Best 32bit BSD reddit / BSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cribbageSTARSHIP · 2019-08-12 21:07 Long time linux user looking to get my feet wet in BSD. I have an old laptop that I'd like to use to get the ball rolling. My only requirements are: 1. 32bit 2. VPN capable (PIA) 3. Torrenting 4. Normal web browsing Any and all suggestions welcome. Thank you ---------------------------------------------------------------------- shellmachine · 2019-08-12 21:19 FreeBSD? NetBSD? OpenBSD? They will probably all work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- carlosdanger213 · 2019-08-12 21:27 i have a crapload of 32 bit machines here... netbsd is on all of them ---------------------------------------------------------------------- abitstick · 2019-08-12 21:38 Any BSD is capable of that. Here's some more questions: Do you need to run closed-source Linux software? Then FreeBSD. Do you have weird hardware that you're unsure if it will run correctly? Try NetBSD. Do you care about real Libre software and security? Try OpenBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- whichpaul · 2019-08-12 22:06 I went from being a long time Linux user to OpenBSD at one point. Aside from the much limited hardware support, I absolutely loved how coherent the whole operating system was. The documentation is excellent, and almost everything you need, plus the way the system is put together means you can reasonably expect to master administration of your entire system. Still one of my favourite OSes, highly recommend it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cribbageSTARSHIP · 2019-08-12 22:12 This is excellent. Thank you ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FUZxxl · 2019-08-12 22:16 FreeBSD could do the trick. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- VENTDEV · 2019-08-12 23:59 > Any BSD is capable of that. Not quite. DragonflyBSD dropped 32-bit support a while back. And PC- BSD (whatever they're called now days) also dropped it more recently. But yes, the big three will work fine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jmcunx · 2019-08-13 00:55 As suggested, Free/Net/Open will be fine, but.. NetBSD and OpenBSD 32bit uses a 64 bit time_t. So of you are planning on doing date/time calculations beyond 2038, best to choose either Net or Open BSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cribbageSTARSHIP · 2019-08-13 01:19 Lol thank you, I didn't know that. Is the date/time issue resplendent to all 32 bit operating systems, or just bsd? I only laughed because I hope I can upgrade my test platform to 64 bit hardware before 2038. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2019-08-13 03:52 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kernigh · 2019-08-13 03:53 The 2038 problem goes back to PDP-11 Unix (which had 32-bit time_t on 16-bit hardware), and affected many systems in the Unix family. Old versions of NetBSD and OpenBSD had 32-bit time_t on both 32-bit and 64-bit hardware. They later switched to 64-bit time_t. FreeBSD, macOS, Linux tend to use 32-bit time_t on 32-bit hw and 64-bit time_t on 64-bit hw. Linux i386 might be switching to 64-bit time_t; I hope that FreeBSD i386 would also switch. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thenovum · 2019-08-13 04:33 Great info ppl. 👍 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- noahpugsley · 2019-08-13 06:54 OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD all have 32-bit support. Probably not a dumb guess to think your laptop is x86. You want the i386 releases, whichever one you choose. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lealxe · 2019-08-13 08:31 offtopic: There is no such operating system as "BSD". There are 4 operating systems with names ending like that, which share a common ancestor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rhabarba · 2019-08-13 09:21 I usually use OpenBSD for that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gumnos · 2019-08-13 14:49 Any of the big three (Open, Free, and Net) should work for all of that. The biggest hurdle you'll encounter is the "normal web browsing" when 32-bit processors limit you to 4GB of RAM (unless you have a PAE system but even that won't likely save you). Other concerns would be hardware-related: are you using Wifi and if so is the chipset supported? Is your video card chipset supported (I have one GMA500 machine stuck in VESA which is usable but not pleasant)? I have three i386 machines and a 32-bit PPC G4 machine here, three with OpenBSD and one with FreeBSD and they all run fine modulo the above hardware caveats (I had to replace the wifi chipset in two; graphics are sluggish VESA on one). But I don't do heavy web-browsing on any of them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- umlcat · 2019-08-13 15:09 So, *BSD turned crap machines into very useful machines ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- umlcat · 2019-08-13 15:24 Agree. Is a big mistake to drop support for 32 bits machines, not everyone, has the money, to run to the store, a buy a 64 shinny machines, even, if we wanted. Same problem that windowze, I work with several customers, who use 32 bits Windowze, I wish they change to open source / free source, and cannot run their customized close sourced apps., in 64 bits windows ... People, in the open source / free source communities, update as soon as they can and want, not as soon as somebody, coerce them .... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- umlcat · 2019-08-13 15:26 So, "* BSD" means family of OS's not, "several distributions" of the same OS ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- carlosdanger213 · 2019-08-13 15:47 yes but netbsd and openbsd.. freebsd would turn those machines into useless pile of shit ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cribbageSTARSHIP · 2019-08-13 20:41 I know with Linux you could compile a custom kernel to save a bit of memory. Can I do that on bsd? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- umlcat · 2019-08-14 14:50 Why not FreeBSD ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gumnos · 2019-08-14 16:21 You can, though if things break, you get to keep all the pieces. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cribbageSTARSHIP · 2019-08-14 17:02 Eloquently stated ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kyleW_ne · 2019-08-15 04:56 Same question. Why not FreeBSD? Is it because ZFS isn't recommended for 32bit systems? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sehnsuchtbsd · 2019-08-16 19:34 freebsd on UFS2 on x86 is in my experience just as lightweight and fast as the others ;) Tried it on Pentium III a while ago and I must say I was sueprised to see how well it performed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sehnsuchtbsd · 2019-08-16 19:35 > Is it because ZFS isn't recommended for 32bit systems? yes, but you're not forced to use ZFS