# Introduce yourself, tell us who you are and why you chose FreeBSD



## ikbendeman (Oct 31, 2018)

Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


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## DriverBuilder (Oct 31, 2018)

Pcie driver developer. Recently switched from Linux to FreeBSD 11, reason: our customer migrated from Linux.


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## rjohn (Oct 31, 2018)

windows user ,always wanted to try freebsd build a desktop with kde4 for office work all work fine so well.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 31, 2018)

I mentioned this a few months back. I was wondering why there was such an influx of new posters but it was from a lot of people making negative comments out of the blue and I was suspicious about where it was coming from. This could be an interesting thread to read about legitimate newcomers.


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## ikbendeman (Oct 31, 2018)

Sometimes good news brings about stupid shits.


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## meine (Oct 31, 2018)

In October 2017 I started to use FreeBSD on my notebook, made the full turn by also installing it on my daily used desktop in the beginning of 2018. I only use it at home.

Migrated from Linux Fedora 27, because the i386 version was said to be phased out as with a lot of other Linux distro's, but my 2010 Asus Eee netbook still works and I want to keep it -- don't waste a working computer.

I made the complete switch when I discovered the beauty of FreeBSD: well documented, only install what you need, and friendly helpful people over here.

-- This month is my 3rd anniversary with FreeBSD and I'm ever growing enthousiastic about 'our' OS. It Just Works, Robust, never had any issues.


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## SirDice (Oct 31, 2018)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD?


We used to have an introduction thread were people could introduce themselves. Looks like it got accidentally culled after a cleanup. 

Good idea to resurrect? I can change this topic title a bit and make it sticky. Then we can use this thread as the introduction 2.0 thread


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## badbanana (Oct 31, 2018)

not new. started with linux/bsd from 1996 and have been switching between the two (redhat/debian and openbsd/freebsd)  for some time now mainly due to linux being always updated faster than the bsd's. now everything seems to have come to an even playing field. also, i like the ports collection (but i think now there are other ways to install packages aside from the source and ports collection?) and how things are maintained/updated in FreeBSD.


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## xavi (Oct 31, 2018)

SirDice said:


> Good idea to resurrect?



Yes please. Thanks.


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## al mello (Oct 31, 2018)

SirDice said:


> Good idea to resurrect?



Or we can use your idea, if easier. Change this thread to be the introduction and make it glued... ops ... sticky (bad Google translator).


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## mentalbarcode (Oct 31, 2018)

I've been using Linux on the desktop since 1999.  I was bored with Microsoft Windows and frustrated with the antivirus because it complained constantly that the program that I was developing had segfaulted.  I formatted everything and installed RedHat 5.2.  I moved on to Mandrake and tested other distros like Corel, Slack, SUSE, Debian, and Caldera before eventually settling on Gentoo.

In 2005, I switched to Mac OS X on the PowerBook G4 with 2GB RAM, FW800, DVI, and an amazing keyboard.  Apple was truly ahead of the competition.  I eventually upgraded to the Macbook Pro, but was never as impressed like I was with the PBG4.  Since Apple's recent style of innovation is to remove functionality, I jumped ship in 2016 and came back to Linux, but this time on Debian testing on a ThinkPad P50.  It's great to be back, but now I'm looking for something more fun and interesting.

I've been keeping an eye on FreeBSD for many years now, for desktop use, checking in every few years.  I used to manage FreeBSD servers for an Ohio-based hosting company in the early 2000's so I was already familiar with the OS.  Now that KDE Plasma 5 is here in addition to ZFS, it's a no brainer.  I'm currently dual booting Debian buster and FreeBSD 12.0-BETA2 while working on my plan to move entirely to 12.0-RELEASE.


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## SirDice (Oct 31, 2018)

al mello said:


> Or we can use your idea, if easier.


This is indeed easier. I have no idea where the old thread went, I'm afraid it got deleted quite rigorously. Changed the title a bit, thread is now sticky too. 

So, thanks to ikbendeman for starting it. I now present the "Introduce yourself" thread 2.0. Posting an introduction is not mandatory but it's definitely appreciated.


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## fbsd_scp (Oct 31, 2018)

I've been using Linux on the desktop since 2011,got introduced by the FOSS club at university. Worked as system admin for more than 3 years with DB2 and Oracle databases on LUW. Took a break from full-time employment and did my master for 2 years. Meantime the sysadmin world changed and few months ago started working full-time again as DevOps Engineer. In the project, i have got introduced to FreeBSD as we mostly use freebsd for all our development. This forum is helping me daily. I am quite fresh and excited to learn more.


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## Birdy (Oct 31, 2018)

I'm a migrant from systemd land (CentOS, Debian) and crossing the border to FreeBSD land. Please don't shoot!

"Absolute FreeBSD" book, 3rd edition is underway for winter reading.


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## Crivens (Oct 31, 2018)

One remark to those posting here (and elsewhere on the forum) - we are an international community.
Example: Me stating that I have an education from TUBS will not tell you much, you may even think I have a degree in totally useless bull ahem 'droppings'.

But it is in fact one of the oldest and finest technical universities here. So please be a bit more verbose because we do not share the same background.


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## drhowarddrfine (Oct 31, 2018)

SirDice said:


> Good idea to resurrect?


No! I thought it would be interesting to see why people started using FreeBSD but introduction threads are useless clutter filled with "I'm so happy" and "Welcome!!!!" commentary that it makes it pointless. I was thrilled when the other one went away but, as Dutch told me once, it helps keep such clutter out of the other threads.


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## SirDice (Oct 31, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> I thought it would be interesting to see why people started using FreeBSD


Better title now?


> Introduce yourself, tell us who you are and why you choose FreeBSD


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## forest_bear59 (Oct 31, 2018)

I am Linux User since 2003. Starting with SuSE I moved to Kubuntu in 2007 and went to Arch in 2012. Last year I started  to look  around for something new, as I want some "fresh food for my brain"  and eventually get rid of systemd. 
Now I'm playing around with 11.2 on a virtual box and a workstation. It surely will take some time until I am familiar with the system but it is rewarding to get through the learning 
 curve. 

Best regards 
Stephan


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## Sevendogsbsd (Oct 31, 2018)

Been a Linux user for nearly 20 years. I did have a small FreeBSD stint in there for about 6 months and still no clear understanding of why I left and went back to Linux. I have certainly used every major distro on distrowatch, plus too many other small ones to list. Since Linux was my first foray into into open source and the freedom it represents (from other major OS vendors), I loved it and embraced it wholeheartedly. As of late, the Linux camp seems fragmented, plus a few other things have happened in the past few years which have soured my Linux experience, namely the perception, on my part I am sure, that Linux has gotten overly complex and way too much like Windows.

I truly appreciate that FreeBSD is a complete OS, built by a team of folks, and not a collection of separate projects  cobbled together. Not to disparage Linux, but FreeBSD seems cleaner, smoother, hard for me to describe. Anyway, I gave FreeBSD a go again a couple of weekends ago, and got everything working perfectly as my sole desktop OS. One issue remains but after extended discussions here and much Internet research, I believe to only be solvable by new/different hardware. 

I will not go back to Linux. I don't need to: every piece of peripheral hardware I have works, and I specifically buy hardware that is Linux and Unix friendly. I don't use Windows at all at home any more because I simply chose not to. I have zero dependencies on it.

All I know is it feels very good to have FreeBSD as my desktop OS, and to be learning how it works, fixing or adjusting things on my own (or from help here), and simply enjoying using my computer.

Doesn't get any better than that!


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## denkuy (Oct 31, 2018)

FreeBSD for me is well structured, it separates applications from the system (/usr/local) and even allows more separation of different services (jails). pkg and ports are a very easy to use and allow flexibility. I'm now looking into things like synth and using a basejail to simplify my recurring tasks. I also appreciate the philosophy of having one tool do one thing well.

Before I was using debian, but switched when systemd was introduced. I'm using FreeBSD for two home servers mostly for file storage.


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## al mello (Oct 31, 2018)

Started on IT back on the 80's, when PC wasn't around. Got my hands on my first one (see my avatar) when was a senior in HS. Programmed in z-80 assemble, moved to fortran on main frames, than Cobol 74, back on PCs on dBase, Clipper, Cobol 80. Implemented a 100 dial-up lines ISP on a 64K link with my backbone, running slackware (22 floppies install I think). 
Today just a PIT user of FreeBSD, trying to make things work and disturbing the forum a lot. 
Out of IT for 30 years now, so lots to catch up @ home just for pleasure


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## blackhaz (Oct 31, 2018)

Happy Halloween, folks!

I'm from Prague, but originally was made in Ukraine. Got MSc in Astronomy from the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology. Now working as a founder and the CTO of a small satellite telecommunications company. We expand the frontiers of the Internet to very remote areas and help people connect around the world.

I've started on ZX Spectrum, but my Unix life began with Linux 0.99. Got hooked on FreeBSD since 9.0 due to various reasons. Mostly, I really liked the coherence of the system, traditionalism, documentation, the file system hierarchy and the Beastie. FreeBSD has everything I am looking for in a Unix OS for servers. I try to deploy FreeBSD everywhere I can in my company, mostly for serving files and web, and for monitoring purposes, and we've used it to optimize satellite traffic, however, some of our admins also like to deploy Linux boxes, which is perfectly fine with me.

The biggest usage of FreeBSD comes with that we are shipping small devices to all the remote sites connected via satellite, through which we can diagnose network problems, do M&C stuff, setup VPNs, shape traffic, and so on. We have hundreds of small x86 headless FreeBSD boxes deployed in very remote places in the world - from Amazonian rainforests and tepui mountains to deserts like Sahara. We're planning next installation beyond the Arctic circle next year.

I switched from MacOS to FreeBSD on my main laptop this fall when I've finally made it to look and feel like a Mac. More on this can be found on my personal page. I am proud of starting my day with a cup of coffee and the Beastie. I miss some of the applications but overall, enjoy many other benefits, such as the flexibility to choose my own hardware, and the fact that I know what exactly is going on inside my laptop. Some of the free software replacements I found much better than commercial paid ones.

In the spare time I enjoy listening to music of all sorts from dub and experimental techno to Beethoven sonatas, a little bit of DJing, and reading on Eastern philosophies and whatnot.


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## ikbendeman (Nov 1, 2018)

SirDice I noticed a lot of missing posts after my hiatus from the forums. What are we on the 4th change of forum software now?


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## ikbendeman (Nov 1, 2018)

blackhaz Not that I'd necessarily endorse switching back, and am personally much more comfortable with FreeBSD, did you ever try using pkgsrc on your OSX? I had fairly good results with it, but it's been along time since I've had an apple machine to play with... which is mostly what I feel like that OS is for


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## ikbendeman (Nov 1, 2018)

badbanana If you have linuxulator enabled, you can use linux binary installation programs; it's also possible to install using .deb, .rpm, etc., as well. There are tools in the ports tree to make this easier if you don't want to do all the work manually, I believe. Why you would want to, outside of special applications for enterprise or something, I'm not certain but that's why the system lets you customize.


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## skhal (Nov 1, 2018)

I was a Linux user for many years, until I worked with several colleagues with BSD background several years ago. It was amazing, how deep their understanding of the system, utilities, networking, and many other topics was, including really good practices to write Shell, Makefiles, C code, documentation, etc.

In the meantime, I was confused with Linux distributions FS hierarchy, such as location of configs and utilities, init systems, packaging, documentation. It always feels a little bit of Chaos in all aspects (and I didn't even start the `info` vs `man` discussion yet).

So, I decided to give FreeBSD a try 2 years ago, when I bought an Intel NUC for the home server. At that time, the question was to either go with Linux or FreeBSD. I chose the second one, even though it was unknown territory.

To be honest, it was not an easy path at the very beginning, but after reading tons of documentation online and FreeBSD books by Michael Lucas (this guy is awesome -- please, write a book on `bhyve` and `jail`, covering integration with ZFS), I am finally able to setup the server to meet my needs, based on ZFS and act as a NAS and Development machine, running my own applications and services written in different languages.

I enjoy the clear separation between the core and user land, how documentation is consistent, configurations. The shell scripts are amazingly clear, easy to read, and teach so many best practices that I apply in my daily work these days (sh(1) is awesome).

I even started to read some C-code including libc, zfs and it is really nice, clear, easy to follow, and teach how to write clean code.

So, to wrap up, IMHO it was a right choice and I don't want to go back to Linux. There are certain things that do not work on FreeBSD that are kind of main-stream in IT industry these days, such as Docker, Oracle Java (for some projects), etc. But most of the things do work, and work great.


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## ralphbsz (Nov 1, 2018)

TUBS?  TU Braunschweig?
RWTH here.

Started using computers in the late 70s (Commodore 2001, Wang minis, Phillips data entry systems, Univacs, IBM mainframes).  Built my own cp/m machine (there are several wire-wrapped machines in storage in my basement; they even had Fortran and C compilers, and multiple floppy drives).  Sent my first e-mail in the fall of 1982.  While I had heard about "Unix machines" in the early 80s, it wasn't until the late 80s that I actually got to use some (Sun 3's and NeXT).  Somewhere in the process moved from Northern Europe to the Western US.  Started using Linux in about 93 or 94 (on a 386 with 1MB of memory).  Contributed one line of code back than to Linux kernel version 0.99.13.  Tried to buy a BSDi license about that time, but that didn't work out (they had no working X version yet, and Linux did, and I needed graphics to do data analysis).  Went to drink beer with Linus for the first time in about 1995 or 1996 (before he was married or even had a steady girlfriend); he was visiting UC Santa Cruz, and we took him to a local place called "99 bottles" (which was to his liking).  Switched my home computing infrastructure from Linux to OpenBSD in about 2005 (plus or minus a few).  Loved it, so much cleaner and more organized than Linux.  But alas, OpenBSD failed me on two things: wireless drivers (I was using my server as an AP), and file system.  Switched to FreeBSD in about 2010.  During the same time, worked in the computer industry, as a storage / file system person.


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## xavi (Nov 1, 2018)

SirDice said:


> Better title now? 'Introduce yourself, tell us who you are and why you choose FreeBSD'


I might be being a little pedantic, but I think it might read more idiomatically if 'chose' is used instead of 'choose'. 
'Chose' implies past tense, as in already chosen, whereas 'choose' implies currently choosing. 
However, ignore me if this was your original intention.


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## SirDice (Nov 1, 2018)

xavi said:


> I might be being a little pedantic, but I think it might read more idiomatically if 'chose' is used instead of 'choose'.
> 'Chose' implies past tense, as in already chosen, whereas 'choose' implies currently choosing.
> However, ignore me if this was your original intention.


No, not intended. I'm Dutch, and although my English is typically better than a lot of native English speakers it's certainly not perfect. I appreciate the correction!


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## ikbendeman (Nov 1, 2018)

SirDice I find it strange the number of Dutch on here. Ik ben amerikaner, echter ik een betje Nederlands spreken kann.


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## drhowarddrfine (Nov 1, 2018)

ikbendeman said:


> I find it strange the number of Dutch on here.


I agree. The Dutch are pretty strange.


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## sidetone (Nov 1, 2018)

Many Dutch computer users seem to be security oriented.
I noticed that the Dutch do the most for exposing foreign hacking for being a small country. On the other hand, a lot of hacking attempts come from the Netherlands, by others.


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## sidetone (Nov 1, 2018)

I learned about FreeBSD from an Asterisk PBX book. Ironically, as much as I read and understood about Asterisk, I still never successfully used it. I also saw securing such a system for production use like a never ending task, when I haven't been an expert in computer security to start with. I used to try to install Asterisk on Linux on an older computer, and it took hours, that I would leave and come back, and it was still compiling. Only a few years ago, by using FreeBSD, I learned that those over 10 hours of compiling was just for GCC, and unneeded Linux bloat, unrelated to Asterisk or anything for that matter. The compile should have taken from 15 minutes to 3 hours, looking back, instead of 16 hours. I wanted a standard system, and the options that had to be chosen every time, which I didn't understand what they were for, were too much, and little did I know then, are irrelevant. On FreeBSD, a PBX would be better in a jail, which all drivers weren't known to work from it, or there were extensive adjustments required. I tried FreeBSD because it was different, and it may not have been relevant to non-programmers, but I thought if I made adjustments to configurations or to the OS (which was likely a misconception, but it would be on the safe side for the unforeseeable), I would have to give it all up to competition.

I went and bought a book on FreeBSD before installing and using it. I switched between FreeBSD and Linux, because Linux was easier to set up. FreeBSD has the variety of programs that I want to use, that some Linux distributions have but aren't practical. I didn't have XDM set up correctly when I used it, so I logged in from the command line or slim. When I needed a printer or required a specific font, I ended up sending important papers in with the wrong fonts. Sometimes I got the printer or scanner to work, but usually I had to go to the print store with a USB, because I knew enough to use FreeBSD, but didn't learn it well enough to use its features with ease. I even once struggled setting up the desktop, then having to look up that they changed the default to an _allow empty input_ setting in xorg.conf.

Also, for some reason, the desktop resolution on FreeBSD, not counting playing video needing a more advanced driver at the time, is a lot better. I can't point out what it is about the video display, but on FreeBSD, it looks like the desktop is the first layer of graphics, while on Linux, the desktop looks like it's tackily pasted on top of another or a few graphics layers. It's like comparing an etched in display to a sheet of paper tacked on top of a monitor.


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## Crivens (Nov 1, 2018)

ralphbsz jep, thats the one 

One of the students activity groups (AKA Film) still has a working PDP8, I learned about signal processing from a guy who signed the PAL standard. First started as electrical engineering, switched to CS and  started a PhD which was defunded after 2 years. But that was also a lesson in  politics and power plays. Ahh, the good times.


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## blackhaz (Nov 2, 2018)

ikbendeman said:


> blackhaz Not that I'd necessarily endorse switching back, and am personally much more comfortable with FreeBSD, did you ever try using pkgsrc on your OSX?



I've mostly used MacPorts and homebrew. MacOS is an easy and pleasing operating system to run indeed.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Nov 3, 2018)

I am such an oddball: I find Apple's OS's: OSX and iOS very unintuitive and difficult to use. OSX much less so than iOS, which I find utterly incomprehensible. I know that flies in the face of common user experiences, but like I said, I am an oddball


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## ikbendeman (Nov 3, 2018)

I found I always customized OSX to be more like BSD, so the only benefit was the ability to run a few applications that aren't available/sometimes having better driver access.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Nov 3, 2018)

I got a job initially as a weekend houseparent at a group home for Developmentally Disabled individuals in 1993 where they had an AppleII. They gave me my own floppy disk and turned me loose with it like I knew what I was doing. I had never touched a computer before but would rather have died on the spot than let them know it, high and mighty as they thought themselves. I had looked at a Tandy and almost bought it, but didn't know what I'd do with it at the time.

I was, however, an avid video gamer. My familiarity with menus was instrumental in figuring out how to run it, which didn't take long. And according to many hours of playing Shadowrun the next thing I should do was to access all the files on their floppy disks.

When they upgraded to a new one I picked it up, set it up and had to show them all how to boot it up, as you had to flip-the-floppy over during the boot cycle on this one, unlike the old one. They obviously didn't think I had it in me from their overstated reaction.

I used Puppy when it fit on a 100MB Zip Disk, my tower had one then. I used Mandrake, Tao Linux, tried a lot of Live CD's and hated everything about Ubuntu the moment I laid eyes upon it. I didn't care much for Linux, looked at BeOS and everything else that was available at the time. I have a Mandrake screenshot from 2002 at dslreports.com as Spamzilla so I used it anyway.

In 2005 I moved to a FreeBSD variant that shall remain nameless. That got me to the desktop, which was what I had needed all along. I took it from there to learn about the base system, what was under the default DE, how to use ports to install 3rd party software, become familiar with the terminal, install x11-wm/fluxbox, etc., and was once asked why.

My persona was more recently erased from recorded history along with anything to hint at my heretical habitude or heterodoxy, seemingly by the Mandela Effect, for the next 7 years. Almost no written record of me during that period exists today to upset the facts as presented. I moved up in the world in 2012 to the Daemon Horde proper, where independent thinking, self-expression and self-initiative in moderation are encouraged IMO.

I must not have thought the Handbook was applicable to it or nobody told me to RTFM, because don't remember reading it. I remember I had to figure out ports on my own and learned everything the hard way, but it's the hard lessons I remember best.

I have a screenshot I took maybe last year of an unanswered post I made back then. I was asking about not finding `portsnap` in /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portsnap. Nobody bothered to enlighten me it was a command, an established pattern looking back on it. It was too embarrassing ignorant of me not to share here with others who might find humor in it, but I figured it out eventually and why I love to use ports.

I still remember the thrill I got the first time I successfully set up a vanilla FreeBSD desktop and prefer FreeBSD to all others as a desktop OS, though I do have 2 OpenBSD boxen. I used a tutorial I found here someone else wrote to do it. I would have made the move in '98 but the installation process intimidated me and looked beyond my skillset when I tried it on my own. That's the target audience of mine.

It was beyond me back then. I would have been stuck at the login terminal, but I have rarely ever asked a question about how to do something here. What looked so hard then at first glance seems so easy and intuitive now... Don't forget to read the Handbook or that there is a forum search button. It can make life easier.


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## jpierri (Nov 3, 2018)

al mello said:


> Programmed in z-80 assemble


`A/NO/NS/WE` ... brave old EDTASM


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## hitest (Nov 5, 2018)

I started with Linux in 2002.  My first version of FreeBSD was 5.x, I don't remember the version.  I do remember compiling KDE from ports on an IBM 300PL with 256 MB RAM. I started running OpenBSD at 5.0.  The adventure continues.  I became a member on this forum in 2008.


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## olli@ (Nov 5, 2018)

Well … At the university's computing center they had those cool Sun workstations running SunOS 4.1, a variant of BSD UNIX. I liked it a lot, it was _much_ better than that MicroSoft stuff on my PC at home. When I heard about Linux and people saying “this is like UNIX”, I wanted to give it  a try. So I downloaded something called “SlackWare” (funny name, isn't it?) that contained Linux kernel 0.99something. Took a while to download the 24 floppies. When I played with it, well … it was somewhat similar to the BSD UNIX I knew from university, but it really was not the same “feeling”. Things didn't fit together well, the documentation was pathetic. But I kept it because it was better than nothing.

A few months later a fellow student mentioned a new project called “FreeBSD”. I was excited when I just heard the name. I logged into the FTP server (there was no web site at that time), fetched the readme, got more excited, went home to grab a box of floppies, went back to the computing center, downloaded the whole release, went home again and ditched SlackWare.

That was 1993–1994. At the beginning, my machine was an 80386/387 with 4 MB RAM and 120 MB hard disk.

Today I have a Ryzen 2700 with 32 GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe SSD and 12 TB hard disk. For me, FreeBSD is still the best thing to make use of my hardware, almost 25 years later.


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## humphrayLegare (Nov 7, 2018)

I switched from Arch to BSD because I wanted to learn more about computers. How they work etc.


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## zirias@ (Nov 11, 2018)

Well then -- long time Debian user here, I switched because I disliked some recent development in the Linux world (systemd being one of the obvious symtpoms). The things I immediately loved about FreeBSD were

Clean and logical structure
Great documentation
Features like ZFS and jails
About myself, I'm a software architect for a financial company, working with C# on .NET (going .NET core now) -- I have a diploma degree of the University of Karlsruhe (now KIT). My interest in computers started with the Commodore 64, and I'm still programming it  Now, some of my time is spent creating things I still miss on FreeBSD, like recently, a driver for parallel-port cables to talk to C64 floppy drives from the PC.


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## Swifty (Nov 13, 2018)

Heyo! I was always curious about FreeBSD. I was using Linux as my primary driver for a while. That was several years back. I had to go back to windows for some stupid piece of software or another. 

I had heard of FreeBSD. I had friends who used it. I then heard on a random podcast, a FreeBSD Kernel developer talk about the kernel.


 I got it day before yesterday. I'll make a post about my experience installing it later. As someone else pointed out, and it's something I love about it already. A Linux Distro felt like a collection of tools tossed together. FreeBSD feels like it has no more than what you need. More over, it isn't lacking anything that you couldn't live with out. Even though I have no clue what I'm doing, I'm enjoying the heck out of FreeBSD.


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## Rastko (Nov 30, 2018)

Old FreeBSD hobbyist here.

My thoughts about what makes FreeBSD different (question which I revisit a lot, amidst all the hypocrisy that slowly erodes the free software world) actually brought me to an interesting observation:

Whenever I need to fix something on the system, I open up the Handbook.

So, if someone were to ask me "why FreeBSD?", my answer would be simple.
It's very well documented.

The only better documentation I could think of is that of Solaris OS.

It's not just about the information, but the way it is structured and presented.
If I compare, say Debian Handbook and FreeBSD Handbook, it is pretty much clear which takes the win.

Given that it's available as HTML package, I sometimes feel as though the "articles" and "books" should be combined into one document. They are all written with great quality, and feel like a "whole". I only guess that the quality of the docs is a remnant of the fact that BSD was the only non-commercial version of UNIX back in the day.


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## aht0 (Nov 30, 2018)

First met FreeBSD through gaming, I liked Soldier of Fortune II at the time (early 2000's), got into "clan". At one point months later our leader wanted particular mod installed and I piped in that I could probably figure out how to do it, so I ended up with a ssh-access to our rented server. I was already somewhat familiar with Linux but then found out that game server (Linux binary) was actually running on something called FreeBSD.

I kept distro-hopping Linux over the coming years, time-to-time installing FreeBSD too but finding lack of GUI's off-putting. Until lack of nice graphical doo-dads no longer bothered me and around 2010 or so I started using FreeBSD more - Linux became too chaotic and ossified for me.. Nowadays I very rarely install Linux (mostly for parents), it's usually FreeBSD and Windows (gaming).

I am also increasingly dabbling in OpenBSD and especially, DragonFly, I wish both were supported by Nvidia.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Nov 30, 2018)

> Until lack of nice graphical doo-dads no longer bothered me and around 2010 or so I started using FreeBSD more - Linux became too chaotic and ossified for me.



Couldn't have said it better myself!


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## Beastie7 (Nov 30, 2018)

I needed a BSD server to accompany my Mac, cause you know - BSD. Looked into PureDarwin - realized how useless it is as a server. Upon digging into the XNU kernel (caused I liked macOS a lot), found out a good portion of it was borrowed from FreeBSD. Research FreeBSD, tried it, loved it - the rest was history. After reading about it's history, innovation and development philosophy - I feel more in love with it.

The place to B.. SD.


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## kpedersen (Nov 30, 2018)

aht0 said:


> Until lack of nice graphical doo-dads no longer bothered me



Yes, this for me was absolutely liberating!
I remember being tied to GUIs and how much I ended up putting up with such sloppy mess. Looking back, I am a little bit annoyed that so much time was wasted!

What I love is that I can pretty much run MS-DOS/PC-DOS, Cygwin, Linux, UNIX and feel at home in all of them just with simple things like 'ls', 'mkdir', etc. I even don't mind cli tools with different names such as "type" vs "cat".

I try to pass the same "wisdom" onto my students who are still stuck under the incorrect idea that GUI is modern, CLI is obslete but it is hardcoded into them from quite a young age now. A bit of a failure of secondary education and industry to be perfectly frank.


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## Deleted member 56079 (Nov 30, 2018)

aht0 said:


> Linux became too chaotic and ossified for me



Would you mind explaining a bit the chaotic and ossified part? The kernel dev seems to be fine and most parts of Linux are separated so while documentation could prove better in some areas (or distros) in general I found nothing that I would classify as chaotic or ossified, then again, I stick with the distros that tend to keep it stable and if available, light on resources (aka, not Ubuntu or basically anything that uses GNOME3) 

Anyway, I was curious about FreeBSD for awhile and decided to read upon it, I actually am very interested in the history of Unix and the BSDs as a whole as that seems to be the earliest example of open-source development before the term even existed, and even though BSDs during its beginnings wasn't exactly open source as we know it today, it provided it along with the files and all, very interesting story. Open Source: Voices of the Revolution was enlightening to me and from there I found Absolute FreeBSD (3rd edition, Michael W Lucas) and it was a blast to read.

I may not have much use for an OS that presents a stronger bias towards server related purposes, nonetheless, more info and learning is always fun and reading about it is also refreshingly interesting.


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## aht0 (Nov 30, 2018)

VDraemon said:


> Would you mind explaining a bit the chaotic and ossified part?


ossified - bad choice of a word. I had to look up the exact meaning in English because I at first did not understand what's wrong. It has somewhat different meaning in my own.

I meant it as "irrevocably locked in a certain mentality" - in Linux's case, "change for the sake of it, for whatever cost". Combine it with a NIH syndrome and "we are going to reinvent that wheel for the n'th time." (I could read ten+ years old FreeBSD HOWTO and be reasonably sure that whatever I am doing, I am going to get it working. Because changes have been small and incremental. Read 5 years old Ubuntu HOWTO and you'll be stuck in minutes)

Chaotic - It's said that Linux evolves, BSD is engineered. Evolution as a process is inherently chaotic. Fittest will win. So, both, good and bad ideas shall be casted into code and tried out on Linux. Where the viability of each shall be tested on Linux users.. [FONT=Tahoma]How long would you like to be a lab rat?[/FONT]


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## Deleted member 30996 (Dec 1, 2018)

That's their paradigm:



> paradigm
> 
> noun
> 
> ...


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## hrsetrdr (Dec 1, 2018)

I'm just a hobbyist, been mostly using Debian since 2004, and "flirting" periodically with FreeBSD.       I'm putting FreeBSD and OpenBSD on more  of my machines, perhaps my Dell Inspiron I5 7567, if support for all components is available.


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## devilock76 (Dec 1, 2018)

I started on Sun in the mid 90's and by the late 90's was running debian.

About 10 years ago I started using Freebsd for some servers. After a few years those servers were bouncing back and forth between centos or debian depending on various reasons.

I recently came back to the BSD world, first running OpenBSD and now also running FreeBSD. I run both, I love the simple straight forward no nonsense nature of OpenBSD. I use Freebsd in places were I need more virtualization options as well as ZFS. Right now they are both doing desktop duties but looking to get more of my personal servers using them.

My primary work world is that of a developer, with a lot of work being in python, and also a lot of usage of docker. However on the side I am also a musician, used to be professional, now, just a hobbiest really. After years of dealing with Jack + Alsa, I have a special fondness for sndio which is what brought me into OpenBSD at first.

In the end there are just several things about what linux has become that leans me more towards the BSD world. I still appreciate what Linux has done for me in the past and will continue to use it heavily at work and personally. But the BSD's are feeling a bit more sane to me these days, especially considering I started in the Sun world.

Ken


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## ShelLuser (Dec 2, 2018)

I'm not new but heck.. I feel like venting a little so I might as well 

I've been a Unix fan for more than 20 years now (learned about Sun Solaris around 1995, got hold of RedHat Linux around 1998 which I merely used to keep my Unix expertise fresh at first). Basically I've been a fan of Sun Solaris for most of my time, I really enjoyed that OS as well as the company behind it (Sun Microsystems). Heck, I still have a few Sun boxes at home today (stored of course), some very ancient but they all still work (my Sparcstation 5 even has a massive 22" CRT screen, very fun to move around ).

Alas.. At first I started using Linux to keep my Unix knowledge fresh (I was a die-hard OS/2 user at the time), but when IBM more or less ditched OS/2 and things became quite outdated I eventually moved to a Linux (KDE) desktop which worked just fine. This was around 2003 - 2005 I think, RedHat powered at first but eventually I moved to Debian, and later messed around with Ubuntu.

Anyway, my fascination for Solaris & Sun never faded and I tried numerous of times to get my hands on Solaris/x86 but it wasn't exactly cheap. But around 7 things became affordable so from there on my servers ran on Solaris. Which was an awesome experience, especially if you keep remote X usage in mind. I would often log onto my local X environment on TTY7 (from mind) and then set up a remote logon on TTY8 which allowed me to directly connect to dtlogin and CDE (Common Desktop Environment). Of course I also had options to simply log onto the server using SSH (within Konsole) and then fire up X programs on the command line which would then manifest themselves on my local screen.

I actually somewhat pre-ordered Solaris 10/x86 and that environment was directly responsible for my eventual switch to FreeBSD, around 2012 I think. The problem was that after Oracle had taken over Sun you could immediately notice their corporate greed. I used to have 2 running licenses for Solaris; one for the x86 environment (main server) and one for a sparc which I used on an old Blade server (which was my main router / print server).

So when Oracle took over I saw my support costs go up from approx. E 300,- / year to E 900+ / year while your support options actually got chopped. For example: a license also gave access to SunSolve which was basically Sun's online database for _everything_ they manufactured. For a Sun fan like myself this was really good stuff. And also one of the first things Oracle whacked.

Things went so bad that I quickly decided that I had to ditch Solaris. Not so much because I disliked the OS, but because I never got a good feeling about Oracle _at all_. That became quite obvious when I tried to get rid of my Oracle account around 2012, that wasn't easy!

Now my only problem was finding a suitable replacement. I was very customed to using ZFS, Zones (virtual machines on Solaris, comparable to Jails) and Solaris as a whole of course. And to be honest I wasn't really looking forward to moving back to Linux; it didn't support ZFS nor zones nor anything I was used to, but also because I started to dislike the environment as well.

That's when I gave FreeBSD a try and it was pretty much love on first sight (keep in mind: working with Unix environments has always been a thin line between work and hobby for me). Everything felt natural and familiar, and although I had to adjust to some changes (/usr/local vs. /opt for example) other things immediately felt normal. Obviously it was a big help that FreeBSD still used the Solaris packaging tools back then (version 9), _and_ that I could continue using Solaris' ipfilter firewall.

So yeah.. for me FreeBSD was basically some kind of "Solaris 2.0 experience". Of course it's not really Solaris, but through all those years that I've been using it it never disappointed. FreeBSD has always given me that very same professional feel that Solaris did which gained me a lot of satisfaction of working with the OS.

For me the 'why' part basically boils down to:

ZFS; once you become familiar with ZFS and all the crazy things you can do with it then it's very hard to move back to a more traditional setup.
Keep in mind though that although I favor ZFS I also still very much enjoy UFS environments as well. My (ancient) Toshiba laptop runs FreeBSD with UFS for example.

Full control over my server; I always _seriously_ disliked seeing wireless utilities getting pulled in on Linux merely because some required packages depended on them. Why on earth do I need wireless junk on my wired server? It's not a big issue, but the idea of redundancy always bothered me.. Well.. with FreeBSD I'm in control. And best of all: it's hardly that much more effort.
Awesome documentation; One of the reasons I adored Solaris were its excellent manualpages. Unlike on Linux where manualpages were often an afterthought. Well.. FreeBSD provides more of the same. There's a good reason why I always pull in https://svn.freebsd.org/doc/head into /usr/doc together with textproc/docproj.
It's still on my todo to learn more about the XML layout of the documentation so that I can more actively participate in helping to keep things up to date. Problem is also time restraints.

OS doesn't change on a whim; When pkgng was announced I was somewhat skeptical at first. Also because I actually enjoyed the previous tools. But looking back I still admire the whole transition and I think it's brilliant to move from `pkg_add` to `pkg add`.
And well.. I also think it's fun but that's obviously a very personal point 

_(edits): tty8 vs tt8, 150 vs. 300 for support costs._


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## Vull (Dec 3, 2018)

Hi, I'm James and I've been working in the data processing/IT business off and on since 1981. My first PC experience was on a Tandy's Radio Shack TRS-80 model III which IIRC my dad purchased in 1980. It had no disk drives, but could (slowly) read and write Microsoft BASIC programs on a cassette tape recorder. I taught it to play 5 card draw poker because it had a character set that included symbols for spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds. I figured that if I could teach it play poker I could teach it do any rote memory task I could do.

In the early '80s I installed computers, mostly TRS-80 model IIs, in accounting offices and radio stations to be used for scheduling radio advertisements, word processing, and a lot of Visicalc usage. The _oldest_ computer systems I've ever encountered or used are probably the IBM 5100 and 5110, which I found in an accounting office. In 1984 I went back to college at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale where I completed a bachelor's degree in computer science in 1986. My first taste of Unix was at SIU where they had obtained a single PDP-11 minicomputer just so they could have a Unix machine, but there was only one, so all I got to do on it was basically to log in and then immediately log out, and let the next student have a turn at it.  In 1987 I got a job working for a software VAR using Nixdorf and Point 4 minicomputers to run inventory control and other accounting systems written in Business Basic. Minicomputers of those types were well on their way out by then, so by the early '90s we started using Xenix, DEC, IBM/AIX, and eventually SCO Openserver, all of which were unix flavors with their associated licensing costs, which were easily high enough to keep me from getting a Unix machine of my own. Thus when FreeBSD and GNU/Linux hit the scene in the late 90's I was naturally more than just a little bit intrigued.

Still in the late '90s, I found the combo book and CD set from Walnut Creek CDROM books called _The Complete FreeBSD_ by Greg Lehey at a Staples office supply store, and installed my first FreeBSD system on an old 286 machine I had lying around. I was immediately hooked. I also found a CD set for Red Hat Linux and somehow- I can't really remember how-- I also obtained and tried Slackware on the same hardware. Introduced  all of this to my employer, but they chose to go with Red Hat instead of FreeBSD, which I thought was a mistake at the time, and it was, but I won't go into all of that here. During that time I also found time to open and run a comic book store from 1989 to 1998, but 'nuff said about that, and I won't go further into that either. In 2001 my wife died and in 2003 I jumped ship and went to work for Radiac in their internal IBM shop where they wrote all their own software.  They worked with System 370 and knew nothing about AIX. I was not a good fit for them and I didn't last long at that, so I soon went back to my previous employer. By 2009 my kids were grown and I moved to Colorado Springs for about 2 years, burning many of my bridges behind me, but was probably too old to make such a move permanent, and so I soon found my way back to Southern Illinois, which is where my roots are, and where I remain.

Sort of burned out on the software business about 12 years ago, but in 2009 I got a Macbook computer which has FreeBSD in it's kernel, and just for my own amusement built a web-based business system executive suite using Apache and PHP, with the option to use either MySQL or PostgreSQL for the databases. It no longer supports MySQL since they got bought out by Oracle, and because it was always much slower than PostgreSQL anyway. I use PhpPgAdmin for the basic DB maintenance stuff although I use my own software for DB design, access, and administration. All of this was originally designed using the OS X Macbook with its FreeBSD kernel. I had to compile all the 3rd party software such as Apache and PHP because as you probably know the Macbook wasn't really designed for that type of thing. Never paid for any macOS X upgrades either, so I eventually ported the software to more business-like platforms such as FreeBSD and Debian, and also deployed it on Ubuntu and Linux Mint, just to see if it would work there, although I don't really recommend those two for such purposes, as they seem more focused on competing with Windows and Apple in the mass market, and offering the latest in multimedia software.

I prefer FreeBSD because it definitely seems to be better organized, more stable, focused, Unix-like, and business-like, and also because seems to offer somewhat better performance for the sort of server systems I like to write. I like FreeBSD because it adheres more closely to basic Unix system design principles and philosophies, such as writing components that fit well together, and to write a thing once, and write it well, and keep improving on it, rather than to keep on continually starting over from scratch.

Thanks for putting up with me y'all, and for sharing your thoughts and experiences; this is a great forum.


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## dsyvanen (Dec 3, 2018)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?



Greetings!  I started using Non-windoze OS back in '95 with Red Hat, then to Debian, then back to Fedora for UEFI boot, then to
 FreeBSD when Fedora won't wakeup after a night of Transmission torrenting.  I need someone to help after I 'pkg install xorg' and 
a 'Xorg -configure' and 'startx' gives me a 'EE no screen found.'  Any clues?


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## Vull (Dec 4, 2018)

dsyvanen said:


> Greetings!  I started using Non-windoze OS back in '95 with Red Hat, then to Debian, then back to Fedora for UEFI boot, then to
> FreeBSD when Fedora won't wakeup after a night of Transmission torrenting.  I need someone to help after I 'pkg install xorg' and
> a 'Xorg -configure' and 'startx' gives me a 'EE no screen found.'  Any clues?





			
				https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics said:
			
		

> f your GPU is not supported by FreeBSD, you can fallback on VESA (if your computer uses a BIOS) or SCFB (if your computer uses UEFI). For the latter case, you can find instructions to setup SCFB in a dedicated article.


You should check out this page, and if you can't find a solution there, you should probably start a separate thread for a follow up on these kinds of questions there. Thanks and welcome to the forum.


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## kpedersen (Dec 4, 2018)

Vull said:


> Hi, I'm James...



Nice, that was a cool story, thanks for sharing. The idea of queuing up for the Unix system was quite amusing and actually agrees with the experiences I have heard from others .

Your web-based business system executive suite using Apache and PHP sounds interesting. Any screenshots? Whilst I hate the idea of being tied to the web for this kinda stuff, it still really interests me to see the technology in use!

One thing that might interest you is that whilst Mac OS X does have a "BSD subsystem" based on FreeBSD, its kernel is actually a micro-kernel called XNU, not actually BSD derived (Though did have UNIX certification in the past). It is almost like how Interix provides Microsoft Windows with a UNIX subsystem, the kernel itself remains Microsoft's NT.
For all intents and purposes, Mac OS X is very similar to FreeBSD from a cli point of view. Which is also why a lot of FreeBSD developers and fans run Mac OS X when they need their laptop hardware to work.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Dec 4, 2018)

Crivens said:


> So please be a bit more verbose because we do not share the same background.



That's an understatement. So many people have such impressive backgrounds in computers, ralphbsz drank beer with Linus, blackhaz is setting up boxen from the Amazon to the Arctic, Unix Admins, etc.

My background is nothing like it. My favorite job was a Union Laborer in an Iron Foundry where they poured 2300 degree F molten iron into sand castings, scooping sand or swinging a sledge hammer all night long. Plenty of hard work but very little stress involved and no shortage of women who wanted to be with me.

I don't even know anyone who runs Linux much less BSD or understands what I'm talking half the time. Forget talking computers if it's not Windows. They want to know if you can play Hearts on it. My website has some wallpapers they like but what the heck is that wall of text tutorial? You should have ads and get those clicks. They have no understanding or interest in bots, that's just plain weird to some, and more interested in Facebook. When I try to explain the kind of computer I run I ask if they've seen the movie Wargames or The Matrix and tell them it's like that.

I'm just a guy you probably wouldn't expect it from with a modest Thinkpad farm and not one person I know could run them, care or have the capacity to learn to if I gave them one. I never considered myself a hobbyist or this a hobby. I wanted a desktop OS that wasn't Windows or Linux, taught myself to use it and eventually worked my way here, a middling mortal among titans of technology.


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## Vull (Dec 4, 2018)

kpedersen said:


> ...
> Your web-based business system executive suite using Apache and PHP sounds interesting. Any screenshots? Whilst I hate the idea of being tied to the web for this kinda stuff, it still really interests me to see the technology in use!
> 
> One thing that might interest you is that whilst Mac OS X does have a "BSD subsystem" based on FreeBSD, its kernel is actually a micro-kernel called XNU, not actually BSD derived (Though did have UNIX certification in the past).
> ...


Thanks. My time's a bit limited today but I'll try to get some screenshots together in the next few days and post them in the screenshot thread. I used to use ImageShack for hosting images, but that was several years ago, and I'll probably need to find a new way of doing that now.

I only vaguely understand the bits about FreeBSD's involvement in the macOS system, although I've watched a few youtube video/lecture type things on the subject. My understanding of kernel workings is pretty limited, and even more obsolete than the macOS X 10.5.8 version which I still have running on my Macbook. I bought the thing on sale in 2009, and within a few weeks they were already pitching for a $50 upgrade to Snow Leopard. I've never upgraded it although I still like it. For sure I'd have never bought it if it hadn't been for FreeBSD's involvement, and because it allowed me to do server software development on a single portable machine that functions as both client and server. It's still capable of hosting the latest version of my PHP & Apache exec, but I mainly just use it for watching videos sometimes, and for when my other computers are busy.



Trihexagonal said:


> ...
> My favorite job was a Union Laborer in an Iron Foundry where they poured 2300 degree F molten iron into sand castings, scooping sand or swinging a sledge hammer all night long. Plenty of hard work but very little stress involved and no shortage of women who wanted to be with me.
> ...


 One of my favorite jobs before getting into computers was a Teamster union job as a delivery driver for a lumber yard. I'd probably still be doing it, but they ruined it for me when they tried to make me the yard boss. I'm presently working in a grocery store after working as a medcar driver for about 6 years. The grocery job is more physical, keeps my heart rate up, and might be the only thing keeping this old man meat I'm wearing from shutting down, after 5 plus years of decomposing while sitting on a car seat all day long.



> ...a middling mortal among titans of technology.


Likewise (-:


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## devilock76 (Dec 5, 2018)

Trihexagonal said:


> That's an understatement. So many people have such impressive backgrounds in computers, ralphbsz drank beer with Linus, blackhaz is setting up boxen from the Amazon to the Arctic, Unix Admins, etc.
> 
> My background is nothing like it. My favorite job was a Union Laborer in an Iron Foundry where they poured 2300 degree F molten iron into sand castings, scooping sand or swinging a sledge hammer all night long. Plenty of hard work but very little stress involved and no shortage of women who wanted to be with me.
> 
> ...



Reading this I want to caveat my story with a side note, although I am in IT the main reason I started using linux and bsd in my personal life was because of music software. Back in 1999 I bought a new computer, windows 98 and a new 8 channel audio interface for it from event electronics. Was heavily invested in logic audio which was still a windows program and used this in my home studio. Roll ahead a few years and no more driver updates for that card but more importantly Logic moved to Mac only. I got pissed. I said I will never again be out of control with what happens on my computer that I spend all this money on. I found a book I ordered online about linux and music. I read it cover to cover and started to learn the linux desktop. My interest in open source software did not start from a grey beard unix admin or hard core programmer perspective, but simply I wanted control of how to process audio on my computer and never let some far away corporate decision affect my investment again.

Ken


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## justinnoor (Dec 7, 2018)

Th


ikbendeman said:


> Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?



Yes (new). I’m a junior sysadmin who migrated from Linux for several reasons. The ones that stick out are: support for clang and zfs, functionality, stability, and maturity. Linux is the Wild West.


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## Rastko (Dec 13, 2018)

Maybe this answers the poll more than what it is specifically asking.

There are only 3 specific reasons FreeBSD is **not** the _only_ operating system on my laptop:

1) feel obliged to keep up with .NET framework and Visual Studio as a prospective junior developer
(the least of my concerns, though)
2) Professional music production with emphasis on MIDI (ergo, support BitWig)
3) Microsoft Flight Simulator (that's a tough one to escape)

I also had nervous break downs with dual booting, and come to find it more and more off-putting.


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## Hakaba (Dec 13, 2018)

Hi,

In short : FreeBSD on my personal server for jails and easy and strong update.
Maybe soon on my main computer (a laptop)
________________________________

Here is my story. (/!\ long speech ...)
I discover computer in France with Thomson and after that a little Mac SE in my friend (our parents are neighbor).

After that I bought some Mac (classic system) and have a nightmare with Mac OS 7.5+ (buggy system).
My principal interest was creating content (we create a journal for the middle scool and I wrote some novel).

But my study oriented me to computer science, so I use Linux (Yellow Dog, because it was a PowerPC distro and I run it on my iBook G3...)
After that, I rediscover Mac OS with the version X. And I try a lot of things as I compile GIMP (I'm maybe the first to do it) in Mac OS X, just to be sure that I can do it.

I my jobs I always work on linux server and Windows computer (some clients accept that I work on my own machine).

But for my personal website, I decide to use BSD as Mac OS X use a lot of BSD component.
I try OpenBSD and FreeBSD.
My choice for FreeBSD is clearly drived by jails.

Finally, my old Macbook pro has to be replaced. But my interest for Apple is gone*. So since few year, I only use software that run on OS X and Linux.
So I bought last month a MSI laptop. Unfortunately, I can't reboot it with FreeBSD, GhostBSD, TrueOS nor Trident Project. So I install Ubuntu.
My hope : I maybe will find why FreeBSD doesn't work and how to pass the blocking point.
I have two dream for FreeBSD :
- When we boot a computer on FreeBSD installer, we have an option to have the list of the detected / supported hardware.
- A repository with typical jails configuration to create a jail for a service. As an exemple, gitlab is maybe in PHP or Python or... But a file in a public repo describe how to make a corresponding jails. (So : basic config / list of pkg / ...)
And a tool in FreeBSD can read it to make a working jail (or more than one like Docker Compose).
This tool can be smart to ask to reuse installed jail for subservice (as MySQL) or create new one.
The goal : If you have a home server you can have a personal mailer, a personal assistant like Mycraft and so on even if you are not an expert.


* I can explain it if you are interested (If not, don't read  )
- Hardware is closed again.I bought a Macbook Pro with standard output (USB/ DVI / SD card reader / Ethernet...) and extensions (I added to it SSD, RAM). Today, this kind of computer doesn't exist in the Apple catalog
- All update in Mac OS X since 2015 is about private cloud (iCloud), sync with iDevice or closed software to replace opensource (OpenGL is not replaced with Vulkan, but with internal private and closed API - Metal - as an exemple)
- Where is Darwin OS project ? I found all component, but where is the full distro ?
- The cost of things... I bought my laptop 2500€ in 2013, I have to change it to a 3700€ laptop that doesn't correspond to my needs.


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## danniella (Dec 13, 2018)

Wanted an OS that could run on outdated hardware. So far i am not disappointed! In here looking for tips and tricks on how to improve and learn!


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## ralphbsz (Dec 15, 2018)

Depends on what you want to improve on and learn.  Want to learn programming skills?  Find a problem that needs solving.  For example, if you live in the US: doing book-keeping of your medical billing paperwork.  That could involve scanning old medical bills, running them through OCR (installing an OCR program), decoding the resulting PDF files to get the text out, scrape the important information, put it in a database, write some utilities to manage the data, and a web server for online access to it.

Or get some electronically controllable light switches, and turn your christmas lights on and off at the right time.  Obviously not just by installing an app on your cellphone, but from the FreeBSD machine, through an API.  Bonus points for cron jobs that automate it, and web pages that show the status of the lights, allow controlling and overrides, and keep track of total electricity and $$$ usage of the christmas lights.


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## c47 (Dec 15, 2018)

Hi, I'm Rebeka and I'm new to this forum.

Somewhen in 2013 I became interested in GNU/Linux. I dropped my MS Win. installation and started with archlinux. For my first installation of the archlinux base system I needed 4 hours or so, but my first try was successful. I learned quite a lot, but as I learned more I stumbled upon all those systemd debates - also found out, that it wasn't a good idea to ask in the archlinux forum about pros and cons of systemd and sysVinit, so I decided to use Slackware. I learned new things with it and took my first look at FreeBSD... also OpenBSD, played with them from time to time, but didn't really used none of them for longer.
I started doing sysadministration things in a LUG with a debian server. 
Then I started using Gentoo linux on my desktop at home. I liked it very much and after a while I set up another webserver with Gentoo. For a long time I just used it for static content, but then I decided to run 2 webapps of decentralized social networks on it. I rented another VPS and installed FreeBSD and moved the static content there. That was FreeBSD 11.2-RELEASE.
Why FreeBSD now?
Well, my main reasons were FreeBSD jails and OpenZFS. Yes, there is also zfsonlinux, but I have watched a talk about (Open)ZFS and the guy who gave the talk said that FreeBSD's implementation of OpenZFS is the best he knows. That time I became more interested in running FreeBSD on a server, try out how it feels and this is how I started using FreeBSD more constantly. Of course I'm also very happy about FreeBSD's ports and build system.
When I set up that FreeBSD server I first used UFS as file system, because I didn't know yet ZFS in practice. On a local machine I tried FreeBSD's guided installation on ZFS, but I must say I wasn't satisfied with the default file systems, so I just moved the content to another place on the disk, destroyed those file systems, created folders and moved the data back to it's place... and then I found that absolutely great tutorial by ShelLuser how to install FreeBSD without installer on ZFS. Thank you very much!  Immediately I did some backups on my VPS and reinstalled FreeBSD on that machine, but now on ZFS.
Yesterday then I did the system upgrade from 11.2 to 12.0 - absolutely smooth, no problem occured.
Now I just began setting up a little backup server.. also with FreeBSD... but it is an intel atom machine and I had to use MBR instead of GPT.
Because I wasn't fully sure how to do that partitioning stuff manually, I used the installer and chose MBR and ZFS and ran exactly into the problem, what -Snake- had with the bootpool besides zroot, but the solution is also in a forum somewhere on this server - the described workaround works pretty well.
Thanks again 
I have an old netbook also running with FreeBSD - so far I'm really happy with - it's great, I like it and I'm very excited what the future will bring then.


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## ralphbsz (Dec 15, 2018)

Welcome.



c47 said:


> ... but it is an intel atom machine and I had to use MBR instead of GPT.


Must be an old BIOS.  My home server is an Intel Atom, it is not very young (I think I bought it in early 2012), and it uses GPT no problem.  If MBR bugs you, try pushing on the BIOS front, perhaps a firmware update is available?


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## c47 (Dec 16, 2018)

ralphbsz said:


> Welcome.
> 
> Must be an old BIOS.  My home server is an Intel Atom, it is not very young (I think I bought it in early 2012), and it uses GPT no problem.  If MBR bugs you, try pushing on the BIOS front, perhaps a firmware update is available?


Thanks 

I don't know how old it is . It was a present... well, the people who used it before didn't need it anymore, but it still worked. Now that you mention it... my netbook's FreeBSD installation was also done with GPT...


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## ronaldlees (Dec 20, 2018)

Trihexagonal said:


> My background is nothing like it. My favorite job was a Union Laborer in an Iron Foundry where they poured 2300 degree F molten iron into sand castings, scooping sand or swinging a sledge hammer all night long. Plenty of hard work but very little stress involved and no shortage of women who wanted to be with me.



Ahh! The smell!  There's no other place on earth where it exists.   I always thought it was probably what hell smelled like - but kinda liked it.   Was your foundry electric?  Mine was, and I'll always remember the movie-like countdown before each batch, with the power company on the line, listening to us as we counted down to zero.  They needed to know the exact moment we were going to hit them.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Dec 20, 2018)

Yours sounds more like a steel mill.


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## ronaldlees (Dec 20, 2018)

Trihexagonal said:


> Yours sounds more like a steel mill.



Well, I worked in both an iron foundry and a steel mill.  You're correct tho - only the mill was electric.  The electric furnace was very hard on a person's ears.   As soon as the zero tick was hit, indoor lightening from 14 inch diameter, twenty foot long electrodes shook both the building and the ears with their thunder.

I worked both places on computer contracts - so my ears recovered.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Dec 20, 2018)

So you were trying to trick me once again.  Shame on you, ronaldlees,

Give it up.


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## ronaldlees (Dec 20, 2018)

Trihexagonal said:


> So you were trying to trick me once again.  Shame on you, ronaldlees,
> 
> Give it up.



? ?  The problem is the apparent confusion of foundry versus steel mill? I actually know the difference - even though it's not my vocation specifically.  My contract with them was for about two weeks, and spent mostly some distance from the furnaces, behind the large triple insulated glass shields of the control center.  I probably worked in a hundred different factories in this fashion, and other businesses as well.  When was the other time I "tricked" you?  Perhaps a "contractor" doesn't work LOL?  I am probably one of very few people who've worked for (inside of) Ford, GM, AMC, _and_ Chrysler.  Anyway, this is kinda OT.


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## Ogis (Dec 24, 2018)

Hello everyone. I came from Linux and more specifically from Debian after about eight years of use. I was about to do it a long time ago, to go to BSD land. When the twelfth version of FreeBsd came out, i made the final decision. Merry Christmas && Happy New Years!


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## reddy (Dec 24, 2018)

My decision to migrate our business to FreeBSD was triggered by Windows10. For the first time, Windows 10 made me feel like I do not own my computer, this was the breaking point. With windows XP all the way to Windows 7, and to a certain extent Windows 8, I felt like Stallman & Cie were kind of excessive ideologues with their free software talk.

I didn't feel anything like oppressed, limited or controlled when using Windows. This all changed with Windows 10 when I found myself constantly fighting against my computer. What I found the most shocking is the harassment to install system updates. Every dark pattern trick ever invented is used. I am the kind of person who constantly leaves my computer powered on to avoid wasting time opening development environments, documents, and other applications and projects I am currently working on every morning. I also tend to keep things open to remember to come back to them a few days later. I could go on for months without rebooting.

However, with windows10, if you haven't installed an update for a few days, try stopping using your computer for 30 minutes or - better - going to bed, and when you come back you will have the good surprise of finding that your computer has rebooted itself to install updates (that are sometimes followed by intensive I/O operations slowing your computer down for hours after the update - without you knowing exactly what's taking place in the background).

If it wasn't enough, random applications such as Candy Crush Saga are now added with every update. Advertisements are now included in the start menu apparently with plans to put ads in the file explorer too. And a bunch of creepy features such as so-called "cognitive services" offering to record and analyze each of your keystrokes give me the uncomfortable feeling that everything I do on my computer is being watched by someone and that nothing is truly private. To the point that I have become worried of writing certain documents on Windows 10. If a backdoor exists, the government can subpoena its way through it and hackers may gain access to it too. Moreover, it is not clear what kind of metadata/data about my system Microsoft now stores in the cloud.

There are many other issues, some of them could apparently be mitigated by upgrading to the "Professional" version of Windows 10 which supposedly provides finer-grained configuration options. But there is a breach of trust at this point, the whole foundation on which this OS is built no longer feels right to me. Moreover the direction they are heading to is pretty obvious.

Having seen how Windows 10 got in the way of my productivity, I realized how much it can kill the productivity of employees. Employees would be better served by workstations configured from the bottom up to allow them to get their job done without friction.

So I decided to find an open-source OS that would be stable and no-nonsense. I rapidly came across FreeBSD and after a few months of studying the Handbook, something else happened. For the first time, I realized how comfortable it feels to know the ins and outs of your system and to have a comprehensive documentation for every system utility. This does not exist in the Windows world and I suddenly realized how much time is wasted guessing, and looking up stuff on Google, only to find a list of tricks and workarounds working or not working without clear reasons. And this is without even mentioning artificial system limitations introduced by Microsoft.

I am now irritated every time I have to use a Windows system. And to add to this irony, even Linux does not fit the bill for me at this point. I find it too inconsistent, bloated and poorly documented. I want to leave this type of ecosystem behind. I want a system that I can configure exactly the way I need, and I want to know that what works today will continue to work tomorrow. I want to know that investing time to learn something today is time well-invested because the paradigm will remain stable for the next 10, 20 or 30 years rather than being disrupted from one update to the other. And I want to know that my time and our employees time will not be wasted because someone decided to fix something that wasn't broken.

My only regret with FreeBSD is the major upgrade process which introduces more friction than I had hoped. In particular with  regard to the need to rebuild every package which requires users to backup and manually restore every customized configuration file after the upgrade (if I understand correctly). If it was possible to at least keep the configuration files of packages intact when they are rebuilt/re-installed it would be perfect. However, upgrading is - at it seems to stand - a high-risk and high-friction operation (what about if you forget to restore a customized configuration file from a third-party software you use). This may be good to encourage automating configuration deployment, however it makes the burden of system maintenance quite high for situations where such extensive automation adds more complexity and overhead than it solves problems (single server, focusing on going to market fast and iterating fast and grow the farm progressively as demand increases etc...).

However apart from that I feel more than happy to migrate both our servers and workstations to FreeBSD. I want a single operating system to be used throughout the company so that we get to know our system in depth. I also find it preferable that software be developed and tested on the platform on which it will run. For the rest, FreeBSD makes it inspiring to configure and deploy corporate workstations. For example, jails can be used to sandbox email clients to safeguard them in front of dangerous attachments. And the same is true for web browsers. And these are just a few examples, with many regards FreeBSD opens up many opportunities. And the fact that it runs on so many platforms make this vision of FreeBSD everywhere even more interesting from servers to workstations all the way to embedded devices sold to consumers.


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## Leveret (Dec 25, 2018)

Greetings to all.

I started with MS-DOS on those large disks, 51/4, and eventually Windows. The first version I used was before Windows 95 came out. Then I upgraded to 95 and eventually Windows ME. I refused to upgrade to XP because the use of software activation triggered an alarm: Microsoft's growing control over it's customer's OS. I eventually read about Linux and switched to it while working hard to break a dependency on Microsoft Windows. That meant giving up programs like Adobe Premier and a video capture card designed to only work on Windows. To me it was worth it and I don't miss any Windows dependent software or hardware.

I remember trying to install FreeBSD in the past when it had a confusing menu system. I believe it even gave a option of kde as a desktop during install. At other times, I got a black screen and my system froze during boot. Completely different from the ease of installation that I achieve now. Eventually, I believe with the 10.x series, FreeBSD recognized my Raedon video card and I have been experimenting with it every since. I'm currently using version 12.0 as my operating system of choice and kde5 as my desktop. 

Today's world seems light years away from the days when I originally wrote computer programs on punched cards as a student. Later education involved terminals and no punched cards but I don't believe I'd yet heard of FreeBSD or open source software. The fact that FreeBSD isn't configured forces me to learn more and feeds my curiosity. I particularly enjoy learning about what goes on under the hood, behind the GUI. I'll continue to learn from my own experimentation and involvement in this forum.


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## kpedersen (Dec 25, 2018)

Leveret said:


> I refused to upgrade to XP because the use of software activation triggered an alarm: Microsoft's growing control over it's customer's OS.



Exactly this! Once a company can get you tied to their DRM servers through the Internet, they can start doing some really horrible things to you. This is also where I called it quits on Microsoft software. It is a shame because I honestly actually enjoyed their software up until this point.


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## tedbell (Dec 26, 2018)

Just a casual user here (for now) but IT runs in the family. I left Windows the first time because I was using an extremely crappy Celeron 500Mhz machine with 256MB ram and it blue screened a lot when I tried to install Windows XP. So I tried Ubuntu for a bit but couldn't figure out how to get my printer working at the time. So I went back to Windows for about 6 months until I tried again with Kubuntu which I enjoyed until I switched to Mandriva which I used for a few years. Went back to Windows for a couple of years because I had some e-drums and the programs I was using (Superior Drummer) only worked in Windows plus I wanted to mess around with some games even though I'm not a gamer.
    Fast forward to 2012 and I bought a laptop that had Peppermint Linux on it. That got me back into Linux but I installed Linux Mint (because it was the most popular on DistroWatch) then Crunchbang which was popular at that time. I'm not a Debian or Debian based fan at all and so after numerous headaches with those a forum member suggested Arch Linux which I stayed away from initially thinking it was way too hard. I gave it a shot and I enjoyed it a lot, especially how fast Pacman was compared with apt. So I used Arch for 6 years, right from when systemd was being introduced there (which I had no problem with at the time). Dual-booted with Windows for games but stuck with it until about a month ago when I decided to resurrect this ten year old machine from the computer graveyard in my basement that I'm using now. I found out about FreeBSD on DistroWatch actually because it's listed as the most popular version there.
    I tried a BSD before (can't remember) but immediately got rid of it due to not taking the time to learn how to install and configure it. This time I did and I found it WAYYYY easier than Arch Linux. The main reason, however, why I switched is because, believe it or not, FreeBSD uses OSS natively and OSS is a deal-breaker for me. It's a hack job to use it on Linux and I had a hard time getting it to run "bit perfectly". FreeBSD has a built in bitperfect mode! After using FreeBSD until now I find it is way easier, more organized, intuitive and well-designed than any of the Linuxes I tried. The package system is so easy to use. Not only this but my learning stagnated with Linux. Now I'm forced to learn the ins and outs of each command I use and I enjoy it. Feels like back in the day when all I had was DOS. So now I am looking forward to doing more learning (feels like starting over) and teaching myself to do more advanced things and maybe get into a little programming myself.
    The documentation and community of FreeBSD sets it apart from every other OS I've used. I have been able to find solutions to every problem I had right here on this forum and was able to ask questions without fearing offending forum members or getting my posts deleted (like ARSE Linux forums ). I am also amazed by the experience level of FreeBSD users. Being around so many top flight computer geniuses and programmers is very inspiring. I am a full convert now and I will never go back to Linux or Windows. The moral of the story, never shy away from something because it's too hard. Even if you fail, when you retry your approach will be more refined every time.


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## chrcol (Dec 27, 2018)

I am not new to FreeBSD but when I first started using it, I was introduced by a fellow admin on a irc network I am a founding member off, what kept me using it was the ports system, the fact you can choose the options for the packages you compile and mix and match dependencies I think no other unix OS comes close to except gentoo.  Although having used FreeBSD for so long I have seen how the ports tree has regressed as well .

Now on top of ports, its also ZFS.


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## felselva (Dec 29, 2018)

Hello, everyone,
I installed FreeBSD for the first time, but wanted to do this a long time ago. Before that, I used Linux (Arch Linux), but I wanted something "smaller and cleaner." I am a biologist working with bioinformatics, but my everyday hobby is making software in C. Currently making a painting application and a 2D game.

- Felipe


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## Andreadjk (Jan 4, 2019)

Hi, I'm newbie on this forum... i was linux user, i was curious to discover unix and I installed netbsd, after configurations and etc. I decided to try freebsd and I'm happy with that, in the netbsd system example, when the lock screen was operated, after washing, the mouse disappeared, in the freebsd work perfectly and the installation wiriless work perfectly ... in the netbsd not work, don't scan wireless.

There are other reasons why I chose to put freebsd.

Freebsd is very different to netbsd for example the folder /dev have a different files and etc.


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## serialize (Jan 5, 2019)

Hey, I'm new to *BSD and really curious. I came from linux too, I was gentoo user for many years. I tried FreeBSD and OpenBSD; I really like the security features of OpenBSD, but I like the performance and the gentoo-like powerfull port-tree of FreeBSD, so I decided to go with FreeBSD and use OpenBSD on a second partition. I mostly do infosec and OS development (also worked a bit on linux kernel, it was a mess..) and I want to get started with kernel / base system development on FreeBSD


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## Crivens (Jan 5, 2019)

Welcome aboard. But  I must nitpick a bit here. Where do you think GenToo got the idea with the portage tree from?


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## serialize (Jan 5, 2019)

Crivens said:


> Welcome aboard. But  I must nitpick a bit here. Where do you think GenToo got the idea with the portage tree from?



Portage was inspired by the port-tree of FreeBSD, I know.^^ That's why I use FreeBSD instead of OpenBSD. I want to configure software features.


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## Spartrekus (Jan 5, 2019)

Scientist, Maths.

Requirements of needed OS: still today support of X11 for easily portable graphical plots of mathematical analysis.

Why FreeBSD and *BSD(s): Security and stability of operating system, last OS, last stand of Unix, clean base of FreeBSD.

Unix still remains in FreeBSD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix
HP 9000 735 running HP-UX with the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), used for modelling and simulations.





FreeBSD is likely the best modern operating system ever.


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## Crivens (Jan 5, 2019)

Hey, I have one of those in my basement. When I find time I'll put it up as a firewall and see what those script kiddies will do with it.


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## kpedersen (Jan 5, 2019)

Crivens said:


> Hey, I have one of those in my basement. When I find time I'll put it up as a firewall and see what those script kiddies will do with it.



Heh, thats cool. It would actually be very interesting to see if anyone does break in. I don't imagine security of such an old OS will be perfect but since it is old and archaic, I doubt there are many "click-and-play" skiddy tools that will support it. You might actually be safe!

Since I personally believe there is more to computing than accessing the internet, I would use it as my dedicated offline "Doom" gaming rig.

(... No, there isn't more to computing than Doom!)


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## Spartrekus (Jan 5, 2019)

kpedersen said:


> Heh, thats cool. It would actually be very interesting to see if anyone does break in. I don't imagine security of such an old OS will be perfect but since it is old and archaic, I doubt there are many "click-and-play" skiddy tools that will support it. You might actually be safe!
> 
> Since I personally believe there is more to computing than accessing the internet, I would use it as my dedicated offline "Doom" gaming rig.
> 
> (... No, there isn't more to computing than Doom!)



Good luck to break in...


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## Spartrekus (Jan 5, 2019)

Crivens said:


> Hey, I have one of those in my basement. When I find time I'll put it up as a firewall and see what those script kiddies will do with it.



Nice to hear !

I wish I could have one in my basement as well


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## Crivens (Jan 5, 2019)

The chances of me doing anything with it is _a lot_ smaller than the thing ending up in a landfill sometime. So should you find yourself around here some time some strange stranger might meet you someplace to give you this thing.


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## P15C15 (Jan 5, 2019)

Systems' tester. I try systems, most of them are almost unknown for the majority of people.


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## Fabien (Jan 6, 2019)

I first installed Linuxmint 2 years ago and immediately switched to ArchLinux (yes, i had a LOT of time for myself) that I still use and really enjoy.

I had fun with Openbsd on old hardware.

Freebsd has very good support for Nvidia, so here I am. I hope it could be my only OS.

Wait...no, I need W$ for COD, Arma and Xplane, et merde!!

Also, I am trying to learn C, at least only to do something with my brain. It is really really fun, *I strongly recommend you give it try, if I may. *


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## focaccio (Jan 7, 2019)

Network Engineer, using Debian(LXQt) and macOS, but since the shell of Juniper JUNOS is FreeBSD (it is right?) I  want to become comfortable with FreeBSD commands and tools.


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## SirDice (Jan 7, 2019)

focaccio said:


> but since the shell of Juniper JUNOS is FreeBSD (it is right?)


JunOS was built on top of a barebones FreeBSD 4.11 (just search for JunOS "Olive"). Although I imagine there's not much left of the original FreeBSD code nowadays, it does still have the "look and feel" of FreeBSD.


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## ebknudsen (Jan 7, 2019)

I've been using Linux for 20-years (ish) for materials physics computations. I've used Mandrake and RedHat but in the end settled on Debian which I really like. I started using FreeBSD on the side some years ago - mostly as a 0th-oder check that the software we develop is platform independent. The BSD side of me is growing though .


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## swinful (Jan 7, 2019)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?



Happy New Year!

I am a frequent user of this forum, but just recently registered. I know a little about BSD and I have been using FreeBSD since 2000 when I was in college. Prior to FreeBSD I was a pretty big fan of Slackware Linux after using RedHat Linux for sometime. Well, I should admit -- back in the mid-90s I was a bit promiscuous with Linux distros! About every other week or month I was trying whatever Linux distro I could get my hands on. But ended up sticking with FreeBSD for personal use once once I started college. My Unix professor was a big fan of FreeBSD and I too become one after taking a few of his classes.

I obtained my BSDA Cert from the BSD Certification Group back in 2008 and planned to take the BSDP to support the certification group, but I must have gotten side-tracked! 

I used to ramble about my Unix/BSD adventures and other things on my blog, http://wellrounded.wordpress.com, but I also got side-tracked! After starting a family there was a cataclysmic shift in my focus! I took for granted all the free time I once had, staring at my monitor watching text after text fly across the screen and staying up all night into the wee hours of the morning. I really miss those days. But, I am looking forward to changing that and being more active when possible! 

Hopefully this won't be my last post!


Cheers!
-Samuel


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## the_snark (Jan 7, 2019)

Hello and Happy New Year!

I just recently made FreeBSD my main and only personal operating system. I've been using Linux since about 1999 and while it was great for a bit, the code just kept getting thrown around by too many entities for my comfort.

I do security work and what initially drew me to FreeBSD was its jails feature. I started using it and it grew on me so much that it's all I use now(at home). It is highly configurable and easy to use at the same time. I'm in love!

See you all on the forums


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## icywarden (Jan 15, 2019)

Hi there!

I'm exploring FreeBSD as a primarily GNU/Linux user since 2002. I haven't had any negative experiences with the Linux-based distros or communities, but I've always wanted to try FreeBSD and figured it would make a great New Year's resolution to do so. Right now I'm running FreeBSD on a ThinkPad and a home server, but I think I will convert more of my machines over if the fun continues. I'm really enjoying ports, the great documentation, and the fact that FreeBSD is an entire operating system and with it the associated polish.

I look forward to interacting with all of you!


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## tommiie (Jan 15, 2019)

Hi all,

I'm a network engineer by profession with linux as my hobby for many years now. Recently I watched a couple of presentation on YouTube on Netflix using FreeBSD and decided to give it a try. I bought the new book by Michael W. Lucas, installed FreeBSD 11.2 on my laptop and I will install it on my home servers as well. Currently I'm liking it quite a lot and I don't plan to return to Linux.


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## BSD User (Jan 16, 2019)

Hi,

I’ve been using FreeBSD since Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems. I needed an OS that supported ZFS.
FreeBSD saved my life.

Nice meeting you all!


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## jts (Jan 19, 2019)

Hello,

First used FreeBSD 2.1.5 back in 1996, and have jumped back and forth between it and mostly Debian ever since. Spent some time in 2018 running SmartOS (a nice Illumos derivative), and just recently found my way back over to FreeBSD.

Greetings from WI, USA, on a snowy winter night.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Jan 19, 2019)

Greetings from South Texas! Not snowy but certainly cold for us (~40). I rode my Harley from here to WI in '08 for Harley's 105th. Was a blast.


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## ampshock (Jan 25, 2019)

I played games on windows 98 and then windows XP until about 2013.
I got a job at a university and I sat down with a coworker who was a FreeBSD user. I wanted to learn FreeBSD because his computer screen looked like the Matrix screen with the green text in the Pop-culture science fiction movie form the late nineties.
He walked me through installation on an older laptop i386 and then he said that teaching me FreeBSD was like teaching me how to rebuild a car, a Chevy, and that I should be thankful for the car.
Now I can get around on the internet in my Free"Chevy"BSD
I like the idea of learning PF, UNIX, and something other than Windows/MAC to be counter cultural.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jan 25, 2019)

ampshock said:


> something other than Windows/MAC


MacOS is UNIX.


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## wolffnx (Jan 25, 2019)

Windows 95/98/xp/ user -> Linux Redhat 7/8/9,Mandrake,Debian -> FreeBSD 10/11/12
I was so happy with Debian but the bad bad init replacement fuc$#d off..
today FreeBSD for:
Freedom of choose , I cant hack and change everything, simplicity, great community
just simple as that..i love it

I forget..the latest software and ports


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## Deleted member 30996 (Jan 25, 2019)

ampshock said:


> Now I can get around on the internet in my Free"Chevy"BSD



My Dodge Dakota SLT is Powered by FreeBSD.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Jan 25, 2019)

I've got FreeBSD stickers on my Dodge Ram


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## hruodr (Jan 25, 2019)

I first used FreeBSD as remote host at the beginning of the 1990 years, but I was SunOS user and later Solaris user. In the beginning of the 2000 I installed Linux, but it was so strange to me that I installed FreeBSD after a while. Later I moved to OpenBSD that I continue to use: the wlan drivers seemed me to run better there, also UMTS support (I no idea how to use UMTS with FreeBSD). I began to use FreeBSD again because I needed ZFS. I like both, OpenBSD and FreeBSD, but they are somehow different. The reasons: BSD because it was familiar to me from SunOS, ZFS because I wanted a file System that run in many Operating Systems and will be alive for (I hope) many decades, I wanted the redundancy and self healing. I think, ZFS is too complicated and heavy for my purposes, but it is a compromise that fulfill the main conditions: I do not know an alternative. Before using SunOS I used the OS available in the computer I had to write a program, for example TOPS-10: I did not expend much time with the operating System, I learned the minimum I needed, important was only the result of the program. I think, I expend too much time with the OS and that is not healthy.


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## DrTed (Jan 28, 2019)

Hi everyone,
My first computer was a TRS-80 with 16k of ram. I did lots of basic programming in that. That was many, many moons ago.

Since then, I've become a bit of a systems polyglot; setting up and learning about more OS's than most people know exist. DOS (PC, MS & DR/Novell), Windows 1 thru 10, MacOS 7-9 then into the X, VMS on VAX and Alpha, SunOS and Solaris, IRIX, AIX, Novell Netware, SCO, many Linux distros and the main BSDs.

When I had the space, I was amassing a large personal computer museum with all sorts of hardware. Mac, PC, HP-RISC, Sparc, SGI, DEC, etc. I always tried to get them running, if not with their original OS, at least with Net or OpenBSD or a Linux system. Of the two Alpha's I had, an AXPpci & the DEC-XL, the XL would only run Linux or Windows NT. I got running Linux.  The AXPpci was the slowest 64 bit computer I've ever used. I gifted it to a burgeoning young computer nerd just 2 years ago.

At home for the longest time, I ran Macs. In my hometown, I was one of your three places to call for Mac service - and the other two Mac places would contract me as well. 

It was before Apple made the switch to Unix that I started teaching myself Unix and Linux. Friends of mine were all "Get your MCSE! It's easy!" I said "You can throw a stick into a crowd and hit a dozen MCSE's. Now find me someone who knows Mac or Unix. Less competition and I can't stand Windows." I was an "Anyone but Microsoft" type back in the 90's.

I'll admit, my main desktop has been some variant of Linux for a while now. Kubuntu lately, just because it works for me. Some of the more niche hardware, like the video capture devices, have been a bit of a challenge, but nothing show stopping.

My home server, however, has been a FreeBSD powerhouse for several years now. Once I got into ZFS and jails, holy smokes. I've got a file server, my wife's CRM system & and Minecraft server for my step-daughter running on the same system, with ZFS snapshots being sent to the backup server.  I've run into a couple hiccups, but again, nothing show stopping. All learning opportunities. 

I like the streamlined approach of FreeBSD. The manual pages are descriptive. The layout is concise and clean. The flexibility is astonishing. 
My biggest wish is the ability to grow ZFS volumes by just adding disks and not having to repurchase the whole array in larger drives. That's the only Enterprise level storage feature I miss from ZFS. 

Anyway, keep on keeping on


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## mod3777 (Jan 29, 2019)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?



I am a student of mathematics. I am familiar to UNIX user-land, it's simplicity, FHS. Linux is way too much fragmented for me. I prefer BSD license philosophy. I also use Windows and macOS casually. FreeBSD for daily usage on desktop. I am learning system programming here (I use jails for that). Very cool OS.


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## Daisuke_Aramaki (Feb 2, 2019)

Coming back to this forum after an absence of more than five years. Resurrected my online moniker and reconnecting with old friends. This place hasn't changed. Great to be back.


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## Woolie Wool (Feb 25, 2019)

Hello. My primary interest in FreeBSD is my alarm at the increasing dependence of people on "the cloud", my desire to have my own personal network infrastructure in my own home, and FreeBSD seeming to be the best tool to make that happen--more robust and secure with Linux (which I'm quite familiar with) but more widely supported by PC hardware than the other BSD flavors. Right now I don't have any "real" BSD machines, but I do have one running in a VM on my Windows box that I'm using to practice and learn the ropes of administering FreeBSD (I tried Project Trident, but it just felt like a clumsier, uglier Linux distro so I decided I would configure FreeBSD myself). Eventually I plan on building a home server and running FreeBSD on that, rolling my own equivalent of Microsoft OneDrive to back my Windows and Linux home directories to a RAID, perhaps even using it to publish my own website without external hosting.

Before recently when I started using Linux on my laptop on a daily basis, I used almost exclusively Microsoft operating systems, from DOS/Windows 3.1 all the way up to Windows 10, which I unfortunately have software that depends on too much for me to just ditch Microsoft altogether. Working with *nix operating systems has taught me a huge amount about how computers and software actually work, and hopefully I can learn enough to take power over my own computing and get "the cloud" out of my life as much as possible.


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## aimeec1995 (Feb 26, 2019)

Every linux distro giving me lots of problems so I came to freebsd. I had to leave it behind for a while because I switched to an unsupported gpu but I am back now.


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## aimeec1995 (Feb 27, 2019)

ikbendeman said:


> badbanana If you have linuxulator enabled, you can use linux binary installation programs; it's also possible to install using .deb, .rpm, etc., as well. There are tools in the ports tree to make this easier if you don't want to do all the work manually, I believe. Why you would want to, outside of special applications for enterprise or something, I'm not certain but that's why the system lets you customize.


What are some of these tools?


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## bogy (Feb 27, 2019)

Hi all,

Im IT enginner and use PC (usualy Windows) for my daily work. Many years ago, on high school, I started to play with linux. More or less successfully until I discover The Book: Absolute FreeBSD from M.Lucas. Its not only full FreeBSD manual but also great guide how to understand IT world and sometimes unexpectedlly funny. It was including CD (with v4.7 I guess) and that was my first step to BSD. Since then FreeBSD is my favourite system and this year finaly I started my own small server. Just for personal usage.


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## Spartrekus (Mar 24, 2019)

FreeBSD has a good response. It is sufficiently secured and it gives good server services, in my opinion. 

I use NetBSD because it is really fast and secure. Linux is for me too slow, like ms windows, waiting, please wait... and not secured enough. Windows spying on your data and it does harm users passively and is actively stealing user data and information.


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## DoItDrive (Mar 29, 2019)

Most of my friends come here to get some fixes. So whenever I get a problem I will be able to ask too.


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## badbrain (Apr 5, 2019)

I'm a unemployed male. 22 yrs old. Quit college because bad heath and has mental problems. Living with my parents. Use Linux mainly for browsing. Firefox and Chrome combo. Want an alternative OS.


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## skeezicks_6 (Apr 15, 2019)

I'm slightly new. I got a PC from Tiger in 2013 and bought PC-BSD, and had a system but it crapped out quick, thanks to Tiger.  So I still ran Win 98 with Kernal extension, on my old systems.  My brother was always trying to get me to go with Linux but I wanted to have a more complete system. So it is now I have FreeBSD up and running on a i386 computer. A Dell Dimension 4550 i386. I have very little RAM...1 GiB. I had a really hard time doing this, but I am happy to know that is because of my lack of knowledge, not because of a closed system.


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## skeezicks_6 (Apr 15, 2019)

So I went from Win 98se to Free BSD 11.2 just now.


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## Spartrekus (Apr 15, 2019)

badbrain said:


> I'm a unemployed male. 22 yrs old. Quit college because bad heath and has mental problems. Living with my parents. Use Linux mainly for browsing. Firefox and Chrome combo. Want an alternative OS.


FreeBSD is a robust OS, easy to install, and you have full Unix Opensource power in your hands. It just works.

NetBSD or OpenBSD would be for later after a start in Unix world.

People are always winner if using an operating system and opensource software. Respecting user choice of software freedom.


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## D-FENS (Apr 15, 2019)

Started with Windows and did quite a bit of system development, debugging, hacking and more on it. This was ~95-2015.
In parallel gradually started with GNU+Linux. Evolution: debian 2005 -> ubuntu 2010 -> arch 2013 -> gentoo 2015 (as my knowledge deepened).
I started using FreeBSD in 2016 for work, mostly networking, jails and cloud development, also Java software development.

Things I like most in FreeBSD: ZFS, OpenRC init system, resource and process efficient (no bloating), very friendly community, stability and continuity, knows its focus.
Things that could be improved: Certain parts of the practical daily usage could be a little more user friendly (mostly for the newcommers). Certain parts of the documentation could be refined or extended.
All in all, it's a great OS and while not covering all my use cases, it's one of the 2 I will be using in future.


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## thinman (Apr 23, 2019)

Hello all!  I'm a long-time Linux user for work/home (mostly Debian and occasionally Arch).  I've had a crush on the BSDs for awhile and am finally going to put some serious time into installing and learning FreeBSD on some systems.  I'm drawn to the 'completeness' of the OS and the community seems great.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Apr 23, 2019)

Welcome! I switched completely from Linux last year and am very happy. Read docs, ask questions, take your time. FreeBSD does not hold your hand but it is actually very easy to work with. This of course depends on your use case - desktop use always seems to be more complex. I used to be a big DE user on Linux but since moving to FreeBSD, I have gone simple and couldn't be happier. Everything just works and I don't have to futz with things constantly.

Have fun!


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## vall (Apr 23, 2019)

My history is relatively long.
In 2010 year I bought Motorola Z6 that runs Linux 2.4. I was interesting to embedded Operating Systems so I began to read about Linux. Then I tried Ubuntu (it didn't work for me), CentOS (still like it because of its enterprise style, it really works for me a long time), but I had most fun with ArchLinux. That was time of BSD-style initscripts in ArchLinux that was later replaced with systemd. Simplicity of configuration system through rc.conf pushed me in 2011 year to BSD world.

FreeBSD was my first BSD and since then I tried a lot of systems but anyway I am turning back to FreeBSD.
I feel at home there.
By the way I've tried to dive in love with OpenBSD but release 6.4 even didn't boot on two of my laptops, in addition to other obstacles.

Now I learn system development, I had some work in IT and FreeBSD is my first choise for any idea.


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## Chea (May 22, 2019)

I started using Linux about 12 years ago, jumped around, and tried FreeBSD after seeing it on distrowatch. Installed 9.0 and used it for a couple of years on an Eee PC 900a and an old Acer laptop. Eventually moved back to Linux for awhile, and now am back on FreeBSD. I'm not sure what it is, but I feel more at home on FreeBSD. I'm currently in the process migrating my home servers from CentOS to FreeBSD.


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## Sevendogsbsd (May 22, 2019)

I feel the same way - it is very consistent. I was never satisfied on Linux and distro hopped like crazy. I never used one distro for more than a few months, or even a few hours for some. The exception was gentoo: used it for 2 or 3 years straight.


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## joplass (May 27, 2019)

I was introduced to Linux RedHat in '99 while learning programming at the University.  RedHat decided to go make money and spit out Fedora.  I opted to use Debian until systemd arrived.  The switch did not bother me until verbose at startup and shutdown was telling me that there is an upgrade and the system is busy.  I moved to Devuan, great  distro, use it on my main box.  I started looking around for other distros/OSs not using systemd.  I always had FreeBSD on the back of my mind.  I run FreeBSD on a second less powerful machine than my main box.  My objective is to have FreeBSD running as close as possible to what old Debian used to give me and to what Devuan gives me.  I have a few more huddles and I will completely move away from Linux and stick to FreeBSD thanks to the community here.


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## DrTed (May 29, 2019)

Woolie Wool said:


> Hello. My primary interest in FreeBSD is my alarm at the increasing dependence of people on "the cloud", my desire to have my own personal network infrastructure in my own home, and FreeBSD seeming to be the best tool to make that happen--more robust and secure with Linux (which I'm quite familiar with) but more widely supported by PC hardware than the other BSD flavors.


I like your intentions. Having a FreeBSD home server w/ZFS is a tremendous thing. Watch out for the ZIL performance bug. Nothing show stopping, but could be an issue.


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## DrTed (May 29, 2019)

skeezicks_6 said:


> So I went from Win 98se to Free BSD 11.2 just now.


You literally just jumped into the 21st century. How does it feel?


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## DrTed (May 29, 2019)

Sevendogsbsd said:


> I feel the same way - it is very consistent. I was never satisfied on Linux and distro hopped like crazy. I never used one distro for more than a few months, or even a few hours for some. The exception was gentoo: used it for 2 or 3 years straight.


I've been oooookaaaaaaayyyyy with Kubuntu (Ubunut with KDE). It's generally done what I need it to do and hasn't given me any issue. I've set up plenty of Gentoo systems. Once I expermimented with how long a full system compile would take a on a dual p-133 w/80mb ram. 6 days, it turns out! That was circa 2000. Otherwise, I like Gentoo a lot. I've just not wanted to bother with tinkering as much on my desktop - I just need it to be there for me. Kubuntu has been sufficient at that for a desktop.


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## zirias@ (May 30, 2019)

Woolie Wool said:


> my desire to have my own personal network infrastructure in my own home, and FreeBSD seeming to be the best tool to make that happen


I agree  At least with recent versions, you get everything you need, a great storage solution including simple volume management (ZFS), an integrated hypervisor with all the features you could want, containers (aka jails, this is an old one), great support for advanced networking (e.g. VLANs and link aggregation) and so on. I bought a single server machine for my home, running FreeBSD with a minimal set of packages, but many jails and virtual machines for anything I need (router/firewall as a vm, domain controller, file server, DLNA media server, asterisk pbx, internal web server, wifi controller, application server with a full KDE5 desktop, and so on...)


Woolie Wool said:


> more robust and secure with Linux (which I'm quite familiar with)


Hard to tell. The "more robust" might be a reasonable assumption given the fact that FreeBSD is quite reluctant to introduce unnecessary breaking changes (which is a sharp contrast to Linux) and delivers a complete (base) system as a whole. So, it _probably_ is more robust, without a way to actually measure and prove that claim. About "more secure", unfortunately, I doubt that. Again, this is something close to impossible to decide by objective criteria -- but given the fact that FreeBSD code is reviewed only by a fraction of people compared to Linux code, you would expect vulnerabilities in Linux (and GNU userland of course) are found and fixed more quickly. On the other hand of course, FreeBSD is less exposed, so it's a reasonable assumption that the "bad guys" also find fewer holes. All in all, I wouldn't rely on the "nice feeling to run a more secure system", that probably isn't the case.


Woolie Wool said:


> but more widely supported by PC hardware than the other BSD flavors.


Most probably true.


DrTed said:


> Having a FreeBSD home server w/ZFS is a tremendous thing. Watch out for the ZIL performance bug. Nothing show stopping, but could be an issue.


Could you elaborate on that one? I use ZFS and I'm quite happy with it so far -- what performance bug? Got a link or something? Thanks.


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## Vallenhack (Jun 10, 2019)

nobody


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jun 10, 2019)

Vallenhack said:


> nobody



gotcha


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## sgimfl (Jun 11, 2019)

Hello!

27 year old hardware engineer here. Switched from Linux to FreeBSD as my daily driver for work. A few reasons why:


Configuration files are where you'd expect them to be
Network interface names are short and simple (eth0, re0, wlan0, etc)
Easy enabling/disabling of kernel modules via /boot/loader.conf
The man pages have examples

I could go on all day but I wont. I'd love to find ways to contribute to the community here.


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## tommiie (Jun 11, 2019)

sgimfl said:


> I'd love to find ways to contribute to the community here.



Welcome! 

I started giving back by fixing "bugs" or typos in the docs, and I plan on writing a few articles on the wiki, perhaps hopefully even publish them in the FreeBSD Journal. As I'm not a programmer, this is for me the easiest way to give back. In the meantime I'm also learning C programming so I could perhaps one day hack some code together or fix bugs there.


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## CraigHB (Jun 12, 2019)

I've been off the forum a while so I'm going to post here.

I was happily using a desktop on PC with FreeBSD release branch 11 for a while.  Now I'm back to building a new system and I may want to do something more on the current side of things.  Looking at building a FreeBSD box with pretty fresh hardware.

I've been using PCs for several decades now.  Started with MS DOS back in the DOS days like most PC users.  Wanted to try something other than Windows so I gave Debian a shot back in the mid 90's.  Stuck with Debian for a lot of years, but then I didn't like the direction it took.  Debian started moving away from traditional Unix and I didn't like that one bit.  I've actually had some professional experience with various operating systems over the years so early on I came to appreciate Unix.

A couple years ago I tried FreeBSD, actually almost tried it back when I tried Debian first time, but for whatever reason I didn't.   I should have, big neglect on my part.

Now I'm really enjoying FreeBSD for its pure Unix roots which is something I appreciate quite a bit.  I'm using it as a desktop system and hope to expand it to the realm of media services for the home theater which might be a bit challenging.


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## itsthosestonesman (Jun 13, 2019)

I've been using the bsd's on and off since around 2000, just never bothered joining this forum before.  Have worked mainly on linux development, software products, some embedded stuff, some hardware.


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## robotchaos (Jun 24, 2019)

I have been using Linux since 2003, with Windows mixed in for gaming. Now I mostly play a MUD so don't need Windows, just tintin++. I tried to switch to BSD on my daily laptop in 2017 but video driver issues prevented me from doing so. Now with drm-kmod, I made the switch this past weekend. I wanted something systemd-free, networkmanager-free, configured to my needs, and simple. All of this so I can learn programming. I am in a dilemma on which language to choose. C or Go. I want to contribute back to the FreeBSD project some day, so maybe C. But maybe FreeBSD could adopt a project written in Go. I can't make up my mind and so I hinder my own progress by switching languages all the time.


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## SirDice (Jun 25, 2019)

robotchaos said:


> But maybe FreeBSD could adopt a project written in Go.


Have a look through the ports tree, we have a bunch of orphaned ports in dire need of a maintainer. Maybe that's something you could start with.


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## malavon (Jun 25, 2019)

robotchaos said:


> But maybe FreeBSD could adopt a project written in Go. I can't make up my mind and so I hinder my own progress by switching languages all the time.


Don't worry, you're not hindering your progress. The more different languages you have done something non-trivial with, the easier it gets understanding pro and cons of new languages.

Aside from that, if there's something you think is missing on FreeBSD (either in ports or base - I'd recommend ports first) and that you'd use yourself, that would be a prime candidate for porting/writing.


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## robotchaos (Jun 25, 2019)

SirDice said:


> Have a look through the ports tree, we have a bunch of orphaned ports in dire need of a maintainer. Maybe that's something you could start with.


That's a great idea! I would love to do so. Let me poke around and see what I can find  Thanks for the suggestion.



malavon said:


> Don't worry, you're not hindering your progress. The more different languages you have done something non-trivial with, the easier it gets understanding pro and cons of new languages.
> 
> Aside from that, if there's something you think is missing on FreeBSD (either in ports or base - I'd recommend ports first) and that you'd use yourself, that would be a prime candidate for porting/writing.


Thank you for the encouragement. I find this community most inviting of all and I really like that. I think I will stick around, as usually, I am not a social person.

At any rate, I think I will start by finding out of date ports and trying to maintain some of those. That would be cool. Eventually, as my needs grow and I find what might be missing from my workflow, I can try writing something for that.


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## Zurkin (Jun 26, 2019)

Control. Absolute understanding. Most effective use of resources with minimal execution, in hardware and software. Without a doubt, the reasons I jumped away from Windows to Linux a year ago, and now, Linux to FreeBSD. I've wanted to try FreeBSD ever since I heard of Linux, and with the issues some Linux OSes are having now, it's tipped me over to starting a BSD journey, armed with nothing but the forums and the O'Reilly "BSD Hacks" book from back in 2004 (Can't wait to see what's changed since its printing, lol). I'm tired of people changing the OS for me; It's time I made the changes myself, starting here.

Right now, my eventual home-server computer is installing FreeBSD, and once I've figured out the OS on there, I'll deploy it on my main desktop and laptop, it being the only OS on my laptop, probably. I probably won't talk much, but I'll be using this forum quite extensively, time (And internet) allowing... Especially as I try to implement A\V production into FreeBSD, as I have no idea how that'll go yet.


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## Alain De Vos (Jun 26, 2019)

I used netbsd but networking was a problem. Then I used openbsd but it was slow and packages where missing.
FreeBSD works nice as desktop O.S. To boot I use grub/kfreebsd


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## sand_man (Jun 27, 2019)

robotchaos said:


> Now I mostly play a MUD so don't need Windows, just tintin++.


I haven't played a MUD in a loooong time. Can you recommend one to try?


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## tommiie (Jun 27, 2019)

Alain De Vos said:


> used netbsd but networking was a problem. Then I used openbsd but it was slow



I find this hard to imagine. What was not working with NetBSD's networking stack? Why did you consider OpenBSD to be slow?


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## Alain De Vos (Jun 27, 2019)

IPV6 on PPPOE does not work on netbsd.
On openbsd this is very nicely handled by the kernel.


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## 8bitUtopist (Jun 28, 2019)

Hi folks,
I'm a long term GNU/Linux user. Startet in 1999 with SUSE Linux, but with the release of Woody I switched to Debian GNU/Linux. Over the years I tried a lot of other GNU/Linux distros, but for my daily driver and for servers I stayed with Debian.
FreeBSD now is relatively new to me, I startet using it with 11.0. First on VM, than on a little server. Until now I have not done some exotic thinks with FreeBSD, just run my little private Nextcloud instance on it. 
But now I will dive a bit deeper into FreeBSD and (maybe) also switch to FreeBSD as my daily driver. My hardware is my beloved Thinkpad X230, so FreeBSD should run well on this.


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## zirias@ (Jun 28, 2019)

Zurkin said:


> Right now, my eventual home-server computer is installing FreeBSD, and once I've figured out the OS on there, I'll deploy it on my main desktop and laptop, it being the only OS on my laptop, probably.


With this plan (and if your server is powerful enough), I recommend you have a look at ports-mgmt/poudriere to build your own package repository. Advantage: Build ports with the build-time options YOU like, but do it only on one machine and just install the binaries anywhere. Drawback: Building takes quite some resources


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## Sevendogsbsd (Jun 28, 2019)

tommiie said:


> I find this hard to imagine. What was not working with NetBSD's networking stack? Why did you consider OpenBSD to be slow?



I am not the OP of this post but I too found openbsd to be terribly slow. I mean screen redraws were painful. I am assuming because I am running 4k video hardware but someone else mentioned that openbsd's strong suite was not its speed. I also found the openbsd installer to be terrible. FreeBSD has an awesome installer IMHO. No speed issues for me on FreeBSD - lighting fast.


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## cwARSw6 (Jun 28, 2019)

Greetings,
I've been involved with computers since college in 1971. Fortran IV and assembly language on a Burroughs (model ??) using IBM keypunch w/cards, all output to fan-fold. Quite laborious relative to today's standards.  Introduced to Unix in mid 70's on PDP-11 machines where I did some Admin and programming in shell and C. Sys/Admin, DBA from 80's thru 2010 on SunOS 3.something thru Solaris 10, Informix, Oracle RDBMS (7 thru 10). Also did Java EE dynamic web application development with Oracle SQL/PLSQL and NetBeans, Eclipse.

I'm in the process of switching 5 home built boxes from MS Win10 and Linux to FreeBSD. No need for a bloat-box loaded with a bunch of stuffing I'll never use on a machine I'm not totally in control of (ala MSWIN).
What I like about FreeBSD: ease of installation (20 minutes?), superior documentation, information resources (this well moderated forum for example), plus I'm in control of what I want on my machine and when I want to update it. There are many other plusses in its design and maintenance philosophy. I actually tried FreeBSD when it was first offered on CD-ROM several years ago and even went to FreeBSD Lite (whatever did they take out of it?). Eventually I was runing Solaris 10 at home so, I lost interest in my BSD box. Twenty some years later(?) and I'm back to FreeBSD.

I've been happily retired since the end of 2010 and spend much of my time wandering in the wilderness, hiking and mountain climing, carrying a portable home-built ham radio. Not much time spent on a computer any more. My computing needs are pretty simple: OS, wm (I chose xfce) and a handfull of applications (postgres, google-earth, firefox, thunderbird, stellarium, trusted-qsl, eclipse, gimp and open-office).


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## arseniogut (Jul 11, 2019)

I'm a telecommunication student and semi-retired video effects artist. I had a particularly bad semester and went home to rejuvenate. In that time, I've taken to exploring imperative programming and basic system administration, as well as reading the literature on the history of modern computing.

I look forward to learning more about FreeBSD as a serious operating system and engaging with the community in the meantime!


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## CraigHB (Jul 11, 2019)

cwARSw6 said:


> What I like about FreeBSD: ease of installation (20 minutes?), superior documentation, information resources (this well moderated forum for example), plus I'm in control of what I want on my machine and when I want to update it. There are many other plusses in its design and maintenance philosophy. I actually tried FreeBSD when it was first offered on CD-ROM several years ago and even went to FreeBSD Lite (whatever did they take out of it?). Eventually I was runing Solaris 10 at home so, I lost interest in my BSD box. Twenty some years later(?) and I'm back to FreeBSD



Pretty much a "me to" post, but probably okay in an intro thread.  I'm about the same age as you with similar experience.  I did Fortran on punch cards as an introduction to programming.

But yeah, it's the philosophy of design and organization of the system that really turns me on to FreeBSD.  Wish I could go back and start with the FreeBSD CD instead of the Slackware one out of a big stack of of Walnut Creek CDs I picked up at a mid 1990's convention.

Back in the 90's FreeBSD was pretty obscure, not that Linux wasn't, but I gravitated toward Linux initially.  It just had a lot more happening at the time.  Didn't get around to trying FreeBSD again until a few years ago.  Wish I had started with it because at this point I like it by far better than any other operating system.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 11, 2019)

cwARSw6

I'm going to bet you use CW on the Amateur Radio Service and your call sign is W6... out there in California. 
73s from WA0...


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## badbrain (Jul 31, 2019)

I'm a happy Windows 7 user till someday it asked me to activate it, the screen goes all black. I was trapped to download an adware bundled tool advertised it as could reset trial for both Windows and Office (I don't use Office and only use the machine for waterfox web surfing so I don't want to buy license from M$ and I know permanently crack it is plain wrong so I go with the middle way, reset trial). It turned out to be my biggest mistake. After spending hours fighting the adware via Task Manager, end process and end process tree it's still reappears. So I knew I can no longer use Windows 7 for free. I've to buy Windows 10 license and reinstall or cheaper, go with Linux. I choose the cheaper way, I installed MX Linux and I loved it (MX Linux happy user since MX 16, now it's MX 18.3).

I started to seek for an alternative OS when I found I'm dependent on the distribution/Linux so much. It's very good but I want to find an alternative OS could run the same user space programs as Linux but not Linux. And I found FreeBSD to be the most close. I also admit I tend to customize the system to match the UI/UX of MX Linux and make it feels like I'm running on Linux. The first thing I do is install bash and ln -s /usr/local/bin/bash /bin/bash to let all my scripts begin with #!/bin/bash to work happily. I don't care about ports system (I only use binary packages) and unwilling to learn more about FreeBSD unless something forced me to do so. The UI/UX almost the same and I could enjoy both the original MX Linux and my own ... MX BSD


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## arseniogut (Jul 31, 2019)

blackdog said:


> I started to seek for an alternative OS when I found I'm dependent on the distribution/Linux so much. It's very good but I want to find an alternative OS could run the same user space programs as Linux but not Linux.



Why?


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## badbrain (Aug 1, 2019)

arseniogut said:


> Why?


Paranoid? I'm used to do the same with Windows, seeking an alternative OS could run Windows apps but not Windows. Fearing a day if I'm so dependent on it, it stopped to work as I expected or introducing breaking changes, or... started to charge me for money? But ReactOS is nowhere as good FreeBSD. As long as the apps compile on FreeBSD and behave the same as on Linux I'm fine. After all it's all open source. If something provided as Linux binary only I will consult the Linux compat layer. If it just not run I just forgot it. The only Linux-only software I'm using is the SoftMaker FreeOffice.

p/s: And sorry if your brain explode when reading my post. You're talking with a non-English speaking guy has some serious mental problems. Try to parse it. My usage of English tenses is a mess and I acknowledge it.


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## CraigHB (Aug 1, 2019)

I think I get it, English not too bad.

I understand where you're coming from, FreeBSD does have a really nice Linux emulator, but keep in mind most apps can be grabbed from the FreeBSD repository as binary packages or compiled from the ports collection to run native in FreeBSD.  A lot of them are the same apps you see for Linux, just ported over to FreeBSD.


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## kpedersen (Aug 1, 2019)

blackdog said:


> I'm a happy Windows 7 user till someday it asked me to activate it, the screen goes all black.


Possibly off-topic but do you own a Windows license? If you do then it is perfectly legal (in the UK) to use an activation tool such as a KMS server (or even an emulator) to activate your Windows install offline.

If this is something that might interest you but you cannot find a copy of the tool, then send me a PM.


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## CraigHB (Aug 2, 2019)

Yes OT, but Win10 is much more liberal with licensing restrictions, it won't become unusable if not activated, probably the only real benefit of the "Windows as a Service" business model.


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## arseniogut (Aug 2, 2019)

blackdog said:


> p/s: And sorry if your brain explode when reading my post. You're talking with a non-English speaking guy has some serious mental problems. Try to parse it. My usage of English tenses is a mess and I acknowledge it.



No worries!

I'm more paranoid than a conspiracy theorist, but GNU/Linux isn't going away anytime soon. If you don't have any FreeBSD-specific needs, why not use a BSD-style system like Slackware?


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## badbrain (Aug 3, 2019)

arseniogut said:


> No worries!
> 
> I'm more paranoid than a conspiracy theorist, but GNU/Linux isn't going away anytime soon. If you don't have any FreeBSD-specific needs, why not use a BSD-style system like Slackware?


Because I don't have to skills needed to do so. I love binary packages and apt very much. Luckily, FreeBSD has pkg


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## Deleted member 30996 (Aug 3, 2019)

blackdog said:


> Because I don't have to skills needed to do so. I love binary packages and apt very much. Luckily, FreeBSD has pkg



But you can develop those skills.  

I taught myself to use ports when I started now that's all I use. It not only gave me valuable command line time when I was new to FreeBSD but I learned how to fix build problems if they arose. 

I love to use ports-mgmt/portmaster and always use it. It can streamline and make things a lot easier on you once you get the hang of it.


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## ~Luna (Aug 5, 2019)

Hi all! 

Since this will probably a place where I will be spending some time in the future, a short introduction is not misplaced ;-).

I work daily with privacy and security related stuff at a large National Research and Education Network. Primarily the security and privacy of education related tools/products/projects, but also a large federated open source privacy focused VPN service/project. I am quite familiar with Linux (mostly Debian, CentOS/RHEL, Alpine) but notice that I keep liking it less and less as time progresses. It keeps getting more abstractions that make the system less transparent for me (think of stuff like systemd). I am not a die-hard technical person, so I try to keep things simple enough that I can understand it. Also it seems no one can dodge Docker, but I'm very sceptical about its security model. Both of these combined made me realise that it was time for a change in the tools I use and provide to others.

I tried some more Linux distros (Arch, Slack and stuff) and OpenBSD and HardenedBSD, but must say that I'm really charmed with the zfs/jail combination. FreeBSD seems like the logical choice. I tried FreeBSD and HardenedBSD in the past, but was turned off because of the lack of pre-compiled packages. But since there is pkg now, that is a problem of the past for most of my use-cases. Also I already use FreeNAS for many years so zfs wasn't new for me.

Well long story short: I'm going to spend some time on FreeBSD to get myself familiar with it and when comfortable enough will probably migrate systems and services to it in production. In the meantime I hope some people will be able to answer some (probably also stupid/basic) questions I have during this process .


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## Truupe (Aug 27, 2019)

Not new to the *BSDs, actually started noodling with linux and *BSDs back in the mid '90s as I was looking for alternative to Windows and MacOS.  Over the decades and in my various jobs at small companies, university labs, and genomic research centers, I've set up clusters, LAMP, FAMP, file-servers with the LAMPs primarily based on RedHat or Debian.  Also set up quite a few SSH bastion systems based on OpenBSD.  In my current job, my company has primarily used RHEL in it's products...the choice of RHEL being mostly a "corporate" decision and not one necessarily based on merit or supposed support (I think I've logged one support ticket with RHN in the last 10+ years).  However, I always linger back to FreeBSD and OpenBSD to at least keep "in touch" with it.

However, with the recent systemd encroachment I've been lobbying hard to ditch RHEL and find a stable, robust, well-supported and hopefully long-lived alternative to RHEL specififcally and linux in general.  I believe the whole systemd debacle is both a symptom and a cause of the fragmentation in the linux community.  Now, with IBM's purchase of RH, it throws even more uncertainty and possibly fragmentation into the linux ecosystem.

In this regard, going forward, I have much greater confidence in FreeBSD and OpenBSD in that they're "cleaner", more consistent, and more robust.  Now, if I can get the same level of CUDA compatibility with FreeBSD as I do RHEL6 or Devuan, I'll be a very happy guy.


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## CraigHB (Aug 28, 2019)

Truupe said:


> I believe the whole systemd debacle is both a symptom and a cause of the fragmentation in the linux community.



Started using GNU/Linux around the same time.  I noticed the same thing happening.  Hoped for the best and saw the worst.  The systemd thing was a sort of a cornerstone at least in my opinion about it.  Now I'm nervous to rely on it for the path it may take.  FreeBSD is reliable in that I know what direction it's going to go.  Though it's not without any downsides (mainly hardware support).  At the least FreeBSD adheres to the Principle of Least Astonishment and that's worth a lot to me.


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## grafi (Sep 18, 2019)

Ok Im Grafi
Im completely green in terms of bsd.
Im a long time linux user starting with slackware 9 who stick to vanilla debian for last 6-7 years. And try some others distro too.
Im not scare by cli environments and editing configs manualy. Bsd installer looks crazy (diffrent) compare to arch slackware or debian cli
Port systems is the sexi thing in terms of bsd for me. 
I want to have ability to compile every little thing from scratch / source the way i want to.
No linux distro except gentoo (portage) or arch (in some way) give its user that option. 
But im not a fan of rolling release systems ang gentoo is to complex to set up properly
On bsd it looks and feel way simpler
Next thing is that BSD is a whole system not just a kernel with bunch of programs that are added by different people then we call it distribution of linux
Im aware that BSD is not linux and im aware of some tech differences.
Different dir structure
different shell tools or if you prefer commands
Every network device have its own network config and interface (you change your card you must change configs and the interface name is diffrent ).
and so on
But im as noob and as green as it could be in terms of bsd systems.


So I do not want to be that annoying guy on forum that ask stupid questions.
I read the forum from some time.
Can you please point me direction for desktop oriented Freebsd info. Manulal partitioning for desktop  /boot  /  /home? or /usr/home/user/name
Some parts BSD calog structure is a mistry for me
   Yes i'm aware of Gost Bsd, True OS an things like that.
But the case is i wont to lern the system by everyday use as a desktop then as server when i will learn its anatomy.
Yes i know that Free bsd is not desktop oriented os.
Im currently reading a FreeBSD 7. Installation and configuration by Bryan J. Hong as my main help guide .
Book is grat  definitly server oriented lack of some info but very helpfull.


----------



## Sevendogsbsd (Sep 18, 2019)

Welcome Grafi - keep in mind that the current RELEASE version of FreeBSD is quite different than 7.0 so take what you read in your book with a grain of salt. There are some guides on this forum on setting up a modern FreeBSD install (12 RELEASE) as a desktop. It isn't hard at all, just requires manual work after the base OS install. As you have determined, FreeBSD does not hold your hand, but it is not difficult at all and very straightforward to configure. 

Enjoy!


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## grafi (Sep 18, 2019)

I'll start with that
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/...-set-up-a-freebsd-desktop-from-scratch.61659/
https://www.linuxhelp.com/how-to-install-xfce-desktop-in-freebsd   but with port build
Im courious if it work on AMD FX(tm)-6100 Six-Core Processor


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## Sevendogsbsd (Sep 18, 2019)

Since you are new to FreeBSD, I would strongly suggest you use packages first and then when you are comfortable switch to ports, if you need too. The only reason to use ports is to customize the options used when building a package. As far as I can tell, there is no speed improvement. Also, do not mix ports and packages or you will be setting yourself up for problems. Not saying it cannot be done, but stick to one or the other.

I haven't used AMD CPUs in years so have no idea but I am sure someone here can answer that.


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## grafi (Sep 18, 2019)

Great Thanks for your replay.
now i be gone and back to RTFM and all other resources 
THX again
Sorry for bad english


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## Deleted member 30996 (Sep 19, 2019)

grafi said:


> Port systems is the sexi thing in terms of bsd for me.
> I want to have ability to compile every little thing from scratch / source the way i want to.
> No linux distro except gentoo (portage) or arch (in some way) give its user that option.



The general consensus is unless you use a lot of non-default options when building ports there's nothing to be gained by not using pkg. I have always used ports so it didn't even enter my mind not to use them in my tutorial, but you can follow the outline and still use pkg. You'll need to consult the Handbook on that part.

With your experience I don't foresee much problem you using ports. I love ports-mgmt/portmaster, it makes things a lot easier IMO. If it does throw an error where you have to step in if you look closely you should be able to figure out what needs to be done to continue the build once you become familiar with it.


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## tingo (Sep 21, 2019)

FWIW, I had an AMD 6100; it worked great with FreeBSD the whole time I had it. I've been running AMD cpus for many years now; that was never a problem with FreeBSD.


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## grafi (Sep 22, 2019)

Tiango THX
Now i know i can play around with BSD on my maim machine or at last try to .
Tomorrow i'll  start.


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## Nicola Mingotti (Sep 23, 2019)

hi grafi. i came from Debian as well. You will like FreeBSD. These are my reccomendations (sorry for brevity, typing on iphone). -) read the FreeBSD handbook (sections you are interested in)  -) read the man pages, they are really good in FreeBSD. -) use pkg at the beginning. -) use pf firewall to start -) try the linux emulation, when it works it rocks -) try dtrace that is mindblowing

happy hacking  








grafi said:


> Ok Im Grafi
> Im completely green in terms of bsd.
> Im a long time linux user starting with slackware 9 who stick to vanilla debian for last 6-7 years. And try some others distro too.
> Im not scare by cli environments and editing configs manualy. Bsd installer looks crazy (diffrent) compare to arch slackware or debian cli
> ...


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## CraigHB (Sep 24, 2019)

tingo said:


> FWIW, I had an AMD 6100; it worked great with FreeBSD the whole time I had it. I've been running AMD cpus for many years now; that was never a problem with FreeBSD.


I think AMD is really the one to go with now.  I've been using Intel for a decade or so, last AMD I used was a K7 or something like that.  I mean an 8 core / 16 thread 4.4GHz peak CPU for around three hundred USD, what's not to love.  Plus their chipsets have more features than Intel now.  I'm looking forward to running FreeBSD on the AMD desktop system I'm planning to put together, I expect to be impressed.


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## golpemortal (Oct 16, 2019)

Going for over 9 years and it keeps getting better....


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## Nyantastic (Oct 16, 2019)

My name is Ben, I develop web software using FreeBSD. I chose FreeBSD as a Linux refugee after I lost a computer due to a Linux upgrade. I found FreeBSD via my web hosts. I've been using it for about twelve years now.


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## skeezicks_6 (Oct 16, 2019)

My name is Price. I am a woodworker/craftsperson in Annapolis, Maryland. My last working OS was Win98 with KernelEX.
I've never tried Linux as there seem to be too many flavors.
I chose FreeBSD because the documentation is so extensive.
I have loaded FreeBSD now at least 6 times and I finally have
it running pretty well. I made alot of stupid mistakes.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 17, 2019)

skeezicks_6 said:


> I have loaded FreeBSD now at least 6 times and I finally have it running pretty well. I made a lot of stupid mistakes.



That's the best way to learn. I can tell right now you will be a success because you keep at it.


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## eax.qbyte (Oct 23, 2019)

According to some document I felt FreeBSD is more pure unix than linux. So I tried it and friendly kind handbook made every thing easy for me.
After I ran some of my favorite applications I believed I can stay here.
I learnt from FreeBSD that compiling is better than installing from packages.
FreeBSD increased my understanding of what is the better coded software.
In FreeBSD I met underrated treasures in ports system suitable for my hardware, one of them is this www/qutebrowser which is doing every thing I want and opens websites I need a lot lighter than firefox.
Dealing with sources is very easy in FreeBSD, just go to the port and 
	
	



```
sudo make fetch extract
```
 and yes, you have full code ready, I made some editions in some sources and made them suitable for my personal use, That was so much fun.
FreeBSD is fully cusomizable, It's compact, works clean, folders and mounts are better organized, cmds are simpler yet powerfull.
And a lot more things that my knowladge is not enough to know them and tell them.


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## SirDice (Oct 24, 2019)

eax.qbyte said:


> According to some document I felt FreeBSD is more pure unix than linux.


It's a direct descendant of the original UNIX. We have a "real" family tree: https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/share/misc/bsd-family-tree?revision=349295&view=markup

If it was a real family tree there would have been a lot of incestuous relations


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## BeastieLabs (Oct 24, 2019)

reddy said:


> My decision to migrate our business to FreeBSD was triggered by Windows10. For the first time, Windows 10 made me feel like I do not own my computer, this was the breaking point. With windows XP all the way to Windows 7, and to a certain extent Windows 8, I felt like Stallman & Cie were kind of excessive ideologues with their free software talk.
> 
> I didn't feel anything like oppressed, limited or controlled when using Windows. This all changed with Windows 10 when I found myself constantly fighting against my computer. What I found the most shocking is the harassment to install system updates. Every dark pattern trick ever invented is used. I am the kind of person who constantly leaves my computer powered on to avoid wasting time opening development environments, documents, and other applications and projects I am currently working on every morning. I also tend to keep things open to remember to come back to them a few days later. I could go on for months without rebooting.
> 
> ...


there is a bit of me in this comment ... you feel the rage and disappointment of Microsoft Windows and the desire to migrate to better options, admire your efforts studying the handbook and then definitely implement the changes to this system. One of the powerful reasons that brought me to freebsd is that feeling of real and true freedom almost transparent, I feel so calm and free sailing through these waters that I dedicate myself to pay the price by having to face its well deserved learning curve. Linux is not what it used to be, it is a community that is too defragmented and a system that is now too polluted and I don't trust it too much. FreeBSD is one in every sense of the word, it motivates us to remain focused on it.


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## BeastieLabs (Oct 24, 2019)

roccobaroccoSC said:


> Started with Windows and did quite a bit of system development, debugging, hacking and more on it. This was ~95-2015.
> In parallel gradually started with GNU+Linux. Evolution: debian 2005 -> ubuntu 2010 -> arch 2013 -> gentoo 2015 (as my knowledge deepened).
> I started using FreeBSD in 2016 for work, mostly networking, jails and cloud development, also Java software development.
> 
> ...


There are excellent alternatives to make everything easier than perhaps few we know as desktop-installer (thanks to Jason W. Bacon, Acadix Consulting, LLC ), it is a script to install desktops in freebsd and leaves the system practically ready for immediate use.


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## BeastieLabs (Oct 24, 2019)

8bitUtopist said:


> Hi folks,
> I'm a long term GNU/Linux user. Startet in 1999 with SUSE Linux, but with the release of Woody I switched to Debian GNU/Linux. Over the years I tried a lot of other GNU/Linux distros, but for my daily driver and for servers I stayed with Debian.
> FreeBSD now is relatively new to me, I startet using it with 11.0. First on VM, than on a little server. Until now I have not done some exotic thinks with FreeBSD, just run my little private Nextcloud instance on it.
> But now I will dive a bit deeper into FreeBSD and (maybe) also switch to FreeBSD as my daily driver. My hardware is my beloved Thinkpad X230, so FreeBSD should run well on this.


I also had a thinkpad x230 and freebsd worked perfectly!


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## BeastieLabs (Oct 25, 2019)

grafi said:


> I'll start with that
> https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/...-set-up-a-freebsd-desktop-from-scratch.61659/
> https://www.linuxhelp.com/how-to-install-xfce-desktop-in-freebsd   but with port build
> Im courious if it work on AMD FX(tm)-6100 Six-Core Processor


There are excellent alternatives to make everything easier than perhaps few we know as desktop-installer (thanks to Jason W. Bacon, Acadix Consulting, LLC ), it is a script to install desktops in freebsd and leaves the system practically ready for immediate use.


----------



## ghostdawg (Nov 9, 2019)

Greetings all. I am a retired IT techie and I'm a long time GNU/Linux user but still learning. I currently run Mageia 7, Debian 10 & Anarchy Linux.  I recently installed FreeBSD to try something new and different, so far I'm really enjoying it. I have 12.0 installed with Mate DE & Slim DM. So far it's running great but need to work some kinks I'm having with it.
To be continued!


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## CraigHB (Nov 10, 2019)

v4nhelsing said:


> ... you feel the rage and disappointment of Microsoft Windows and the desire to migrate to better options...



As far as desktops go I actually like Windows more than Linux.  Of course I like FreeBSD a lot more than either.  Problem with Linux is it has tried too hard to be a Windows replacement.  In my mind it has failed miserably with that objective.  FreeBSD stands independent with its own set of objectives.  That is to serve the user rather than a bottom line or some agenda.  Can't ask for anything more in the design of a product.


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## eax.qbyte (Nov 10, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> Problem with Linux is it has tried too hard to be a Windows replacement.


That's because linux was built by people who just wanted to "not pay" nothing more. Not paying is not big enough goal to reach you high targets.
Also I think there are other hands helping windows to keep up, like some top international business companies, like being pulled by them, no matter how hard Linux works, they always want windows IDK why, maybe windows is selling them information.
But free OSs are always proud not to be like a pet for any one.


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## ralphbsz (Nov 10, 2019)

eax.qbyte said:


> That's because linux was built by people who just wanted to "not pay" nothing more. ...
> 
> Also I think there are other hands helping windows to keep up, like some top international business companies, ...
> ... they always want windows IDK why, maybe windows is selling them information.
> But free OSs are always proud not to be like a pet for any one.



I'm sorry, but that post is complete nonsense. Linux was built by people who wanted way more than just "not pay". If they wanted to not pay, they could have run BSDi or 386BSD, or Minix. Matter-of-fact, Linus was running Minix when he started coding the first Linux kernel. It very quickly grew into a small group of hobbyists wanting to build their own OS, mostly for fun. I need to think back about when I met with Linus and the first few coders, it was the first time he travelled to the US West Coast, must have been 95 (+- a year), and I spent an evening drinking beer with them (at "99 bottles" in Santa Cruz). Not paying for an OS was the least of their worries.

Windows is not getting help from "top international business companies". Linux is, massively so. Do you know how many people IBM, Oracle, and various big users have working on Linux? Thousands. Windows is developed by Microsoft, and Microsoft only.

BUT: If you think that Microsoft is the Windows company, you are also completely wrong. Today, the Windows OS is a small part of Microsoft. To a large extent, Microsoft is a cloud, applications, and service company.

And Windows does not sell information to "top international companies", nor to others. Stop that irresponsible and dishonest rumor mongering. Please take your paranoia elsewhere.

And the blanket statement that "Free OSs are proud to not be like a pet" is just pure, unadulterated nonsense. Free of content.


----------



## stratact (Nov 10, 2019)

I hope it's not too late to introduce myself, so I'll throw it out there.

Hi everyone! I was a long time GNU/Linux user since Oct/Nov 2005 in high school and my first distro was SUSE 10. Back then I had a Linux expert show me the ropes and I was able to learn quickly from him before he graduated from high school. He was also the first to introduce me about the 3 BSDs and how they were tied to Unix, more knowledge which blew my mind. As time past, I got tired of SUSE and I started distro hopping around until I landed on Arch Linux in late 2007 and have been a user there for roughly 5 years until systemd became mainstream. After that, I was exploring several source based distros, most notably distros like CRUX and Gentoo/Funtoo. These distros rapidly gave me a better understanding of Linux systems and the type control I had with third party open source software.

Back in 2011, I met beyert in college and he taught me a fair amount about FreeBSD due to his enthusiasm for BSD and permissive licenses. Needless to say, I was still very ignorant of FreeBSD and it seemed intimidating for me to approach. In 2015, I joined the Redox OS development and contributed a fair amount of improvements and refactoring there on-and-off until this year. After my exposure to Redox and having met people who were 10 times smarter than I am, I gained an appreciation for operating systems that have integrated and cohesive design, like the BSDs. I first started with FreeBSD 10.3 as my "bold" adventure into something different. I learned a lot and I appreciated the system for the fact that it had many tunables via sysctl. I also saw the connection between FreeBSD's ports system and Gentoo's portage and I was able to adapt to build configuring software for my "needs." However my problem at the time was lack of Rust support and I had to jump back to Linux for it.

However over time as Linux had evolved in directions that were not satisfying, I slowly saw the writing on the wall... "Linux was not for me" ... I've been distro hopping constantly for the past 3 years and no Linux distro met my requirements due to how advanced I became. It was as if Obi-Wan said to me, "these aren't the operating systems you are looking for." So since July of this year, I started coming back to FreeBSD with 12-STABLE. This is the first time I ever felt at home and actually felt good about using an OS, without fear of something damning might happen. Not only FreeBSD is cohesive, it's stable as heck, even with using the STABLE version after doing numerous svn source build updates. I never had a single system core breakage. That's amazing to me as a former Linux user, who was used to that kind of breakage being "normal." Another thing I realized is, once I learn FreeBSD, I know FreeBSD and things apply universally with the same OS. When I learn Linux, I never truly learned "Linux." So I have many reasons to be happy using FreeBSD and being here.

At the moment, I'm playing around with the Zig programming language and trying to get it Tier 1 support for FreeBSD as best I can.


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## eax.qbyte (Nov 11, 2019)

stratact :
For me working with FreeBSD has been  best days of my computer experience.
I spent very short time in linux so I can't judge it very much, but after I installed FreeBSD my working level has significantly advanced.
From a gamer in windows, spent a few time in linux and now I enjoy learning programing in FreeBSD.
Here you have advantage of working with both BSD, and GPL licenses. You have full access to GPL programs that passed their exam very well.


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## stratact (Nov 11, 2019)

eax.qbyte said:


> stratact :
> For me working with FreeBSD has been  best days of my computer experience.
> I spent very short time in linux so I can't judge it very much, but after I installed FreeBSD my working level has significantly advanced.
> From a gamer in windows, spent a few time in linux and now I enjoy learning programing in FreeBSD.
> Here you have advantage of working with both BSD, and GPL licenses. You have full access to GPL programs that passed their exam very well.


Thank you for the reply and I'm happy you like my post.

I can see why its been your best computing experience. I think what makes FreeBSD special, is that its developers both develop and design from top-down and bottom-up in regards to the kernel and userspace. By making sure both of those are tied together, it would deliver a more consistent and pleasurable user experience. That's what I picked up after being part of an OS dev group. I would even argue that Windows is also kernel and userspace consistent since Microsoft designs both components with that same approach. Although I'm sure Linux users reading that last sentence would love to throw rocks at me for saying that, but I think that's what also makes Windows popular for several users, even laypeople who do not know what an OS is. That to me is the difference between a good UX and bad one.

I regards to programming for an OS, I think it would be more fun to program for FreeBSD, especially when taking advantage of kqueue for aio. I still have a lot to learn (and I'm reading Absolute FreeBSD 3rd edition atm), but I think FreeBSD has a lot of goodies that make programming more enjoyable.

You're right, that's the cool thing about FreeBSD, when it comes to using third party applications you're not limited by licenses. One can use what is practical to them and that makes sense to me. I'm pleased that GNU coreutils is provided and separated from FreeBSD's, which allows users to take advantage of other tools for specific reasons. There is one tool I like from coreutils and that is `gshred`.


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## CraigHB (Nov 11, 2019)

stratact, I agree with your sentiments completely.  I was also dismayed by the direction Linux had taken.  You won't see sudden tacks with FreeBSD.  They stay the course.  The difference is the homogeneous nature of FreeBSD management and design.  They run the whole thing from boot manger to user land.  In my mind that's a huge advantage for FreeBSD since it does't see the tug of war in development that goes on with Linux.


----------



## walterbyrd (Nov 11, 2019)

This is a re-introduction. I came to FreeBSD a few years back because I did not like Linux going to systemd, as well as some other changes. 

Then I became frustrated with FreeBSD because I could not use dropbox, and could not update to newer LibreOffice. Also afraid that systemd may kill the BSDs anyway, once systemd is required to run the apps.

Now I am looking at FreeBSD again. I am using ParrotOS (based on Debian, so systemd). ParrotOS is a security version of Linux, like Kali.

I have recently had it crash on startup with a kernel panic. I have never had the problem with Linux before. 

I am trying to learn some security stuff. I am not sure if any of the BSDs would be good for that.


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## rufwoof (Nov 11, 2019)

walterbyrd said:


> I did not like Linux going to systemd


Linux hasn't gone to systemd. Systemd is just a choice of init system. Yes some distributions have opted to use systemd as their default init system but Linux isn't being restricted to any single init system.


----------



## walterbyrd (Nov 11, 2019)

rufwoof said:


> Linux hasn't gone to systemd. Systemd is just a choice of init system. Yes some distributions have opted to use systemd as their default init system but Linux isn't being restricted to any single init system.



I believe that all major Linux distros use systemd. Non-systemd Linux distros make up a tiny fragment of Linux systems, and I doubt many (if any) commercial establishments use non-systemd linux. 

IBM/Red Hat seem determined to make systemd the Linux standard. 

For Linux users, opting out of systemd is often not easy. And it will become more, and more, difficult.


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## BeastieLabs (Nov 14, 2019)

walterbyrd said:


> This is a re-introduction. I came to FreeBSD a few years back because I did not like Linux going to systemd, as well as some other changes.
> 
> Then I became frustrated with FreeBSD because I could not use dropbox, and could not update to newer LibreOffice. Also afraid that systemd may kill the BSDs anyway, once systemd is required to run the apps.
> 
> ...


There is a nearby project with netbsd-based network and computer security tools called blackbsd that apparently is still under development.


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## CraigHB (Nov 14, 2019)

walterbyrd said:


> IBM/Red Hat seem determined to make systemd the Linux standard.



Once the big corporations get involved it's all over, things get institutionalized.  I think Linux is now on the same path as any other corporate product.  The plus side is there's lots of man hours behind things so the features are there.  When you go with FreeBSD you lose some of that, but you get a product that's not run by bean counters.  So it's a trade-off and sometimes you have to live without for the sake of something pure.


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## SKull (Nov 14, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> Once the big corporations get involved it's all over, things get institutionalized. I think Linux is now on the same path as any other corporate product.


This is so true. Every company that sells out goes down the drain.
And especially IBM have a track record of being completely oblivious about the reality and the expectations of the market.
IMHO the only reason they even survived that long, is the fact that their customers are just forced to use the Notes/whatever system they bought from IBM 20 years ago.
Mark my words: Red Hat is doomed.

Just my off topical 2 cents.


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## ralphbsz (Nov 15, 2019)

SKull said:


> Mark my words: Red Hat is doomed.


I agree, but using a different argument: IBM has this track record of ruining companies they acquire.


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## walterbyrd (Nov 15, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> The plus side is there's lots of man hours behind things so the features are there.  When you go with FreeBSD you lose some of that, but you get a product that's not run by bean counters.



I can remember when you could have replaced "FreeBSD" with "Linux" in that sentence. 

I can even remember when Apple, then later Google, were hero companies for fighting against tyrannical Microsoft. 

Remember the 1984 commercial where Apple is portrayed as fighting against tyrannical IBM in the PC market?

I guess that when you become big enough, you also become evil.


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## CraigHB (Nov 18, 2019)

I have to agree, I always like products better that come from smaller companies that carry the vision of the company's creator.  Once a board of directors gets involved they let the bean counters call the shots.  Companies usually start out with a vision, but once they get there they become the new boss with the same old ways.


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## Nili (Nov 21, 2019)

Hello! My shortname is Albi. I've been on Linux for almost 10 years, currenlty i'm runn... Devuan. Formerly i used Debian, #! and the first one i started with Ubuntu.

I learned many Linux things over the years and hope to learn more in BSD as this system seems to be more suited to my profile.

Glad to be here, though i'm too late on the BSD campus, however as they say: better late than never. Hello everybody nice to meet you!


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## rufwoof (Dec 5, 2019)

walterbyrd said:


> I believe that all major Linux distros use systemd. Non-systemd Linux distros make up a tiny fragment of Linux systems, and I doubt many (if any) commercial establishments use non-systemd linux.
> 
> IBM/Red Hat seem determined to make systemd the Linux standard.
> 
> For Linux users, opting out of systemd is often not easy. And it will become more, and more, difficult.


Linux and Linux based distros are distinctly different. Yes one part of Linux users are driving their 'patch' to be increasingly more Windows like, but in so doing are inducing bad qualities. Meh! Their choice. To reiterate Linux hasn't gone to systemd and nor will it.


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## freesoftware-man (Dec 5, 2019)

Hello , i'm a freesoftware/opensource enthousiast , i have started with linux at 1999 , my parents couldn't buy me the best computer so after i was dissapointed with windows i tried to install linux in it, of course in a month i was able to compile kernel remove stuff i don't want add support for devices i had on my pc like tv tuner etc etc.  Now i'm using linux and i don't wanna use windows again in my life , if i had to use a proprietary operating system it would be mac osx.    I used to test freebsd too but i had problems and the people on forums was not too friendly they had a strange attitude and i couldn't get any help to even make freebsd start on my old pc back then.  Now that linux is mainstream i find freebsd more fitting for freesoftware zealots , on linux you will be tempted to install every proprietary software you will find. I like that freebsd right now is supported 100% by my ultrabook(graphics,sound,M2 SSD and even wireless works flawlessly in topmost performance) .
At 2019 i was testing freebsd i made a lot installations and perfected , of course there is a very good project furybsd which has the best and fastest installer you will find and its based on freebsd.
Freebsd is fairly easy to install , of course its not so much for desktop computers and thats why i need your opinion , would it be worthy to install freebsd for desktop use (and php/mysql/python programming ) ?  Tell me your thoughts.


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## KenGordon (Dec 11, 2019)

Hello. I am 77 now, retired from the University of Idaho where I worked as, among other things, an IT Pro for 30 some years. Retired from there around 10 years ago. Built the first working "small computer" network that ever existed there. Ran an e-mail and web-server for my department using FreeBSD version 2... something. Tried Linux ver 0.99 and didn't care for it. Ran an HP-UX server for a number of years too. I like Unix very much, but was never very good at it. Still am not. Want to use FreeBSD for at least two of our 6 family computers (most of which I built). I am also an amateur radio operator and was first licensed in 1956.

I'll have a lot of questions...AFTER I have read the docs. No one needs to tell me to RTFM. Hee hee!  
.
Later.

Ken Gordon


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## Vesko (Dec 14, 2019)

Recently I have been looking for an alternative to Windows 10 with its privacy concerns. I have been reading a lot about GNU/Linux and *BSD and I have decided to try FreeBSD. I think it's closer to Unix than GNU/Linux, has better documentation and provides a complete operating system and not only a kernel. I had a hard time deciding between FreeBSD and OpenBSD but chose FreeBSD because it still has its Linux compatibility layer if I need to use it. I was glad to find out that PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch all use FreeBSD as a base of their operating systems.


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## eax.qbyte (Dec 14, 2019)

freesoftware-man said:


> my parents couldn't buy me the best computer so after i was dissapointed with windows i tried to install linux


It's 10 years you are runing unix, quite honorable. I wish I had same experience in unix too.


freesoftware-man said:


> would it be worthy to install freebsd for desktop use (and php/mysql/python programming ) ? Tell me your thoughts.


I'm running FreeBSD desktop, so I would say Yes It's worth. About programming, in one word "FreeBSD is built for that"(well that was 5 words).
In my personal experience FreeBSD has been the best operating system for programming purpose.
Just take a look at ports. There is complete support of programing and developement tools, languages, samples, environments, engines, sources, ... there.


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## CraigHB (Dec 20, 2019)

eax.qbyte said:


> About programming, in one word "FreeBSD is built for that"



I do some programming at the hobbyist level and have to agree that FreeBSD is great for that.  Linux works well too, but FreeBSD has its own tool sets and I think they're better along with the fact that FreeBSD has much better system organization.


Vesko said:


> Recently I have been looking for an alternative to Windows 10 with its privacy concerns.



I haven't yet divorced myself from Windows, maybe one of these days.  I do use FreeBSD as a desktop system, but it doesn't do everything for me.  FreeBSD takes an investment to set up a full coverage desktop system and I haven't motivated on it.  In any case there are still lots of things you can control in Windows to eliminate most of the privacy concerns.  Also I run the corporate long term support version of Windows (LTSC) which is lighter and has more controls.


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## freesoftware-man (Dec 21, 2019)

Well at least i had an operating system that would be useful and make use of the hardware of this age , with my own kernel (after i learned some stuff ) linux was pretty fast and made my pc actually usable in contrast with windows. 


eax.qbyte said:


> It's 10 years you are runing unix, quite honorable. I wish I had same experience in unix too.


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## eax.qbyte (Dec 22, 2019)

freesoftware-man said:


> linux was pretty fast and made my pc actually usable in contrast with windows.


Same goes for me. With help of FreeBSD I have never felt "I have to buy a new hardware to not stay behind".


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## kmroz (Dec 23, 2019)

Seems like this thread is still active, so I'll take the liberty of posting as well.

Hi folks, my name is Karol (Karl).  I started with FreeBSD 5.0 back in January of 2003 (or so claims the CD box I have on my shelf).  FreeBSD saw me through university and into my first job; then Linux took hold   This past year I experienced some serious beastie-fueled nostalgia and installed FreeBSD on a desktop I was re-building.  It's been a lot of fun playing with zfs, poudriere, etc, and overall setting up a solid machine on which I can work.  As for the forums, I had an account here years ago, but I forgot the credentials and couldn't recover.  So, here anew.

Regards,
-Karol


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## CraigHB (Dec 23, 2019)

eax.qbyte said:


> With help of FreeBSD I have never felt "I have to buy a new hardware to not stay behind".



One of the great things about FreeBSD is it's lean and even old systems can run well with it.  Other operating systems seem to move ahead loading hardware commensurate with the increase in speed.  FreeBSD does not do that.  When your hardware is faster, FreeBSD is faster.

I'm working on a new desktop system to run FreeBSD.  The system I was running it on before was retired last year.  It was a system built in 2006.  Quite slow in comparison to what's out there now, but running FreeBSD it had plenty of power to do what I needed.  The new system I'm putting together with the latest gen hardware will probably seem ridiculously fast.


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## zawarudoDaemon (Dec 24, 2019)

Hello! I am brand new to FreeBSD, ive always used microsoft windows, and I briefly used mac os, mostly been using chrome os recently. I was attracted to FreeBSD because I wanted to learn more about it and how to use it to create an OS customized to my liking for work and play!


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## Deleted member 30996 (Dec 24, 2019)

zawarudoDaemon said:


> Hello! I am brand new to FreeBSD, ive always used microsoft windows, and I briefly used mac os, mostly been using chrome os recently. I was attracted to FreeBSD because I wanted to learn more about it and how to use it to create an OS customized to my liking for work and play!



That's the spirit.


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## forgiven_noob (Jan 11, 2020)

because linux is some really convoluted, asinine garbage 
i am still learning but freebsd reminds me a lot of how linux desktop used to be in 2007-ish maybe that is just me 
and that is why i love it


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## RedPhoenix (Jan 17, 2020)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


I never really switched to it so much as added it to my weapon arsenal. :3 No, in all seriousness, it is one of my main Operating Systems.  Much as I love Linux, getting the Chromium Snap Package in Ubuntu to write to the NTFS Partition (with pictures and stuff) on the same SSD can be tricky. Snap is interesting, but I prefer pkg, pkg_add, apt, dnf, etc..  I like FreeBSD for that, as well as how stable it is. I've never really had many crashes on Linux, but compared to Windows 10.... >.>


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## RedPhoenix (Jan 17, 2020)

Trihexagonal said:


> That's the spirit.


I wanna' do that too, but all I've ever done is make CLI Programs...  I get a bit intimidated by seeing so many Source Code Files, when I myself use one or two at most in a Project.


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## RedPhoenix (Jan 17, 2020)

forgiven_noob said:


> because linux is some really convoluted, asinine garbage
> i am still learning but freebsd reminds me a lot of how linux desktop used to be in 2007-ish maybe that is just me
> and that is why i love it


To each their own.  I use any OS I can. It's good for learning, even though I really love *BSD.  BTW, that kitteh in your Profile Pic is aDOREable.


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## RedPhoenix (Jan 17, 2020)

Sevendogsbsd said:


> Been a Linux user for nearly 20 years. I did have a small FreeBSD stint in there for about 6 months and still no clear understanding of why I left and went back to Linux. I have certainly used every major distro on distrowatch, plus too many other small ones to list. Since Linux was my first foray into into open source and the freedom it represents (from other major OS vendors), I loved it and embraced it wholeheartedly. As of late, the Linux camp seems fragmented, plus a few other things have happened in the past few years which have soured my Linux experience, namely the perception, on my part I am sure, that Linux has gotten overly complex and way too much like Windows.
> 
> I truly appreciate that FreeBSD is a complete OS, built by a team of folks, and not a collection of separate projects  cobbled together. Not to disparage Linux, but FreeBSD seems cleaner, smoother, hard for me to describe. Anyway, I gave FreeBSD a go again a couple of weekends ago, and got everything working perfectly as my sole desktop OS. One issue remains but after extended discussions here and much Internet research, I believe to only be solvable by new/different hardware.
> 
> ...


I keep hearing how you can run Linux installers like DEB and RPM Packages, but have seem to come up short. :\ FreeBSD sees my AMD Radeon (Thames) GPU, and the GPU works especially well with Lumina.  If I could just get Steam running with Star Wars: Empire At War, and Ms. Pacman, both from Steam, to work.... If I had the space, I'd clone the FreeBSD Source Tree and have a poke around (BASIC pun there ), just out of sheer Geeky curiosity.  I agree with you. FreeBSD is both the OS and the Kernel, and that is K.I.S.S.-compliant.  Also, it's pretty much Un*x, without the branding, so....


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## forgiven_noob (Jan 17, 2020)

RedPhoenix said:


> To each their own.  I use any OS I can. It's good for learning, even though I really love *BSD.  BTW, that kitteh in your Profile Pic is aDOREable.



Full version here if you want it. Not my cat



			https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIyfclUXYAAgHv0.jpg


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## shkhln (Jan 17, 2020)

RedPhoenix said:


> If I could just get Steam running with Star Wars: Empire At War, and Ms. Pacman, both from Steam, to work...



Let's see. The first game game is 32-bit Windows app from 2006 and probably runs acceptably well under Wine (or not at all). Steam never (!) had any significant problems with Wine in the first place, so I don't even consider that a valid complaint. The second game will not run without WoW64 Wine, although finding a Pacman clone/port which will run on FreeBSD shouldn't be difficult.


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## RedPhoenix (Jan 19, 2020)

shkhln said:


> Let's see. The first game game is 32-bit Windows app from 2006 and probably runs acceptably well under Wine (or not at all). Steam never (!) had any significant problems with Wine in the first place, so I don't even consider that a valid complaint. The second game will not run without WoW64 Wine, although finding a Pacman clone/port which will run on FreeBSD shouldn't be difficult.


Oh, I should have known that.  Actually, my real-life identity is Captain Obvious.  I miss the obvious, until someone helps me.  Thanks!  I'll try it out now!  As you can imagine, being a Superhero like this helps a LOT with Programming and the CLI.


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## RedPhoenix (Jan 19, 2020)

forgiven_noob said:


> Full version here if you want it. Not my cat
> 
> 
> 
> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIyfclUXYAAgHv0.jpg


Kewl! :3 I like Kittehs! :3


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## TW1920 (Jan 20, 2020)

I am not someone who says that this is THE OS. My experience on notebooks is rather negative with FreeBSD. Unfortunately not all hardware works properly.
In the server area I have been using FreeBSD for quite some time now. Why? So far very good experience regarding stability. Furthermore less resources are used by the system, so here is something more efficient than Linux.
In addition I like jails very much. Or the zfs integration.
I would like to see a broader support (manufactures and vendors) and distribution (more user) of FreeBSD.


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## LVLouisCyphre (Jan 31, 2020)

We probably should also tag this as a Linux or Windows anonymous discussion.  

I've used some form of BSD for decades.  During my college years, I was using BSD on VAX mainframes for class assignments.

I started out in the IT profession in tech support with Suns in 1989.  The year that the SPARCstation 1 made its debut.  When I attended my Sun training in August 1989 we went over kernel configuration.  This was the first time I experienced BSD at the sysadm level.  I experienced a level of rapture in the form of a geekgasm configuring my first BSD kernel for the first time during that class.  Having very fine granular control over the OS.

Before I went into the IT profession, I was an old school dialup hacker during the dialup BBS days and ran my own UUCP site under SCO Xenix and subsequently ISC Unix.  I programmed 6502 assembler in my secondary school days.  I took typing in 7th grade becaude I knew I would it need with the career path I was on plus there were lots of lovely girls in my class.  I was one of the few males in the class.

A man can't live by a CLI alone.  

My use of FreeBSD is probably another confirmation of the law of atrraction.  While I have had some peeves with FreeBSD, I'm very happy with the direction it's evolved in.  I can take FreeBSD and create whatever I want with it.  It's the enterprise class OS Lego set.  There's some pride in optimizing your kernel and fine tuning it like a custom vehicle.

Do not get me started on Linux.  Linux has created a Unix (like) hardware abstraction layer.  Basically Torvalds  took Windows and Minix and threw it into a coding telepod like in The Fly. We're most likely going to see WalMart Linux.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Jan 31, 2020)

It's funny, I have been bouncing back and forth between Linuces with systemd, FreeBSD and Linuces without systemd. I am on FreeBSD now (again) and hope to stay there. I don't mind Linux without systemd but there are so few of them and most of them are a one person shop so that makes me nervous they will just up and vanish overnight. Then there is Slackware but OMG no. Went there, got the t-shirt, dropped the shirt and ran away screaming.

My Linux/FreeBSD float has been solely due to Steam. I have been slowly re-buying games on GoG so I have their versions instead. Most of these run just fine in wine on FreeBSD so I "should" be good   

I love the fact FreeBSD (base) is maintained by a team of folks. I think in the 3 years or so I have been using it, I have only had one issue: the x11/drm-lmod and 12.1 issue, so I am staying on 12.0 and using "latest" packages. Works perfectly for me.


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## rockzombie2 (Feb 7, 2020)

Hello friends! I'm currently in the process of setting up my desktop with FreeBSD as my main operating system. (Shameless plug: I do most of my ricing live on twitch)

Most of my background with operating systems has been with Windows. I used it for most of my life: growing up, at school, at work. In college I installed Slackware as my first linux distro. I settled on Crunchbang (debian) for a while on my laptop, but still used Windows for my desktop. I would consider myself a Windows power user (NOT a powershell user lol). I used Cygwin and had many customizations done via regedit. I hacked the shit out of Windows to theme it to my liking.

The straw that broke the camel's back: Windows Sticky-notes. An application I used often as a simple, virtually disposable scratchpad. Then Windows did the unthinkable: they updated it. I now had to _log in_ to my Microsoft account to sync my sticky notes to the cloud. The exact opposite behavior I want out of a sticky-note. When I throw away a note, it goes in the garbage. Done. I don't want it hanging around in the cloud forever.

I was furious. I decided I no longer wanted a black box; an operating system that decided for me what my desktop experience should be without my input. I wanted every aspect of my desktop experience configured to my specifications.

Thus, I did some research and settled on Arch linux. I was very satisfied using it as my main operating system. Inspired by r/unixporn, I had all of my config files version controlled and riced to my liking. I had a PKGBUILD to patch my version of dwm. I was very happy.

I had been aware of FreeBSD for a while by this point (I listen to BSD Now for fun). I had tentatively installed it before in the past. In fact, I had my old laptop harddrive in my PC now and had FreeBSD on a partition. Which is actually part of the reason why I decided to switch to FreeBSD for my main operating system: my set up was a mess.

It resembled the following:

```
250 GB SSD:
- Windows partition
- Arch partition
750 GB HDD (old laptop):
- Windows partition
- FreeBSD partition
1 TB HDD:
- Storage
1 TB SSD (new!)
- The chance for a clean start
```

I figured setting up FreeBSD could not be any worse than it was to set up Arch, and I stood to gain a lot of benefits: ZFS, a complete operating system (not just the kernel), great community, and ports. I didn't fully realize at the time how ports was exactly like my PKGBUILD system for dwm, only designed as a critical component of the operating system. This was my chance for a clean start; to put each operating system on it's own drive and not have to deal with running out of space on the partitions.

So anyway, that's where I'm at now. I'm very much looking forward to learning FreeBSD and hopefully contributing back to this community as much as I can! I'm going to buy the Absolute FreeBSD book and I'm stoked as I get more familiar with ports to be able to contribute to them.


----------



## Sevendogsbsd (Feb 7, 2020)

Welcome! So, one thing if you don't know already, is that ports and packages are completely separate from the base OS. There are some overlaps like an app you install needs an account created, for example. The cool thing about this is you can get rid of every app you installed and not break the base OS - it will keep on trucking happily. I like the separation, unlike Linux where you want to switch desktops or something and end up killing the whole thing.


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## rockzombie2 (Feb 7, 2020)

Very cool, indeed! I came across the `man hier` command and I've been meaning to sit down and read through it to really understand where everything is laid out. I think that separation between userland apps and base OS is one of the most common praises I've heard regarding FreeBSD. Just the fact that everything seems so well organized is also one of the major things that attracted me to FreeBSD in the first place.


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## Sevendogsbsd (Feb 7, 2020)

I agree. FreeBSD is so simple, to me anyway. The installer is good, the docs are good (some outdated), and the community helpful. I love the stability also.


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## jomonger (Mar 13, 2020)

Hello,

I'm robotic and control engineer and worked with industrial welding robots, java and C and also in energetic branch (not much tho, I'm 27) and also late college student.
I was using Windows from 95 version (almost since I was born), through all of them and I always loved it and still love for desktop. But we always had legal professional version for free, and that propably changes my view. I had hundreds of legal XP and Vista keys and was giving them to friends. Now system is connected to microsoft account. I don't imagine to use diffrent OS for desktop.

But windows for server sucks (and I can't have it for free), and I become more interested in field of network. So I tried linux RedHat for like a month, got hacked (my fault, not Linux!) and started to read more about OSes and security. BSD systems had opinions of being faster,  more secure and stable with less aplications avaible. For me it seems great as I'm not going to use lot of 3rd party software (only basic) I'm going to code some things. First I wanted to install OpenBSD, but then I changed to FreeBSD becouse of nice handbook and autoinstall from provider. Information that PlayStation 3 forked FreeBSD also was important for me (I have never had PS). I will try OpenBSD for sure, maybe someday NetBSD for embedded.

So I'm using FreeBSD 12.1 for server, Windows 10 for desktop and Android for mobile phone.

I hope that someday I'll be good enough to get some really low level code like kernel.

Cheers.


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## munocat (Mar 18, 2020)

Hello

I live in Washington, USA, but originate from elsewhere. I am new to FreeBSD but not to UNIX. My first Nix experience was install from floppies Linux in late 1992, while at university. My first UNIX experience is with a Sun SparcStation 5, since then I have worked on and owned (still own some) many Sun WorkStations.

I have briefly used NetBSD (90's), however, I want to set up my 2 Mac Mini's 2009 to run motif.

I have loads of system in my home lab. Non run windows. 90% run linux. My current desktop go to machine is a Raspberry Pi, It is heavily configured with cool-retro-term and DEC VT220 fonts.

Why FreeBSD? I want to make my main GUI mvm, long term goal, on a RPI 4, running / from USB.


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## GlitchyDot (Mar 25, 2020)

Hi,
I'm new to FreeBSD and ThinkPad maniac with a hint of OCD  and also I'm a Linux user and still using it, but due to many laptops at home, I decided to give FreeBSD a chance ( i like Logo a lot and its sort of KISS ). So hopefully I will find it fun to use as my main goal to use BSD as a NAS for my HTML stuff ( beginner ) because I'm trying to create few website projects and if I'm at my PC -  coding on it if I'm in bed I'm coding with my laptop`s  and I hate to transfer files to USB all the time and no, I'm not using ssh due to no NANO support ( my hosting has only VI/M support and I am NANO addict ) but still ill be using my TP as a fun toy for coding as well ... oh and my Raspberry PI is not doing well so maybe my BSD laptop will help me on that side for tv series and movie binge 
P.s. if anyone can help me to OCD type of FreeBSD install and link to web style repository for BSD packages I would be grateful! 
P.P.s. no offense for BSD wiki but it's hard to adjust to other wikis than Arch Wiki ( my first and probs last Linux distro - love Pacman and wiki and detailed info of it )


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## Zvoni (Mar 26, 2020)

Chipping in:
No IT-Professional, but i was fiddling around with computers since the mid-80's, when i wrote my first database in Basic on a C64 at age 14.
I went through the whole Windows-Experience up to Windows 7.
First tentative contact with the *nix-World was somewhere around end of 90's/start of 00's with Suse-Linux, but the manual configuration (compared to Win98/2K) threw me off.
Now, some 3 years ago, i decided to spoil myself, and finally buy me a Laptop (funny enough: before that i wasn't a friend of laptop for home-use!).
At that time (early 2017), Windows 10 was running around the world and already wreaking havoc.

I still remember the face of the sales-guy at the local PC-shop:
Me: "at least 4 cores, 8GB RAM, and 1TB HD"
Salesguy: "What do you intend to do with it, mainly?"
Me: "a bit of this, a bit of that, internet, programming, Video-editing -> very important"
Sales-guy: "Well, we have this model here already setup with Windows10...blablablabla ...for 800 Euros"
Me: "Deal! You'll get 700 Euros, if you get me that Laptop WITHOUT Windows10"
Sales-Guy: "?!?!?!?!"
Me: "Windows will never darken my doorstep again! Period! Either you have a bare-metal machine, or i'm going to look in another shop! I'm not going to pay you 100 Euros extra just for the Windows-license (which i know is calculated into your sales-price), just to erase it from the harddisk"
....i got my bare-metal laptop, installed Linux (Ubuntu at that time, right now preparing everything to switch to Manjaro --> backing up everything to hell and back), and never looked back.

As for FreeBSD: in October 2019, the boss of my skydiving-club approached me with the question, if i could help them setup an Infra-structure with fileservers for the videos we produce.
My first thought was Linux of course, but FreeBSD was a close second, because i was fascinated with the information i gathered during my research.
Well, now we have 2 identical FreeBSD-Servers running an FTP-Server along a Fileserver with Samba-Exports on a Gluster-Volume.
I don't consider myself an expert (and probably never will), but i'm really impressed with the OS, and the community here.

As for Windoze10: My employer (trading company) is preparing steps to exchange all computers and to upgrade all clients to Windows10.
Since i'm the local go-to-guy for computer-problems in the company (read: local admin), i'm really considering stepping down from the admin-post because of that. I've really started to despise Windows10....

My 2 €-cents from Germany


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## emensee (Mar 26, 2020)

mentalbarcode said:


> I've been using Linux on the desktop since 1999.  I was bored with Microsoft Windows and frustrated with the antivirus because it complained constantly that the program that I was developing had segfaulted.  I formatted everything and installed RedHat 5.2.  I moved on to Mandrake and tested other distros like Corel, Slack, SUSE, Debian, and Caldera before eventually settling on Gentoo.
> 
> In 2005, I switched to Mac OS X on the PowerBook G4 with 2GB RAM, FW800, DVI, and an amazing keyboard.  Apple was truly ahead of the competition.  I eventually upgraded to the Macbook Pro, but was never as impressed like I was with the PBG4.  Since Apple's recent style of innovation is to remove functionality, I jumped ship in 2016 and came back to Linux, but this time on Debian testing on a ThinkPad P50.  It's great to be back, but now I'm looking for something more fun and interesting.
> 
> I've been keeping an eye on FreeBSD for many years now, for desktop use, checking in every few years.  I used to manage FreeBSD servers for an Ohio-based hosting company in the early 2000's so I was already familiar with the OS.  Now that KDE Plasma 5 is here in addition to ZFS, it's a no brainer.  I'm currently dual booting Debian buster and FreeBSD 12.0-BETA2 while working on my plan to move entirely to 12.0-RELEASE.


Snap, thats what I have, well actually I triple boot with win 7 pro, but i wont be using that anymore, All on a thinkpad x270.


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## ColorfulOne (Apr 11, 2020)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


I have had a very off and on entry level IT career that ended decades ago. I got introduced to Solaris and Linux in a past job. I like FreeBSD because no matter how basic my questions are, I feel like I understand why my computer is doing what it is doing so much better with FreeBSD. I really enjoy tinkering with FreeBSD so far, and I am really enjoying the community here. I am surprised at how helpful everyone has been. Even though my questions have been unbearably novice, I feel like the ones offering help have been quite patient and nice in spite of my simple questions. You have a good community here, I think. I hope FreeBSD lives on as long as it can.


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## Jose (Apr 19, 2020)

I had to implement a firewall in a panic back in the mid '90s because my boss wanted to provide Internet access to the higher-ups using a bank of modems and AOL accounts. I was a desktop support jockey back then, and knew a thing or two about how much of a pain supporting a single modem was, let alone a bank of them, and let alone for aged higher ups with little computer knowledge and less patience for technical problems.

Thing was, the place already had a massive (10Base5! It's still the only one I've ever seen) network, and a T-1 connection to the Internet, but being semi-government, the T1 connected network was not connected to the enterprise network. I figured it would be less of a pain to figure out how to connect the more modern network to the legacy network than to support a bunch of modems and dial-up accounts on Windows for Wastebaskets.

I did a bunch of reading about Internet security and it filled me with Fear & Loathing. There was this TIS Toolkit thing that I barely understood. I managed to find a DOS-based firewall, and was off to the races. DOS and PC hardware were very much my comfort zone back then. The DOS thing kinda worked, and had hilarious angel and devil pictures in its configuration screen. Unfortunately, it didn't handle many concurrent connections well. OK, it didn't handle them at all.

Now I'm really between the modem-bank immovable object and execs-need-Internet irresistible force, and the deadline looms ominously. Some more frantic Internet searching (Infoseek or Altavista, I don't remember) led me to stumble upon the Netscape Proxy Server. I figured that's what I needed plus a locked-down Unix server. I'd done the thousand-floppy, compile-the-kernel Slackware Linux install recently, and it had not exactly filled me with confidence. The NPS didn't support Linux anyway. It only supported Solaris or something called "BSDI". Solaris meant Sun hardware, which I'd only just recently seen for the first time, and the price of which gave me cold sweats. There's another story about me, the Anderson consultants, and the new Sun workstation.

This BSDI thing supported PC hardware, and I knew that really well. I figured at least I'd be able to troubleshoot hardware problems. I girded myself for the worst, had the uncomfortable conversation with my boss about buying thousands of dollars of hardware and software, and waited anxiously for the mail room.

BSDI was one of the most pleasant surprises of my career. It installed and ran flawlessly (keep in mind that I was expecting a Windows for Wastebaskets experience.) It also came with the "Unix System Administration Handbook" by Nemeth et al, which is still one of the best technical books I've ever read. I screwed up the IP address configuration (hey! it was my first time) so I had to call their support. I was girded for the  idiot quiz ("is it plugged in?; is it turned on?"), and in a combative mood. We'd spent a lot of money on this thing after all, and the deadline had me in no mood for foolishness. Another pleasant surprise. The support rep was knowledgeable, precise, and terse. Given just a cryptic ARP error message, he pinpointed the mistake I'd made setting the netmask and told me exactly how to correct it.  Everyone got seamless access to the Internet. BSDI made me a hero.

Then I moved to California, and got another job supporting Windows on PCs. Massive increase in pay aside, I was still a little sad about leaving BSDI behind. Lo and behold, I stumbled upon this Freebsd thing that was the same as BSDI as far as I could tell, and it was free! I got me a Walnut Creek CDROM subscription and set up my first mail server using fetchmail over my dial-up connection.

Over the years I tried and mostly failed to get Freebsd adopted at various workplaces. The irony of having some hipster freak out about using Freebsd while tapping away on his Macbook Pro! The few times I did succeed Freebsd's reliability was its undoing. The Freebsd machines worked so well and needed so little maintenance everyone, including me, would forget about them.

At some point I switched my home firewall to Openbsd 'cause I really liked the pf(4) rule syntax. I'm sad to say I got into an abusive relationship with Gentoo Linux for more than 15 years. I finally had enough of LVM and systemd-creep and decided to try ZFS on Freebsd -- aaand I'm back! I so wish I'd done this years ago.

Thank you for reading the wall of text.


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## ralphbsz (Apr 19, 2020)

Jose said:


> BSDI was one of the most pleasant surprises of my career.


I never got to use it. When I was needing it (about 93 or 94), it was not ready for X, and I needed X urgently at the time, so I ended up having to try Linux instead. Indeed, the 30-floppy installation of SLS and Slackware, with kernel compiles that ran over night. Also, running X without an FPU was insanity, because it turned out that font rendering was done in floating point, and was laughably slow.



> It also came with the "Unix System Administration Handbook" by Nemeth et al, which is still one of the best technical books I've ever read.


Eva Nemeth was also a super pleasant person. I met her at a few Usenix or LISA meetings in the 90s and early 2000s. She is one of the people I know who died on sailboats, which makes me very sad, and worried about going onto the ocean.



> At some point I switched my home firewall to Openbsd 'cause I really liked the pf(4) rule syntax.


Today you can have pf on FreeBSD. But OpenBSD is also around, and also a very fine operating system. I happen to be using FreeBSD, but wouldn't mind switching to OpenBSD for production if it had what I wanted (the biggest issue being ZFS).


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## quamenzullo (Apr 21, 2020)

Hi!

I've been a Linux user since 2005 (got rid of Windows then because of the incredible amount of time spent on cleaning it from spywares and viruses, really crazy).
I've been using FreeBSD too but only to run my server, since years now. So I'm not really new on the forums actually.
Last week I finally gave a try and managed to setup a vanilla FreeBSD desktop on an old laptop, with XFCE. Still some quiks remain to be solved, but it globally runs well. Hope I can set it up on my main desktop too.

Something I especially hope with FreeBSD is that it generally remains stable in terms of software too. I find it boring to have to change my habits too often (and without any warning, nor definite place to find a warning or explanation): configuration files go elsewhere at some point, or disappear (replaced by GUI stuff) or a command is removed, replaced by another... Things tend to get a little bit unstable, from this point of view. Not to talk about systemd. Well as a user, it's not a problem, it starts really quickly. But as a developer it gave me headaches: poor support for python (some time ago, it might have changed since) and an entirely different way of handling even system logging, that is not "portable" in any way.

So, my journey with FreeBSD goes on...

PS I'm not really a professional, I'm a math teacher though with computer science background. I love to develop (in python especially) and started to use FreeBSD as server to host my website and python software that's making math for children.
PPS weird pseudo was generated randomly and set a long while ago, I guess it's not possible to change it now.


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## RedPhoenix (Apr 25, 2020)

quamenzullo said:


> Hi!
> 
> I've been a Linux user since 2005 (got rid of Windows then because of the incredible amount of time spent on cleaning it from spywares and viruses, really crazy).
> I've been using FreeBSD too but only to run my server, since years now. So I'm not really new on the forums actually.
> ...


FreeBSD is fun, isn't it?


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## quamenzullo (Apr 26, 2020)

RedPhoenix said:


> FreeBSD is fun, isn't it?


Yes, once the first troubles were over (graphical card, keyboard, flash drive...) and more exactly I like to have the feeling to really learn and have control on what's going on in any domain.


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## RemoteBroccoli (Apr 27, 2020)

Started (again) with FreeBSD as I felt I needed to learn something new with all this... Crap in the world, and installed it on my Thinkpad X220 on a spare drive. 

Some two days later, I installed in on my main drive and I am now currently making plans on building a small firewall for my home and my WiFi. 
I remember using FreeBSD as a server some years ago, and thought "Well, this is fun" 

Still learning, but it feels more at home than I felt with Linux (Linux is fine, but yeah..). 

Still having to use Windows a lot tough because I need software for scanners that scans negatives and glass prints. 

But that's really all. A welcome but sweaty side effect is that I realized that I need to rebuild a few things at home as to avoid pain in shoulders and back. So, I did that and let my thinkpad build Xorg.


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## Jared (Apr 29, 2020)

Sup everyone, 
I am 20 years old from the island of Trinidad and Tobago; located in the Caribbean and I am generally new to the BSDs and Linux in general as I have only started using them during December of last year. Unlike, seeingly most people in this thread and forum, I have no background in computer science or information technology sector (at least as yet). I have installed FreeBSD onto a laptop with the only problems I have encountered were with the Nvidia drivers and SD card reader. besides those two problems, everything else ran smoothly.


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## strawman2511 (May 1, 2020)

The only problem make the young generation like me using FreeBSD is learning how Unix works and try to keep it alive. We should hope that next generation should have Unix passion blood too.


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## Sevendogsbsd (May 1, 2020)

Agree: most people, young and old, only know 2 things: MacOS and Windows. They have no idea there are alternatives out there, some better than (some) commercial offerings, depending on use case.


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## hruodr (May 1, 2020)

But do users of Linux distributions learn what is UNIX with it? I mean a typical unix system? I think UNIX is hidden there, and only people that know UNIX recognise the UNIX there.


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## Sevendogsbsd (May 1, 2020)

Agree - Linux is NOT Unix and that distinction is lost on many Linux users both long time and new. Linux is "Unix like" I would say. It probably doesn't really matter because the true Unices of the world are fading, no? (AIX, Solaris) and the term "Unix" is a trademark also, isn't it? There are I am sure, many users of true Unix here that can probably speak much better to this than I. 

I don't believe new users of Linux really care either way; they just may be happy they found an alternative OS.


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## kpedersen (May 1, 2020)

Sevendogsbsd said:


> Agree - Linux is NOT Unix and that distinction is lost on many Linux users both long time and new.



Arguably POSIX is what is useful in UNIX. And Linux is POSIX(ish). The problem is that most of POSIX (and UNIX) is completely hidden in Linux behind (terrible) GUI systems. Many Linux users just flitter about with the package store, install a web browser and some GUI themes. The rest of the system remains fairly opaque.


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## 20-100-2fe (May 1, 2020)

Though Linux is not Unix, I've learned a lot with it, and all this learning has greatly helped me getting into BSD.
I'm thankful to Linux for that!


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## zirias@ (May 1, 2020)

This whole "what is Unix" discussion is pretty pointless, IMHO...

Is it Unix, when there's a direct "inheritance line" to some original Unix system? Then, at least, FreeBSD is Unix
Is it Unix, when it "looks like" Unix and mostly adheres to some important specs (like POSIX)? Then, FreeBSD is Unix, and GNU/Linux is, as well
Is it Unix, when it's allowed to display the UNIX® trademark? Then, very few Linux distributions are Unix, FreeBSD definitely isn't. Note this involves, apart from implementing important specs, paying money on a regular basis 
For whatever that's worth, GNU/Linux *is* a "Unix-like" system. I personally think the "Unix spirit" is more present in FreeBSD, as it involves basic design ideas, principles, and *not* introducing any breaking changes without a really good reason. But how to exactly qualify that? To me, personally, GNU/Linux is *one* option of having a "Unix" on a consumer PC. I *prefer* FreeBSD for that


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## Krvopije (May 1, 2020)

Who I am: 25, living in central europe. I guess thats as much as is neccessary to know. 
Why I am choosing FreeBSD: I switched to Linux at the beginning of 2017 and enjoyed the time so far. Learned so much and appreciate all the flavours of Linux or GNU/Linux is someone insists on it.
But although I wouldn't say it is not impossible to learn further with the documentation of each distro and to get used to all the differences between them, I still would say it is too unorganized for a newcomer like me and a real pain in the ass.
My goal is to continue the journey of learning more about my hardware, to get more knowledge and better skills when it comes to system administration and boy, just a look at the documentation/handbook of FreeBSD made me decide to switch at some point this year. It will most likely be once everything settles down and I can go and buy hardware for my workstation, laptop will stay on GNU/Linux for now, but I am so hyped. I have not had much interaction with any FreeBSD guys and don't know how "helpful" and "generous" they are, when newbies asked (stupid) stuff and many Linuxfolks warn you of the cocky BSD-Fanboys, but I gotta say, just reading the handbook made me feel like, don't worry, you might be able to find out everything that is considered a stupid question by yourself with this documentation and if you can't then you might deserve the rough feedback. I played a little so far with FreeBSD, GhostBSD and NomadBSD on Virtualbox and GNOME Boxes and can't wait to put it directly on the hardware, it just feels so clean and overseeable compared to any Linuxdistro I tried.


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## k3y5 (May 1, 2020)

drhowarddrfine said:


> I mentioned this a few months back. I was wondering why there was such an influx of new posters but it was from a lot of people making negative comments out of the blue and I was suspicious about where it was coming from. This could be an interesting thread to read about legitimate newcomers.



That's too bad. I've been lurking for a while, but interacting is so much better! 

I moved over after working on a security based product deployed on OpenBSD, and for malware/pentesting lab setup. After dealing with the pitfalls of linux, and loving the straight forward build process just made sense. I've been loving ports, and with a little Clang you can be dangerous.


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## hruodr (May 2, 2020)

I see UNIX as more or less a standard, it includes Posix and BSD, the console commandos, how one deals with the system. If I sit in front of a Mac or Linux computer, I try to guess how to open a console, after I get it, I can deal more or less with the computer, if something does not work as expected, I type "man". If I sit in front of a Windows computer, I can click with the mouse on the web browser icon, but much more than that I cannot do. But what can do a Linux Distribution User in front of a FreeBSD system, those that use the GUI?

I do not know a Linux Distribution that try to emulate a normal UNIX system. Also with server versions used as desktop PC I end doing strange things. How will someone learn a standard with this? It is better to begin with a BSD system, if one needs Linux later, it will be easier.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 2, 2020)

hruodr said:


> I see UNIX as more or less a standard


UNIX is a standard published by The Open Group


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## zirias@ (May 2, 2020)

Krvopije said:


> just reading the handbook made me feel like, don't worry, you might be able to find out everything that is considered a stupid question by yourself with this documentation and if you can't then you might deserve the rough feedback.


"The handbook" is indeed a huge advantage over most Linux distributions  It's not perfect, it sometimes misses things, and (very rarely) gets things wrong. But it's better than anything I have seen so far concerning GNU/Linux systems. And, of course, it's constantly maintained and bug reports about the handbook are welcome and will be fixed.

But then, what gives you the idea you'll get "rough feedback" in the FreeBSD community? Sure, someone might be annoyed having to read a question that a RTFM would have solved .. this happens everywhere  But in my experience on IRC, mailing lists, web forums and even usenet, you'll get an answer most of the time, and even if it's just a link to the relevant documentation. Most of the time, you won't see any complaints about a "stupid" question. If your problem is a bit more challenging, people will try to help.


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## k3y5 (May 2, 2020)

Zirias said:


> But then, what gives you the idea you'll get "rough feedback" in the FreeBSD community? Sure, someone might be annoyed having to read a question that a RTFM would have solved .. this happens everywhere  But in my experience on IRC, mailing lists, web forums and even usenet, you'll get an answer most of the time, and even if it's just a link to the relevant documentation. Most of the time, you won't see any complaints about a "stupid" question. If your problem is a bit more challenging, people will try to help.



As an IRC scrub, can you offer any advice to get started? It just seems like all the deep cuts have been surfing the digital airwaves for decades. A bit intimidated, and unsure where to start. 

Also, the handbook is amazing. If anyone is interested, I would recommend picking up a copy of: 'The design and implementation of the freeBSD operating system' by: McKusick, Neville-Neil, and Watson. It can be a bit dense at times, but understanding _why_ decisions were made, changed my perspective.


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## Krvopije (May 2, 2020)

Zirias said:


> "The handbook" is indeed a huge advantage over most Linux distributions  It's not perfect, it sometimes misses things, and (very rarely) gets things wrong. But it's better than anything I have seen so far concerning GNU/Linux systems. And, of course, it's constantly maintained and bug reports about the handbook are welcome and will be fixed.


I will strive to look out for bugs and potential optimizations.


Zirias said:


> But then, what gives you the idea you'll get "rough feedback" in the FreeBSD community? Sure, someone might be annoyed having to read a question that a RTFM would have solved .. this happens everywhere  But in my experience on IRC, mailing lists, web forums and even usenet, you'll get an answer most of the time, and even if it's just a link to the relevant documentation. Most of the time, you won't see any complaints about a "stupid" question. If your problem is a bit more challenging, people will try to help.


It's based on the "rumors" about FreeBSDs users that exist in the Linuxcommunities I was in. I expect it to get exposed as an exaggeration over time just as I expect to see here a lot of exaggerated prejudices towards GNU/Linux.
It will be a great journey for me nonetheless.


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## weberjn (May 3, 2020)

hruodr said:


> If I sit in front of a Mac or Linux computer, I try to guess how to open a console, after I get it, I can deal more or less with the computer, if something does not work as expected, I type "man". If I sit in front of a Windows computer, I can click with the mouse on the web browser icon, but much more than that I cannot do.



On my Windows machines at work and at home I do all command line work in bash under MSYS2, mostly scp, curl, git and maven. The MSYS2 guys have done a great work of integrating the Unix command line tools in Windows. Of course, man works, too.


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## deadmorozz (May 14, 2020)

FreeBSD because it reminds me of Da Free Musketiers yeah


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## Hakaba (May 14, 2020)

Zirias said:


> Sure, someone might be annoyed having to read a question that a RTFM would have solved


I try in most time to find answer in manual or internet.
But sometimes, I do not know how a 'think' is named. I use the "apropos" tool but this is not always sufficient.

In the last months (weeks?) I saw a lot of the question like "I do xxx in Linux, how it is in FreeBSD" and `apropos xxx` has the answer.

I think it is because some Linux distribution has a bad documentation, but a "good" forum or IRC chan.
Maybe Arch Linux or Gentoo Linux users ask less and read more...


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## greencloud (May 19, 2020)

Hakaba said:


> I think it is because some Linux distribution has a bad documentation, but a "good" forum or IRC chan.
> Maybe Arch Linux or Gentoo Linux users ask less and read more...


That's very true.

By the way, I'm a web developer. I was a Linux user for many many years, started with Debian around '98. Since then I've tried and used dozens of Linux distros, I ended up with Archlinux and used it for almost 4 years until _systemd_ came in (good thing it's now obsolete). Archlinux is still my favorite Linux Distro though, but I'm an all-time FreeBSD user now since 2012. Why I chose FreeBSD? There's lot of things to say but I guess because FreeBSD fills the gap and for me it's more resource friendly than any Linux distros I've used in the past, including Arch. And the ports are just awesome.


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## tuxador (May 19, 2020)

Hi I am  a 38yo physician living in north Africa (Algeria), i am a tech hobbyist and a free software enthusiast, i've been using Gnu/linux since 2003 (occasionnaly due to lack of a good internet connexion and exclusively from 2006 and kubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake).
I loved the concept of FreeBSD and the "unix spirit" and tried desktopBSD in 2008, i ended up stuck to Archlinux since then (2009-2020) as i found the /etc/rc.conf very convenient and BSD friendly, besides the excellent archlinux wiki.
This year i am running my own medical cabinet and decided to build up a small server for archieving documents(i consider samba as a good option), sharing printer (cups as my first target) and running my django based application for medical records.
I thought it's the best opportunity to run FreeBSD again as it's clear documentation and the RC files based configuration will make the server setup easier and because of it's acclaimed stability.

It took me a couple of attempts :
1. ghostBSD : installation was straightforward but the structure of configuration fileswas too different from upstream FreeBSDand the documentation is sparse.
2. FuryBSD : despite the fact that's "pure" FreeBSD the installation was a real mess .
3. FreeBSD (12.1) : happily running on my machine (ivybridge core i5 with 4GO RAM, ZFS on a single HDD, no RAID), a full featured plasma-kde5 desktop (did i mentionned that i am a KDE lover?), next step is setting up nginx-uswgi , SMB and CUPS.


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## Mjölnir (May 22, 2020)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


I'm using FreeBSD+KDE for (over?) 10 years now - for _obvious reasons_  - Linux sucks:

it (ubuntu) crashed my system on an update (ok, that's a decade ago)
re-invented the wheel _several_ times, and went into the same pitfalls that others had already solved (_"not invented here"_ behaviour)
Overly aggressive _"1st write, then think, test later"_ hacking attitude (again, numerous examples), and once they mimic'ed a 20-year-old BSD solution, they shout hurray!
In general, I'm quite happy with FreeBSD, _BUT_:

on every new installation I feel like a newbie...
the defaults on FreeBSD suck  for the desktop use-case
automagic discovery of devices and their integration into the system stops at driver level
too few things works _"out-of-the-box",_ and need time to find out how to do it
lack of GUI system settings to quickly adjust the system to behave how I want
(KDE is overly linuxoid, that's not FreeBSD's fault, and it's buggy)
I prefer used/refurbished business laptops for private use, because usually they're more robust than consumer hardware and most of the initial problems have been solved. Last not least, the price/value ratio is unbeaten.


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## DonK (May 24, 2020)

Greetings, I've been running BSD on PCs since the Jolitzs released 386BSD on a Dr. Dobbs CD in 1992. My first BSD PC used an Adaptec 1542. 386BSD had a circular buffer 1542 device driver bug that caused an installation failure on PCs with more than 4M of memory. Naturally, my PC had 8M of memory. 

So, Slackware was used for a year or so until FreeBSD for PC was released.


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## Aeterna (Jun 30, 2020)

First OS that I learned was SunOS 4 and Novell Netware NOS. After that Windows 2 and 3. I got my first personal computer in mid 90' and I installed my first FreeBSD upon friend's recommendation. Next I installed RedHat (PC Magazine?) from floppies and Slackware and OpenBSD. I tried to learn them all. FreeBSD 5 was the last of FreeBSD series for a long time. I started to use linuxes at home and NetBSD and windows at work. Main reason for abandoning  BSD was related to the hardware. I was a member of this and other (that do not exist anymore) BSD forums at least few times.

Currently running FreeBSD/Openbox in VM with Slackware host alongside with OpenBSD, OpenIndiana and Oracle Solaris.
I wanted to introduce myself in the case that I will have questions with my setup.


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## Mjölnir (Jul 1, 2020)

Aeterna said:


> [...] Currently running FreeBSD/Openbox in VM with Slackware host alongside with OpenBSD, OpenIndiana and Oracle Solaris. [...]


_"Wrong"_ order.  Turn it upside-down


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## Techguy46 (Jul 10, 2020)

Standard Windows user, but wanted to learn more about the other different operating systems there and the best uses for them.


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## BeCitizenSci (Jul 11, 2020)

Greetings!

I'm happy to be here. It's been a long time (1999) since I've incorporated FreeBSD fully into my personal life but I'm pleased to announce that I'm doing so once again. And I'm looking forward to chatting about it with everyone.


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## franky44 (Aug 17, 2020)

Howdy. I just installed FreeBSD 11.4. I've using Linux for the past 4 years. I threw Windows out the window because I wanted a system that more stable. I've always wanted an OS that was like Unix. While I can't afford the AT&T Unix, I thought Linux would be as close as I could get. Then I heard about freeBSD. 

I had a devil of a time getting things set up, but I kept at it till I was up and running. I have it installed on my desktop. I'll install it on my laptop when I have a good handle on how to manage BSD. I have a lot of questions about what everything means, but I'm getting a book about freeBSD from no starch press. I'll read through that book a couple hundred times. I'm doing the same with Linux. I have a 1800 page book on Linux that I've been reading for the past year. I've asked myself over a dozen times "What the hell did I get myself into?" I'll be asking that again when I get deeper into BSD. 

In the meantime, I have some reading to catch up on in the freeBSD handbook. Is there a freeBSD dictionary?


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## franky44 (Aug 17, 2020)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


I just installed it a few days ago. I have freeBSD on my desktop, but I still use Linux Q4OS on my laptop.


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## SirDice (Aug 17, 2020)

franky44 said:


> Is there a freeBSD dictionary?


There's a glossary at the end of the handbook, it has explanations of commonly used acronyms and some specific FreeBSD ones. Anything in particular you're looking for?


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## judd (Aug 17, 2020)

I am a person who started in this fascinating world of computers on May 3, 2007 at 7:30 pm, when he came to install in my house the desktop PC that I had bought, at that time, with my son and when they finished installing it and the technician left, I ask my son and now what do we do Valentino ???

I remember a splendid Windows XP on the Acer W1916 17-inch monitor.

Valentino with his 7 years, he says to me:
Let me see 'pa and he sat in front of that screen and started to do, what for me, was magic.

After this prologue, I have to say that I got into this world, because of the questions I was asked on a commercial level: 
you have mail, what's your mail ??? and so on with those questions, feeling totally out of place and that's what made me start walking this path, which I spent almost seven months every night trying to learn and learn, which was already an obsession.

Eventually, I got rid of Windows XP and installed Mandriva-8.0, where I learned a lot and then continued with Debian, Fedora, until with the help of a Uruguayan user at night I was able to install Slackware-11.1

Then I discovered Arch Linux and there I stayed, along with an Arch fork like Antergos and today I participate daily in the EndeavourOS distro.

Why did I choose FreeBSD ?
Simply because, at least for me, it is the Mecca where you can reach, settle down and learn, although Linux helps a lot, it is not the same at all and it needs hours and hours of reading manuals and touching and breaking and reinstalling when I can't find solutions, until I can fix it, which is very comforting.

Anyway, this is who I am and this is what there is ...
I do what I can, I take it as a hobby and it is embedded in my daily life.

Ahh, now I can send and receive emails 


Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)


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## Crivens (Aug 17, 2020)

Welcome aboard! Always good to see a father willing to learn from his kids


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## a6h (Aug 17, 2020)

judd It's nice we have you here, sir.
I have to write my story here, too. But I'm lazy.


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## Jose (Aug 18, 2020)

Bienvenido, Judd! Este Oriental te manda saludos y desea que  la pases bien en  este foro.

(Begging the moderators' forbearance of a short greeting in a language other than English. I swear it contains no trolling, systemd-bashin', linux-pinin', or wrong-os-question-askin'.)


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## Argentum (Aug 18, 2020)

20-100-2fe said:


> Though Linux is not Unix, I've learned a lot with it, and all this learning has greatly helped me getting into BSD.
> I'm thankful to Linux for that!



Hello,

My personal story with FreeBSD started actually with Linux. The year was 1995 when I decided to set up a web and internet applications server. In summer 1995 my first version of the server was on Linux. After a week I realised (based on my previous Unix experiences with System V and BSD) that Linux is a complete crap. Reinstalled the machine with FreeBSD (I think it was 2.0 then) and never regretted that move.

Gradually upgraded software and hardware. Today the system is still running as my personal mail server as a Bhyve VM (FreeBSD v12.1). Always install applications from ports, configure and compile my own kernel. On Bhyve I have a very compact kernel configuration with only one virtual network driver. During that journey with FreeBSD I have had nat firewalls, web proxy with Squid and file servers with Samba all on FreeBSD.

I also happen to like FreeBSD on desktop and laptop. Have been running on desktop more than 10 years. I am writing this message on my FreeBSD laptop with ZFS and Mate GUI.

Good Luck!


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## Mjölnir (Aug 18, 2020)

Argentum said:


> [...] After a week I realised (based on my previous Unix experiences with System V and BSD) that Linux is a complete crap.


Haha, in the early/mid 90ies, OS/2 & Linux 0.9-1.x had cost me a keyboard each, that I threw against the wall out of frustration... Luckily, I overcome this kind of behaviour.  Nevertheless, I did not know about FreeBSD, so I stayed with Linux until about 2005.  My 1st FreeBSD installation was onto a gifted fanless Mac mini, where Linux had issues & the previous owner told me FreeBSD is running suffiently well.  At that time, the GUI admin tools of KDE were not disabled, and some were functional despite Linuxisms.  My final switch to FreeBSD was after I had data loss on a Linux box for the 3rd time (filesystem crashes & broken libraries after update).


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## GoNeFast_01 (Aug 18, 2020)

I am long time windows user, gamer, and recently got into Freebsd for my eternal search of the cleanest license and I found it is 'BSD'.

An economist by trade, I was forced into learning more about sysadmin task, engineering, coding, DB architecture and DevOps due to the many pitfalls I've faced in my businesses with so-called "quote on quote" experts. I build & mod computers as a hobby, build my first Hackintosh 17 years of age, and first water-cooled 19ish. Own plenty of computers and hardware parts, I have a couple of blade servers setup, around 100tb+ of NAS, I build & refresh servers from off the shelves parts because well Enterprise cost is ridiculous.

Been a business owner from a very early age, I guess you can say I dislike working for anyone but myself. I am a secluded learner and tend to learn things the hard-way meaning by doing them. I tend to limit my learning to the time or needs of the moment so I leave lots of knowledge holes in between  forcing me back into an eternal spiral of never-ending search of knowledge.

I am in Disneyland because FREEBSD documentation and manuals are substantial.


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## salparadise (Aug 22, 2020)

After 18 years of Linux 'home power user' use, infuriated with systemd, and bored to tears with the daily torrent of "distro x, based on distro y" releases, with little but icons and wallpaper to differentiate them, I attempted for the second time to get a BSD machine up and running. GhostBSD was a good place to start, except it's very Linux distro-like and I want absolute granular control and simplicity (I was running Artix Linux for a few months - Arch without systemd), but again - too easy to get setup. FreeBSD, with Trihexagonal's 'newbies guide', proved to be just right. I used the memstick image and built everything else from Ports. Portmaster has been something of a revelation, as has 'pkg audit -F' (I ran archaudit on the Artix box after learning of its existence and found multiple vulnerabilities.)
This reminds me of using Slackware, which I loved for its simplicity and ease of setup.


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## adb (Aug 28, 2020)

I was introduced to FreeBSD back in 1995, when I started Computer Science studies at a university. I enjoyed using that system and learned a lot of basic system administration and software development skills from it. It was definitely a major hobby of mine during this time.

After graduation and entering the workforce, I used Linux professionally, but abandoned computing as a hobby in my spare time. A couple of years ago, I became interested in it again. I installed Linux on a few laptops that I had. One laptop was really old and was having performance issues. I still wanted to get some use out of it, so I created a few virtual machines to test out various operating systems.

Once I got the FreeBSD virtual machine up and running some of those old feelings came back from when I first started using it. I installed FreeBSD on the old laptop and it was usable again for all of my standard applications (browser, office software, etc.). Since then, I use it more as a server for my home network and have learned more and more about its features. I'm looking forward to running it on a more powerful machine and increasing my depth of knowledge.


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## Jae (Aug 31, 2020)

Greeting, I'm Jae, a developer.
I switched to FreeBSD from ArchLinux since I want to learn more how BSD works.


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## JohnBlood (Sep 10, 2020)

Hi! I've been playing around with Linux for over 7 years. I've installed BSDs a couple of times, but never really did much with it. Recently, I've decided to spend more time trying to learn FreeBSD. I don't plan to abandon Linux, but mainly make FreeBSD a new tool on my open-source tool belt.


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## uun (Sep 14, 2020)

I was happy Arch Linux user until I realized that I have not enough troubles in my life, so I installed FreeBSD on my laptop.


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## SKull (Sep 14, 2020)

uun said:


> on my laptop


That is indeed a way to get to some new troubles


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## uun (Sep 14, 2020)

SKull said:


> That is indeed a way to get to some new troubles


Yep. But I managed to make every single piece of hardware I need working and it was quite satisfying. That involved building custom kernel and mixing some code from 13.0-CURRENT into 12.1 (because some things worked in 13.0 but not in 12.1 and I wanted the production version). I was really surprised that, after fixing a few errors, it compiled and worked. That was my first weekend as a FreeBSD user on a real hardware. Learned a lot!


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## Mjölnir (Sep 14, 2020)

SKull said:


> That is indeed a way to get to some new troubles


Please don't scare innocent new users willing to explore FreeBSD...  All you need is a _compatible_ laptop


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## rkyrk (Sep 14, 2020)

I am just a geek that knows way too much about too many things to be an expert about anything. That being said, my first foray into Linux was with Slackware kernel version 0.9x. I then purchased the FreeBSD Handbook which had version 2.x included. From there I subscribed for a while to FreeBSD where they sent the CD's for the latest version as they were re Linux formleased. Got out of it for a while due to family and work but have my laptop running FreeBSD for a while now. I love the fact that I can tweak and break everything imaginable. I think Linux is doing great work but I want much more control over my installation then any distribution is willing to give. Also, the fact that what I learned from FreeBSD 2.x and on, is still relevant today on making changes to the system.

This forum has always been way more enjoyable and informative than any Linux forum that I have been a part of and is a major reason to be a part of FreeBSD.


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## Async (Oct 8, 2020)

Hi, I'm a software developer from Germany. I'm new to *BSD. I have a long background in Linux, and I always knew FreeBSD exists, but never tried it. Today I ask myself why, cause FreeBSD is great. I started with Ubuntu and ended up with Gentoo. I used it for some years, I liked it, but a few weeks ago I got annoyed by some weird bugs and started to dislike the linux kernel developement culture, so I thought about trying something new, just for fun. I installed FreeBSD on a free hdd which I didn't used for years, and tried it. And it was GREAT. Like a new way better world. I archived my old Gentoo, shifted FreeBSD to my SSD and use it now for weeks as my main system for development. And it's really awesome. Didn't imagine it could be that much better^^


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## matt_k (Oct 13, 2020)

Hello, I am an electrical engineer, who actually studied at an IT college. I've been using linux since linux-2.4? I guess. Last months/weeks I got into operating systems history as a free time activity, my interest was of course linux history, which led me to UNIX history, which led me to BSD. I knew about FreeBSD since college, but never actually thought about trying to use it. Now the time has matured. 
I want to learn about FreeBSD, so there is no better option than to install it on bare metal and try to use it as my daily driver, it should be doable, because linux is my daily driver and AFAIK software availability is very similar. So far, I like the simplicity, I thought that arch linux is simple, now I see that FreeBSD's simplicity, compactness and ordered-ness (what's the correct word for it?) is on another level and I like it. I also like this OS's heritage and compliance to the UNIX philosophy, which is very apparent (e.g. OSS features and functionality, yea!!!)


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## alx82 (Oct 16, 2020)

I'm a mathematician and computer scientist, was mainly doing research for about 10 years, but then I decided to move from academia to the industry 3 years ago. My first experience with Linux dates back to 1998 (Mandrake), later I switched completely to OpenSUSE from Windows XP around 2006. I always wanted a semi-rolling distribution with a stable base and an up to date packages, that is nowhere to be found in the Linux world, where there is no clear distinction between base and packages. That is what brought me to FreeBSD early 2018, and since then it became my operating system of choice for my daily driver laptop (I appreciate many other points apart from the semi-rolling bit of FreeBSD). I also have a kvm OpenSUSE workstation that I use mainly for my daily work and another one running FreeBSD 12.1 with a couple of bhyve VMs. I try to contribute to FreeBSD whenever I can, I sent many patches to improve acpi support for Thinkpads, that were accepted and committed. I actively contribute to the Xfce desktop project since 2010, and I'm still part of the core team. Currently, I work fulltime for SUSE.


----------



## rempargo (Nov 18, 2020)

The last time I really worked and installed FreeBSD was more than 10 years ago. In 2009 I installed FreeBSD 8.0 running as VM on a new Dell server with Citrix XenServer as Virtual Machine Host, (it wasn't called hypervisor yet, I believe), and it's still running in the same VM ever since. It's only used for a postgresql database. After that I moved away from FreeBSD to Debian, because (at that time) you could not install FreeBSD on EC2 servers from Amazon, and I wanted to have the same OS for both my local servers as well those on EC2 and on dedicated servers in datacenters (Hetzner). I always used FreeBSD in the shell, never tried a desktop GUI.

After 10 years, it's time to renew the hardware, we got a new server (AMD Threadripper 3970X) and we are using xcp-ng as Hypervisor with more RAM and fast SSD, so we can install more VM's.

So I'm trying to get FreeBSD running, but after numerous attempts, it all hangs on the same 


```
uhid0 on uhub0
uhid0: <QEMU QEMU USB Tablet, class 0/0, rev 2.00/0.00, addr 2> on usbus0
```

I've tried:
FreeBSD-11.4-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso
FreeBSD-12.0-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso   (it's i386, I know, it will show the UEFI Interactive Shell v2.2, does not boot at all.) 
FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso
FreeBSD-12.2-RELEASE-amd64-bootonly.iso
FreeBSD-12.2-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso
FreeBSD-12.2-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso
FreeBSD-13.0-CURRENT-amd64-20201022-0035a6c7bb7-bootonly.iso

They all hang on the exact same point, any input of the keyboard is ignored, but if I change the .iso of the VM, it will give me 


```
g_access(961): provider iso9660/12_2_RELEASE_AMD64CD has error 6 set
```

After this I tried to install TrueNas:
TrueNAS-12.0-RELEASE.iso

Surprisingly, this worked immediately and I was surprised by the great web-interface. I read about not putting TrueNAS as a VM, but this was for testing purposes to see if I can get any FreeBSD version running on this xcp-ng hypervisor. I could even install some community plugins, and that worked great out-of-the-box. 

Now, If I would use TrueNAS just for a NAS in production environment, I would not think about adding any plugins, but why not use a TrueNAS installation for only the plugins? Are there any other solutions that install FreeBSD and have it real easy to install other applications/plugins/whatever-you-want-to-call-them ?

Anybody ideas why the normal FreeBSD are not booting on xcp-ng?


----------



## SirDice (Nov 18, 2020)

Welcome rempargo . This is an introduction thread where people tell a bit about themselves, it's not meant for asking questions. Please open your own thread where you state your problem. As this is about virtualization you should post it in the "Emulation and virtualization" section: https://forums.freebsd.org/forums/emulation-and-virtualization.51/


----------



## LordInateur (Nov 28, 2020)

Hi all, it's good to see a 2.0 thread. I started using FreeBSD back in 2012, about halfway into high school. Mostly I'd jumped from Linux distro to distro-- my father was a huge fan of Slackware but I grew up on Ubuntu. I stumbled on the BSDs after reading the Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll and looking a bit into its history-- and I found it to be exactly what I was looking for (something challenging for someone learning about computing systems, yet stable enough to hold its own for production systems). Nowadays I pretty much use it as often as I can-- for my main desktop machine (in conjunction with awesome wm) and for almost all of my server infrastructure (huge fan of bhyves and cbsd). I think I really just enjoy how open, yet cohesive FreeBSD seems to be, compared to some of the other projects out there.


----------



## fjdlr (Nov 28, 2020)

Hi
Linux user since 1995, migration of my 3 home PCs to Freebsd for 1 year.
without any regrets I haven't touched windows since 1995.
sorry my english is bad


----------



## Pardub (Nov 28, 2020)

I'm a Linux user for a few years.
I want to switch to FreeBSD as I'm curious about how it works behind the hood.
My plan is to build my second laptop as a fully FreeBSD daily driver and to make the move permanently.


----------



## sixtydoses (Dec 3, 2020)

Not a new user, but haven't touched FreeBSD for years. Missed it. Missed this forum too. Hope I'll get to run FreeBSD again someday. Now if only I can get FreeBSD and Netflix to work together..


----------



## kpedersen (Dec 3, 2020)

sixtydoses said:


> Now if only I can get FreeBSD and Netflix to work together..



They already do, really well in fact. Just on the company server side, not for us consumers!
(Yes, I understand my statement is fairly useless. My apologies )


----------



## sixtydoses (Dec 4, 2020)

kpedersen said:


> They already do, really well in fact. Just on the company server side, not for us consumers! (Yes, I understand my statement is fairly useless. My apologies )



Not helping!!


----------



## kpedersen (Dec 4, 2020)

sixtydoses said:


> Not helping!!


Hehe.

Did you check out the thread that Jose pointed you towards in the "social" section? (easy to miss!)








						[Linuxulator] How to run Google Chrome (linux-binary) on FreeBSD
					

[Update] For new instructions targeting FreeBSD 13.0 and newer, please see: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/linuxulator-how-to-install-brave-linux-app-on-freebsd-13-0.78879/   Important notes:  1) Tested upon FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE. Used Ubuntu-based linux compat instead of default CentOS one...




					forums.freebsd.org
				




It does seem like there has been some good progress made using the Linux compat layer. Still completely unsupported by Netflix themselves of course but I guess that is fairly typical.


----------



## sixtydoses (Dec 4, 2020)

kpedersen said:


> Hehe.
> 
> Did you check out the thread that Jose pointed you towards in the "social" section? (easy to miss!)
> 
> ...


Yes,  I did read up briefly earlier today. I might give a shot, just for the fun of it hehe. Thanks!


----------



## ranefjord (Dec 6, 2020)

Hi!

I started my computer geek lifestyle in the late 80's running DOS and later OS/2. Those were the BBS-days! When Windows 95 came out I lost interest in computers because I didn't understand anything anymore. In the early 2000 I used Linux Slackware, but as a desktop user it didn't work out for me. Word processing was way better on Windows.

A couple of years ago I got really really tired of Windows again (been there alot of times) and started rollin' Linux distributions. Gladly I found out that I no longer needed Microsoft office since Libreoffice works really well. Actually all the thirdpary software I needed was right there. Wonderful! At last I had hopes for running a windows free computer. But systemd bugged me. To complicated! I didn't understand it. So I started using Slackware again. Great OS! But a full installation gave me to many applications just sitting there. And the package management... Well upgrading isn't simple and snappy.

So I installed FreeBSD on a virtual machine and fell in love instantly. A short time there after I installed 12.1 (not 14.1, Been using Slackware to much i guess) on my Thinkpad 450s. It took me some time to get things working nice, but I now have a really really nice desktop computer with 12.1 installed. I use it mainly for word processing, presentations, meets, and the usual web surfing. And my students (im a high school teacher (philosophy/language)) seems to be impressed. Always nice to shine a little.

So I'm on the computer geek track again, and I enjoy it. Computers can be as fun 2020 as it was in 1990.

Thank you for a great OS!


----------



## petersen77 (Dec 6, 2020)

Hi.
I'm a Linux user since 1999 but get bored with unstable or outdated distros. Never been fully satisfied with a distro. Now I'm trying FreeBSD 13 with a Asus Fx505DT Laptop. Except WiFi (rtl8821ce) everything is fine with MATE desktop (some minor KDE problems with shutdown/reboot not functioning so I switched to MATE).


----------



## Jose (Dec 6, 2020)

ranefjord said:


> ...A short time there after I installed 14.1 on my Thinkpad 450s. It took me some time to get things working nice, but I now have a really really nice desktop computer with 14.1 installed...


Are you from the future?


----------



## ranefjord (Dec 6, 2020)

Ops... I meant 12.1.


----------



## kpedersen (Dec 6, 2020)

ranefjord said:


> Ops... I meant 12.1.


Hmm... that is what someone from the future would say... 



ranefjord said:


> Computers can be as fun 2020 as it was in 1990.


I like this statement. Very true. It does bring back memories of years tinkering with *DOS and all the cool things learnt!


----------



## a6h (Dec 6, 2020)

ranefjord: Nice story and welcome to FreeBSD! You've installed FreeBSD and fell in love instantly; I was reading your story I fell in love with this part:


ranefjord said:


> And my students (im a high school teacher (philosophy/language)) seems to be impressed.


----------



## IIQII (Dec 16, 2020)

Hello,
I have run Linux and Windows for the last 27 years. I would switch to whatever was needed where I was working. Recently I switched my own projects and daily machines over to FreeBSD, so  there has been some learning. It has been great. Love the stability of FreeBSD and the speed. I actually look forward to using my boxes these days with FreeBSD running on them.


----------



## UrsusDominatus (Dec 16, 2020)

Hello. I am professional 3D graphics developer for Windows + Direct3D. Meet FreeBSD on my first job in university around 15 years ago. I was junior system administrator my university for one year. Since then and till recent years I busy completely with Windows making games.

Some time ago I my old HDD with valuable family data (mostly photos) stop working and I forced to use services of data recovery firm to restore this information. And this accident pushed me to think about making of home server which will be safe place for such data. I knew that windows server is not an option in any case, and I remember about FreeBSD experience (but actually remember nothing), so I tried fresh new FreeBSD installation and start learning from scratch.

And since then:
- I moved from simple consumer hardware to server grade components.
- Experiment with FreeNAS but drop it soon, and use original FreeBSD distribution.
- Changed home router to separate FreeBSD (OPNSense first, but change it after several days) server with several NICs.
- Setup by hand many selfhosted applications (mail server, nextcloud, gitlab, home assistant, emby and more)
- Made many jails and bhyve VMs that run Linux and Windows.
- Moved partially from 1Gbps copper wires to 10Gbps optic links in my house (this was one of the reasons of selfmade custom FreeBSD router with 10Gbps NICs)

Now I have in my home IT infrastructure 2 servers, 1 router and 1 PC for backups all running FreeBSD.
Turned out I very like configure, setup and experimenting with all this FreeBSD related stuff. It is hobby that completely unrelated to my job. I cannot move from Windows on client PCs, but have next step about setuping spare laptop with FreeBSD as desktop OS.


----------



## novostr (Dec 31, 2020)

I've been using Linux on the desktop since 2015


----------



## freeBSDn (Jan 1, 2021)

Well, I absolutely love freeBSD and use it everywhere I can.

I inherited a lot of Centos servers last year. Guess what happened to Centos recently? 









						CentOS Is Dead, Long Live CentOS
					

On Tuesday, December 8th, Red Hat and CentOS announced the end of CentOS 8. To be specific, CentOS 8 will reach end of life at the end of 2021, 8 years ahead of schedule. To really understand what …




					hackaday.com
				




Oh, and guess what's gonna replace all the Centos servers now, if I get my way ;-)


----------



## doul (Jan 3, 2021)

hello !

Let me tell you the long way that led me to FreeBSD today : First step in the early 90's on a Sinclair ZX81, I really get into computers on a Amstrad PC5086, intel 8086 CPU @ 4.77Mhz, 640Ko RAM, 40Mo hard drive. DOS 3.3, Dosshell & PC/GEOS, I started QBasic programming and I really enjoyed this computer.

After some x386 and x486, my first brand new computer : an intel pentium  133 MHz, cd writer, Windows 95, I really loved it for years, I began assembly programing. In the late 90's I started dual boot with Linux and C programing.

In the 2000's I definitely dump Windows, ran only Linux, mostly Redhat based distro (Mandrake, Mandriva, ScientificLinux, Fedora) for 20 years. Last time was Ubuntu  Today I don't like the way Linux taking, no real root/usr difference, update create more issues than solved, too many distro which does nothing more, ...

For my new computer, an used workstation hp Z600 2x quadcore Xeon 16Go RAM, Nvidia quadro, this 20 years old dream become real today and for this dream machine I need a dream OS, that completely suits me, efficient, without useless sotfts and more close to Unix than Linux.

I hope FreeBSD is this dream OS


----------



## Factor (Jan 26, 2021)

Hello I am Factor
I am an old sysadmin. Born sometime between the AlohaNet and ethernet. Grace Hopper is one of my Hero’s.  Please don’t tell me you don’t know Grace Hopper… My hobbies include 19th century culture, photography, gunsmithing and anything tech related.  I also love language.  I have studied Mandarin, Thai, Lao, Greek and Arabic only spoken.  Also only enough to get in trouble. I am Greek by heritage. 

I knew of FreeBSD about 3 decades ago.  I studied it some then.  I drifted with the masses and have been with Linux since.  However, due to using an application that currently supports FreeBSD as an OS I gave it a try.  Several other reasons for trying is my dislike for systemd seems to be growing as it grows, unity in the OS, the memory management, system tuning, security, the OS command logic, and so many other things. 

Anyway I am nobody important just a regular guy.


----------



## christhegeek (Feb 6, 2021)

My new FreeBSD 13 alpha3 installation with a humble Bspwm with Xfce4-panel and Compton  Config !  --added some more stuff now that are not in this video ​



_View: https://youtu.be/2ffIA5vRFjQ_


----------



## Argentum (Feb 6, 2021)

christhegeek said:


> My new FreeBSD 13 alpha3 installation with a humble Bspwm with Xfce4-panel and Compton  Config !  --added some more stuff now that are not in this video ​
> 
> 
> 
> _View: https://youtu.be/2ffIA5vRFjQ_


Cool! What do you use for screen video?


----------



## christhegeek (Feb 6, 2021)

Argentum said:


> Cool! What do you use for screen video?


Screen recording ? obs-studio


----------



## Argentum (Feb 6, 2021)

christhegeek said:


> Screen recording ? obs-studio


Good. Got it working, but need to learn it.


----------



## christhegeek (Feb 6, 2021)

Its not difficult you can add filters to filter noise out of your mic, 
you can use green screen with your webcam or you can create a mask to show only around your face .
You can have scenes  for doing diferent things for example showing an intro on the start, then having some layouts or maybe photos websites etc



Argentum said:


> Good. Got it working, but need to learn it.





Argentum said:


> View attachment 9117


----------



## Argentum (Feb 6, 2021)

christhegeek said:


> Its not difficult you can add filters to filter noise out of your mic,
> you can use green screen with your webcam or you can create a mask to show only around your face .
> You can have scenes  for doing diferent things for example showing an intro on the start, then having some layouts or maybe photos websites etc







Here is my FreeBSD desktop video.


----------



## c2n (Feb 7, 2021)

Hi!
I'm c2n. I work at a German-Australian Senior Solutions Consultant in the hosting industry with 14 years experience. My focus is virtualization (VMware), storage (NetApp) and cloud computing (hyperscalers).
As my nickname suggests, I started with Commodore systems and moved over to IRIX and Solaris in the early mid 1990s. I discovered Linux shortly afterwards (when Commodore Amiga went belly up) and OpenBSD in the late 90's. Eventually I settled on FreeBSD because it was a good mix of a consistent base system, clean command-line tools and a wealth of ports and modern technologies. I am passionate about advocating FreeBSD because I believe in diversity in the server market.
I run MacOS as a desktop system but have run a server running FreeBSD for years and I also run my home network with FreeBSD.
My secret escapist fantasy is starting a hosting business running FreeBSD with bhyve and ZFS.
I was a member of this forum in 2002 when it looked a little different to what it does now. Don't kow where my reg went 
If you're wondering why I run MacOS and not FreeBSD as a desktop, it is because of Logic Pro X. Music production is a hobby of mine.


----------



## christhegeek (Feb 8, 2021)

Argentum said:


> Here is my FreeBSD desktop video.


nice !


----------



## exorcist (Feb 9, 2021)

Hello folks,

In my quest for freedom I've been using GNU/Linux for some 15 years: Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, one thing lead to another... next thing I know is, I need to try something freer.

Now I'm just starting my journey through the world of BSD. Reading the handbook.
I like the cohesive and professional way in which the system is developed. Very appealing.

I look forward to my adventures in BSD land, with ZFS and all the excellent software available here, and presumably a great community.

There's one thing though, you daemons be careful not to get too close! You may go up in a puff of smoke or return whence you came...


----------



## Argentum (Feb 10, 2021)

exorcist said:


> There's one thing though, you daemons be careful not to get too close! You may go up in a puff of smoke or return whence you came...


I am not native English speaker, so that sentence was a bit hard to grasp. What do you mean by that? Too close to what?


----------



## a6h (Feb 10, 2021)

exorcist said:


> There's one thing though, you daemons be careful not to get too close! You may go up in a puff of smoke or return whence you came...





Argentum said:


> I am not native English speaker, so that sentence was a bit hard to grasp. What do you mean by that? Too close to what?


Literal daemon or metaphorical demon - either way, Beastie is in!


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Feb 10, 2021)

Many have tried and failed, blamed FreeBSD for it and we sacrificed another virgin penguin to Beastie as they wept.

Best of luck, exorcist.


----------



## drewlander (Feb 18, 2021)

Been doing Systems Admin/Engineering and Software Development for 20+ years. First opensource experience was at my first real job at an ISP with FreeBSD. Have loved FreeBSD ever since.


----------



## mimas (Feb 18, 2021)

I'm professionally from a devops/system administration background and that world can be somewhat chaotic and frustrating at times (FreeBSD isn't used). On my personal systems (and as a hobbist) I appreciate FreeBSD's simplicity, good documentation, sane design and stability as a refuge.


----------



## joplass (Feb 19, 2021)

christhegeek said:


> Screen recording ? obs-studio


Can obs-studio run without pulseaudio?


----------



## nero (Feb 19, 2021)

So, I used FreeBSD back in the day in mid 90s to about 2005. At that point I switched to Fedora and then eventually to CentOS for the past 8 years or so. Since CentOS was depreciated recently and I was thinking of upgrading any servers anyway. I figured it was time to return to FreeBSD. So, here I am again. It will take me a while to adjust again; but I am starting with compiling many of the main server software manually. So, crossing my figures that will not be as hard as it used to be...LOL


----------



## nero (Feb 19, 2021)

xavi said:


> I might be being a little pedantic, but I think it might read more idiomatically if 'chose' is used instead of 'choose'.
> 'Chose' implies past tense, as in already chosen, whereas 'choose' implies currently choosing.
> However, ignore me if this was your original intention.


well we are all  constantly choosing repeatedly on the OS we use. Esp. some of us that have several environments that need installations.


----------



## bda65 (Feb 19, 2021)

Hi all, I'm a 3D CG Graphist. Started BSD/Unix in 89 (if i remember correctly). NetBSD/ARM (was named RiscBSD) somewhere between 94/96. After that, end 90, was GNU/Linux which i call "the siren call". Between 2006 and 2010, used FreeBSD on a laptop and GNU/Linux on the workstation. And GNU/Linux until systemd. Tried many distribution without systemd. But it's a real nightmare. New version of software ask for systemd or elogind.
Now i'm a proud user of FreeBSD (13 for compatibility with my new computer) only. Will install 13-release when available on my main SSD.
My computer (AMD ThreadRipper 3960X and Radeon RX 5500) work perfectly (the GFX driver can be enhanced). Blender, my main tool, work perfectly. And it's almost as fast as under Linux OS.


----------



## shiorid (Feb 22, 2021)

Hello, I'm a software developer. I started with FreeBSD after the "great XF86 breakage" on Linux, and I'm a "full-time user" since 11-Release.
I work with research compilers and Lisp (usually R7RS Scheme for embedded systems in critical mission). Features like Jails, BEs and BHyVe really saved my time (and my life), and I'm pretty happy with the system state, nowadays.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Feb 23, 2021)

Argentum said:


> I am not native English speaker, so that sentence was a bit hard to grasp. What do you mean by that? Too close to what?



He was making a joke about being an exorcist and if a Daemon like me got too close to him he would send me back from whence I came. I wished him luck:

`root@jigoku:/ #`

jigoku is Japanese for Hell. I'm root.


----------



## a6h (Feb 23, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> jigoku is Japanese for Hell. I'm root.


That'll make you person of interest.
[EDIT] P.S.


----------



## Laurent1979 (Feb 27, 2021)

TL;DR : I switched from fedora in 2018. FreeBSD just works and is stable.

I started with fedora 24 in 2016, and the OS itself was fine but wifi did not work, so I looked it up and made it work, but then along the way, with updates and upgrades, I always had issues with wifi, and random crashes.
I got tired of it and looked for another OS in 2018 and decided to go with FreeBSD. I was amazed there was no desktop environment out of the box but wifi worked, and it was stable, so I just went through the handbook and the forums and tuned the system to my liking, it took me a week, it was fun and I Iearned a great deal. I became over confident and broke my system because I did not understand well the difference between /etc and /usr/local/etc, once I understood that, I felt like I knew some kind of secret , So I am very happy with this OS, and never had to ask any question because I read the docs and the forums and I always found an answer or something helpful. So well documented.
The most amazing thing is that this machine never crashed randomly, it was always my fault when it did. I don't think I ever played with another OS that never crashed randomly.
So I decided to post here to say a *big thank you* *to everyone* involved in making this OS. I can't really give back cause I don't have this kind of skills, so I just buy some stuff from the store and proudly walk around in FreeBSD branded.
In case someone is interested  :
intel core i7 2600k on motherboard asus p8z68VLX from 2011, 16gb of ram, AMD firepro w7100 (amdgpu broke between 12.1 and 12.2 but ah well, it works with mesa for now.. ), 1TB dedicated slow HDD, and a cheap USB wifi dongle : realtek NETGEAR WNA3100M, it has good performance overall and excellent  stability.

On my laptop which is one year old : HP pavilion gaming laptop 17-cd0077nf with an intel core i5-9300H and 16GB ram, wifi did not work out of the box with FreeBSD 12 the card is an intel wireless 9560N, but someone had a solution and it worked fine, it now runs FreeBSD 13 beta 3 on a dedicated 500GB Sandisk SSD(no dual boot) and everything except screen brightness works out of the box, even the speakers and their keyboard fn keys. Wifi is slow on this computer, I wish it was as fast as windows average 30MB/S download speed, but really it's stable and that's what is important.
turn-off-gpu.sh is mandatory for the battery life of this computer. I did not even bother trying to make the nvidia card work on this thing as it would not be useful for me. I tuned it and I have an average battery life of  4h30, which is expected, it's a small battery. Performance is really great, it runs very fast and is stable.


----------



## rtwpaddy (Feb 28, 2021)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


Hello folks,

Completely new to FreeBSD, although my desktop and laptop's running linux since 'bout 1995
Starting with looking to my dad with his ZX Spectrum, then when i was young enough trying RedHat 5.2 which i got through a fancy magazine at the time. Over the years and tears hopping trough most of the known linux distributions, ending earlier this year with (again)vanilla debian.
If you ask me why i did not try BSD earlier, i don't know(linux was getting easier while the time passed and privately i only used the OS for desktop use.).
And now, since a few weeks i'm running FBSD13 beta's on my daily machine, with Mate as DE.
I must say, i'm positively suprised by the overall speed for a desktop user. 
In this context i don't use benchmark tools, i only feel it in the fingers and the view from my desktop. 
Second, i'm more suprised by the stability and the simplicity.
Mayby it is me, mavbe i'm looking at the PC,  an sich, with different eyes then the past years.
The (in my eyes) linux frase "DO ONE THING AND DO IT WELL" , finally i know where that comes from.
Shame on you Paddy 
As a desktop user i have no programming skills, other than a few rc and xml files or html 0.1.1  but i'm very willing to learn.

Greetings to all and see you in my next question
or answer 
Paddy


----------



## christhegeek (Mar 1, 2021)

Welcome  twpaddy
I'm a linux user since 1999 i lived the internet revolution on linux , i tried to use freebsd but the bootable cd freezed tried to get help from the forums but the only thing i got was jokes about my bad english ( i don't speak english very well)  so i haven't tried again. I have more than a year that i learned more about freebsd  it is a very good alternative to linux for sure i love it.
Of course i have a passion with simplicity and thats why i love openbsd , of course the software selection and performance is not like freebsd , but i love it.
If you have any problems we would love to help you , KDE is Great on FreeBSD but of course mate or xfce seems to be faster but KDE is sweet on FreeBSD no problems.
After so many years i want to try something less mainstream and its good to learn new things .
After many FreeBSD installations and trials i think i have perfected  it ,i can have sweet desktop on freebsd and openbsd.
FreeBSD has kdenlive ,shotcut,olive,openshot video editors with gpu acceleration enabled they have ported gpu acceleration frameworks .
For development is very good also it has the tools you need.
FreeBSD can run Steam and some games (linux) runs very nicely on FreeBSD
FreeBSD can run many linux applications also


----------



## ralphbsz (Mar 2, 2021)

debguy said:


> Linux is unfortunately totally hacked to become owned by UK who didn't pay to produce it.


What do you mean by "UK" in this sentence? United Kingdom? I don't see what the United Kingdom has to do with Linux. Linux itself is a kernel and a trademark, which is owned by Linus Torvalds, who is originally from Finland, but has lived on the US west coast for the last ~20 years. No UK there.



debguy said:


> RISC was made in USA not CHINA, Dec Alpha (use to have HQ near where I lived - until Bill Clinton and closure).


RISC has an interesting history. It probably started at IBM research, under John Cocke, on the US east coast; that was part of the IBM "Future Systems" project. The first viable RISC microprocessors came out of what today is called Silicon Valley, two groups spearheaded by John Hennessy of Stanford (MIPS) and Dave Patterson of Berkeley (RISC-V, later became SPARC and inspired ARM). Digital came much later.

The closing of Digital had nothing to do with Bill Clinton, and everything with Ken Olson.



> CHINA didn't even make CPU in 1989.  Neither did the UK.  Fujitsu?  Japan and russia made SPARK chips.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## debguy (Mar 2, 2021)

mod3777 said:


> I am a student of mathematics. I am familiar to UNIX user-land, it's simplicity, FHS. Linux is way too much fragmented for me. I prefer BSD license philosophy. I also use Windows and macOS casually. FreeBSD for daily usage on desktop. I am learning system programming here (I use jails for that). Very cool OS.


Try Mathematica.  They have excellent deals for students (esp. for Pi running FreeBSD) and the math is unbridled.  If I don't say "Maple" Canada might be angry I don't want Canada angry.


----------



## bda65 (Mar 2, 2021)

debguy said:


> ""Hi all, I'm a 3D CG Graphist. Started BSD/Unix in 89 (if i remember correctly). NetBSD/ARM (was named RiscBSD) somewhere between 94/96.""
> 
> NO. RISC was made in USA not CHINA, Dec Alpha (use to have HQ near where I lived - until Bill Clinton and closure).  CHINA didn't even make CPU in 1989.  Neither did the UK.  Fujitsu?  Japan and russia made SPARK chips.  they were not called ARM.  ARM/UK, british, was not making production graphics machines in 89 or 94 if i am correct.


I do not speak about chinese computer/cpu. Acorn Computer. Ltd (a British company based in Cambridge) created the first ARM CPU in 1985: Acorn Computers. RISC iX, BSD/Unix in 89/90: RISC iX. The first version of NetBSD on Acorn Computers come from 94 and was named RiscBSD: NetBSD/acorn32.
For my 3D CG work, i've mainly used Silicon Graphics, Inc (SGI) workstation (Personal Iris, Indy, Indigo, Indigo 2, O2, Octane, Octane 2 at work). Next i've used Apple Intel Mac (~ 2006). And only Linux since. Now FreeBSD.


----------



## kpedersen (Mar 2, 2021)

debguy said:


> Does that answer your question?



Urm... I don't suppose you have any sources / citations for those statements?

If anything they would make for an interesting read


----------



## a6h (Mar 2, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> I don't suppose you have any sources / citations for those statements?


I can confirm one thing though: this "Introduce yourself ..." thread which I loved, is ruined for good.


----------



## SirDice (Mar 2, 2021)

debguy we're not your personal blog service. Stop spamming threads with a bunch of nonsense.


----------



## kpedersen (Mar 2, 2021)

vigole said:


> I can confirm one thing though: this "Introduce yourself ..." thread which I loved, is ruined for good.


Actually a good point. Perhaps we could filter off some of his "blog posts" into their own section. I am also quite fond of this thread, especially since it often includes loads of history of ancient and interesting platforms people have been migrating from. We don't want others to be scared of posting here in fear of a response of... oddness.


----------



## SirDice (Mar 2, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> Perhaps we could filter off some of his "blog posts" into their own section.


Done. Filtered a bunch of it to it's own thread in /dev/null.


----------



## phell (Mar 2, 2021)

Hi, good night!
I am new user from freebsd, i am from brazil!
Tanks for accept me in here forum!
My english not is good, sorry


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Mar 3, 2021)

i tried to use freebsd but the bootable cd freezed tried to get help from the forums but the only thing i got was jokes about my bad english ( i don't speak english very well)  so i haven't tried again.



I'm surprised to hear that and didn't see it happen or it wouldn't have been funny to me, christhegeek. Please accept my apology in place of those of limited English vocabulary not containing one.

This being a community in multi-lingual origin English is preferred but I always try to help people who for English is not their mother tongue. ILUXA translated all the Russian on my watches for me and a friend who lives in the Ukraine I talk to often by email.

"pussyfooting " was a new word for him so I gave examples of it being used properly and provided some words and phrases he might not have heard before.


----------



## Mjölnir (Mar 3, 2021)

We welcome any slang from Pidgin English to Oxford, indeed, don't we?  Some members use an online translating service & from my experience these work sufficiently well.  I have even seen some spanish speaking members offering to translate when someone was having trouble to find the right terms in English.  This forum is about FreeBSD & not about Oxford English.


----------



## SirDice (Mar 3, 2021)

Mjölnir said:


> We welcome any slang from Pidgin English to Oxford, indeed, don't we?


As long as you don't use rude or offensive words, yes. I often edit posts though, to make them more presentable (we like to keep the formatting the same for everything), correct bad spelling, capitalization, or obvious grammar errors. Don't take that personally, we're well aware not everybody is fluent in English. Heck, I probably make some typical "Dunglish" mistakes too.


----------



## a6h (Mar 3, 2021)

Probably, we will never know, how many people are coming:
1. From Windows and/or Linux.
2. To FreeBSD, and/or (OpenBSD|NetBSD) <--/--> FreeBSD.
But recently, we've had many posts here. It sounds promising.


----------



## zirias@ (Mar 3, 2021)

I think (well, unfortunately) it's more likely to come from Linux than from Windows. Just because Linux is a lot more popular. So, if you have a PC and don't like that thing that was preinstalled, you'll try Linux. Only if you're not completely satisfied, you'll look for other operating systems.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong


----------



## Mjölnir (Mar 3, 2021)

SirDice said:


> As long as you don't use rude or offensive words, yes. I often edit posts though, to make them more presentable (we like to keep the formatting the same for everything), correct bad spelling, capitalization, or obvious grammar errors. Don't take that personally, we're well aware not everybody is fluent in English. Heck, I probably make some typical "Dunglish" mistakes too.


If you edited my posts, you did it so good that I did not even recognize it...  (except for one, very early, I know you added or changed some formatting).


----------



## dbdemon (Mar 10, 2021)

Greetings, fellow daemons!

I'm a very (very!) recent convert. So recent in fact that I don't really have a proper FreeBSD installation yet, just a VirtualBox VM so far. I'm considering installing it on a Raspberry Pi next.

I've been (and still am) a Linux user for more than two decades, although I did come across some Unix computers in university. I've used mostly "safe" Linux distros such as Redhat, Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSuse. I like these because they tend to be reliable and have big communities.

I think my journey to FreeBSD started with Mac OS envy, recently re-ignited when hearing about the Hello OS. This has morphed into Unix envy and curiosity. And/or I became radicalised while watching FreeBSD YouTube videos! I really enjoy learning about Unix history, the FreeBSD philosophy so on. The FreeBSD handbooks are my Holy Books. I won't bother you with any silly questions until I have read The Handbook!

I work as a database engineer, mostly using MariaDB. I used to be a software engineer, and I still write a good bit of code besides SQL, mostly Python and some bash script.

I'm somewhat into retro home computers such as the Commodore 64, so I hope to find some good emulators for FreeBSD at some point.


----------



## aw256 (Mar 16, 2021)

Hi everyone.

I work full-time as a software engineer (specializing in Scala). I have been on quite a journey to disintermediate all the major cloud/groupware providers from my personal system, and am pretty happy running Nextcloud and various apps in its ecosystem. This is my main use case for server.

Before this year, my infrastructure was all docker/docker-compose. The appeal of docker for sysadmining is that there are thousands of people who make premade container images for everything I want to use, so its literally just a matter of setting a few env variables on the image and off you go. No need to worry about what's in the image, or even what the underlying OS is up to, really. 

After a few months of uptime, the containers would start to freeze in weird ways. I took it as a sign that I didn't understand my stack deeply enough. I had been thinking for a while that I needed to commit to a specific Linux distro and go in depth with it, since that would be a precondition for going deep. Funnily enough the "best distro" turned out to be no distro at all, and I committed to learning FreeBSD after being convinced that if offered sensible coherence and after being convinced Linux was giving in to corporatization. 

Now I am fully switched to FreeBSD. The handbook is amazing, and through the setup process I finally feel like I have a grip on basic cybersecurity. Coming up next I plan to continue in that vein and learn how to do intrusion detection and audting.


----------



## dsagra (Apr 8, 2021)

Hello everyone!

I work as systems engineer maintaining the CDN and reverse proxy fleet at my current company; mostly working on automation with Python, Go, Terraform, CFN, Github, Docker, Cloud computing and all the things we DevOps love 

As many other users, I followed a similar path, starting with Windows in late 90s when I still was a teenager, then moved to Linux in early 2000's (Mandrake and Fedora first and then Debian), then completely switched to FreeBSD at home about 4 years ago.

That was not my first interaction with BSD as I was introduced to FreeBSD during my Operating Systems course at University, I think it was FreeBSD 4.x version: I really loved the stronger separation between "base system" and user space, which is something you won't find on GNU/Linux and the documentation, very clear and to the point; but I didn't really have many opportunities to use it either at work or home.

Now that I decided to try and use it on my NAS/router and one HTPC at home, I would not go back and even managed to submit a few ports to the tree: hopefully I'll stick to FreeBSD for a bit longer!


----------



## kpedersen (Apr 8, 2021)

SirDice said:


> As long as you don't use rude or offensive words, yes. I often edit posts though, to make them more presentable (we like to keep the formatting the same for everything), correct bad spelling, capitalization, or obvious grammar errors.


I can often get a post through without your editing. Back in the DutchDaemon days, I didn't stand a chance!


----------



## SirDice (Apr 8, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> I can often get a post through without your editing.


It's sometimes akin to trying to drink from a firehose. I much rather spend my time actually answering questions then editing. So I do let some things slide every now and then. As long as it looks _somewhat_ presentable. Some new users often post the most horrid eyesores. Screaming colors, different fonts, several different font sizes, it's like they purposely try to use _every_ bbcode that's available.


----------



## Deleted member 67440 (Apr 8, 2021)

Regarding the language, I can quote an anecdote.
After giving a very long and complex speech to a 100% Londoner, miserably trying my best Queen accent (no r, we are briton!), I looked at him fearfully, saying (it's customary in the UK to apologize for anything) I'm sorry for my bad English.
He gave me a big smile, and replied: it's a thousand times better than my Italian.
We became friends, and now we write to each other ... in Russian.

As for me, the main problem is the Korean smartphone with a Chinese smart keyboard, setted with Cyrillic alphabet and Italian prediction, which does not like the technical English terms very much.
No way.
Easier with a normal PC


----------



## Deleted member 67440 (Apr 8, 2021)

Regarding FreeBSD I have been using it since Sun workstations went out of service, and so the Solaris OS. 
I started with CP/M on Commodore 128D, going through Amiga, Alpha AXP, Xenix, OS/2, an operating system written by me similar to a rudimentary Linux (at the time of the University), until today.
Essentially I want zfs


----------



## DutchDaemon (Apr 8, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> I can often get a post through without your editing. Back in the DutchDaemon days, I didn't stand a chance!


Those days are not gone  Just spending my energy on other things ..


----------



## mintspider (Apr 8, 2021)

Computing history goes back to 1983 with the Oric-1 & Oric Atmos when I was 16.
Also used: Dragon 32, Amstrad PCW8512, Enterprise 128, Amiga 1200, amongst others.
First time online was February 1997 using an AST PC running Windows 95 purchased from Comet, where I worked in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Met my wife Arianna online in September 1997 in a Christian IRC channel. Moved to Kentucky in May 1999. Married in Paris (Kentucky) in June 1999.

In my 21 years in the US, for the first 9 years I ran Windows 98 to XP, then discovered Linux about 12 years ago.
Started off with Knoppix live-CD as many did, but started testing other distros. Settled on Linux Mint 6 Felicia and ran that distro until 18 Sarah.
Discovered Solus in November 2016 and have been running that rolling distro ever since. Main PC (System76 Thelio) runs Budgie DE, but I also test Plasma on a Dell 755.

On my 2 Alienware M15x laptops, Max & Erma, I am running:
Max: PCLinuxOS Trinity
Erma: FreeBSD 13.0 RC5

Relatively new to FreeBSD, but have tested a few times. Recently decided to keep FreeBSD permanently on one of the laptops.
Really enjoying learning FreeBSD from scratch, mostly on the console.

So, here I am, and look forward to interacting with y'all.


----------



## Fuzzbox (Apr 8, 2021)

Hi,

François, physician, France.

GNU/Linux user since 1999. Desktop usage, mainly.

I've seen snap, flat, pulse, avahi, wayland... come.
I've seen text logs, sysVinit, ifconfig, dnsmasq... go.

They won't have my /boot and my $HOME. 

My Thinkpad is running FreeBSD for some weeks now.
It's under control again and feels like home.

Cheers to FreeBSD developers !


----------



## bobmc (Apr 12, 2021)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


I have been using Linux since it was Slackware with a bunch of CDs.  But I am interested in contributing to free software and the distros are already good and don't need my help.

I have already admired UNIX and was once an admin of SunOS 4.

So FreeBSD looks like the best one of the BSDs


----------



## kpedersen (Apr 12, 2021)

bobmc said:


> But I am interested in contributing to free software and the distros are already good and don't need my help.


Linux distros are a fragmented mess. Are you sure you can't find something broken in them?

They need as much help as they can get


----------



## glowiak (Apr 13, 2021)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


I use FreeBSD, because it's a lot faster than Arch


----------



## wy is too short (Apr 21, 2021)

Hi I'm wy!

I'm a new-ish programmer working on the original gameboy ^^

I chose FreeBSD since this, to me at least, is like the Ubuntu or BSD (and by that I mean, it's the most widely known BSD from what I can tell) and I also chose to straight up install FreeBSD with no linux/windows/other OS as a dual boot since I like to go into the unknown without a way to back out (weird yes, but that's how I am  )

So far I'm really enjoying it! I'm surprised rgbds is in the repos (it's a gb complier/linker/etc) and installing stuff seems really easy, aside from needing to edit rc.conf but I got used to that now lol


Oh! I also chose to use BSD in general as I wanted to try out an OS that's more "Unix-like"


----------



## justacurios (May 4, 2021)

I'm here as a casual Debian user rather than a technical and deeply exprecienced one but I like to ruin and then after fix the things with the computers. I'm trying FreeBSD in a virtual machine for now and getting familiar with the system day to day. I'm really loving so far. It feels somehow I use a real robust and a solid system.

I'm plannig to completely migrate to FreeBSD soon and especially out-of-box ZFS support motivates me to do that right away.


----------



## astyle (May 4, 2021)

I started with Mandrake Linux back in 2002. Over the years, I got lost in documentation for different utilities. Some distros (think SuSE) ran commands from /usr/local/libexec. some had the exact same commands in /usr/bin, others in /usr/local/bin, others didn't have a libexec directory.... and upgrading was hell. If I wanted a newer version of OpenOffice, I'd go to rpmfind.net, and hunt down dependencies there, only to discover that I didn't finish the job, and by then my system would be so messed up that it's easier to wait for a new version of the distro, and reinstall from scratch. Another frustration that I have with Linux - projects spring up, and disappear. Mandrake split off into Mandriva and Mageia, and Mandriva became OpenMandriva. FreeBSD, meanwhile, stuck around. I know that Red Hat and Debian have chugged along, and so did Arch and Slackware, and SuSE. But trying to find any kind of consistency and standards was a nightmare, with everybody doing the same thing differently.

FreeBSD is incredibly consistent and logical - /etc/rc.conf and /usr/local/bin for bash, and it's been that way ever since I discovered it in 2004 and read about it. Back then, I was unable to install FreeBSD on anything I owned, but I read quite a bit about how it was WAY more stable and a better performer than Linux. Thanks to those rumors, I was installing Linux, but could not get FreeBSD out of my mind. 

I only started messing with FreeBSD at home rather recently - in 2017, when I put together my first PC from aftermarket parts. And on that  machine, it's working great (it's a Ryzen 5 1400, from the original Ryzen batch that had a compiler segfault bug fixed). I'm on 13-RELEASE right now, and quite happy with it.


----------



## garyh (May 14, 2021)

Hey all,

Not a newbie to FreeBSD, been using it since the good old days of 4.5 on various hardware mainly to run my family mail server and web host, for a time I hosted a fair few scout group websites but when I got out of the scouts I shut that down. I live in the UK and am the technical lead for a local authority providing it to some 30 schools and adult learning centres.

Love FreeBSD, always have, it keeps my interest purely for the capacity for learning.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (May 15, 2021)

justacurios said:


> I'm here as a casual Debian user rather than a technical and deeply exprecienced one but I like to ruin and then after fix the things with the computers.


You're going to love ports. Sometime fixing one thing breaks another and you get to figure out how to fix it.


----------



## Aknot (May 16, 2021)

Hi everyone, 

I have been working professionally in the IT industry since 1994, and started of using Novell Netware and NT 3.51. I got in contact with Red Hat early, but an employer I worked for in the past used NetBSD for basically everything, so I soon throw away all the Red Hat CDs. Today I work with eCommerce development, and we are using FreeBSD as web and database servers, running on VMware. I live in Scandinavia. On my spare time I'm collecting and renovating old classic engines like hot bulb engines.


----------



## vicmarconi (May 18, 2021)

On the desktop, I usually use Windows, Linux, and macOS (I reinstall regularly everything and promises myself it will be the last time).

I'm using FreeBSD on a server mostly because it is a Unix and it has a *wonderful* handbook. I can't stress enough how helpful this handbook has been. 
I like how stable things are in the sense that its tools don't change too much (at last what I use)
I also am a big fan of Michael *W* Lucas. I'm just waiting for Amazon to restock his Absolute FreeBSD to order my copy.


----------



## mhj (May 25, 2021)

Hi all,

I'm a huge FreeBSD fan. I run one of my sites on it, and am planning on running another of mine on it too. Currently for my main computer I use Linux(The Guix distribution, a stateless one with boot environments and BTRFS), and on the Pinebook Pro I run Manjaro, but I am looking to convert what I can to FreeBSD.

I have been a *nix fan since before 2015, but didn't start seriously using it until then. I await progress for things like GhostBSD and whatnot. 

Answering the top questions though, I am student, probably going into cyber security in the fall, and as for why I choose FreeBSD and/or it's derivatives, it's because of it's unrivaled documentation, stability and slow evolution.


----------



## lloyd (May 30, 2021)

Hey everyone, new here to the forum and wanted to say hi on this mega thread.

I chose FreeBSD because it doesn't use silly names like "Xenial Xerus" or "Ice Cream Sandwich" or "Wheezy" for version releases.  Projects that use version names instead of numbers drive me absolutely bonkers.

But seriously, I'm a big computer nerd and OS geek.  Have been almost my entire life.  There's a place in my heart for all different OS's, so I can't say that "I _chose_ FreeBSD" with any sort of exclusivity.  I think there's a time and place for all different types of OS's, just like how someone might have a few different cars (or bicycles) based on the trip they want to take.

I run Debian for production work personally and professionally, and I ran my personal desktop PC with various Linux flavors (landing on Arch for the longest stretch) for years.  I am fond of the vanilla upstream approach of Arch, and their wiki is easy to work with and contribute to.  Debian has been a solid home for me for years -- until the sudden init system change to systemd, or until they changed to the nftables firewall that had almost no publicly available documentation, or until...

Despite my very opinionated nature I'm not an outright Linux or GPL or systemd hater or something like that...  Just lately I have been finding comfort in the stability and reliability of the FreeBSD universe.  The FreeBSD architecture appears to be largely independent and well-defended from trendy outside influences that may have dubious value.  I've tinkered with FreeBSD off and on for years and have been running a XigmaNAS box in my homelab that is a workhorse and that has given me zero troubles in many, many years.

There's quite a lot of FUD on the interwebs about FreeBSD. Here's some of the stuff I've read lately:

Linux is more supported than FreeBSD.
FreeBSD is harder to learn than Linux.
It's easier to find help on Stack Overflow for Linux than FreeBSD.
FreeBSD used to be king, but Linux caught up.
No one runs production workloads on FreeBSD anymore.
That sorta stuff.  Plus, there's simply more people out there talking about Linux than FreeBSD.  I can see how someone might get the impression that Linux is "the right choice" over FreeBSD just because of conversational volumes.  But just because lots of people are talking about something doesn't mean that it's the best option.

The only way for me to know is to get my hands dirty and see for myself.  I think the outlook for FreeBSD in my life is good.  I'm currently working on moving over little things to FreeBSD on an AWS Lightsail box, starting with personal stuff.  Baby steps.  (And the fact that AWS natively supports FreeBSD says something in itself, eh?)

Who knows?  Maybe one day in the future I'll post here again and say with confidence, "Yes, I have _chosen_ FreeBSD."


----------



## Jose (May 31, 2021)

lloyd said:


> Linux is more supported than FreeBSD.


This is unfortunately true, at least where it comes to hardware support.


lloyd said:


> FreeBSD is harder to learn than Linux.


This is meaningless since there's no such thing as Linux. Gentoo is significantly harder to learn than Freebsd. Ubuntu is somewhat easier.


lloyd said:


> It's easier to find help on Stack Overflow for Linux than FreeBSD.


This might be true. I don't spend as much time on SO as I used to, so I don't know.


lloyd said:


> FreeBSD used to be king, but Linux caught up.


This is nonsense. They might've been neck-and-neck in terms of popularity back in the early '90s when only a handful of people used freeware Unix work-alikes.


lloyd said:


> No one runs production workloads on FreeBSD anymore.


This is not just wrong, it's lazy. Simple Internet search will debunk this in seconds.


----------



## Deleted member 67862 (May 31, 2021)

Howdy,

I was an avid Devuan user until I came to realize the disaster that is GNU/Linux. The GPL, the file disorganization, and my constant distro hopping made me seek an alternative. I first tried FreeBSD 12 in February of this year but I was turned away because I had microstuttering and screen tearing, so I switched back to Devuan. I started to think that maybe my ignorance was the issue so on May 1st I gave FreeBSD another try (this time with the new 13 release). I still had little bugs here and there but one by one I fixed them thanks to the help of this forum and the FreeBSD Handbook (although I had to scour the internet for an obscure sysctl command to fix my microstuttering problem). The documentation really is something extraordinary.

I've been using this operating system on my main computer since May 1st and I have no plans to switch to anything else since I'm getting used to the way it works. Currently I'm trying to debug memory issues (for some reason, it seems if I compile a port my memory stays almost full).

I've learned that it's more than possible to use FreeBSD as a daily driver. Yes, you will run into hitches, but there's always a solution somewhere and on the bright side you learn more about it by problem solving. I think it's complete bull to say its unusable because of an out of the box issue, just like my first experience where I ran away from it. 

I, for one, am proud to say that I use FreeBSD.


----------



## Alain De Vos (May 31, 2021)

For memory,
I reduce the zfs arc size to one third of the memory
sysctl.conf

```
vfs.zfs.arc_max= 2500000000
```
In poudriere.conf i have

```
USE_TMPFS=no
```


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (May 31, 2021)

hunter0one said:


> I first tried FreeBSD 12 in February of this year but I was turned away because I had microstuttering and screen tearing


Are you sure you had the right video driver?



hunter0one said:


> I've learned that it's more than possible to use FreeBSD as a daily driver.


It's the the most usr friendly desktop oriented OS I have ever taught myself to use and what I use for general desktop purposes on a daily basis.



hunter0one said:


> Yes, you will run into hitches, but there's always a solution somewhere and on the bright side you learn more about it by problem solving. I think it's complete bull to say its unusable because of an out of the box issue, just like my first experience where I ran away from it.


That's what we like to hear.



hunter0one said:


> I, for one, am proud to say that I use FreeBSD.


And we're glad to have you.


----------



## Deleted member 67862 (Jun 1, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> Are you sure you had the right video driver?



I was using the generic drivers at first but I switched to `xf86-video-amdgpu` and had the same problem. But the first time I got frustrated and just quit there. It turns out the solution was simple, I just needed to enable FreeSync / tear-free (I prefer FreeSync) in an xorg config. That fixed the screen tearing. The microstuttering was fixed with the kernel value `kern.sched.steal_thresh=1`. I still need to study what this does exactly but together that solved my initial problems. 

I didn't mention that I also initially had no sound because my default sound device was something besides my headphones, but again I figured it out in DSBMixer and all is good now.



Trihexagonal said:


> That's what we like to hear.
> 
> And we're glad to have you.


Thanks!


----------



## freezr (Jun 22, 2021)

Hi all,

this is my first post here!

I am *tgl* a short way to say *(the) Gnuserland*, this the nickname I selected for my online journey.

I am here because I got tired about the all non-sense around Linux, and I started to explore FreeBSD! I*t is ended up that FreeBSD is actually pretty cool!*

My first project was to open my Gemini capsule, which is online and running on FreeBSD 12.x. I am planning to move to FreeBSD 13 and jailing everything but this requires time and study, I hope to get this done as soon as possible.

I am not a coder, or a programmer, neither a sysad but I have always been attracted by the the informatics science (my firsts computers were a Vic20 and a C64), mine is more like a passion and thus it must be fun, lately I noticed that FreeBSD is still fun as Linux was ten years ago...

You can (or cannot) check my capsule at gemini://gnuser.land

Thanks for reading!

*tgl*

_p.s. this forum doesn't have support for the capsules yet..._


----------



## hardworkingnewbie (Jun 25, 2021)

Hello,

time to introduce myself here, since already the friendly and patient community here solved all of my various questions about Pf.

I am *hardworkingnewbie*, and well that's just a nick name I choose for this forum, because it is true. I am still quite the newbie to FreeBSD, but not to Linux. I started my journey there back then 1994 with Slackware and kernel version 0.99.pl14, later used SuSE for some time and then kind of stuck mostly with Gentoo most of the time. I also got some Arch Linux running on my Raspberry Pi, and used Debian here and there whenever I wanted a stagnating cough cough stable platform with often quirky package maintainer decisions in terms of enabled features of some programs.

Gentoo itself borrowed quite some ideas from FreeBSD. The portage system there was modeled after FreeBSD, it also still uses an init system which is easily understandable named openrc. I never bothered to install systemd on my Gentoo boxes there, all the different stuff which systemd tries to do now and then, like re-inventing DNS resolvers, NTP clients, blocking port 53 "just in case" and many more always gave me a big headache I really can better live without.

Although Gentoo still runs nicely, in my opinion and experience the quality of its portage tree really deteriorated over the last view years. I am there always on the stable branch. Every time there's some update for KDE or Python, emerge just always pukes out a bunch of blocked packages I then have to figure out how to resolve the problem. This is something I can really live without, it just gives me a headache when doing an upgrade I always have to figure this stuff out on how to remove this first by hand before the process can run. Really, really annoying.

As a pet project I've got a Zotac C329 nano mini box which I do use as my internet gateway and router, it has builtin two real Gbit ethernet ports. This box for a long time was running Gentoo with Arno's Iptables Firewall, which is just a bunch of shell scripts then configuring Linux' netfilter engine in the kernel via iptables calls. This was running without problems, but in the long term I was not really happy about having to have a compiler on my router, update times and also used file system size due to a lot of stuff lying around. Also I really, really hate iptables with a vengeance. As long as you are using stuff like AIF that's no big problem, but when you really want to understand what's going on the syntax is messy and overcomplicated.

So I first tried to give OpenBSD a chance, because I wanted Pf as my packet filter. I got it up and running, but turns out that OpenBSD uses a way of NAT where I whould have to punch many holes in the firewall in order to get some of my games running. Which is something I really didn't want to do.

So next thing was switching over to FreeBSD, and trying Pf here. And it works so far. ipfilter seemed to be to old to me, and ipfw reminds me too much of iptables that I really would enjoy learning it. Aside that I wanted to have Pf, because I like its syntax and here I am right now.

I also like obviously that FreeBSD has no systemd, and fast binary updates which really work well and normally don't break stuff, like I experienced sometimes in Debian.

For me FreeBSD is one of the unsung heroes of the internet. It doesn't get so much publicity compared to Linux, but is just often there and used, like Netflix, Whatsapp and many others. Cheers mates!


----------



## complexnumber (Jun 29, 2021)

FreeBSD was my first foray into UNIX-Like Operating systems. I was studying UNIX at university and I started to research UNIX and came across BSD. I found Linux later on in the piece but I was obsessed with FreeBSD. I read as much as I could about the history and development. I have gone over the handbook multiple times when stuck as well as reading Absolute FreeBSD from No-starch press. I even have a copy of the Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System. While my C is not that great I am working on it. I like that the source is all included and I also like the governance model of FreeBSD compared the the benevolent dictator model that is Linux. Linux is great, don't get me wrong. But FreeBSD is, in my opinion superiour. I'm reading the source code so I can understand at a deep level how it differs from Linux Kernel. I'm working on  my C and am reading and writing code. So that's me. I want to be able to contribute to the project,. I suppose I need to find something that needs to be done and get stuck into it. I'm still a coding neophyte but am getting better and I think helping with bug reports would be a good place to start. Anyway that is me. Greetings from Melbourne, Australia!


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## dacrackerx64 (Jun 29, 2021)

I've been using Debian and Windows at work for more than a decade now. My previous laptop (Macbook Pro, 2009) ran MacOS 
and I've been a happy user for many years. The one thing that made me look for options was that Apple decided to deprecate
my laptop by not releasing new versions of MacOS for it, which I find annoying since the laptop works just fine. This event made
it a priority to find a new OS which would let me decide when its time to give up on my hardware.

I first considered using Debian since I know it well and am quite pleased with it (maybe with the exception of SystemD). Etiher
way I figured it would be fun to try FreeBSD again since I hadn't tried it for a few years. This time I really decided to give it some
time and FreeBSD 12.2 runs beutifly on my newish Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 7th gen. I am really impressed with ZFS, clang,
jails, bhyve etc. I now have a nice setup based on Openbox that suits me really well as a platform for my various code projects. 

I do wish that FreeBSD focused more on some security mitigations. Other then that I am very happy with my little laptop and
see no reason to change OS anytime soon. In fact, I am considering applying to become a commiter since I want to learn more
about the FreeBSD kernel and wish to help the FreeBSD project.


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## astyle (Jun 29, 2021)

dacrackerx64 said:


> I've been using Debian and Windows at work for more than a decade now. My previous laptop (Macbook Pro, 2009) ran MacOS
> and I've been a happy user for many years. The one thing that made me look for options was that Apple decided to deprecate
> my laptop by not releasing new versions of MacOS for it, which I find annoying since the laptop works just fine. This event made
> it a priority to find a new OS which would let me decide when its time to give up on my hardware.
> ...


Same thing happening with M$ releasing win11 last week... I checked my 3-year-old laptop (Lenovo IdeaPad 720s ARR), and it's not compatible - but it looks like M$ is backtracking a bit on that. 

As for applying to be a committer - I'd suggest that you figure out a port to maintain first, just to get a handle on the process. A couple examples of ports without maintainers: audio/lash and multimedia/aegisub.


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## dacrackerx64 (Jun 29, 2021)

astyle said:


> Same thing happening with M$ releasing win11 last week... I checked my 3-year-old laptop (Lenovo IdeaPad 720s ARR), and it's not compatible - but it looks like M$ is backtracking a bit on that.
> 
> As for applying to be a committer - I'd suggest that you figure out a port to maintain first, just to get a handle on the process. A couple examples of ports without maintainers: audio/lash and multimedia/aegisub.



I appreciate the suggestion, though as a fairly experienced C/C++ programmer I think I could do a lot more good for the
project commiting actual code. But I shall keep your suggestion in mind if I feel I have the time to contribute to the 
FreeBSD project. Thank you!


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## Braveheart_BSD (Jul 27, 2021)

I have used FreeBSD on and off since FreeBSD 4.3 (2 floppies) and always come back to it. Currently have 13.0 installed onto an Alienware R17, and a pc in the garage has Freebsd 12.2 install. Both use Fluxbox, which is something else I've used forever. Other pc's have Windows 10 (main desktop and another Alienware lappie). I'm also using a Raspberry Pi 4 8gb, and have recently acquired an old server (Dell T610 - rescued from landfill) that's running OpenMediaVault. (I know, I know, I tried Truenas but the Perc H700 raid card is not compatible with zfs)

My background is Transportation and Logistics, nothing to do with computer work. 
Everything I've learned was self taught, lots of reading, lots of tinkering then more reading. Now that I'm semi-retired, I have more time to pursue this, I'm not letting my age slow me down.

I'm on IRC more often now too, may see some of you in there.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Jul 28, 2021)

Braveheart_BSD said:


> Everything I've learned was self taught...


I'm completely self-taught, too. Texas Instruments had just came out with the pocket calculator when I quit 10th grade. There was no such thing as computer classes.

But I had a Nintendo Entertainment System, NES, in the early 90's.  My familiarity with video game menus was instrumental in learning to use an AppleII over my first weekend at work. Worthless to me when it came to running Windows98SE.


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## rustbucket (Aug 7, 2021)

How goes, I'm rustbucket,

I've been into computers most of my life, started using Linux when I was around 12 or 13 (9-10 years ago). Found FreeBSD when I was 13 or 14. Up until recently I used FreeBSD for home servers, various projects  and some other things. Through a combination of Linuxulator, Linux Jails, WINE, and a boatload of configurations/tweaks I have been able to get it to run smoothly on my desktop with most of the programs I normally use.

I'm really into operating systems in general. I like to see how they work. Reading documentation, browsing source code, running the OS, making tweaks I like it all. There was a period of time where I would just try every OS I could find. If it's free and open source, there's a good chance I used it at some point. That's how I found FreeBSD actually. These days I run FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Alpine Linux on my computers. I do run some more experimental and obscure stuff in VMs though.

Anyway, I plan on sticking with FreeBSD on my main computer for the foreseeable future and will try to help out where I can. I've noticed a few unmaintained ports that I happen to use. So I'll see about helping out with those first at some point.


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## johngrauvard (Sep 4, 2021)

Hello, I'm johngrauvard, though you can call me nobody if you please.

I got tired of using the _NSAKEY operating system and linux users annoy me (not prior [reformed] linux users who are now [refined] aristocrats running freebsd, of course), so I chose freebsd. I was playing around with it in VirtualBox on _NSAKEY for a couple of days and decided it was good enough. My hdd was encrypted with CipherShed so "I" (the program really) spent a day decrypting it to prepare for my new OS installation. It prompted me for a reboot when I woke up the next morning and I hit the OK button, which, contrary to what I believed, made things not OK because I was locked out of my hdd and stuck in the ciphershed bootloader. I foolishly thought that decrypting the hdd would be enough for ciphershed to remove both the loader and the password requirement at boot because I was a dumb _NSAKEY user who didn't know any better back then (now 1 and a half/2 months ago). I booted into the freebsd installer and tried to install over it all but I was told I didn't have the permission to do that (probably by CipherShed). Fortunately I was inspired by a demon the day prior and the thought was sent to my mind to flash a gentoo image to USB and burn linux mint to a CD just in case freebsd didn't work on my hardware. I booted into the gentoo installer, deleted the partitions on my hdd (I still don't know how gentoo had permission but freebsd didn't), and made it halfway through a gentoo install before I realized (and remembered) that I didn't like linux and therefore didn't need to install it completely, and that deleting the partitions was probably enough. I deleted them again and booted back into the freebsd installer, then I installed freebsd. I spent the next 3 days trying to get the sound to work, and I did, and used freebsd happily for about a week until I borked the install, reinstalled, and then borked another 4 installations. I'm on my 6th now, using ZFS because it installs quicker than UFS, for me anyway. I know nothing about ZFS. I've been watching the forum for about a month now for solutions to all the problems I caused, and read about how systemd is bad. I don't understand how or why it's bad but the posts here made me paranoid about it anyway and my gut feeling now is that it's wrong, especially to force it on people. 

Thank you for reading my post


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## Deleted member 30996 (Sep 4, 2021)

johngrauvard said:


> I'm on my 6th now, using ZFS because it installs quicker than UFS, for me anyway. I know nothing about ZFS.


UFS what I prefer for use on a desktop. Knowing nothing about something not a reason to use it, beyond learning about it. 

If you're counting seconds of boot time saved as having gained anything, it matters very little when you're uptime is counted in weeks or months. 



johngrauvard said:


> I've been watching the forum for about a month now for solutions to all the problems I caused, and read about how systemd is bad. I don't understand how or why it's bad but the posts here made me paranoid about it anyway and my gut feeling now is that it's wrong, especially to force it on people.


I don't know why either. If you find out, please tell me, but don't be offended if I don't believe everything I hear.


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## Alain De Vos (Sep 4, 2021)

Systemd is not bad. It is good. It can give shorter booting times. But it comes at price. And that is complexity.
It is far more easier to modify a sh shell script in /etc/rc.d in freebsd then to poke around with systemd.


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## johngrauvard (Sep 4, 2021)

Trihexagonal said:


> UFS what I prefer for use on a desktop. Knowing nothing about something not a reason to use it, beyond learning about it.
> 
> If you're counting seconds of boot time saved as having gained anything, it matters very little when you're uptime is counted in weeks or months.
> 
> ...


None taken, I don't want you to believe anything. I'm hoping to learn more about ZFS the more I use it, but me "using" it on real hardware probably means I'm going to break everything, which is fine by my book. These days I feel like I can't afford to ignore everything about my computer past what hardware is in it so I dove in, though I'm likely far too late, and up against someone or something that's been at it far longer than I have.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Sep 5, 2021)

That's how I learned and reading that, have a gut feeling you will do well.


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## a6h (Sep 7, 2021)

johngrauvard : I'm a UFS/MBR/RC guy, but that's my personal preference. On systemd: I have it on Kali, and it works. But for Linux stuff,I personally prefer Artix/runit. I know nothing about systemd, and I [always] have to STFW to find commands. One argument is that it's now more than 1 million LOC. That may be an argument against it, or not. That's a problem, which its developers have to deal with. Who cares, whatever! The main points is: _welcome to the board_.


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## zirias@ (Sep 7, 2021)

Uhm, well – I find lots of useful features in ZFS, I still have to find a single one in systemd 

IMHO: Complexity is fine when it pays off


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## Menelkir (Sep 7, 2021)

Zirias said:


> Uhm, well – I find lots of useful features in ZFS, I still have to find a single one in systemd
> 
> IMHO: Complexity is fine when it pays off


Actually, systemd have useful features, but they're all things that have been around for a long time and in a much simpler way.


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## joplass (Sep 7, 2021)

I was a huge fan of Debian until systemd arrives. Of course I did not care about the program itself, I just wanted my boxes to work when I needed them to work. Here is my only bad experience with systemd. Clueless as I was, maybe still am, I noticed my boxes at start or shutdown will display a message like "system is updating wait...." and I will wait for the computer to do its business. I got tired of the message I started reading about the new changes implemented by Debian and infighting among the developers. From there I moved to Devuan but I knew that issues will follow me so I moved to FreeBSD. 

Maybe systemd is better now but I am not going back.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Sep 7, 2021)

joplass said:


> I noticed my boxes at start or shutdown will display a message like "system is updating wait...." and I will wait for the computer to do its business.


I've got a a Kali 2021.2 rolling release box on metal and have never seen any SystemD message of any kind.

I did look at the Task Manager yesterday and it's running, but it's not been a resource concern and nothing gets updated withoug me entering the sudo password. Which I've gotten used to using  but su and working as root till I'm done is my prefered way.  I know you can change it back to that but why bother now.


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## a6h (Sep 8, 2021)

Zirias said:


> IMHO: Complexity is fine when it pays off


True. e.g. every thing about Virtual Memory in the kernel is complex -- concept, code, implementation, machine-dependent code.
But it's paid off.


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## hafudo (Sep 20, 2021)

Hello everyone.
try freeBSD on GCP today for web server.
need a lot to learn and guidance from this forums


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## jeremypass96 (Sep 24, 2021)

Hello there! I'm Jeremy, and I'm 25 years old. What I like about FreeBSD is the simplicity of the OS over Linux. I mainly use Windows 10 as my main OS, but I do like and use FreeBSD on the side as a desktop OS.


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## NeilAlieN75 (Sep 28, 2021)

Slackware since 97. FreeBSD since 2018. Why FreeBSD? Well it just feels like its glued together must better than all the rest. I love the filesystem hierarchy. Oh and the roots.. much more grounded.


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## limo (Oct 3, 2021)

Hi,
I am back to Open Source Software (I was on Linux honestly) after being away for almost 8 years. Though I happily lived with Linux (for me it was the concept of freedom of open source as a principal,  and freedom from abuse) since 2000 till 2013. (Efi and UEFI stuff kept me out and I was quite busy, didn’t have time to struggle with it).

Recently retired and I’m all free again.

I recently tried quite a few Linux distros over the past few weeks but to be honest, BSD in general was always like teasing me as I read a lot about its stability, performance and security as compared to other OSs.

What I love mainly about Open Source Software  -in addition to freedom and quality… etc.- is the community.

EDIT: I am trying now to make a USB flash disk bootable to try.

I hope I’m welcome!
Thank you.


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## limo (Oct 3, 2021)

thanks tuxador


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## tuxador (Oct 3, 2021)

limo said:


> thanks tuxador


It's always good news to read from a FOSS enthusiast like you.
Free and open source promotes curiosity , communication and generosity.


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## grahamperrin@ (Oct 5, 2021)

My childhood included these, and a 1976 summer camp that included late night solo and relay streaking, suitably facilitated by camp organisers (_Big J_, _Little J_, _L_ and _D_: thank you)
my voice broke at the relatively early age of eleven (again, thank you)
in my youth I collected things such as this, this, this and this
my first car was a 1965 Hillman Super Minx
if (as in TV advertisements) you aspire to driving a big car through the countryside with not another vehicle in sight, please know that blue Venetian blinds will not help when you go off-road … I was sad when the previous car went to the scrapyard
stuff, stuff and more stuff before and after what's above
I used and managed Macs, including XServe and XServe RAID, for around twenty-one years … made no attempt to archive the public and private websites that I managed/created (if I recall correctly, the Wayback Machine didn't really lend itself to things such as Plone content)
privately, I was the 405th member of AppleSeed (when AppleSeed was a pretty much a secret) … publicly, my reputation was (still is) OK
I sort of switched to PC-BSD, then TrueOS, both of which offered ease of use that taught me to be fearless about straying from -RELEASE, so I switched to FreeBSD -CURRENT
I'm not famous for this, but partly thanks to me you can more easily refer to points within pages at FreshPorts (the *#add* example at <https://forums.FreeBSD.org/threads/82319/post-535009>, and so on) – *What HTML anchors exist?*
Hello.


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## grahamperrin@ (Oct 6, 2021)

grahamperrin said:


> … Macs … I sort of switched to PC-BSD, then TrueOS, … switched to FreeBSD -CURRENT …



My ramblings didn't answer the opening post:



ikbendeman said:


> *… why you chose FreeBSD*



Through private conversation today, I randomly stumbled across a 2018 explanation for a switch *away from a FreeBSD-based system, to Linux* …

… the earlier switch, *away from Apple*, was essentially a reaction to (Yosemite) removal of the title bar from Safari. I'm passionate about UX.

Postscript

February 2022: I couldn't remember when, how or why I became a FreeBSD wiki editor. Via RecentChanges I stumbled across someone else's home page, then found information about me: _add GrahamPerrin who will be performing occasional edits, starting with vbox_ (2017-03-28).


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## astyle (Oct 7, 2021)

grahamperrin said:


> privately, I was the 405th member of AppleSeed (when AppleSeed was a pretty much a secret) … publicly, my reputation was (still is) OK


Just googling the term AppleSeed gave me 5 different variants:

Apple Computers project
A network of 16 justice centers across US and Mexico
Hunter training facility
A women's clothing line
Anime by that name
Strangely enough no European hits from my search....


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## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 7, 2021)

Yes, for someone that is a stickler for people who go off-topic and will start a new thread to Moderate them you allow yourself liberal latitude in doing it, Johnny Appleseed. 



grahamperrin said:


> publicly, my reputation was (still is) OK


Depends on where you look. 




grahamperrin said:


> I sort of switched to PC-BSD, then TrueOS, both of which offered ease of use that taught me to be fearless about straying from -RELEASE, so I switched to FreeBSD -CURRENT


I sot of helped PC-BSD get started, get their priorities right when it came to  Xsystems money becoming their focus and brought them back to the flock, and in the end, you won't find any official sign of PB-BSD ever having existed but the hungry ghost of Weixiong who here with me.

And Weixiong wants some XXXLarge FreeBSD T-shirts as swag! That's all, but lots of them. Because I was with them for 7 years that were wiped from history and if Dru and the Less Moore Bros are righteous enough to be supported in representing and promoting FreeBSD, so am I and it's time I am. 

I'm calling a microaggression, before it goes macro. It's how I got started.


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## grahamperrin@ (Oct 7, 2021)

astyle said:


> … googling the term AppleSeed …



Things now are very different. I joined long before the brief blaze of publicity for the (non-exclusive) Beta Seed Program, through which millions of people learnt of the existence of Apple Software Customer Seeding.

For people in an early era, AppleSeed was not only exclusive, it was also *very* discreet. So discreet that almost no-one mentioned its existence publicly (I recall a brief private uproar when a member used the word in a public forum). _First rule of Fight Club_, which is nowadays written in humour however there was a time when (for AppleSeed) it was, like, an unwritten rule. 2012:



> > … When I ran a google search on "appleseed pre-release" the first article I read stated that the "first rule of Appleseed" was not to talk about appleseed. …



Flashback to 2006: the AppleSeed home page powered by WebObjects!


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## astyle (Oct 7, 2021)

grahamperrin said:


> Things now are very different. I joined long before the brief blaze of publicity for the (non-exclusive) Beta Seed Program, through which millions of people learnt of the existence of Apple Software Customer Seeding.
> 
> For people in an early era, AppleSeed was not only exclusive, it was also *very* discreet. So discreet that almost no-one mentioned its existence publicly (I recall a brief private uproar when a member used the word in a public forum). _First rule of Fight Club_, which is nowadays written in humour however there was a time when (for AppleSeed) it was, like, an unwritten rule. 2012:
> 
> ...


Sounds like any governmental spy agency on this blue planet should be taking lessons from Apple!


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## jammied (Oct 10, 2021)

Basically, wanted to get away from Linux. BSD development I feel is less of a mess and seems to be a better written OS.

Also, if I want to develop improvements to the OS I use, I feel it is lot more realistic to be starting with BSD over Linux. I generally see Linux as an OS for people getting their first taste of a more technical world but who still have a hell of a lot to learn. I am also not a great fan of "benevolent dictatorships", even if said "benevolent dictator" does make some amusing digs at the likes of Nvidia and at C++ developers....


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## cliedoincognito (Oct 24, 2021)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


i used freebsd in 2008 and visited the forum the  just getting back into using freebsd again enjoyed using it as my main operating system these next few months i will getting my machine running again  server wise 5 yrs ago i quit  machine monitor broke so i just used windows on another machine i had wife would not forgive me  i have never stopped reading the many books i bought in 2008 and 2009


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## Sergei_Shablovsky (Nov 5, 2021)

grahamperrin said:


> Things now are very different. I joined long before the brief blaze of publicity for the (non-exclusive) Beta Seed Program, through which millions of people learnt of the existence of Apple Software Customer Seeding.
> 
> For people in an early era, AppleSeed was not only exclusive, it was also *very* discreet. So discreet that almost no-one mentioned its existence publicly (I recall a brief private uproar when a member used the word in a public forum). _First rule of Fight Club_, which is nowadays written in humour however there was a time when (for AppleSeed) it was, like, an unwritten rule. 2012:
> 
> ...



Wow!
You kick me back in early days of my youth...


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## ayleid96 (Nov 20, 2021)

I don't live of my tech skills, because i am not enough competent programmer or sys admin. I am currently a machine operator in various factories. I have solved some problems for my company with my programming skills but that is far from something important.

I started game development, an idea popped in my head about three years ago about a game so i started making it little by little. I want to be a system programmer but that is in my opinion a very hard discipline to get into without proper college education(i am probably wrong, i don't know). I want that because that is most appealing to me.

For the first time i tried FreeBSD in 2014(version 10) on an old laptop and since then it feels like home. Shortly after that i switched over to linux because of driver issues. About 2-3 months ago i installed FreeBSD 13 and purged my old Gentoo partitions because of sudden enormous dependency issue that happened overnight, i was using Gentoo Linux for three years i know how to maintain it..


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## astyle (Nov 20, 2021)

ayleid96 said:


> purged my old Gentoo partitions because of sudden enormous dependency issue that happened overnight, i was using Gentoo Linux for three years i know how to maintain it..


Gentoo's portage was inspired by FreeBSD's ports, BTW... When I was on Linux, I wanted to try Gentoo, but back then, install instructions were hard to follow. Ended up on FreeBSD, never looked back.


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## Alain De Vos (Nov 20, 2021)

In the past i was a gentoo & funtoo user. But both times my O.S. ended up in a complete mess of conflicting packages and settings and think it's called USE variables.
I must once give Alpine Linux with it's musl library a try.


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## MattP (Nov 26, 2021)

Hi all,

I'm a UK based software engineer. Lifelong Windows user (since 3.1) and dabbled in BSD and Linux over the years but always reverted back typically when something isn't available, doesn't work or I'm just stuck through lack of knowledge.

Having a bit of an identity/mid-life crisis I think, my senior role doesn't involve much software work anymore and I have an itch to get involved in something. Write some software again.

FreeBSD over Linux (or other BSDs) for me just feels like a nice well defined system, good documentation. I like the ports system. It appears to have 'clarity' if that makes sense where Linux feels more 'chaotic.

I really want to get away from Windows, the barrage of crap popping up constantly drives me mad and I know there are more efficient ways to work if I just put in some effort (vim).

Hopefully I can make it work as my primary desktop OS as that provides more incentive. When you have to launch it in a VM I just tend to not bother.


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## kpedersen (Nov 26, 2021)

MattP said:


> I really want to get away from Windows, the barrage of crap popping up constantly drives me mad and I know there are more efficient ways to work if I just put in some effort (vim).


I do think it is almost cruel that Microsoft is destroying a platform that so many grew up with and invested time in. Though as soon as Microsoft brought DRM into Windows XP, that *should* have been a bit of a sign for the sleazy things to come! Perhaps ReactOS can pick up the slack here some day...



MattP said:


> Hopefully I can make it work as my primary desktop OS as that provides more incentive. When you have to launch it in a VM I just tend to not bother.


I have heard this before and can certainly see it being an issue. What my colleague said worked for him was admittedly quite extreme but if non-Windows drivers are the issue, you can consider installing a Core (no "Desktop Experience") instance of Windows Server and then you pretty much have nothing else *but* the FreeBSD VM. Basically by lobotomizing the host, it makes the FreeBSD guest more inviting to use


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## morsing (Dec 8, 2021)

I am taking a bit of a career turn, out of need, will be designing and setting up all infrastructure at a new, small start-up company. Some will be Linux, but as I have recently started looking at replace Linux at home with FreeBSD, I am hoping I can introduce FreeBSD at this company. 

Hardware support slightly worries me currently. I am not used to systems where this is an issue. We will see.


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## astyle (Dec 8, 2021)

morsing said:


> I am taking a bit of a career turn, out of need, will be designing and setting up all infrastructure at a new, small start-up company. Some will be Linux, but as I have recently started looking at replace Linux at home with FreeBSD, I am hoping I can introduce FreeBSD at this company.
> 
> Hardware support slightly worries me currently. I am not used to systems where this is an issue. We will see.


A heterogeneous environment is easier to support, it lends itself better to automation and monitoring.


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## rafael_grether (Dec 8, 2021)

I was a Slackware GNU/Linux user (about 2001).
I was amazed to learn how things worked, how to manually configure the daemons.

For work reasons, I left GNU/Linux for many years and entered the MacOS universe.

But all the searches I did, every problem I found in MacOS, the solutions pointed to FreeBSD/OpenBSD, since virtual memory management, Firewall (PF)...

So, I decided to learn more about FreeBSD (I couldn't use OpenBSD - Urgh!), and I'm really enjoying it. It reminds me a little of Slackware basis. But FreeBSD makes much more sense than GNU/Linux to me (filesystem hierarchy, licence...)

The simplicity of FreeBSD and at the same time its power made me adopt FreeBSD as a Desktop.
And every day I'm learning more and more.


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## baaz (Dec 9, 2021)

to get rid off redhat and  "free"desktop as much as possible 
also I really love the BSDs community they seem way more open minded


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## Oneirosopher (Dec 9, 2021)

Hello world out there, Hail to yee all,


I will tell my story of getting interested by FreeBSD sort of backwards.

I am not (yet) running vanilla FreeBSD but thought I could drop a line here, because I feel I am on the verge of installing a FreeBSD based-system on one of my laptops. (And, yes, I know: I won't ask in the FreeBSD forum any support for something not quite FreeBSD. I have read the rules before writing my first post --this is the second.) The word *laptop* is important, I'll explain why further. (For now, please, just mark it.) I have not had any desktop computer for years, nor do I have a landline internet connection. Because, basically, I use a computer to write, period. --Basically. More about that later.

Recently I have tried (via usb live sessions) the now well-known GhostBSD, the niche NomadBSD, helloSystem and its predecessor LiveStep, and also Airyx and CultBSD. --Probono's *helloSystem* is much promising and I quite like his UX approach. Reading his papers on medium.com is always refreshing and good food for thought. Plus his refutations of the (bad) choices of most desktops is both hilarious and highly relevant. Yet, his helloSystem is not ready for production, I mean for an end-user like me: for instance, the wireless won't work, at least on my Lenovo ThinkPad X230.-- That is why I also tried (again) NomadBSD, GhostBSD and Co. Some years ago (I think it was in 2016), on a spare Dell laptop I was given, I have installed TrueOS, a system that I had been following from afar when it was still called PC-BSD. But TrueOS never worked well on any of my laptops.

Now, there is a gem that is being developed, named *CultBSD*, that some of you may have heard about. (It was in the thread of CultBSD that I have posted my very 1st message yesterday.) For a desktop-oriented "_distribution_" --yes, I know: _GNU/Linux terminology_, not the same meaning as in the D of BSD-- for an eye-candy desktop-oriented distribution, says I, CultBSD is blazing fast! On my 2009 laptop, it flies swifter from usb than the host (Linux) OS installed on the hard drive. Amazing and quite remarkable. --What's interesting with old hardware is that it lets you notice the difference! 


Previously, I have of course tried other operating systems: Haiku and many Linuces --and I do mean _many_!

Like most people who switched from Windows to GNU/Linux in the 2000s, I started my journey with *Ubuntu*. During several years, I was a happy user. But when the Gnome guys went insane and berserk with Gnome3, I switched to Debian-based lightweight (OpenBox) *CrunchBang* (*#!*). It was a superb distro. Quite logically, I broke it in no time by messing with the source-list, mixing _stable_ and _testing_ repositories. (Typical newcomer fatal mistake.) Then I heard about a confidential distro called *Arch*, rolling-release and equipped with a powerful cli-package-manager called *pacman*. I was not daring enough to install it from the ground up, but then appeared *Archbang*, that, to put it in a few words, was to Arch what CrunchBang was to Debian. I had also tried and run other *buntus like PinguyOS, Linux Mint, ElementaryOS. More lately, I also run Manjaro, MX, Void, even some "Slackies", and many others, --the most remarkable of all having been *Obarun*, some gem of a Linux distro that allows its user regain and embrace the power and versatility of Arch and pacman _without_ systemd. Very more recently, one week ago, I have installed *Devuan* Daedalus ("testing") on a 32-bit laptop (my dear Samsung N140 netbook), the most problematic of my computers to install anything on not to work toooo slowly. (Hence, a very good test machine for lightweight and efficient systems, provided there is a 32-bit version, which is still the case of Void, Devuan, MX, Haiku and... *BSDs! And that is how I can tell that even the assumedly "lightweight" MX Linux (with Xfce) has already become too greedy 4 years ago, whereas the last Devuan (with LXQt) works quite fine.

Despite this seemingly almost pure Linuxian curriculum, as far as I remember, as soon as I had became aware of what I will call the *GPSS*, the "Great Proprietary Software Swindle" (and that goes especially for Microsoft, but also for Apple and for the accomplice hardware industry, quite happy that the consumers buy a new machine every five years to run more and more resource-consuming systems), I turned my eyes on *BSDs. *I always thought that BSD was the real thing*, not GNU/Linux. Especially since BSD kernels are not as HUGE as Linux is. Unfortunately, back then, in 2008, I would not dare install any *BSD --even FreeBSD-- on... a laptop! (Depending on what your hardware is, you might know what I mean.) And after all, back then, only half a dozen months before, I did not even know what a wireless driver was... Going Linux was already a big jump for me!

Let me tell some more personal things about my use of computers: I do not administrate server farms or small computer networks, I do not code, I do not write CSS or HTML, I do not even write on so-called "_social_" _networks_ --I quite dislike these. Initially, I came to computers to *write stories and thoughts*, period. (Of course, since 1994, the year I started using MS-Word to write poems and aphorisms, I have also switched to digital cameras and digital voice-recorders, hence, I now have also to manage huge amounts of pictures and sound files on my computers.)

Another concrete example of singularity: I am not a gamer. Unlike most boys of my generation, I never had any Nintendo or Atari or whatever system to play games on and hook me to machines running binaries. Ever since, I have never run any game on my computers in my life but, seldom, chess apps. --As I have already mentioned, I write, that's what I do. I also perform as an actor. What need would I have to immerse myself in a digital clumsy crappy virtual world, while I can analogically enter rich, subtle, and interactive fantasy universes, with true flesh & blood partners, often beautiful and sex-appealing?

So, once again, I basically came to computers to write and print my own words. And, although far from perfect, the Unix management of the *keyboard* (compared to crappy Windows' one) was one very important of the many reasons that convinced me to go free Unix, whereas I had no previous disposition and was even hardly capable to distinguish between an application --say, word-processor MS-Word-- and an OS --say, MS-Windows XP--, although here better called a US, for Unoperating System.

Because on Unices, among other, we can enjoy the magic power of the Compose key!  (And I am a grammar and typo nazi.) It is my pleasure and delight to be able to type a letter with its diacritic directly from the keyboard, with my bare fingers --not needing to open some dedicated character map utility. This way, when I get tired of LibreOffice Writer legendary slowness, I can write correct French prose in a mere *text editor*. (Some of them even allow non-breaking spaces, a very necessary feature for French typography!) All of this is quite impossible in Windows, where you cannot type a capital letter with its due diacritic! (Example: _Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité_.) You have to copy-paste it from the Word "special characters" manager. (The same goes in LibreOffice Writer _as long as you use it in Windows_.)

(Speaking of raw text editing, by the way, if we do lack an application in this versatile digital world, it's something as simple as *a text editor for non-coders*. A text editor aimed at writing in UTF-8 all the human writings and languages and none of the computer languages. This software could be as lightweight as a feather, highly modular, and coded in a matter of weeks... Of such a software, I know not --but I might have missed it?)


Now, back to the issue of the shift between different types of OS.

If my memory serves me well, it's *Theo de Raadt* who once said: "*Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix.*"

I do concur --partly. It's mainly true --just not completely. (Pero, "_se non è vero, è ben trovato!_")

Because what I am glimpsing is a deep trend of *people who are going to seek shelter into *BSD* (and most of them into FreeBSD, because of its user-friendly GUI and live-session capable derivatives) *out of their tremendous fatigue of GNU/Linux*, after sooo many wrong decisions have been taken in the Linux ecosystem.

It is now twenty years that we are promised that _next year will be the year of Linux deskto_p. And it is now twenty years since the "sexy side" of the "FOSS world" ("_Linux is _sexy_, dude, ya know, more than BSD_"), the sexy Chosen Linux community does just the right thing in order to *not conquer* the minimum desktop computer market share it could claim. Just as, for a decade, Firefox is in spectacular decline versus Chrome, the GNU/Linux battle versus Windows is obviously a big *charade*.

For... Who wants to run Linux anyway? Gamers? They run Windows. Corporate bitches? Windows too, like their employer. Creatives? They buy Apple --and proudly so!


There is this joke among Debianists that goes: "_Ubuntu is South-African for 'I can't install Debian'._" In the same spirit, I would dare say: "*Linux is Finno-Globish for 'I can't run BSD'.*" Linus Torvalds himself has somehow acknowledged it at some point!

"Who wants to run Linux anyway?", asks I. --There!: there are the ones who want to run Linux: those who *cannot afford Apple computers*, those who also *hate Windows* (but need it dual-booting on their 64-GB RAM computer to be able to run their stupid games) and who *are/feel unable to run BSD*.--

And of course, one of the many errors of the Linux ecosystem was *letting systemd spreading all over the* (already) messy *place*. And then, things got even more messy.


Yee quiet people of FreeBSDland, I am solemnly *warning* you that most people of the Linux crowd who don't want any of this big-kernel-inside-the-huge-kernel systemd, who don't want to be *owned/pwned* by the NSA (RedHat's client, remember?), will come to FreeBSD soon or later to look for refuge. And sooner is more probable a scenario. Besides, it has already started, hasn't it? Educated people, be prepared: Eternal September is coming back upon you again.

Now, if that may be a relief to your legitimate thrown of worry, do also know that them Linuxians-to-go-BSD-a-gogo will be the bolder ones --*bold* as in daring and audacious, not as in gross. As for the gross, most of the illiterate Linuxians will stay where they are, in the limbo of the systemd & Gnome3 hipster hypes, so happy to sink onboard of the Titanic of classical desktop paradigm's destruction, singing and dancing with the loveboat band. There, soaked in the maze of their own limbo, they will still be able to look with sarcasm upon the poor Windowsians --these poor creatures!-- while going on dual-booting Windows to play 3D monster kombat games.

You will have some of them knocking at your door, nonetheless. A minority of them, who are Legion, hence some serious number of them alright. (I trust you will know how to "welcome" them.) But the majority of those who will come first will be the most articulate, those who throw a lucid stare at what GNU/Linux is becoming: the Third Man between Windows and macOS.


*There are two radically antagonist main ways to consider computing and computers*.

One of them consists in asserting that *computers are for everybody, anybody*. For quite different reasons, that is the discourse of both the GAFAM and... of the FSF, of both Steve Jobs and Richard Stallman. *Steve Jobs* (and Bill Gates, and Google, and all the others) used this rhetoric in order to guarantee & enhance their sales. (Consequently, it's no sincere conviction. It's just a claim. Computers are for anybody... able to buy ours.) *Richard Stallman*, for another quite opposite reason: because the rational treatment of information, _just as mathematics_ (says he), _should belong to everybody_. It's a common good, it's commonwealth. It mustn't be copyrighted.

On the other opposite hand, one can wonder: *does (and should) anybody fly a plane?* It needs so much expertise and it consumes so much fossil fuel. (When working, computers do not consume fossil fuel per se, but they are _made_ with rare metals and it takes much fossil fuel to extract these metals and build them machines and transport them from one side of the planet to the other. Regarding the ecological issue, they are a disaster!)

Analogically, one can wonder: *should ANYBODY run a computer?*


We do not have to chose between these two extremities, the demagogic, and the elitist. We can instead consider that *computers* (like Asimov's robots) *should be at the service of everyone* --*without enslaving anyone* with consumption of personal time, energy, and money. And in order to reach this noble aim, *we do need frugal yet effective operating systems*, not bloaty CPU-consuming operating systems. If scientific and technological Progress was not but the myth of the 18th-19th ideology (easily refuted yet still prevailing), operating systems (and also the *world wide web**) would not be heavier and heavier, and slower and slower as each bloody year goes. --And that's why I accuse the hardware industry to have a collusional complicity with the main crapware publishers: the hardware vendors need the crapware to get more and more resource-consuming in order to let them, in deed, go on selling more and more powerful machines.**

Now, let us suppose one minute that this massive madness of increasingly resource-greedy OSes would stop instantly, by the virtue of some magical wish. *The (huge) problem of fixing dysfunctional www would still remain!* And that is where another accomplice suspect in the collusion of this _Conspiracy of Dunces_ is made plain clear: the Google-Amazon-Facebook-etc consortium of crapware propagation, a *cross-platform, hardware independent, and system-agnostic crapware propagation*. An *off-shore immaterial propagation*, so to say! Today, internet too is a powerful crapware-invaded & invading world, whose corruption alone is able to force most people to buy more and more powerful hardware!


These are why and how, I, who basically was *NOT interested* (at all!) by computers and computing, eventually came to be passionate about this question. It is not only a technological and *technical issue* for engineers and nerds. It is not only a *geo-strategical issue* --some countries, more than others, start fighting to regain their digital sovereignty. It is a *political issue* too, in the most noble sense of tarnished word _politics_. An everyday life political issue, at the both scales of each individual and whole humanity!

And yet, I do claim the *absolute human right to remain a mere END-USER*! An aware and articulate end-user, but an end-user nonetheless.

Because Life has already so much to offer and fight for --and against. How can I, how can you, how can we afford spending our time troubleshooting software and hardware dumb issues!?! It's a matter of lust for life and sheer human dignity.

In these regards, GNU/Linux plays the same game as do corporations like Apple and Microsoft.


I dare hope that BSDs are not the same animal. And I want to check, learn and know. 


So, in order to come back in-topic and draw a conclusion, I guess that eventually, *what brought me to FreeBSD*, more than the computers (that I was _not_ raised in), takes its roots in the earth of... *my childhood and teenage experience of enjoyment with good ol' typewriters*, starting with the budget typewriter of my grand-parents.***

Because, in the end, this hardware/software mix that we call a computer, isn't it but a digital and somehow *enhanced typewriter*, receiving human input and issuing human readable output that aim at *stimulating intellect, imagination, and fancy*? Like when we were swimming in the _in-fancy_**** of childhood!


Truely yours,


O.


* Did you know that, already a few years ago, *between %15 and %20* of the worldwide internet bandwidth were busy with *Netflix alone*? This percentage might have increased since --or decreased, following the rise of Zoom visio-conference massive home-use subsequent to the Covid!

** Cf. *May*’s & *Wirth*’s laws, which read, respectively: "_Software efficiency halves every 18 months, compensating Moore’s Law_."; and "_Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster._"
Inspired by these insightful models, I propose this law (Soller's law): "_*Software improves at sucking faster than hardware improves at blowing*_."

*** Even if more performant typewriters would have appeared on the market in the meanwhile, you could always use the typewriter that your grand-mummy or grand-daddy had bought 40 years before!

**** I borrow this play on words to 18th Century Scottish philosopher *David Hume*, a thinker mighty worth reading.



PS. Thank you already for reading, and, thank you in advance for any feedback, even controversial!


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## astyle (Dec 9, 2021)

baaz said:


> to get rid off redhat and  "free"desktop as much as possible
> also I really love the BSDs community they seem way more open minded


Y'know, KDE on FreeBSD is one reason I like FreeBSD, but the KDE project makes no secret of trying to stay compliant with freedesktop.org standards for usability.


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## grahamperrin@ (Dec 23, 2021)

Mjölnir said:


> … explore FreeBSD...  All you need is a _compatible_ laptop



We're on a countdown to compatibility and/or improved performance with a far broader range of hardware. Boot capability, Wi-Fi … happy days  𠉶




grahamperrin said:


> my first car was a 1965 Hillman Super Minx



… and I often wished that I had kept personal photographs of a much-changed area where I used to park it. Today (thanks, obscurely, to FreeBSD Forums members) I found a stock photo:




To the left of No. 10 was _free_ parking. Imagine.



ikbendeman said:


> … tell us who you are …



Where it was doesn't define who I am, but the place was (still is) a large part of my life.


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## dclau (Jan 2, 2022)

Hi there. My first introduction to *nix world was RedHat 7.something (codename Seawolf ,or something like that). After a short crush on Slackware (which wasn't bad), i came to discover this beast, errr... I meant Beastie. Back then and there (Romania, the far-far east), we used to have a Linux forum, where we used to say nasty things about Microsoft et al.  Everyone was, somewhat, scared of the *BSD family, that rang a bell. And here I am, since 2008 or 9. Not a great socializer myself, normally a lurking shadow, but here we go, i just got introducted myself.
P.S: no posts from me, when I come, I do it for solutions, which I usually get. The forum is crowdy-enough as it is. No need for another beanhead.
Sorry for my *nixlish, I really am an ooooldish guy, who wants to solve everything on its own ( not a lot of luck on this ). A Happy New Year to you, all.


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## astyle (Jan 2, 2022)

dclau said:


> Hi there. My first introduction to *nix world was RedHat 7.something (codename Seawolf ,or something like that). After a short crush on Slackware (which wasn't bad), i came to discover this beast, errr... I meant Beastie. Back then and there (Romania, the far-far east), we used to have a Linux forum, where we used to say nasty things about Microsoft et al.  Everyone was, somewhat, scared of the *BSD family, that rang a bell. And here I am, since 2008 or 9. Not a great socializer myself, normally a lurking shadow, but here we go, i just got introducted myself.
> P.S: no posts from me, when I come, I do it for solutions, which I usually get. The forum is crowdy-enough as it is. No need for another beanhead.
> Sorry for my *nixlish, I really am an ooooldish guy, who wants to solve everything on its own ( not a lot of luck on this ). A Happy New Year to you, all.


Welcome to the forums! And y'know what? this place is surprisingly useful for problem solving. On my end of things, I discovered that it can be much faster and easier to ask a question on the forums than spend hours looking on Google, and still being unable to solve a FreeBSD-related puzzle on my own. Yeah, it helps to think and frame the question before asking it, and it helps to do a bit of homework beforehand, but we're generally happy to help.


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## dclau (Jan 2, 2022)

Thank you astyle  and everybody. As I said, I'm fine, whatever questions I ever had, they got their answers here, on this forum. I only run dns/unbound, www/hiawatha, a bit of Perl, a tad of lua for some stats from my inverters (greedy green-energy prosumer). Oh, a couple of net-p2p/verlihub (no longer in ports, not a big issue). It isn't about piracy at all, it is all about communities, which we have here, already. And databases/PostgreSQL, almost forgot to mention.


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## grahamperrin@ (Jan 8, 2022)

Part of _who I am_, although I often preferred to hide the badge:





Also, a moderator, which was never a chore.



rigoletto@ said:


> www/waterfox just found its way to the tree. …
> 
> Marked as "Temporary experiment" (Demo)
> EXPIRATION DATE: 2017-12-12 …



(An unexpected outcome of 222859 – continue to port and maybe package www/firefox 56.x for some time after 57 is released, overlapping with 221916 – cease www/firefox-i18n dependency on old, incompatible xpi-quick-locale-switcher.)



fernandel said:


> I am using two web browsers: Iridium and Waterfox. …





badbrain said:


> … only use the machine for waterfox web surfing …





Snurg said:


> It's horrible.



The sheer _horror_ of it all!  – tastes vary 

For an experiment that was originally set to expire after around three weeks, its official life of around ten months (in the FreeBSD ports collection) was pretty good. Then, after removal from the collection: thanks to the former maintainer, it remained usable (and enjoyable) for another year or so.

Jan Beich was amazing. *Is amazing. *​
The vast majority of what I do, with computers, involves web browsing. When (in late 2019) it became impossible for me to use Waterfox on a suitably updated installation of FreeBSD:

I quietly considered abandoning FreeBSD
instead, I chose to stay.
No regrets


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## doul (Jan 8, 2022)

doul said:


> I hope FreeBSD is this dream OS



One year later I can say yes it is 

Fresh update to 13.0-RELEASE and I've just kicked off this heavy bloated web browser Firefox for Falkon, remains only one problem : I'm not able to compile FreeCAD on 13.0, I get it done on 12.2, so I run a Debian in a VirtualBox for FreeCAD only, it's don't make me happy.

My computer is used for home/hobby/profesionnal work, I can manage my mp3 music, burn CD/DVD, program arduino cards, get some C/C++ coding and make CAD work with qelectrotech & FreeCAD. My window manager is TWM (yes, yes, back to the roots of UNIX) with two monitor I don't need any start button nor taskbar.


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## grahamperrin@ (Jan 9, 2022)

Thanks, it's _always_ good to read of people staying with FreeBSD – especially desktop/notebook use cases, and types of work that are not limited to _professional_.

(I disagree with the occasional implication that FreeBSD is solely for professionals.)



doul said:


> … not able to compile FreeCAD on 13.0 …



FreeBSD bug 259913 – cad/FreeCAD will not build



doul said:


> kicked off this heavy bloated web browser



KDE bug 447448 – PDF content can not be zoomed in or out – ⚠ accessibility – and so on, and (no disrespect to developers or the user communities) I sense that few people are willing and/or able to progress the issues. Perceived lightness of Falkon comes at a cost ;-)

Of course, my preferred web browser has a different set of costs ;-) but I prefer its cost:benefit ratio.


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## drr (Jan 9, 2022)

This may be an old thread, but I landed here seeing some new posts here. I am a road safety specialist and I have not come across anyone else from my profession yet, who uses FreeBSD. I come from research background and have used various Linux operating systems on my personal computers, since my university days. I have used custom set ups with Arch Linux for over 10 years, but switched to FreeBSD a year ago, as I was finding it increasingly harder to set up a simple system with Linux.

My switch to FreeBSD involved a detailed reading of the FreeBSD Handbook and a few trial installations on my Thinkpad laptop and Optiplex desktop. I am currently settled in FreeBSD 13, with KDE-Plasma on my desktop and laptop. I also have an old Dell desktop set up as a home media/file server, with GNOME.

I intermittently use MS Windows in VirtualBox, to work with my colleagues who use MS Office. For everything else, I use FreeBSD. I am extremely happy with my FreeBSD set ups and would list the following as the reason for it:

Solid performance, with minimal system resource usage
Simple and predictable set up
ZFS snapshots
Lessons learned from the Handbook and the Forum
If there are any other professionals from my field here, please give me a shout. Best regards.

_Update: GNOME on my home media/file server stopped working after an upgrade in early February 2022. I have replaced it with KDE-Plasma since then._


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## allphamodh0 (Jan 21, 2022)

helloSystem user, I love UNIX and all envolved with it.


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## Friend Of Jolly Devil (Jan 22, 2022)

Hello everyone, I'm a FreeBSD user because I find it easier to learn than The Unholy Mess Linux, and GPL software has some serious design flaws like this that I don't like.

Yes, ASD is Autism Spectrum Disorder, so if you think I said something disrespectful or not quite acceptable socially-wise before you reach out your pitchforks and torches (it's not a critique of any sort, it just happens to me all the time) please correct me, I may be quite unaware of this.

Cheers!


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## Jay564 (Jan 25, 2022)

Hi everyone! My name's Jay, I'm IT-specialist and I'm a newbie with FreeBSD. This system was advised me by my mentor, so now I see into) I'm planning to make site on it.

_All the best, Jay,
IT-specialist_
_Work Time_


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## SKull (Jan 27, 2022)

Your mentor knows what's up


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## nap (Jan 31, 2022)

>25 year old
>Windows user
>Recently became interested in new systems, checked Wikipedia OS list, found freebsd, thought it was ok because it said free
>Set it up in virtual box
>Thought it looked old and lame
>De-install
>Next day 13.0 released
>Fine let's give it a second chance
>Playing with commands and stuff
>Hey, that's pretty good.png
>2 months forward
>Best OS of the XXI century


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## Jose (Jan 31, 2022)

nap said:


> >Thought it looked old and lame


Ain't it grand, though?


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## CMatomic (Feb 3, 2022)

hello, I'm a user of GNU/Linux systems, at the moment I'm testing FreeBSD in a virtual machine


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 4, 2022)

Welcome to FreeBSD Forums.



CMatomic said:


> a virtual machine



VirtualBox?


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## CMatomic (Feb 4, 2022)

Thanks 
yes,  virtualbox 5.2.42, CPU 3 cores , memory ram 3gb, video memory 256mb,  FreeBSD Mate Desktop , I start virtualbox outside of normal desktop session .


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## grahamperrin@ (Feb 5, 2022)

CMatomic said:


> … 3 cores …



Thanks. If you'll use guest additions: for stability, either reduce to one, or make a change within the guest – <https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/552431>. <https://forums.freebsd.org/forums/51/> for any VirtualBox-related question.


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## mendenlama (Feb 17, 2022)

As I see now, I haven't introduced myself. So I do it now: I have switched to a FreeBSD home office workstation only recently, in January this year. Being a long term Linux user since 1993/94, or so. 

I remember I have seen back then an offer for 386BSD on 35 or 40 floppy disks which I resisted to buy and to install. The widespread Slackware and Suse Linux cdroms, however, came handy and were a more convenient installation medium; I switched later to Redhat, Debian and so on. From the early 2000s I had MacOS X as a daily driver with some Linux boxes staying around. At work I am forced to use Win 10 Pro. For video conferencing I used to use a notebook with Linux Mint that turned into an Arch Linux driven device a short time ago.

In the mid to late 90ies I had telnet access to NetBSD machines that kept me interested and let me wish to return to a BSD box at some point. But that did not realise until last year (if MacOS doesn't count). I got from Ebay a cheap Frankenstein PC with an Intel Xeon cpu and Nvidia card (one of the lower end ones). Since then I installed NetBSD, OpenBSD and, most recently, FreeBSD as single OS on this machine. Before that I played around a bit with FreeBSD on a Raspberry Pi (model 4B) and in virtual machines (Virtualbox and Vmware). 

My current setting: FreeBSD 13.0-RELEASE-p7, X11 with Xfce desktop environment and Lightdm display manager (below a neofetch screenshot):




Besides browsing the web and mail communication, I use it mostly for text related stuff with Latex and Markdown as well as some light video editing (with shotcut and other packages, with ffmpeg and handbrake as frontend for transcoding). Maybe I will try to set up a web based database or something of that kind - not for the public but for myself.

Until now I have tried out CLI interfaces of FreeBSD, window managers like openbox or i3 and desktop environments like KDE, Mate, Xfce.


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## ksx4system (Feb 21, 2022)

Hello everyone 

My name is Krzysztof and for the last 17 years or so I've used (both profesionally and for private needs) mostly Linux and macOS. Around one year ago I've migrated from commercially available NAS to a FreeBSD based NAS solution (XigmaNAS) and now I'm considering migrating my servers to FreeBSD to liberate myself from systemd garbage.

To whoever reading these words: have a nice day


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## freezr (Mar 2, 2022)

Hi, I am not new but I decided to change my nickname from *tgl *to *freezr*, the reason is not particularly exciting so I won't bother anyone with that.


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## subnetspider (Mar 15, 2022)

A bit of history:

From 2004 to 2015 I only used Windows (XP, Vista, 7, and 20) on PCs to play games, listen to music or watch YouTube Videos, and thought I would never use anything else (MacOS/Linux/etc.).
In 2016, I installed Linux Mint on an old PC I had laying around, because Windows 7 was running like garbage (thanks to the 2GB RAM and 120GB 2,5" HDD).
In 2017, I installed OPNsense on an old mini PC because I wanted to try out new stuff and I needed traffic shaping because of severe buffer bloat (thanks for the 2,7 Mbit/s upload, ISP).
In 2018, I installed OpenMediaVault on a small ITX NAS i've build for myself, which was my first time playing around with GNU/Linux, storage/RAID, and services like SMB.
In 2019, I installed FreeNAS in a VM on a VMware ESXi 6.7 Server because I heard about how great ZFS is, later that year I installed it on a dedicated Supermicro Server.
In 2020, I switched from OPNsense to pfSense for half a year but ultimately decided to go back to OPNsense, since I already was so used to the GUI etc. and I upgraded FreeNAS to TrueNAS.

All this time, I ran FreeBSD or HardendBSD based systems as well as some GNU/Linux system, but never really thought about why some were based on *BSD.
Every time I read something about *BSD, I asked myself why on earth someone would use something else than Windows or Linux (oh how ignorant I was).
When I upgraded from FreeBSD to TrueNAS CORE, I (unknowingly) started playing aroud with Jails and even a Ubuntu VM for Pi-hole, running on bhyve, and really liked it.
Sometime in 2021 I found out about a Book called "SSH Master" by Michael Lucas and just bought a copy of all of his other books .
Last year I also made the switch from Windows 10 to Pop!_OS, after I ran it on my Laptop since around 2020.

Today I am in the process of migrating many things in my Homelab from GNU/Linux and Windows Server to FreeBSD Hosts or VMs, for multiple reasons:

Avoiding monoculture: Everyone I know (including my employer) are using exclusively Debian or SLES, running FreeBSD as well seems like a good Idea to me.
Systemd: While I like the benefits that came with it, I really don't like how most of the GNU/Linux world is depending on a single Company, with no way to easily replace it.
Documentation: It's nice to be able to download the Handbook while installing or from the homepage, instead of using 3rd party docs or Forums posts around the Internet.
ZFS: native ZFS support in the installer, integration with Jails, and Boot Environments are some of the things I like the most about FreeBSD.
Secutiry (debateable): There are a lot more vulnerabilities found in Linux compared to *BSD, while this may only be a result of "less eyes" on *BSD, I still feel more secure.
The OS: FreeBSD is pretty boring to other FOSS OSs, but IMHO this is a good thing, because I don't want a flashy os with much hype around it, I want a OS that just works.
Overall I'm very happy with FreeBSD, that doesn't mean I'll stop using Linux, but I'll use it wherever I can for as long as it makes sense.


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## bsduck (Mar 15, 2022)

0xfe said:


> Avoiding monoculture


That's a good reason, not often mentioned, but significant to me too.


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## Deleted member 70435 (Mar 15, 2022)

Hi, well I'm a Systems Engineer, and I work, with* FreeBSD*,* NetBSD*, *OpenBSD*, most of the time, I work in the development of embedded systems. I started on FreeBSD, very young I think I was 15 or 16 years old. and I was impressed, with its ability before going to Linux I already had the necessary knowledge, but today Linux is a commercial product, I'm not here to judge, systemd, or whatever else I don't like. when i want to use linux i use Slackware which is similar to BSD.


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## black_metal (Apr 26, 2022)

Hello, I'm 22 and from the US. Previously used linux for 5-6 years or so. Honestly just chose FreeBSD because I wanted to use a system that provides a clean base to learn and work on that doesn't feel like its some frankenstein monster, lol. Overall I have been very impressed with the system and appreciate what you guys have done here. Once I feel comfortable and have the time I hope to give back to the community.


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## gpw928 (Apr 27, 2022)

bsduck said:


> That's [Avoiding monoculture] a good reason, not often mentioned, but significant to me too.


About 20 years ago I was looking after Unix systems for a service provider.  It was large enough that there were separate teams for multiple Unix variants.  And there were some very significant services being managed.

All the professional administrators chose their own desktops, and mostly used Linux.  I chose FreeBSD.  Nobody chose Windows.  We all ran our corporate desktop services (mail, calendar, ...) through a network resident server for Windows applications.  So were hooked into the major corporate services.

We got a new business manager, and he decided that all the admins were spending all day playing on their desktops instead of actually working. We weren't, but maybe, honestly, there was probably 10% truth there.

I had to front the Chief Information Officer regarding the edict that Microsoft Windows would be installed on ALL desktops IMMEDIATELY.

Happily, the Anna Kournikova worm was current.  The only question I had to ask was how they intended to manage critical services (literally life and death) from a 100% infection of the Kournikova worm if every admin had a dead Windows desktop.

He thought for a while, and decided that our desktops didn't need to be changed...


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## The Bird Dog (Apr 29, 2022)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


I used FreeBSD at college in the 90's and always had an interest and level of respect for the product. Finally decided to take the plunge and install it on metal as a daily driver for home use. 

My admiration for FreeBSD is greater than my knowledge of it!


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## ahrkahrg (Apr 29, 2022)

Hello, 

My name is Christophe. I have started to use FreeBSD a few months ago. 
- I have been working in informatics since 1985 on a Comodore 64 (Basic). 
- I worked on an apple II Europlus in Basic and assembler while reading informatic books from the Groningen university and learning by myself.
- Once I had enough money I bought an Atari st: best machine ever. I learned GFA Bsic, MC68K, macro assembler (C-like), Mark Williams C and Turbo C. My development were to implement windows in the GEM AES environment, programming the FDC/HDC and the DMA chip, implementing in assembler my own bit-blitter,... discovering.
- At University of Liege I started to work on PC: C-cross compiler, my own version of a portable AES/VDI using SDL and started developing Microsoft Windows.
Once in the industry, all my work was under windows (even when cross-compiling for the RTOS of a lottery terminal). 
- I discovered the Linux world (mainly Debian 2.0, Centos, Mandrake, Red Hat and Suse, ... rebuilding my own kernel) - the Linux world appeared quite unfinished and chaotic and was already at the time driven by keyboard fanatics whose main goals were to try to hack the neighbor; very disappointing! (C/C++) Software in the open community was extremely poorly implemented, not designed at all, hardly documented and unreliable because tested only when used. This is the main reason why I stayed with MS-Windows which was more stable and tested - also this was the world I worked in.
- The financial banking industry is divided into a category of fanatics trying to impose Linux simply because they cannot understand or move freely under MS-Windows and another category pragmatic who are developing under MS-Windows, simply because the traders are using MS-Windows and we can easily implement a application (C++/C#) to meets the trader's needs. While the first category deploy untested and unreliable software very slowly, the second test/confirm the functionality and a stable software is produced/upgraded quite swiftly. This is slowly changing now and being groomed by 'managers' buying software and having the bridge between 3rd party software developed by cheap external consultants: you can imagine the chaos.
- From my experience, I wanted to design and implement a framework: stable and practical in ANSI-C. The purpose is to provide fast, reliable and documented functionalities that based on my experience were missing. MS-Windows has become a spy political platform, Linux remained chaotic and has its security controlled by the NSA, Mac is simply too expensive and Atari does not exist anymore (LOL). 
-So I searched and after a while I discovered FreeBSD: secure, apolitical, stable, documented, structured and supported by a community of experienced developers. I am using Xfce desktop manager (I like it because it is small compact and I do not need to waste time and energy trying to configure all the functionalities I will hardly use.) Thunderbird is doing a great job and the development environment is Code::Block (crashing from time to time, but easy to use and meets the needs) with gcc and gdb compiler in C language with the documentation in Open Office.

Do I know FreeBSD OS? no! I am simply using it and enjoying a stable/safe development environment.
Do I need help to set up things like SMB? Yes of course, I am a developer and am not interested in administrating/managing OS.

What am I developing? I started implementing the framework of what I labelled as the Shangri-La Network. The purpose is to offer a framework allowing safe, secure, anonymous communication/data exchange for personal data storage, document exchange, safe browsing, communication posting and broadcasting and real-time conversation. Motivation: I got fed up having the Industry lying, using and abusing your data for $$$, so I do something about it.


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## garaksarr (May 12, 2022)

Hello everyone,

I started using Linux around 2002 when a friend of mine gave me a copy of Mandrake Linux 8.2. Eventually, I moved on to Debian and it became my daily driver. A general interest in Unix history led to me install FreeBSD to see how it was, and man... I haven't looked back since. I like the consistency of FreeBSD; there is usually 'one' way to do things, and the documentation is very good. It may not be as user-friendly as certain Linux distros (e.g Ubuntu), but hey, it's a price I'm willing to pay to get a consistent system. Slackware would be the closest thing in the Linux world to FreeBSD in my opinion.


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## bolsen (May 12, 2022)

Hello,

My name is Brian and work as a software developer. I installed FreeBSD on a spare laptop a month ago to toy with it. I got it to a working KDE system, with almost enough of the basics that I already have. I know there is more to get through (tweaking kernel settings and through sysctl) but I was a little surprised that on a spare hard drive (not SSD!) FreeBSD + KDE is very snappy and responsive, with Firefox and a few other programs running.

My own history with FreeBSD goes back to 2005-2007 when I wanted to try FreeBSD for my desktop computer and ended up settling on it during college. I remember being quite productive in i3 on it (tiling WMs are not something I can get back to). The only frustrating issue I had was trying to play from more than one sound source. But, I had no problems with it. I wanted to be convinced, but never fully understood the reasoning around why a full UNIX OS with both kernel and userland built together was a good thing.

I was thinking recently of standardizing all my computers (work, personal) on one OS with a consistent configuration on all of them. The idea of switching all to Debian was an idea. After 10 years of Ubuntu, I wanted something simpler and without all the excessive changes in Ubuntu. I have also been diving back into things that I wish I gave myself more time to do when I was younger, like reading and tinkering in C, POSIX, etc. I want to answer my own question: what do newer softwares really do that can't be done with what was done in the past? Like, for example, systemd is a big thing and I did experience issues with it. Comparatively, what is it really solving for me as a small sysadmin and desktop user? I don't want to be biased (yet), but a first read-through in the Handbook about rc at least made me feel I can stick some model of it in my head. So, at least, so far so good!

For server use, this will probably be a no-brainer. I have one home server that I want to eventually move it over. For desktop, I like a consistent, free, Unix system whose developers don't randomly swap out core systems every few years. I get worried about this because I am preferring the stability of consistent OSs, consistent UIs and will only change if I have a reason to. So, coming back to FreeBSD is motivated by this. I hope to be convinced! (Again, so far so good  )


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## _al (May 16, 2022)

I started programming in 1982, I was 17. My first programming language was PL/1. My first machine was EC1022 (USSR's copy of IBM System/360).  In 1990-1995 I wrote in Turbo-Pascal 5.5 - 7.0, Turbo Professional 5.11, Object Professional 1.22, TechnoJock Object Toolkit 1.0.
I began write in C in 1995, in C++ - in 1999. And in Perl (my favorite language after PL/1) - in 2007.
Now, my work is creating tools for programmers who develop operating systems on microcontrollers.
For example, I write profilers for dynamic and static call stack, special C preprocessors...
Once I wrote WDM driver for virtual card and card reader simulator (on Windows XP).
But my ordinary work is writing C/C++ libraries (cryptographic (using openSSL), tcp/ip, "PCSC/APDU related") which are used to access to "smart cards with our OS inside" from the Upper Level Applications (industrial systems).
Also I am writing "industrial system mock-ups" - in order to demonstrate how upper level applications must use our libraries noted above.
My first meeting with FreeBSD and Linux (Slackware and Red Hat) was in 1999. Then (according to work needs) I have switched to Sun Solaris 2.6...10. I am back to Linux in 2011 (Debian was my choice), and back to FreeBSD - in 2022.
And I like both.


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## morgan1111 (May 16, 2022)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


Former Linux user. Decided to migrate because I have always had an interest in  free BSD and also wanted a more stable system seen as I was previously on a rolling release based distro


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## chessguy64 (May 31, 2022)

I started with Linux in 1997 when Slackware 3.4 first came out. (love all those security holes in the default install). That's the only time I got hacked, because people didn't use VPNs on IRC back then. I wish I knew about FreeBSD back in those times. I decided to try FreeBSD because I wanted to get away from Linux because nowadays all distros seem the same more or less, and I wanted a legit BSD system that I could directly apply some of the books I've been reading like TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 2, UNIX network programming Volume 1: Second Edition, and Advanced Programming in the UNIX environment. And also because I wanted a system I could fine tune and control completely without any bloatware.


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## hardworkingnewbie (Jun 4, 2022)

Dimitri Chuikov said:


> I, although I'm Russian, have a fondness for something traditional like Unix Philosophy.


Personally I don't see this as a contradiction, but instead in line with the tradition of industrial Russian design history. Most Russians I do know have a no nosense and minimalistic design approach - they just want to get the job done without having anything bling bling in the way which looks nice but serves no purpose. UNIX just does that.


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## astyle (Jun 5, 2022)

Dimitri Chuikov said:


> Slackware which is similar to BSD


IIRC, Slackware is minimalistic, and you have to do a LOT of setup yourself - but I'd think that Gentoo is closer to BSD - just on the basis of Portage (which was inspired by FreeBSD in the first place)


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## Alain De Vos (Jun 5, 2022)

Or void , also no systemd.


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## stratact (Jun 5, 2022)

This is one reason out of many that makes me appreciate how awesome FreeBSD is. Linux distros such as Slackware, Gentoo, Void, and Crux only took parts they liked most about FreeBSD (although Void is closer to NetBSD), but they never truly got down the whole "package" of FreeBSD in their own implementations. They all had "missing pieces to the puzzle" that would have made them more coherently a "BSD" in my opinion.


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## Thurisaz (Jun 17, 2022)

I'm Andrey from Russia, 34 y.o., currently practicing in Linux and FreeBSD. Even though I started studying their properties in 2018, I can already state that, as a server OS, FreeBSD is slightly more efficient than any Linux distro. Also FreeBSD is versatile and prone to customization, and if one wants to set up a gateway server easily, (s)he may prefer FreeBSD, for it has built-in ipnat. Enable it via rc.conf, map the nets, reboot and don't give a damn.


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## serjsk8 (Jul 15, 2022)

Hello,
My first contact was with FreeBSD 6.0 after reading a book written by Brian Taiman.
And to this day I use FreeBSD, but already version 13.
FreeBSD gave me an understanding of many things in the Unix world.


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## dnb (Jul 20, 2022)

Hello )

The main reason for my complete switch to FreeBSD is to use LLVM as base toolchain. Being aware of the modern development of great libraries such as MLIR and dialects, Clang frontend (including Clangd LSP and other tools), Flang frontend, LLDB, LLD, Polly, etc. I realized that LLVM compiler infrastructure is a fundamental choice for compiler development. Not all of the components listed are used in the FreeBSD compilation, but what a scope! These libraries are developed by the true geniuses of our time. Even without going into details, it is clear that Clang's static analysis, Clang AST and Clangd LSP server capabilities should make FreeBSD code better. In connection with these breakthroughs, it began to strain me that in Linux LLVM is not a default compiler infrastructure, but is installed as something of a minor nature. More than a strange injustice.

I've seen long-standing (10 years ago) presentations from the FreeBSD developers where the transition to LLVM was only discussed. And in 2021, I saw that they successfully brought everything to the end. What a great strategic planning!

When compiling LLVM on Linux at first, I didn't even fully understand what standard library I was using when linking, even explicitly using LLVM_ENABLE_LIBCXX. In addition, I had to explicitly set the use of lld through the CMake variables DLLVM_USE_LINKER=lld and LLVM_PARALLEL_LINK_JOBS. Naturally, on FreeBSD I have no confusion with toolchains. I still use GCC to compile native Emacs code (libgccjit).

Then everything fell into place for me. I saw sets of pairs, of which the first component satisfied me, and the second seemed only something similar, for example:

LLVM/Clang and GCC
ZFS and BTRFS
Bhyve and KVM
Ports and Portage
Poudriere and Gentoo binhosts
FreeBSD Handbook and Gentoo Handbook
Jails and LXC.
By that time I had a lot of Gentoo machines (workstations, binary hosts, computing nodes). Porting most of these systems from Gentoo to FreeBSD took from April 2021 to February 2022.
What I couldn't port was the GPU workstation.

What did I gain by moving to FreeBSD?

I build LLVM always with Clang and LLD without specifically specifying CMAKE_C_COMPILER/CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER/LLVM_USE_LINKER="lld". Also using Clang to build LLVM is important for using the LLVM_PROFDATA_FILE cmake variable.
I always use LLVM's libc++ without -DLLVM_ENABLE_LIBCXX=ON.
I'm comfortable debugging Clang with LLDB.
I have a development jail. Now I can update the system at any time without breaking the libraries I built manually.
If something goes wrong with a long build like PGO, I can always do a zfs rollback of that jail. No need to rebuild.
Poudriere has never broken a build process yet.
Bhyve vms installed in zvol are extremely fast.


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## Omega1 (Aug 12, 2022)

the reason why is simple I do it because I think it's fun


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## grumps (Aug 25, 2022)

Hi all. I am new to FreeBSD but not new to computers, I have been working with them since the days I walked around inside them changing reel to reel tapes and cleaned contacts with with emery paper.

I used Unix many years ago, and set up our company system with something called Enoch, which if memory serves me right later became Gentoo. I had to switch from that to Linux because our so called Linux guru knew nothing. If it wasn't Ubuntu it didn't exist.

Hence I have been a slave to the mainstream distros since for our company and kinda gotten used to it to the extent, like the guru I know nothing.
I recently got rid of my old computer (an old IBM dual core 2G ram 20G hdd), believe it or not, stolen from my workshop, either by a desperate person or the local museum.

The replacement is a UEFI boot only so I had to start looking at changing or updating my system from legacy boot. While in the process of rewriting my os I got a bee in my bonnet over this systemd issue, I can't see the point of using a program to control something I don't want to install and when I delete something I don't want it put back on the next boot.

I have  been through many different Linux's including arch, slack, debian, you know the route, only to discover that when all reference to systemd is removed there is a kernel panic, The only time I didn't see Xorg passing control to systemd is when I used FreeBSD (maybe I blinked and missed it).

Anyway here I am a retired and very tired old man with all the disabalities age brings, teetering on the edge of dementia and looking for some help on getting a couple of scripts transferred from deb to pkg. It took me a goodly few days to get my Anir mouse to operate correctly and convert my old python and bash scripts transferred but I am buggered if I can get this to work 
https://github.com/AllwineDesigns/stl_cmd 
and this one 
https://github.com/kyllikki/png23d 
any help would be greatly appreciated tia.

Brian.


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## Jose (Aug 25, 2022)

Hello and welcome! This is just a meet-and-greet thread. You'll probably have more luck with your questions here:








						Porting New Software
					

Having trouble or general questions about porting software to FreeBSD? Ask here.




					forums.freebsd.org


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## grumps (Aug 25, 2022)

Thanks for that, I was gonna look around for somewhere to ask for help. You have have saved me the effort.


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## freespirit8827 (Sep 11, 2022)

Hello My name is Porter but I commonly go by the nickname of chip. I prefer to be addressed by Chip here on the FreeBSD forums though.
I have been tinkering around with all of the veracious flavors of BSD for the last 22 or so years and I not only love the community is the Berkley license.


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## blackfoxx (Sep 18, 2022)

Hi.
My name is Bert.
I'm working as an health services officer in administration of a medium-sized health-care organization in the Ore Mountains / Germany.
My first contact with BSD-Systems was in 2018 during a further education to additionally become an "data protection officer" within my organization.
The teachers there provided some basic informations about BSD-systems, under aspects of system security, privacy and data integrity.
This made me curious and so I started my own journey with BSDs.
From the first moment I was enthusiastic with them, because I realized quickly that BSDs are the only REAL OPERATING SYSTEMS in this world.
I like their modular setup a lot - you get a very basic (but complete) OS from ONE hand and were able to create whatever you want/need/like on top of it.
And I just love this rock-solid base system, the separation of kernel, world, userland, (personal) settings and data,
as well as these countless opportunities of customization, those extreme detailed adjustments and everything else about it.
Currently I'm running 2 machines with FreeBSD.
A usual server (Raspberry Pi 4B), running apache with php and sqlite, providing calDAV, webDAV and some private file-sharing functionality for me, my family and some friends.
And the other system is a multi purpose Intel workstation for the common office-, mail-, internet- and multi-media stuff.
I'm very satisfied with this setups. Especially under aspects of security, privacy, stability and data integrity.
No more headaches, endless hours just to keep them up to date or solving stupid problems.
From 2002 to 2018 I did some "distro-hopping" in the linux world.
Started with debian, switched to mint (and some others in between) before I landed with devuan (because of systemd).
But they always made me feel like working with a kind of patchwork.
Kernel from here, world from there, userland from thousand different people, GUI or Desktop from another system, repos often far behind the time...
So I was very very very thankful and pleased to find FreeBSD!
Of course, my first experiences with computers startet with MS-shit, back in the early 90s.
My first PC was running that funny colorful "point-and-click adventure" called Win95.
And from then I still upgraded until Win10 on some another machines. But 10 will be my last Win version.
I just kept them running aside for gaming stuff (of course) and some music production.
But at least they never had any connection to the www to tell Gates something about me 
Unfortunately it seems nearly impossible to have a DAW (Digital Audio Workstion) on top of FreeBSD.
Because of no support from software producers like Ableton, Steinberg, ReasonStudios etc. for FreeBSD...
There's even no driver for my studio soundcard (ESI Maya 44 Ex) available for BSDs, not even for Linux, only for Win or Mac 
But hey, that's only a small niche for which I still have to use that MS-shit. Btw, things like "wine" are no option for me.
For everything else I'm very happy with FreeBSD 
Kind regards...


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## Voltaire (Sep 18, 2022)

blackfoxx said:


> Unfortunately it seems nearly impossible to have a DAW (Digital Audio Workstion) on top of FreeBSD.
> Because of no support from software producers like Ableton, Steinberg, ReasonStudios etc. for FreeBSD...
> There's even no driver for my studio soundcard (ESI Maya 44 Ex) available for BSDs, not even for Linux, only for Win or Mac
> But hey, that's only a small niche for which I still have to use that MS-shit. Btw, things like "wine" are no option for me.
> ...


I know you're saying Wine isn't an option for you, but I have to say that in my experience it was very easy to install Ableton Live 9 on FreeBSD via Wine. I'm not going to say that all external devices will be recognized on FreeBSD, but what I can say is that I've built an extensive sample library and they all worked fine in Ableton. I was able to make many songs through Ableton Live on FreeBSD. The sound quality of Ableton Live 9 was surprisingly good on FreeBSD via Wine, and by that I mean it was perfect for me, always. Ableton is seen by many as the best DAW. But since Ableton was so good and easy to get working through Wine, I suspect many other DAWs will work well or perfectly on FreeBSD.

You also have Ardour, LMMS and Audacity that work perfectly on FreeBSD and these are decent DAWs.

Furthermore, I also know that Reaper and Bitwig work natively on Linux, so getting these apps to work on FreeBSD probably shouldn't be too difficult, although I don't have any specific knowledge of them. This may be more difficult than what I think.

And a sound card is usually not necessary on FreeBSD, depending on your motherboard and what you want to do. You can configure FreeBSD in bit-perfect mode and disable vchans and you'll have better sound than what comes out of most sound cards. There is also a setting in FreeBSD to keep the latency of your sound apps below 5ms, or real-time sound.

Windows does require a sound card, but this is because it is a commercial product. Windows deliberately made their system's sound stack very bad by default and made sure that DirectSound was no longer direct, making the sound quality quite horrific since Vista.


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## blackfoxx (Sep 18, 2022)

Voltaire said:


> I know you're saying Wine isn't an option for you, but I have to say that in my experience it was very easy to install Ableton Live 9 on FreeBSD via Wine. I'm not going to say that all external devices will be recognized on FreeBSD, but what I can say is that I've built an extensive sample library and they all worked fine in Ableton. I was able to make many songs through Ableton Live on FreeBSD. The sound quality of Ableton Live 9 was surprisingly good on FreeBSD via Wine, and by that I mean it was perfect for me, always. Ableton is seen by many as the best DAW. But since Ableton was so good and easy to get working through Wine, I suspect many other DAWs will work well or perfectly on FreeBSD.
> 
> You also have Ardour, LMMS and Audacity that work perfectly on FreeBSD and these are decent DAWs.
> 
> ...


Thank you very much for your extensive reply!
I already had a lot of these thoughts too.
I'm using Ableton Live since version 9 and currently v11, as it is the best DAW out there (in my opinion too).
My personal reason for not using wine is because I don't wanna mix-up 2 different systems.
As long as I have different machines for different purposes, there's no need for me to do so.
Maybe one day I'm going to change my setup completely, considering your suggestions, but for the moment it's still okay for me.


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## Alain De Vos (Sep 18, 2022)

I have tried "midi-piano  -> freebsd -> usb-audio" but it was a waste of time.
With linux i could do "a bit" because it does not need jack-audio.
But for serious stuff you are really fastened to Windows and there exist alternative drivers to directsound.


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## Voltaire (Sep 19, 2022)

blackfoxx said:


> I'm using Ableton Live since version 9 and currently v11, as it is the best DAW out there (in my opinion too).
> Maybe one day I'm going to change my setup completely, considering your suggestions, but for the moment it's still okay for me.


I was using the latest version of Ableton 9 Live, the version with all the updates, and it was the 32-bit version. It was maybe the best experience with Wine I've had so far. All the basic features of the app itself worked well and it never crashed or anything like that.

I already mentioned I think you have Ardour, LMMS and Audacity which are also pretty good audio apps and they are easily installed.

But you have some other decent apps you can use on FreeBSD:
zrythm https://www.freshports.org/audio/zrythm/
rosegarden https://www.freshports.org/audio/rosegarden/
qtractor https://www.freshports.org/audio/qtractor/
muse-sequencer https://www.freshports.org/audio/muse-sequencer

I would say that producing music professionally using FreeBSD is much easier than what people might imagine


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## blackfoxx (Sep 20, 2022)

Voltaire said:


> I was using the latest version of Ableton 9 Live, the version with all the updates, and it was the 32-bit version. It was maybe the best experience with Wine I've had so far. All the basic features of the app itself worked well and it never crashed or anything like that.
> 
> I already mentioned I think you have Ardour, LMMS and Audacity which are also pretty good audio apps and they are easily installed.
> 
> ...


Thanks a lot for your response! I will keep it in mind and definitely take a look at your suggestions soon.


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## flying-floridian (Sep 22, 2022)

Hi,

My name is Porter but I go by Chip  which is a nickname that I went by as a kid because other kids and adults would mispronounce my first name.   With that out of the way , I have been using FreeBSD on and off for a good chunk of my Teenage and young adduct life. I like FreeBSD because of the fact that you can save old computers  that would otherwise be sent to landfill and breath new life into them.


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## Lady Serena Kitty (Oct 8, 2022)

Mew mew everykitty!

My FreeBSD Beginnings:
I started using FreeBSD as a teenage kitten, after I heard about it.  This was in 1998.  I had already used linux and found it somewhat difficult to admewnister (configuring startup services, setting up network, etc...) and when I tried FreeBSD it was super simple!  Fast forward to 2005 and I begin using FreeBSD for all the things.

In 2006 I set up super-routers that could also act as CUPS print servers, mewsic players, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Making a long story short:
I now daily-drive FreeBSD on my System76 Gazelle (gaze14) that I got in Mewvember 2019.  I use FreeBSD for all the things, including FreeBSD itself.  I like FreeBSD so much, I use FreeBSD while using FreeBSD.  NAME ONE OTHER SYSTEM WHERE THIS IS PAWSSIBLE!

About me:
I'm a kitty!  I wuv feline kitty beasts, they're so cute and warm and fuzzy and stuffs.  I use cat puns all the time, it's just how I talk.

Other places you might have seen me:
FreeBSD Discord (https://discord.com/invite/FreeBSD)
The Twitters (https://twitter.com/LadySerenaKitty)
I'm also on The Reddits, but not as active there.


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## Sejoslaw (Oct 11, 2022)

Recently joined FreeBSD family. I have some experience with Arch Linux but after couple of years wanted something new to tinker with. FreeBSD looks like something I want to stick with for some time. (Especially having Arch as VM for other work - thanks VirtualBox).


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 11, 2022)

Well bhyve could be a good alternative to Virtualbox.


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## Lady Serena Kitty (Oct 11, 2022)

Alain De Vos said:


> Well bhyve could be a good alternative to Virtualbox.


It's decent, but at present VirtualBox can do some stuffies that bhyve cannot.  bhyve is extremely good at what it does, and it's a low-pawprint hypurrvisor, but VirtualBox has some capabilities bhyve does not.  It's best to review your needs versus the capabilities of each, and make a decision from there.

Also, it is pawssible to use the same hard disk file for both, so you can shutdown and restart it to switch hypurrvisors.


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## alexseitsinger (Oct 20, 2022)

Lady Serena Kitty said:


> It's decent, but at present VirtualBox can do some stuffies that bhyve cannot.  bhyve is extremely good at what it does, and it's a low-pawprint hypurrvisor, but VirtualBox has some capabilities bhyve does not.  It's best to review your needs versus the capabilities of each, and make a decision from there.
> 
> Also, it is pawssible to use the same hard disk file for both, so you can shutdown and restart it to switch hypurrvisors.



Do you do this everywhere?


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## alexseitsinger (Oct 20, 2022)

Lady Serena Kitty said:


> Mew mew everykitty!
> 
> My FreeBSD Beginnings:
> I started using FreeBSD as a teenage kitten, after I heard about it.  This was in 1998.  I had already used linux and found it somewhat difficult to admewnister (configuring startup services, setting up network, etc...) and when I tried FreeBSD it was super simple!  Fast forward to 2005 and I begin using FreeBSD for all the things.
> ...



When did you first decide to do this?


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## alexseitsinger (Oct 20, 2022)

Yep. Rippin' around the world-wide hyper-sphere on my galactic digital surf board obviously meant I would eventually end up here...

On a more relevant note, I just realized that I must have a fondness for the color red, because I started on Redhat 9.

It's really none of your damn business to know what I do on my computers, though.


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## Lady Serena Kitty (Oct 21, 2022)

alexseitsinger said:


> Do you do this everywhere?


Do I do what everywhere?  Post?  Be a semi-social kitty?



alexseitsinger said:


> When did you first decide to do this?


Post things?  Use FreeBSD?  Do internet stuffies?


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## freebuser (Oct 21, 2022)

Lady Serena Kitty said:


> Mew mew everykitty!
> 
> My FreeBSD Beginnings:
> I started using FreeBSD as a teenage kitten, after I heard about it.  This was in 1998.  I had already used linux and found it somewhat difficult to admewnister (configuring startup services, setting up network, etc...) and when I tried FreeBSD it was super simple!  Fast forward to 2005 and I begin using FreeBSD for all the things.
> ...



Wonderful to read. Thanks for posting.
I noticed the discord group, is there a matrix group too?
Sorry for the off topic question.


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## Lady Serena Kitty (Oct 21, 2022)

freebuser said:


> Wonderful to read. Thanks for posting.
> I noticed the discord group, is there a matrix group too?
> Sorry for the off topic question.


I am not sure.  I can pester people to find out (and maybe get some catnip).


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## cynwulf (Oct 21, 2022)

Lets not bring the FreeBSD forums down to the level of lowest common denominator, "social media" style drivel if you please...


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## SirDice (Oct 21, 2022)

Yeah, I agree. You can self-identify as a purple headed alien if you want, don't care about that, more power to you. But we're mostly professionals here. So leave the "kitten talk" on sites like Icanhascheezburger, not here.


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## freezr (Oct 24, 2022)

Am I the only one that likes "kitten talk" ?


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## hardworkingnewbie (Oct 24, 2022)

freezr said:


> Am I the only one that likes "kitten talk" ?


Actually I don't mind that kitten talk either, as long as the posts are on topic it just adds some color to the forum. Like dialects are adding color to every language...


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## Crivens (Oct 24, 2022)

hardworkingnewbie said:


> Actually I don't mind that kitten talk either, as long as the posts are on topic it just adds some color to the forum. Like dialects are adding color to every language...


Kitten talk is not a problem per se. I like it in "certain places", which we need not discuss here. On the one side, it adds to the color. On the other side, it takes from the professionalism here. Where do we draw the line?


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 24, 2022)

Personally i find it "childish". But i don't mind.


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## SirDice (Oct 24, 2022)

We don't allow "text-speak", or other languages besides English. This "kitten talk" falls in the same category as "text-speak".

Keep in mind that we have plenty of users on the forums that use translator software. Or other text-to-speech tools.


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## freezr (Oct 24, 2022)

SirDice said:


> We don't allow "text-speak", or other languages besides English. This "kitten talk" falls in the same category as "text-speak".
> 
> Keep in mind that we have plenty of users on the forums that use translator software. Or other text-to-speech tools.



That makes sense! 

By the way having a kitty-talk doesn't mean the person behind is unprofessional or doesn't know the subject!

However sticking on the rules is better for all, although a shrewd use wouldn't create any issue in my humble opinion.

Thanks for the heads-up!


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## astyle (Oct 24, 2022)

Well, we do have unfortunate and nonsensical names that made it into ports, like lang/hs-brainfuck or security/trousers... not to mention prominent figures like Torvalds and RMS getting into trouble due to lack of professionalism... It does take effort to police yourself, after all.


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## unbalancedskunk (Oct 27, 2022)

Hi my name is Uğurcan. I tried too much Linux distrobution and decided to try FreeBSD. I am happy for now.


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## jb1277976 (Oct 30, 2022)

Hi, 
I'm a serial distro hopper. I've always wanted to be on FreeBSD but never really had time or the right specs. Tried it a couple days ago and I'm here to stay. Looking at the handbook and stuff from people on irc and I love it. Hopefully I stick with it.


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## Alain De Vos (Oct 30, 2022)

For me FreeBSD has a Gentoo feeling.


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## Profighost (Oct 30, 2022)

I love FreeBSD for it just feels NOT like Linux, 
but it feels like unix.


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## jgreyz (Nov 12, 2022)

I ran FreeBSD 20 or so years ago and curiously getting back into it slowly.


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## yaslam (Nov 23, 2022)

I was previously a Linux distro hopper. I started getting bored of Linux because I distro-hopped so much over a few years and I started looking into BSD's and in general UNIX's history, I've always wondered what BSD was and although I have used pfSense (a router OS which is a derivative of FreeBSD), I never really knew what was happening under the hood, since at that time I was a Linux user and pfSense's conventions were new to me, and I thought it was like Linux but it is not.

I then saw a post on unixsheikh's website which has a short summary of how BSD is different to Linux and talks about FreeBSD in general, and I started looking at what FreeBSD was and I saw that it was easy to install (which it was, and I love that about it), and I installed it a few days ago. For the past few days I have been setting up FreeBSD and getting used to its conventions / reading man pages / forum posts and pages of the handbook, and so far, it's great! FYI I used unixsheikh's setup guide to get started.

My current setup is XFCE with some other tweaks to make XFCE look better.

I don't think I will hop to any other OS anymore, time will tell, and I will still need to use Linux on another computer for some things like playing games or maybe still checking out new distros etc.., but FreeBSD is amazing and I've learned more about UNIX's history while using it, and I will stay on it for a while I think.


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## Argentum (Nov 23, 2022)

yaslam said:


> I then saw a post on unixsheikh's website which has a short summary of how BSD is different to Linux and talks about FreeBSD in general, and I started looking at what FreeBSD was and I saw that it was easy to install (which it was, and I love that about it), and I installed it a few days ago. For the past few days I have been setting up FreeBSD and getting used to its conventions / reading man pages / forum posts and pages of the handbook, and so far, it's great! FYI I used unixsheikh's setup guide to get started.


This article mentions 'rock solid' and here is my example:


```
$ uptime
 8:17PM  up 658 days,  4:26, 7 users, load averages: 0.92, 1.15, 1.22
```

This is a machine in open high bandwidth network running VM-s. Hardware is dying already but FreeBSD is rock solid...


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## K0shVorlon (Nov 28, 2022)

I'm a long time Linux user and I fooled around with FreeBSD 4.8 (just before it split and DragonFly BSD came to be) and I found it to be more powerful than Linux, but didn't quite understand the port system.  Now that I do, I put it back on my computer and now tri-boot with RedCore (a Gentoo binary distro) and Slackware,,  I may yet remove the Slackware and try another BSD (NET or OPEN) j ust for kicks.  FreeBSD is easier to set up than Gentoo by a long shot and aside from a few gaffs, has worked flawlessly. It found my wifi adapter (which linux couldn't do without having the drivers installed and updated first! ) It found my adapters and pretty much wrote the required settings for X-Windows. I can still run my linux favorite shell , Zsh and set themes for it.
So far this is looking great!


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## BobSlacker (Nov 28, 2022)

I'm a autodidact(28yo)  with a degree in Cyber-Security who "lost" almost a decade working on customer care/relations and don't like talking to people.

I just got my first IT related job.

Adjectives that resembles some trait in my persona: accelerationist, egoist (Stirner's egoism), hedonism, transhumanist, agorist, voluntarist (laissez faire, laissez aller, laissez passer), introvert and many others.

I used Linux for a bit more than a decade, mostly Slackware and Gentoo. After a while I got tired of Linux userland mess and decide to try out some BSD's. First I tried OBSD and I really liked the holistic approach of the OS.

After almost one year using OBSD as my only OS I moved to another continent looking for a better life then my native (third world) country. While I was looking for a job here I needed some tools that OBSD don't support, so I needed to move from it, but I didn't want to come back to linux.  I decided to try out FBSD, and it was love at first install.

Now I'm on the second month mark using FBSD and almost finishing my first month on my dream job. ;-)

Edit.: From now on, this will be my "About" session on my profile page.


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## Waldin (Dec 8, 2022)

Hi everyone. 

I have been an "advanced" computer user for years now. I don't even remember... I think from 1996 onwards...

I started with MS-DOS 6.22, and then through various Windows from 3.11 to the current Windows 11. Several years I was playing with Linux (SuSE 6 I think, but it was so automated, that when something went wrong, I didn't know what to touch). I later went through Ubuntu, but was disappointed. It always seemed heavy to me and with each update the system ended up breaking. I switched to Debian and it is the Linux distribution that I have the most fondness and fond memories of. 

My arrival on FreeBSD (I think version 10) was out of curiosity about the system. I don't use it to learn all the power it can offer, if not as a basic user (browsing the Internet, and listening to music). I have installed it on a very modest computer: 2 GB of RAM and an Intel Celeron 1007U processor with 2 cores and it works wonderfully with Mate Desktop. What I like most about FreeBSD is that it is a complete system, its kernel and utilities go together, and the clarity of the manual. And its stability with updates. My system hasn't broken unless I've put my paw into something I shouldn't.


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## Thirblig (Dec 22, 2022)

Long-time distro hopper since Slackware v1.?? (from a Walnut Creek CDROM) but could never commit to any particular Linux distro. Tried various BSD's, including several versions of FreeBSD, over the years on a number of different machines without a successful install so I just bounced back & forth between MS Windows and Linux distributions. My needs are fairly simple and PC's were for personal use and entertainment only (email, browsing the web) so I had the luxury of switching OS's at random. Then FreeBSD 13.0 was released.

When v. 13.0 was released I gave FreeBSD another try and it not only worked, but worked very well, from the base system to desktop. I've managed to break it a few times as a result of tweaking config files etc but a quick reinstallation has me up & running again in no time. Documentation (Handbook and Forums) and stabilty are outstanding with not a single crash or lockup during normal use. Upgrades have been flawless. It's been well over 1 year now and FreeBSD has been my daily driver since 13.0. Very happy with it.


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## cracauer@ (Dec 22, 2022)

I was originally on NetBSD after switching from Unix pizzaboxes to PCs. But NetBSD's VM system was very slow when contiguously reading files larger than RAM, and FreeBSD was fast, so I switched.

Running Linux, too (Debian), but I just like the more organized FreeBSD better. Didn't change for many years.


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## paulfrottawa (Dec 24, 2022)

Hi I'm paul and I chose to stay with FreeBSD because it works and windows isn't free. I lost a few computer back in the day with linux mainly hard drives. I started using FreeBSD at 4-release. 

I got it working before this forum was available.


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## roombaclock (Sunday at 3:04 PM)

ikbendeman said:


> Who's new to FreeBSD? Did you migrate from another OS and what was your reason?


I migrated from arch Linux to FreeBSD because I wanted to try using a bsd


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## alexseitsinger (Monday at 7:20 AM)

my mom got me into FreeBSD when I was approximately 2.6146 years. She started using it because she thought it was something related to communism and she said she loved that hippy shit. Now shes too old and im basically the computer guy in the house since shes too damn old to type or see the screen now.


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## alexseitsinger (Monday at 9:55 PM)

Thirblig said:


> Documentation (Handbook and Forums) and stabilty are outstanding with not a single crash or lockup during normal use.



They do an impressive job. Do you find it/them better* than an ArchWiki?


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## Alain De Vos (Monday at 10:04 PM)

There is also this one, explaining everything,





						Amazon.com: Absolute FreeBSD, 3rd Edition: The Complete Guide to FreeBSD: 9781593278922: Lucas, Michael W.: Books
					

Amazon.com: Absolute FreeBSD, 3rd Edition: The Complete Guide to FreeBSD: 9781593278922: Lucas, Michael W.: Books



					www.amazon.com


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## alexseitsinger (Monday at 10:15 PM)

Alain De Vos said:


> There is also this one, explaining everything,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's not exactly as comprehensive as a book on system administration, but it's still very useful.


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## astyle (Yesterday at 3:49 PM)

Alain De Vos said:


> There is also this one, explaining everything,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Published Oct. 5, 2018, so it at best covers 10.4-RELEASE (October 3, 2017) or 11.1-RELEASE (July 26, 2017)... both of which are EOL: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/.  FreeBSD does try to stay consistent with base concepts, and up-to-date with online documentation, though.


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## Voltaire (Yesterday at 5:40 PM)

alexseitsinger said:


> It's not exactly as comprehensive as a book on system administration, but it's still very useful.


I would recommend the handbook. You can download it here in a printable version: https://download.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/handbook/handbook_en.pdf

The information is up-to-date and it contains everything you will need as a system admin.


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