Has anyone here tried BSD?

dcj123 · 2010-02-09 23:36:29

Yeah

So I am using a 4 OS boot system right now which are:

Arch Linux (hd0,0)
Windows XP (hd0,1)
Haiku (hd0,2)
FreeBSD (hd0,4)

And FreeBSD is one of my favorites right now, truth be told I thought the installation of FreeBSD felt kind of like Arch.

Emmett · 2010-02-11 00:59:16

Dcj123:
How would you compare your freebsd installation to your arch installation? Any notable differences between the two in your experience? Faster, slower, buggy, anything?

And sense you mentioned it in your post, how does Haiku compare to freebsd and arch on your system?

hitest · 2010-02-13 16:00:29

YZMSQ wrote:

Hi there,
We all know that Archlinux is BSD-like.However,has anyone here really experienced BSD,like FreeBSD,OpenBSD,NetBSD......What about that?:D

Yes. I was a long-time FreeBSD user, I ran FreeBSD from 5.x-8.0. I miss the FreeBSD community, but, I have decided that I am a Linux user.
The BSD-like init scripts and configuration of Arch made me feel right at home. My FreeBSD and Slackware background knowledge helped me with setting up Arch.
Arch linux is a delightful, robust, fast OS.

Vamp898 · 2010-02-13 16:04:34

i treid FreeBSD 7.2 and 8.0

with KDE

dont do that!!!

slow as hell and if you havehardware which is newer than 1998 good luck for drivers xD

it seems like BSD have no drivers for nothing and in all my tests it was much slower than GNU/Linux

You dont have the newest software, except you use the ports

have fun while compiling since BSD does not support compiling on multiple cores.

Lich · 2010-02-13 16:22:27

I run OpenBSD on an older machine, for the fun of it. Used to keep that machine as my main server, but not anymore.

Infinity717 · 2010-02-13 18:17:50

Hello Arch community!

wankel wrote:

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

Checkout the webcamd and video4bsd kernel module.
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/p … 4bsd-kmod/
(I hope you are a fellow RX8 owner )

Vamp898 wrote:

i treid FreeBSD 7.2 and 8.0
with KDE
dont do that!!!
slow as hell and if you havehardware which is newer than 1998 good luck for drivers xD
it seems like BSD have no drivers for nothing and in all my tests it was much slower than GNU/Linux
You don't have the newest software, except you use the ports
have fun while compiling since BSD does not support compiling on multiple cores.

While i respect your opinion i will have to disagree. FBSD has very good performance but you will have to learn the system first so to optimize it for your needs,
sysinstall also does not support many features that FBSD does, ahci drivers by default and ZFS to name a few.

I understand though that this is not something that everyone wants to do.
The bottom line is, don't try to use FBSD as a "live cd" to test it, the system needs some dedication.
After you understand how the system is put together it becomes addictive, at least for me

Ports is the way to go if you want to have the latest software , as for compiling with multiple jobs you can use

MAKE_JOBS_NUMBER=x

and optionally

FORCE_MAKE_JOBS=yes

in your make.conf

You can also use gcc from ports to compile software
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/ … ticle.html

davidgurvich · 2010-02-13 18:40:44

I see FBSD as very good for a server and not so good as a desktop. For zfs the only options are opensolaris and freebsd with the learning curve smaller on freebsd, though zfs support is better on opensolaris.

Vamp898 · 2010-02-14 03:32:15

Infinity717 wrote:

Hello Arch community!
wankel wrote:
Is there any update on UVC webcam support with FreeBSD? Im having a hard time finding current information on the subject.
Checkout the webcamd and video4bsd kernel module.
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/p … 4bsd-kmod/
(I hope you are a fellow RX8 owner )
Vamp898 wrote:
i treid FreeBSD 7.2 and 8.0
with KDE
dont do that!!!
slow as hell and if you havehardware which is newer than 1998 good luck for drivers xD
it seems like BSD have no drivers for nothing and in all my tests it was much slower than GNU/Linux
You don't have the newest software, except you use the ports
have fun while compiling since BSD does not support compiling on multiple cores.
While i respect your opinion i will have to disagree. FBSD has very good performance but you will have to learn the system first so to optimize it for your needs,
sysinstall also does not support many features that FBSD does, ahci drivers by default and ZFS to name a few.
I understand though that this is not something that everyone wants to do.
The bottom line is, don't try to use FBSD as a "live cd" to test it, the system needs some dedication.
After you understand how the system is put together it becomes addictive, at least for me
Ports is the way to go if you want to have the latest software , as for compiling with multiple jobs you can use
MAKE_JOBS_NUMBER=x
and optionally
FORCE_MAKE_JOBS=yes
in your make.conf
You can also use gcc from ports to compile software
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/ … ticle.html

i already tried this and it seems that jobs works only until no dialog appears. When a dialog appears it looks frazzled and does not work

And i installed FreeBSD for about 3 months on my real hard disk and tested it good enogh (i was on the IRC and im feeling like i know the handbook even in my dreams) and i did a lot of optimisation stuff but it was still much slower.

The only thing that was faster was the compiling itself but the code wasn´t good optimized at all and so that time you save at compiling you give at running the application.

and even with every optimization its still slower than any (good/optimized) GNU/Linux System.

But it really depends on the system on which you test it. Quotre from my friend "My computer is brand new and so fast. I cant see any speed difference between Linux with XFCE or KDE or even Linux and Windows. It just all appears when i click so i dont care if the system i use is fast or slow on me they are all the same speed."

oli · 2010-02-15 18:43:52

Vamp898 wrote:

i treid FreeBSD 7.2 and 8.0
with KDE
dont do that!!!
slow as hell and if you havehardware which is newer than 1998 good luck for drivers xD
it seems like BSD have no drivers for nothing and in all my tests it was much slower than GNU/Linux
You dont have the newest software, except you use the ports
have fun while compiling since BSD does not support compiling on multiple cores.

Nice flame for noobs, but mere nonsense for seasoned people.

>You dont have the newest software, except you use the ports

Well nonsense too, you have to use packages from a stable server. But then, you actually have to read the handbook. Next time try to inform yourself first. Cisco, Adobe, Yahoo, Juniper, Nokia, ISC and so one are using *BSD because it rocks.

oli · 2010-02-15 18:48:10

Vamp898 wrote:

Infinity717 wrote:
Hello Arch community!
wankel wrote:
Is there any update on UVC webcam support with FreeBSD? Im having a hard time finding current information on the subject.
Checkout the webcamd and video4bsd kernel module.
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/p … 4bsd-kmod/
(I hope you are a fellow RX8 owner )
Vamp898 wrote:
i treid FreeBSD 7.2 and 8.0
with KDE
dont do that!!!
slow as hell and if you havehardware which is newer than 1998 good luck for drivers xD
it seems like BSD have no drivers for nothing and in all my tests it was much slower than GNU/Linux
You don't have the newest software, except you use the ports
have fun while compiling since BSD does not support compiling on multiple cores.
While i respect your opinion i will have to disagree. FBSD has very good performance but you will have to learn the system first so to optimize it for your needs,
sysinstall also does not support many features that FBSD does, ahci drivers by default and ZFS to name a few.
I understand though that this is not something that everyone wants to do.
The bottom line is, don't try to use FBSD as a "live cd" to test it, the system needs some dedication.
After you understand how the system is put together it becomes addictive, at least for me
Ports is the way to go if you want to have the latest software , as for compiling with multiple jobs you can use
MAKE_JOBS_NUMBER=x
and optionally
FORCE_MAKE_JOBS=yes
in your make.conf
You can also use gcc from ports to compile software
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/articles/ … ticle.html
i already tried this and it seems that jobs works only until no dialog appears. When a dialog appears it looks frazzled and does not work
And i installed FreeBSD for about 3 months on my real hard disk and tested it good enogh (i was on the IRC and im feeling like i know the handbook even in my dreams) and i did a lot of optimisation stuff but it was still much slower.
The only thing that was faster was the compiling itself but the code wasn´t good optimized at all and so that time you save at compiling you give at running the application.
and even with every optimization its still slower than any (good/optimized) GNU/Linux System.
But it really depends on the system on which you test it. Quotre from my friend "My computer is brand new and so fast. I cant see any speed difference between Linux with XFCE or KDE or even Linux and Windows. It just all appears when i click so i dont care if the system i use is fast or slow on me they are all the same speed."

>But it really depends on the system on which you test it.

Sure. You should at least know what you're doing and prove it with facts not fiction! Of course it's possible to use some el cheapo hardware from some crappy reseller with some bogus bios to get such a lousy experience, but that's the exception not a rule.

Misfit138 · 2010-02-16 01:58:59

As I have stated before, I would probably be using BSD if there were no Arch (probably OpenBSD).
However, it does represent a few sacrifices; no 3d acceleration (for OpenBSD) and it only likes half of my laptops' hardware.

pseudonomous · 2010-02-16 02:27:46

I've played around a bit with FreeBSD and run an OpenBSD server. I personally really like OpenBSD, like Arch it's a very simple and easy to understand system, once you are used to how unix is "supposed to" work. And I really love the pf firewall, as well ssh, mg, and the openbsd version of the korn shell. I wouldn't use it as a primary desktop system, but it's definitaly something fun to play with, if you've got a computer to spare, or if you can pull off runing it in a vm (I've been successful with virtualbox+amd-v5, no luck in any other situation, but YMMV). Also, it's a great system for an infrastructure server (router, firewall, dns, mail, maybe a low-traffic mostly static-html web-server), FreeBSD also has some attractive features for running as a server system, including jails and zfs support, on the other hand, it isn't as simple a OpenBSD, and for this reason it seems to both be affected by more bugs and takes more work to keep up to date.

On the other hand, going back toward the first poster's topic ... OpenBSD is like Arch in that the base system configuration is all shell based and very simple. There's a ports system (instead of ports-like system). And ... there the similarity pretty much ends. The userspace utilities are all subtly different because they come from the bsd stack instead of the gnu stack and the interfaces to the kernel are also different (like, by default, there's no "/proc" or "/sys" and most of the /dev special files are named differently than thier linux counterparts). There's no wiki, the best way to figure something out is to RTFM and the "user community" is sometimes hostile. I don't think you can reasonably expect to think "I know arch, so I know bsd". Instead you have to figure "I learned how to use Arch, so I can learn how to use bsd".

sand_man · 2010-02-16 05:23:36

One thing I have noticed about BSD's is that there are generally no sane defaults with most applications even the base install needs configuring before it's really functional (so is Arch I suppose but not to the extent that the BSD's generally are).

Infinity717 · 2010-02-16 16:26:10

sand_man wrote:

One thing I have noticed about BSD's is that there are generally no sane defaults with most applications even the base install needs configuring before it's really functional (so is Arch I suppose but not to the extent that the BSD's generally are).

BSD [especially FBSD which i am most familiar with] is raw material, it does not get in your way, it doesn't decide for you, it does not restrict the power user, it simply provides you with all the great tools to craft the system to your needs. It is some of those tools and character that make distros like Arch and Gentoo the best Linux OSes out there. Use anything else and wait for it to collapse, it is simply a matter of time.

There are simply _no sane_ defaults for everyone, from router to server to desktop.

Last edited by Infinity717 (2010-02-16 16:39:02)

deaduserlol · 2010-02-17 00:58:08

I love the BSD's. I did run FreeBSD on my main server before it die.
I also run OpenBSD in a VM and on junk boxs. Too bad I can't ran it on my main box.

gaunt · 2010-02-19 03:28:34

About the time I was disillusioned with Ubuntu and seeking a *nix to call home I thought about BSD, tried FreeBSD for a bit. I didn't do much with it (turns out the hardware was all strange, long story), but I remember being very interested in DragonflyBSD. It was a fork of FreeBSD 4.something, which evolved on it's own path, but it was mainly just a wrapper for HammerFS, some kind of uber-filesystem or something. Does anyone have experience with it?

skottish · 2010-02-19 03:35:13

Misfit138 wrote:

As I have stated before, I would probably be using BSD if there were no Arch (probably OpenBSD).
However, it does represent a few sacrifices; no 3d acceleration (for OpenBSD) and it only likes half of my laptops' hardware.

If someone told me today that BSD was outperforming Linux for my needs and that getting all of my hardware to work was as trivial as it is now, I'd gladly rally around a pacman based BSD distro.

JohannesSM64 · 2010-02-19 14:24:45

skottish wrote:

Misfit138 wrote:
As I have stated before, I would probably be using BSD if there were no Arch (probably OpenBSD).
However, it does represent a few sacrifices; no 3d acceleration (for OpenBSD) and it only likes half of my laptops' hardware.
If someone told me today that BSD was outperforming Linux for my needs and that getting all of my hardware to work was as trivial as it is now, I'd gladly rally around a pacman based BSD distro.

Same thoughts, but I have my doubts it will happen.

Last edited by JohannesSM64 (2010-02-19 14:25:46)

Infinity717 · 2010-02-19 20:50:36

skottish wrote:

If someone told me today that BSD was outperforming Linux for my needs and that getting all of my hardware to work was as trivial as it is now, I'd gladly rally around a pacman based BSD distro.

BSD doesn't try to be everything to everyone, thats for sure. What you are waiting for is a sales representative.
I for one, don't have bigger needs than Cisco or Yahoo and i buy only quality hardware with my hard earned money.
I use BSD because i value security, stability, design and consistency. I am a perfectionist my serf, maybe that's why i am so attracted to BSD.

Misfit138 · 2010-02-19 21:25:15

Infinity717 wrote:

BSD doesn't try to be everything to everyone, thats for sure. What you are waiting for is a sales representative.
I for one, don't have bigger needs than Cisco or Yahoo and i buy only quality hardware with my hard earned money.
I use BSD because i value security, stability, design and consistency. I am a perfectionist my serf, maybe that's why i am so attracted to BSD.

I believe you may be falling into the fanboy language trap.
Don't get me wrong, I believe that the *BSD way is closer to what I would consider 'the right way'. I have stated this many times consistently.
But saying that your needs are not beyond Cisco or Yahoo is not a valid argument for a desktop computer user. It is reminiscent of that undeniable Linux kernel cartoon where one stick figure is bragging that the kernel now supports 4096 CPUs, up from 1024. The other stick guy asks, "Yeah, but can you get full screen, reliable, Flash animation?" The first stick guy aptly responds, "No, but who needs that?"

Also, what are the implications of you buying only high quality hardware with your money? Does that mean that *BSD only supports the best hardware, and that my wireless n and bleeding edge video card are poor quality because they are unsupported?
I hope not.

Infinity717 · 2010-02-19 23:02:37

Misfit138 wrote:

...saying that your needs are not beyond Cisco or Yahoo is not a valid argument for a desktop computer user. It is reminiscent of that undeniable Linux kernel cartoon where one stick figure is bragging that the kernel now supports 4096 CPUs, up from 1024. The other stick guy asks, "Yeah, but can you get full screen, reliable, Flash animation?" The first stick guy aptly responds, "No, but who needs that?"

I was quoting skottish, his statement was about performance, not about flash or anything similar.
Referring to a big company while a user has problems with usb web cams would be foolish, i agree, but this is not the case.

Misfit138 wrote:

Also, what are the implications of you buying only high quality hardware with your money? Does that mean that *BSD only supports the best hardware, and that my wireless n and bleeding edge video card are poor quality because they are unsupported?
I hope not.

I did not claim that anything BSD doesn't support is of poor quality.
There is a wide range of "consumer" grade hardware that is very well supported under Linux and BSD,
this pool of hardware tends to have good quality, there are exceptions of course.

GPU support is about the same between Linux and FBSD nowdays and you can't really say that wifi support is bad either. http://www.freebsd.org/relnotes/CURRENT … .html#WLAN.

What i wanted to point out is my disagreement with this.

Vamp898 wrote:

if you havehardware which is newer than 1998 good luck for drivers

Anikom15 · 2010-02-19 23:06:11

I tried to install FreeBSD on my trip-around-the-distro-world-before-coming-back-to-arch saga, it didn't work.

Misfit138 · 2010-02-19 23:42:41

Infinity717 wrote:

I was quoting skottish, his statement was about performance, not about flash or anything similar.
Referring to a big company while a user has problems with usb web cams would be foolish, i agree, but this is not the case....
What i wanted to point out is my disagreement with this.
Vamp898 wrote:
if you havehardware which is newer than 1998 good luck for drivers

Thanks for the clarification. Apparently I totally misread it.

skottish · 2010-02-20 01:23:23

Infinity717 wrote:

skottish wrote:
If someone told me today that BSD was outperforming Linux for my needs and that getting all of my hardware to work was as trivial as it is now, I'd gladly rally around a pacman based BSD distro.
BSD doesn't try to be everything to everyone, thats for sure. What you are waiting for is a sales representative.
I for one, don't have bigger needs than Cisco or Yahoo and i buy only quality hardware with my hard earned money.
I use BSD because i value security, stability, design and consistency. I am a perfectionist my serf, maybe that's why i am so attracted to BSD.

I could have chosen my words more carefully. What I'm looking for is raw performance on things like video encoding and image processing. The BSD family has made huge strides recently in these areas, so I'm watching.

In the area of stability, considering that I've been using a rolling release for years with a number of highly specialized builds and (relatively speaking) I rarely see problems, I can't imagine that BSD could provide anything that Linux doesn't. Almost all of the problems that I see right now are clearly upstream and happen to to be surrounded around Intel hardware. Again, I doubt BSD would help there either.

Consistency? There's nothing more consistent than the Linux kernel right now. I'm kidding of course.

zowki · 2010-02-20 02:56:13

BSD unlike Arch Linux has insane defaults. You pretty much have to edit every config file to make things work right. But even Arch Linux is like that to an extent compared to Ubuntu. I recently tried out Ubuntu for the first time and it's configuration defaults were so awesome that it enabled features in most programs that I never knew even existed!

Arch Linux

#51 2010-02-09 23:36:29

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#52 2010-02-11 00:59:16

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#53 2010-02-13 16:00:29

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#54 2010-02-13 16:04:34

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#55 2010-02-13 16:22:27

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#56 2010-02-13 18:17:50

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#57 2010-02-13 18:40:44

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#58 2010-02-14 03:32:15

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#59 2010-02-15 18:43:52

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#60 2010-02-15 18:48:10

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#61 2010-02-16 01:58:59

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#62 2010-02-16 02:27:46

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#63 2010-02-16 05:23:36

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#64 2010-02-16 16:26:10

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#65 2010-02-17 00:58:08

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#66 2010-02-19 03:28:34

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#67 2010-02-19 03:35:13

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#68 2010-02-19 14:24:45

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#69 2010-02-19 20:50:36

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#70 2010-02-19 21:25:15

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#71 2010-02-19 23:02:37

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#72 2010-02-19 23:06:11

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#73 2010-02-19 23:42:41

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#74 2010-02-20 01:23:23

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

#75 2010-02-20 02:56:13

Re: Has anyone here tried BSD?

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