Arch Linux

stefan1975

Member

From: 53 6e 65 65 6b

Registered: 2007-04-16

Posts: 195

opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

Hi All,

I am currently a very happy 11 year Arch / RHEL / fedora user but always looking for a new challenge. So I am thinking about switching my desktop pc / home server from Arch64 to FreeBSD.

I read a lot of stories here about people switching to arch from gentoo or the bsd's but are there those that run freebsd as well or switched from gnu/linux to *BSD?

I am interested in any and all opinions about freebsd and what you believe are it's (dis)advantages over linux. Package wise it seems to be on par with Arch apart from compiz and flash.

Is the "whole operating system" thingy just a gimmick or does it offer (performance) advantages over a linux kernel + packages?

I recently tried pcbsd7 and apart from sucky fonts it was not any less userfriendly then linux, although it does not offer the awesome pacman package manager of course, the PBI system seemed to work fine. But I'd think I'd rather go with freebsd 7.1 + kde 4.1.x then pcbsd (although they do have a cute KDE theme there for what it is worth).

apart from being more geeky does freebsd offer anything over pcbsd?

stefan

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"root# su - bofh"
OS: F10_x64, Arch, Centos5.3, RHEL4.7, RHEL5.3
Desktop Hardware: Dell Precision M65 laptop, core2duo, 2gb, 80gb 7200rpm
Registered linux user #459910 since 1998

Megamixman

Member

Registered: 2008-05-04

Posts: 73

Re: opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

You switch to a BSD for stability not performance. FreeBSD is the most rock stable OS, period. There is a good reason internet backbones run FreeBSD.

Last edited by Megamixman (2008-09-20 16:57:24)

kensai

Member

From: Puerto Rico

Registered: 2005-06-03

Posts: 2,484

Website

Re: opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

FreeBSD is rock solid I have to say, I used it as my main desktop for like 6 months, but the 6.x series which performed really well. I just had issues with the 7.x series, which lags my mouse, so the performance while compiling is very bad, something that never happened with the 6.x series, I even recompiled my kernel and optimized it to no success. But all in all FreeBSD is an awesome OS. You can't go wrong with it, just keep Arch Linux as your main desktop.

But don't expect to be seeing flash intensive sites with it, is very tricky to get flash working, natively that is. You can always use the Linux compatibility, and install the linux firefox and linux flash.

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haxit

Member

From: /home/haxit

Registered: 2008-03-04

Posts: 1,247

Website

Re: opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

http://www.xs4all.nl/~marcone/bsdversuslinux.html

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Archi686 User | Old Screenshots | Old .Configs
Vi veri universum vivus vici.

moljac024

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 2,676

Re: opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

http://www.xs4all.nl/~marcone/bsdversuslinux.html

That's what I always point people to!

Damn, I'm gonna have to try FreeBSD 7.x one of these days....

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The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
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floke

Member

Registered: 2007-09-04

Posts: 266

Re: opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

The last time I tried PCBSD the whole system locked up when I tried to access my wi-fi through the kde network applet, forcing a hard reset. This after literally 5 minutes of use

Rock solid my arse.

haxit

Member

From: /home/haxit

Registered: 2008-03-04

Posts: 1,247

Website

Re: opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

http://www.xs4all.nl/~marcone/bsdversuslinux.html

That's what I always point people to!

Damn, I'm gonna have to try FreeBSD 7.x one of these days....

Lol, I'll be right behind you.

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Archi686 User | Old Screenshots | Old .Configs
Vi veri universum vivus vici.

stefan1975

Member

From: 53 6e 65 65 6b

Registered: 2007-04-16

Posts: 195

Re: opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

You switch to a BSD for stability not performance. FreeBSD is the most rock stable OS, period. There is a good reason internet backbones run FreeBSD.

I know it is solid, it is one of the main selling points of *bsd however honestly linux has been *very* stable for me as well. I try out every fedora release just for the challenge of it, it is the one distro that breaks stuff for me occasionally. I also love SUN Solaris so I might play around with opensolaris 2008.11 should they fix the KDE4.1.x showstoppers. I just like to tinker with my system and my Arch has been so boringly stable and set up just right that is has been running and running and running for ages now ;-)

Being a tru64 and Solaris sysadmin I thought I'd meddle with the unix decended FreeBSD one one of my pc's, plus you just gotta love the logo, the devil is sooo much cooler then the pinguin. What did strike me as odd though when playing around with PCBSD7 is that booting takes *much* longer (and pcbsd is also boringly easy to set up), besides ZFS seems like the best thing since sliced bread and the invention of the motor.

stefan

---

"root# su - bofh"
OS: F10_x64, Arch, Centos5.3, RHEL4.7, RHEL5.3
Desktop Hardware: Dell Precision M65 laptop, core2duo, 2gb, 80gb 7200rpm
Registered linux user #459910 since 1998

AD28

Member

Registered: 2008-09-16

Posts: 161

Re: opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

The last time I tried PCBSD the whole system locked up when I tried to access my wi-fi through the kde network applet, forcing a hard reset. This after literally 5 minutes of use

Rock solid my arse.

PC-BSD tries to bring FreeBSD to the masses through more automation and wider compatibility.  It's based on FreeBSD's prerelease branch, and they also use their own kernel among other changes.  Naturally it's not going to be as stable as raw FreeBSD.

The main reason I don't use FreeBSD full time is nVidia's lack of amd64 drivers.  An nv rep said "There are no plans to support FreeBSD amd64 at this point in time, but customer requests will certainly help prioritize future projects." but there still isn't one 24 pages and 4 years later.  I hate open-ended statements like this that string you along.. Personally in situations like this I'd rather they have just said "no" even if the door weren't really 100% shut

stefan1975

Member

From: 53 6e 65 65 6b

Registered: 2007-04-16

Posts: 195

Re: opinions about freebsd 7.x ?

well i switched my home server to Freebsd 7.1-beta and must say that it was a pretty smooth transition. Everything is working great and I must admit that it is very much akin to running arch (ports are great).

Of course pkg_add isn't as fancy as pacman but pkg_add kde4 gave me a running kde 4.1 desktop with antialiasing in no time. Nvidia drivers are also working great and in general it feels quite snappy and stable (although centos was stable for me as a server too). What I did notice is that fonts in freebsd are *much* better then they were in pcbsd7 for me, which seems odd.

Apart from feeling just as KISS as Arch for me I did notice that booting takes nearly twice as long for me with freebsd opposed to Arch. I'm not quite sure if I am going to keep switch to freebsd "full time" now, although it runs great. Maybe I will reinstall it just for the fun of t and his time switch from ufs2 to ZFS to tinker with what seems like an awesome FS.

stefan

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"root# su - bofh"
OS: F10_x64, Arch, Centos5.3, RHEL4.7, RHEL5.3
Desktop Hardware: Dell Precision M65 laptop, core2duo, 2gb, 80gb 7200rpm
Registered linux user #459910 since 1998