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FreeBSD rather than Linux?

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SiliconWizard:
Just took a look at the current state of FreeBSD. What would be the benefits compared to Linux for a workstation? Is hardware support as good?

Any thoughts or experience would be welcome.

Nominal Animal:
I'd be very interested in hearing desktop/workstation user experiences, too.

On the server side, on x86-64, I can definitely recommend FreeBSD on OpenZFS filesystems, although it has been a couple of years I last used one myself.  I could always set up a virtual machine and test how FreeBSD "works for me" that way, but having used Linux so much, I suspect I'd miss useful details and differences.
Hearing from actual current FreeBSD desktop/workstation users would be extremely interesting to me.

Even links to blogs or similar –– not advocacy, but honest personal experiences –– would be appreciated.

RoGeorge:
I have it for a year or so as a second OS for the lab desktop (at home).  Feels great.  I don't know how to say, you have to try to know the feeling.  It feels simple, direct, clean, not bloated, don't know how to say.  Try it.  Can be tested in a virtual machine to not mess with dual boot at first.

Read the FreeBSD Handbook first.  This is a must.  Not an optional step.

The installer will only get you to text mode.  To install the video drivers and a GUI, there is a script called desktop-installer, which will ask questions of what desktop environment to install and a few other related must know settings (including a firewall, etc).  That will let you with a GUI just like any Linux, I'm using it with KDE.

Again, in FreeBSD newcomers must read the FreeBSD Handbook first, and must read install messages or other text may appear, and often must follow the instructions from such messages.

I absolutely love FreeBSD, however, I'm typing this from Kubuntu 22.04 LTS.  ;D

Some things are tricky to set for a FreeBSD newcomer like me, or might require too much reading, or not yet ported to FreeBSD, things like that.  Also, their forum is great, but other than the FreeBSD forum and the FreeBSD Handbook you won't get the gazillion of search answers one gets for Linux.  The community is smaller, which is both a pitfall and a great advantage.

Most of the Linux things might be ported already, or might work in Linux compatible mode, though you might have some things not working.  For example, for me the showstopper was that VirtualBox doesn't have USB2.0 in FreeBSD.  I've just read VirtualBox now includes the USB 2.0 by default (before it was available only as a plugin), so maybe I could finally switch to FreeBSD.

WineHQ is ported (so things like LTspice, games or other Windows programs are working OK just as they work in Linux), though OS components are more conservative (e.g. no systemd, no alsa, etc.).

TL;DR
FreeBSD is great for those who have the discipline, the time, and the knowledge to set it properly, and eventually to port by themselves something that they need/want but is not yet available in FreeBSD.

If you don't care about UNIX, and just want to run something to get the job done, then use Ubuntu.

Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: RoGeorge on October 20, 2022, 08:42:08 am ---I have it for a year or so as a second OS for the lab desktop (at home).
--- End quote ---
What about the hardware support, anything notable?

I do believe for the graphics and video drivers, FreeBSD closely co-operate with the Linux devs (including Linux DRI/DRM developers dual-licensing relevant stuff so that it can be used in FreeBSD also), so that if using open source drivers, even accelerated video (VDPAU, VA-API etc.) should work just as well as it does on Linux.

What I do not know, is sensor support and fan control (especially on laptops).  I do use the Linux lm-sensors quite a lot, although on this particular laptop (HP EliteBook 840 G4) the ACPI control is perfectly fine, no tweaks needed.  I vaguely recall seeing posts about fan speed being not userspace-controllable in FreeBSD, but ACPI-based controls should work.

RoGeorge:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on October 20, 2022, 09:17:58 am ---What I do not know, is sensor support and fan control (especially on laptops).  I do use the Linux lm-sensors quite a lot, although on this particular laptop (HP EliteBook 840 G4) the ACPI control is perfectly fine, no tweaks needed.  I vaguely recall seeing posts about fan speed being not userspace-controllable in FreeBSD, but ACPI-based controls should work.

--- End quote ---

I don't know, hard to say without trying.  My desktop is 5+ years old, has nVidia (used w proprietary drivers that were installed by that desktop-installer script) and Creative sound (w drivers coming from Linux, too).  Most of the drivers are from Linux, I guess. 

If your laptop can boot from USB, get an SD card or pen drive and install FreeBSD on that so you won't touch the current OS.  I don't recall the minimum requirements, my first install was on a 32GB uSD card, and it was less than half with all the plasma and office and gimp and wine and who knows what other needed desktop installs I might have added there.  Beware that Bash is not the default shell, can be changed easily but it might look strange when coming from Linux.

If you get in any trouble, make an account to https://forums.freebsd.org/ and you'll get outstanding help.  Beware the community there expects you read the Handbook and the forum rules, and first 10 posts or 10 days (whichever comes first) for new users will only be published after (human) approval, so it might take minutes, or hours at most.  That might seem strange at first, but the community there is great.

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