# Those of you who have used GhostBSD please share your experience



## john_rambo (Feb 3, 2022)

As you know GhostBSD offers a Live mode for testing, a really easy to use installer & a collection of apps installed by default which makes it really easy for FreeBSD newbies to try FreeBSD.

I have a GhostBSD install and personally I am quite satisfied. The only thing that I don't like is the fact that GhostBSD uses its own repo which as far as I know is synced with the FreeBSD repos. I wonder why this descicion was made because it adds a little delay depending on when the GhostBSD repos are synced with the FreeBSD repos.

So those of you who have used GhostBSD please share your experience.


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## scottro (Feb 3, 2022)

Please note that discussion of GhostBSD isn't really permitted here. Not banned, precisely, but discouraged. The reason is that this a FreeBSD forum.









						GhostBSD, pfSense, TrueNAS, and all other FreeBSD Derivatives
					

Questions about 'derivative FreeBSDs', like  GhostBSD DesktopBSD TrueNAS XigmaNAS OPNsense pfSense PacBSD BSD Router Project NomadBSD helloSystem  should be asked on the forums and/or mailing lists for these specific products. See below for links.  If you still think your questions should be...




					forums.freebsd.org
				




It's often a case-by-case basis, so use your own judgement, but I suspect (though I'm not a moderator here), that a post like yours isn't really appropriate for these forums. It might be better asked on daemonforums.org which, though primarily OpenBSD-centric, does allow all BSD questions.


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## john_rambo (Feb 3, 2022)

scottro 
I thought I can discuss this here coz I am not asking for any kind of support. If a mod locks this topic I will understand. Thanks.


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## SirDice (Feb 3, 2022)

john_rambo said:


> So those of you who have used GhostBSD please share your experience.


You will probably find more GhostBSD users on the GhostBSD forums: https://forums.ghostbsd.org/index.php


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## john_rambo (Feb 3, 2022)

SirDice said:


> You will probably find more GhostBSD users on the GhostBSD forums: https://forums.ghostbsd.org/index.php


I am a member of the GhostBSD forums. Whenever I ask a question the main dev himself almost always try to answer my questions but the sad fact is the participation in that forum is way lower in comparison to this forum.


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## SirDice (Feb 3, 2022)

I'm sure we have _some_ users that have used GhostBSD, but the bulk is of course FreeBSD. So you may not get very much response on the subject here either.


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## freezr (Feb 3, 2022)

Let me say I used it in the past.

What I dislike is all these derivatives are often one man, or a very small group, vision!

Derivatives never fit my vision hence I prefer use the "vanilla" version of everything since is a community effort and tend to be more generic and better modular.


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## eternal_noob (Feb 3, 2022)

You're absolutely correct. I think there is no point in using those derivatives. They can't accomplish something what the original isn't able to.


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## john_rambo (Feb 3, 2022)

tgl eternal_noob
GhostBSD could have very very close to vanilla FreeBSD. That's not the case because of only one reason and that is the decision of maintaining separate repos. Other stuff like ipfw enabled by default is no major disadvantage. If a user wishes to to use PF its just needs a simple editing of /etc/rc.conf  and creating /etc/pf.conf. Which is what I have done.


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## freezr (Feb 3, 2022)

GhostBSD has been shaped to welcoming Linux users providing tools and defaults that Linux users expect to find in a *nix OS, I fell in the same category unfortunately...


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 3, 2022)

john_rambo said:


> please share your experience.



Excellent.

MATE is not my preferred desktop environment, but GhostBSD excels.



john_rambo said:


> … participation in that forum is way lower …



Maybe because it's an excellent desktop distribution of FreeBSD. Relatively few problems to discuss.


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## freebsdinator (Feb 3, 2022)

Skimming through their screenshots, it seems they have a wifi-manager built in. Is there an equivalent FreeBSD port that I can grab?


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## drr (Feb 3, 2022)

freebsdinator said:


> Skimming through their screenshots, it seems they have a wifi-manager built in. Is there an equivalent FreeBSD port that I can grab?


net-mgmt/networkmgr ?


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## freezr (Feb 3, 2022)

It is available also for FreeBSD and it is called `networkmgr`, I don't use it because it requires `sudo` as dependencies, I don't see the reason for that, furthermore I use `doas`, hence to make the wifi working I use `wifimgr`, this is lesser polite but it works.


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## Beastie7 (Feb 3, 2022)

GhostBSD is literally FreeBSD. It works as well as FreeBSD. Why do these threads exist..


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## ralphbsz (Feb 4, 2022)

Beastie7 said:


> GhostBSD is literally FreeBSD.


Except it is not. It is a modified version of FreeBSD, with some changes to installation and configuration. So a statement made about GhostBSD is not always true about FreeBSD, and vice versa.


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## john_rambo (Feb 4, 2022)

freebsdinator said:


> Skimming through their screenshots, it seems they have a wifi-manager built in. Is there an equivalent FreeBSD port that I can grab?


There is one big problem with this particular network manager. If you are using WiFi this network manager lets you choose a SSID but if you are using ethernet you cant do anything. I mean you cant set DNS or static IP. 

Note : I am comparing GhostBSD's network manager with Linux's network manager.


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 4, 2022)

Beastie7 said:


> GhostBSD is literally FreeBSD.



GhostBSD is FreeBSD and more. It's based on FreeBSD stable/13. 

<https://github.com/ghostbsd/ghostbsd-src> _GhostBSD Core Operating System Repo_

<https://github.com/ghostbsd/ghostbsd-ports> _FreeBSD ports with GhostBSD ports_


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## john_rambo (Feb 4, 2022)

Beastie7 said:


> GhostBSD is literally FreeBSD. It works as well as FreeBSD. Why do these threads exist..


GhostBSD uses its own repos which gets synced with FreeBSD. Suppose you are using vanilla FreeBSD and you get an update for Firefox today it will take some time to get that update under GhostBSD. Exactly how many days ? That I don't know.


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## Beastie7 (Feb 4, 2022)

ralphbsz said:


> Except it is not.



It's literally using the exact same base system and ports framework. It's not any different than BSD Unix from CSRG being birthed from Research Unix. The rest is policy.


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 4, 2022)

john_rambo said:


> … when the GhostBSD repos are synced with the FreeBSD repos. …



Three recent examples:

Merge remote-tracking branch 'freebsd/stable/13' into update-stable/13.0-220122 (2022-01-22)
Merge pull request #150 from ghostbsd/update-stable/13.0-220122 (2022-01-22) _Update stable/13.0 220122_
Merge remote-tracking branch 'freebsd/main' (2022-02-03) related to ghostbsd/ghostbsd-src#159 _rust-1.58.0 is vulnerable_


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 4, 2022)

john_rambo said:


> … an update for Firefox today it will take some time to get that update under GhostBSD. …







Magic!


Hint: it's not magic, but do, please, proceed with caution; this is probably frowned upon. 

*Precaution*: create, activate then boot a new boot environment. 

Then create /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf with this content: 


```
FreeBSD {
    url = "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/latest";
    mirror_type = "srv";
    signature_type = "fingerprints";
    fingerprints = "/usr/share/keys/pkg";
    enabled = true;
    priority = 3;
}
```

I chose `3`. YMMV.

Generally: 

make sane use of boot environments before any installation or upgrade that will draw from the `FreeBSD` repository
if you do encounter difficulty, don't forget that you have a non-standard combination of repos
I should not expect help for this combination in GhostBSD Forums.


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## john_rambo (Feb 4, 2022)

grahamperrin
Q1) Is it possible to add the FreeBSD repo that you have mentioned in such a way that only Firefox is pulled from that repo ? All other packages are pulled from GhostBSD repos ?

Q2) Can I manually  download the Firefox package from the FreeBSD repos and install it under GhostBSD ? Just like downloading a .deb file for Debian/Ubuntu ? If yes, whats the command ? Can this too cause breakage ?

When I visit https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:13:amd64/latest/All/

I see this


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## covacat (Feb 4, 2022)

on a freebsd box
pkg search -Q url firefox


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 4, 2022)

Thanks covacat that's a neat trick!



john_rambo said:


> I see this



Indexing at that level is forbidden by design, please see <https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=247998#c1>.


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 4, 2022)

john_rambo said:


> … whats the command ?



pkg-add(8)



john_rambo said:


> Can this too cause breakage ? …



I don't have my test machine handy, sorry. Use boot environments so that if breakage occurs, you can boot a previous environment that's not broken.


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## Friend Of Jolly Devil (Feb 5, 2022)

For me GhostBSD doesn't work as a desktop, it has a problem with setting proper graphics driver, intel driver is missing, and drm doesn't work. In comparison, in FreeBSD intel driver is also missing, but drm works. The best in this area is NomadBSD, it has a working intel driver.


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## scottro (Feb 6, 2022)

NomadBSD is a good idea. It works well for me. I'm actually in disagreement with the many who think that making FreeBSD more accessible is a bad thing. I think that one reason Linux is so far ahead in things like wireless is that there are many versions accessible to the Windows convert, and probably some of those go on to do the development.


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 6, 2022)

Thanks,



Friend Of Jolly Devil said:


> … a problem with setting proper graphics driver,



Possible.



Friend Of Jolly Devil said:


> intel driver is missing, …



This seems unlikely. Please, has this been discussed in a GhostBSD area and if so, can you share a link?


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 6, 2022)

john_rambo said:


> … GhostBSD uses its own repo …



Spun off from the five screenshots at <https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/554819>:


   

CustardBSD `Marmite, She Wrote` edition:

GhostBSD kernel and userland
KDE Plasma
I. Am. In. So. Much. Trouble.


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## Friend Of Jolly Devil (Feb 6, 2022)

grahamperrin said:


> This seems unlikely. Please, has this been discussed in a GhostBSD area and if so, can you share a link?



But it's true. I haven't discussed this in their forum, it's FreeBSD's "bug".


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 7, 2022)

Friend Of Jolly Devil said:


> … it's FreeBSD's "bug".



Discussed somewhere in FreeBSD Forums?


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## Friend Of Jolly Devil (Feb 7, 2022)

grahamperrin said:


> Discussed somewhere in FreeBSD Forums?



Partially here (Probably I could be more precise there, I should add that intel driver doesn't work because it's missing  ). I wanted to gather more info before I start a new thread. I tried GhostBSD with this purpose in mind.


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## 3301 (Feb 7, 2022)

I tried it (GhostBSD) once or twice. First impression was really good, graphical interface available just after booting, zsh as default shell and so on. I was impressed. Then I wanted to tweak some things, install some packages and had a lot of problems with stuff that (at least for me) is simpler in "vanilla" FreeBSD. And similarly to answers above Mate is not my weapon of choice and changing it to something else was not trivial. I returned to FreeBSD, spent some time with configuration and now I'm the happiest user.


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## 3301 (Feb 7, 2022)

grahamperrin said:


> Thanks,
> 
> 
> 
> Were those during, before or after the OpenRC-for-GhostBSD era?


After


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