NetBSD or FreeBSD? reddit / BSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- naurias · 2020-12-31 04:22 Good day guys I've been meaning to try BSD but I'm confused to make choice. I want to know the differences between two (but mostly i hear about architecture support and general use) what i want to know is that to which extent or which one is more customizable? I like to tinker with OS's having custom optimizations and environments. How different the packsge management between two? ( mostly people answered freebsd to be intended as daily driver what difference would it make if netbsd is used as so). What would be the advantage of freebsd over netbsd (even if both can achieve the same thing) on a hardw re which is fairly new that i intend to use as daily driver.. Thank you, any help would mean a lot PS: I have used freebsd (but only as much as installing it and getting wifi to work) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deux3xmachina · 2020-12-31 04:38 The main things you'll probably notice is that FreeBSD has `jail(8)` and uses `pkg(8)` for binary package management. NetBSD has cool things like Rumpkernels and `pkgsrc`. I'm sure there's some other differences, but I don't think it'll make a significant difference unless you start experimenting with changing parts of the core OS. One thing that changed recently is that NetBSD got ZFS support, but I'm not sure if it's part of the base system like with FreeBSD, so there's a chance you won't have boot environments. There's not really a wrong choice, the documentation is great for both of them, and they both have fantastic build systems that'll let you toggle kernel configs and customize your install as much as you want. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- naurias · 2020-12-31 04:49 Thanks. I guess I'll give netBSD a try. Does it have cross binary support? Also what's your personal experience between these two? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deux3xmachina · 2020-12-31 05:13 I mostly use HardenedBSD and DragonFly BSD, which are most similar to FreeBSD. I thoroughly enjoy the systems and just never had a reason or the time to use NetBSD myself. However, I do chat with several NetBSD users periodically and they love its simplicity. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheGreatDeadOne · 2020-12-31 06:12 Why not OpenBSD ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aryanmaurya1 · 2020-12-31 06:50 I think freebsd has some great resources and communities are bigger in freebsd. it's my personal opinion, I only tried netbsd once. I use freebsd regularly. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nahnah2017 · 2020-12-31 09:58 >I mostly use HardenedBSD ..., which are most similar to FreeBSD. HardenedBSD IS FreeBSD. From the site: >The HardenedBSD Project is ... security technologies on top of FreeBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- espero · 2020-12-31 10:27 Both ---------------------------------------------------------------------- redditor1101 · 2020-12-31 14:42 Netbsd is dead, use freebsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bstamour · 2020-12-31 14:49 NetBSD's latest release was just a few months ago. It may not have a large user base, but it's definitely not dead. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- redditor1101 · 2020-12-31 15:37 It has fallen way behind on hardware support and modern features. The ones it has are ported from freebsd. It may not be dead to devs but for users... what's the point? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deux3xmachina · 2020-12-31 16:30 That is needlessly pedantic as I'm clearly making a group comparison. >> which **are** most similar to FreeBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SubgeniusSlacker · 2020-12-31 17:44 Agreed, in my experience OpenBSD is by far the easiest to install, learn, and use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- m1k3e · 2020-12-31 18:32 Depends on your use case. Personally, I stick to OpenBSD for routers, servers, and laptops; FreeBSD when I need ZFS, jails, or bhyve; and NetBSD for servers, obscure hardware and, to be honest, just for fun. I never really played much with DragonFlyBSD to be honest, so I really can't comment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- m1k3e · 2020-12-31 18:33 and has the best documentation by far ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nahnah2017 · 2020-12-31 19:34 The definition Google gave me for "similar" is "resembling without being identical". But HardenedBSD is not similar to FreeBSD. It IS FreeBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- deux3xmachina · 2020-12-31 19:54 Good thing that doesn't apply to the other system in the comparison, DragonFly BSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lib20 · 2021-01-01 00:37 Something to add to the opinions of others: - If you intend to use the system as a desktop with an AMD GPU, only FreeBSD and OpenBSD have the updated amdgpu. - For desktop use, maybe OpenBSD has the most goodies, including the terminal not getting unusable when a long command is written; and also when installing packages, the summaries come together at the end of the installation. OpenBSD also has the best documentation. But OpenBSD has no Linux compatibility layer... - FreeBSD has the second best documentation. Faster than OpenBSD, has jails as said by other users, ZFS, maybe the greatest collection of packages and the greatest number of users, which can be an advantage. - NetBSD is simple, low profile. Poorer documentation but the best (in my opinion) hier. Base in /usr, packages in /usr/pkg, manually compiled in /usr/local. OpenBSD seems the most promiscuous in this regard. For i386, many X window managers and applications seg faulted. - DragonFlyBSD has the HAMMER filesystem and great performance, on par or better than FreeBSD. I've used FreeBSD on servers and got very satisfied. Currently use NetBSD on my router, dns, firewall and very small file server, on an old i386 system that cannot sustain a high load of writing to a encrypted disk. Don't know if it's caused by hardware or software. Also use OpenBSD in a VPS right now. Only dabbed with DragonFlyBSD, as it's available only for amd64 and documentation is not updated and very small user base. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- naurias · 2021-01-01 01:10 Thank you for such explanation. I intend to run my BSD system as daily driver and Personally I think I'm being convinced to use NetBSD or maybe I'm biased so I'm gonna give netBSD the first try (although it's only a matter of time till I use other BSD's). Does BSDs have cross binary support if not then cross compile (although most of the source should be it's just my inexperience with BSD) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lib20 · 2021-01-01 01:21 Some weeks ago I was also thinking to use NetBSD as my daily driver, but because of amdgpu not being uptodate and because I have a printer/scanner that needs a Linux driver, I didn't make the plunge. The nvmm (NetBSD virtual machine mechanism) doesn't support usb passthrough. The OpenBSD vmm does not yet support it, too, but it seems that is being added, so such printers can be passed to a vm running Linux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PitifulView · 2021-01-01 08:34 that's just not true. if porting drivers from other BSDs, netbsd usually prefers to take drivers from openbsd. for a given driver, openbsd is more likely to have "written from scratch, just for openbsd, by someone who has written many different drivers and improved common APIs in the process". Many freebsd drivers are actually written by vendors who want to support one more operating system. Writing a driver for many operating systems often means writing for the lowest common denominator, and being a downstream consumer of a driver makes it socially difficult to improve the code. if we look at all new drivers, a lot of them are for arm boards, as they have less standardized hardware. for those, netbsd often writes drivers from scratch (and sometimes the other BSDs take netbsd's drivers). netbsd has very good arm support. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unionize1917 · 2021-01-01 16:24 Fwiw I find open the easiest to install and start working with. But, this is all on virtual machines ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fragbot · 2021-01-03 03:18 I've used both. In my experience, FreeBSD is a easier to get started with than NetBSD. Even though I find it a bit less user-friendly, I prefer NetBSD as it's a remarkably clean system. If you have a laptop and want Wifi and X11 to work, OpenBSD might be the easiest to get running. It seems to have the most active use for people who want daily drivers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2021-01-03 09:35 OpenBSD is catching up fast in terms of speed and available ports. Running -current and I gotta say, it gives my FreeBSD laptop a run for its money. However disk speed on a mechanical drive still sucks. I recommend running OpenBSD on a ssd. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Plastic-Tip-9958 · 2021-01-03 10:53 I am just a newbie to BSD so I will say opinion as a newbie so don't get me wrong. I use OpenBSD, FreeBSD and NetBSD in two months. And here is my thought about three of them. ​ FreeBSD setup is quite easily. Also I follow through the handbook and some help from community so I think FreeBSD does great job for a desktop OS. ports system are nice. But you never mix ports and pkg. And my drm-kmod is break in FreeBSD-12.2 so I move to ports. But FreeBSD is good for desktop. ​ OpenBSD setup is a little hard. OpenBSD is pretty slow and their don't have much ports and packages. But I love their sndio and security. FAQ is doing great job but explore manual pages is another good point. OpenBSD is good for desktop either. And here is my thought about NetBSD. Sadly, I have a lot of bad experience with NetBSD. NetBSD 9.0 have a RAM corruption in amd64 at that time and I wait for NetBSD to fixed. So move on to NetBSD 9.1 everything seem work fine. pkgin is quite good but you will have some problem if you use pkgsrc. Also the small of community is a disadvantages. But they still there with some helpful wiki and NetBSD guide and you can ask question, but I don't how your problems can be solved by yourself or with their helping hand. I think NetBSD just for hobbyist, why? I don't know but I heard that DragonflyBSD they stopped use pkgsrc. The real problem with NetBSD, they have to care about stability too. In pkgsrc-2020Q4 is unstable and I think I have choose wrong pkgsrc verion and packages. If NetBSD want more users form Linux, they have to care about stability issues first. I hate RAM corruption. ​ You guys can down vote this comment but I still wait for the improvement of NetBSD. I hope NetBSD can have a good quality, I used to like it but I am sorry as a newbie who want to learn Unix I don't want a unstable machine. Linux is too mess, but I can bet that no one would ever use NetBSD without stability and they rather use Linux. Just my opinion. Now I know why Linux people laugh at someone who use NetBSD.