# FreeBSD as a client workstation in a company



## ccc (May 12, 2011)

Hi,

Are you using FreeBSD as a client workstation in your company? Which Windows Manager or Desktop Environment do you use? Are you satisfied? Which advantages and disadvantages do you see?


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## drhowarddrfine (May 12, 2011)

Yes. More than satisfied. OpenBox. Disadvantage -> stupid Windows files that aren't compatible and Windows people. Gotta catch a plane.


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## Zare (May 12, 2011)

Yes, with WindowMaker. Advantage - you have FreeBSD. Disadvantage - you need to use emulation/virtualization if your company uses Microsoft-based services and/or Windows-only programs.


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## kpedersen (May 12, 2011)

Yes. With mwm

Advantage - you have FreeBSD

Disadvantage - I got fired for installing a non regulation operating system on my workstation.


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## vermaden (May 12, 2011)

> Are you using FreeBSD as a client workstation in your company?


Yes: http://vermaden.deviantart.com/art/CorporateBSD-FreeBSD-at-Work-190680188



> Which Windows Manager or Desktop Environment?


openbox/wbar/tint2/conky/opera/virtualbox/...



> Are you satisfied?


Yes.


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## overmind (May 12, 2011)

*FreeBSD and kde4 could also be a choice*

We use FreeBSD 8.x and KDE4 configured to look like KDE3.5 (menu style and desktop).

We use this setup for all our development workstations, it's very stable and we have no problems.

Add two gmirror drives. If you want less power consumption use 2.5 sata laptop drives. You will get 1W consumption per drive (instead of 8-10W)

Or use single drive and build a zfs backup server.

One disadvantage could be slow browser if you use flash and you have lots of browser tabs open, but I think this issue is on windows too.

Other disadvantages I do not see, except maybe you have to install and configure xorg but it is an easy process.


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## phoenix (May 12, 2011)

I used to.  When I was first hired on, it was to help implement FreeBSD-based firewalls in the secondary schools and all admin sites.  So I needed to learn as much about FreeBSD as I could, in the shortest amount of time.  So I installed FreeBSD 4.something on a desktop, along with KDE 2.something, and forced myself to use that as my only workstation, for everything.  Rest of the staff was Windows 98SE, some Windows XP, and some RedHat 7/8/9/thereabouts.

I kept that workstation running FreeBSD for several years, until we had standardised on Debian Linux for everything, at which point I needed to learn Debian inside and out, so I installed Debian on my workstation with KDE 3.something.

I no longer run a FreeBSD desktop at work, but do at home.  And we still run FreeBSD on our firewalls, with FreeBSD on our storage servers as well.  Everything else is Debian Linux or Ubuntu Linux.

I still believe the best way to learn an OS is to force yourself to use that OS as your primary workstation.  No dual-boot option, no VM option, no emulators.  Just that OS and the apps for that OS.  Make it work.  Once you are comfortable with the OS, then you can add in dual-boot, VMs, etc to make life easier.    If you have an "out", you won't learn.


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## bbzz (May 12, 2011)

phoenix said:
			
		

> I still believe the best way to learn an OS is to force yourself to use that OS as your primary workstation.



This principle works with lots of things. Immersing yourself completely into it a best way to learn something. A friend of mine who wanted to learn Japanese installed Windows on Japanese (among other things he did such as have headphones with some Japanese guy talking 24/7).
He is comfortable now with it after almost a year. Crazy  I imagine he had troubles getting basic things done in the beginning.

@vermaden
How do you make wbar stay on top of other windows in openbox? (Just a quick one since its offtopic).

Also, getting fired for installing nonregulated OS on your desktop really? That sucks.


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## aragon (May 12, 2011)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> Disadvantage - I got fired for installing a non regulation operating system on my workstation.


That sounds like an advantage.


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## vermaden (May 12, 2011)

bbzz said:
			
		

> @vermaden
> How do you make wbar stay on top of other windows in openbox? (Just a quick one since its offtopic).



I do not use that part of the destkop for windows:
~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

```
<margins>
    <top>1</top>
    <bottom>26</bottom>
    <left>38</left>
    <right>1</right>
  </margins>
```


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## roddierod (May 12, 2011)

bbzz said:
			
		

> Also, getting fired for installing nonregulated OS on your desktop really? That sucks.



'If he installs nonregulated OS, we'll all installs nonregulated OS, it'll be anarchy.'

Seriously, if you work in any kind of corporate environment and you are not in IT or have a really good friend in the IT department, don't attempt to install an OS (or anything at all) that is not standard or supported, it is a quick way to get fired. There are many logical and support reasons why they have such rules.

That said before I was in IT, I attempted to dual boot my corporate workstation (NT and Debian if I recall) it did not go well. Luckly, I knew more than our office PC support so I wiped the disk and told them I had accidently kicked the power cord out of the wall that the disk erased! They bought it.

Once I got into IT, I built a FreeBSD workstation for "testing". The hardest part with integrating it with the work environment was not being able to find a client to connect to a Microsoft Exchange server and not being able to authenticate on Active Directory servers which left me without access to shared folders on various servers.


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## mix_room (May 16, 2011)

Albeit not FreeBSD, but might be of interest nonetheless
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20110420080633


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## nilsgecko (May 16, 2011)

I'm using FreeBSD 8.2 on a laptop I use for a company I work part-time for.  

I mostly use the Enlightenment ~17 environment and have installed gpicview, evince pdf document viewer, and Firefox which I use Google Docs for if I need to work with MS Office-compatible documents.

The only disadvantage is that there are definitely some programs that are used in the company (architectural/design) such as the Adobe Illustrator program.  That said, there have been a couple of times I've been able to use command line utilities from the ports collection to convert between formats that have been sent to us that won't open in Illustrator, even though they are Adobe Files! (I think it's a version difference thing a la CS4 vs CS3 etc).  

Other than that, no disadvantages.


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## nekoexmachina (May 17, 2011)

Yes, planning to use.
Got an environment in VirtualBox, now just need to move it onto real hw ().
scrotwm, vim, thunderbird, openoffice plus wine with some company-developed tools inside.

My boss aproved it with me telling him as I need good scripting environment for perl/python/shell plus numerous ssh tools, while cygwin, virtualbox and others just suck with performance, I need some real UNIX just in hands, not on the remote server without access to clients servers (due to security policy of the company).


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## carlton_draught (May 17, 2011)

1. yes
2. gnome2
3. yes
4. 
*Disadvantage*: it took me what seemed like forever to get everything working to an extent where I am as comfortable as I used to be on Linux.* It wouldn't have taken nearly as long if I wasn't a perfectionist.
*Advantage*: everything I do from this point onwards is going to be rock solid because of ZFS + redundancy. Basically, if I get errors I can be very sure that it's not from corrupted data. It will either be a software bug or "pilot error". Getting to that point was a very large one time cost, but it also bought me experience - experience that I don't have to learn "the hard way" in a production environment where mistakes cost more than time. And aside from a very few things, there is very little I used to be able to do on Ubuntu that I can't do now on FreeBSD, and nothing of importance.

Ports is near Ubuntu repositories in terms of comprehensiveness. Much slower, but possible to be more anal. I'm not touching packages until there is some sort of security hashing on them.

* This is probably a similar time to the first "gung ho" attempt at going from Windows to Linux, but far less if you count the several abortive attempts I had previously.


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## carlton_draught (May 17, 2011)

phoenix said:
			
		

> I still believe the best way to learn an OS is to force yourself to use that OS as your primary workstation.  No dual-boot option, no VM option, no emulators.  Just that OS and the apps for that OS.  Make it work.  Once you are comfortable with the OS, then you can add in dual-boot, VMs, etc to make life easier.    If you have an "out", you won't learn.


Oh yes. There is no other way AFAIAC. Cold turkey or nothing.

I think another necessity is to have another machine that you can use to research stuff while you have broken your primary system. At the very least, you need to have a HDD that you can swap back in to your machine if things are hosed. But better to have the other machine, otherwise the experiment - result - research loop is too slow. If you can't afford to hose your system, you will never try anything. If you can't try anything you will never learn anything.

Edit: If you do have another system, I recommend something small and clunky compared to the primary. Like a laptop. There should be enough incentive that using it is a last resort.


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## ccc (Jul 17, 2011)

Thx for all answers.
BTW How do you secure your freeBSD workstation?
Is it a good idea to install Virus Scanner, for example clamav and rootkit scanner like rkhunter on these freeBSD workstations?


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## vermaden (Jul 17, 2011)

I used *clamav* on FreeBSD to scan *.exe files that I own, from time to time I find something nasty there, but it also depends on how often You put new things there, I have a 'windows tools pack' that I use and I do not download nothing new there for most of the time.


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