New/Moving to FreeBSD - recommendation required

sny

sny

Hello

Greetings to all!

I am a new member and this is my first post.

I have been thinking for a while to switch out of Mac OSX since the last couple of months. I currently use my MacBook as BYOD in office since the last 7 years (erstwhile Windows) but use Microsoft applications for official use both in browser like Sharepoint as well as Office Suite (only for official work) personally I have switched completely to LibreOffice. Tired of MAC and Apple's recent announcement on ARM based systems.

I am light user on Linux user since many years as a server for NAS related activities. But, since recently I have been interested with FreeBSD and have decided to give a serious try as FreeBSD being a complete OS. This does not mean I am complaining about Linux, but it is just that I am more interested in FreeBSD.

Yesterday, I had decided to pursue going about with FreeBSD and have already ordered an used Laptop - Config as below:
HP Elitebook 840 G3 / Intel Core i7-6600U - 8GB / 256 SSD - Intel 520 Graphics - FHD display - NO OS pre-installed - asked for blank Laptop.
Plan to upgrade the RAM to 16GB and add M2 class SSD, but need to check what it has been configured with firstly. Waiting for delivery.

To start with I have some important questions: (the applications mentioned are BARE Metal for me)
  1. What is the file system I should choose UFS or ZFS? This laptop is planned to be used only with FreeBSD none other. Once setup, this will become my primary machine for personal use and I will be the only one using this laptop as my daily driver.
  2. Which Desktop is recommended and stable in FreeBSD? I am ok with simple light weight once like XFCE, etc. However, will need some enhancements, which I will try first and then come back Incase of issues.
  3. What is the recommended Terminal Application? As I understand that the Root User uses the default terminal of FreeBSD. Prefer support for Bash Scripts.
  4. What is the recommended eMail Application other than ThunderBird. My corporate mail is with MS Exchange and my personal email is on Microsoft 365 (Exchange) & others like gmail. I presently use Apple Mail for personal and MS Outlook for Work. Need Exchange support. Also, it will be nice to have support for Send Later feature as part of the Mail Client.
  5. If for point 3 not Thunderbird, then what is the recommended Calendar and Reminder Application?
  6. I need your recommendation for PDF File, to file forms and sign. I presently use Adobe Acrobat DC which does the job in MAC - this is free version.
  7. I have many external HDDs (WD Passports) which are formatted in HFS+ (OSX):
    • Does FreeBSD support HFS+ Read / Write (without issues)?
    • If I decide to convert and migrate all the HDD's then which filesystem is recommended UFS or ZFS?
  8. I have another machine as NAS configured with Debian 10 Server (Buster) - Headless; used as file server / backup / Plex with EXT4 file system. Should I also convert this to FreeBSD Server and reconfigure everything. If yes with which File System UFS or ZFS. I don't use RAID in any form. There are just two WD RED hard drivers in my Server 4 & 2 TB and 1 another 1TB WD Elements connected to server viz. USB respectively.
I have mentioned only the very basic requirements that I need; I am aware that many applications are available in FreeBSD that I already use in MAC.

Please feel free to add other recommendations, as you deem fit for people like me moving to FreeBSD.

I know I have lot of work to do in setting up the machine they way I need along with your valuable recommendations. I have decide to take this plunge.

Thank you for your valuable time in reading / responding to this message with your recommendations.

Stay healthy & safe.

Cheers, SNY
 
This is the review of your computer model under BSD: https://bsd-hardware.info/?probe=178f304e9d (Summary: your new laptop is good for FreeBSD)

Network, storage and graphics devices in your laptop are supported by FreeBSD. Card reader and Bluetooth are likely not.

Good FreeBSD derivatives with out-of-the-box desktop - NomadBSD, GhostBSD and FuryBSD.
 
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  • The KDE PIM suite (Kontact:KMail/etc.pp. - why is the organizer not named Kalendar?) is very powerful, complete and supports MS Exchange & "send later". IMHO it's a little bit overloaded, but still very user-friendly, like KDE as a whole. Despite that, the cross-module integration is outstanding.
    Years ago I was very pleased with Evolution; I do not know if it's well maintained since then.
    A friend of mine uses ClawsMail for decades now. It's very good and mature. You have plenty of choices... Regarding gmail and such, see this thread for 1€/month alternatives.
  • EDIT: I learned here in the forum that the lumina desktop is still beeing actively developed & maintained. Since it's Qt-based, it might be a reasonable alternative, with config tools apapted better to FreeBSD. All other desktops suffer from Linuxisms, sadly so.
  • FuryBSD is very young. Issues: the system gets copied over from the live system w/ sysutils/cpdup, leaving some junk from the live system in the fresh install image. Despite that, the author claims the system is 100% FreeBSD, i.e. it can be updated w/ freebsd-update(8) etc.pp. Should development stall, you still have FreeBSD.
  • I did not try sysutils/desktop-installer (active, too)
  • My recommendation is ZFS as filesystem; it's very convenient even for the office use-case.
  • To edit PDF: If there's no native PDF editor for FBSD (I do not know; KDE's Okular can edit existing forms, I think most PDF-viewers can), you can use Linux software via FreeBSD's Linuxulator ( sysrc linux_enable=yes)
  • FreeBSD includes a toor user by default. Read backwards. You can assign this user the bash(1) shell. Beware bash had some bugs in the past, there's good reason not to use bash-scripts for critical tasks.
  • On your filesyserver: HDDs are cheap, if you have two, why not mirror them? Your data is valuable, right? You might want to use NAS4Free XigmaNAS or FreeNAS.
    I think both web interfaces are PHP-based, despite my aversion to that (I'd prefer python as a backend) I'm about to give XigmaNAS a try.
    Of course it's possible to maintain a home NAS solely via shell, or e.g. sysutils/webmin.
  • EDIT: sysutils/fusefs-hfsfuse & sysutils/hfsexplorer support HFS+ read-only
 
1) I am still on the fence about using ZFS for personal use. UFS is good but I can see why people want to use ZFS for everything.
2) All of them. It's personal preference.
3) Again, personal preference.
 
Lamia Yes I was refereing to that thread, and my understanding is/was that the OP did succeed with desktop-installer on the 2nd attempt. So I thought he made a mistake on the 1st try, and this port is in principle ok. For shure it might have minor issues, which is normal for a tool to do such a more or less complex task.

drhowarddrfine Yes here, too. But I tried to give arguments that go beyond that, i.e. the functionality a software offers. I can tell about these 3 (KMail, Evolution, ClawsMail) from personal experience, and although I'm biased towards Qt/KDE, I can tell Evolution and ClawsMail are very good products. I can not tell about those I never used...

EDIT The strongest argument for ZFS on a office desktop station is instant snapshots. Hourly (if you want, quarterly) snapshots saved my ass three times in the past. I buried all thoughts of a ZFS light when I realized the amount of RAM a consumer system has doubles aprox. every 4-6 years (?).
 
Thanks to all for your valuable feedback with references. I shall work on these and revert. Thank you again.
 
Snapshot, speed, compression (doubling the capacity of HDD/sdd), security, etc. UFS us also good. Some old machines won't work with ZFS. And there are several others (glusterfs, etc) depending on what needs to be done.
 
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I think you'll have trouble with the PDFs - I'm not aware of anything like Adobe Reader DC on *BSD.

As long as you remember there's no perfect OS you should be OK with FreeBSD - there are going to be hurdles and frustrations (as with any OS and any hardware.) I use Windows, FreeBSD (server/non-X only), OpenBSD, Linux and MacOS and they all have strengths/weaknesses/oddities-that-make-you-want-to-throw-something (not to mention the hardware & software you try and use alongside the OS).
 
To begin with, I have no idea about desktop use. I only use FreeBSD as a server, from the command line.
sny said:
What is the file system I should choose UFS or ZFS?
Click to expand...
ZFS if you have valuable data on the laptop. But note that it will probably be somewhat slower, and use more resources (more RAM). If you have to use UFS, then become much more religious about backups.

I have many external HDDs(WD Passports) which are formatted in HFS+ (OSX). Does FreeBSD support HFS+ Read / Write (without issues)? If I decide to convert and migrate all the HDD's then which filesystem is recommended UFS or ZFS?
Click to expand...
In theory, there is a FUSE-based HFS+ adapter. I have never used it. I would stay clear of any attempt to read a file system using a reverse-engineered non-native driver. For read-only use, you can always try, as long as you check your data really well. Writing is playing with fire.

I have another machine as NAS configured with Debian 10 Server (Buster) - Headless; used as file server / backup / Plex with EXT4 file system. Should I also convert this to FreeBSD Server and reconfigure everything. If yes with which File System UFS or ZFS. I don't use RAID in any form.
Click to expand...
That is mostly personal choice. Some people like to use and administer Linux, others don't. To each their own. I refuse to enter into religious arguments about that. If you move to FreeBSD, I would definitely do ZFS on a server. Matter-of-fact, you can even switch to ZFS on Linux.

On the RAID question: If you don't use RAID, you will have disk failure and data loss, sooner or later. So you absolutely need to use an excellent backup system (which you need even with RAID). Or else you can consider all your data to be transient. One of the beautiful things about ZFS is that it does both file system (with checksums and write-once metadata for safety), and RAID, all in one.
 
Alternative to backups: a 2nd identical NAS machine, and mirror + HAST & CARP. Doubles the costs, though, unless you use refurbished old hardware for that.
 
sny said:
...What is the recommended Terminal Application? As I understand that the Root User uses the default terminal of FreeBSD. Prefer support for Bash Scripts.
Click to expand...
You're confusing terminal emulator applications with the user's default shell. It' unwise to set root's default shell to bash(1) but the default tcsh(1) can be hard to use. My biggest frustration with it is the poor support for output redirection. I've left the default csh, and invoke bash when it makes me too crazy.

I use rxvt(1) as my terminal application, but this is an area ruled by personal preference. Try a few and see which one you like best.

sny said:
What is the recommended eMail Application other than ThunderBird. My corporate mail is with MS Exchange and my personal email is on Microsoft 365 (Exchange) & others like gmail. I presently use Apple Mail for personal and MS Outlook for Work. Need Exchange support. Also, it will be nice to have support for Send Later feature as part of the Mail Client.
Click to expand...
I'm afraid you're stuck with Outlook Web Access or whatever the heck it's called nowadays.

sny said:
I have another machine as NAS configured with Debian 10 Server (Buster) - Headless; used as file server / backup / Plex with EXT4 file system. Should I also convert this to FreeBSD Server and reconfigure everything. If yes with which File System UFS or ZFS. I don't use RAID in any form. There are just two WD RED hard drivers in my Server 4 & 2 TB and 1 another 1TB WD Elements connected to server viz. USB respectively.
Click to expand...
I agree with Ralphbsz here. Stick with Linux if it's working for you. In fact stick with it for a while even if it's not. Change one system at a time to Freebsd and then decide if want to migrate any others.

I also agree with Ralphbsz that you should seriously consider switching to ZFS even if you stick with Linux. The clean separation between filesystem (dataset in ZFS parlance) and volume group (pool in ZFS), means no more fear & loathing when trying to resize a partition. No more worrying about extending or shrinking an ext4 filesystem. No more 1980s moments like "I've rebooted and now I gotta wait a couple of hours while fsck runs on some massive filesystems" or "I've run out of inodes".
 
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thx to Jose now I know what you mean w/ Terminal Application. Stick w/ (t)csh for root, and you can give the toor user (read backwards) the bash(1). You can use toor for daily routine, but do not use bash(1) scripts, only sh(1) scripts.
 
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Jose said:
I'm afraid you're stuck with Outlook Web Access or whatever the heck it's called nowadays.
Click to expand...

For non-standard email protocols from Microsoft, you can use DavMail (http://davmail.sourceforge.net/).

It is basically a proxy between standards like IMAP / SMTP and proprietary crap like OWA and EWS.

Though make sure you log a ticket with the IT services where you work and ensure you use the words "non-standard" when telling them the way they run things are incorrect.
 
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mjollnir said:
thx to Jose now I know what you mean w/ Terminal Application. Stick w/ (t)csh for root, and you can give the toor user (read backwards) the bash(1). You can use toor for daily routine, but do not use bash(1) scripts, only sh(1) scripts.
Click to expand...

sny may later come to like byobu-terminal (Terminal Environment/Terminal User Interface) in its simplest form (with tmux over screen).
You may not need change shell (the terminal app) now. Csh, Tcsh, Sh and Zsh are all cool. And FBSB already use csh as default. There however seems to be a little more interest Zsh for its plugins and many more.
 
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ZFS will eat all of your RAM by default. That makes sense for a file server, but if you want RAM available for other purposes, use UFS2 or set vfs.zfs.arc_max in /boot/loader.conf to put a cap on ZFS memory consumption. I'd give it at least a gig to keep performance reasonable, e.g.:
Code: 
vfs.zfs.arc_max=1024M
https://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSTuningGuide
Do regular backups to a far-away location no matter what filesystem you use. ZFS integrity features are great, but they are not backups. They won't save you from a disk failure.
Shell scripts use the shell in their own shebang line, not the default root shell. You can install any number of shells (bash, ksh, zsh, etc) and use any of them for any script.
PDF editing should mostly work in any full-featured viewer. There are only a few PDF engines shared by most of the dozens of open source viewers. I use qpdfview and it edits most documents fine, though it does choke on some with advanced features.
I usually use Lumina desktop installed via sysutils/desktop-installer. I used XFCE for years, but it was always buggy and often regressed.
Have fun exploring FreeBSD!
 
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outpaddling said:
ZFS will eat all of your RAM by default. [...]
Click to expand...
No. That's a myth - more exactly: misunderstanding. ZFS does not eat RAM, it uses & releases it, once there's memory pressure. E.g reading all files will fill the ARC cache:
% find / -type f -print0 | xargs -0n 1 -I file cat file > /dev/null
% top
[...]
Mem: 632M Active, 2052M Inact, 283M Laundry, 8543M Wired, 276M Free
ARC: 5697M Total, 1511M MFU, 3403M MRU, 417K Anon, 101M Header, 682M Other
4202M Compressed, 7564M Uncompressed, 1.80:1 Ratio
Swap: 16G Total, 16G Free
And when I now start an application e.g. LibreOffice the numbers are
Mem: 874M Active, 2023M Inact, 294M Laundry, 8307M Wired, 292M Free
ARC: 5799M Total, 1400M MFU, 3778M MRU, 161K Anon, 94M Header, 527M Other
4549M Compressed, 7401M Uncompressed, 1.63:1 Ratio
Swap: 16G Total, 16G Free

I have 12G RAM and not expicitely set vfs.zfs.arc_max. The contents of my SSD is much more than 5.5GB.
As long there is free RAM available, the OS buffers & caches make use of it. This is reasonable. Once an application needs memory, the OS buffers & caches step aside. That's how it should be, right? Thus, you might want to tune vfs.zfs.arc_min, not arc_max.
Shell scripts use the shell in their own shebang line, not the default root shell. You can install any number of shells (bash, ksh, zsh, etc) and use any of them for any script.
Click to expand...
Addition: and any shell you like for the toor user.
Concerning vital scripts: answer from Radio Yerevan: In principle, yes. But once you are in a situation like e.g. your libraries got messed up after an upgrade, you can not use these scripts, except the sh(1) scripts because there's a statically linked /rescue/sh ( mv /bin/sh /bin/sh.orig && ln -s /rescue/sh /bin/sh). Besides that, POSIX sh is portable and very mature. Thus, you can write non-vital scripts in any shell dialect as you like, but please stick to POSIX sh for anything you might need in situations like the above, or scripts that fiddle around with basic system. There have bees too many subtle bugs in the more advanced shells, so you take a risk.
EDIT: Or you have no network connection to download your shell on a freshly installed system, or the shell's new version suddenly does not build anymore, or...
 
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mjollnir said:
No. That's a myth - more exactly: misunderstanding. ZFS does not eat RAM, it uses & releases it, once there's memory pressure. E.g reading all files will fill the ARC cache:
% find / -type f -print0 | xargs -0n 1 -I file cat file > /dev/null
% top
[...]
Mem: 632M Active, 2052M Inact, 283M Laundry, 8543M Wired, 276M Free
ARC: 5697M Total, 1511M MFU, 3403M MRU, 417K Anon, 101M Header, 682M Other
4202M Compressed, 7564M Uncompressed, 1.80:1 Ratio
Swap: 16G Total, 16G Free
And when I now start an application e.g. LibreOffice the numbers are
Mem: 874M Active, 2023M Inact, 294M Laundry, 8307M Wired, 292M Free
ARC: 5799M Total, 1400M MFU, 3778M MRU, 161K Anon, 94M Header, 527M Other
4549M Compressed, 7401M Uncompressed, 1.63:1 Ratio
Swap: 16G Total, 16G Free

I have 12G RAM and not expicitely set vfs.zfs.arc_max. The contents of my SSD is much more than 5.5GB.
As long there is free RAM available, the OS buffers & caches make use of it. This is reasonable. Once an application needs memory, the OS buffers & caches step aside. That's how it should be, right? Thus, you might want to tune vfs.zfs.arc_min, not arc_max.

Addition: and any shell you like for the toor user.
Concerning vital scripts: answer from Radio Yerevan: In principle, yes. But once you are in a situation like e.g. your libraries got messed up after an upgrade, you can not use these scripts, except the sh(1) scripts because there's a statically linked /rescue/sh ( mv /bin/sh /bin/sh.orig && ln -s /rescue/sh /bin/sh). Besides that, POSIX sh is portable and very mature. Thus, you can write non-vital scripts in any shell dialect as you like, but please stick to POSIX sh for anything you might need in situations like the above, or scripts that fiddle around with basic system. There have bees too many subtle bugs in the more advanced shells, so you take a risk.
Click to expand...

"Eat" was a figurative term, obviously. The default ARC limit is "all except 1G, or 5/8 of all RAM, whichever is greater" and the ARC is not the only RAM used by ZFS. See https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/zfs-advanced.html. With 12G, you will likely have enough free RAM for libreoffice, but if you have less than about 5G, you'll have only 1G available for all other OS needs and applications, which is not enough for typical use. I've run ZFS on systems with anywhere from 2G to 128G and can confirm that overall system performance is poor on systems with low RAM unless arc_max is set. ARC memory is wired, so ZFS decides when to release it if ever: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Memory. So even on systems with high RAM, you will want to limit the ARC if you have memory-intensive apps to ensure they can allocate the memory they need. I generally just use UFS on system with < 8G unless I see a strong benefit to ZFS features or I'm sure I won't be running anything memory intensive.
 
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The aforementioned page of the handbook states:
  • vfs.zfs.arc_max - [...] However, a lower value should be used if the system will be running any other daemons or processes that may require memory. [...]
  • vfs.zfs.arc_min - Minimum size of the ARC. The default is one half of vfs.zfs.arc_meta_limit. Adjust this value to prevent other applications from pressuring out the entire ARC. This value can be adjusted at runtime with sysctl(8) and can be set in /boot/loader.conf or /etc/sysctl.conf.
While the 1st backs your statement, the 2nd abets mine, i.e. applications cause memory pressure and ZFS acts accordingly by releasing ARC memory. Did you ever try to limit arc_min instead and compare the system's performance? IMHO my advise is more reasonable, since it includes using available RAM in situations where your setup would not use it.
N.B., IMHO arc_min should be computed to to be 1/8 of arc_max, not from arc_meta_limit. A minor flaw.
EDIT: Maybe even tuning another sysctl knob would be more appropriate to cause the kernel's VM and/or ZFS's ARC handling to release buffer & cache memory more aggressively. There must be some place where the kernel computes some kind of measurement of memory pressure; where it decides if memory pressure is low or high. And I guess there's also some kind of hysteresis, i.e. like "memory pressure was high for the last 5 seconds, so let's not use this available RAM now, but maybe later."
 
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What is the file system I should choose UFS or ZFS?
Click to expand...
If you have a reasonable amount of memory (8G), I'd say ZFS. It's very easy to manage and replicate and backup and etc. :)

Which Desktop is recommended and stable in FreeBSD? I am ok with simple light weight once like XFCE, etc.
Click to expand...
XFCE works great with FreeBSD, KDE Plasma is gorgeous and works great, too.

What is the recommended Terminal Application?
Click to expand...
The terminal that comes with your desktop environment is fine, xterm is great. If you mean shell, the default sh is great, people like c-shell (not my thing), and bash works fine for most anything (I'd stick to writing pure sh scripts though), I'm sure any of the available shells will work for normal use.

What is the recommended eMail Application other than ThunderBird. My corporate mail is with MS Exchange and my personal email is on Microsoft 365 (Exchange) & others like gmail.
Click to expand...
Evolution with evolution-ews? Outlook isn't my favorite, but if I have to, I tend to use evolution.

If for point 3 not Thunderbird, then what is the recommended Calendar and Reminder Application?
Click to expand...
The desktop environment PIM tools.

I need your recommendation for PDF File, to file forms and sign. I presently use Adobe Acrobat DC which does the job in MAC - this is free version.
Click to expand...
Evince or the DE pdf reader.

If I decide to convert and migrate all the HDD's then which filesystem is recommended UFS or ZFS?
Click to expand...
It depends, either is great. ZFS is easier to manage, from my perspective, but it uses more memory.

I have another machine as NAS configured with Debian 10 Server (Buster) - Headless; used as file server / backup / Plex with EXT4 file system. Should I also convert this to FreeBSD Server and reconfigure everything.
Click to expand...
Ha! Is it broke? If not, don't fix it :) I recently converted my Mac Pro to FreeBSD and use it to serve TimeMachine backups, SCM, etc. It works great - pure ZFS, automated backups using ZFS send/receive over SSH. It was "painless" meaning that it was the 44th install of FreeBSD on metal for me so when I hit this snag or that snag, I was able to overcome it. Not recommended as a first or second install - maybe a bit ambitious :).

If yes with which File System UFS or ZFS. I don't use RAID in any form. There are just two WD RED hard drivers in my Server 4 & 2 TB and 1 another 1TB WD Elements connected to server viz. USB respectively.
Click to expand...
ZFS, is my personal preference and if you can spare it, mirror the drives. ZFS makes disk management sooooo much easier. I'm sure seasoned sysadmins feel the same way about UFS, but being able to share a single physical drive with multiple virtual disks without too much concern about how much space one is going to need for the different mounts and the ease with which you can create, destroy, mirror, attach, remove, clone, snapshot, etc. makes it my goto filesystem. I started using it in 2012, or thereabouts and after the initial learning curve, have used it ever since. I still occasionally use UFS (mostly in VMS), but I switched completely from Linux to FreeBSD because of it's native, no-nonsense, boot on ZFS, support.

My last words on ZFS will be a brief illustrative vignette... In 2005, I decided to buy a PowerBook G4 Laptop. I was nervous, having always used Windows for my PC. I had been exposed to UNIX in a server environment and wanted to have Unix at home. I bought the laptop and planned out how I would make the switch, oh so carefully, I bought Office for the Mac, found a bunch of file transfer utilities, made sure my old system was working, in case I needed it and started using the new laptop with no little anxiety. Within a week or so, my windows pc was gathering dust in a corner of the office, and within a month it was long forgotten. From that point on, I was a Unix convert. Whenever I would sit down at a Windows PC, I felt angst at all of the missing functionality and even using the keyboard would evoke that frustration. My experience with ZFS is on par with making the Windows to Unix switch. Anytime I have to use another filesystem, I feel hobbled in what I can do. I have to recall all of the painfully learned details of decades of worrying about low level formats, partitions, CHS, LBA, and so on an so forth and it all seems so unnecessarily complex. zpool and zfs, two commands that changed the world :).
 
richardtoohey2 said:
I think you'll have trouble with the PDFs - I'm not aware of anything like Adobe Reader DC on *BSD.

As long as you remember there's no perfect OS you should be OK with FreeBSD - there are going to be hurdles and frustrations (as with any OS and any hardware.) I use Windows, FreeBSD (server/non-X only), OpenBSD, Linux and MacOS and they all have strengths/weaknesses/oddities-that-make-you-want-to-throw-something (not to mention the hardware & software you try and use alongside the OS).
Click to expand...
Fully agree with no caveats....! :)
 
decuser said:
If you have a reasonable amount of memory (8G), I'd say ZFS. It's very easy to manage and replicate and backup and etc. :)


XFCE works great with FreeBSD, KDE Plasma is gorgeous and works great, too.


The terminal that comes with your desktop environment is fine, xterm is great. If you mean shell, the default sh is great, people like c-shell (not my thing), and bash works fine for most anything (I'd stick to writing pure sh scripts though), I'm sure any of the available shells will work for normal use.


Evolution with evolution-ews? Outlook isn't my favorite, but if I have to, I tend to use evolution.


The desktop environment PIM tools.


Evince or the DE pdf reader.


It depends, either is great. ZFS is easier to manage, from my perspective, but it uses more memory.


Ha! Is it broke? If not, don't fix it :) I recently converted my Mac Pro to FreeBSD and use it to serve TimeMachine backups, SCM, etc. It works great - pure ZFS, automated backups using ZFS send/receive over SSH. It was "painless" meaning that it was the 44th install of FreeBSD on metal for me so when I hit this snag or that snag, I was able to overcome it. Not recommended as a first or second install - maybe a bit ambitious :).


ZFS, is my personal preference and if you can spare it, mirror the drives. ZFS makes disk management sooooo much easier. I'm sure seasoned sysadmins feel the same way about UFS, but being able to share a single physical drive with multiple virtual disks without too much concern about how much space one is going to need for the different mounts and the ease with which you can create, destroy, mirror, attach, remove, clone, snapshot, etc. makes it my goto filesystem. I started using it in 2012, or thereabouts and after the initial learning curve, have used it ever since. I still occasionally use UFS (mostly in VMS), but I switched completely from Linux to FreeBSD because of it's native, no-nonsense, boot on ZFS, support.

My last words on ZFS will be a brief illustrative vignette... In 2005, I decided to buy a PowerBook G4 Laptop. I was nervous, having always used Windows for my PC. I had been exposed to UNIX in a server environment and wanted to have Unix at home. I bought the laptop and planned out how I would make the switch, oh so carefully, I bought Office for the Mac, found a bunch of file transfer utilities, made sure my old system was working, in case I needed it and started using the new laptop with no little anxiety. Within a week or so, my windows pc was gathering dust in a corner of the office, and within a month it was long forgotten. From that point on, I was a Unix convert. Whenever I would sit down at a Windows PC, I felt angst at all of the missing functionality and even using the keyboard would evoke that frustration. My experience with ZFS is on par with making the Windows to Unix switch. Anytime I have to use another filesystem, I feel hobbled in what I can do. I have to recall all of the painfully learned details of decades of worrying about low level formats, partitions, CHS, LBA, and so on an so forth and it all seems so unnecessarily complex. zpool and zfs, two commands that changed the world :).
Click to expand...

Thanks for your detailed feedback. Have received the HP Laptop but I have still not configured anything. Was held with other engagements. Hopefully, next week, I will get to start the work on the same. Will keep you all posted on what I am able to configure with my limited knowledge on FreeBSD.

Response in sequence to your feedback/recommendation:
1. I have ZFS in mind to start with ( need to do my home work to learn ZFS)
2. Yes, I will try out KDE Plasma.
3. Terminal I will go with the default.
4. Evolution will try this out.
5. PIM will try this out as well.
6. Good to know we have tools for PDF, will check out on the same.
7. As regards with Migration of HDD's: The reason I raised this item is because my Server is Ext4 as mentioned, but aside from that I have two 2 TB WD USB 3.0 Hard drives which holds my day today back and huge collection of photos from my DSLR (Both RAW & JPEG). Both these drives are on HFS+ file system. The issue is if I decide to settle down with FreeBSD at some point then I would be needing to use these HDDs as well hence it is preferable to have one uniform file system. So for external USB Drivers I am still thinking as what and how this planned and will span out....!
8. My NAS is fully functional in every aspect Debian is very stable and dependable in my experience since the last 6 years. It's only for the uniformity reason I had raised this. Also, I am aware that PLEX is supported on FreeBSD.
9. On your Last Words, I think I may get into a similar position as concluded. Started with DR-DOS / OS2Wrap / Unix then mainstream to Windows 3.1....Windows 7 then junked it for personal use and moved to OS X and then on with OS X. Both for official and personal use now it is on OS X, of course with O365 installed. However, for personal use have fully switched over to Libre Office with some compromise. Now getting feed up of OS X with AppStore and stuff like that.... as I don't use any other applications than the ones mentioned. And, had been using Web based O365, Sharepoint, etc., purposefully to check if I can get out of the dependency on OS X over a period of time as I get used to FreeBSD.

Ofcourse, there is one application MoneyDance which I use regularly it's not available for BSD platforms, but this switch is going to be difficult as even if I find an alternative, migration of close to 11 years data is going to be difficult!! Will have to come to this one later after my bare metal requirements are see to be met with FreeBSD and my getting used to FreeBSD. I guess I will have to live with 2 OSes for the near future (Optimistic Outlook though!).

Thank you all once again for all your valuable feedback.
 
There are some apps in the ports to dael with financials (181). finance/kmymoney is very mature. If your choice is KDE plasma, I'd suggest not to choose Evolution but to use the KDE PIM suite instead. To handle packages, install ports-mgmt/octopkg, and start it with root privileges: right click on the start menu -> edit menu entries -> select octopkg -> start as: root. Good luck!
 
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