Whats a good BSD variant for a Linux user? reddit / BSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- New-Ad-1700 · 2023-12-18 22:12 I'm mostly gonna be using it for C and Rust programming, combined with everyday tasks. I will not be leaving Linux behind, but I'll be learning BSD for servers and desktop. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cfx_4188 · 2023-12-18 22:22 Put a virtual machine on your Linux and install FreeBSD in it. >C and Rust programming, combined with everyday task intricately.... [rust in FreeBSD](https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/what-we-can-do- with-rust-is-beyond-what-we-can-imagine.84759/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Clownk580 · 2023-12-18 23:55 GhostBSD is the best option to experience a real BSD desktop environment. Everything just works out of box and you can adapt only to your daily tasks programming. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CyberHobbit70 · 2023-12-18 23:56 I’ve been running Ghost for a few weeks, loving it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I_Said_Watch_Clark · 2023-12-19 01:01 Yep. GhostBSD is tight and user friendly ---------------------------------------------------------------------- catonic · 2023-12-19 01:02 FreeBSD. But get used to a learning curve and not everything being "ready to go." Also, the kernel is married to the userland, so don't make large jumps in upgrades. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kyleW_ne · 2023-12-19 01:49 Depends on what you want to do. Go and kick the tires around just put GhostBSD in a VM, but if you want to learn intervals then OpenBSD or NetBSD are great choices then again FreeBSD isn't too bad and has a whole book written on the design and implementation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guiverc · 2023-12-19 03:35 I'll suggest FreeBSD, there are some easier FreeBSD alternatives too such as Ghost, but be aware hardware support is more limited than a GNU/Linux system. eg. I have more than 25 boxes I perform QA testing of Ubuntu here that will all boot Ubuntu, however only about 15 of those boxes will boot Ghost BSD (with GUI) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mrdeworde · 2023-12-19 05:31 FreeBSD if you have good hardware support -- it's the most popular BSD, has the most mature documentation and the largest community if you run into issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vermaden · 2023-12-19 06:35 Try FreeBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mansetta · 2023-12-19 07:34 So why Ghost over FreeBsd? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Clownk580 · 2023-12-19 07:49 More beginner friendly, Setting FreeBSD as desktop is a painful process for the beginners and the user who will use it daily most of the time couldn't set a neat desktop environment as GhostBSD by himself. So always imho new beginners should go with GhostBSD and after a while when they are confident about BSD OS , they can change any other BSD or stay on GhostBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Xerxero · 2023-12-19 07:49 Can you point to the reason why that is? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- guiverc · 2023-12-19 09:15 Graphics issues I gather.. They are systems that I use often with only *live* testing of GNU/Linux systems such as Ubuntu, and given I had a recent *live* Ghost BSD thumb-drive I was interested in how it would perform (*given I've not used BSD regularly in awhile*). On many boxes it was a great experience, however on some hardware I'd get only a single display operational (*where box gpu had multiple avialable*), others no GUI appeared, which is what the prior comment related to. Most of those boxes I noted were boxes where I'd get the same with GNU/Linux when booted with *free* software only (ie. no *non-free* or when no closed-source binaries only available), but I didn't explore further. I don't doubt someone with time & energy would have achieved better than I did (*myself too for some if I tried*), but I was mostly (*at the time*) interested in a comparison with a GNU/Linux (Ubuntu) when operated in the same circumstance (*simple live boot*) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EtherealN · 2023-12-19 09:57 FreeBSD is probably easiest. Or GhostBSD, a derivative that serves as a bit of a "FreeBSD for human beings", similar to the old joke about Ubuntu being "Debian for Human Beings". If, by "a Linux user", you are used to Linuxes that are a bit more "Lego" and hands-on (eg mainline Arch), then FreeBSD itself will be a breeze. If you're more Ubuntu or Mint style person, Ghost is probably a better starting position. In this case, a suggestion would be to confirm hardware support through trying out NomadBSD (a live stick derivative of FreeBSD). I personally use OpenBSD for both C and Rust, and I do greatly enjoy it, but Rust on Open can require a bit of work on your part since it's a Tier3 platform. (Eg, to get good LSP support you'll have to build some things yourself, and you might randomly have to re-build. Not difficult, but not exactly "turnkey" either.) If there are aspects of OpenBSD that you specifically like (eg. things like pledge()/unveil()) and you don't mind some elbow grease to make the Rust dev experience "behave", then it's a totally viable option too. (Not commenting on NetBSD or Dragonfly since I have a grand total of 10 minutes experience in the former, and not even a nano-second with the latter.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DamienCouderc · 2023-12-19 12:39 Slackware ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Portbragger2 · 2023-12-19 13:34 hardened freebsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _Lee_B_ · 2023-12-19 15:04 intervals? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EnigmaticHam · 2023-12-19 16:53 I’ll suggest OpenBSD despite the fact that its focus on security makes some things difficult. It’s a fantastic operating system and it can be installed (with everything necessary to get work done, including Xenocara for GUI tasks) in like 15 minutes on a high speed connection. It asks for a wireless password when connecting to a network and then remembers it on the next boot like Ubuntu and Mint. It also detects all necessary firmware blobs and installs them for you on reboot. AMDGPU support is great, hardware acceleration exists, and it works on lots of hardware. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comfortable_Client99 · 2023-12-19 17:33 GhostBSD is Trash ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Comfortable_Client99 · 2023-12-19 17:35 FreeBSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SanJoachin · 2023-12-19 18:41 GhostBSD; however, you can try to install FreeBSD an once you have done so, install the desktop-installer. Easy as that, you will have cups, DE, libreoffice, Firefox, vlc, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ivan_Kulagin · 2023-12-19 18:42 Except for the wifi and touchpad ---------------------------------------------------------------------- joelpo · 2023-12-19 19:40 OpenBSD Great on server hardware and its devs use it on Lenovo laptops. The clear and concise engineering will astonish. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Shakalakashaskalskas · 2023-12-19 21:15 None. BSD and Linux are closer than anything like Mac or Windows, but BSD is a completely different beast nonetheless. I think the best BSD experience overall is FreeBSD, if you are paranoic with security and stuff then OpenBSD. My tip? If you want to start learning BSD's start with FreeBSD, it's the one with the best support and compatibility, so if don't like FreeBSD chances are you won't like any other. Ignore comments saying to use GhostBSD, don't ever use that, this was born as a myth that "Linux users are too dumb to configure things and want everything working out of the box". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Shakalakashaskalskas · 2023-12-19 21:18 Ok, don't downvote this guy, this is a very bright idea actually, presenting the most Unix of the Linux distros to a Linux user trying to migrate to BSD is very smart. Kudos to you brother ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DamienCouderc · 2023-12-19 21:25 The most BSD of the linuxes ;-) Thank you bro! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kyleW_ne · 2023-12-19 21:32 My apologies, was on mobile with spell check. Meant to say system internals ---------------------------------------------------------------------- xzk7 · 2023-12-19 22:06 I'm using OpenBSD and do those things with it. IDE/Editor support is limited but that's to be expected on any BSD. FreeBSD might fare a bit better in that regard, especially with the linux emulation. RustRover on OpenBSD is flaky, bordering on useless but I'm starting to think its just a heap of garbage any way as I'm seeing issues on other OSes too and might go back to CLion which was working pretty well on OpenBSD for Rust. I had to bump some ulimits to get RustRover to not crash too. Rustup isn't supported on OpenBSD so you'll have to stick with the packaged version available or build your own. Beware you'll also occasionally hit some unexpected things w/ Rust like this: https://github.com/briansmith/ring/issues/1602 where you need to use a specific version of ring: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=168115293527678&w=2 Good luck! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Disastrous_Bike1926 · 2023-12-21 04:52 SmartOS (OpenSolaris scion) can run zones (containers, pre-docker and last I looked, still more secure) that emulate the Linux kernel ABI on bare metal, with a Debian userland. Though that walks and talks just like running Debian, so it might not be different enough. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- motific · 2023-12-21 13:07 TL;DR - Because Linux has virtually all the developer resources which seriously harms other open source communities. It's not their fault, just the way of things. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mwyvr · 2023-12-21 19:00 Hardware support lags in FreeBSD and probably overall with \*BSDs partly because there are fewer eyeballs doing t he work. [https://bsd-hardware.info/?probe=e71bed6be5](https://bsd- hardware.info/?probe=e71bed6be5) Check that on BSD and follow the Linux link and compare the differences. Yet my couple years old Dell Laptop is nicely supported on both. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mansetta · 2023-12-22 08:13 You are definitely right about the difficulty of installing FreeBsd. I had to google multiple tutorials just to get a working desktop environment the first time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _Lee_B_ · 2023-12-29 22:52 Eh, it's managed like BSD, but it's the linux kernel and userland, which is maybe exactly what OP is trying to get away from.