# New to FreeBSD (and BSD in gerneral)



## novafluxx (Aug 4, 2010)

Hello everyone!

I'm a recent convert to FreeBSD. Its good to have found an OS that I can appreciate not only the software, but also the license.

I got exposed to *NIX many years ago when I was a teenager, playing with Red Hat, Debian, even had my mother buy me a copy of Mandrake (yes, bought a copy at a local shop)!

I grew out of that phase after a year or so an put down my Linux gloves for many years, forgetting much of what I had learned.

A couple years ago I began working at a company that does phone based tech support, and met a lot of new people who were into Linux, and a couple who were into BSD. A friend at work burned me an Ubuntu 8.10 disc and I hit the ground running!

From Ubuntu I moved on to try other Linux distro's. I performed the magical dance known as distro-hopping. This went on for many months until I got tired of always trying the latest release of Fedora/openSUSE, and moved to Arch Linux - This is where I read about it using a "BSD style init system." It seemed to me to be very simple, and it sparked my interest in BSD. I eventually got tired of Linux in general because there never seemed to be any cohesion or standards. Subtle differences in each distro, combined with seemingly ever-changing dependencies turned me off.

So last month, my friend who burned me that Ubuntu disc back in late 2008, told me to give FreeBSD a shot. He explained a lot about the OS to me and I checked the site and read some of the articles about BSD and its history. To me it seems to be a much better implementation. This is my opinion (and I'm sure if you're reading this, you share it!).

I learned a lot of the system(s) in Linux, at least I learned what they did and were responsible for ... which brings me to my question to all of you:

I know that udev handles populating the /dev directory and hardware detection in most modern Linux distro's and I know that HAL has been deprecated in favor of udev taking over its duties in the base system. I know that the latest version of X.org doesn't require HAL.

In FreeBSD, what is it that performs hardware detection and populates /dev? I also understand that in the latest release, 8.1, X.org 1.8 isn't the shipping version, so it still requires HAL.

Is this correct? Also, is there any material someone like me can read to sorta see a side-by-side of modern Linux distro's and FreeBSD to see what does what where, not only to highlight the similarities but to also show me whats different?

If you took the time to read all that, thank you very much! I appreciate any and all feedback this community can give me. I look forward to spending time here on these forums and to assisting future newbies to FreeBSD whenever I have the opportunity.

For those that said its TLDR:

1. In FreeBSD, what is it that performs hardware detection and populates /dev?
2. What F/OSS projects that are used widely in Linux distributions are also used in FreeBSD?
3. Is there any material someone like me (with a fair amount of Linux experience) can read to sorta see a side-by-side of modern Linux distro's and FreeBSD to see what does what where, not only to highlight the similarities but to also show me whats different?


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## DutchDaemon (Aug 4, 2010)

Welcome to FreeBSD and the forums. Due to the wide array of topics in your post I had to move it to Off-Topic. Next time, break up your posts in separate topics and post them in the applicable forums (you can still do that, of course). Better for response overall


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## SirDice (Aug 4, 2010)

novafluxx said:
			
		

> I know that udev handles populating the /dev directory and hardware detection in most modern Linux distro's and I know that HAL has been deprecated in favor of udev taking over its duties in the base system. I know that the latest version of X.org doesn't require HAL.
> 
> In FreeBSD, what is it that performs hardware detection and populates /dev?


devfs(5)



> I also understand that in the latest release, 8.1, X.org 1.8 isn't the shipping version, so it still requires HAL.


Not correct. Xorg supports HAL but can also be run without it. I don't see the point though, Gnome, KDE and XFCE still require HAL.




> 1. In FreeBSD, what is it that performs hardware detection and populates /dev?


devfs(5)


> 2. What F/OSS projects that are used widely in Linux distributions are also used in FreeBSD?


Gnome, KDE, XFCE, you name it.



> 3. Is there any material someone like me (with a fair amount of Linux experience) can read to sorta see a side-by-side of modern Linux distro's and FreeBSD to see what does what where, not only to highlight the similarities but to also show me whats different?


Tricky. Not really an in-depth page but it could come in handy:
http://bhami.com/rosetta.html


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## Beastie (Aug 4, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> I don't see the point though, Gnome, KDE and XFCE still require HAL.


Many people (especially on FreeBSD) don't use any of these, you know? 

----



			
				novafluxx said:
			
		

> What F/OSS projects that are used widely in Linux distributions are also used in FreeBSD?


Many, e.g. virtually all DEs and WMs, OOo, the GIMP, Firefox, mplayer, etc.
You can search the port repository for your favorite applications.


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## aragon (Aug 4, 2010)

novafluxx said:
			
		

> I also understand that in the latest release, 8.1, X.org 1.8 isn't the shipping version, so it still requires HAL.  Is this correct?


No.  When you compile x11-servers/xorg-server you can disable HAL dependency via a port option.




			
				novafluxx said:
			
		

> 3. Is there any material someone like me (with a fair amount of Linux experience) can read to sorta see a side-by-side of modern Linux distro's and FreeBSD to see what does what where, not only to highlight the similarities but to also show me whats different?


The Handbook isn't exactly what you want, but it is a good place to start.  Other than that just use man pages.  I find FreeBSD man pages refreshingly helpful compared to their linux counterparts.


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## novafluxx (Aug 6, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Tricky. Not really an in-depth page but it could come in handy:
> http://bhami.com/rosetta.html


Thank you!


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## lme@ (Aug 6, 2010)

SirDice said:
			
		

> Tricky. Not really an in-depth page but it could come in handy:
> http://bhami.com/rosetta.html




BTW: I just sent an update for the FreeBSD section of rosetta stone. It should be added during the next weeks.


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## d_mon (Aug 17, 2010)

Beastie said:
			
		

> Many people (especially on FreeBSD) don't use any of these, you know?



didn't no!probably use flux ( don't like) fmwm,tiling,open,e17...



> Ubuntu



hey dude[nova]...forget about buntu's world!


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