Desktop friendly forks reddit / freebsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ykurtov · 2022-11-25 00:58 Hi, ​ I'm considering trying BSD after many years on Mac and want to ask what's the most hassle-free and mature distribution out there? I came across GhostBSD, and it seems like a good candidate, but maybe there are other options I should know about. ​ Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LiamW · 2022-11-25 01:11 Honestly, just use one of vermaden’s guides: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/ GhostBSD is great, but it’s about 5 to 10 minutes of work to get FreeBSD working as a full desktop. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- scratchifoo · 2022-11-25 03:23 Agreed, this is the best approach. Is MidnightBSD still a thing? I'm not recommending it, but I think it is (was?) the same idea as GhostBSD if you insist on one of the turnkey spins. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- aughtspcnerd · 2022-11-25 04:13 I also second just using FreeBSD. There are a couple of installers for it floating around if you want a default like system setup for you with a choice of DE. GhostBSD is a resource hog and isn’t exactly free of having to troubleshoot. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- edthesmokebeard · 2022-11-25 04:44 FreeBSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- yrxwif · 2022-11-25 05:13 Anything can be desktop friendly really but that's besides the point, I suppose. Just spend time setting up plain freebsd, it may take some extra work/research but it'll be worth and atleast you'll have learned a bit about how freebsd works. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amelia-Earwig · 2022-11-25 05:21 I use FreeBSD for my home server and Apple for everything else. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Daedalus312 · 2022-11-25 05:59 I think it's better to use the original FreeBSD. You will have to figure out well how it works and how it works, but then you will be able to configure what you need or fix it in case of a breakdown. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- whattteva · 2022-11-25 06:04 MidnightBSD is still a thing, but it's quite different from GhostBSD. GhostBSD tracks FreeBSD-STABLE upstream and I don't consider it a fork. MidnightBSD, on the other hand, actually IS a fork of FreeBSD 6.1-BETA. Finally, another distinct feature of GhostBSD is that it offers a live-USB environment, which is incredibly useful for testing the waters. Actually, now that I think of it, I think OpenBSD installs X by default and you may actually find some things work straight out of the box more than FreeBSD because, allegedly, all the developers actually daily-drive their own OS, unlike a lot of FreeBSD devs that often run MacOS X. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- whattteva · 2022-11-25 06:09 I think GhostBSD and MidnightBSD are the only two desktop-friendly spins that are actively maintained (someone correct me if I'm wrong). GhostBSD tracks FreeBSD-STABLE upstream and adds its own GUI tools and offers a very useful live USB environment so that you can test things out without installing. MidnightBSD is a fork of FreeBSD 6.1-BETA and aims to provide all the useful features from all the other BSD's (Open, Net, Dragonfly). I don't believe it has a live-USB environment like GhostBSD (again, someone correct me if I'm wrong). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thindil · 2022-11-25 06:56 To make the list almost complete. There are two more options which could be interesting, in my opinion. Both trying to accomplish a similar goal: [helloSystem](https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/) and [ravynOS](https://ravynos.com/). I think I saw something more, also similar in design to the two, but I don't remember. I think it was a dead project(s). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-11-25 07:49 >Is MidnightBSD still a thing? Yes. At the [FreeBSD Project](https://www.freebsd.org/) home page, click **Get FreeBSD** or the larger button: https://preview.redd.it/wn1zvxgbf32a1.png?width=190&format=png&auto=we bp&v=enabled&s=82ff0db433b3694c310cb7fd01715c60dc9579b2 There's a list of five FreeBSD-derived OS distros, three of which are desktop distros. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-11-25 08:51 > … GhostBSD tracks FreeBSD-STABLE … Not closely, as far as I can tell. stable/12 began in October 2018. From the 2021 update for MidnightBSD: >> … MidnightBSD 2.x incorporates major features of FreeBSD 11-stable … stable/11 reached its end of life in the third quarter of 2021. Release notes for MidnightBSD 2.2 (2022-06-07) have two mentions of stable/12: * /bin/sh updated based on freebsd 12-stable sources * cat(1): Bring in a bug fix for the -e flag as found in FreeBSD 12 stable No mention of stable/13. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- whattteva · 2022-11-25 09:14 Yeah, MidnightBSD does mention that their stated goal is to incorporate all useful features of the major BSD's (FreeBSD, Dragonfly, NetBSD, OpenBSD). >We hope to create something unique. Project goals include: > >A new window and login manager. \[Replaced by Etoile, then xfce + mlogind\] > >Centralized system preferences while maintaining the BSD style on the command line. > >A graphical ports and package management system. Currently we use a derivative of FreeBSD ports. \[Now we have mports\] > >Work on various portions of the kernel including syscons, process and disk scheduling, imports of FreeBSD and OpenBSD drivers, etc. > >Importing useful features from DragonFly, MirBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD. > >Improving security with little distraction to the end user. \[ipfw is enabled in 0.2+, sudo added, many other changes are coming\] Obviously, they don't list FreeBSD there on bullet point number 5, but it's implicit seeing that they forked FreeBSD as their base. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- digitalsedition · 2022-11-25 09:15 imo you're easiest way to get a desktop environment is to install the desktop-installer package and run it after you get FreeBSD installed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-11-25 10:32 Do you have a real computer in mind, or will you test first in a virtual machine? If real: what's the graphics hardware? > … after many years on Mac … Accustomed to a full-featured desktop environment. (I was a Mac user, for decades.) > … most hassle-free and mature … KDE Plasma. [Quick start](https://community.kde.org/FreeBSD/Setup#Quick_start): 1. graphics first 2. KDE and the rest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ykurtov · 2022-11-25 11:41 I'm planning to try it out on a Dell machine. I've been eyeballing Gnome - it looks feature-complete yet not standing in the way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jozefvanerka · 2022-11-25 12:06 AFAICT, helloSystem is approaching the `stability`. I've tested it on an older HW that I've god at home (Pentium 4 with 8GB RAM) and it worked fine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- theRealNilz02 · 2022-11-25 12:17 The best FreeBSD Desktop is FreeBSD itself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- knightjp · 2022-11-25 12:48 The question comes, whether you are familiar with Unix/Unix like systems. Are you good with the command like? Have you used Linux before? If all the answers to this are Yes, then I would suggest that you just install vanilla FreeBSD. Some guys will say that you can have a running and working system within 10 minutes. I honestly don't know about that because all my efforts at installing FreeBSD has taken about 30 minutes. Maybe you can get a rudimentary system running in that time based on what choices you make for a GUI. I went with KDE, because I prefer it. I might be making the sound of installing vanilla FreeBSD a really hard thing. I assure that it is not. You can find a number of article and even videos on youtube showing you how to do it. If you are looking for a straight up distro, then GhostBSD is a great choice. You can run it for while, till you get your head around the whole user interface and where things are. Sort of how people use Ubuntu as their entry point into running Linux and then move on to other distros geared towards more advanced users. [https://vermaden.wordpress.com/](https://vermaden.wordpress.com/) This is a great resource for running vanilla BSD as a desktop. Another resources is look for the youtube channel "robonuggie". He does FreeBSD content and does reviews of different BSD related distros. That should help you select something. Personally, I came from macOS too and I chose to run FreeBSD. Thought process behind was that if I'm changing systems, I would like to do something which I can really customize visually and make my own. Wanted a system that looked like what was in the first Ironman movie. Job done I think. https://preview.redd.it/700a3aocx42a1.jpeg?width=1680&format=pjpg&auto =webp&v=enabled&s=c881d6f99c9bf7edd8341bf280c1f22a5d541d7e ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ykurtov · 2022-11-25 12:55 Thanks for the link! ​ I'm ok with CLI - I used Linux for some years but vouched never to touch that broken piece of crap again. At the same time, I was always intrigued with OpenBSD, but it just won't fit my requirements (SMP in the first place). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CoolTheCold · 2022-11-25 12:58 Come to the bright side - Windows 11 + WSL/WSL2. From practical perspective - works very neat. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ykurtov · 2022-11-25 13:00 Windows is an STD in the operating systems world ---------------------------------------------------------------------- knightjp · 2022-11-25 13:09 If you have previous Linux experience, then FreeBSD is no different. It will take you some time to get your system just right. But head my advise. Once you have it just right.. leave it alone.. Seriously leave it alone. It’s easy to get caught up in all the tinkering until something breaks and you have to do it all over again. Decide what GUI you want to run. Most prefer to run XFCE because it is light weight. I prefer KDE over anything else in the open source arena. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CoolTheCold · 2022-11-25 13:12 Oh, nice, at least gives chances for actually having sex, not just running `make love` commands over and over! Neat! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ykurtov · 2022-11-25 13:16 "Leaving it alone" is what I want. I prefer to completely forget about OS instead of spending a week setting up video card drivers again because of the latest kernel update. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- theRealNilz02 · 2022-11-25 13:55 There is No way your Pentium 4 has 8 GB of RAM. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- daemonpenguin · 2022-11-25 14:00 GhostBSD is probably what you want. There are other desktop oriented spins of FreeBSD (like Midnight, helloSystem, etc) but they're usually not well maintained. helloSystem is young and not really stable yet. MidnightBSD I've never managed to get a running desktop out of it. GhostBSD is relatively mature and easy to set up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-11-25 14:56 > Gnome On what graphics hardware? [The FreeBSD GNOME Project](https://www.freebsd.org/gnome/) describes GNOME, MATE, and Cinnamon for FreeBSD as *fully supported*, however there's no mention of these bugs: * [253746 – x11-wm/mutter: Freezes on AMD GPU's with DRI3](https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=253746) * [257810 – x11/gnome3(-lite) & x11/gdm lags significantly on amdgpu](https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=257810) – possibly a duplicate of 253746. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0x1eef · 2022-11-25 16:01 I think FreeBSD is hassle free. The hassle often comes from hardware that's not suitable. Otherwise I encountered no hassle at all. Maybe we're different, and maybe I misunderstood you but a large part of why I use FreeBSD is to learn - and FreeBSD, with its handbook, makes that a very pleasant experience. If you don't want to debug an issue or two, then I would personally think FreeBSD, and BSD in general - is not a good fit. Most Linux distrbutions are entirely hassle free these days, but it is much harder to learn how things work under the hood, and that's why I run FreeBSD. We're all different, of course - I don't intend to discourage you, just my two cents. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ykurtov · 2022-11-25 16:30 Thanks for the input ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2022-11-25 16:54 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jozefvanerka · 2022-11-25 17:08 But there is a way, my friend. There is a way. A very rare Asus mobo with P4 and 8GB of RAM. https://preview.redd.it/aescguzn762a1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto =webp&v=enabled&s=848f4095f92c261a8c40f6fdb822a2f79dd68722 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vermaden · 2022-11-25 17:20 If you come from macOS then this one should be a good starter: - https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2022/02/09/xfce-cupertino-way/ You may as well use **GhostBSD** with its XFCE variant - to also get the Top Global Menu - you will have to configure it on your own but you may use upper link for that. The 'default' **GhostBSD** comes with MATE but I am not sure if Top Global Menu is possible now on FreeBSD. There are also **NomadBSD** and **MidnightBSD** to consider. Hope that helps. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- theRealNilz02 · 2022-11-25 19:15 Well I'll be damned. Now you have my interest. Which Socket is it? 775? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Left_Program_6556 · 2022-11-25 22:08 GhostBSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ryanmcgrath · 2022-11-26 00:14 ravynOS is in no way remotely usable right now and is aimed at developers who want to work on it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LiamW · 2022-11-26 02:18 https://www.amazon.com/1066FSB-Pentium-4-Motherboard-Onboard- GIGALAN/dp/B016CMYYZG Maybe? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jozefvanerka · 2022-11-26 09:24 Wow, yes! I wouldn't have thought that it's still available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-11-27 07:33 > NomadBSD NB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-11-27 07:47 > … something more, also similar in design to the two, but I don't remember. I think it was a dead project(s). There's a clue in some of the `.md5` files for releases of helloSystem, for example: % cat hello-0.8.0_0H224-FreeBSD-13.1-amd64.iso.md5 MD5 (/usr/local/furybsd/iso/hello-0.8.0_0H224-FreeBSD-13.1-amd64.iso) = de5f56e6672cb7f91bf029b8ec5dab62 % [Acknowledgements — helloSystem documentation](https://hellosystem.git hub.io/docs/developer/acknowledgements.html) acknowledges **FuryBSD**. [DistroWatch.com: FuryBSD](https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=furybsd) [FuryBSD is dead.. | The FreeBSD Forums](https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/furybsd-is-dead.77548/) (nine pages over three-and-a-half months) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-11-27 07:49 > AFAICT, helloSystem is approaching the `stability`. … Caution: the *latest* release has a base that reached end of life a few months ago. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thindil · 2022-11-27 08:08 Probably this, I don't remember names. Thank you for investigating it. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thindil · 2022-11-27 08:09 Good to know, thank you. :) As far I saw, they are started as a fork of helloSystem. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2022-11-27 08:27 >… not sure if Top Global Menu is possible now on FreeBSD. … Here's the FreeBSD room in Matrix in Element (web app) in [devel/electron19](https://www.freshports.org/devel/electron19/): ​ https://preview.redd.it/57bee2jkwh2a1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=w ebp&v=enabled&s=321652be1bb163835cd31f076ec012ebce3739d6 * using the **Global Menu** feature of KDE Plasma. Not all applications have global menu support: * [www/chromium](https://www.freshports.org/www/chromium/) has it * [www/firefox](https://www.freshports.org/www/firefox/) does not * and so on. [https://matrix.to/#/#FreeBSD:matrix.org](https://matrix.to/#/#FreeBSD :matrix.org) FreeBSD bug [259700 – www/chromium: Plasma5 global menu does not work out-of-the- box](https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=259700) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jozefvanerka · 2022-11-27 13:33 That's true, indeed. Anyway, there are pre-releases (and debug releases) update very frequently.