Pretty much all my installations are either i686 server, or virtualised servers on ESX. Would like to start putting some virtualised stuff on bhyve+zfs eventually.
I don't have any desktops running BSD.
Strange choices in the poll seeing as specific hypervisors are given, but a very incomplete list.
I guess I forgot quite a few, but I have limited experience with VMs, I actually wanted to see if other people used Hyper-V, which IMO is kinda retarded not to use since I'm sure Microsoft made sure it's well integrated with the OS (duh), and I'm also sure it makes full use of hardware that's largely designed not exactly
for Microsoft, but a lot, if not most hardware is made to run Microsoft Windows, so running anything else than Hyper-V on Windows just ... yeah, seems really retarded to me... I also don't trust Oracle with its dodgy licensing, its purchase of Sun Microsystems, and after really getting into MySQL, I end-up realizing that Oracle flipped a switch somewhere deep down that would force me to use the licensed version, and too far into it to really be worth learning about a new engine that you realize, at that point, that you should've chosen when you were deciding between MySQL and PostgreSQL...
So yeah, I just wanted to see if other peeps used Hyper-V, but I also wanted to know what kind of perspective I should have when looking at the people on the forum, like, what did people really mean when they were saying "I use FreeBSD"... Interesting results. : )
You are missing a category for dedicated server x86 (32-bit machine): my server is a very compact micro-ATX machine with an Atom CPU. I also have it on an old Thinkpad laptop, which is used to prototype the server. And on a Raspberry Pi (not really running yet, being played with occasionally).
There can't be categories missing when there's an "Other" category. :
-desktop for home and work (and virtualbox with windows desktop )
-server amd64 with 4 windows servers virtualized (screenshot from ssh below, 48 days and counting
)
edit:
desktop: 2 cpu's , one notebook(with ssd disk) and one i386 netbook
server : 1 simple cpu with 8GB of ram and intel core 2 duo micro
:Thumbs Up:
... I'm just going to use the Thanks feature as a Thumbs Up/Reputation/Karma feature... ^_^
1 Raspberry Pi2 (access point only) - FreeBSD 11
1 Raspberry Pi2 (access point / wordpress server) - FreeBSD 11
1 Raspberry Pi2 (general purpose) - FreeBSD 11
1 Odroid C1 (general purpose) - FreeBSD 10
1 AMD-64 Desktop - FreeBSD 10
1 x86 32 bit FreeBSD (text mode troubleshooter) - FreeBSD 10
I guess the Pi's win.
That does seem like a nice setup... I'm looking to upgrade my router soon, from an EA4500 to a GT-AC5300, but I'm also considering using embedded devices like that, and I didn't realize you could both run FreeBSD on a Raspberry Pi, and use it as an access point... I'm probably still going to get the RG-AC5300, though, because it would look good on a pedestal with a little rope around it in the middle of the living room, but also after I have it, it can serve as a benchmark to meet or surpass with my little embedded devices, and cheaper hardware, and if I end-up writing a howto or making a YouTube video on how to build a cheap setup that can beat the RG-AC5300, that's just more impressive, and count, in turn, serve to popularize FreeBSD...
* Server IBM x3500 (2x Xeon, 16GB RAM) - FreeBSD 11 (ZFS, jails, nginx, web app serving)
* Home Server / HTPC (AMD Sempron, 4GB RAM) - FreeBSD 11 (ZFS, jails, Kodi + media server, ZFS backup server, nagios monitoring, custom ports building, temporary multiuser desktop, minecraft...)
* Laptop Toshiba Z30 (i5, 16GB RAM, SSD, Intel Wifi replaced by Atheros WiFi card from ebay) - FreeBSD 11 (ZFS, jails, bhyve, virtualbox, i3 window manager, personal developer / desktop machine)
* KVM SSD VPS wedos.com (1 core, 2GB RAM) - FreeBSD 11 (ZFS, jails, dns server, nginx, small personal + friends web serving, few dev repos...)
Sounds comfy...
It's interesting that there are so many nominations for desktop. I had been under the impression that FreeBSD is mostly used on servers, but that seems wrong. I had always wondered why so many people were asking about XWindows, window managers, graphics cards, and such. They do seem to be the majority.
You know, I haven't been using FreeBSD in a long while precisely because of the desktop. First I got a laptop that had the new graphic chipset that FreeBSD didn't have drivers for, so I was either stuck in console, or VESA 4:3 on a 16:10 display... not fun... then there was the driver, but XWindows is such an antiquated mess that I didn't really feel like it, but now we have drivers, and I don't know if it works but there's Wayland, and either way I feel like I have more energy to attack a custom XWindows installation, so I'm going in again, but it was never really far... like I have BIND9 running an a E4200 router I have here, and stuff... there usually was a similar environment nearby to keep me orientated. : )
My point of view: If I cant trust and rely on FreeBSD on my servers, why should I use something less reliable and flexible on my desktops and laptop?
I also like that I don't have to change my workflow, regardless if I'm working locally on one of my desktops/laptops or remotely on a server. Using the same OS and tools "everywhere" (if possible) IMHO is the most logical way. I sometimes feel kind of alienated when I want to do some "simple task" e.g. like getting some files from or to my phone (Blackberry) to/from my home fileserver and I cannot access a shell to just scp them over... I even still keep my old (rooted) Kindle reader for exactly that reason: I can just ssh into it and grab some files from my ebooks-library on the fileserver instead of having to search for a USB cable, mock around with some proprietary software which is only available for Windows so I first have to set up a VM for it etc pp..
Maybe it boils down to me being lazy - I don't want to fiddle around forever to do something that should only take a few commands and less than 2 minutes of my time. If a common task takes longer, just script and automate it. FreeBSD allows me to be that lazy - so why use something else?
That's also my perspective, but in the past it was so unpleasant to use even things like Enlightenment or Gnome, and look at your neighbor's Windows laptop, or MacBook (especially MacBook *squints*) and it just felt... messy. I just always thought XWindows was
messy, and it wasn't contributing to create an environment from which I felt what I wanted to create, or even output, could stem... I realize, though, maybe it's just because I don't know enough about it... I don't know. Right now I'm just trying to install FreeBSD to configure other servers I need to run that can't run on my router because of space constraints... I also want to freshen-up, and see what's going on in the GUI department, but I'm very comfortable on the console, ... it's cool, and it feels homey. It's like chatting with your computer ^_^
Windows is just so complicated, restrictive, an coercive... Often I want to do things, but I can't because it's too complicated, or I just don't know how, or it needs a bunch of software that's ... uhhh, and you don't want to run it, much less install it, and much less put in a password at any stage because you just don't know what's in it, and much less what it's going to do, and it just looks so dodgy it's unbelievable, but it's the only thing you can use that you're at least sure there's a chance there's no virus in it, and you don't want to pay for something you're just going to use once, or for a simple task you don't want running in the background of your brain while you do other crap, uno?
I do wish I could have FreeBSD running everywhere, even on my phone, and I'm giving it another try at least in a VM, or at least have a machine running it permanently since it's something I seem to always want in my life, but with the Xbox, and Windows 10... it's just so hard to want to move to something else...
I don't think I'm going to have everything FreeBSD for the time being, or even in the near future, but every time I have a technological need, FreeBSD is the first thing to come to mind, even now as I need a high performance router for gaming... I can't imagine getting rid of my Windows desktop right now, it's just so tightly integrated in my environment with the Xbox, and I even got a Lumia 950 a month or so ago to go with the trio I spend most of my waking hours using, but with all that nice-looking stuff in my space, I can ... not easily, because it's too bright, and intricate, but I can definitely envision, or imagine, a second mobile workstation on my desktop that boots into FreeBSD... actually this Dell Precision M6500 would probably be great. It's got a 2.3 GHz Core i7, 16 GB or RAM, (USB 2, 3, eSATA, FireWire, PC card, EC card, SD card, DisplayPort, backlit keyboard, 133 ppi 17" screen, 1 GB ATI FirePro 7820)... It's a
nice machine, but because of the economy, Windows pushing hardware manufacturers, hardware manufacturers pushing Microsoft, people writing shittier code than ever, ... it's sometimes slow running Windows 10, but it's great at running virtual machines! The CPU's got all the extensions, it's a beautiful server! I think if I get an Alienware or something, I'm going to make this one my primary UNIX PC...
Right now, it's just sitting in a little box, and somehow, that could even be cooler than if it was running on a second machine...
I'm still mad they retired the PowerPC, though... I think it's because they were afraid terrorists would use them to crack encryption...
