Always like to listen to your comments / video. You made me discovered FreeBSD few months back and I must admit it was a revelation. I’m still using linux but less and less and using freeBSD more and more. No breakage very easy to update / maintain and the main selling point for me is the stability and the security. Good job
I started with GhostBSD 2 years ago. I wanted to learn FreeBSD after that, and I did! I've installed it on a bunch of different hardware, and I love the control I have over the installation. It's beautiful!
So if I understand, freebsd is for the hobbyist and not the average person. My wife can barely connect the computer to a docking station but I can dump Linux mint on her 7 year old laptop and it works out of the box. Same for my son's gaming pc. She's a teacher and is too busy marking papers to read manuals and learn a new skill. I work long days with a 50 miles round trip. Why would I want to spend time learning command line instead of bonding with my family. The way you describe bsd makes it seem like a solution for elite hobbyists and not for the normal people who just want to boot up and watch Netflix and, you know, live life
I've downloaded the pdf version of Freebsd handbook 2 days ago, and I've started to read it. Tried Freebsd few times in VB but didn't liked it how it's run in virtual system. Now I'm preparing the hardware for it to install the system on "metal".
Hello, I had the chance to learn Unix with AIX 1.3, then HP_UX, sco, etc. so the command line is my natural way to talk with a computer. I was a huge huge fan of Apple system (system 7). When MacOS X arrived I was thinking this is the weeding of the best of the two worlds, the point and clic and the cli. I wrote books about MacOS X Server Administration (in French). But one day I ask to my self " Hey man, where is your command line? Where is your power?". So I sell or gave all my Apple devices, brought a lenovo laptop and immediately install FreeBSD (10 at this time). And when I saw the login prompt I was thinking "Well is good to be back at home. What could I learn today?" Great video, thanks for it (and all the previous).
This is just a bunch of feel good statements and opinions Not everyone has a good experience and mileage can vary depending on hardware Its good to cover both pros and cons Plus you can learn from any Unix based system if you just avoid the wizards and setup scripts or you can make your own I don’t understand why people think somehow Linux is “inferior” simply because it has a larger community with more flexibility That’s like saying a theater is bad for showing a movie you don’t like even though it has the one you do like 🤦♀️
No one said Linux is inferior, it leads in places, it lacks in places as do all the Operating Systems. You use what 'feels' best for you, and feelings & opinions are after subjective, so your experience may vary as you say.
I've been using FreeBSD for many years with succes and happiness. I am no expert on this at all, but with the help (docs and users) on internet it's very usable for me. FreeBSD runs on my offsite virtual server, which i use for backup purposes. I make copies from my local NAS to the BSD server.
I just came across this video. I tried playing around with FreeBSD in a VM in the past, but I didn't really do much with it. You've convinced me to play around with it more, lol. I'll give it a go again. Maybe even try to install it on an actual computer. Won't be my main system, though. I didn't come to Linux for any other reason than to leave Windows, but I'd been trying to decide on a hobby. Then I realized that I have a hobby. I like doing things with and to computers. So I guess I have a good reason to play around, at least, with FreeBSD.
The perfect choice in terms of operating systems is what fits the infrastructure best at a specific time. And while commercial distribution have a great backing when it comes to support, it often doesn’t leave a lot of room for customization and right-sizing, especially if customers are looking for a more a batteries included, build-your-own-platform type OS.
Great video, I was considering FreeBSD for a production server which would need to run Postgres, docker and also support an Nvidia GPU and also Cuda and Cdunn for machine learning inferencing tasks - i am fed up distro hopping and have been bouncing between Redhat EL 9.4, Debian and Ubnutu... I like the idea of FreeBSD and am/was strongly considering it but it seems that ML is not really well supported on FreeBSD - am i wrong on this? as this will be a show stopper if so... i need to be able to locally install the latest version of Postgres and run docker images and python ML code on the platform - give this what are your thoughts?
It's nice to hear someone passionate about the OS they are using. I have a different question about the continuation of BSD. Young people usually don't learn BSD in schools. Most don't even get Linux in schools anymore, either. This is a problem as this causes both communities to be filled, on average, by an older group of people with little new blood coming into them. If the youth does not know these operating systems exist or don't have a reason/opportunity to learn these operating systems; isn't that where both of these operating systems will die out? And a follow-up question would be: How would one even pitch learning something like BSD to a younger audience?
i can happily say that at my school we used FreeBSD and some other bsd derivatives for a few assignments. although most people in my class get scared when there is no gui.
20 year old here who uses both BSD and Linux (and many other niche OS like haiku, 9front etc). For the first question, I can't really give an answer, but i share that fear. For the second question however, I think that would be very, very complicated. We would need to rework the entire curriculum of many colleges and other types of schools that may teach programming and CS. The vast majority of my generation doesn't care much about low-level stuff at all, the only spheres of programming that matter to them is Machine Learning and Web. And even in those spheres, they never really go too deep. They won't write their own HTTP server in C or Rust or Go, nor will they write a webapp in "vanilla JS" instead of using whatever huge framework is hot at the moment. They will never ever get close to the OS, so why would they learn or even use such a niche OS? Only if their job as a full-stack web dev forced them to build a backend targeting FreeBSD, which would be very unlikely. The 10% (or maybe even less) of the devs who are truly passionate about the field and how computers work will still gravitate towards FreeBSD and similar projects no matter what, though. I'm one of them and I know there are more. I just hope we'll be enough to keep these projects going in the future.
Linux is increasingly being captured by big corporations. And their thinking filters through every distro. Didn't happen to Slackware, which is why I have been on it for more than 20 years. And it's more like BSD than Linux, which is unsurprising given its roots. Can tinker to my heart's content, and I have as much control over the system as I can have. I have a feeling that I'll switch to BSD eventually. :)
I dont thinks anyone can argue that any bsd/unix supports as much hardware as linux does. I use freebsd next to gnu/linux and I do like it but I couldnt even install freebsd 13 on my thinkpad because the support for certain hardwares where deleted and I ended up installing freebsd 12 which is fine tbh but still, there can be no doubt that linux supports way more hardware.
It supports more of the latest hardware, that's true.... FreeBSD can be a bit slow off the mark.....heck, we're still waiting for reliable 802.11ac wifi drivers (they are on the way)
I've known of some very old things being removed like 10Mbit network drivers. What model of ThinkPad and which drivers were you missing? Maybe a chance things broke instead of were removed?
Linux is a time machine compared to freeBSD. Also, gaming, is becoming even more stable and compatible than before thanks to the Proton modules and that is an attractive point.
Linux: More forks than my Nan's utensil drawer... I've used FreeBSD since the late 90's and I like the fact that FreeBSD is FreeBSD is FreeBSD - you know what you're getting and changes feel iterative and focused, rather than radical and surprising. All the components feel like smaller parts of a larger whole, rather than a collection of disparate tools thrown together. I've probably used around 100 different operating systems since the year 2000 and I'm still using FreeBSD and AmigaOS to this day.
FreeBSD was made for servers and networking stuff in mind, not for desktop users. As a full stack dev i mainly use mint and os x (pure Unix with polished UI and programs and its excellent hardware)
I think that FreeBSD has to change if it wants to survive.....it needs to appeal to a broader section of the IT world - something which Linux has done very well indeed....
My first attempt to use OpenBSD was a startling one. I saw the origins of Linux and BSD and thought I may be able to buffer some of the learning curve by looking for familiar aspects. That was an honest mistake, but I learned a lot for when I take a second crack at it. For now, I'm using GhostBSD in a VM to study BSD in general. I also learned the beauty of doas compared to sudo, so I replaced sudo with doas in the GhostBSD VM.
I used FreeBSD to rebuild the way somebody would interact with a Plexus P/20 in the past. And I love it. Usually I am a Linux guy (Kubuntu), but I love the classical way, almost old Unix way to work with this system. I cant switch to FreeBSD, because I love to game and gaming in Linux rocks. Not so in FreeBSD.
Another awesome video Robonuggie. Your videos have taught me so much! Now, I have to get back to creating my ultimate desktop with the trusty W520, FreeBSD, and Fluxbox WM
So, my only time setting up a bsd (I think it was freebsd, but it might have been openbsd; it was a few years back) I managed to screw it up and had no idea how to fix it. My own fault for not double checking how usermod -g works - I accidentally removed myself from the wheel group when adding myself to the video group, which wouldn't have been as big a deal if I hadn't already deactivated the root account. Even though I had set up arch manually in the past, there were fewer groups that a user needed to be added to in order to do things like launching a window manager. As a result, I've never really used one regularly (unless you count MacOS, which may be a little contentious). As such, I do have a few questions: firstly, how easy is it to get steam games running via proton? I find most of my windows games on steam work perfectly fine on arch via proton, while it has absolutely no support on MacOS due to not having any support for Metal. I guess I could run a windows vm, but I'd really rather not. Secondly, I seem to recall it being possible to get a mouse pointer in the console, so I was wondering: how feasible is it to run GUI software directly from the console? In Linux, I can type in 'startx /usr/bin/firefox' and launch an X session with just a single firefox window inside it, but that's kinda clunky. I'm guessing the answer here is not very, because it doesn't seem like a particularly common thing for users to want, but I reckoned I might as well ask.
Sorry for the late reply... I don't think Proton would work, it may, but I think it would be a bit slow if it did... That console trick is new to me, I've never thought about it... :-) I haven't tried, but, I think it would work...
CONS - I have installed system with some apps - nothing special. After "pkg upgrade" system collapse 2 month after install. I don't know what to do after reconnecting the HDD to another SATA port. FBSD can't handle it by itself, switch headphone/speakers in CLI Anachronic solution.
Do you know what apps were observed as broken after upgrade? During an install or upgrade it tells you what package changes will take place; watching for removals is important to make sure you didn't need to keep conflicting software that is being removed. Updates can do the same if package rebuilds failed on the newer version of the ports tree they were generated from. If you switched drive ordering, you may need to tell the BIOS which drive to boot. Moving a drive between SATA ports may cause issues if it refers to mounts using entries like /dev/ada0 and likely would be fixed with editing /etc/fstab. If you installed it with ZFS as the filesystem then it shouldn't care if I recall. You can also use GPT disk labels if on GPT formatted drive though FreeBSD has a separate disk labeling capability that can be used too. Once such labels are used they will follow the disk through such movements. If you mirror or stripe disks, you want to make sure you install the bootloader to each disk though if you question its upgrade you can try putting it on one and booting it (BIOS boot disk selection) before all disks get a copy. I cannot be of help with speakers+headphones as my computer has a couple always-on speaker jacks and my speakers have a headphone jack that disables speakers putting all control outside the computer.
Linux really does concern me with regards to the approaches taken to recent ambitious projects,Wayland and SystemD especially.Wayland and SystemD are both fine products imo but it seems the people really invested in those 2 have a certain false sense of linear progress and sound like they want to kill off all alternatives.And wayland right now has noticeable CPU overhead on what i use,if everything becomes unusable under X11 i'll take a look at Haiku especially but also BSD
I love FreeBSD. The only thing stopping me from using it is the fact that I can't seem to get the sound subsystem working right on my Ryzen 9 3900X box as well as there not really being a Discord client for it. I don't game on PC but I use Discord to watch party stuff with friends and only Windows and macOS have proper Discord clients. Once those things are ironed out I'll gladly switch over. Great video! Huge fan of the channel.
There are a few Discord clients available - gtkcord4, discordo & 6cord.... I have only looked at 5cord but it worked well.... but as you say there isn't anything official... Thanks for the kind words!
i ve just bought a new laptop to replace my old dell (with freebsd). i ve bought it without any os preinstalled and next weekend is freebsd-install weekend :)
I agree if you have the laptop, I'd do the install sooner rather than later since not testing new hardware in general is a bad plan. The longer you wait, the more likely that warranty and return policies run down unnecessarily.
thanks!! 🙂 Despite of using ZFS for storage there is a possibility to run MooseFS or Ceph on FreeBSD - huge distributed filesystems! Sorry, I don't have the hardware for that - even at the institute where I work. But I know it works well! And I tested it a bit years ago. But mainly why I like FreeBSD and other *BSDs? There is not a competition war in distributions like in Linux, where every week new distributions appear in competition to others and claimed to be the best. Add new green buttons and that is a reason for a better distro??? And a third thing: FreeBSD is stable! And one more: it is my personal thing :-) Cheers, Norbert
@@robinirie98 and it makes a lot of headache if you want to say that you have a "unique" system... As a result: there is no Linux - only the engine is similar...
I would want to install bash, and if I'm doing that, why not just use Linux? If I either have to learn a new sed, awk, sh, etc. or install the GNU versions, it's hard for me to justify it.
You compare Freebie with an idea of Linux, not with Linux. Linux is not a clickbox ; some distros are clickboxes, keeping you away from learning anything about the underlying mechanics... and that's fine. And there are other distros which let you take control and learn anything you want. Linux is not an idea of an "alternative to windows", Linux is just multiplicity, diversity. And, for instance, if you don't like systemd, you can chose another init system, there are plenty of them ; nobody chooses for you, unless you don't care and just want a clickbox. YOU choose : click all the way around, or mastering, and why not both. You choose. Corporations contribute because they use Linux for their needs. That's the counterpart, that's what they get in return. It's still open source, under the agrement of the BDFL Linus. So there's no backdoors or secret telemetry put by this corporation or this one. So no evil corporation is taking over Linux. But yes, Linux communities are sometimes toxic. Not because of Linux... because of human nature. However Linux communities are not just toxic, because human nature is not just toxic ; it's also diversity, hence there are toxic ones and helpful and welcoming others.
The problem with BSD is that it doesn't want to be a good desktop OS. A good desktop OS has some key characteristics, most of which FreeBSD fails intentionally: Setup is a single install wizard. Maybe installing some applications later. You never have to use the command line. It's there if you want it, but not essential. It works on all commodity hardware and most peripherals, even relatively obscure stuff should have a chance of working. BSD still doesn't have good 802.11ac support we're 2 generations on from that now. You don't have to administer it. Once set up it should take care of itself. The majority of Linux OSes fail this as well. If something goes wrong it is easy to find help with a Google search. FreeBSD is not quite as good as the most common Linux distros, but better than the lower profile Linuxes. It shouldn't break if you don't run an update exactly right. And user land operation should change very slowly. FreeBSD is probably second only to Mac in this regard. In short, it should be easy. Frankly the only OSes I think are any good on Desktop are Mac, Windows, and Mint. Maybe throw in Fedora and Kubuntu. Part of being tech nerds is that we don't always want a generically good desktop OS. Sometimes we care about certain aspects normal people don't care about and we don't always care about it being easy. I'm a tech nerd, but I do want my main system to be easy. Which is why I mostly use Mac, but also use Windows and Fedora frequently.
That is my problem with it. It's great as an enterprise OS. Using it as a desktop OS is another story. Manjaro or Ubuntu feels more complete for casual home use. FreeBSD reminds me of linux in the late 90s early 00s.
Not sure if I should ask for your Reddit post to be pinned or just link it every time 'that' question shows up again. Do you often go outside your comfort zone and learn something new/unique on FreeBSD intentionally? Its just my basic desktop I do unexciting things with anymore but I have a few plans to expand that including working on programming on it and its going to become cloud storage for my phone. Thanks for the video.
How does FreeBSD compare to SCO System 5 or Sun Solaris? Does FreeBSD come in a server and workstation version, or is it all one operating system, where modules are added?
Sorry for the late reply (you have probably forgotten you asked this...lol): I don't know how it compares but I can tell you FreeBSD comes as a barebones, complete OS. Picture it as Debian without all of the userland etc...
@@RoboNuggie I remembered asking when I read your reply. I have not used Debian before, but I'm not clear what "barebones" and "complete" actually mean. Examples, Does FreeBSD come with a shell? Does it come with a GUI? Does it come with a file manager? Does it come with a bare-metal backup program? Is there a list of compatible software available?
I began my adventure with Linux using Red Hat 6, although I have dabbled in FreeBSD, I never stuck with it. Now at age 70, I am content just using Debian - it works for me.
Good video. I really enjoy the content of this channel. I'm a primary Linux user but am interested in unix like Operating systems in general, so learning about FreeBSD is kind of an important point in the history of Unix Likes. But i want to point out that many issues listed here in regards to Linux are not issues from the system itself, and more issues that came from growing. When an open source project is big enough, companies will get involved as they set up their server base with it. When an open source project attracts more private user, you will have people in the community that want to have a simplified GUI and also developers that start projects for this target group (Though i do not like GUIs. I use Terminals for my stuff and only GUIs when i have to look for a picture or video) etc. About the communities, i didn't interacted with the BSD community much yet. But in the Linux community, there are specific people that can get really annoying when they brag about setting up an Arch system on their PC (Though it is not that hard as they want other to believe. It is actually quite easy) But i also talked with nice smaller communities that were helpful with issues, specifically when it came to bootloader issues and stuff where it goes way deeper then the surface level system. It really depends on who someone interacts with. By the way, that is also an issue of a bigger community. You will have more elitists that build their personality around the system they use when your community has a specific size. The same of course can also happen with a a smaller community that has people in it that wants to be seen as special. I think there is also the chance that they turn out to be more open because the small community likes to see new people using the system. In itself i agree with the video that someone should know their system to a point that they can fix it by themselves. Being able to fix or being able to seek information to fix something is a really valuable skill. And i think Windows actively hinders users to do that properly by its point and click philosophy. I also didn't got in this comment into MacOS because i have no clue about it. I never used it and do not know how it works in sufficient detail to talk about it. I just know that those Mac users i interacted with are often also pretty much elitists, which i think has more to do with apples branding though rather then the size of the community in this case. And that is also anecdotal. As said, i talked to some people that use mac, but i didn't interacted with the community much. It is possible that the community as a whole is way different. About the part that windows has all the drivers already installed, kinda yes and no. Windows hasn't all the drivers directly installed that are needed, but it is more the case that hardware developers are more willing to build their hardware around windows or write drivers for that system that are more easy to install. The things above are not really critiques but more observations and what i learned over the years. But below will be my only critique on the video i had so far. The hardware availability is important when you have specific purposes for jobs and stuff. As an private user you can just tailor your computer around BSD unless, which is a important point for me for example, you need to use specific hardware for work or want to repurpose an already purchased system. And i think the commenters in the video talked more about that rather then that someone can choose the hardware for an BSD system. That is my only real critique of the video. I feel like when the commenters made that points, RoboNuggie was a bit dismissive about the needs of people when it came to the hardware itself. That however is not a BSD specific issue. It is an issue for every machine that does not run on windows. Just some operating systems have more and some others have less support a various range of hardware or for specific hardware. Linux can have a broader range of hardware support, but BSD could have a specific driver for hardware that Linux doesn't support, simply because a developer had a need for BSD and wrote the driver code for it.
@xraptor94x I completely agree with you...I haven't tried installing any BSD flavors on my workstation due to being skeptical about hardware compatibility issues. I can't say anything about software compatibility, as I haven't used any BSD. I use Linux due to the customary availability of Linux distros. I live in Brazil, a country where low quality hardware is abundant and workstations usually have some version of Windows or some obscure Linux distro placed there by whoever set up the workstation. It seems to me that the problem with BSD is hardware compatibility for reasons originating from hardware manufacturers and not from BSD. So it seems that we are between cyla and charybdis: an OS made for machines and with only them in mind or an OS made by, and for, people and that changes as people wish. If both OSes make my HP printer work, I have to make a choice. But when only one of the OS allows me to use my HP printer, then I don't have to think about which option is best, I only have one option. I try to make a fair balance when choosing a Linux distro: nothing too much on the Windows side and nothing too much on the Gentoo side. At the moment I am satisfied with Debian stable with LXDE and Openbox.
As a server OS, perhaps. As a desktop OS, no can do in my case. I'm a gamer and proton has been a God sent in Linux. I'll perhaps consider FreeBSD when I'll be able to game on it.
Been a while since I tried it but Wine is a thing on FreeBSD too; emulators/wine-proton likely what you want to look into instead though. I think there were other movements to help FreeBSD+Wine gaming run better than it was when I used to do it too.
The crucial question is: if freeBSD have binary compatibility with Linux software and the performances are sometimes even better, why is it less used than Linux?
Sorry for the late reply - the answer, is like this reply, a little later than planned.... FreeBSD was tied up in a legal battle in the very early 90's, that allowed Linux to come out and grab mind share....then when FreeBSD came out officially in 93, it was already playing second fiddle.... such is life :-)
I do think FreeBSD has a bit more of a learning curve than Linux just because (unless you go with certain derivatives) you by default have no GUI and must install one separately. I primarily use laptops, so I'd need to get it on wifi and that wound up being a game-ending snag when I tried it. Perhaps the hardware wasn't playing well with it, as that Broadcom card had also started fights between myself and some Linux distros as well.
I think Broadcom does have a reputation for being difficult.... great when you get them working, but can be stubborn.... and if you had issues on Linux, then it doesn't bode well for FreeBSD to say the least :-)
My only gripe with FreeBSD is no ability to install a gui desktop during install. I really liked PCBSD, but that unfortunately got scrapped. GHOST BSDis ok, but I prefer KDE or XFCE as my desktop.
I'm getting ready to put freebsd on my kid's laptop. I'm a little nervous about wifi, I'm going to want to learn about jails before giving them wheel (Can they have wheel only in their own jail?), and I need to review zfs enough to know what is best for two non-identical drives of the same nominal capacity for a mirror. Other than that, I think I'm ready to take the plunge. For me, the primary draw of freebsd is zfs as a first class citizen. I still remember the worry i had about accessing my drives when Linus got a wild hair up his ass and broke compatibility. How he considers the filesystem itself not userspace is beyond comprehension.
You could put Linux on the Laptop (the wifi would work) and have FreeBSD (or FreeBSD based OS like TrueNAS Core) as a file server with ZFS and a Jails instance running on it.....
That's not saying a lot. Windows 11 runs on a 10 year old laptop with a Pentium that was slow 10 years ago and 4GB of RAM. It runs like molasses in January, but it runs.
what a terrible defense of linux. i have used puppy linux 18.04LTS on a trash picked, 2gb ram ddr2, pentium dual core e4500, screenless CCE Win J33A laptop, without HD, on a 16gb flash drive, as my daily driver. (with an external vga monitor) of course, it lagged sometimes, bonkers! but i could pretty much do my stuff, i had my phone which was decent at that time for more intensive (and portable) 3D gaming, and still had my pc with a physical keyboard for typing documents on libreoffice, it ran doom, and i loved playing online multiplayer doom with mouse and keyboard, it emulated everything up to the ps1 and n64, i watched countless anime in the browser, freetube for youtube, telegram desktop worked flawlessly, and minetest only crashed if i went to the very heavy modpack servers like catlandia. i also made tons of music on LMMS, and programs on wine ran fairly well. ofc i could also code but (unfortunately) i didnt get into coding too much.
There is challenging yourself to overcome difficulties and hassles through life, therefore improving yourself as an individual. and There is challenging yourself on PURPOSELY "reinventing the wheel" by making simple things more time consuming and annoying for the sake of self-validation or even a (false sense of) superiority feel. With that said... I prefer to do the former, thank you very much.
I'm surprised WINE isn't mentioned more often, I managed to install Steam and play CS:GO fine on FreeBSD. Funnily enough, I just saw that the top comment on GhostBSD's video about it was posted by you.
About higher learning curve. Well, it depends. Often things are much more intuitive than in Linux. For example, I did not know how I should set up locales (I just knew I should do it from Linux installs) - but it was super obvious when I opened /etc/login.conf.
I do think that a posix gui might be something worth trying some time. What I mean by that is a node based gui like how some 3d software is node based, such as Houdini, with visual icons and linkages for functions and the logical connections/variables passed between them.
Average people just want things to work. Power on the PC and start working. If something goes wrong they don't want to spend hours on forums to figure out how to fix things. If a TV doesn't work as it should, most people wouldn't try to fix it them selves. They send it in for repair. But as soon as you start using FreeBSD/Linux people expect you fix things your self. "Linux work on anything" they say. When it doesn't, the same people say "You should have gotten hardware that works with Linux" So... does it work on anything or not? You can't say both. I used Linux every day for 9 months a couple of years ago. I gave up on Linux because there were always some weird issue with it and I got tired of finding fixes and tinker with it. I just wanted it to work.
Used it ~2005-2012. Desktop envivonrments are generally targeted for linux - so the port to fbsd is flakey, linuxulator is flakey. As a desktop daily driver - I passed on fbsd and have switched to linux. If it's not on linux - for sure it's not in fbsd. So why relegate yourself to being a 3rd-4th class citizen? Felt like I had to work around port quirks or incomplete ports. I had enough and made the switch to linux. That said if I had a commercial product and I need an OS - I'd use fbsd (ala playstation). Only nice thing about fbsd is the manual and the licence.
A fair point....and it's down to how stubborn you are I suppose, and I'm very stubborn :-) I'm at the point where I am very comfortable with using FreeBSD 100% of the time for all my computer needs - and it just so happens my needs are met, yours may not be, and that's Ok.... choice is wonderful :-)
I met FreeBSD in early 2000s. Then, I focused more into software engineering, rather than system administration but then, FreeBSD always had a place in my heart. At my earliest days, I migrated all customers from stupid linux distros to FreeBSD and most of the problems were solved. Lately, I'm playing with . NET 8 in FreeBSD 14 and broooooo... The performance compared to Linux is scary, it responds much faster, even inside a jail and limited hardware. I guess that I don't need to say that I migrated my home servers from Linux all to FreeBSD 14, do I? 😁
I don't get the fixation on the comandline. You don't learn more or less depending on the UX. What's the difference between writing a long line of commands vs choosing from a list and checking some boxes. Well in the layer case you don't have to remember all those -r /q ... things instead ther written out to you in plain tex. So I guess you don't learn the mysterious commands but it doesn't mean you don't learn your system.
The lower hardware support is the only reason I don't daily drive FreeBSD. But if I'm spinning up a VM it's often my goto. On real hardware though my BSD of choice is NetBSD but that's very much because of my specific use cases.
got curious about slackware some months ago after a milestone release. put it into a vm, and got stuck on figuring out guides and switching to local repos wasnt working out for me. got belittled when i left a comment in a yt video promoting it. got curious about freebsd today. the guide was to the point, and everything seems very interesting. ill see what comes of it.
The elephant in the room that no one ever talks about is that Linux is not really "open source". Let me explain. The idea people have about open source is that you can copy the code, fork it, and do "whatever" you want, right? ....well in linux that is not possible, EVEN if you keep it under the GPL incense. And don't confuse forking the kernel with linux distro, which is an entirely different beast. Try forking the actual linux kernel and modifying it. Soon you will get men in black breaking down your door, with patent infringement, copyright infringement, etc.etc... The linux foundation is not Linus Torvalds, it is IBM, Google, Microsoft, Dell, HP, etc.etc.. ...And this is why you see almost NO linux kernel forks... except those of Google(android), etc. Linux is a "lie"
List of the top Linux foundation owners....oh mmm.. I mean "contributors". And most the linux code is done by their employees, and that code is tied up in patents in some cases if not copyright..... oh the lie of "opensource" in reference to Linux: IBM Intel Google Microsoft Facebook Amazon Web Services (AWS) Red Hat Huawei Oracle Samsung Dell Technologies Fujitsu Hitachi NVIDIA Cisco
About 3/4 of the suggested reasons don't hold, About 1/4 of your reasons do hold though. I do agree that the documentation is generally better, but issues like systemd are not actually prohibitive because for instance there are distros like Debian vs Devuan. You also can use a distro like 'Linux from scratch'. I guess that I am saying that there will be a distro that will do pretty much anything that you like about FreeBSD. You can choose to learn everything like BSD, you can also use a easy to run noobs system like LinuxMint. Ports is fantastic on BSD, I have enjoyed how that works.
I think the future os is: low hardware requirement, stable, long term support. freebsd allmost there, but missing a good documentation. Most of the users missing the automation, but i dont. But a way better documentation is missing!
FreeBSD is usually complimented for its documentation instead of criticized. If you feel things are missing, unclear, or even outdated then the FreeBSD Documentation Project appreciates bug reports regarding that state.
I have just looked through November 2023 Top500 list. 0 (Zero) AnyBSD is there... :( Also no one Type 1 hypervisor under BSD/Apache license.... Is this the end, my friend? Or the time yet hasn't come? The world is waiting for us? :)
Well, that's the question isn't it? I think the powers that be who steer FreeBSD had better start planning for the future, one that doesn't include concentration on servers as that seems to be a withering vine....
@@RoboNuggie yes, Sir, I know that in the English language questions should be started with a modal verb. But I respect you too much to spend your time on philosophic rather than technical questions. So, yes, that was a question 🤗🙏🏻 Thank you very much for your reply and I am very proud to read your answer. But you already gave it to me with your videos. Top500 is their list and they may do whatever they want. And my idea is much greater and only FreeBSD can suit. And if FreeBSD can't suit despite all my best then I will treat my idea as wrong! Sir you gave me strength, and FreeBSD will give me the power! Where and how to get the knowledge, thank God I know!; Starting tomorrow! 🔴🚜🗿 (Yet have not read your answer, I will do it right now! I just needed an answer! 😃) Best wishes to you and to your friends! ❤️
@@RoboNuggie Sir, it would be The World. It will start from a Workstation, which will be used to start A Server ;-) We'll see or at least we,'ll hear! P. S. I am sure that I did not understand your answer right. You won't miss anything 🙏🏻
The argument of Linux… yep. They sometimes make a new distort and only thing change is Hanna Montana so a desktop wallpaper. I do think those distros die quick. Linux forums are not all that bad depending which you use. I think a lot of rtfm comes from older days in Linux where you have people running red hat or enterprise software they say but trying to sneak out with centos but ask sometimes really hardware specific things. Uhm those cases call support coz the red hat support has that hardware listed so sort out with them not community. Bsd is good too but I really have a hard time between the systems nowadays. PF is bloody good though. Linux we do not want it to be windows…. That is just Ubuntu crappy marketing. And unfortunately people go ohh use ubunubu. One thing I do prefer of red hat based distros are proper cgroups. But let’s face it. Either or are bloody solid. The old Debian and redhat I mean look at Linux at end it is essentially one of those two systems. And FreeBSD is not hard. 90% of stuff same on both systems and just need to learn the specifics. Apart from the meh Linux distros which some bsd distros has same thing, it is same thing. I love both. RTOS is also pretty darn good. Have a look at that on esp32.
Crappy hardware... well, it's subjective - say you have some old Pentium 4 machines, or even some 386's.... there are many Linux distros no longer appropriate for such old tech, with FreeBSD, it is very much still supported.... :-)
@@RoboNuggie They are archaic machines and there is really no need for a modern os to run on them. Even newer 32bit systems are getting discarded fast.
Sorry *BSD guys, linux has served the free os community much better than other oses. The only area where linux is weak is the desktop domain. Apart from that, linux rules everywhere! On the other hand I am not against *BSD, I appreciate the hard and good work *BSD people put on.
@@merakli2022 Technically, yes, but only technically. it will freeze in development, when companies goes out . But in general, I just don't like the policy of implementing redhat's garbage (systemd,raw wayland). I don't know about you, but I get angry as soon as they start forcing something, and even more so silently. Otherwise, like everywhere else around, I don't see two-way communication between users and developers. this was another stone in opensource. and yes, there are good alternatives: void, gentoo. but I'm just disappointed in linux .
@@MrChelovek68 I see your point but linux development will go on whether some companies drop out of the picture or not, albeit at different speeds. Water always finds its way.
i personally do not really care about all that systemd does but the 1 thing it has over the other is it's syntax which just simple makes more sense to me. systemd has `[actor] [action] [subject]` where openrc has `[actor] [subject] [action]`. in this regard and only this, systemd is preferred but in every other way i don't care.
Great video. I literally learned to setup my FreeBSD through your videos and I love it (former Linux user)
Always like to listen to your comments / video. You made me discovered FreeBSD few months back and I must admit it was a revelation. I’m still using linux but less and less and using freeBSD more and more. No breakage very easy to update / maintain and the main selling point for me is the stability and the security. Good job
Welcome aboard!
I started with GhostBSD 2 years ago. I wanted to learn FreeBSD after that, and I did! I've installed it on a bunch of different hardware, and I love the control I have over the installation. It's beautiful!
So if I understand, freebsd is for the hobbyist and not the average person. My wife can barely connect the computer to a docking station but I can dump Linux mint on her 7 year old laptop and it works out of the box. Same for my son's gaming pc. She's a teacher and is too busy marking papers to read manuals and learn a new skill. I work long days with a 50 miles round trip. Why would I want to spend time learning command line instead of bonding with my family.
The way you describe bsd makes it seem like a solution for elite hobbyists and not for the normal people who just want to boot up and watch Netflix and, you know, live life
I've downloaded the pdf version of Freebsd handbook 2 days ago, and I've started to read it. Tried Freebsd few times in VB but didn't liked it how it's run in virtual system. Now I'm preparing the hardware for it to install the system on "metal".
Happy reading.... :-)
I’m still downloading it.
Hello,
I had the chance to learn Unix with AIX 1.3, then HP_UX, sco, etc. so the command line is my natural way to talk with a computer. I was a huge huge fan of Apple system (system 7).
When MacOS X arrived I was thinking this is the weeding of the best of the two worlds, the point and clic and the cli. I wrote books about MacOS X Server Administration (in French).
But one day I ask to my self " Hey man, where is your command line? Where is your power?". So I sell or gave all my Apple devices, brought a lenovo laptop and immediately install FreeBSD (10 at this time). And when I saw the login prompt I was thinking "Well is good to be back at home. What could I learn today?"
Great video, thanks for it (and all the previous).
Wondeful to hear someone going away from the user-hell that Apple devices have managed to create - both in terms of the software and the hardware.
I'm using NomadBSD simply because i like it. Fast, essential, beautiful and small. I can do all that i need to do.
Love that!
This is just a bunch of feel good statements and opinions Not everyone has a good experience and mileage can vary depending on hardware Its good to cover both pros and cons Plus you can learn from any Unix based system if you just avoid the wizards and setup scripts or you can make your own I don’t understand why people think somehow Linux is “inferior” simply because it has a larger community with more flexibility That’s like saying a theater is bad for showing a movie you don’t like even though it has the one you do like 🤦♀️
No one said Linux is inferior, it leads in places, it lacks in places as do all the Operating Systems.
You use what 'feels' best for you, and feelings & opinions are after subjective, so your experience may vary as you say.
I've been using FreeBSD for many years with succes and happiness.
I am no expert on this at all, but with the help (docs and users) on internet it's very usable for me.
FreeBSD runs on my offsite virtual server, which i use for backup purposes.
I make copies from my local NAS to the BSD server.
We are all learning as we go along :-)
I just came across this video. I tried playing around with FreeBSD in a VM in the past, but I didn't really do much with it. You've convinced me to play around with it more, lol. I'll give it a go again. Maybe even try to install it on an actual computer. Won't be my main system, though. I didn't come to Linux for any other reason than to leave Windows, but I'd been trying to decide on a hobby. Then I realized that I have a hobby. I like doing things with and to computers. So I guess I have a good reason to play around, at least, with FreeBSD.
The perfect choice in terms of operating systems is what fits the infrastructure best at a specific time. And while commercial distribution have a great backing when it comes to support, it often doesn’t leave a lot of room for customization and right-sizing, especially if customers are looking for a more a batteries included, build-your-own-platform type OS.
Great video, I was considering FreeBSD for a production server which would need to run Postgres, docker and also support an Nvidia GPU and also Cuda and Cdunn for machine learning inferencing tasks - i am fed up distro hopping and have been bouncing between Redhat EL 9.4, Debian and Ubnutu... I like the idea of FreeBSD and am/was strongly considering it but it seems that ML is not really well supported on FreeBSD - am i wrong on this? as this will be a show stopper if so... i need to be able to locally install the latest version of Postgres and run docker images and python ML code on the platform - give this what are your thoughts?
very nice
Thank you for this video! I use FreeBSD since 4.2, and there is nothing you said I would not agree.
It's nice to hear someone passionate about the OS they are using. I have a different question about the continuation of BSD.
Young people usually don't learn BSD in schools. Most don't even get Linux in schools anymore, either.
This is a problem as this causes both communities to be filled, on average, by an older group of people with little new blood coming into them. If the youth does not know these operating systems exist or don't have a reason/opportunity to learn these operating systems; isn't that where both of these operating systems will die out?
And a follow-up question would be: How would one even pitch learning something like BSD to a younger audience?
i can happily say that at my school we used FreeBSD and some other bsd derivatives for a few assignments. although most people in my class get scared when there is no gui.
20 year old here who uses both BSD and Linux (and many other niche OS like haiku, 9front etc). For the first question, I can't really give an answer, but i share that fear. For the second question however, I think that would be very, very complicated.
We would need to rework the entire curriculum of many colleges and other types of schools that may teach programming and CS. The vast majority of my generation doesn't care much about low-level stuff at all, the only spheres of programming that matter to them is Machine Learning and Web.
And even in those spheres, they never really go too deep. They won't write their own HTTP server in C or Rust or Go, nor will they write a webapp in "vanilla JS" instead of using whatever huge framework is hot at the moment. They will never ever get close to the OS, so why would they learn or even use such a niche OS? Only if their job as a full-stack web dev forced them to build a backend targeting FreeBSD, which would be very unlikely.
The 10% (or maybe even less) of the devs who are truly passionate about the field and how computers work will still gravitate towards FreeBSD and similar projects no matter what, though. I'm one of them and I know there are more. I just hope we'll be enough to keep these projects going in the future.
Linux is increasingly being captured by big corporations. And their thinking filters through every distro. Didn't happen to Slackware, which is why I have been on it for more than 20 years. And it's more like BSD than Linux, which is unsurprising given its roots. Can tinker to my heart's content, and I have as much control over the system as I can have. I have a feeling that I'll switch to BSD eventually. :)
I dont thinks anyone can argue that any bsd/unix supports as much hardware as linux does. I use freebsd next to gnu/linux and I do like it but I couldnt even install freebsd 13 on my thinkpad because the support for certain hardwares where deleted and I ended up installing freebsd 12 which is fine tbh but still, there can be no doubt that linux supports way more hardware.
It supports more of the latest hardware, that's true.... FreeBSD can be a bit slow off the mark.....heck, we're still waiting for reliable 802.11ac wifi drivers (they are on the way)
I've known of some very old things being removed like 10Mbit network drivers. What model of ThinkPad and which drivers were you missing? Maybe a chance things broke instead of were removed?
@@mirror1766 I was told that support for x200t was removed in version 13 by someone (I think a dev) in the freebsd irc
Linux is a time machine compared to freeBSD. Also, gaming, is becoming even more stable and compatible than before thanks to the Proton modules and that is an attractive point.
Why not HaikuOS
Best vídeo I found so far on the topic.
And the slowest reply..... sorry about that :-)
Thank you, that means a lo!
Linux: More forks than my Nan's utensil drawer...
I've used FreeBSD since the late 90's and I like the fact that FreeBSD is FreeBSD is FreeBSD - you know what you're getting and changes feel iterative and focused, rather than radical and surprising. All the components feel like smaller parts of a larger whole, rather than a collection of disparate tools thrown together. I've probably used around 100 different operating systems since the year 2000 and I'm still using FreeBSD and AmigaOS to this day.
FreeBSD was made for servers and networking stuff in mind, not for desktop users.
As a full stack dev i mainly use mint and os x (pure Unix with polished UI and programs and its excellent hardware)
I think that FreeBSD has to change if it wants to survive.....it needs to appeal to a broader section of the IT world - something which Linux has done very well indeed....
My first attempt to use OpenBSD was a startling one. I saw the origins of Linux and BSD and thought I may be able to buffer some of the learning curve by looking for familiar aspects. That was an honest mistake, but I learned a lot for when I take a second crack at it. For now, I'm using GhostBSD in a VM to study BSD in general. I also learned the beauty of doas compared to sudo, so I replaced sudo with doas in the GhostBSD VM.
I used FreeBSD to rebuild the way somebody would interact with a Plexus P/20 in the past. And I love it. Usually I am a Linux guy (Kubuntu), but I love the classical way, almost old Unix way to work with this system.
I cant switch to FreeBSD, because I love to game and gaming in Linux rocks. Not so in FreeBSD.
Another awesome video Robonuggie. Your videos have taught me so much! Now, I have to get back to creating my ultimate desktop with the trusty W520, FreeBSD, and Fluxbox WM
I like your FreeBSD exposition, IT reminders of the old Apple DOS, and MS-DOS, SCO Xenix etc.Cheers!
Thank you!
So, my only time setting up a bsd (I think it was freebsd, but it might have been openbsd; it was a few years back) I managed to screw it up and had no idea how to fix it. My own fault for not double checking how usermod -g works - I accidentally removed myself from the wheel group when adding myself to the video group, which wouldn't have been as big a deal if I hadn't already deactivated the root account. Even though I had set up arch manually in the past, there were fewer groups that a user needed to be added to in order to do things like launching a window manager. As a result, I've never really used one regularly (unless you count MacOS, which may be a little contentious).
As such, I do have a few questions: firstly, how easy is it to get steam games running via proton? I find most of my windows games on steam work perfectly fine on arch via proton, while it has absolutely no support on MacOS due to not having any support for Metal. I guess I could run a windows vm, but I'd really rather not.
Secondly, I seem to recall it being possible to get a mouse pointer in the console, so I was wondering: how feasible is it to run GUI software directly from the console? In Linux, I can type in 'startx /usr/bin/firefox' and launch an X session with just a single firefox window inside it, but that's kinda clunky. I'm guessing the answer here is not very, because it doesn't seem like a particularly common thing for users to want, but I reckoned I might as well ask.
Sorry for the late reply...
I don't think Proton would work, it may, but I think it would be a bit slow if it did...
That console trick is new to me, I've never thought about it... :-)
I haven't tried, but, I think it would work...
CONS - I have installed system with some apps - nothing special. After "pkg upgrade" system collapse 2 month after install. I don't know what to do after reconnecting the HDD to another SATA port. FBSD can't handle it by itself, switch headphone/speakers in CLI Anachronic solution.
Do you know what apps were observed as broken after upgrade? During an install or upgrade it tells you what package changes will take place; watching for removals is important to make sure you didn't need to keep conflicting software that is being removed. Updates can do the same if package rebuilds failed on the newer version of the ports tree they were generated from.
If you switched drive ordering, you may need to tell the BIOS which drive to boot. Moving a drive between SATA ports may cause issues if it refers to mounts using entries like /dev/ada0 and likely would be fixed with editing /etc/fstab. If you installed it with ZFS as the filesystem then it shouldn't care if I recall. You can also use GPT disk labels if on GPT formatted drive though FreeBSD has a separate disk labeling capability that can be used too. Once such labels are used they will follow the disk through such movements. If you mirror or stripe disks, you want to make sure you install the bootloader to each disk though if you question its upgrade you can try putting it on one and booting it (BIOS boot disk selection) before all disks get a copy.
I cannot be of help with speakers+headphones as my computer has a couple always-on speaker jacks and my speakers have a headphone jack that disables speakers putting all control outside the computer.
@@mirror1766 Thanks for your advice. I will answer what packets broken.
@@mirror1766 I found a simple solution for headphone/speaker switching.
I would like to be able to read ext4 partitions in Linux with freebsd.
You can!
forums.freebsd.org/threads/howto-mounting-ext4-partitions-by-using-ext2fs-rw-access.84964/
Thanks Robonuggie. Inspiring video.
Linux really does concern me with regards to the approaches taken to recent ambitious projects,Wayland and SystemD especially.Wayland and SystemD are both fine products imo but it seems the people really invested in those 2 have a certain false sense of linear progress and sound like they want to kill off all alternatives.And wayland right now has noticeable CPU overhead on what i use,if everything becomes unusable under X11 i'll take a look at Haiku especially but also BSD
Wayland really likes to shit on Fl Studio in particular and since i know BSD can run wine that's how i'd use FL Studio
Wayland is something I don't meed or want.....
I love FreeBSD. The only thing stopping me from using it is the fact that I can't seem to get the sound subsystem working right on my Ryzen 9 3900X box as well as there not really being a Discord client for it. I don't game on PC but I use Discord to watch party stuff with friends and only Windows and macOS have proper Discord clients. Once those things are ironed out I'll gladly switch over. Great video! Huge fan of the channel.
There are a few Discord clients available - gtkcord4, discordo & 6cord.... I have only looked at 5cord but it worked well.... but as you say there isn't anything official...
Thanks for the kind words!
i ve just bought a new laptop to replace my old dell (with freebsd). i ve bought it without any os preinstalled and next weekend is freebsd-install weekend :)
Do the install now, no need to wait for any amount of time.
I'd love to hear how it goes for you :-)
I agree if you have the laptop, I'd do the install sooner rather than later since not testing new hardware in general is a bad plan. The longer you wait, the more likely that warranty and return policies run down unnecessarily.
Thanks for the advocacy video.
thanks!! 🙂 Despite of using ZFS for storage there is a possibility to run MooseFS or Ceph on FreeBSD - huge distributed filesystems! Sorry, I don't have the hardware for that - even at the institute where I work. But I know it works well! And I tested it a bit years ago. But mainly why I like FreeBSD and other *BSDs? There is not a competition war in distributions like in Linux, where every week new distributions appear in competition to others and claimed to be the best. Add new green buttons and that is a reason for a better distro??? And a third thing: FreeBSD is stable! And one more: it is my personal thing :-) Cheers, Norbert
Nicely said Norbert !
Competition push innovation. That's how you build a better mousetrap
@@robinirie98 and it makes a lot of headache if you want to say that you have a "unique" system... As a result: there is no Linux - only the engine is similar...
I would want to install bash, and if I'm doing that, why not just use Linux? If I either have to learn a new sed, awk, sh, etc. or install the GNU versions, it's hard for me to justify it.
Well said sir
ok so what is the most desktop usable FreeBSD if there is one 😉
You compare Freebie with an idea of Linux, not with Linux. Linux is not a clickbox ; some distros are clickboxes, keeping you away from learning anything about the underlying mechanics... and that's fine. And there are other distros which let you take control and learn anything you want. Linux is not an idea of an "alternative to windows", Linux is just multiplicity, diversity. And, for instance, if you don't like systemd, you can chose another init system, there are plenty of them ; nobody chooses for you, unless you don't care and just want a clickbox. YOU choose : click all the way around, or mastering, and why not both. You choose.
Corporations contribute because they use Linux for their needs. That's the counterpart, that's what they get in return. It's still open source, under the agrement of the BDFL Linus. So there's no backdoors or secret telemetry put by this corporation or this one. So no evil corporation is taking over Linux.
But yes, Linux communities are sometimes toxic. Not because of Linux... because of human nature. However Linux communities are not just toxic, because human nature is not just toxic ; it's also diversity, hence there are toxic ones and helpful and welcoming others.
The problem with BSD is that it doesn't want to be a good desktop OS. A good desktop OS has some key characteristics, most of which FreeBSD fails intentionally:
Setup is a single install wizard. Maybe installing some applications later.
You never have to use the command line. It's there if you want it, but not essential.
It works on all commodity hardware and most peripherals, even relatively obscure stuff should have a chance of working. BSD still doesn't have good 802.11ac support we're 2 generations on from that now.
You don't have to administer it. Once set up it should take care of itself. The majority of Linux OSes fail this as well.
If something goes wrong it is easy to find help with a Google search. FreeBSD is not quite as good as the most common Linux distros, but better than the lower profile Linuxes.
It shouldn't break if you don't run an update exactly right. And user land operation should change very slowly. FreeBSD is probably second only to Mac in this regard.
In short, it should be easy.
Frankly the only OSes I think are any good on Desktop are Mac, Windows, and Mint. Maybe throw in Fedora and Kubuntu. Part of being tech nerds is that we don't always want a generically good desktop OS. Sometimes we care about certain aspects normal people don't care about and we don't always care about it being easy. I'm a tech nerd, but I do want my main system to be easy. Which is why I mostly use Mac, but also use Windows and Fedora frequently.
Debian should be pretty good now
That is my problem with it. It's great as an enterprise OS. Using it as a desktop OS is another story. Manjaro or Ubuntu feels more complete for casual home use. FreeBSD reminds me of linux in the late 90s early 00s.
Update: I was able to perfectly install FreeBSD on my mac mini with KDE Plasma.
@@r1oot Yea, it's not too hard, but it's not particularly easy either.
Not sure if I should ask for your Reddit post to be pinned or just link it every time 'that' question shows up again. Do you often go outside your comfort zone and learn something new/unique on FreeBSD intentionally? Its just my basic desktop I do unexciting things with anymore but I have a few plans to expand that including working on programming on it and its going to become cloud storage for my phone. Thanks for the video.
How does FreeBSD compare to SCO System 5 or Sun Solaris? Does FreeBSD come in a server and workstation version, or is it all one operating system, where modules are added?
Sorry for the late reply (you have probably forgotten you asked this...lol):
I don't know how it compares but I can tell you FreeBSD comes as a barebones, complete OS. Picture it as Debian without all of the userland etc...
@@RoboNuggie I remembered asking when I read your reply. I have not used Debian before, but I'm not clear what "barebones" and "complete" actually mean. Examples, Does FreeBSD come with a shell? Does it come with a GUI? Does it come with a file manager? Does it come with a bare-metal backup program? Is there a list of compatible software available?
I began my adventure with Linux using Red Hat 6, although I have dabbled in FreeBSD, I never stuck with it. Now at age 70, I am content just using Debian - it works for me.
Good video. I really enjoy the content of this channel.
I'm a primary Linux user but am interested in unix like Operating systems in general, so learning about FreeBSD is kind of an important point in the history of Unix Likes.
But i want to point out that many issues listed here in regards to Linux are not issues from the system itself, and more issues that came from growing.
When an open source project is big enough, companies will get involved as they set up their server base with it.
When an open source project attracts more private user, you will have people in the community that want to have a simplified GUI and also developers that start projects for this target group (Though i do not like GUIs. I use Terminals for my stuff and only GUIs when i have to look for a picture or video) etc.
About the communities, i didn't interacted with the BSD community much yet. But in the Linux community, there are specific people that can get really annoying when they brag about setting up an Arch system on their PC (Though it is not that hard as they want other to believe. It is actually quite easy)
But i also talked with nice smaller communities that were helpful with issues, specifically when it came to bootloader issues and stuff where it goes way deeper then the surface level system. It really depends on who someone interacts with. By the way, that is also an issue of a bigger community. You will have more elitists that build their personality around the system they use when your community has a specific size. The same of course can also happen with a a smaller community that has people in it that wants to be seen as special. I think there is also the chance that they turn out to be more open because the small community likes to see new people using the system.
In itself i agree with the video that someone should know their system to a point that they can fix it by themselves. Being able to fix or being able to seek information to fix something is a really valuable skill. And i think Windows actively hinders users to do that properly by its point and click philosophy.
I also didn't got in this comment into MacOS because i have no clue about it. I never used it and do not know how it works in sufficient detail to talk about it. I just know that those Mac users i interacted with are often also pretty much elitists, which i think has more to do with apples branding though rather then the size of the community in this case. And that is also anecdotal. As said, i talked to some people that use mac, but i didn't interacted with the community much. It is possible that the community as a whole is way different.
About the part that windows has all the drivers already installed, kinda yes and no. Windows hasn't all the drivers directly installed that are needed, but it is more the case that hardware developers are more willing to build their hardware around windows or write drivers for that system that are more easy to install.
The things above are not really critiques but more observations and what i learned over the years.
But below will be my only critique on the video i had so far.
The hardware availability is important when you have specific purposes for jobs and stuff. As an private user you can just tailor your computer around BSD unless, which is a important point for me for example, you need to use specific hardware for work or want to repurpose an already purchased system. And i think the commenters in the video talked more about that rather then that someone can choose the hardware for an BSD system. That is my only real critique of the video. I feel like when the commenters made that points, RoboNuggie was a bit dismissive about the needs of people when it came to the hardware itself.
That however is not a BSD specific issue. It is an issue for every machine that does not run on windows. Just some operating systems have more and some others have less support a various range of hardware or for specific hardware. Linux can have a broader range of hardware support, but BSD could have a specific driver for hardware that Linux doesn't support, simply because a developer had a need for BSD and wrote the driver code for it.
@xraptor94x I completely agree with you...I haven't tried installing any BSD flavors on my workstation due to being skeptical about hardware compatibility issues. I can't say anything about software compatibility, as I haven't used any BSD. I use Linux due to the customary availability of Linux distros. I live in Brazil, a country where low quality hardware is abundant and workstations usually have some version of Windows or some obscure Linux distro placed there by whoever set up the workstation. It seems to me that the problem with BSD is hardware compatibility for reasons originating from hardware manufacturers and not from BSD. So it seems that we are between cyla and charybdis: an OS made for machines and with only them in mind or an OS made by, and for, people and that changes as people wish. If both OSes make my HP printer work, I have to make a choice. But when only one of the OS allows me to use my HP printer, then I don't have to think about which option is best, I only have one option. I try to make a fair balance when choosing a Linux distro: nothing too much on the Windows side and nothing too much on the Gentoo side. At the moment I am satisfied with Debian stable with LXDE and Openbox.
It's just a Unix system that doesn't try to be Windows. Can't say the same about GNUs/Linuxes.
You have a point....
true and sad story.
I do experience on IRC channel not quite helping community, but if you learn the hard way... It's really hard to go back....
freebsd is good but android studio doesnt run and mssql
I tried to run on Vmware Fusion (now free) a ARM Based BSD on my Apple Silicon Mac. I was not successful and I have 30 yrs of OS experience.
As a server OS, perhaps. As a desktop OS, no can do in my case. I'm a gamer and proton has been a God sent in Linux. I'll perhaps consider FreeBSD when I'll be able to game on it.
Been a while since I tried it but Wine is a thing on FreeBSD too; emulators/wine-proton likely what you want to look into instead though. I think there were other movements to help FreeBSD+Wine gaming run better than it was when I used to do it too.
The crucial question is: if freeBSD have binary compatibility with Linux software and the performances are sometimes even better, why is it less used than Linux?
Sorry for the late reply - the answer, is like this reply, a little later than planned....
FreeBSD was tied up in a legal battle in the very early 90's, that allowed Linux to come out and grab mind share....then when FreeBSD came out officially in 93, it was already playing second fiddle.... such is life :-)
I like BSD because I like being a member of the cool club.
watching this on freebsd right.. i agre with you 100%
I do think FreeBSD has a bit more of a learning curve than Linux just because (unless you go with certain derivatives) you by default have no GUI and must install one separately. I primarily use laptops, so I'd need to get it on wifi and that wound up being a game-ending snag when I tried it. Perhaps the hardware wasn't playing well with it, as that Broadcom card had also started fights between myself and some Linux distros as well.
I think Broadcom does have a reputation for being difficult.... great when you get them working, but can be stubborn.... and if you had issues on Linux, then it doesn't bode well for FreeBSD to say the least :-)
My only gripe with FreeBSD is no ability to install a gui desktop during install. I really liked PCBSD, but that unfortunately got scrapped. GHOST BSDis ok, but I prefer KDE or XFCE as my desktop.
Sorry for the late reply - NomadBSD is also an option - it uses a customised Openbox desktop....feels very XFCE'ish...and it out of the box....
I'm getting ready to put freebsd on my kid's laptop. I'm a little nervous about wifi, I'm going to want to learn about jails before giving them wheel (Can they have wheel only in their own jail?), and I need to review zfs enough to know what is best for two non-identical drives of the same nominal capacity for a mirror. Other than that, I think I'm ready to take the plunge.
For me, the primary draw of freebsd is zfs as a first class citizen. I still remember the worry i had about accessing my drives when Linus got a wild hair up his ass and broke compatibility. How he considers the filesystem itself not userspace is beyond comprehension.
You could put Linux on the Laptop (the wifi would work) and have FreeBSD (or FreeBSD based OS like TrueNAS Core) as a file server with ZFS and a Jails instance running on it.....
@@RoboNuggie thanks, I'm just going to try freebsd and see how it goes first. I'll do a linux as a backup plan
In defense of linux, the latest kubuntu 23.04 installs and runs on a 14 year old desktop with 4gb ram. Only uses 6-700meg ram
That's not saying a lot. Windows 11 runs on a 10 year old laptop with a Pentium that was slow 10 years ago and 4GB of RAM. It runs like molasses in January, but it runs.
what a terrible defense of linux.
i have used puppy linux 18.04LTS on a trash picked, 2gb ram ddr2, pentium dual core e4500, screenless CCE Win J33A laptop, without HD, on a 16gb flash drive, as my daily driver. (with an external vga monitor)
of course, it lagged sometimes, bonkers! but i could pretty much do my stuff, i had my phone which was decent at that time for more intensive (and portable) 3D gaming, and still had my pc with a physical keyboard for typing documents on libreoffice, it ran doom, and i loved playing online multiplayer doom with mouse and keyboard, it emulated everything up to the ps1 and n64, i watched countless anime in the browser, freetube for youtube, telegram desktop worked flawlessly, and minetest only crashed if i went to the very heavy modpack servers like catlandia.
i also made tons of music on LMMS, and programs on wine ran fairly well.
ofc i could also code but (unfortunately) i didnt get into coding too much.
"interesting name" - RoboNuggie
My reply would be like why not!
Indeed!
There is challenging yourself to overcome difficulties and hassles through life, therefore improving yourself as an individual.
and
There is challenging yourself on PURPOSELY "reinventing the wheel" by making simple things more time consuming and annoying for the sake of self-validation or even a (false sense of) superiority feel.
With that said... I prefer to do the former, thank you very much.
Man i miss the Amiga / Atari ST days too..
Re-installing FreeBSD on my Server right now :) Miss it... so much its like a Old Friend.
I know what you mean..... is it a sign of getting older? oh....
Because is free? 😁😁😁🙋
Newbie here but loving bsd
I'm surprised WINE isn't mentioned more often, I managed to install Steam and play CS:GO fine on FreeBSD. Funnily enough, I just saw that the top comment on GhostBSD's video about it was posted by you.
I'll have to have a look again at Steam on Wine......
About higher learning curve. Well, it depends. Often things are much more intuitive than in Linux.
For example, I did not know how I should set up locales (I just knew I should do it from Linux installs) - but it was super obvious when I opened /etc/login.conf.
I do think that a posix gui might be something worth trying some time. What I mean by that is a node based gui like how some 3d software is node based, such as Houdini, with visual icons and linkages for functions and the logical connections/variables passed between them.
That would be a great idea....
Average people just want things to work. Power on the PC and start working.
If something goes wrong they don't want to spend hours on forums to figure out how to fix things.
If a TV doesn't work as it should, most people wouldn't try to fix it them selves. They send it in for repair.
But as soon as you start using FreeBSD/Linux people expect you fix things your self.
"Linux work on anything" they say. When it doesn't, the same people say "You should have gotten hardware that works with Linux"
So... does it work on anything or not? You can't say both.
I used Linux every day for 9 months a couple of years ago.
I gave up on Linux because there were always some weird issue with it and I got tired of finding fixes and tinker with it. I just wanted it to work.
Used it ~2005-2012. Desktop envivonrments are generally targeted for linux - so the port to fbsd is flakey, linuxulator is flakey. As a desktop daily driver - I passed on fbsd and have switched to linux. If it's not on linux - for sure it's not in fbsd. So why relegate yourself to being a 3rd-4th class citizen? Felt like I had to work around port quirks or incomplete ports. I had enough and made the switch to linux. That said if I had a commercial product and I need an OS - I'd use fbsd (ala playstation). Only nice thing about fbsd is the manual and the licence.
A fair point....and it's down to how stubborn you are I suppose, and I'm very stubborn :-)
I'm at the point where I am very comfortable with using FreeBSD 100% of the time for all my computer needs - and it just so happens my needs are met, yours may not be, and that's Ok.... choice is wonderful :-)
I met FreeBSD in early 2000s. Then, I focused more into software engineering, rather than system administration but then, FreeBSD always had a place in my heart. At my earliest days, I migrated all customers from stupid linux distros to FreeBSD and most of the problems were solved. Lately, I'm playing with . NET 8 in FreeBSD 14 and broooooo... The performance compared to Linux is scary, it responds much faster, even inside a jail and limited hardware. I guess that I don't need to say that I migrated my home servers from Linux all to FreeBSD 14, do I? 😁
I don't get the fixation on the comandline. You don't learn more or less depending on the UX. What's the difference between writing a long line of commands vs choosing from a list and checking some boxes. Well in the layer case you don't have to remember all those -r /q ... things instead ther written out to you in plain tex. So I guess you don't learn the mysterious commands but it doesn't mean you don't learn your system.
Scriptability
NetBSD ports has closed abruptly
oh... :-(
You mean the port of NetBSD on some hardware losing Tier 1 support suddenly or something else?
The lower hardware support is the only reason I don't daily drive FreeBSD. But if I'm spinning up a VM it's often my goto. On real hardware though my BSD of choice is NetBSD but that's very much because of my specific use cases.
- there are less supported hardware
+ if you buy supported hardware, there won't be any hardware support issues
lmao
got curious about slackware some months ago after a milestone release. put it into a vm, and got stuck on figuring out guides and switching to local repos wasnt working out for me. got belittled when i left a comment in a yt video promoting it.
got curious about freebsd today. the guide was to the point, and everything seems very interesting. ill see what comes of it.
It's an excellent server system. Even mac book looks strong.
hehehhehhehhe linux on hge other hand is created like coral reef , loved that statement , hehehehehe.
The elephant in the room that no one ever talks about is that Linux is not really "open source". Let me explain. The idea people have about open source is that you can copy the code, fork it, and do "whatever" you want, right? ....well in linux that is not possible, EVEN if you keep it under the GPL incense. And don't confuse forking the kernel with linux distro, which is an entirely different beast. Try forking the actual linux kernel and modifying it. Soon you will get men in black breaking down your door, with patent infringement, copyright infringement, etc.etc... The linux foundation is not Linus Torvalds, it is IBM, Google, Microsoft, Dell, HP, etc.etc..
...And this is why you see almost NO linux kernel forks... except those of Google(android), etc.
Linux is a "lie"
List of the top Linux foundation owners....oh mmm.. I mean "contributors". And most the linux code is done by their employees, and that code is tied up in patents in some cases if not copyright..... oh the lie of "opensource" in reference to Linux:
IBM
Intel
Google
Microsoft
Facebook
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Red Hat
Huawei
Oracle
Samsung
Dell Technologies
Fujitsu
Hitachi
NVIDIA
Cisco
No Wayland yet? I would cheat on Linux if I had my Hyprland.
About 3/4 of the suggested reasons don't hold, About 1/4 of your reasons do hold though.
I do agree that the documentation is generally better, but issues like systemd are not actually prohibitive because for instance there are distros like Debian vs Devuan.
You also can use a distro like 'Linux from scratch'.
I guess that I am saying that there will be a distro that will do pretty much anything that you like about FreeBSD.
You can choose to learn everything like BSD, you can also use a easy to run noobs system like LinuxMint.
Ports is fantastic on BSD, I have enjoyed how that works.
Thank you, having a 1/4 hold up sure does beat some of the comments I have had where none of my points are valid, so I guess I'm making progress :-)
*This the #1 question **_Linuxsters_** ask me lol*
:-)
FreeBSD lets me get as involved as much or as little as I need.
I think the future os is: low hardware requirement, stable, long term support. freebsd allmost there, but missing a good documentation. Most of the users missing the automation, but i dont. But a way better documentation is missing!
FreeBSD is usually complimented for its documentation instead of criticized. If you feel things are missing, unclear, or even outdated then the FreeBSD Documentation Project appreciates bug reports regarding that state.
I have just looked through November 2023 Top500 list. 0 (Zero) AnyBSD is there... :( Also no one Type 1 hypervisor under BSD/Apache license....
Is this the end, my friend? Or the time yet hasn't come? The world is waiting for us? :)
Well, that's the question isn't it?
I think the powers that be who steer FreeBSD had better start planning for the future, one that doesn't include concentration on servers as that seems to be a withering vine....
@@RoboNuggie yes, Sir, I know that in the English language questions should be started with a modal verb. But I respect you too much to spend your time on philosophic rather than technical questions. So, yes, that was a question 🤗🙏🏻 Thank you very much for your reply and I am very proud to read your answer. But you already gave it to me with your videos. Top500 is their list and they may do whatever they want. And my idea is much greater and only FreeBSD can suit. And if FreeBSD can't suit despite all my best then I will treat my idea as wrong! Sir you gave me strength, and FreeBSD will give me the power! Where and how to get the knowledge, thank God I know!; Starting tomorrow! 🔴🚜🗿 (Yet have not read your answer, I will do it right now! I just needed an answer! 😃) Best wishes to you and to your friends! ❤️
@@RoboNuggie Sir, it would be The World. It will start from a Workstation, which will be used to start A Server ;-) We'll see or at least we,'ll hear! P. S. I am sure that I did not understand your answer right. You won't miss anything 🙏🏻
Yea. Looks like I’ll be switching back to FreeBSD as my main server and driver
The argument of Linux… yep. They sometimes make a new distort and only thing change is Hanna Montana so a desktop wallpaper. I do think those distros die quick. Linux forums are not all that bad depending which you use. I think a lot of rtfm comes from older days in Linux where you have people running red hat or enterprise software they say but trying to sneak out with centos but ask sometimes really hardware specific things. Uhm those cases call support coz the red hat support has that hardware listed so sort out with them not community.
Bsd is good too but I really have a hard time between the systems nowadays. PF is bloody good though.
Linux we do not want it to be windows…. That is just Ubuntu crappy marketing. And unfortunately people go ohh use ubunubu. One thing I do prefer of red hat based distros are proper cgroups. But let’s face it. Either or are bloody solid. The old Debian and redhat I mean look at Linux at end it is essentially one of those two systems. And FreeBSD is not hard. 90% of stuff same on both systems and just need to learn the specifics. Apart from the meh Linux distros which some bsd distros has same thing, it is same thing. I love both. RTOS is also pretty darn good. Have a look at that on esp32.
There are milion reasons, why not.Linux only.
Define "crappy hardware". What kind of overhead has Linux when it's even more modular, than *BSD.
Crappy hardware... well, it's subjective - say you have some old Pentium 4 machines, or even some 386's.... there are many Linux distros no longer appropriate for such old tech, with FreeBSD, it is very much still supported.... :-)
@@RoboNuggie They are archaic machines and there is really no need for a modern os to run on them. Even newer 32bit systems are getting discarded fast.
Sorry *BSD guys, linux has served the free os community much better than other oses. The only area where linux is weak is the desktop domain. Apart from that, linux rules everywhere! On the other hand I am not against *BSD, I appreciate the hard and good work *BSD people put on.
Concurency should be. And i don't like red hat hands in linux
@@MrChelovek68 me neither! But linux is not redhat or ibm. It is much bigger than them does not need them at all.
@@merakli2022 Technically, yes, but only technically. it will freeze in development, when companies goes out . But in general, I just don't like the policy of implementing redhat's garbage (systemd,raw wayland). I don't know about you, but I get angry as soon as they start forcing something, and even more so silently. Otherwise, like everywhere else around, I don't see two-way communication between users and developers. this was another stone in opensource. and yes, there are good alternatives: void, gentoo. but I'm just disappointed in linux .
@@MrChelovek68 I see your point but linux development will go on whether some companies drop out of the picture or not, albeit at different speeds. Water always finds its way.
@@merakli2022 well it will be good if so. competition in software and OS is always a good thing.
i personally do not really care about all that systemd does but the 1 thing it has over the other is it's syntax which just simple makes more sense to me.
systemd has `[actor] [action] [subject]` where openrc has `[actor] [subject] [action]`.
in this regard and only this, systemd is preferred but in every other way i don't care.
I tried to run on Vmware Fusion (now free) a ARM Based BSD on my Apple Silicon Mac. I was not successful and I have 30 yrs of OS experience.