Why did you choose to stay with FreeBSD?

pprocacci said:
Audio and Text work. Video is broken. The skype port doesn't see /dev/video0 (via webcamd).
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Probably not the place to troubleshoot this, but my first guess is that a second devfs instance needs to be mounted at /usr/compat/linux/dev.
 
aragon said:
Probably not the place to troubleshoot this, but my first guess is that a second devfs instance needs to be mounted at /usr/compat/linux/dev.
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I agree, and this'll be my last comment regarding the matter. An instance was there, but still didn't work. I'm in the middle of giving PC-BSD a whirl considering piggy claims that it worked. Assuming it does work in PC-BSD, I will then try FreeBSD to get it working in there. Cheers everyone! Sorry for the thread hijacking.
 
I suppose you could say that I'm not _technically_ using FreeBSD, but rather, PCBSD -- although I have stripped out a lot of the stuff that comes with PCBSD (such as KDE) and custmoized userland stuff quite a bit. Anyway, the reason I am staying with PC/FreeBSD is the same reason I moved to PC/FreeBSD in the first place: stability. There was a major bug with the xorg-vide-intel driver and/or Linux kernel that seems to be extremely widespread across distributions, and which causes X to either freeze, or crash at ostensibly 'random' intervals (see: link. After suffering with this problem for months without a fix being released (nor was I able to fix it myself, despite trying dozens of solutions/workarounds), I decided to make the transition to BSD.

I was a little intimidated at first, because I only have one machine and I was afraid of being dumped at the console without X or an internet connection post-setup, and that is why I opted for PCBSD instead of FreeBSD. Despite a few hiccups encountered along the way, I found that PC/FreeBSD was generally _much_ more stable than Ubuntu ever had been, and that most things 'just work[ed]', and where they didn't, it was almost invariably due to my not configuring them correctly. Most importantly, the bug described in the above was gone, and I was able to resume my work without being constantly interrupted by X deciding to crash/freeze.

But it isn't just stability... I _really_ love the ports system, and the beautiful integration of core components in the FreeBSD base system. As a long-time user of 'apt', it's so nice to be able to actually choose how I want a particular application to be configured, rather than being stuck with the not-always-satisfactory selections made by the Ubuntu/Debian packagers (e.g: not enabling 256 color support for rxvt). It also seems to be a lot kinder on my old hardware, but I haven't performed any benchmarks to confirm this, so that remains a purely subjective observation at this point.

Another big advantage for me is that setting up my system the way that I want it under PC/FreeBSD has meant that I've had to learn a lot more about how things actually work and fit together. Not having everything pre-configured to the nth-degree means that I often find myself having to read up about the individual components and resources used by various applications, and work out how to set them up properly so that they all play nice together. I realize that if I had installed FreeBSD proper, I would have learned a lot more in terms of how everything works, but assignment deadlines were fast approaching, and I could not afford to spend days learning how to properly set everything up (even though I may have overestimated how difficult that would be) -- I needed a usable system that I could use to conduct research and write reports/essays straight away.
 
purgatori said:
I was a little intimidated at first, because I only have one machine and I was afraid of being dumped at the console without X or an internet connection post-setup
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If you can't get even a second hand old computer for free, even an extra HDD is valuable just to have that safety net of being able to plug it in when things foul up. It's difficult to overestimate the utility of having two computers (even two operating systems on different HDDs) in terms of being able to experiment. If you don't feel the freedom to try new stuff, it's very difficult to learn things. I'd attribute my failure to "take" to linux back in university to this reason as much as any (there was no shortage of applications I could have run for engineering or CS classes on linux). It's also now much easier to find cheap or free hardware these days, of superior performance.

Oh well, it's funny how each time you try to familiarize yourself with unix, a little bit more sticks and makes the next time easier.
 
purgatori said:
I suppose you could say that I'm not _technically_ using FreeBSD, but rather, PCBSD -- although I have stripped out a lot of the stuff that comes with PCBSD (such as KDE) and custmoized userland stuff quite a bit.
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I understand your reasons, then PC-BSD was not your right choice. It is made to be like it is, to offer a stable desktop with a simple package management. Yes, u still can compile and build ports at your own risk (for this, it is much better a plain Freebsd) or better experiments under portsconsole to avoid to broke base system. So, IMHO, the right choice for u is Freebsd and u've been lucky enough to have a working system considering u made changes to the PC-BSD base install (for example KDE is definitely an IMPORTANT part of PC-BSD OS and the proper interface to load packages and configure the whole OS).

Related with the fact u just own a single computer: well, in this times life is expensive everywhere, we got recession, then there is something really low in prices and really easy to afford: hardware parts, cheap computers and on this maybe a bit outdated computers and spare parts, BSD flowers works really really well. So I will advise u to get a new computer (build one if u are able to, it is really cheap) and experiment with one of this and let the other to be like your main machine, especially as u said, using the computer is part of your job.
 
carlton_draught said:
If you can't get even a second hand old computer for free, even an extra HDD is valuable just to have that safety net of being able to plug it in when things foul up. It's difficult to overestimate the utility of having two computers (even two operating systems on different HDDs) in terms of being able to experiment. If you don't feel the freedom to try new stuff, it's very difficult to learn things. I'd attribute my failure to "take" to linux back in university to this reason as much as any (there was no shortage of applications I could have run for engineering or CS classes on linux). It's also now much easier to find cheap or free hardware these days, of superior performance.

Oh well, it's funny how each time you try to familiarize yourself with unix, a little bit more sticks and makes the next time easier.
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I've had more than 1 computer in the past -- at one time, I had 4 -- but they all ended up dying, and now I'm down to one. I do eventually plan on getting another one, but space is a limitation, so I'm not exactly rushing into it. You're point is definitely well taken, though.

piggy said:
I understand your reasons, then PC-BSD was not your right choice. It is made to be like it is, to offer a stable desktop with a simple package management. Yes, u still can compile and build ports at your own risk (for this, it is much better a plain Freebsd) or better experiments under portsconsole to avoid to broke base system. So, IMHO, the right choice for u is Freebsd and u've been lucky enough to have a working system considering u made changes to the PC-BSD base install (for example KDE is definitely an IMPORTANT part of PC-BSD OS and the proper interface to load packages and configure the whole OS).

Related with the fact u just own a single computer: well, in this times life is expensive everywhere, we got recession, then there is something really low in prices and really easy to afford: hardware parts, cheap computers and on this maybe a bit outdated computers and spare parts, BSD flowers works really really well. So I will advise u to get a new computer (build one if u are able to, it is really cheap) and experiment with one of this and let the other to be like your main machine, especially as u said, using the computer is part of your job.
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Hmmm, I'm not sure I agree with you. Everything runs just fine after removing KDE (except some of the core components), and it seems to me that the worst thing that can happen (and this was confirmed by one of the PCBSD devs themselves) is that you lose access to the default PCBSD desktop/package management system, and instead have to use the port tree.... which is what I wanted to do anyway :p After you remove the custom PCBSD stuff (the desktop, some tools), it pretty much runs like:

Code: 
mrgnash@pcbsd-3396 ~ % uname                                     <6:34>
FreeBSD

;)
 
in jeff bridges' hippy v0ice

Advanced Server OS.... man!
Security and Jails... man!
handbook and complete man pages... man
logical file system hierarchy... man!
It's UNIX....... man!
Awesome userbase doctrine... man!
Licensed to empower the user... man!

Seriously I never left. But for those whom have migrated...
I welcome thee.... man​
 
It's obvious...

Let's see, to boil it down...

  • Ease of use, in general.
  • Ports! Ports are awesome, easy to use, and make it easy to patch things.
  • pf & altq support.
  • Awesome, well documented API (namely kqueue and friends), 1:1 threading (unlike OBSD's N:1). Also, fairly close to NetBSD's API which is nice.
  • Stability (FBSD 5.x doesn't count :p).
  • Security & virtualization, most importantly, jails! What would I do without them...
  • Responsiveness of the team to PRs/feedback.
  • Hardware support. Okay, this isn't perfect, but it's always getting better, and they support unusual things like VIA Padlock.
  • Ease of installation. Okay, I know sysinstall sucks--but at least it lets you set FBSD up in many different roles, e.g. development machine, server machine, desktop machine. Try finding all those options on just one linux distro.
  • Ease of compiling a custom kernel.
  • Ease of updating!
  • Did I mention ease of use?
 
oliverh said:
Because of "evolution" :D

SGI Irix -> Slackware -> FreeBSD/OpenBSD (from the early 90s until now)

I can get anything I want in Slack too, but Volkerding cannot fix a lousy kernel. So FreeBSD is my favorite since 5.0. Well have used many Apples since System 7 (68k) until now, but I've never considered MacOS X as something UNIX-like. It's just some toy for rich people without any real needs.
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OMG...You had an SGI machine running IRIX and even bothered with Linux? That is literally the machine I'd buy if I won the Lotto here. It's sort of funny because about two days ago my Mom came to me saying "If I win the Lotto..." and I said "Yea, well, if I win, once my bills are paid off, I'm upgrading the "tech room" I have in this House and adding some Sun Workstations to make my Wife Happy, and, a couple SGI machine, for me".

I've checked Ebay because I want an SGI running IRIX so badly but I really can't afford anything right now. I lost my job so anything extra like that is out of the question. To me, an SGI is like the ultimate Computer.

I don't want one running Linux, because I have Linux here, I want one with IRIX because it's amazing. And the cases.... Any PC user who thinks Alienware has the coolest looking cases, or Mac user who thinks THEY are the Kings of Multimedia, has never heard of SGI. They look cooler than ANY Computer, and when it comes to media... Well, heh, before The Matrix people said they used FreeBSD clusters, people assumed SGI.

------------
Now, on topic after drooling over SGI as geek pron:

I use BSD for a lot of the same reasons people have mentioned already. It's probably one of the more Stable OSs available at any cost, it's awesome, and in particular, I've ALWAYS been biased towards FreeBSD. I have NetBSD, but don't use it, ever... I don't have OpenBSD because I can't stand Theo's attitude problem, and, well, Marshal Kirk McKusic, has more or less chosen FreeBSD as HIS BSD... If THAT guy puts his stamp of approval on something, I listen.

One thing I will say I didn't see anyone else say, is this:

FreeBSD has History. I LOVE that History. BSD in general, is cool, and the History behind it is not only interesting but outright awesome. From the war with which TCP/IP was going to be used where Berkeley said "We don't like your decision, we're not doing it" to "Look, we made Vi" to one member founding Sun... That's interesting.

The History of BSD actually makes me want to use it. Even the History of FreeBSD does. I mean Walnut Creek gave a machine and a high speed Net Connection to the original 3 or so people who started FreeBSD from Bill Jolitz's project, and made it work.
 
gore said:
FreeBSD has History. I LOVE that History. BSD in general, is cool, and the History behind it is not only interesting but outright awesome. From the war with which TCP/IP was going to be used where Berkeley said "We don't like your decision, we're not doing it" to "Look, we made Vi" to one member founding Sun... That's interesting.

The History of BSD actually makes me want to use it. Even the History of FreeBSD does. I mean Walnut Creek gave a machine and a high speed Net Connection to the original 3 or so people who started FreeBSD from Bill Jolitz's project, and made it work.
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Yeah, I feel that way too.

But it's not just the history, it's the continuity. As I just commented on a thread welcoming a newcomer to FreeBSD, I have books about Unix and BSD that were printed in the 1980's and they're still useful. All of the MS-DOS and Windows books I bought around the same time have long since gone into the trash. (I wasn't using Macs back then, but I also doubt that anything published about MacOs back then would still be worth keeping for anything but antiquarian interest.)

The obsolescence or non-obsolescence of those books also applies to the knowledge in your head. Someone who learned how to use vi, ctags, lint and similar Unix tools twenty years ago can still make productive use of what he learned back then. Does MS-DOS's edlin even still exist? How about the elegant m editor that shipped with Microsoft C 5.x, before they switched to their Programmer's Workbench and then later on to the Visual C++ GUI?
 
10 + 1 reasons

1) Have no default Gui.
2) I love the way that flags work.
3) I love ports and the way they work.
4) You must not be genius to write a port.
5) I love that I can compile from source.
6) Is not so bad with hardware. At least on my computer, see everything.
7) Have a great community.
8) Is really stable and secure.
9) You can build it with ZFS.
10) A lot of ports for everything you want.
11) You must not be genius to make it run with custom kernel.

Well. After a year, using FreeBSD, I am very happy, that I made this step. I really love FreeBSD.
 
harishankar said:
The things I dislike are:

* Lack of certain hardware drivers, especially peripherals like webcams and also for not-so-common devices like USB pen tablet (WizardPen for instance).

* For a productive desktop with a lot of heavyweight apps installed, ports is a very difficult way to keep installing software. Compile times - I cannot get around it. If the package management system was well organized and kept on the same level as ports, I wouldn't mind so much, but there are few "package-only" tools in FreeBSD and the ones that provide binary-only package support are rudimentary.
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I have been using FreeBSD for 5 years now and OpenBSD for 3 (still do and probably always will!); exept for the camera thing (and I would add scanner too) I totally second that.

That aside FreeBSD is a great Os!! :)
 
Got a few minutes to spend.. I count the various reasons in this thread. Here the top 10 so far :

1. The Ports system (so far, 22 persons mentionned it)
2. Stability of FreeBSD (18)
3. Documentation (15)
4. Clean organisation (base vs ports) (10)
5. True UNIX / history (9)
6. Jails (8)
7. Performance / security / integration of the core system (each reason had 7 votes)
8. Easy binary upgrade of base (6)
9. Community / forum (5)
10. FreeBSD mascot and logo / licence / ZFS (each reason had 4 votes)
 
expl said:
It is not UNIX®.

Not a flame bait, just stating a fact.
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Your right. It's Berkeley UNIX....man! =P

Oh looky here... what do I see here at the wayback machine????

http://web.archive.org/web/19980208090201/http://freebsd.org/

Feb 08, 1998 on http://freebsd.org/
"FreeBSD is an advanced BSD UNIX operating system for "PC-compatible" computers, developed and maintained by a large team of individuals. "

Now about those facts? Would you like to discuss in detail the lawsuit as well? It might be funny if we discuss the finer points of truth and fact with jeff bridges hippy voice.... MAN! =)
 
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