FreeBSD rather than Linux?

[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. 

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]

I have it for a year or so as a second OS for the lab desktop (at home).

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]

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.

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.

[DiTBho]

OpenZFS filesystems

OpenZFS vs btrfs?

[DiTBho]

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.

FreeBSD guys, kernel side, are more rigorous in problem solving than Linux guys.
I like this!

Unfortunately my problem with FreeBSD is that the kernel is unstable/experimental for { HPPA2, MIPS32, MIPS64 }.

[DiTBho]

A second problem I have: FreeBSD supports Linux filesystems, but you cannot install your system on them. ext2/ext3 supports read/write access. ReiserFS and XFS are read-only support.

Xfs v3 is what I use, as well as ext2 and ext3

[Nominal Animal]

OpenZFS filesystems

OpenZFS vs btrfs?

Good question.  I do not have enough up-to-date experience to have an opinion myself. 

In Linux, I use ext4, btw.

[Monkeh]

OpenZFS filesystems

OpenZFS vs btrfs?

Good question.  I do not have enough up-to-date experience to have an opinion myself. 

In Linux, I use ext4, btw.

I'll chime in: btrfs is a nice project. Maybe it'll be safe and performant in another 5-10 years. 30s+ mount times, massive delays on file deletion of all things, scant tooling to recover from damage caused by either medium errors or kernel bugs. It's not an enjoyable experiece.

[RoGeorge]

I use ZFS for about 2-3 years now, both in Linux and in FreeBSD (both installed with ZFS on root partition, too, not only for data).  Same for a data HDD, ZFS and never had any problem that I know off.  Worked flawless.  I think BTRFS was left behind some years ago, and since, BTRFS has had some Halloween stories with data loss, silent corruption and such.

The only major distro still using BTRFS is openSUSE, AFAIK, and they are probably the only reason why BTRFS has not been forgotten.  In terms of features, ZFS and BTRFS are about the same, maybe ZFS has a few more but I never look very careful at the BTRFS specs.

FreeBSD has native ZFS and can put the root partition on ZFS, while Linux doesn't because some licensing complaints from Linus.  Linux with ZFS on root is possible but with a lot of extra work to install, generally not easy.  For Ubuntu however, there is an experimental feature in the GUI installer, since 2-3 years ago, just check a checkbox and Ubuntu will use ZFS for root.

The good (or the bad) part of Ubuntu on ZFS root is that they added yet another layer called ZSys, which takes ZFS snapshots automatically after each apt un/install and/or periodically, so the OS or the OS+user data can be restored at a previous time.  There are additional entries in the boot menu to select restore at a previous time, options added in the GRUB menu by Zsys.  Normal ZFS operations are still possible, but for some corner case usage it's better to be aware about the newly ZSys layer on top of ZFS.  Ubuntu with ZFS on root is stil experimental AFAIK, and available for Ubuntu only (e.g. for Kubuntu on ZFS root I had to install Ubuntu first, then add KDE Plasma later).

[Nominal Animal]

because some licensing complaints from Linus

No.

Linus does not own the copyrights to the Linux kernel, the developers do.  And the developers have provided their code under the GPL-2.0 license (plus sometimes other licenses).  The CDDL –– what OpenZFS is licensed under –– is not compatible with GPL, so mixing CDDL and GPL licensed code is not distributable under *any* license, according to the Free Software Foundation ('s lawyers specialized in copyright law).  You can read more about it at Wikipedia in the Common Development and Distribution License article.

Since ZFS was initially released in 2006, it would be much more apt to ask why they deliberately chose a license that would be incompatible with GPL, knowing that that would block it from ever being distributable when combined with the GPL-licensed Linux kernel code.  Sun definitely did always consider Linux a deadly competitor, not a community they wanted to collaborate with.  So perhaps blame those who made the choice in the first place?

[SiliconWizard]

My main "concern" would be about hardware support and whether it's as good as what we have with Linux. In particular: graphics cards and everything USB. Also, how much "lag" there typically is for supporting newer CPUs/chipsets.

Otherwise, more generally speaking, one benefit of FreeBSD is that it's a full OS. Linux is nothing like that - it's just the kernel, and then there are hundreds of distributions which each form an OS with different components and various levels of compatibility. It's very fragmented. Thus distributing software on FreeBSD is probably much easier. Besides, the FreeBSD licensing is much more liberal - whether you like it or not will depend on your own perspective. I tend to prefer it.

[DiTBho]

graphics cards

kernel modules are ported from Linux
This means
1) polished
2) two steps back, because polishing takes time

one benefit of FreeBSD is that it's a full OS

kernel + userland { C library, userland tools, misc } -> FreeBSD vs GNU/Linux

FreeBSD -> all inclusive, { FreeBSD {kernel}, BSD { C library, userland tools, misc } }
GNU/Linux -> { Linux {kernel}, GNU { C library, userland tools, misc } }

Talking about userland you have to consider BSD vs GNU
GNU: programs need to be linked against libdl
BSD: programs need to be linked against  libc.

Talking about kernel, FreeBSD doesn't have an official tool for kernel compilation and you have to resolve feature dependencies by hand. Not tricky? well ... at the moment I failed at integrating it into my builder.

[RoGeorge]

No intent to assign any guilt with the license remark, my bad wording, sorry.

My main "concern" would be about hardware support and whether it's as good as what we have with Linux. In particular: graphics cards and everything USB. Also, how much "lag" there typically is for supporting newer CPUs/chipsets.

About USB and HW support, all the USB I've plugged so far were working just fine.  Card readers, an ancient iPod nano, USB hubs from two different monitors and one hub with on/off manual switches sitting on the desk, various USB sticks, external USB HDD, an external IDE/SATA to USB adapter, various devboards, FTDI or CH340 dongles, photo cameras, an USB camera from the broken lid of a former HP laptop, etc.  I didn't have any USB 3 devices.

nVidia and Radeon are supported, same for the embedded AMD or Intel GPUs and the most common soundchips and network cards.  If there is a driver for Linux, most probably that it was ported to FreeBSD, too.  Linux code doesn't need to be re-written from scratch, only adapted.  After all, FreeBSD can run verbatim Linux code (with some limitations) and there is a Linux compatibility mode.  One can have a Ubuntu (or more, or other Linuxes) running inside FreeBSD (without creating virtual machines for them, virtualization is another option).

There might be some HW devices not working, but in general the HW support is about the same as in Linux.  Best way to know for sure is to install FreeBSD on another drive.  For my setup the HW support was no problem, but some software from Linux (like the support for USB2.0 in VirtualBox additions) might not be available yet in FreeBSD.

[alm]

I can't comment on desktop use, because I haven't used FreeBSD on desktop in a long time, but I can comment on server use. In my opinion the advantages of FreeBSD are native ZFS support (which I'd trust over btrfs for anything important), better server-class networking (for example I found the pf packet filter on FreeBSD much more enjoyable than iptables on Linux), and better documentation (for the core OS): For FreeBSD there is a solid manpage for every command in the core system, while for Linux the documentation may be in a man page, in the command using --help or something similar, in GNU Info, on some random webpage, or not at all. Of course the same does not apply for any software not in the core FreeBSD OS.

I think you might have problems with anything more that's distributed in binary form. Installing the closed-source Chrome (as opposed to Chromium) does not look like fun to me. As long as you're happy with Firefox and Chromium you might be okay. The official Dropbox client may not work on FreeBSD, although there are open source solutions.

[DiTBho]

FreeBSD on RISC-V ...... well .... 

[DiTBho]

FreeBSD doesn't have an official tool for

dream: FreeBSD catalyst.
Already tried in the past, it failed five times with Gentoo.

[SiliconWizard]

FreeBSD on RISC-V ...... well .... 

https://wiki.freebsd.org/riscv

[DiTBho]

Yup, doesn't look good, but rather beta experimental 
Well, Haiku on risc-V is no better

oh, there is also a serious problem finding a decent PCI-e risc-v board.
Some are outdated, some are deprecated, some are just ... out of stock

[eti]

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.

If you don’t spend every day on Linux, that itself is enough of a time sink. All of the 1-2 times I’ve tried BSDs, I’ve gone ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and deleted them.

Why make life harder.

[Nominal Animal]

Why make life harder.

Because when all your banana plants are clones of the same Cavendish cultivar, any disease capable of hitting one plant can easily wipe out your entire farm.

Why gamble and place all your resources and your future on a single option?  Just because it's easier?

[DiTBho]

yeah, I know, but look at x11, for example.

There are several X11/Wayland applications that I would like to run on Haiku/{risc-v, arm64} and Morphos/{ppc32}, unfortunately there isn’t any X11/Wayland available at the moment.

(
Haiku is an opensource clone of BeOS
Morphos is a commercial clone of AmigaOS/nextgen
)

X11/Wayland on those OSes is ... like a blasphemy, because they have a lighter different graphic architecture, so you have two alternatives:

• hacking x11/waylant to make it "rootless X server(2)" in order to run applications(1) without the need to port them manually
• hack the applications in order to port them manually. Sometimes, if the the application doesn't directly use the X11 protocol but rather based on Motif toolkit, then the application may be ported directly without using X11 primitives, so with less layers of software, resulting faster and lighter

(1) apps like LibreOffice, VLC, many KDE apps, if the X11 protocol directly or based on Motif toolkit? If not, it may be ported to Haiku directly without using X11.
(2) rootless X server means, for the user it will appear like a window containing other windows ... the clipboard is also completely separated from the running graphic environment ... I mean, it's like running Linux into a Virtual Machine screen on the top of a real Linux desktop. Not good!

[Nominal Animal]

There are several X11/Wayland applications that I would like to run on Haiku/{risc-v, arm64} and Morphos/{ppc32}, unfortunately there isn’t any X11/Wayland available at the moment.

So, what you are saying, is you are also wanting choices and alternatives?   

For there to be choice, there need to be developers and users wanting that choice in the first place.  Asking that others worry about it (that others "make their life harder", and just coast along yourself) is just taking the shortcut yourself, but hoping others won't because then entire ecosystem fail.

The fact that some of the alternatives currently are less than desirable, does not mean they should be killed with fire.  I suggest you consider them different biomes.  That way the interconnectedness and niches become more understandable.

[DiTBho]

For there to be choice, there need to be developers and users wanting that choice in the first place.

yup, that's the point 

Most people don't want the operating system (Morphos) for this reason, other than the fact that it's only aimed at PowerPC.

Someone accepts Haiku, but since it doesn't have X11 / Wayland support and "unix" compatibility is only partial ... it's always a compromise between developers and users willing to spend more time on something that has less support (here I mean: kernel drivers, and applications) than {Windows, GNU / Linux, BSD / FreeBSD}