Share your use case reddit / freebsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iio7 · 2022-03-24 02:28 As the title says, share your use case(s) for FreeBSD :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GreenMan802 · 2022-03-24 03:16 Servers (media/Plex, chat), NAS (FreeNAS), router (pfSense) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fleurdelys- · 2022-03-24 03:25 Pentest lab,a lot of tools (i.e metasploit, gobuster, sqlmap, ettercap, tcpdump, john and many more) are ported or buildable from source and linux compatibility makes it easy to run un-portable and un-ported stuff like burpsuite. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-03-24 03:33 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cohesively_separated · 2022-03-24 04:00 Home workstation/media server, backup server, learning lab (testing router configs, bhyve feasibility, etc), tinkering with various SoC/SBCs. Support of Pine64 products brought me to FreeBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AxeyEndres · 2022-03-24 04:19 I use it to earn my money ---------------------------------------------------------------------- satankober · 2022-03-24 06:27 hosting Django application ---------------------------------------------------------------------- girt-by-sea · 2022-03-24 06:42 Remote email server, local laptop desktop recently switched from linux. I dont like the way linux is heading. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -kilix- · 2022-03-24 07:24 Desktop workstation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Xzenor · 2022-03-24 07:25 Servers.. just servers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RafneQ · 2022-03-24 08:02 Home storage server and partially homelab using containers (bastille / jails). I am currently using it for: - smb shares for home users; - calibre server; - testing different web apps; ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kokobine · 2022-03-24 08:58 Server freebsd-> mail sftp torrents etc. Router-> pfsense. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- reddit_original · 2022-03-24 09:16 Host multiple restaurant and entertainment venues in the Midwest. 10 developers with workstations. Personal home workstation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bunz-o-matic · 2022-03-24 10:07 Me gusta ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jumpminister · 2022-03-24 10:15 Laptop and pubnix ---------------------------------------------------------------------- masterblaster0 · 2022-03-24 11:20 Desktop/workstation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Spoozilla · 2022-03-24 12:07 2 Raspberry Pi based home servers running 13.0. With a replicated ZFS file system with snapshots between them. The master server also runs Serviio and Samba services. Thinkpad x230 running 14-current for usual laptop stuffs. VPS running 12-stable. Runs a simple webserver, irc, vpn, tor, privoxy and a mail server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tofazzz · 2022-03-24 12:57 * Firewall (stock+pf) * Web server * Monitoring server (Telegraf+InfluxDB+Grafana) * Mumble server * Load Balancer (HAproxy) * Development servers (Go, C, Python) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- gumnos · 2022-03-24 13:25 daily driver, web/file-server, soon to be mail-server ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Super-Cookie1884 · 2022-03-24 15:43 I like it as desktop, but not all applications can be used(for example Kaspersky EDR, actually many more). But using as server for zfs/smb/NFS/dlna/backup/bhyve/jail/DNS/Django/VPN/firewall/router and many more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kyleW_ne · 2022-03-24 16:30 How is 14 current for laptop use? You don't get freebsd-update in current so you are constantly having to compile from source right? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- edparadox · 2022-03-24 16:41 Netflix, is that you? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-03-24 16:50 File/media/backup server + virtual machines. Feels good. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-03-24 18:11 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Scary_Wish_4893 · 2022-03-24 18:16 To mess around. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zilti · 2022-03-24 18:22 NAS, Mailserver for work and private, database server, build server - I love it. It is such an amazing no-bullshit system. You install it, it has no bloat, and it does exactly what you want it to. Every time I have to tinker around at my desktop I get a step closer to replace that Linux holdout with BSD, too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-03-24 19:04 A poll in February: * [Do you run FreeBSD as desktop os? : freebsd](https://new.reddit.com /r/freebsd/comments/swjg6x/do_you_run_freebsd_as_desktop_os/) I voted *yes*. HP EliteBook 8570p, FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT in everyday use. ---- Another poll, still open: * [The state of FreeBSD desktop | The FreeBSD Forums](https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/the-state-of-freebsd- desktop.83968/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-03-24 19:05 > How is 14 current for laptop use? Very nice, for me. YMMV, depending on hardware. > You don't get freebsd-update in current … True. PkgBase is on the FreeBSD Foundation technology roadmap for this year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-03-24 19:09 > … pubnix Thanks, that phrase was new to me. Startpage led to e.g. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jumpminister · 2022-03-24 19:14 Yeah, just like that, not sdf though. I am not smj :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EtherealN · 2022-03-24 19:18 Education. Basically, I'm a Linux user. (First back around the turn of the millennium, then returned to it in 2019 when I just got fed up with Windows and found that I could still do almost all my gaming just fine on Linux nowadays.) In this case, FreeBSD becomes interesting to daily-drive on a laptop (so no gaming needs) in order to educate myself on unix/unix-likes more generally. What are the things I take for granted in Linux but that wouldn't have to be the way they are? What's hiding behind the term "linuxisms"? For example, while using it in VMs and on a Raspberry Pi 400 (and through reading Vermaden's texts) I've become aware of interesting concepts that go counter to what I was simply taking for granted as "the way" - case in point the whole "base system" vs "packages/ports". Migrating back from Windows to Linux, I didn't bat an eye at the fact that the kernel, init system, coreutils etcetera are all just "packages like any others". So, to properly understand this stuff and see if I can find more things that I "didn't know that I didn't know", I've decided that I need to daily-drive a BSD - and ended up selecting FreeBSD. (Vermaden's "Quare FreeBSD" was a strong contributor there.) Perhaps I'll end up keeping it, perhaps not, but either way I will have learned stuff. And things like bhyve, jails with Bastille, etcetera also look like things I should look closer at in the future to see how to contrast them with my kubernetes and docker and so on. So yeah. I want to keep learning, so I've decided to daily-drive FreeBSD. Pretty much. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Gornergy · 2022-03-24 19:20 Storage server. Intranet web servers. database servers (mostly testing/processing). work "desktop" (via ssh). other work "desktop" (also via ssh). basically immutable environment for testing. Actual work servers are centos (stream). But, I don't admin those, I just use them. The actual desktop is Windows 10 for software compatibility and because I hate apple hardware. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Spoozilla · 2022-03-24 20:20 14 has been an excellent experience on my Thinkpad so far. Everything "just works", although I'm still working through an issue with the back-light/hotkeys although both work independently... of course. As for compiling... yes, that's correct. I don't mind though, I've been doing that since FreeBSD 4.0 and I really don't have a problem with keeping fairly regular. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- paprok · 2022-03-24 23:16 fileserver... 8 at the beginning, quickly went to 9 (32bit) on AthlonXP 1700. it ran for some 10 years. now 11.3 (x64) on newer hardware - Intel C2D. already has a couple of years of use. the integration of ZFS in unparalleled, and Linux is a tangled spaghetti mess nowadays (architecturally speaking). some [thoughts on ZFS, FreeBSD and Linux](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ nbfx0e/advice_on_first_home_nas/gyhlhmu/). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- riu_jollux · 2022-03-24 23:24 Oh wow. What specs are you rocking? I’m a Linux user and want to give it a try ---------------------------------------------------------------------- iio7 · 2022-03-25 01:01 This is a good example: - [How to setup FreeBSD with a riced desktop - part 1 - Basic setup](https://www.unixsheikh.com/tutorials/how-to-setup-freebsd-with- a-riced-desktop-part-1-basic-setup.html) - [How to setup FreeBSD with a riced desktop - part 2 - Xfce](https://www.unixsheikh.com/tutorials/how-to-setup-freebsd-with- a-riced-desktop-part-2-xfce.html) - [How to setup FreeBSD with a riced desktop - part 3 - i3](https://www.unixsheikh.com/tutorials/how-to-setup-freebsd-with-a- riced-desktop-part-3-i3.html) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cohesively_separated · 2022-03-25 03:01 What do you have from Pine64 that you run FreeBSD on? I have a PineBookPro w/Armbian on an eMMC and FBSD on an SD card. I drilled the bottom cover to expose the eMMC/SD switch for easy transitioning. Also have (4) RockPro64's both 2&4GB RAM models. The 4GB models are both backup servers, one with FBSD, the other with Debian. I have a PinePhone w/clamshell case that I mostly use as a terminal into my servers, powered by Mobian. Also have a Quartz64 with Armbian right now but look forward to porting FBSD to it when I have the time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-03-25 03:08 It's past 03:00 now I'm pretending that Wikipedia and all search engines are broken so I'll just smile and nod as if I know their meanings `:)` ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-03-25 03:12 +1 Although, > … now 11.3 (x64) … Did you mean `12.3`? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bunz-o-matic · 2022-03-25 03:19 [Deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dustiADMIN · 2022-03-25 03:58 Desktop Workstation. Using Virtual box with a 2x1TB NVME zfs pool for Nextcloud, various Ubuntu servers, Windows 10 and experimenting with other Operating systems like Crux Linux. I came from Windows 10, I love the Network reliability and being stable UN-like Windows 10 which has been breaking a lot since 21H2. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cohesively_separated · 2022-03-25 04:56 Meltdown and Spectre gave me the incentive to look into alternatives to x86/x86-64. Unfortunately most ARM hobbyist hardware isn't powerful enough for reasonable compiling time. Cluster computing is an option, but is expensive considering the minimal gain per unit price, and it requires dedication and advanced skill. Hence why so many projects cross-compile on x86-64 for ARM. Modern security is more of a never ending race than an achievable state. Good luck to you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bunz-o-matic · 2022-03-25 05:18 [Deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -kilix- · 2022-03-25 06:08 'specs' 😄 It's an old pc i5-4690 with an integrated graphics card and 16GB RAM. I have 5 disks in it, which I bought mainly to learn and experiment with zfs, specifically with raidz and mirrors. I use dual monitors. The other pc (pc at my workplace) is similar performance-wise (it's old) but with an Nvidia card (gtx960) which works equally well. Basically, those two pcs are almost identical, I use the same programs on both and I use the same config files on both, so the environment is identical. The third one is a headless pc which is really ancient (like AMD athlon x2, 4gb ram) which I am using to make backups on a raidz. Power it on, run a backup script, power it off. Edit: if you are curious about use case, it's mostly writing in vim and LaTeX, use rsync to sync both PC's contents, I use spectrwm window manager but I sometimes run KDE too. I print quite a lot, HP printer works as expected. On my home pc a lot more webbrowsing is happening, and a lot of normal stuff, like movies, music, photos. For specific use cases (like an usb device which has no FreeBSD drivers) I have both a Windows and Linux VM with usb passthrough, but I use those rarely. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -kilix- · 2022-03-25 06:24 Your story is very similar to mine. I started with FreeBSD 12.0. I felt a need to learn something about UNIX-likes and Linux did not feel exciting enough. In the end I realized that I don't do anything that is only strictly Linux-specific, so I decided that I don't need Linux anymore and it's been like that since (but I have a bhyve Linux guest for one very specific and rarely used use case). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- paprok · 2022-03-25 08:35 > Did you mean 12.3? no, 11.3. this machine is most of the time off, and not connected to the Internet. so i don't really care about security patches/updates. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EtherealN · 2022-03-25 09:22 Yeah, in my case I do have some "linux-specific" needs - I play video games. (A decade in that industry etcetera etcetera, I just want my games...) But even while that means I will probably have Linux (Arch in my case) on my gaming PC, I am still seeing a motivation to keep a FreeBSD as my daily-driver laptop. For a very specific reason: the little applications and such I make for myself will have to be written in such a way that they'll work on all my machines. That'll help me avoid falling into the "everything is linux" trap. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jumpminister · 2022-03-25 09:22 Smj runs sdf :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kyleW_ne · 2022-03-26 17:18 When I first tried out FreeBSD 11.0 on my Xeon E5 used but new to me system, I was like lets compile everything from ports and it didn't work for me compiling some of the larger ports even with 48GB of DDR3 so I got real turned off towards the project, but I came back a few years later and learned to love FreeBSD 12.0. I will be honest and say that when Chromium pulled support for sync out of the open source browser it turned me off a bit to *BSDs because they don't have an official Chrome port but I hear Chrome works well with an Ubuntu jail on FreeBSD 13.x so thinking about jumping back in for 13.1 soon! Just this morning getting off of work we were talking about how easy the Linux distro Manjaro is to break! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AccurateVictory · 2022-04-04 12:22 Your story is interesting. I keep using linux for its versatility for +15y, i don't game but I had/have to deal with so many env/platform that linux always saved the day for me. But still, I don't like the mashup it is and the systemd domination, and I just can't follow anymore when they change something even though it does not necessary break immediately. I used FreeBSD around 2008-2010, while the doc, the design was appealing, the desktop life was terrible and I don't want to use macOS or win on desktop. I don't get why freebsd user reject linux on desktop but that's another story. Nowadays, I see FreeBSD as a workstation more viable but I fear that's only their users hiding the truth, the real cost, like, days of fiddling with system. Also, the fact that it is not that self-contained anymore. So many 3rd party project to do stuff , etc... would just make of it a worse linux platform. I dunno, there might be a bit of delusion in my case. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-04-04 12:37 > … like, days of fiddling with system. … Probably less true nowadays than, say, four years ago. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -kilix- · 2022-04-04 13:34 Well I fiddled with it until I made it do what I wanted it to do, then it just is/works like that. It took more than a few days, because I knew nothing about FreeBSD before. I made the error of googling first and looking in the handbook/man pages second, which probably led to more problems than it solved. Old linux habit I guess. But yeah, coming from linux, it was not so difficult. It felt almost like switching distros, there are some changes here and there, but if you know your way around the command line, you will be ok. I probably fiddled with Arch linux as much as I did with FreeBSD, maybe even more. I also wanted/had to change my entire workflow quite a bit. But I wanted to do that to learn (tiling WM instead of mate, vim+tex instead of libreoffice, zfs, bhyve, etc). I must also mention that I enjoy fiddling and tinkering. I like configuring things, figuring out how stuff works for myself, etc. On my second FreeBSD computer I did not want to do anything like that anymore, so I just used the desktop-installer script and then pulled in my dotfiles and whatnot. Maybe you could give it a try, in my case it just did whatever it needed and I had a usable desktop with KDE right away (I remember that I had to re-run it a few times in a row thou(no idea what I did wrong there)). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AccurateVictory · 2022-04-04 18:06 Actually, I don't mind fiddling neither. We will see.