FreeBSD on the desktop? Am I crazy? reddit / BSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BumpitySnook · 2015-12-07 19:49 I'm all for FreeBSD on the desktop, but let's take facts into account rather than just fanaticism. > in FreeBSD there is never ever going to be a situation where it's unclear which file belongs where or which package has installed it. The file system structure is very clear and consistent. Hah. Except for the ports that drop files outside of /usr/local. Plenty drop files in /etc or try to read files in /etc. > You can use the new package manager which is much like yum or apt- get (but in my opinion more straight forward), Until you hit broken dep-solving and it wants to reinstall your entire system :). > Ports are far superior to RPMs or DEBs. It is insanely easy to create new or change existing ports if you want to This is true of .specs and changing RPM packages too. > Init system. Nothing beats FreeBSD here, least of all the new, rapidly spreading disease called systemd! Oh boy! If you're a systemd hater why didn't you just get that out of the way in the first paragraph? :) > Why overcomplicate something that can be so neat and simple to use? For 10-15 seconds faster boot time? This is a tired straw man and not the only reason systemd improved on existing Linux boot. Etc etc etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- presarico · 2015-12-07 20:34 Not very astounding. FreeBSD isn't that hard to make a desktop OS. It works but some things will nerve be feasible due to the nature of the BSDs. So it would be good for a workstation but useless for anything involving 3D graphics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BumpitySnook · 2015-12-07 20:48 > So it would be ... useless for anything involving 3D graphics I think you'd actually be okay with OpenGL, Nvidia hardware, and binary drivers from Nvidia. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fwaggle · 2015-12-07 20:55 The screen tearing part hit home for me - I run Windows as the host OS on my laptop because I game, and I really wanted to run FreeBSD inside a VBox. I tried, *really* hard. Debian *just works*, and is pleasant enough to use on a daily basis inside of VBox. FreeBSD I spent hours with the direction of some friends trying to get things like DRI working, and the end result was something buggy as shit and prone to crashing. FreeBSD for all my servers, but I haven't used it on the desktop in years. :( ---------------------------------------------------------------------- presarico · 2015-12-07 21:00 If you could get those to function...nvidia doesn't seem to like running on bsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lookindandy · 2015-12-08 00:27 >Anyhow, after updating the kernel (thankfully only takes a fraction of time compared to compiling a Linux kernel) and manipulating the nvidia-driver port to use the very latest beta driver from NVidia you don't have to compile linux if you don't want to... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- notdavidcronenberg · 2015-12-08 01:03 I've had nothing but good times with Nvidia hardware. I use FreeBSD on my workstation at work, and while automatic configuration of X can be a little finnicky, the 'nividia-xconfig' utility usually rights all wrongs, giving you an xorg.conf that "just works". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- presarico · 2015-12-08 02:14 Well that's good to hear, I specifically didn't use an nvidia card on my system for that reason. Now I'll have to try it out. The radeon xorg driver didn't produce a working Xorg conf file when switching from Intel and using the auto config. I'll have give it a try on an nvidia card to see if I get better performance. BTW which nvidia driver did you use? nvidia-xconfig makes me think you had success with the blob ---------------------------------------------------------------------- notdavidcronenberg · 2015-12-08 03:29 Yup, that big ol blob o' proprietary code. 346.96, specifically. I'm not exactly a FLOSS diehard, I just like FreeBSD. \*dodges rocks\* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bbbryson · 2015-12-08 05:55 Can you explain more about the "nature of the BSDs" comment? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vvelox · 2015-12-08 07:08 I've had good luck with the ATI stuff as well. Intel is very hit and miss, but that is true for it on Windows as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- squidfight · 2015-12-08 07:11 This was a hassle/bragging rights 10+ years ago. Not anymore. The "hard" part is buying hardware that is supported by both FreeBSD and Xorg. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vvelox · 2015-12-08 07:15 > Hah. Except for the ports that drop files outside of /usr/local. Plenty drop files in /etc or try to read files in /etc. Only a handful of them do and this is still easy to check if a file in question belongs to a port or not. > This is true of .specs and changing RPM packages too. Ohh, fragging hell no. Every binary package system on Linux is bloody annoying to deal with tweaking compared to ports. It is so very much cleaner compared to it. > Until you hit broken dep-solving and it wants to reinstall your entire system :). Are you talking about pkg, apt, or yum here? From my experience you seem to be talking about yum. I've seen it shit it's self numerous times over the years. Never with the other two. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vvelox · 2015-12-08 07:16 I've been running the nVidia driver on FreeBSD since it initially came out. I've not once had any stability problems with it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vvelox · 2015-12-08 07:17 Been running FreeBSD as my primary desktop OS since 2002. It is most awesome for that role. I've found it requires way less tweaking and dicking around with than Linux over the years. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vvelox · 2015-12-08 07:18 > FreeBSD for all my servers, but I haven't used it on the desktop in years. :( Give it a try. It is most awesome in that regards. I use it on all my laptops and desktops. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fwaggle · 2015-12-08 08:11 I did, like a month ago. Gaming is central to my laptop's use (FreeBSD was fine as a host OS when I was a console gamer), and sadly the games I play don't work on Linux/SteamOS so there's no chance there. And FreeBSD inside VBox just doesn't work satisfactorily. Without DRI et al, you get hideous screen tearing, and with it you get crashes and video artefacts. Debian works out of the box, so despite the fact I'm lost if anything breaks, that's what I use. :( ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vvelox · 2015-12-08 08:33 Have you tried them via wine? Wine I've found to be very workable for lots of games these days. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- redditnemo · 2015-12-08 10:56 > Pulseaudio I don't get why people are still hating on PulseAudio. It was broken a relatively short time after its first release and works very well since, so well in fact that it is the de facto standard sound device manager on every popular Linux desktop distribution. It does things that I now take for granted: - provide a proper API for applications to use - remembers the state of my audio configuration (headphone in, set volume to known level, headphone out -> mute) - it lets me easily manage and different sound sources (USB headphone and internal sound card) - there are plenty of GUI tools Even multiple sound sources are a problem with the FreeBSD OSS stack. Even that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BumpitySnook · 2015-12-08 17:00 > Ohh, fragging hell no. Every binary package system on Linux is bloody annoying to deal with tweaking compared to ports. It is so very much cleaner compared to it. Ports : spec/SRPM :: pkg-ng : binary RPMs. You're comparing apples to oranges, I'm afraid. > Are you talking about pkg, apt, or yum here? From my experience you seem to be talking about yum. I've seen it shit it's self numerous times over the years. Never with the other two. pkg. If you haven't, you've gotten lucky: https://github.com/freebsd/pkg/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fwaggle · 2015-12-08 21:34 I dunno why you're being downvoted, but yeah I've not had much luck with Wine. ISTR WoW for example is really hit/miss under Wine. The Linux version of CSGO still has significant framedrops over the Windows version too. My love of FreeBSD doesn't extend sufficiently to spend any amount of times getting mundane things like videogames working, I want them to just work. Interestingly for an open source advocate, I don't hate Windows sufficiently to outweigh my hatred of tinkering to get silly things working. I did give a virtualbox guest another go, and I've made [some progress ](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xR8ogI1x9IzZmWbsYubiRHC54pCFtRb_N4 iYwgNH- B1G8fXdoooeMZOqyAaqoqMErdPWMRDJ3jqLeaxTCzWWIIp3U7UQ7dXfMwBjSg8I031Ym7Y QGIwQfp-tjreKEVLl1vykZpVxomwhL7e7dwaNT6Q786pn3kVHGEqloi- GGAPPPwKA5sUUBf4PH1iUMB-Ci_J3sD3ZeY- b3DssRw5iPLuqF1isns17e1i5TAILBMGyhkIb7v07SI9- xoI1Ys21hNkfA4EoWk_2kAiOVCgzBwSnHt0757xGPnf2-z-BKGDpSOSdYQQuY- Ep7ghGRzArwEUJU0M5nTcHbfreswbgODwE2e0Ee6o9gi-RclYUtkHfQzf55k8Q0_FixATw mNtRdIw8tgudl35csR8PkkLsFYeuLCKIUpYcHubWDQ2PfD7MCdhV_rNoJo9VssyO2WAyjp jF1cZNMcoYPTn8ba1JJEzdLFUhzpeAB- G7BZKaLx3llkOY9KkDu8ebhmx2E_qiWm8L1pcvyOKC2W6VHdYUff_PGTpYr624glWgZe07 XKg=w1325-h643-no) (I suppose?). The windows move beautifully, glxgears is silky smooth... just can't see shit. :( ---------------------------------------------------------------------- get-your-shinebox · 2015-12-08 22:18 I like freebsd (and especially dragonflybsd), but I don't find pkg particularly better than any linux package manager I've used (pacman, xbps, apt). For my laptop I use void linux, and I like xbps a bit more than pkg, and runit much more than systemd or BSD init. They also symlink all the nonsense directories into the ones the make sense (/sbin, /usr/sbin, /bin all symlink into /usr/bin). ZFS and the stronger emphasis on simplicity and code equality, and to a lesser extent jails, are the biggest draws for me. You can get a lot away from the bad parts of most distros with void, but I like that the BSD community seems to more broadly share my values. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vvelox · 2015-12-09 04:01 My luck with wine has generally been the opposite, but then again generally by the time I get around to playing a game it has like been out for a year or so. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- presarico · 2015-12-09 11:15 The philosophy of BSD is different than that of GNU/Linux based distros. Not as much compatibly for proprietary things, although I doubt anything is impossible for BSD to support but for instance I don't think I've seen BSD running let's say Valve's Steam. Blobs for really useful features may never be added to the main stack and cease being blobs if the companies that create them never allow them to have open licenses. But still I'm sure if you really want the blob installed you can have it, it just won't be as easy as make install. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- presarico · 2015-12-09 11:17 I feel lied to....I guess I shouldn't have believed the person whom I received that info from without trying it :| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rhavenn · 2015-12-09 19:09 There is a nvidia port / pkg for the driver. It works very, very well. It's pretty much on par with the Linux driver. I haven't tried to install a driver from nvidia.com itself, ie: manually, but if you stick to the ports one and use the actual nvidia driver it's great. If you're using the xorg "nv" driver then you're going to have a worse time, especially for anything requiring 3D performance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- presarico · 2015-12-09 21:04 Niiiiiiice thanks for the info! Now to see if an ati port exists ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rhavenn · 2015-12-10 00:34 AMD / ATI doesn't have their binary Catalyst driver for FreeBSD. The xorg ATI driver works and it's the same as the one in the Linux stack, but it's a bit behind. Some of the kernel DRI stuff is in process of being updated, so the latest and greatest cards probably won't work. Some more [Graphics info](https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NerdVsGeek · 2015-12-10 19:24 This is easy if you're building a desktop system. This is significantly more challenging if you're looking for a laptop.