Considering FreeBSD as a desktop OS, curious about why it is not more used on the desktop. If you do not use it on desktop, which applications are missing? Any issues that prevent this use? reddit / freebsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- g2p2u2 · 2022-07-25 20:43 I will toy on it on a VM first; considering using it with KDE plasma. Bad idea ? Anything I should know about ? Thanks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-07-25 20:59 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SubstantiallyCrazy · 2022-07-25 21:15 I used to use a Logitech Cordless MX Duo for almost 15 years, that worked flawlessly. Even including the multimedia and application quick start buttons. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nickbernstein · 2022-07-25 22:52 Just check to make sure your hardware is supported. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- g2p2u2 · 2022-07-25 23:15 I’m going to be using a VM to learn until Apple silicon is supported. Hopefully can install on a second partition so macOS can be used when necessary… otherwise I’d use an old laptop ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GreenMan802 · 2022-07-25 23:25 Wifi drivers. Lack of Dropbox. Peripheral drivers. Lack of Steam support (I like to game occasionally on my desktop/laptop) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _w62_ · 2022-07-26 01:31 I have run FreeBSD 13.1 as a Parallel VM in my M1 Mac. The experiences are smoother than silk and the default GENERIC compile time is around 10-15 minutes, depending how many cores you give the VM. It is better to try 13.x, as ARM is tier 1 architecture for 13 onwards. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- scratchifoo · 2022-07-26 02:01 Steam works, I have it on my T530. Lots of games work but definitely not all. If your GPU supports Vulkan, some proton games will work too. Try the linux-steam-utils port, you'll like it :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- entity42 · 2022-07-26 02:35 Can't watch Amazon Prime movies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MindTheGAAP_ · 2022-07-26 03:21 No Netflix Limited support for newer hardware FreeBSD is usually for servers. Desktop use is limited imo and GNU/Linux is better alternative. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Informal-Duck-5820 · 2022-07-26 03:55 I have freebsd and debian as the daily drivers on my machines(workstation & laptop) For both setups i3 is the window manager. You can launch apps via the 'd-menu', it will also run GDK apps, xfce apps, and others as well. It may be worth a browse🤷🏻‍♂️ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-07-26 05:42 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vermaden · 2022-07-26 06:26 These series may help you: - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SubstantiallyCrazy · 2022-07-26 06:35 Back in the day I used a mix of Window Maker and GNUstep. Nowadays I'm using MATE. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jpie726 · 2022-07-26 07:07 No Netflix? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jloc0 · 2022-07-26 07:16 There has been work done getting the kernel to support M1 machines. I don’t know how far along the dev is, but it trails behind the Linux development. IIRC OpenBSD shipped support for Apple Silicon earlier this year so you might want to consider looking there in the meantime. But as another said, freebsd runs very well in VMware (and UTM as well). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BadSlime · 2022-07-26 08:00 I use FreeBSD as a desktop a minority of the time but still frequently. The main issue I have is hardware support. In particular, the wireless adapter in my thinkpad is speedy on my home network in Linux, but painfully slow and unstable on FreeBSD, which makes it difficult to use as a "rock solid stable" dev environment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- g2p2u2 · 2022-07-26 08:22 Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- justonelastthign · 2022-07-26 08:28 So other than slow wifi, everything works? Iow, no you don't have problems with hardware support? The company I worked for had 10 developers all programming on FreeBSD desktops for 20 years without issue but you say it was unstable? I wish I knew that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MindTheGAAP_ · 2022-07-26 11:32 Yes, Netflix doesn’t work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jpie726 · 2022-07-26 11:41 Mind elaborating on why? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MindTheGAAP_ · 2022-07-26 11:43 You have to go through few hoops to get it to work Check this video https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/nmro5w/can_you_watch_netflix _on_freebsd_yes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf ---------------------------------------------------------------------- masterblaster0 · 2022-07-26 13:14 One of the workarounds I had seen for this was passing the nic through to a linux vm running via bhyve to get near full speed support. * https://bsdjhb.blogspot.com/2016/10/using-pci-pass-through-with- bhyve.html * https://www.davidschlachter.com/misc/t480-bhyve-wifi-pci-passthrough * https://github.com/pgj/freebsd-wifibox ---------------------------------------------------------------------- laffer1 · 2022-07-26 14:11 Most of those streaming sites do user agent checks for os like it’s 1999. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- daemonpenguin · 2022-07-26 14:21 FreeBSD runs most of my applications, but not on my hardware. It lacks good sleep/resume support and wi-fi support for pretty much every network card I've used in the past 12 years. It's great in a VM, but falls down on my laptop/desktop machines. Which is why FreeBSD remains a server OS for me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oradba · 2022-07-26 15:53 The only problem I ever had with it (on a 2009 Macbook and a 2010 Toshiba Portege R700) was drivers - on the Macbook getting wifi to work was a major PITN. On the Portege, the screen driver was always off by a line. If you can get around these issues it is stable and secure, and reasonably fast. FWIW, I was running XFCE4 and I3 on it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alireza6677 · 2022-07-26 18:11 I need docker for work and it doesn't work on FreeBSD, otherwise it's a good desktop os. Runs most apps I can think of. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- psmgx · 2022-07-26 18:22 There is the meme that "linux is free if you don't value your time" -- which I'd say is false these days. Ubuntu or Fedora (or related distros) are pretty dang usable out of the box and don't require a lot of effort after. I *would* say that about using FreeBSD on the desktop though. You can do it, but hardware compatibility is an issue, and you'll need to do a lot of work to make some software work. It should be mostly do-able, but if you want a Unix-like desktop-OS there are plenty of mature Linux-based options. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mrpoops · 2022-07-26 20:02 Why? It’s a strong server and embedded OS. It’s weak desktop OS. It’s not the right tool for the job. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BadSlime · 2022-07-26 20:16 I know about this and have suggested it to many people, I'm just lazy about it honestly. Thank you for linking resources though. I have more esoteric issues with using FreeBSD as a dev machine, though I imagine they will be fixed with the increased market share of BSDs. I'll take the time to set this up when they have been resolved. My main issue besides hardware support is the poor state of pip packages on FreeBSD. Installing via pip creates inconsistent installs when updating but many packages in the ports library are not updated regularly, this causes dependency hell and just seems to be a bit of a mess compared to the excellent Python support on Linux. Whenever I need to use a different version of a tool with a particular version of python, it becomes a hassle quickly. I build almost everything from source for this reason but that comes with it's own dependency issues ---------------------------------------------------------------------- g2p2u2 · 2022-07-26 20:28 I like the appeal of FreeBSD, arch Linux is not as stable; but tell me, what’s the recommended way of developing say, a web app supposed to run on FreeBSD ? Develop it on Linux then deploy on FreeBSD ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-07-26 20:31 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- No-Region2820 · 2022-07-26 20:46 Thank you for fanatic's guide. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mrpoops · 2022-07-26 20:58 Design the webpage on a mac, deploy it to a web server running freebsd. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oradba · 2022-07-26 21:10 I used to say the ease of use of jails was a good reason, but with firejail around on Linux, that is no longer the case. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- g2p2u2 · 2022-07-27 09:17 > Why? Honestly, there's also this https://github.com/helloSystem/hello#why= ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mrpoops · 2022-07-27 16:08 I value using the right tool for the job over personal ideology. The best web design tools are written for MacOS. If you want to be a web dev you should get a Mac. You can do it on FreeBSD, but you're only making your life harder and the personal benefit of doing it your way is negligible at best. If you want to run accounting software get a Windows PC. If you want to browse the web get a Chromebook. If you want to write websites get a Mac. If you want to host a website use FreeBSD or Linux. You're doing the equivalent of trying to host a website on a Chomebook. Sure, it can be done. Anything is possible. But...there's a reason everyone else does it another way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- g2p2u2 · 2022-07-27 16:37 I think you are right, I’ll see where the FreeBSD experiments lead me. Out of curiosity, what are some of the best web design tools running on macOS do you have in mind ? I thought of the jetbrains IDEs and Dash for documentation but I think you have front end dev tools in mind ? (That’s a blind spot I have, anything from adobe i never used) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -kilix- · 2022-07-28 05:34 I don't know if it is a bad idea or not, but the only program I am missing is cad software, but that doesn't work on Linux either, so no difference there. What keeps me using FreeBSD as a desktop are the features it has- mostly simple backups with zfs, boot environments and clean and easy to use and consistent system administration. Hardware-support-wise, it works on my hardware so no complaints there. You may need to check the hw compatibility first. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- madhukarbhat · 2022-07-28 06:41 On my old 32-bit Laptop, FreeBSD shuts down due to overheating. OpenBSD runs fine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- pramsky · 2022-07-28 16:27 I did a bunch of frontend/backend work on Linux and FreeBSD years back. As a solo dev/designer you can work with a text editor, Gimp and Inkscape. It will take time to learn those tools. Once you work with a team, you are going to have to use tools like Photoshop and Illustrator at which point it makes your life easier if you switch to Windows or Mac. On my Mac I use: - Nova, Sublime Text as editors. - Sublime Merge for git - Adobe tools for images/media. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Daedalus312 · 2022-07-28 17:17 That's not so. There are many free licenses besides the GPL and there is a lot of software with these licenses for FreeBSD. Closed proprietary software is also available for FreeBSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-07-29 02:44 > … It lacks good sleep/resume support … Dependent upon graphics driver. From [HP ZBook 17 G2 with NVIDIA Quadro K1100M (GK107GLM) and Intel HD Graphics 4600 | The FreeBSD Forums](https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/hp-zbook-17-g2-with-nvidia- quadro-k1100m-gk107glm-and-intel-hd-graphics-4600.81493/): > … I'll not keep this notebook. > > Failure to wake from sleep is a show-stopper. With my everyday computer, an old HP EliteBook 8570p, wake from sleep is close to faultless. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-07-29 02:46 > overheating That's hardware, not software. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-07-29 02:52 I _do_ use a desktop environment, KDE Plasma. There's no port of Microsoft Teams. I could wish for any number of other applications, but Teams is most wanted by me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- madhukarbhat · 2022-07-29 10:42 This is an ancient history (Circa 10.2 RELEASE FreeBSD). But still want to put it out in case it helps the project. The old laptop hardware can run at top frequency in bursts for short durations. It cannot sustain the same for more than few minutes. With FreeBSD, the laptop was pegged at highest frequency from the moment it booted up. As a result it was not able to evacuate the heat and thus the shutdown. So yes, you are correct. It is hardware, that too a hardware that was not designed to run as a server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- daemonpenguin · 2022-07-29 14:11 Not when it works with one OS and not the other. That's a software problem. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mpokie · 2022-08-04 16:28 I just migrated to FreeBSD, I discovered I cannot install yandex-disk, cannot install megasync, cannot install zoom, so it becomes difficult for me to use it. fine i installed latex and texstudio, but I have to sync my folders ---------------------------------------------------------------------- g2p2u2 · 2022-08-04 16:59 Which desktop environment did you install? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mpokie · 2022-08-04 19:37 Xfce ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SchindlersIgnoreList · 2022-10-09 04:39 Rclone may help for syncing ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TroubledEmo · 2023-03-09 12:36 Might want to share how you did it?