# What do you run FreeBSD on?



## poorandunlucky (Jul 10, 2017)

So simple question, I'm curious what kind of hardware people use FreeBSD on...


----------



## SirDice (Jul 10, 2017)

At home, a dedicated desktop (small Zotac box), Raspberry Pi (to play with), several servers (NAS, VMs), various virtuals (virtualbox, bhyve).


----------



## forquare (Jul 10, 2017)

At/for home, I have a laptop (Lenovo T440) running FreeBSD plus various VirtualBox VMs for testing/ports maintenance.  I also have a VPS runnign FreeBSD for web services (web sites, nextcloud, quassel-core).

At work I used FreeBSD as my daily driver inside VirtualBox (some software we use still needs Windows and I'm not allowed to wipe Windows from the hard drive of this laptop or meddle with the disk layout), and I have a separate desktop (Intel i7-4770, 24GB RAM) running FreeBSD for general development/testing - it also runs CentOS inside bhyve for the same purpose.


----------



## rufwoof (Jul 10, 2017)

AMD64 Phenom x4. 8600GT Nvidia. 2GB ram. 32" TV as a monitor (720p (1280x720)). Boot using grub4dos, with primary boot choices of FreeBSD 11.0 (ufs) or Debian Jessie.

Preferred desktop is xorg + jwm + pcmanfm (pcmanfm --desktop for desktop icons whilst pcmanfm is also the file manager).


----------



## usdmatt (Jul 10, 2017)

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.


----------



## ralphbsz (Jul 10, 2017)

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).


----------



## tsarya (Jul 10, 2017)

Server - HP ProLiant Microserver Gen8 (Xeon E3-1220L v2), running FreeBSD 11.0.
Desktop is running Linux Mint.


----------



## wolffnx (Jul 10, 2017)

-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


----------



## ronaldlees (Jul 10, 2017)

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.


----------



## IPTRACE (Jul 10, 2017)

Multiprocessor servers with umpteen virtual machines based on bhyve.


----------



## Petr Fischer (Jul 10, 2017)

* 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...)


----------



## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 11, 2017)

General purpose, self built tower w/ quad core i5, 16GB RAM. Wife's computer same but i3 w/ 16GB.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jul 11, 2017)

http://www.bsdstats.org/bt/cpus.html

i7-3770 @ 3.4GHz with 32GB ram for my workstation. My notebook that ran FreeBSD broke and I never replaced it. I don't remember what the other devs at my business use but it's the same or similar. I also don't remember what our servers run cause the server guy handles that and I'm told I'm getting too old to care anymore.


----------



## ANOKNUSA (Jul 11, 2017)

Thinkpad T520 for all my work; home server for media/backups/Poudriere.


----------



## ralphbsz (Jul 11, 2017)

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.


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 11, 2017)

DFI SBC (E3816) with 3 igb0 and pfSense installed attached to my cable modem
APU2(AMD) Wireless access point.
Astaro ASG110 (Atom D525) FreeBSD WAP
2 Dell E6430, 4 Dell E6420, E6220 and E6520
Gigabyte Server- (1151-Xeon-v5) in 2U
Supermicro QM67 in 3U as Desktop on big screen HDMI.
RPi2 Arm with One Wire
BBB with Solid State Relays
BananaPi M1 with Switches and LEDs + Part time Fileserver/BU
MSI (N270) Windbox Fileserver 512GB Intel SSD

All FreeBSD but my Firewall.
And lots more yet to be tasked. Minnowboard up next for some role. Maybe network monitor.
I am a computer parts addict. I have 5 times as much gear still in the boxes.
Will die broke but happy.


----------



## ronaldlees (Jul 11, 2017)

ralphbsz said:


> 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.



I think (as SirDice mentioned) that most respondents are talking about their personal, home equipment (as am I).  So, at work they may maintain a big farm of FreeBSD servers.  I'm surprised that there are as many Pi users as there are.  Good motivation to keep it going ...

Probably the people asking the Desktop questions are the Desktop users, and the server farm operators are the answerers.


----------



## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 11, 2017)

ronaldlees said:


> Probably the people asking the Desktop questions are the Desktop users, and the server farm operators are the answerers.



I think you nailed it.


----------



## sko (Jul 11, 2017)

ralphbsz said:


> 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.



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?


----------



## acgissues (Jul 12, 2017)

Just started using it so only on my Raspberry Pi. May get it on my next desktop tho.


----------



## ANOKNUSA (Jul 12, 2017)

ralphbsz said:


> 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.



On top of what ronaldlees suggested above, I'd bet that the people casually conversing in an online forum with graphical browsers are more likely to be desktop users. You'd probably get different results on the mailing lists, where you'd find more people using FreeBSD on dedicated appliances or in a professional setting, and Windows/MacOS/Linux for their personal desktops.


----------



## BlueDwarf (Jul 12, 2017)

Ancient Thinkpad 410 here for all research/development work, running FreeBSD 11. One VM for Windows (occasionally used).


----------



## trev (Jul 13, 2017)

Late-2009 Mac Mini
-  Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8700  @ 2.53GHz;
- 8GB RAM
- 750G Seagate Hybrid drive
- FBSD 10-STABLE

Vultr Cloud Instance
- 1 VCPU
- 1GB RAM
- 25G SSD
- FBSD 10.3-R

Digital Ocean Droplet
- 1 VCPU
- 512MB RAM
- 20G SSD
- FBSD 10.3-R


----------



## poorandunlucky (Jul 13, 2017)

usdmatt said:


> 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.  : )



ralphbsz said:


> 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.  :



juan9182 said:


> -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:
> ...



:Thumbs Up:

... I'm just going to use the Thanks feature as a Thumbs Up/Reputation/Karma feature...  ^_^



ronaldlees said:


> 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
> ...



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...



Petr Fischer said:


> * 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...



ralphbsz said:


> 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.  : )



sko said:


> 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...


----------



## Petr Fischer (Jul 13, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> I'm still mad they retired the PowerPC, though...  I think it's because they were afraid terrorists would use them to crack encryption...



https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/en/


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jul 13, 2017)

poorandunlucky I don't know why you would think anyone here runs Windows with FreeBSD. Sure, some do, but many don't and have no reason to. The forum here is composed of mostly professionals as sysadmins and programmers using professional server hardware that is *not* designed for Windows but professional operating systems like FreeBSD.

As far as using FreeBSD for everything, I have used it on my workstation, servers and laptop exclusively since 2003 and would be embarrassed to stoop so low as to use anything from Microsoft which is a consumer oriented operating system that one would get at Walmart.


----------



## uzsolt (Jul 13, 2017)

Two (a little old) laptops - general use.
One Raspberry Pi - print-scanner-torrent-backup server.
One old (about 15yo) machine: power on once per month, full rsync from two laptops.
Two VPS: 1vCPU, 20G: personal page; backup and git server.
One VPS: 4vCPU, 50G: poudriere - build some package with specific options; maintain/update some ports (it will replace two VPS, same parameter as above).


----------



## acgissues (Jul 13, 2017)

trev said:


> Vultr Cloud Instance
> - 1 VCPU
> - 1GB RAM
> - 25G SSD
> - FBSD 10.3-R



Wondering about Vultrs's support for FreeBSD, since I'm looking forward setting up a VPS with FreeBSD.

Anyone else running it on a VPS at least mind sharing the provider, please.


----------



## poorandunlucky (Jul 14, 2017)

Petr Fischer said:


> https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/en/



That's kinda cool...



drhowarddrfine said:


> poorandunlucky I don't know why you would think anyone here runs Windows with FreeBSD. Sure, some do, but many don't and have no reason to. The forum here is composed of mostly professionals as sysadmins and programmers using professional server hardware that is *not* designed for Windows but professional operating systems like FreeBSD.
> 
> As far as using FreeBSD for everything, I have used it on my workstation, servers and laptop exclusively since 2003 and would be embarrassed to stoop so low as to use anything from Microsoft which is a consumer oriented operating system that one would get at Walmart.



Microsoft is able to orchestrate tens of thousands of people working together, and _billions_ of users, who all, supposedly, experience awful problems with their operating systems.

Microsoft's support is probably as close you can find on Earth to the Borg Queen of Star Trek...  It's not something that was inspired (copied) from a 70s university project, financed by a huge student body, it's original work created by an entrepreneur, who not only, admittedly, had the technical vision to foothold the future, but also the human vision...  When computers began taking over, people were afraid for their jobs, there were lock-outs, strikes, that was the 80s.  Microsoft became what it is today because William _Gates_, previously in partnership with Steve _Jobs_, promised, as an entrepreneur, to the people of Earth, that he would create jobs...  And he did.

I will _Never_ snob Microsoft, nor Gates, because they have accomplished more than I ever could dream of accomplishing, and no, I am not able to singlehandedly administer a network of Windows computers and servers... but it was never the point, was it?

Microsoft gave me a cool laptop my friends get hard on over, an Xbox, and even a phone who talks to me, writes accurately from my voice, and recognizes my iris in three dimensions.

FreeBSD... runs the North Korean defense network?  Gives me autistic replies to forum comments?  What?

No, I may not know what CDs were, but at least I can see the big picture, which most "technologically minded" people of past generations doesn't seem able to do, thereby the reference to autism.

I am glad, however, that you found your _niche_.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jul 14, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> Microsoft is able to orchestrate tens of thousands of people working together, and _billions_ of users, who all, supposedly, experience awful problems with their operating systems.


And, thus, my point.


----------



## ralphbsz (Jul 14, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> Microsoft is able to orchestrate ... _billions_ of users, who all, supposedly, experience awful problems with their operating systems.



And also billions of users who simply get work done, with little hassle.

For many years I had a Windows laptop for work.  Why?  Because in those days, my employers gave each staff member a laptop, and the only choice was x86 (not Mac).  Initially, there was exactly one option for the operating system: Windows.  Later, a second option was added, Red Hat.  Those were the days when running Linux on the desktop was painful: full-function (corporate) E-mail programs didn't exist (so text-mode e-mail only), browsers had serious limitations (anyone remember xmosaic?), OpenOffice barely functioned, and was nearly completely incompatible with Office documents, so in reality, there was only one functioning option: Windows.

But to me, that was not a serious shortcoming.  What do I need a laptop for?  A few things: (a) read and write e-mail, with attachments, and with really strong search and filing capabilities (so alpine or mutt don't do it).  (b) Process office files: documents, spreadsheets, presentations.  (c) Log into real computers, which all run some Unix variant, via text consoles.  (d) Run graphical programs that run on real computers, via Xwindows.  So all I needed to do was to install a terminal emulator (I think putty was my choice), and some X server (don't remember which one, corporate had licenses for something that worked fine), and I was fully productive.  Other than office documents (which get copied to real servers for storage), I did no work on the Windows laptop; it was sort of a thin client.

Actually, there is one real exception, namely a program that I actually run on the laptop which depends on Windows: MS Visio.  It is still the gold standard for drawing programs for diagrams (not CAD, not image processing, but diagrams).  I have enough stuff in Visio format, and enough accumulated Visio skills, that I still rely on it (never found a real replacement).

Now you ask: don't Windows machines get viruses?  No, they don't.  Corporate IT installs some virus scanner and firewall tool of their choice, it auto-updates, I'm reasonably careful, and the problem doesn't arise.  Or you ask: isn't upgrading Windows hellish?  Actually, most of the time its boring and a bit time-consuming (start updates, go to the cafeteria for a long coffee and chat with colleagues), but it just works.  And roughly once a year, bring the laptop to the IT service desk, and ask them to re-image it with whatever the newest version is.



> Microsoft's support is ...


First, the laptop nearly always worked.  If it didn't, the problem was typically not Microsoft, but either hardware (call for service), or our own corporate software (the special VPN client, our own special e-mail), for which support comes from corporate.  And if Windows really breaks: have the machine reinstalled.  I never dealt with Microsoft support in my life, of about 15 years using Windows laptops.

I had Windows laptops from about 1995 to 2010, over 4 different employers.  It wasn't pleasant, it wasn't my personal preference, but it was very low hassle, and I got work done.  I finally switched to a Mac laptop once two things happened: (a) it was permitted and supported by corporate IT, (b) the compatibility problems between the Mac and the Windows version of MS office got resolved (so documents could really seamlessly be moved back and forth, without font changes that destroy everything), and (c) a laptop-capable virtual machine capable of booting some Windows became available so I can still run MS Visio.

Why am I telling this long story?  Just to demonstrate that one can be a productive and satisfied user of Microsoft products.  I'm not saying that this is for every use case, and for every user, but for a large set of them it works.

Now, in addition I usually had a work desktop machine (with a variety of operating systems: NeXT, Windows NT, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, and Linux).  And typically a bevy of servers (in data centers and labs) at work, always running some Unix variant (including Linux, but also commercial Unixes).  And at home a wide variety of desktop and laptops, with Windows, MacOS, Linux, OpenBSD and FreeBSD as the OS.  Even today, my wife (also a technical person) relies solely on Windows laptops (work and personal), while my college-age son and me use only MacOS for user-facing machines.


----------



## poorandunlucky (Jul 14, 2017)

drhowarddrfine said:


> And, thus, my point.



Well I said that sarcastically/rhetorically, because if Winderps was so terrible... Microsoft just wouldn't be able to cope with it.  They'd need hundreds of thousands of people to handle very basic end-user contact, essentially just acknowledging people's attempts at getting their attention.



ralphbsz said:


> And also billions of users who simply get work done, with little hassle.



Well you guys got me a bit wrong here, because I wasn't saying Microsoft and/or Windows is terrible...  In fact, I think they're both awesome.  The sheer amount of people using it, the variety of hardware, and the fact that it all mostly works out of the box for several years, unless you install dodgy software on it, or disable security features, or dig too far...  It all works great, I think Windows is awesome.

I don't even think FreeBSD installs with 100% capabilities on 10% of systems people try to install it on...  Not saying it's bad, but it's a bit comparing apples and bananas, y'know?

I used to keep Windows around for work, because I needed to use Citrix Receiver at times (IT subcontractor recommended that, I have no clue why), but now I just keep it because it looks clean and awesome in my environment...  I spend a lot of my time playing with my xbone, and watching TV, and with Windows 10, I can open a remote xbox connection, and play games on my xbox from my computer, all the video processing is done remotely, and I just get an A/V stream, and send commands to it...  If I open a remote desktop connection to my computer with my Windows phone, I can even play Xbox from my cell phone through two remote connections!  : D

I don't "use" Windows mainly because of doctrine...  I like the idea of a modular kernel, I like the idea that it's free, and that people, including myself, can contribute to it freely, and I like the fact that it's so raw, and close to the electronics it works on, and for... and I also don't "use" Windows because I don't understand it as well...  It seems stupid, but I just don't...  It's easier for me to write configuration files than it is to put checkmarks in checkboxes...  Everything is also free, things are generally safe to play with, there's no ads, things are non-invasive, and in many ways it feels better, but it's got to the point where Windows also feels very good, but both are very different...

I might be able to play games on Windows, but I can't play _with_ Windows...  I can play with FreeBSD, and in return, I get a DNS server that reduces my latency in video games (I like to sit on a couch to play video games, rly...), I get a mail server, I get a VPN server for my cell phone, I get a whole bunch of things I can't really get with Windows...

I use GIMP and Inkscape on Windows, though...  VLC, but to interface (read: interact) with most people, and be able to relate to them, I like to use Windows...  Even if MacOS wasn't, in my opinion, somewhat immorally or unethically "stolen" from FreeBSD, I wouldn't like to use it because I don't like people who use (read: pray to) Apple devices.  It's just easier to say "Hey, I found this trick and such on the computer" and interest, and keep my friends when I talk about Windows than when I talk about FreeBSD...  If I talk about FreeBSD, I usually only end-up interesting fat communist wizards, or I end-up getting tossed in the same bin as them, and I just can't let that happen...  I don't like fat people, nor communists, nor wizards, (though I am an independent anarchist)... srsly...

Anyway, I just admire Windows, honestly...  The complexity of it is just phenomenal...  Social, economical, geopolitical, military, temporary, the business relationships, the vision, perspectives, the possibilities, ... it's just all very impressive, and the result isn't so bad...  If I run exclusively Microsoft applications, I have no problems, so I think most of the problems people have with Windows isn't with Windows... it's with the software they try to run on it, and it's not for the OS developer to write its OS to run particular software, it's to software developers to write software to run properly on an operating system.

Maybe people just have too much expectations towards Microsoft and towards Windows, and forget that, in the end, it's a fairly young enterprise, and they're just human like the rest of us... they're not gods, Microsoft isn't a god, no matter how many people consider Billy to be the prince of darkness...

Even if you compare Microsoft to Google...  People might be happy at their novel devices *working at all*, and meanwhile, developers are struggling to have their apps with advertisement, microtransactions and "coin sinks" work on >specific hardware<... they have to test on virtually all the current cell phone models out there because ... because mystery.  And Microsoft also caught-up to Google after they released online office productivity applications, just like IBM caught-up to Apple when they released the Yoga...  I even use Bing today...  I just couldn't keep encouraging software made by people who, at the office, chain their dogs to oversized kindergarten furniture.  Bing shows me an awesome picture every day, Google just shows me its shitty logo...  It tries to pass off as a glorious enterprise, but in the end, it buys a lot of companies, and closes a lot of the after extracting the technology from their employees.  They probably even purposely engineer their image to inspire trust in future buyouts to minimize sabotage, and destruction of (intellectual) property, and purposeful plausible denial of knowledge.

Microsoft is a home-grown American enterprise, and they're a lot more glorious to me than Google is now...  When I was a kid I used to love Google, I even wanted to have Google bedsheets (they make them), but now I keep my Xbox on so the Kinect can watch over me when I sleep...

I don't know...  I just feel that saying that you don't use Windows because you can find it on devices sold at Walmart is kinda stupid, because that just shows how robust it is...  I think it's admirable that it can run so easily on such a variety of hardware, and be used by such a large spectrum of people without real problems until some third party software comes screw everything up...

FreeBSD has difficulty keeping up... a few years ago, IX Systems had to hire someone full time to work on new display drivers for FreeBSD...  I don't think that snobbing Windows users is going to help FreeBSD prevail, if you love it so much...

On a different note, I don't know if you guys know, but Microsoft is easing-up on UNIX...  It's staying Microsoft, as is obviously shown by their development of PowerShell, but they're opening-up, and there's even a Win32 release of SSH developed by Microsoft themselves.

https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/releases

After running temporarily deactivating a security feature, and running the installation script, it installs two services, the SSH agent and the SSH daemon, along the binaries like ssh, sshd, sftp, scp, etc.  I just put the binaries in C:\Windows\ssh and added that folder to my PATH environment variable, and I use SSH from PowerShell...  : )


----------



## forquare (Jul 14, 2017)

To me is seems that Google is to smartphones today as Microsoft was to desktops back in the late '90s/early 2000's; a range of manufacturers take the software and sell it atop hardware that is mostly but not necessarily 100% up to spec with odd bits of their own software stuffed on top which causes some issues.  Desktops got more generalised, and in recent years Microsoft has softened.

Still their past monopolistic attitude leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, they seem well set up to ensure partners have a customer base to train, and these training companies issue Microsoft specific training, rather than broader computing concepts that can be applied to a wide range of software and give users a richer understanding.  Why build in easy-to-use automation tools (like Apple's Automator.app), when a partner can pay you to certify their programme which will just about teach users to do a similar thing misusing a spreadsheet?

I've not used Windows in anger for so long that my mind doesn't gel with it anymore - having said that, the latest Windows Subsystem for Linux I've got on my Windows 10 laptop at work is helping.

Microsoft's enterprise/server solutions leave my mind boggling, they seem over complicated, or at least more obscure than they aught to be - perhaps I'd better pay ££££ one of their partners for some more of that training.  And there are oddities that tell you Windows is a Desktop First OS, like the fact even Windows Server can handle no more than 26 drives.

Microsoft and Google share similar attitudes in my opinion.  Microsoft brought out a brand new "open" format standard for Office, but then proceeded to break the standard within Office, and nobody could tell me how this new format was superior to the OpenDocument format, which other applications already used...
Google are perhaps worse, they've built Android on a set of open standards and slowly phased them out for its own closed standards (e.g. XMPP got kicked aside for Hangouts).
Then with both there are the privacy concerns...

Linux has systemD, need I say more?

Personally, I trust Apple with my everyday life (phone, main desktop).  They used to do some interesting OS work, but they still have a healthy attitude to user privacy.  They have always had an odd relationship with open source, but it's seemed fairly consistent.
Slowly, as it becomes ever more capable and I'm finding alternative programs, etc, I'm moving desktop activities to FreeBSD, _my_ servers run FreeBSD.  I don't use Google services, but DuckDuckGo for search, and I've used several different providers for mail (using my own domain name to lessen disruptions)


----------



## Minbari (Jul 14, 2017)

A Lenovo ThinkStation C20 workstation (2 x Intel Xeon Hexa Core E5649) and on an old Asus X59GL laptop (Intel P8400).


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jul 14, 2017)

ralphbsz said:


> And also billions of users who simply get work done, with little hassle.


Thus my point. A consumer computer for consumers but "with little hassle" is far from true and, in a professional environment, Windows will cause more grief than anything else. 

As a pointless example, the very large restaurant chain I'm with uses Windows as their POS system. The issues they have getting Windows to do the things that are easy to do on Unix/BSD/Linux are astounding and every update is fraught with fear of what will go wrong. Tech support gets overloaded with problems and even the Microsoft shop that programs it admits they wouldn't have the same problems on any other OS. 

But arguing with some people defending this never gets anywhere and is OT for this thread so I'll stop now.


----------



## Belial (Jul 14, 2017)

A dedicated home server, media streaming, backups etc.

FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE-p9
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v3 @ 2.40GHz
32 MB ECC Memory
8 WD Red HDDs (3-6 TB)
GeForce GT 710B

This is my second FreeBSD installation. It replaces a computer that suffered hardware failure (blue smoke).

I started my FreeBSD experience with v8. After a hardware failure, when I realized how easy it was to recover my ZFS pool (with help from this forum), my next build HAD to run a FreeBSD system.

Only recently installed a Window Manager, i3.


----------



## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 14, 2017)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Thus my point. A consumer computer for consumers but "with little hassle" is far from true and, in a professional environment, Windows will cause more grief than anything else.


True. I dislike, and don't use, MS-Windows for various and sometimes just personal reasons which are of no consequence to others. However, to say that it "just works" is indeed a fallacy. My wife is far from being a beginner at computers and her recent brand new Laptop with Win10-professional on it took the best part of a day to set up. In fact Windows computers only come with the software _available_ on the hdd, it's not actually installed. A blank computer and your average Linux distro on a disc would be a quicker install by far.

I agree with poorandunlucky in that it's an awesome system and many people are able to make it work well for them. But I don't agree that it's good enough. MS makes huge amounts of money and employs a lot of people. For the resources they have available, and the price they charge, I expect near perfect with almost no security problems. Shame on them that they're not doing that. The fact that open source operating systems can even _begin_ to compete shows that MS is not doing the job we should expect.

Anyway, sorry to continue this fork of the thread.  Carry on .....


----------



## poorandunlucky (Jul 15, 2017)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Thus my point. A consumer computer for consumers but "with little hassle" is far from true and, in a professional environment, Windows will cause more grief than anything else.
> 
> As a pointless example, the very large restaurant chain I'm with uses Windows as their POS system. The issues they have getting Windows to do the things that are easy to do on Unix/BSD/Linux are astounding and every update is fraught with fear of what will go wrong. Tech support gets overloaded with problems and even the Microsoft shop that programs it admits they wouldn't have the same problems on any other OS.
> 
> But arguing with some people defending this never gets anywhere and is OT for this thread so I'll stop now.



Is it a SaaS?  Essentially a small company that has one product and keeps pushing useless updates and essentially provoking failures to actively support clients to justify their monthly fees?  I just can't see a POS system needing updates besides 86'ing the shrimp tartare...



Belial said:


> A dedicated home server, media streaming, backups etc.
> 
> FreeBSD 11.0-RELEASE-p9
> Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v3 @ 2.40GHz
> ...



ZFS is indeed awesomeness in a can, but ECC, really?  I would (I guess consider it, since I'm not buying hardware much) if the expense wouldn't be so much greater, especially upwards of 4 GB in high performance RAM... the price surge for ECC is just astounding...  I guess because it's usually an enterprise solution, and enterprises can usually shell out the big bucks, but I'd still like to have that piece of mind, just because it's there, y<know, but I'm not sure if it does anything, really... like, just how many neutrons do hit your RAM chips in a day?



OJ said:


> True. I dislike, and don't use, MS-Windows for various and sometimes just personal reasons which are of no consequence to others. However, to say that it "just works" is indeed a fallacy. My wife is far from being a beginner at computers and her recent brand new Laptop with Win10-professional on it took the best part of a day to set up. In fact Windows computers only come with the software _available_ on the hdd, it's not actually installed. A blank computer and your average Linux distro on a disc would be a quicker install by far.
> 
> I agree with poorandunlucky in that it's an awesome system and many people are able to make it work well for them. But I don't agree that it's good enough. MS makes huge amounts of money and employs a lot of people. For the resources they have available, and the price they charge, I expect near perfect with almost no security problems. Shame on them that they're not doing that. The fact that open source operating systems can even _begin_ to compete shows that MS is not doing the job we should expect.
> 
> Anyway, sorry to continue this fork of the thread.  Carry on .....



What do you mean "comes only with the software that's on the HDD"?  And what could've taken half a day to configure, Windows 10 can be left to install unattended, and it's very warm, and welcoming...  Unless you have a 10 mbps link, installing everything you need shouldn't take very long...

I kind of understand your point when you try to correlate ressources with output, but it's just proof that resources aren't always the limiting factor, and I think it's interesting to try to see, or understand where the limiting factors actually are.  : )


----------



## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 15, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> What do you mean "comes only with the software that's on the HDD"? And what could've taken half a day to configure, Windows 10 can be left to install unattended, and it's very warm, and welcoming... Unless you have a 10 mbps link, installing everything you need shouldn't take very long...


It seems you misread or I was unclear - I didn't say "only".  I said the _software_ is on the HDD, meaning the OS, but it still needs to be installed. You can't just use it without clicking on a bunch of installation questions. I've done this for others when they gotten a new computer. This may all be easy and normal for you. But for people like me who aren't experts in Windows this takes a lot of reading of legal material and research on where to get the missing bits. Please note too that the OS doesn't come with an office suite! In this day and age an operating system is useless to most people unless they can create .doc or compatible documents - not to mention presentation software. That requires more research on where and what to buy and then install after that. From my perspective it looks like you are being smug when you say this stuff is easy.  It is not. And it takes time.

PS: leaving it to install unattended sounds like something an old hand at this would do. The rest of us would likely wait for the next prompt.


----------



## forquare (Jul 15, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> I just can't see a POS system needing updates besides 86'ing the shrimp tartare...



Being a computer attached to a network, possibly with _some_ requirement to hit the internet (banking?), I think I’d want to know that I had the latest security patches in place…


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jul 15, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> Essentially a small company


It's one of the largest restaurant chains in the world with billions in annual sales.


----------



## Belial (Jul 15, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> ZFS is indeed awesomeness in a can, but ECC, really? I would (I guess consider it, since I'm not buying hardware much) if the expense wouldn't be so much greater, especially upwards of 4 GB in high performance RAM...



I paid for the hardware with Bitcoins purchased in 2013. The only store I know that accepts bitcoin is a computer hardware store. I didn't look at the price tag


----------



## poorandunlucky (Jul 16, 2017)

OJ said:


> It seems you misread or I was unclear - I didn't say "only".  I said the _software_ is on the HDD, meaning the OS, but it still needs to be installed. You can't just use it without clicking on a bunch of installation questions. I've done this for others when they gotten a new computer. This may all be easy and normal for you. But for people like me who aren't experts in Windows this takes a lot of reading of legal material and research on where to get the missing bits. Please note too that the OS doesn't come with an office suite! In this day and age an operating system is useless to most people unless they can create .doc or compatible documents - not to mention presentation software. That requires more research on where and what to buy and then install after that. From my perspective it looks like you are being smug when you say this stuff is easy.  It is not. And it takes time.
> 
> PS: leaving it to install unattended sounds like something an old hand at this would do. The rest of us would likely wait for the next prompt.



oic...  well for the legal stuff on Windows it's pretty much all the same thing, you can't use or redistribute the software without a valid license, even if the license is free, and you can't tamper with or reverse-engineer the software, either, which I think is a good thing because it kinda forces people to think for themselves...  I have a similar clause in my license I use for "visible source" where you can read for educational purposes, but you can't copy or directly inspire yourself from what I made simply because I think people should understand what they do, and I even mention it's really to protect them more than my work.  : )

As for office suite, well I hope you can at least appreciate the journey through a perhaps different universe, or at least get first hand experience with the current trends in software distribution and licensing... like Office is either a standalone product like it used to be, or a subscription-based service that integrates with other Microsoft products and services...  It's pretty much the modus operandi for Windows binary software these days...



forquare said:


> Being a computer attached to a network, possibly with _some_ requirement to hit the internet (banking?), I think I’d want to know that I had the latest security patches in place…



I hadn't thought of that...



drhowarddrfine said:


> It's one of the largest restaurant chains in the world with billions in annual sales.



To me that just means more of less  : P

I make a point not to ride other people's "success", though, and I don't associate with either individuals, groups, or other entities (besides a single person when forming a couple)...  I believe that people can only ever stand with other people when you stand alone.

Still, though, because the restaurant sells a lot of food, regardless of the type of food, doesn't mean that the business that made their POS system has any other product, or even client in this case...  In fact, it's even more common for small businesses to only have one product and one client if the client is big...



Belial said:


> I paid for the hardware with Bitcoins purchased in 2013. The only store I know that accepts bitcoin is a computer hardware store. I didn't look at the price tag



bitcoins...  If I hadn't bought drugs with mine, I would've been able to exchange a few hundred dollars for $250,000.00  : [

I'm still hoping luck will strike another way, though...  I'm not sure I'd want to be a bitcoin billionaire...  : \


----------



## MMacD (Jul 16, 2017)

Firewall:  Intel Atom D2500 running pfSense
Server-of-all-work:  Supermicro A1SRM-2558F (Atom C2558), 16GB, 2x 3-way ZFS mirrors
General dev workhorse: Gigabyte AM3+ board (don't remember which) with an FX8320e cp and 32GB.
General w/s, dual boot with Win7 x64: Gigabyte AM3+ board with an Athlon 620e cp.


----------



## scottro (Jul 16, 2017)

MMacD, is  that a Siberian kitten? (Just asking, as my wife is allergic, and we were considering getting one since they're theoretically hypoallergenic-ish.)
Workstation, white box 8G RAM E-1230 Xeon,  ZFS mirror
Home, Dell XPS-8900, zfs single ssd and a second large spinning disk for storage also zfs.

I also run it on several laptops but all are multibooting Linux.  Various things don't work as well as they do with Linux, such as trackpad, wireless, and video on newer machines.
I'm not looking to get into flame wars on this--I don't use a mouse much so haven't delved too deeply into that issue.  As for wireless, the iwm driver seems to not support 802.11ac so a transfer on the LAN that goes at 50MB in Linux goes at around 2-3MB in FreeBSD.  As for video, my yoga2 Pro with Haswell only works, and not that well with CURRENT and drm-next, see http://srobb.net/freebsdintel.html for details.  Lastly, transcoding with ffmpeg seems to be far slower than it is on Linux.  I'm mentioning these things because some people may find it useful, not to take sides, or start a discussion on how Linux is bad.  It's better at some things and FreeBSD is better at other things, in the same way that one can argue Windows is better for one's parents if one isn't around to help.

The laptops are
Older Thinkpad L420.  Everything works out of the box in FreeBSD-11.x, I might have had to make entries to /boot/loader.conf for wireless.
Clevo barebones W24 EU.  Had to make entries to loader.conf for an Intel 7260 card, otherwise all fine out of the box.
Asus UX31E (the first one).  Works out of the box
Yoga2 Pro. Works, though not that well, with CURRENT, otherwise can only get vesa driver working.  See abovementioned link.  Came with an intel wireless which I upgraded to 7260, needed to add lines to loader.conf.  With the two machines (the Clevo and the Yoga), wireless works without problem, but only at 802.11a, meaning slower speeds over LAN.

When I say everything works out of the box, I mean I startx, use wireless, and so on.  Trackpad scrolling doesn't work on any of them. I've tried various solutions,  but none worked on these particular machines, and as I usually use dwm or openbox with keyboard shortcuts, I make almost no use of the mouse anyway.

TL;DR
A couple of standard towers, everything fine
A few different laptops, mostly Ok, newer one needs CURRENT to get Intel video, Intel cards need lines added to /boot/loader.conf and only use 802.11a, trackpad works but scrolling and tapping don't.


----------



## Phishfry (Jul 16, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> I just can't see a POS system needing updates besides 86'ing the shrimp tartare...


I think you should check out the certifications needed for card processing.
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org

The rate a merchant pays in processing fees is related to their security posture.


----------



## obsigna (Jul 16, 2017)

Interesting that users are running so many FreeBSD desktop systems, since it seems to break with the common place that the main usage of FreeBSD is for servers.

I noticed the difference between the thread title "What do you *run* FreeBSD on?" and the poll title "What do you *use* FreeBSD on?" So it came to my mind, that maybe FreeBSD is *running* on many desktop systems for sort of curiosity, which are not actually being *used* heavily.


----------



## scottro (Jul 16, 2017)

QCTM. (Quietly Chuckling To Myself).  In my case with the laptops, definitely, and none are heavily used.  The workstation at home is also not used that much, just laziness--I used to work at a CentOS shop and so had a CentOS server-cum-workstation and I'm lazy as far as moving it.  I did, in part, choose it for storage, and need to add another large disk one of these days.   So, yes, I confess that in part, I fit that category.  And, of course, since I'm the one doing it, see nothing wrong with that. 

At work, as this is mostly a FreeBSD shop, there's no real advantage to using it over Linux, but it gives me a non-essential machine to use for testing various and sundry things.   It's used differently than the servers, but can sometimes let me know when an update might


----------



## forquare (Jul 17, 2017)

obsigna said:


> So it came to my mind, that maybe FreeBSD is *running* on many desktop systems for sort of curiosity, which are not actually being *used* heavily.



In my case, most of my work is done on FreeBSD.  Only Outlook, Office, and Skype (for IM and voice calls) usage really gets done on Windows.  The desktop I've got FreeBSD runnign on at work serves as a dashboard for some lab metrics (running Grafana), as well as being a backup for my laptops FreeBSD VM (ZFS send snapshots), and a VM host itself (hosting CentOS on bhyve).

My home laptop is my main machine when I'm away from home, and my FreeBSD powered VPS homes a number of services (e.g. nextcloud, git repo, quassel-core) that allows me to access my stuff wherever I have an internet connection.


----------



## MMacD (Jul 17, 2017)

scottro said:


> MMacD, is  that a Siberian kitten? (Just asking, as my wife is allergic, and we were considering getting one since they're theoretically hypoallergenic-ish.)



No, she's a Scots wildcat (f. silv. grampia).  Skye (her given name) was born and raised in sanctuary because her people are nearing extinction in the wild.  Partly it's because of habitat loss, accidents, and actually being intentionally killed (hard not to call that 'murder'), and partly because they willingly produce children with non-wildcat moggies when, as so often these days, they can't find another wildcat while in season.

From what I can read, it's a crapshoot whether a given Siberian is "less allergenic" for a given human.  Which suggests that the only way to keep from breaking everyone's heart is to have a lot of close physical contact with many different individual adult cats before deciding whether it'll be okay to commit to one.


----------



## scottro (Jul 17, 2017)

Just to say a quick thanks, and that's really cool.  Most Siberian breeders around here will offer specific allergy tests for selected kittens, because, as you say, it is a crapshoot. 
Apologies to all for being off topic.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Jul 17, 2017)

sko said:


> 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've been running FreeBSD on my laptops for 12 years now and if I had to use one word to describe them it would be reliable. Not once in all that time have I had a crash, a problem I couldn't figure out or find the answer to if I looked around. Flexible? I can do anything on them I could on a Windows or Linux machine with the possible exception of playing Oblivion, and only because I don't like Wine.

I use FreeBSD 11.0 RELEASE-p9 32bit on my 10 year old Sony Viao with Intel Dual Core t2060 and 2GB Ram. 
The 64 bit version on a Gateway/Acer clone with AMD Phenom II x 3 n830, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 and 4GB RAM. 
I was running 64 bit on a Thinkpad T61 till it shot craps a few weeks ago, but I attribute that to the dock I had it in.


----------



## poorandunlucky (Jul 18, 2017)

scottro said:


> TL;DR
> A couple of standard towers, everything fine
> A few different laptops, mostly Ok, newer one needs CURRENT to get Intel video, Intel cards need lines added to /boot/loader.conf and only use 802.11a, trackpad works but scrolling and tapping don't.



you know, i think that might be a new, fresh perspective for FreeBSD to have...  in the past, there used to be a huge discrepancy between server, and desktop hardware, but today all desktops are yesterday's mainframe supercomputers, and the divide is ever getting smaller...  With virtual reality, and more space being given to objects (in a "virtual" kind of sense), I definitely think FreeBSD should address this issue of focusing solely on the "backend" of things... I'm not saying it should become another distribution of a desktop OS, what I'm saying is that there _should_ be a FreeBSD desktop environment... somehow, someway, in its own way...



Phishfry said:


> I think you should check out the certifications needed for card processing.
> https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org
> 
> The rate a merchant pays in processing fees is related to their security posture.



You know, I haven't looked at it, but in a world where the most important thing at the end of the day is being able to assign blame to someone else (maybe so you can wash your hands of your own work), I don't doubt it's fairly hefty, and I don't doubt it's actually pretty simple and straightforward, despite being scary, and voluminous, so as to scare off the kiddies (which is a good idea, see... i'm not perpetuating that kind of bullshit  : P )... and I'm sure it's also quite costly to meet all the requirements, but in the end, it's probably just using a bunch of certified software, and ensuring all employees wear badges or something...  I'm sure it's not very hard to steal credit card numbers from a payment processor.  I'd rent the office upstairs.  : D



obsigna said:


> Interesting that users are running so many FreeBSD desktop systems, since it seems to break with the common place that the main usage of FreeBSD is for servers.
> 
> I noticed the difference between the thread title "What do you *run* FreeBSD on?" and the poll title "What do you *use* FreeBSD on?" So it came to my mind, that maybe FreeBSD is *running* on many desktop systems for sort of curiosity, which are not actually being *used* heavily.



I think you're chasing rabbits.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Jul 18, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> I definitely think FreeBSD should address this issue of focusing solely on the "backend" of things... I'm not saying it should become another distribution of a desktop OS, what I'm saying is that there _should_ be a FreeBSD desktop environment... somehow, someway, in its own way...



There is already GhostBSD, which is fairly well respected from what I know of it although I've never used it, and TrueOS, formerly PC-BSD.

I like things the way they are now. I prefer to build it from scratch and wouldn't use a version that came pre-rolled with a DE, applications, etc. even if they came out with one.

As far as that goes, I'm one one of my FreeBSD laptops now, using Fluxbox, so there already is a desktop option with vanilla FreeBSD. It's rock solid and set up just the way I want it with image manipulator, music and video player, CD ripper, DVD burner, web browser, file manager, etc. What more could you ask for? Somebody to do it for you?


----------



## obsigna (Jul 18, 2017)

poorandunlucky said:


> ...
> I think you're chasing rabbits.



Seems you're replacing knowledge by thinking, and trying to support your thoughts with a poorly designed poll which rises more questions than it gives answers. Good luck!


----------



## trev (Jul 19, 2017)

obsigna said:


> I noticed the difference between the thread title "What do you *run* FreeBSD on?" and the poll title "What do you *use* FreeBSD on?" So it came to my mind, that maybe FreeBSD is *running* on many desktop systems for sort of curiosity, which are not actually being *used* heavily.



My home FreeBSD desktop (late 2009 Mac Mini) is used for email, web browsing, mailserver, webserver, nameserver and C programming. My other machine (late 2012 Mac Mini) runs macOS and has VMs of Windows 2000, XP, 7 and 10. It is rarely used in comparison except to read .docx files, and the Windows VMs are used only for compiling programs for PIC microcontrollers and running Delphi for compiling occasional OS X/macOS programs.


----------



## nosferatu (Jul 19, 2017)

I use it for my home server. I used it before in VirtualBox. I will use (in 2 days) it in my laptop as dual-boot with Windows. I use it on MIPS based device. I use it with ARM based router.

Once got it working it works like a charm. I love FreeBSD.


----------



## LVLouisCyphre (Jan 2, 2020)

Spoiler: Current network (under construction)






Spoiler: Generic FreeBSD 12.1 server



Lenovo TS430-0388 w/32 GB ECC RAM
(4) 3.5" SATA drives; RAIDZ2 (data or NAS backup)
(8) 2.5" SAS drives; RAID6 (boot)
Intel PRO/1000 PT quad port NIC; em(4)
LSI (3ware) 9750-16i4e SAS/SATA RAID controller; tws(4)





Spoiler: Dual FreeNAS 11.2-U7



HP Proliant Microserver G7 N54L w/16 GB ECC RAM








Spoiler: Previous network (decommissioned and unfortunately scrapped summer 2015)



Several ALR Revolution 2X servers

Dual Pentium Pro Overdrive CPUs w/1 GB ECC RAM
AMI MegaRAID 428 UltraSCSI RAID5 (3 drives)
Dual Intel Pro/100 server NIC; fxp(4)
DEC EISA or PCI FDDI NIC; fea or fpa(4)
Two ALR Revolution 2XL

Dual Pentium Pro Overdrive CPUs & 1 GB ECC RAM
AMI MegaRAID 428 UltraSCSI RAID5 (6 drives)
Dual Intel Pro/100 server NIC; fxp(4)
DEC EISA or PCI FDDI NIC; fea or fpa(4)
A few Abit BP6 based systems with dual Celeron 533 CPUs and 768 MB RAM
An outrageous power bill if everything was on at once; most of the systems were cold standbys.


I'm big into taking vintage hardware and throwing it into a computing cluster, NAS or network lab with FreeBSD and letting it run until it dies.  I've been using FreeBSD since 1996.  I don't feel so bad about decommissioning my previous network as fpa(4) has been discontinued.  I will say this, fpa(4) was absolutely bullet proof if you wanted 100Mbps networking.


----------



## aponomarenko (Aug 25, 2020)

Current pie charts collected by https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/hw-probe/:


----------



## a6h (Aug 25, 2020)

I suppose it's a descriptive chart. What is the population [of summaries]? i.e. how many unique FreeBSD systems are there in your stats?
[EDIT]: I'm always pessimistic about statistics especially inferential ones (I'm not suggesting yours is inferential). But I like [the fact] that your data suggest desktop/Intel64 is the king.


----------



## aponomarenko (Aug 25, 2020)

vigole said:


> I suppose it's a descriptive chart. What is the population [of summaries]? i.e. how many unique FreeBSD systems are there in your stats?
> [EDIT]: I'm always pessimistic about statistics especially inferential ones (I'm not suggesting yours is inferential). But I like [the fact] that your data suggest desktop/Intel64 is the king.



You can find details by clicking on the charts and then clicking on table rows. The sample is still relatively small — 300 tested computers on FreeBSD.


----------



## jbo (Aug 25, 2020)

aponomarenko said:


> Current pie charts collected by https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/hw-probe/:





vigole said:


> [EDIT]: I'm always pessimistic about statistics especially inferential ones (I'm not suggesting yours is inferential).


I think in this particular instance it's worth noting that the available data is most likely biased as most security concerned FreeBSD users would refrain from running sysutils/hw-probe as it requires root level access. There's a corresponding forum thread:








						Solved - Why BSDstats.org is down so long? Somebody knows?
					

BSDstats.org is down several days (or more). Does anyone know what happened with it? I didn't find any mentions on the internet.  Maybe it's time to switch to https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/hw-probe/ ;) ?




					forums.freebsd.org
				




This is solely meant to add some context. Personally I appreciate aponomarenko 's efforts in creating sysutils/hw-probe!


----------



## a6h (Aug 25, 2020)

joel.bodenmann said:


> most likely biased as most security concerned FreeBSD users


You are correct. that's a stumbling block for any type of statistics. By the way thanks for sharing link to that thread.


----------



## a6h (Aug 25, 2020)

aponomarenko said:


> You can find details by clicking on the charts and then clicking on table rows. The sample is still relatively small — 300 tested computers on FreeBSD.


I appreciate your work on sysutils/hw-probe too. My comment is not targeted to criticize your program. I just wanted to know the population number. thanks for your reply and your work on sysutils/hw-probe project.


----------

