Has anyone here tried BSD?

jdarnold · 2010-01-25 13:46:10

I used to run FreeBSD for years on my personal machine (hence the name of my blog) and still run it on my server. I really like the centralized control over the kernel and how smoothly everything seemed to run. I enjoyed the ports system, even if it was often overkill. I just didn't have the time it took to keep it running using "modern" things like flash and dual monitors. It's probably better these days, but I get all that, plus fanatical support while running Linux, and now that I've found Arch I can have my (source) cake and eat it too.

pogeymanz · 2010-01-25 17:07:43

I tried FreeBSD in virtualbox and I feel like I kind of messed up by 'pkg_add'-ing everything instead of using ports. From what I remember, pkg_delete isn't great for removing packages because it doesn't get rid of unwanted dependencies for you (or even tell you that they are there). Next time I will try portmaster.

Can anyone explain to me (briefly) what the deal is with hard drive "slices"? You create a BSD "slice" and then divide the slice into the parts of the filesystem. Why is there that extra layer of abstraction?

mcsaba77 · 2010-01-25 17:51:43

A yes, portmaster - it was still kinda new (but already quite capable) when I left FreeBSD. If I remember correctly, it was the intended replacement for portinstall/portupgrade.

Also, I think pkg_delete does dependency checking - check the man page - and it will refuse to delete a package if it is required by another package (and I think it would display what packages depend on it). Passing -f will forcibly remove the package however. Which leads me to something I forgot to mention - FreeBSD has the best documentation of any free oprating system (well, any I know of). The man pages are really really great (hence my remark that it was easier than linux), and the FreeBSD handbook is top-notch (the FreeBSD Foundation actually payed people to write some parts of it). I'm not sure if it's still kept up to date though...

As to installing - you can install everything with pkg_add -r - how outdated your packages will be would depend on the release date. Say if FreeBSD was just released, it makes sense to install everything from packages, then update when updates are available from ports. From the package manager's perspective, it doesn't matter what you use. In fact, you could instruct portupgrade (I'm sure you can do the same with portmaster) to create a binary package before installing (I remember that you have to create a directory in /var for them, and the binary package will be placed there automatically). Then if you maintain multiple computers, you can install those binaries on them. Actually that's what I did - I build optimized packages on my home computer to install on very outdated (pII-mmx) hardware in a small computer lab. If all dependencies are present in the same directory, pkg_add -r will find and install them automatically. One final neat trick was that even if you forgot to build a binary package before installing, you can create a binary package from the port that was already installed on your system. Neat, eh? So if you have a fast computer, with packages built from ports, and decide to replicate your install on another one, you can create binary packages of everything you have installed, put them in a directory, export them via nfs or samba, and simply pkg_add -r them on your other machine...

ataraxia · 2010-01-25 19:04:39

pogeymanz wrote:

Can anyone explain to me (briefly) what the deal is with hard drive "slices"? You create a BSD "slice" and then divide the slice into the parts of the filesystem. Why is there that extra layer of abstraction?

BSD partition tables are older than DOS/MBR ones. When BSD came to ia32 as 386BSD, rather than porting it to the MBR partition format, the BSD table was just stuffed inside a single MBR partition. The MBR table format has some limitations (like only 4 primary partitions) that made this at least somewhat reasonable.

pingviin · 2010-01-25 19:21:02

I just love OpenBSD! Have two severs running on it. Also, OpenBSD is probably the reason that out of all the distros I like Arch the most.

Misfit138 · 2010-01-25 22:05:09

pingviin wrote:

I just love OpenBSD! Have two severs running on it. Also, OpenBSD is probably the reason that out of all the distros I like Arch the most.

Agreed completely. My exact sentiments.

eDio · 2010-01-25 22:13:11

Why no one has not mentioned Mac OS X? It's also BSD!

pingviin · 2010-01-25 22:20:16

eDio wrote:

Why no one has not mentioned Mac OS X? It's also BSD!

The fact that birds envolved from dinosaurs doesn't make birds dinosaurs

YZMSQ · 2010-01-26 06:52:25

Acecero wrote:

YZMSQ wrote:
Acecero wrote:
I understand it's a lot to take in, but you will learn much more at a faster rate if you try both at the same time.
hoho...good idea....but it will take a lot of time and you should have a sharp mind at the same time.....:P
PS:Now I'm learning Linux and Bash,C,........I always complain that why the time is so limited......so I will not learn BSD right now....forgive me...:rolleyes:
Well that answer is bit more specific to my earlier question, rather than "I'm just new Unix-like systems." I was not pressuring you into using BSD, I was merely suggesting the idea trying BSD also by getting the hands-on experience, instead of having people tell you what it's like. Seeing how dedicated you are to learning Bash and C, that is time consumering and I respect that. You probably have a busy life as well. So again I didn't mean to change your learning path, go with it.
P.S. I didn't like your sarcastic tone. Please follow the rules. I don't like that kind of disrespect among others who were willing share their opinions or thoughts.

Oh...I'm sorry,it's my fault......Thank you for your reminding

Last edited by YZMSQ (2010-01-26 06:54:33)

Zeist · 2010-01-26 07:08:52

eDio wrote:

Why no one has not mentioned Mac OS X? It's also BSD!

I would not call it BSD, I would call it "based on BSD". There are so many core things that are fundamentally different in OS X that it is quite different from the BSDs.

zowki · 2010-01-26 13:05:04

Zeist wrote:

eDio wrote:
Why no one has not mentioned Mac OS X? It's also BSD!
I would not call it BSD, I would call it "based on BSD". There are so many core things that are fundamentally different in OS X that it is quite different from the BSDs.

Its not BSD itself but I've heard it being referred to as a BSD distribution before.

dr_te_z · 2010-01-26 18:55:15

No-one mentiones netBSD anymore. Is that out? I tried it a few years ago and I liked it very much.

jdarnold · 2010-01-26 19:08:14

Probably the most user friendly *BSD "distro" is PC-BSD. That was my last flavor of BSD on my local machine. In many ways, it is like Arch, in that it has its own binary packaging but is otherwise completely based on FreeBSD.

pingviin · 2010-01-26 19:27:47

jdarnold wrote:

Probably the most user friendly *BSD "distro" is PC-BSD. That was my last flavor of BSD on my local machine. In many ways, it is like Arch, in that it has its own binary packaging but is otherwise completely based on FreeBSD.

Every BSD is made for different purposes, so termin *user friendly* isn't correct. For a desktop user, yes, PC-BSD is probably the best choice.

Saint0fCloud · 2010-01-26 23:49:20

dr_te_z wrote:

No-one mentiones netBSD anymore. Is that out? I tried it a few years ago and I liked it very much.

NetBSD is still alive and strong. Their 5.0 release was a huge step up from the 4.X branch and I've been running it successfully for a while on my older laptop.

Emmett · 2010-01-27 06:58:35

YZMSQ wrote:

Acecero wrote:
YZMSQ wrote:
hoho...good idea....but it will take a lot of time and you should have a sharp mind at the same time.....:P
PS:Now I'm learning Linux and Bash,C,........I always complain that why the time is so limited......so I will not learn BSD right now....forgive me...:rolleyes:
Well that answer is bit more specific to my earlier question, rather than "I'm just new Unix-like systems." I was not pressuring you into using BSD, I was merely suggesting the idea trying BSD also by getting the hands-on experience, instead of having people tell you what it's like. Seeing how dedicated you are to learning Bash and C, that is time consumering and I respect that. You probably have a busy life as well. So again I didn't mean to change your learning path, go with it.
P.S. I didn't like your sarcastic tone. Please follow the rules. I don't like that kind of disrespect among others who were willing share their opinions or thoughts.
Oh...I'm sorry,it's my fault......Thank you for your reminding

Hmm... maybe I'm out of line here but I didn't find YZMSQ's post as disrespectfully sarcastic. It's very difficult to tell tone using only text, but I felt like his post had personality and spunk, and if there was any doubt as to his intention (of whether he was being disrespectful or not), then I believe the emoticons he included helped to quell that suspicion. Besides, if he was being disrespectful, I doubt he would have responded to your criticism so respectfully.

On a side note, I mean this post respectfully. Just please be careful on taking offense so quickly. Thanks.

Last edited by Emmett (2010-01-27 07:00:49)

sHyLoCk · 2010-01-27 07:06:20

@Emmett, you just created an account to tell us that?
Anyway, judging by YZMSQ's post it's clear that English isn't his 1st language and maybe he couldn't construct his post well because I don't find it rude either.

venky80 · 2010-01-27 12:21:11

pingviin wrote:

jdarnold wrote:
Probably the most user friendly *BSD "distro" is PC-BSD. That was my last flavor of BSD on my local machine. In many ways, it is like Arch, in that it has its own binary packaging but is otherwise completely based on FreeBSD.
Every BSD is made for different purposes, so termin *user friendly* isn't correct. For a desktop user, yes, PC-BSD is probably the best choice.

Ya it calls itself a desktop OS still does not have support for UVC webcams, I think it is a joke, bit other than that it was pretty neat.

wankel · 2010-02-04 18:35:51

venky80 wrote:

pingviin wrote:
jdarnold wrote:
Probably the most user friendly *BSD "distro" is PC-BSD. That was my last flavor of BSD on my local machine. In many ways, it is like Arch, in that it has its own binary packaging but is otherwise completely based on FreeBSD.
Every BSD is made for different purposes, so termin *user friendly* isn't correct. For a desktop user, yes, PC-BSD is probably the best choice.
Ya it calls itself a desktop OS still does not have support for UVC webcams, I think it is a joke, bit other than that it was pretty neat.

Is there any update on UVC webcam support with FreeBSD? Im having a hard time finding current information on the subject.

sdolim · 2010-02-04 19:48:30

I used NetBSD on my desktop for a few years. No complaints, but I like Arch better.

Acecero · 2010-02-04 20:01:35

sHyLoCk wrote:

@Emmett, you just created an account to tell us that?
Anyway, judging by YZMSQ's post it's clear that English isn't his 1st language and maybe he couldn't construct his post well because I don't find it rude either.

Since he did apologize for the matter, it showed that he meant to recover from what he state previously, meaning that he had some guilt. It may not have seem rude to you, but the way he responded to my suggestions with use the of the emoticons and the many ellipsis did. If that was not the case, then I'm sorry YZMSQ for taking it personal.

zowki · 2010-02-06 03:44:36

I just tried out FreeBSD. After installing it I was thrown on to a familair CLI like Arch Linux but I had no idea where to get started. I didnt know how to install additional packages to get the X window system running or anything of that sort. I did a bit of research and it seems I have to compile all my packages myself. After realizing this I quicky installed Arch back on my machine since I preferred more automated package management using pacman. If any BSD users would give me some tips I would be happy to give FreeBSD a second shot.

Emmett · 2010-02-06 06:56:12

Acecero wrote:

sHyLoCk wrote:
@Emmett, you just created an account to tell us that?
Anyway, judging by YZMSQ's post it's clear that English isn't his 1st language and maybe he couldn't construct his post well because I don't find it rude either.
Since he did apologize for the matter, it showed that he meant to recover from what he state previously, meaning that he had some guilt. It may not have seem rude to you, but the way he responded to my suggestions with use the of the emoticons and the many ellipsis did. If that was not the case, then I'm sorry YZMSQ for taking it personal.

I think he apologized for the fact that he bothered you, not for the fact that he meant it wrongly in the first place. But perhaps I am out of line, and I really meant no offense to anyone, especially you, by my comments. I've been needing to create an Arch account for some time now, and this was just a good time to do it, so I didn't really create an account just to say this.

Anyways, sorry if I bothered you! Thank you for apologizing, but I don't think you were out of line. I was just giving my 2 cents and trying to also be polite as I am a newbie around here and I didn't want to upset anyone. I meant the utmost respect.

ak-89 · 2010-02-06 07:56:10

zowki wrote:

I just tried out FreeBSD. After installing it I was thrown on to a familair CLI like Arch Linux but I had no idea where to get started. I didnt know how to install additional packages to get the X window system running or anything of that sort. I did a bit of research and it seems I have to compile all my packages myself. After realizing this I quicky installed Arch back on my machine since I preferred more automated package management using pacman. If any BSD users would give me some tips I would be happy to give FreeBSD a second shot.

You can install binary packages with pkg_add.

for example:

pkg _add -r bash

this downloads and installs bash

There's more help in FreeBSD handbook.
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO885 … using.html

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO885 … stall.html Here is help for installing X and configuring it.

Even if you can't find some package as binary, you don't have to fight with dependencies when compiling. Ports has automatic dependency resolution, you just go right dir and then "make install clean" and it compiles and installs that app and it's dependencies. You can find more about this Ports system from FreeBSD handbook.

tomk · 2010-02-06 08:55:02

Acecero - please make allowances for varying standards of english comprehension and usage.
Emmett - please post about the topic, or not at all. If another user's post bothers you, use the forum's Report function to notify the moderator team.

Now.. please continue the interesting on-topic discussion.

Arch Linux

#26 2010-01-25 13:46:10

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#27 2010-01-25 17:07:43

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#28 2010-01-25 17:51:43

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#29 2010-01-25 19:04:39

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#30 2010-01-25 19:21:02

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#31 2010-01-25 22:05:09

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#32 2010-01-25 22:13:11

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#33 2010-01-25 22:20:16

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#34 2010-01-26 06:52:25

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#35 2010-01-26 07:08:52

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#36 2010-01-26 13:05:04

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#37 2010-01-26 18:55:15

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#38 2010-01-26 19:08:14

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#39 2010-01-26 19:27:47

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#40 2010-01-26 23:49:20

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#41 2010-01-27 06:58:35

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#42 2010-01-27 07:06:20

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#43 2010-01-27 12:21:11

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#44 2010-02-04 18:35:51

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#45 2010-02-04 19:48:30

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#46 2010-02-04 20:01:35

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#47 2010-02-06 03:44:36

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#48 2010-02-06 06:56:12

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#49 2010-02-06 07:56:10

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#50 2010-02-06 08:55:02

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

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