM mainframe shop for several years, and then spent several more years as a developer on IBM DB2 backup software, and the mainframe folks take their backups seriously, so that's my mindset.

 

[cracauer@]

I really like #1. In theory, ext2fs can read ext4 drives, but I have always been nervous about using an operating system to to read (and even worse, to write) another operating system's filesystem. Yes, they say ext2fs can access ext4 filesystems (actually, the man page says "It currently implements most of the features required by ext3 and ext4 file systems. Support for Extended Attributes in ext4 is experimental. Journalling and encryption are currently not supported."), but I always wonder if they got everything right, or did they miss something that will bite me in the butt sometime in the future.

I think exFAT is simple enough that anyone can get it right, so that is a good transfer format.

I would rather trust the in-kernel ext2fs than the fuse exFAT. Not to speak of performance.

 

[hedwards]

I definitely agree with labeling the disks using the relevant utilities. I'd also recommend marking the physical disks themselves so that you don't ever screw up that portion of it as well since you seem to have more than one disk.

 

[MG]

You can't boot from a USB drive? That would be problem solved, I think? Watch out with choosing the target disk in the installation program. It has kind of a strange order of actions. Also you might check /etc/fstab after installation to see if it chose the right disk, otherwise you can get a bootloader prompt to choose it from a list. At the next boot, the target USB device may have a different number and can't be found again...

 

[mer]

lgrant Photoshop vs GIMP. Take a look at Darktable. I think it is more like Photoshop than GIMP is.

Labelling disks: Absolutely. FreeBSD gives you different ways of doing this but figure out what works for you and stick to it. For me gpart "-l" (thats dash lowercase L, available on the add and modify commands) works because I do ZFS on partitions and creating labels that have the device serial number (visible on the sticker) make it easier to replace.

 

[lgrant]

lgrant Photoshop vs GIMP. Take a look at Darktable. I think it is more like Photoshop than GIMP is.

I have been meaning to do that. Darktable and Raw Therapee are supposed to be good substitutes for Adobe Lightroom Classic. My photo library is in disarray, so I have not gotten around to looking into them, but I will shortly. Thanks!

 

[msplsh]

You can get the windows 10 bootloader to boot FreeBSD.

 

[Espionage724]

I have only one NTFS partition for Microsoft Windows, while the rest of the two physical hard drives I have installed in my system are ext4. So, now I have years and years worth of files and documents stored in ext4 partitions, and I'm not sure that FreeBSD will be able to reliably read and write to those documents?

FreeBSD can read ext4 (I think write too iirc), but NTFS worked easiest Linux and FreeBSD for read/write. My main NAS drive gets formatted to whatever OS I'm using (full-immersion ), but I rsync it to a spare NTFS drive first and then restore it to the new filesystem later.

NTFS worked fine for me everywhere, even a 2TB USB formatted on Win10 plugged in for read on ancient PPC with OS X 10.4 Tiger I never used exfat, but I'm not sure if it offers a benefit cross-OS over NTFS (maybe SSDs/flash for performance?)

 

[CShell]

Another thought is... Why step on your working Windows and Ubuntu PC?

Instead why not buy an INTEL NUC, "or similar small PC", and install FreeBSD on to that? Then connect your existing, working PC to the INTEL NUC using ethernet cables and a small ethernet gigabit switch -- and walla! You are good to go.

(After) you have installed FreeBSD on to the INTEL NUC (or similar) you can then install TigerVNC on the FreeBSD -- and then run/use "Ubuntu Remmina" (a VNC client) to connect to your INTEL NUC, and render a "completely working FreeBSD XFCE environment" right on to your existing Ubuntu Linux desktop -- just like your were logged into your FreeBSD natively using X/Windows.

This is (how I use FreeBSD) -- as a server. Then you can keep the same monitor, keyboard, disks, etc on "your existing and working" Ubuntu/Windows PC.

On the FreeBSD server you can install ZFS and all of the "other fun FreeBSD stuff" you want to install. You can even use the INTEL NUC to "backup" your other Ubuntu/Windows server using a NAS, SAMBA, NFS, (or whatever) software running on the FreeBSD.

Just a thought...

 

[Cedric62]

FreeBSD can read ext4 (I think write too iirc), but NTFS worked easiest Linux and FreeBSD for read/write. My main NAS drive gets formatted to whatever OS I'm using (full-immersion ), but I rsync it to a spare NTFS drive first and then restore it to the new filesystem later.

NTFS worked fine for me everywhere, even a 2TB USB formatted on Win10 plugged in for read on ancient PPC with OS X 10.4 Tiger I never used exfat, but I'm not sure if it offers a benefit cross-OS over NTFS (maybe SSDs/flash for performance?)

If that is the case, is it then possible to have both ZFS partitions and ext4 or NTFS partitions residing on the same hard drive? I'm guessing probably not?

 

[Cedric62]

Instead why not buy an INTEL NUC, "or similar small PC", and install FreeBSD on to that? Then connect your existing, working PC to the INTEL NUC using ethernet cables and a small ethernet gigabit switch -- and walla! You are good to go.

Unfortunately I'm at a point where I cannot acquire new hardware very easily. Right now my wife is really really sick, so my cash is pretty tied up these days. Ten years ago I probably would have assembled a budget PC just to experiment with FreeBSD, but for now I will have to stick with the equipment I already have. But in a way, being frugal may force me to be more resourceful than I would have been otherwise.

 

[Cedric62]

Another thought is... Why step on your working Windows and Ubuntu PC

I really don't like Windows anymore, and I guess that I'm just bored with Linux.

 

[richardtoohey2]

+1 for a test PC while you learn all this; appreciate that it's not easy financially in your situation but a second-hand PC, or a hand-me-down that you can at least experiment with and gain confidence. Trying to dual boot and having multiple operating systems on one device is doable, but likely to be painful. Make sure you have really good backups of anything valuable.

I've don't think there is one true operating system - they have all pros and cons, good things and bad things, and everything has days that makes "chuck it all out the window" thoughts arise.

 

[Cedric62]

Trying to dual boot and having multiple operating systems on one device is doable, but likely to be painful

Strangely enough, when I first acquired the PC I'm now using, about six years ago, it had Windows 10 and Microsoft Office preinstalled on it. I remember that I had a legitimate license, for both pieces of software, but one day after doing an update to Windows, my copy of Microsoft Office disappeared off of my hard drive. I purchased it from a legitimate computer store, but for some reason Microsoft thought that my copy of Office was not legit. I tried calling them on the phone, but they told me that I would have to purchase another copy of Office, and I just wasn't willing to do that. After that I vowed to never again give those people any more of money. Also, Microsoft Office got removed from my computer during a critical time when I was having to prepare documents for a court case. So, I plugged in another hard drive, installed Ubuntu on it, and within a few hours I had a dual booting machine with LibreOffice installed in it.

For me, creating a dual boot was surprisingly easy, especially considering the amount of other stuff I had going on at the time.

 

[paulw]

Another option might be (instead of buying another pc) would be to get a sata ssd and a sata -to-usb connector, dedicating that whole disk to FreeBSD and effectively using it as an external drive. I've done this myself. Just to add, it's much easier to set up a FreeBSD zfs intstall that way. I have a ufs partition on the internal drive and it's simple enough to boot that via grub. I never found a way to do it with zfs though, which I don't think is really recommended anyway as opposed to using a whole drive.

 

[CShell]

I really don't like Windows anymore, and I guess that I'm just bored with Linux.

Something to think about is that you could end up with a FreeBSD PC that (DOES NOT) have a working UI for awhile. This recently happened to me when the working FreeBSD NVIDIA graphic drivers were "suddenly" updated to something else without warning in pkg and my FreeBSD UI (which was using XFCE) suddenly became a complete disaster. At the moment FreeBSD has a "zero way of undoing problems like this" - and you are suddenly stuck in a not fun place. You will need to get "really familiar" with working at the terminal/command line/CLI. It might take days or weeks or even longer before the "right" pkg(s) are available to address your problem. And that might "never" happen depending on the circumstances.

A "boring" Linux or Windows system still works -- and I would (NOT) put yourself in a position where you are dependent on a FreeBSD desktop in a crunch.

 

[CShell]

but for some reason Microsoft thought that my copy of Office was not legit

Ya in the old days just adding more RAM to your PC, or another hard drive to your PC, or just making any other "normal" hardware upgrades to your PC would invalidate your Windows license. .

 

[bda65]

Another option might be (instead of buying another pc) would be to get a sata ssd and a sata -to-usb connector, dedicating that whole disk to FreeBSD and effectively using it as an external drive. I've done this myself. Just to add, it's much easier to set up a FreeBSD zfs intstall that way. I have a ufs partition on the internal drive and it's simple enough to boot that via grub. I never found a way to do it with zfs though, which I don't think is really recommended anyway as opposed to using a whole drive.

It's what i've made before using only FreeBSD. Arch Linux as main OS and FreeBSD as secondary.
Or you can use a VM. In full screen, i'ts great for learning.