Switching back from Debian/kFreeBSD

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sysliquid

I used Debian/kFreeBSD for about 6 months and finally just built a new FreeBSD 9 workstation instead. My experience with Debian/kFreeBSD was nice enough, but I think I (for some screwed up reason) missed having to put more effort into my workstation and actually have been really happy with switching back.

Anyone have any 'good' experiences with FreeBSD derivatives? I've found Debian/kFreeBSD was the only derivative to ever really have any decent structure or class to it, but I was curious if there are any others out there that anyone would recommend to try and why.
 
I don't have any experiences but I am curious to know since you used it for so long:

  1. What are the differences?
  2. Is there any advantage to using it over just FreeBSD, in other words do you have access to Linux apps that will not run or compile on plain FreeBSD?

I thought I have more but that is it, I still don't get the idea of FreeBSD kernel and GNU userland.
 
roddierod said:
1) What are the differences?
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A lot of configuration is handled differently. For instance, you don't use rc.conf and other staples the same way. It truly feels like the debian default filesystem transplanted right on top of the BSD kernel.

Seems like they significantly modified the init system to coax the kernel towards a more Linux-like approach to starting and configuring the system. I really don't know if that's better or worse, but I wont go into details since I never dug hard into it.

roddierod said:
2) Is there any advantage to using it over just FreeBSD, in other words do you have access to Linux apps that will not run or compile on plain FreeBSD?
Click to expand...

DPKG will make your life a lot easier, and is really quite nice for a basic workstation that you don't want to do a lot of compiling or configuring for.

I didn't find a single piece of software that I couldn't have installed and run fine on FreeBSD 9 with Linux emulation, so in that regard they are the same. However, DPKG being what it is, it seems a lot 'cleaner & simpler' with BSDebian.
 
Thanks.

I originally came to FreeBSD from Debian, but that was near 15 years ago now. I never liked DPKG, but it has probably changed a lot in the time since I've used it. Anyway, thanks for sharing.
 
Debian's GNU/kFreeBSD isn't a derivative. It uses the FreeBSD kernel and that's pretty much where the comparison ends.
 
IOW, userland and configuration and whatnot are GNU based, hence a SysV-based system with a FreeBSD kernel. I can see where the FreeBSD kernel could be an advantage, but as I'm sure many of us FreeBSD longtime users have found, BSD-style configuration and command switches are different and for my purposes preferable. Still, for someone who uses RHEL or another Linux at work, it might be simpler. Personally, I just enjoy FreeBSD at home and for anything I build and run and learn the Linux differences for work as well.
 
zer0sig said:
IOW, userland and configuration and whatnot are GNU based, hence a SysV-based system with a FreeBSD kernel. I can see where the FreeBSD kernel could be an advantage, but as I'm sure many of us FreeBSD longtime users have found, BSD-style configuration and command switches are different and for my purposes preferable. Still, for someone who uses RHEL or another Linux at work, it might be simpler. Personally, I just enjoy FreeBSD at home and for anything I build and run and learn the Linux differences for work as well.
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I wouldn't want to either. I guess it allows a transition for the other OS users to play with jails, pf (et al).

I ran something called gentoo prefix years ago on my OSX box, which is a mixture of BSD and GNU utilities. I like gentoo's emerge command. It does a $USER $HOME dir environment hack where it turns OSX into a complete GNU world though. After playing with it I took it off as I really wanted just the emerge command. Homebrew seems to work well enough with the same non-root user ports manager without the overhead.

Ah the toys we like to play with.
 
I'm not sure if Debian's GNU/kfreebsd should really be considered a FreeBSD derivative. The kernel is the same, but the userland is entirely GNU. It's an interesting project and I tried it briefly, but I basically found it was nearly identical to using Debian's GNU/Linux, but without support for my wireless card.

On the subject of FreeBSD based projects, I have tried and enjoyed GhostBSD and PC-BSD. The former is quite light, has a nice approach to package management and implements a GNOME 2 desktop well. PC-BSD feels more polished and has some really nice features like PBI packages and a desktop independent control panel.
 
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