just started my freebsd daily driver journey.. loving it so far, comming from arch i feel freebsd is easier, more intuitive, so far loving pkg... just hands down the happiest ive been with an os... long live freebsd!!!
Watch out for 'removed' in pkg output before pressing yes to upgrading; it might be a renamed package that shows in another install line but an issue building it may mean its literally just removed for now.
1 - Bluetooth on FreeBSD is basically nonexistent, you have to choose exactly what you buy to use WiFi, and even the working drivers are very slow to be patched and updated. 2 - Anything with "do it yourself" is (mostly) for advanced users, most users don't even install their own operating system, so don't think they will compile and/or configure it, same goes for Arch Linux, even with Arch Install is still for advanced users. 3 - Haiku OS have some software on the default respositories that FreeBSD doesn't... Let that sink in... 4 - FreeBSD COULD be used for Desktop, but it's in no way optimized for that. I am no FreeBSD hater, i love it, but i won't lie about it
I don't use Bluetooth but other than that I think FreeBSD is an excellent desktop o/s. I use GhostBSD since it's an entire o/s that installs in 12-15 minutes. On first boot you have a usable desktop of Mate or XFCE. I have not found very many wireless cards that don't work.
1. You could recommend they remove the bluetooth section from the handbook if bluetooth isn't there at all. Wifi is a known issue and receiving funding to be actively worked on. 2. After years of Windows users wanting documentation for how Windows works, I know that many of the same users won't read it if documentation is given. FreeBSD requires some reading but at least we have that reading option without having to go out and buy a missing OS book. 3. Haiku and FreeBSD both have software available that the other doesn't. 4. That's okay. Even Windows usually benefits from tweaking to make it more optimized to be a desktop OS.
@@mirror1766 Well I can see that Bluetooth is working but can’t connect anything to it. Now I haven’t gone any farther with it because I don’t use Bluetooth. From the FreeBSD developer s perspective they probably prioritize wireless I guess.
@@mirror1766 "1. You could recommend they remove the bluetooth section from the handbook if bluetooth isn't there at all. Wifi is a known issue and receiving funding to be actively worked on." I don't really care to do that, i've said that it is bad and it is, any user can test that. And most end users won't care either. "2. After years of Windows users wanting documentation for how Windows works, I know that many of the same users won't read it if documentation is given. FreeBSD requires some reading but at least we have that reading option without having to go out and buy a missing OS book." I don't care either, i am not talking about Windows, i am talking about FreeBSD when it comes to the end user, so i don't care about "why", and most end users won't care either. "3. Haiku and FreeBSD both have software available that the other doesn't." Yeah, like FreeBSD doesn't have way more users than HaikuOS... 4. That's okay. Even Windows usually benefits from tweaking to make it more optimized to be a desktop OS. I don't care, i am not using Windows and my point stands. Next time try to get the point bro.
I like FreeBSD's excellent Hyper-V support and use a few FreeBSD VMs on my Windows desktops. For example, I do modding for a 20+ year old video game and have many different installations of it... So to make more efficient use of my storage space, I have a FreeBSD VM with a small-ish zvol with deduplication enabled shared back to my Windows host via iSCSI. This means my many installations of this old game don't actually take up nearly as much space as they would otherwise.
In case dedupe starts interfering with your setup, you can also review if fast dedupe or block cloning may be enough for your needs. DragonFlyBSD also has deduplication in its HAMMER2 but I haven't compared it to ZFS's way to know if it has the same drawbacks; FreeBSD has a port of it but has only experimental write support on that filesystem.
Installed FreeBSD as VM under ESXi some 10 years ago with ZFS and a passthrough HBA … still runs. Haven’t tried GUI as for that I use Mac. But as server OS I sure like it.
I completely agree with your stance as a FreeBSD advocate, I'm the same way as a Linux advocate. There is no perfect OS and there are pros and cons to each. I've only dipped my toes into FreeBSD a bit so far, but what I love about Linux is the same for FreeBSD and other BSD variants - it provides choices and freedoms for each person to do things the way they want to, and anyone can contribute and feel invested in these systems and their respective communities. Looking forward to doing more FreeBSD exploration this holiday break!
I like freebsd; however there are definitely issues using it as a desktop environment. It could be the KDE6 that I am using but the UI becomes non responsive relatively frequently. Software such as zoom / slack / whatsapp /docker don't work. These are not necessarily freebsd problems, however when using as a desktop we buy into an ecosystem, not just the OS. I still use freebsd as a second OS as an enthusiast
All of the apps you just mentioned have definitive web app versions and honestly I prefer everything being sandboxed within an electron browser website instead of being on my desktop and feeling like they have access to your machine.
@@megatronskneecap Sure, I would prefer to have an app available and then take a call on how to use the software rather than being boxed in and being okay with that. I still like freebsd as an enthusiast; and why I am unable to switch over to freebsd as a primary OS (especially the docker dependency).
I've heard various issues with KDE6 but still haven't tried it much myself. KDE5's baloo certainly caused issues for no real benefit so I make sure to shut that down. Dolphin also causes issues but I haven't narrowed down whats the reason but it likely has to do with too many things open and/or some file that is incompatible/corrupt it wants to read for metadata reasons. When it goes bad I get a different process with very high CPU use and regular unresponsive pauses until I close dolphin.
@@nou4605 Google uses their own modified version of the Linux LTS Kernel . It's not even the mainline Linux kernel. So no, Android is definitely not Linux in a regular sense. Far away from it.
I think I should preface this comment with the fact that I like FreeBSD. In my job I work on a product that uses FreeBSD as a base and there are many things I like about it. However, I think it's misleading when a response to the lack of software is quoting number of ports packages. You could have 1,000,000 pieces of software in a ports collection and it still lack software. It isn't the number of packages but the types of software that are available. For example, to even watch Netflix you need to install a Linux browser, running on the Linux compatibility layer. On native FreeBSD code nope. If I need to emulate Linux to run a lot of the software and do the things I want, then why would I run FreeBSD as my daily driver? For Gaming, Linux has much better support. In a lot of ways support for gaming on Linux has now even surpassed Mac OS. I know the Playstation runs on a FreeBSD base too but that hasn't really translated to Desktop. I would love to run FreeBSD as a daily driver but these aren't myths.
So I'm looking at the handbook right now, and it honestly seems more well written in the first 20 pages than the entire Arch linux wiki. Does that hold true throughout the document? Because I'm seriously considering doing this as a learning project on my spare laptop, I just can't stand poorly written documentation.
I liked the bit of time with FreeBSD I had hosting my Minecraft server. I appreciated having the specific JRE versions needed available in the default repos, and it was rock solid stable. But good lord, those who can't see the irony in not being able to stop complaining about the "toxic Linux community" simply astound me. Just like the Linux people who can't get Windows users to try their stuff because they market it by trashing Windows, no sane computer user is going to be sold on being told that their choice in software is garbage.
The only WiFi I use is on my phone and tablet. All my PCs are wired. I also disable WiFi and Bluetooth in the BIOS/UEFI Things like pfSense and TrueNAS Core is based on FreeBSD. A lot of companies use those.
I've been running FreeBSD for years as a desktop and I've never really had any issues. Every now and then I have to do a little work and maintenance, but it is the most stable system I have used. People who make all these statements are most likely people who have never tried it beyond and install, and then they didn't know what to do.
I love the video, specifically the last point. Most software has a purpose and can be used to address a specific problem or need. Of course, you can make it work and somehow have a workaround, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do if you are trying to focus on another problem.
My employer isn’t a MAJOR corporation, but we do use FreeBSD as our backup target. We’d probably also replace our servers with FreeBSD if it were more globally available. Most server providers really only offer Ubuntu, Debian, and a RHEL distro and nothing more
Certainly takes hunting to find FreeBSD hosting providers. Some don't tell you but do offer running FreeBSD while others used to offer FreeBSD and completely dropped any support for it.
@ sadly. And though there’s many that do let you bring your own iso, we have very unique requirements for hosting so we just have to stick with what’s the most commonly available, even if we don’t like it
Vultr do FreeBSD as a supported option. BastilleBSD works great on there, all using IPv6 Also - pleasant surprise.. Azure offers FreeBSD instances as an alternative to Linux. Nice !
I have no problem with FreeBSD, but WiFi issues are a problem for those of us who travel with a laptop and have to work in places where there is no handy Ethernet connection. I too am not a huge fan of WiFi, but it is essential for so many of us who need to work in areas where there is no Ethernet.
I'm running FreeBSD on an old laptop - 2008 model - and while wifi didn't work out of the box as support for the chipset had been dropped from the kernel, I was able to use ports to build and install a compatible driver which generally works fine. On the other hand, I can't get the touchpad to do tap-to-click, and I can't get the camera working. It's still functional for some uses and it's not my primary machine so it's not that big a deal. I also have FreeBSD running on a Raspberry Pi as a tiny file server and it's great for that.
4:31 - why this necessity to compare to Linux? It's pretty normal that some distro are didactic like Slackaware for example. They are meant to be started from a command line. There are just plenty of choices and this is good, fine. I don't see problems in both ways.
I've had old hardware that was lacking support. Laptop with integrated Intel GPU with poor support but git a bit past VESA support from it (Wasn't great on Windows either). AMD GPU (HD4870 and HD4850) that predated the current push to use Linux drivers under FreeBSD had 64bit support before NVIDIA but never got proper 3D acceleration and was much less stable so I went back to an NVIDIA GPU. The NVIDIA GPU that came after (GT570) has issues like incomplete EGL driver code (that ironically seems to havemore complete EGL symbols in the Linux ABI driver on FreeBSD) causing a variety of programs to crash at launch because mesa doesn't work around such NVIDIA problems and leave it up to each program to fix. It has other issues like graphics mess up if I switch to a VT terminal while X is running and KDE plasma crashes switching back to X. Newer AMD and Intel GPUs depend on updates to drm-#-kmod drivers + Linux ABI support in our kernel; its normal that things lag behind before that hardware is supported which is seen in DRM-61-kmod=Linux kernel that was release December 2022 so can only have GPU drivers released to support that kernel; driver writers seem to only target+modify the newest kernel for the newest GPUs. As the new wifi was supposed to use the Linux drivers last I followed it, I'd expect we can see similarly being behind when a new kernel is needed for a device. I thought the Linux kernel version support was catching up rather than falling further behind on average FreeBSD porting effort but I'd expect it to always lag behind a bit. I even had a Promise SATA controller card that was lacking optical drive support due to the FreeBSD driver. I think wifi was AMD or Mediatek built in on the last desktop system I got to fire up FreeBSD on but don't recall though thought it didn't work. Didn't test much as I also don't care about wifi much . Think there's been other things like no NVIDIA CUDA support, lacking monitoring and overclocking capabilities of some chips, etc. Wifi is less reliable (interference and signal strength causing packets to be lost) and slow for both latency and throughput. You can make wifi fast for at least for throughput but by when you spend enough to make wifi compete with gigabit ethernet then you could have built a 10+ gig wired network so its back to not competing. If you need porability or cannot run cables then you can consider wifi but its always a drawback to pick it. GUI installer work is something I know developers have been messing with. My installer issues are not that it lacks a mouse based GUI but that it is confusing (ok sometimes selects a choice, sometimes moves to next dialog) and buggy (different automatic swap size depending on route through menus, pressing cancel easily breaks the installation). GUI or not, those issues need to be fixed but both sides will benefit once fixed. Installer lost the option to select+install 3rd party packages (without jumping through poorly documented hoops) from install media when bsdinstall replaced sysinstall; that support needs to come back though installing most things from internet after reboot isn't a big deal (exception being network drivers not in base; recently wifi firmware was added with its own install menu section for upcoming changes). For ported software, I thought I heard Gmone is quite a dated version. Sometimes ports get updates to the tree before I became aware the program even had an update go out officially but others lag years behind. We have over 30,000 ports but maintainers are not present for all of them. Even then, some things I'd like to have are missing. Over the years I off and on have tried to port Cinelerra. Someone else brought in a different fork but didn't maintain it and it got purged around when various python2 things got yanked. Hopefully I'll get something up to ports tree standards so we can all enjoy it too. Few things that are not opensource have native FreeBSD support but it does happen (and sometimes just requires asking); if not natively supported then you can try Linux ABI or Wine before giving it a full VM or dual boot. I've been using FreeBSD as my desktop OS since 2004; has its advantages and disadvantages vs Linux, Windows, etc.
Great video, thanks! I have been desperately trying to use (any)BSD as my daily driver on HP 2022 laptop. But I found out that built-in speakers wont work because there is some stupid 3rd party amplifier Cirrus CS35L41 (I didn't know that at time of buy). It has been working on linux only since the 6.9 kernel I think. Unfortunately it seems it is not working in BSDs, GhostBSD live session was without sound from built-in speakers, only headphones worked. Can I expect such thing to be implemented in BSD's kernel in upcoming year or two? I also heard that BSDs drain battery faster than linux (and that fan is at its maximum oftenly). Is this also a myth, can anybody share his/her longer experience? Thank you!
I mean, but to be fair, when it comes to software support in stuff like gaming, linux is far ahead, a few years ago they were like dead even, but now over 17k games run on linux even if a little tweakng is necessary here or there. BSD only has linux natives and even those require some tweaking now and then. I'd love if BSD was better on this aspect, if proton layers worked on it, I'd probably switch as a daily driver, but until then I think I'll stick to linux and put BSD on like a working laptop or something just to learn cause I do find it is better and more interesting than linux in almost everything else. And to be fair you can definetly ask he queston "If gaming is important why not use windows?" and I suppose that would be extremely fair and the answer is, I like Linux better in everything else compared to windows, and okay, not all games play on it, but enough do, it has more games than playstation (all of them), so to say that Linux is bad at gaming because not all games play on it would be the same as to say playstation is bad at gaming because not all games work on the playstation, that's the line, enough wiggle room.
I have been a Linux user for almost 10 years at this point. I started to look into FreeBSD out of curiosity as I have been using it more frequently recently. At the moment FreeBSD is to me, what Linux is to most other people out there. There are some things I do prefer on FreeBSD, but for the moment I mostly use it for server use cases, I tried using it on my desktop but for general compatibility an also for gaming it isn't very good unfortunately, especially if you want to use Wayland. And I guess what hurts it's adoption rate on the desktop even more is the fact there aren't many good "out of the box" desktop distros like there are for Linux. Let's see how this develops in the future though, it would be great to have a second foss OS that is not dependent on the Linux kernel.
FreeBSD надо наконец выпустить графический install с полной установкой рабочего стола (Gnome или KDE) хватит темных экранов, команд из подкорки памяти и навыков пианиста на клавиатуре !!
I personally HATE Linux. I think the entire community surrounding it is becoming increasingly more toxic and political for a kernel that isn't even that good or practical and has become bloated with the amount of people that have made changes to it. FreeBSD is not only something that you can edit Kernel wise but somehow feels more freeing and has a much smaller, better and nicer community. The FreeBSD community is also packed full of system admins and not people that just dilly about with computers at home and call themselves "professionals". macOS is also essentially FreeBSD based and was Apple's main marketing point from 2000 to 2010. Love FreeBSD.
Yes the Linux foundation is shifting its political focus in an unsettling way, but the rest of your point seems subjective to the point of not being relevant
@@megatronskneecap claiming that Linux isn't practical doesn't make sense from a user base perspective. Saying it isn't good/useful as a kernel doesn't make sense for a similar reason. For example, look at Android. They entire ecosystem is built on top of it and there's a lot of people who are happy with their android purchase.
@@__Brandon__ Android is a heavily edited version of Linux. It barely even resembles it and uses a completely different package manager and format. Linux isn’t practical because it’s inherently slow due to the way it manages files.
@@megatronskneecap just because it's Android+Linux doesn't mean its not Linux. Your package manager argument doesn't make sense. Even among the GNU+Linux users there isn't even an agreed upon package manager or format. I will agree with you that a Unix comparable file system hierarchy is needlessly complex, but that is convention of distributions not Linuxs fault. Look at GNU Guix for an example of a simplified file system hierarchy in use today. Your criticism is more targeted at the maintainers of distributions goal of not wanting to break end user's user space rather than the actual kernel itself. You appear to be criticizing the downstream GNU and friends conventions more than the actual kernel
I have concerns with Linux as a whole, didn't Linux had a vulnerability not to long ago that was exploited by nefarious parties. I don't game and I like storing files onto a physical storage device and what I do is basic computing and into amateur radio.
Exactly this. Linux has it's doors wide open to anyone and has become an increasing target for malware as not so computer savvy people have resorted to it in the quest for privacy. If you want an enthusiast Kernel that kicks use FreeBSD. The only reason I don't use it on the regular is because i'm a big fan of Apple's hardware and even though macOS is FreeBSD based we're yet to get any sort of ported over TouchBar or TrackPad drivers that actually work well so unfortunately it stays as a hobby.
Several depending on how big of a 'recent' window we are talking of. FreeBSD has had some too. Additionally some 3rd party software vulnerabilities only hit Linux or FreeBSD but many hit both. There's a ports category for amateur radio last I recall so may have more fun toys to explore if you missed it.
@megatronskneecap I plan on keeping one of the computers off the Internet and use that as a daily thing with freebsd and another for using online haiku OS.
If were talking about hardware support for linux and bsd most of the time is you may have problems with hardware if it is something very recent. Both BSD and Linux in general do catch up with latest hardware but it takes little bit longer than windows or mac. Speaking of bsd not used by companies what do you think macos is? It's based on BSD. Playstation OS also BSD heck if i know how many other systems are based on BSD. In big company that uses mac os computers uses essentially BSD, companies developing games and stuff for Play Station use BSD. To very that FreeBSD is used by big companies, Darwin, kernel used by apple to develop macos comes from FreeBSD.
I plan on running haiku OS on my Lenovo laptop and Freebsd on a workstation hooked to a lan cord but I'm still searching for a good deal to use freebsd on cheap. I have concerns running Linux I been using q4os Linux for three years, elementary os for two years, mint for 5 years and Ubuntu before it got weird joining canonical.
I ran into this issue on my laptop HP laptop but put FreeBSD on my desktop and can't complain. You're definitely correct, can't use it without WiFi because of the job I do. Hopefully the laptop priority marching orders will change that. If I may suggest, if you're willing, to do an inventory of your hardware and see if you can buy an alternative wifi card. The issue with this approach is that you have to open up your laptop and start playing with the hardware.
just started my freebsd daily driver journey.. loving it so far, comming from arch i feel freebsd is easier, more intuitive, so far loving pkg... just hands down the happiest ive been with an os... long live freebsd!!!
Watch out for 'removed' in pkg output before pressing yes to upgrading; it might be a renamed package that shows in another install line but an issue building it may mean its literally just removed for now.
@mirror1766 yeah, that happens in arch too, usually i check the main website news before doing an upgrade, thanks for the tip...
1 - Bluetooth on FreeBSD is basically nonexistent, you have to choose exactly what you buy to use WiFi, and even the working drivers are very slow to be patched and updated.
2 - Anything with "do it yourself" is (mostly) for advanced users, most users don't even install their own operating system, so don't think they will compile and/or configure it, same goes for Arch Linux, even with Arch Install is still for advanced users.
3 - Haiku OS have some software on the default respositories that FreeBSD doesn't... Let that sink in...
4 - FreeBSD COULD be used for Desktop, but it's in no way optimized for that.
I am no FreeBSD hater, i love it, but i won't lie about it
I don't use Bluetooth but other than that I think FreeBSD is an excellent desktop o/s. I use GhostBSD since it's an entire o/s that installs in 12-15 minutes. On first boot you have a usable desktop of Mate or XFCE. I have not found very many wireless cards that don't work.
1. You could recommend they remove the bluetooth section from the handbook if bluetooth isn't there at all. Wifi is a known issue and receiving funding to be actively worked on.
2. After years of Windows users wanting documentation for how Windows works, I know that many of the same users won't read it if documentation is given. FreeBSD requires some reading but at least we have that reading option without having to go out and buy a missing OS book.
3. Haiku and FreeBSD both have software available that the other doesn't.
4. That's okay. Even Windows usually benefits from tweaking to make it more optimized to be a desktop OS.
@@mirror1766 Well I can see that Bluetooth is working but can’t connect anything to it. Now I haven’t gone any farther with it because I don’t use Bluetooth. From the FreeBSD developer s perspective they probably prioritize wireless I guess.
@@mirror1766 "1. You could recommend they remove the bluetooth section from the handbook if bluetooth isn't there at all. Wifi is a known issue and receiving funding to be actively worked on."
I don't really care to do that, i've said that it is bad and it is, any user can test that. And most end users won't care either.
"2. After years of Windows users wanting documentation for how Windows works, I know that many of the same users won't read it if documentation is given. FreeBSD requires some reading but at least we have that reading option without having to go out and buy a missing OS book."
I don't care either, i am not talking about Windows, i am talking about FreeBSD when it comes to the end user, so i don't care about "why", and most end users won't care either.
"3. Haiku and FreeBSD both have software available that the other doesn't."
Yeah, like FreeBSD doesn't have way more users than HaikuOS...
4. That's okay. Even Windows usually benefits from tweaking to make it more optimized to be a desktop OS.
I don't care, i am not using Windows and my point stands.
Next time try to get the point bro.
@@see-sharp I think I’ve used Bluetooth on desktop and laptop about 5 times like ever. It’s a nice to have. Needed on phones but not computers.
I chuckle when people talk about FreeBSD not being suitable for a desktop now when I was daily driving DesktopBSD till the project died in 2009.
Most of this list makes me chuckle to be fair 😂
I'm so glad I just found this channel.
I like FreeBSD's excellent Hyper-V support and use a few FreeBSD VMs on my Windows desktops. For example, I do modding for a 20+ year old video game and have many different installations of it...
So to make more efficient use of my storage space, I have a FreeBSD VM with a small-ish zvol with deduplication enabled shared back to my Windows host via iSCSI. This means my many installations of this old game don't actually take up nearly as much space as they would otherwise.
In case dedupe starts interfering with your setup, you can also review if fast dedupe or block cloning may be enough for your needs. DragonFlyBSD also has deduplication in its HAMMER2 but I haven't compared it to ZFS's way to know if it has the same drawbacks; FreeBSD has a port of it but has only experimental write support on that filesystem.
Installed FreeBSD as VM under ESXi some 10 years ago with ZFS and a passthrough HBA … still runs. Haven’t tried GUI as for that I use Mac. But as server OS I sure like it.
I completely agree with your stance as a FreeBSD advocate, I'm the same way as a Linux advocate. There is no perfect OS and there are pros and cons to each. I've only dipped my toes into FreeBSD a bit so far, but what I love about Linux is the same for FreeBSD and other BSD variants - it provides choices and freedoms for each person to do things the way they want to, and anyone can contribute and feel invested in these systems and their respective communities. Looking forward to doing more FreeBSD exploration this holiday break!
Thanks for sharing! 🙂 I am using FreeBSD since 2.1 - much more than 10 years and I like it 🙂 All the best, Norbert
I was introduced with 4.11 but started it with 5. Someday I need to try the older versions to learn how /dev entries were managed.
I like freebsd; however there are definitely issues using it as a desktop environment. It could be the KDE6 that I am using but the UI becomes non responsive relatively frequently. Software such as zoom / slack / whatsapp /docker don't work. These are not necessarily freebsd problems, however when using as a desktop we buy into an ecosystem, not just the OS.
I still use freebsd as a second OS as an enthusiast
All of the apps you just mentioned have definitive web app versions and honestly I prefer everything being sandboxed within an electron browser website instead of being on my desktop and feeling like they have access to your machine.
@@megatronskneecap Sure, I would prefer to have an app available and then take a call on how to use the software rather than being boxed in and being okay with that. I still like freebsd as an enthusiast; and why I am unable to switch over to freebsd as a primary OS (especially the docker dependency).
I've heard various issues with KDE6 but still haven't tried it much myself. KDE5's baloo certainly caused issues for no real benefit so I make sure to shut that down. Dolphin also causes issues but I haven't narrowed down whats the reason but it likely has to do with too many things open and/or some file that is incompatible/corrupt it wants to read for metadata reasons. When it goes bad I get a different process with very high CPU use and regular unresponsive pauses until I close dolphin.
If Android is Linux, then MacOS is FreeBSD which makes FreeBSD 2nd most used desktop OS
not really. Android literally uses the linux kernel. Mac only uses some parts of freebsd.
@@nou4605 Google uses their own modified version of the Linux LTS Kernel . It's not even the mainline Linux kernel. So no, Android is definitely not Linux in a regular sense. Far away from it.
When people say "Linux" they usually mean Linux + GNU. But since GNU sounds retarded people just call it Linux.
Only in your own ideology :)
All OS systems are Unix based. All are heavy moded....
The only time I disliked freebsd's lack of wifi support was with nomadbsd. That's kinda important to have an up to date system on the go.
I think I should preface this comment with the fact that I like FreeBSD. In my job I work on a product that uses FreeBSD as a base and there are many things I like about it. However, I think it's misleading when a response to the lack of software is quoting number of ports packages. You could have 1,000,000 pieces of software in a ports collection and it still lack software. It isn't the number of packages but the types of software that are available. For example, to even watch Netflix you need to install a Linux browser, running on the Linux compatibility layer. On native FreeBSD code nope. If I need to emulate Linux to run a lot of the software and do the things I want, then why would I run FreeBSD as my daily driver? For Gaming, Linux has much better support. In a lot of ways support for gaming on Linux has now even surpassed Mac OS. I know the Playstation runs on a FreeBSD base too but that hasn't really translated to Desktop. I would love to run FreeBSD as a daily driver but these aren't myths.
Freebsd 14 working on my Macbook air 2011 and Dell XPS 2019 with built in wifi
and a Macbook Pro Retina 2015 with an external wifi card
So I'm looking at the handbook right now, and it honestly seems more well written in the first 20 pages than the entire Arch linux wiki. Does that hold true throughout the document? Because I'm seriously considering doing this as a learning project on my spare laptop, I just can't stand poorly written documentation.
For the most part the handbook is in my opinion essential reading and correct. However, there are parts that could do with updating.
I liked the bit of time with FreeBSD I had hosting my Minecraft server. I appreciated having the specific JRE versions needed available in the default repos, and it was rock solid stable.
But good lord, those who can't see the irony in not being able to stop complaining about the "toxic Linux community" simply astound me.
Just like the Linux people who can't get Windows users to try their stuff because they market it by trashing Windows, no sane computer user is going to be sold on being told that their choice in software is garbage.
Totally agree, use what is right for you not others 🙂
The only WiFi I use is on my phone and tablet. All my PCs are wired. I also disable WiFi and Bluetooth in the BIOS/UEFI
Things like pfSense and TrueNAS Core is based on FreeBSD. A lot of companies use those.
I've been running FreeBSD for years as a desktop and I've never really had any issues. Every now and then I have to do a little work and maintenance, but it is the most stable system I have used. People who make all these statements are most likely people who have never tried it beyond and install, and then they didn't know what to do.
I love the video, specifically the last point. Most software has a purpose and can be used to address a specific problem or need. Of course, you can make it work and somehow have a workaround, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do if you are trying to focus on another problem.
My employer isn’t a MAJOR corporation, but we do use FreeBSD as our backup target. We’d probably also replace our servers with FreeBSD if it were more globally available. Most server providers really only offer Ubuntu, Debian, and a RHEL distro and nothing more
Certainly takes hunting to find FreeBSD hosting providers. Some don't tell you but do offer running FreeBSD while others used to offer FreeBSD and completely dropped any support for it.
@ sadly. And though there’s many that do let you bring your own iso, we have very unique requirements for hosting so we just have to stick with what’s the most commonly available, even if we don’t like it
@@mirror1766 Pair Networks
Vultr do FreeBSD as a supported option. BastilleBSD works great on there, all using IPv6
Also - pleasant surprise.. Azure offers FreeBSD instances as an alternative to Linux. Nice !
I have no problem with FreeBSD, but WiFi issues are a problem for those of us who travel with a laptop and have to work in places where there is no handy Ethernet connection. I too am not a huge fan of WiFi, but it is essential for so many of us who need to work in areas where there is no Ethernet.
I'm running FreeBSD on an old laptop - 2008 model - and while wifi didn't work out of the box as support for the chipset had been dropped from the kernel, I was able to use ports to build and install a compatible driver which generally works fine. On the other hand, I can't get the touchpad to do tap-to-click, and I can't get the camera working. It's still functional for some uses and it's not my primary machine so it's not that big a deal.
I also have FreeBSD running on a Raspberry Pi as a tiny file server and it's great for that.
4:31 - why this necessity to compare to Linux? It's pretty normal that some distro are didactic like Slackaware for example. They are meant to be started from a command line. There are just plenty of choices and this is good, fine. I don't see problems in both ways.
I've had old hardware that was lacking support. Laptop with integrated Intel GPU with poor support but git a bit past VESA support from it (Wasn't great on Windows either). AMD GPU (HD4870 and HD4850) that predated the current push to use Linux drivers under FreeBSD had 64bit support before NVIDIA but never got proper 3D acceleration and was much less stable so I went back to an NVIDIA GPU. The NVIDIA GPU that came after (GT570) has issues like incomplete EGL driver code (that ironically seems to havemore complete EGL symbols in the Linux ABI driver on FreeBSD) causing a variety of programs to crash at launch because mesa doesn't work around such NVIDIA problems and leave it up to each program to fix. It has other issues like graphics mess up if I switch to a VT terminal while X is running and KDE plasma crashes switching back to X.
Newer AMD and Intel GPUs depend on updates to drm-#-kmod drivers + Linux ABI support in our kernel; its normal that things lag behind before that hardware is supported which is seen in DRM-61-kmod=Linux kernel that was release December 2022 so can only have GPU drivers released to support that kernel; driver writers seem to only target+modify the newest kernel for the newest GPUs. As the new wifi was supposed to use the Linux drivers last I followed it, I'd expect we can see similarly being behind when a new kernel is needed for a device. I thought the Linux kernel version support was catching up rather than falling further behind on average FreeBSD porting effort but I'd expect it to always lag behind a bit.
I even had a Promise SATA controller card that was lacking optical drive support due to the FreeBSD driver. I think wifi was AMD or Mediatek built in on the last desktop system I got to fire up FreeBSD on but don't recall though thought it didn't work. Didn't test much as I also don't care about wifi much . Think there's been other things like no NVIDIA CUDA support, lacking monitoring and overclocking capabilities of some chips, etc.
Wifi is less reliable (interference and signal strength causing packets to be lost) and slow for both latency and throughput. You can make wifi fast for at least for throughput but by when you spend enough to make wifi compete with gigabit ethernet then you could have built a 10+ gig wired network so its back to not competing. If you need porability or cannot run cables then you can consider wifi but its always a drawback to pick it.
GUI installer work is something I know developers have been messing with. My installer issues are not that it lacks a mouse based GUI but that it is confusing (ok sometimes selects a choice, sometimes moves to next dialog) and buggy (different automatic swap size depending on route through menus, pressing cancel easily breaks the installation). GUI or not, those issues need to be fixed but both sides will benefit once fixed. Installer lost the option to select+install 3rd party packages (without jumping through poorly documented hoops) from install media when bsdinstall replaced sysinstall; that support needs to come back though installing most things from internet after reboot isn't a big deal (exception being network drivers not in base; recently wifi firmware was added with its own install menu section for upcoming changes).
For ported software, I thought I heard Gmone is quite a dated version. Sometimes ports get updates to the tree before I became aware the program even had an update go out officially but others lag years behind. We have over 30,000 ports but maintainers are not present for all of them. Even then, some things I'd like to have are missing. Over the years I off and on have tried to port Cinelerra. Someone else brought in a different fork but didn't maintain it and it got purged around when various python2 things got yanked. Hopefully I'll get something up to ports tree standards so we can all enjoy it too. Few things that are not opensource have native FreeBSD support but it does happen (and sometimes just requires asking); if not natively supported then you can try Linux ABI or Wine before giving it a full VM or dual boot.
I've been using FreeBSD as my desktop OS since 2004; has its advantages and disadvantages vs Linux, Windows, etc.
Great video, thanks!
I have been desperately trying to use (any)BSD as my daily driver on HP 2022 laptop. But I found out that built-in speakers wont work because there is some stupid 3rd party amplifier Cirrus CS35L41 (I didn't know that at time of buy). It has been working on linux only since the 6.9 kernel I think.
Unfortunately it seems it is not working in BSDs, GhostBSD live session was without sound from built-in speakers, only headphones worked.
Can I expect such thing to be implemented in BSD's kernel in upcoming year or two?
I also heard that BSDs drain battery faster than linux (and that fan is at its maximum oftenly). Is this also a myth, can anybody share his/her longer experience?
Thank you!
I mean, but to be fair, when it comes to software support in stuff like gaming, linux is far ahead, a few years ago they were like dead even, but now over 17k games run on linux even if a little tweakng is necessary here or there.
BSD only has linux natives and even those require some tweaking now and then.
I'd love if BSD was better on this aspect, if proton layers worked on it, I'd probably switch as a daily driver, but until then I think I'll stick to linux and put BSD on like a working laptop or something just to learn cause I do find it is better and more interesting than linux in almost everything else.
And to be fair you can definetly ask he queston "If gaming is important why not use windows?" and I suppose that would be extremely fair and the answer is, I like Linux better in everything else compared to windows, and okay, not all games play on it, but enough do, it has more games than playstation (all of them), so to say that Linux is bad at gaming because not all games play on it would be the same as to say playstation is bad at gaming because not all games work on the playstation, that's the line, enough wiggle room.
First minute of this video is pointless - just skip it. Actually the real content starts at 1:30.
I have been a Linux user for almost 10 years at this point. I started to look into FreeBSD out of curiosity as I have been using it more frequently recently. At the moment FreeBSD is to me, what Linux is to most other people out there. There are some things I do prefer on FreeBSD, but for the moment I mostly use it for server use cases, I tried using it on my desktop but for general compatibility an also for gaming it isn't very good unfortunately, especially if you want to use Wayland. And I guess what hurts it's adoption rate on the desktop even more is the fact there aren't many good "out of the box" desktop distros like there are for Linux. Let's see how this develops in the future though, it would be great to have a second foss OS that is not dependent on the Linux kernel.
FreeBSD надо наконец выпустить графический install с полной установкой рабочего стола (Gnome или KDE) хватит темных экранов, команд из подкорки памяти и навыков пианиста на клавиатуре !!
Thanks Gary!!
my dilemma is.. i really love FreeBSD, but i can't live without eBPF ._.
Davinci Resolve does work on Freebsd in a Linux jail
I personally HATE Linux. I think the entire community surrounding it is becoming increasingly more toxic and political for a kernel that isn't even that good or practical and has become bloated with the amount of people that have made changes to it. FreeBSD is not only something that you can edit Kernel wise but somehow feels more freeing and has a much smaller, better and nicer community. The FreeBSD community is also packed full of system admins and not people that just dilly about with computers at home and call themselves "professionals". macOS is also essentially FreeBSD based and was Apple's main marketing point from 2000 to 2010. Love FreeBSD.
Yes the Linux foundation is shifting its political focus in an unsettling way, but the rest of your point seems subjective to the point of not being relevant
@@__Brandon__ Why is this your only comment on this channel. I feel that’s relevant.
@@megatronskneecap claiming that Linux isn't practical doesn't make sense from a user base perspective. Saying it isn't good/useful as a kernel doesn't make sense for a similar reason. For example, look at Android. They entire ecosystem is built on top of it and there's a lot of people who are happy with their android purchase.
@@__Brandon__ Android is a heavily edited version of Linux. It barely even resembles it and uses a completely different package manager and format. Linux isn’t practical because it’s inherently slow due to the way it manages files.
@@megatronskneecap just because it's Android+Linux doesn't mean its not Linux. Your package manager argument doesn't make sense. Even among the GNU+Linux users there isn't even an agreed upon package manager or format. I will agree with you that a Unix comparable file system hierarchy is needlessly complex, but that is convention of distributions not Linuxs fault. Look at GNU Guix for an example of a simplified file system hierarchy in use today. Your criticism is more targeted at the maintainers of distributions goal of not wanting to break end user's user space rather than the actual kernel itself. You appear to be criticizing the downstream GNU and friends conventions more than the actual kernel
I have concerns with Linux as a whole, didn't Linux had a vulnerability not to long ago that was exploited by nefarious parties. I don't game and I like storing files onto a physical storage device and what I do is basic computing and into amateur radio.
Exactly this. Linux has it's doors wide open to anyone and has become an increasing target for malware as not so computer savvy people have resorted to it in the quest for privacy. If you want an enthusiast Kernel that kicks use FreeBSD. The only reason I don't use it on the regular is because i'm a big fan of Apple's hardware and even though macOS is FreeBSD based we're yet to get any sort of ported over TouchBar or TrackPad drivers that actually work well so unfortunately it stays as a hobby.
Several depending on how big of a 'recent' window we are talking of. FreeBSD has had some too. Additionally some 3rd party software vulnerabilities only hit Linux or FreeBSD but many hit both. There's a ports category for amateur radio last I recall so may have more fun toys to explore if you missed it.
@megatronskneecap I plan on keeping one of the computers off the Internet and use that as a daily thing with freebsd and another for using online haiku OS.
Yes, Linux had vulnerability that probably didn't affect any normal user with normal desktop distro. ;)
@@megatronskneecap Where is that door? I'd like to know since i've used it since mid 00's And never had any issues with anyone. ;)
+1 Thanks sir
If were talking about hardware support for linux and bsd most of the time is you may have problems with hardware if it is something very recent. Both BSD and Linux in general do catch up with latest hardware but it takes little bit longer than windows or mac. Speaking of bsd not used by companies what do you think macos is? It's based on BSD. Playstation OS also BSD heck if i know how many other systems are based on BSD. In big company that uses mac os computers uses essentially BSD, companies developing games and stuff for Play Station use BSD. To very that FreeBSD is used by big companies, Darwin, kernel used by apple to develop macos comes from FreeBSD.
I plan on running haiku OS on my Lenovo laptop and Freebsd on a workstation hooked to a lan cord but I'm still searching for a good deal to use freebsd on cheap. I have concerns running Linux I been using q4os Linux for three years, elementary os for two years, mint for 5 years and Ubuntu before it got weird joining canonical.
Myth #6 - FreeBSD is free of code of conduct nonsense
Only thing holding me back is accessibility support I think I cant install freebsd with speech
LOL
My laptop has only wifi no lan. Can’t used it without internet.
Well the FreeBSD project have stated that WiFi and laptops are a priority for them so let's hope this changes for you 🙂
I ran into this issue on my laptop HP laptop but put FreeBSD on my desktop and can't complain. You're definitely correct, can't use it without WiFi because of the job I do. Hopefully the laptop priority marching orders will change that. If I may suggest, if you're willing, to do an inventory of your hardware and see if you can buy an alternative wifi card. The issue with this approach is that you have to open up your laptop and start playing with the hardware.