Desktop FreeBSD won't improve unless people are using it reddit / freebsd ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Original_Two9716 · 2023-03-30 08:28 I am. Xfce. And it's splendid. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- twllnbrck · 2023-03-30 09:28 Me too. On Desktop and Laptop. But you‘re right there is some space for improvements/bug fixes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Trilkk · 2023-03-30 09:50 I've actually found two Desktop FreeBDS bugs that have appeared recently. Cannot confirm for sure, but I'm pretty confident they both appeared for version 13.1: * Wireless keyboard&touchpad tap-to-click no longer works. This is weird considering the touchpad scroll still works perfectly. * Nvidia 32-bit compatibility OpenGL no longer works. Windows are opened but the output is all black. Acceleration works perfectly otherwise for 64-bit applications. Since 13.2 is right around the corner, there's no reason to extensively debug things before the release, but those things perhaps need some investigation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jloc0 · 2023-03-30 10:34 I can say I normally use Slackware but I switched my desktop over to fbsd to utilize my cpu for poudriere to build packages for my e-mail server. Of course, all my decade old hardware works, it wasn’t as painless as Slackware is to get going. But I installed drm-kmod (which didn’t work until I physically removed my unused nvidia card), so my hd3000 works now. Though that eats up some of my (limited) ram. Installed xfce, and it’s a decent desktop, and I’m considering leaving fbsd on it. I’m also trying it out on my laptop, which is extra painful. Solutions exist for many problems but the hardware is an ancient Mac, so I fully expect more than average issues. So far the recommended touchpad driver “atp” doesn’t work at all. It actually stops the touchpad from working, so I disabled that. The fan, I can hear it slightly, but I changed the values to a higher speed and nothing happened after reboots. Ethernet works, wifi… well ya. I built wifibox as it claims something to do with the “wl” driver, but I haven’t been able to get it going (it does at least know the wifi card is there). I do hope I can get it working, as I’d like to run fbsd on there, but without wifi, it’ll be pretty useless. But it is my more powerful Intel machine (and has more ram) it would be the better poudriere choice. I’d really like to use FBSD on things other than just a server so I could get better with it personally. Sure VMs are an option, but the system is already limited natively, VMs just aren’t a good choice for long term heavy usage. I’ve got sway going and some other things, but I’d be so ecstatic if the wifi started working with wifibox, that would turn it into a keeper. I love what freebsd does and how it works. I realize I have non-mainstream hardware, but it’s old hardware, and it should work better than it does. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- knightjp · 2023-03-30 10:37 Agreed. FreeBSD had the potential of becoming what Linux is today. It still does. i feel it is a better platform. The reason that is is where it is is because it was tied down in legalities, this gave Linux the chance to grow. We need more people using it as a desktop. However I do like the exclusivity of it though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FUZxxl · 2023-03-30 10:47 There are FreeBSD desktop users (this one included), but don't think that the viewership of your article is representative. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alexnoyle · 2023-03-30 11:10 Proud 2%er! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alexnoyle · 2023-03-30 11:11 Keep in mind that many FreeBSD users spoof their user agents in their browsers. Librewolf does this automatically. It's for privacy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thindil · 2023-03-30 11:15 Nvidia 32-bit compatibility works again with 515 and above drivers. It was a bug in the driver, unfortunately unable to fix from FreeBSD point. 😉 If I remember correctly, only drivers version 5xx were affected, 470 works as expected. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Xzenor · 2023-03-30 11:20 > People who are into BSD don’t use BSD. We do but as servers instead of desktop. Because that's where it shines ---------------------------------------------------------------------- eddie_mex · 2023-03-30 11:34 I’m trying out wayland with sway and it’s doing as good as in Linux, the only thing that I seem to have trouble with, is the Julia programming language, but that has nothing to do with FreeBSD, it’s not having access to the headless flag on Chromium thus not having kaleido. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nyanraltotlapun · 2023-03-30 12:09 And people won't start using it unless it improve. I used some years ago FreeBSD as my desktop, soft bugs I overcome somehow, but in the end, it just missed properly working software, at the time I needed video editor I think. Today, there is no way to run Pytorch on FreeBSD with GPU acceleration. FreeBSD missing CUDA and ROCM. So this is show stopper for me for some years already. And also, my laptop from 2022 will run only few linuxes, other just crushing on trying to bring graphics on. FreeBSD have zero support for it. The gap on hardware support is actually enormous. As much as I love FreeBSD, Desktop usage of it is very niche. Oh also, some internet sites wont recognize FreeBSD as proper OS, so you need to change you user agent to Linux, or Windows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheRealLazloFalconi · 2023-03-30 13:32 Your premise is flawed. Why would someone who is a regular user of FreeBSD, or any other BSD, be interested in an article about how to install FreeBSD? We already know how. That type of article is of most interest to non-BSD users, who want to see what it's like before installing. Your other flaw is conflating use with improvement. People just *using* FreeBSD won't result in anything. FreeBSD won't improve unless people invest time or money (or both) in improving it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oradba · 2023-03-30 13:41 I have been playing with configuring it as a daily driver on an old Thinkpad. It's gotten much easier since 12.0, easy enough that I have crossed GhostBSD off the list for its quirks - it's FreeBSD or nothing. It's nor perfect, but it's almost good enough. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- clickbg · 2023-03-30 13:58 This ^ I am amazed at the amount of resources spent on better WiFi support and such. I guess the 100 or so people using FreeBSD as a desktop OS would be very happy about it. Unfortunately FreeBSD doesn’t get the sweet sweet Amazon and Microsoft money that Linux has so a bit of focus on what the majority of people actually use FreeBSD for would be great. A few points: - Jails had the first mover advantage and Docker totally killed that. Like it or not Kubernetes and Docker is where the industry is. What is the Jails response to this? - Virtualisation came and went by the time FreeBSD entered the game and still bhyve is kilometres away from say KVM or VMware. - FreeBSD had the first implementation of ZFS outside of Solaris and now the majority of development happens on Linux. Where is the innovation from FreeBSD? Just read r/zfs the vast majority of questions are about Proxmox, Debian, Ubuntu. - FreeBSD has always been touted as an excellent OS for networking but we are still missing decent drivers support for 25gbps or 100gbps networking. Where is the improvement on that? How is FreeBSD responding to clustering, storage, containerisation and enterprise networking? But sure people not running Steam on FreeBSD is the biggest problem ever…. Let the downvotes begin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- spanctimony · 2023-03-30 14:10 Why does FreeBSD need to be good at everything? It doesn't need to be a good desktop. I'd rather they just toss the desktop aspirations right in the garbage and focus on being the best possible server operating system. Almost every aspect of what makes FreeBSD a "desktop" isn't even developed by FreeBSD developers. Take bhyve as an example of a place that FreeBSD is making progress. Ok, FreeBSD was really late to the hypervisor game. Now, with virtual nvme, bhyve is in many ways superior to KVM. But you know what it doesn't have? Any sort of management interface. If you want to make FreeBSD a better place, go build a Proxmox for bhyve. We have enough options for quality desktops. Let Apple and Microsoft focus on perfecting that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sko- · 2023-03-30 14:36 I'm running FreeBSD on all my Desktops (2) and Laptops (2) as well as a bunch of servers. Why should I use anything less reliable on the machines I sit on 8+hours every day? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- agrajag9 · 2023-03-30 14:36 Downvoted because factually incorrect statements plastered in negativity. Why even post any of that? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- clickbg · 2023-03-30 14:45 If you don’t agree with those statements you are welcome to argue on them, this is a forum not a beauty salon. We are here to discuss views and ideas not to ponder to our egos, mostly 😊 To turn the question around, why post your comment without even saying what you consider inaccurate and negative? What is the point of it, or we should all be positive or silent? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- obiwac · 2023-03-30 14:52 for your first bug that's probably a problem with X. look into xinput and the properties for your input method. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- agrajag9 · 2023-03-30 14:57 The network drivers is fascinating - what NICs are you using that you can't get good speed out of? How is it that Netflix is able to deliver over 400Gbps but then we dont have usable 25 and 100Gbps drivers? Why should FreeBSD "respond" to Docker? The only thing Docker really offers that might be an improvement is Dockerhub, but that place is a mess of poorly-defaulted projects (eg nginx running as root) that have no place on a modern, secure system. Are you upset that work is being done on wifi? Why shouldn't there be? You do realize there's work going into lots of places, right? Your whole post is "Linux is better at X, Y, and Z." Some of that is right, some of that is wrong. So what? FreeBSD isn't Linux, nor should it follow Linux's lead. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- azimuth2004 · 2023-03-30 15:32 ![gif](giphy|oWjyixDbWuAk8) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- yukaia · 2023-03-30 15:40 Not to mention their take on ZFS lol. Ignoring ixsystem's work not to mention the fact that the oft requested raidz expansion project is being developed/funded by the freebsd foundation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alexnoyle · 2023-03-30 16:09 > ROCM Only missing for nvidia. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alexnoyle · 2023-03-30 16:11 > But you know what it doesn't have? Any sort of management interface. What about Bastille or CBSD? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- spanctimony · 2023-03-30 16:12 I don’t need a FreeBSD management interface, I need a (robust) bhyve management interface. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blueberryman422 · 2023-03-30 16:15 If there was something like a Linux Mint of BSD that was simple to install (for a new user) with most of the common desktop environments and things all worked without much adjustments out of the box, there could be a good opportunity for BSD to grow. There are a lot of people that don't like things happening in Linux (eg: push to use flatpaks, snaps, immutable operating systems) so having a solid alternative that has a very Linux-like experience could be helpful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- elpikachar · 2023-03-30 16:27 https://preview.redd.it/lsvlx68a2yqa1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto =webp&v=enabled&s=0f56e0d42a8b06946ef87283c456e331fc72ba0b Yeah with you on this… ---------------------------------------------------------------------- elpikachar · 2023-03-30 16:30 I ended up getting a 0x210 Intel WiFi nic (iwlwifi driver) and tbh was worth the upgrade. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ImageJPEG · 2023-03-30 16:51 \*raises hand\* I just got 13.2 RC5 working mostly on my T590. Now I'm battling with it resuming from sleep. Goes to sleep just fine, it just refuses to wake up :/. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ImageJPEG · 2023-03-30 16:53 Only glory of Satan is eternal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- clickbg · 2023-03-30 16:57 See now we can have a proper, civil discussion. Let me preface my post by saying I am using FreeBSD from at least 4 and have been administering Solaris, HPUX and FreeBSD for years. What I am writing comes from a place of love not hate. The NICs are Auqantia/Marvell, while possible to use other vendors Broadcom driver isn't any better. The issue here however is mostly on the vendors and not so much on FreeBSD so you do have a point there. FreeBSD shouldn't really respond to Docker, they should make an alternative to Docker that is properly done since Docker is a walking s*t show. My grief is that Jails are getting forgotten and they and the Solaris Zones were the first and better implementation of containers. I want to see them thrive as Kubernetes and Docker arguably are. Something like DockerHub but done the FreeBSD way will be an amazing asset. Something like the Solaris Cluster for Zones would also be a very good solution to have. I am not upset about the development of decent WiFi support, quite the opposite I would be on the Moon from happiness if FreeBSD can one day run on my laptop but my priorities are elsewhere - servers and workstations. I don't mind at all if FreeBSD want to foray into the desktop space but that shouldn't be on the expense of lacking server and workstation development. See Linux made that mistake with SystemD and other brain dead solutions just so they can appeal to the average Windows user. That dream is dead, no one is changing Windows for office work or gaming and we shouldn't waste resources on trying to dethrone Microsoft, they are perfectly capable of suicide. Linux isn't better at anything, that is sort of the problem with it but it is very adoptable and an easy sell to management. I used to be able to sell FreeBSD 4 and even 8 to management since it was a perfect fit for almost everything we used to do back then. That isn't the case today and I want to be able to sale it so we can use it and make it better for everyone. However that means that FreeBSD should have the same or better features that RedHat or Canonical or HashiCorp offers us. I can't with a straight face go into a technical meeting where we are discussing how to implement a cross geo solution using Kubernetes or Docker and say "Hey lets use Jails". That is my grief, I want to be able to use FreeBSD for those solutions. My sense is that the industry moved on and FreeBSD stayed in the server - client model. If you don't believe me just see the feedback here - https://www.reddit.com/r/freeb sd/comments/126bs8s/freebsd_enhancement/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=i os_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1 - those are must haves that basically FreeBSD is missing today and some of them were relevant in 2018 or before that. Don't get me wrong I don't want yet another Linux distro, but I do believe that FreeBSD can do this better and more securely hence why I am pushing for resurgence of Jails and clustering. Thanks for the reply and sorry for the long post, I really want FreeBSD to be better that is why I am spending this effort to argue here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- agrajag9 · 2023-03-30 17:22 Ah! We may be in violent agreement about all of this :D bz has been doing all the wifi stuff, and part of that is expanding the underlying LinuxKPI framework so that more drivers from Linux can be brought in over time as well. It's moving pretty slow, but I've been tracking for about a year and there is progress going into CURRENT. Agreed - Marvell and Aquantia NIC support is bad. Connect-X seems to be The One True NIC for us, although I know Chelsios show up from time to time as well. I can't speak to the performance of the Chelsios, but given they're a partner with the foundation I imagine they're pretty decent. As for business support, I can say for sure that my company - a very very very big one - will basically let me run anything under the BSDL, but GPL - especially GPLv4 - are avoided like the plague. We want to deliver solutions to clients without needing to release that code back. Yeah yeah, get angry, I'm not in love with it either, but it's how big company with enormous risk landscapes work. There actually is some serious work going into making Open Container Initiative support jails: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Containers > My sense is that the industry moved on and FreeBSD stayed in the server - client model. I agree, but I don't think that's bad. FreeBSD is still imo THE host OS you want if you need to do something really big. Containers are great if you have big iron that needs to do lots of things; but if you have big iron that needs to do 1 thing and do 1 thing correctly and with minimal overhead, FreeBSD is still king. > no one is changing Windows for office work or gaming and we shouldn't waste resources on trying to dethrone Microsoft, they are perfectly capable of suicide. Again, perspective of a large enterprise tech person: Valve has already changed this and are getting more and more game devs to target Proton and Vulkan/DXVK over Windows and DirectX. That transition turns out to be relatively easy. As for MS suicide, I don't think that's unintentional, they've been signaling a desire to stop developing Windows as a desktop OS for years. All the orignial devs are long since gone and with them seemingly quite a bit of wisdom about the inner workings. And as more companies move towards zErOtRuSt and more and more of productivity tools are ported to a browser-interface model, the underlying OS becomes less and less meaningful and more and more businesses are letting users BYOD or deploying things like Chromebooks, which are imo equivalent to thin-clients. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 17:32 A lot of companies are buzz driven. Most users of k8s don’t need k8s. Therefore they could be served by bsd. But since bsd is not what everybody else is doing, they won’t even bother to check it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 17:32 Me to! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 17:32 Noted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 17:33 Yes. Stats for this posts are better, but not much. I’ll add errata tomorrow with this ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Nyanraltotlapun · 2023-03-30 17:33 They ported ROCM to FreeBSD? I just didn't check this for some time. If so it is awesome! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 17:34 My primary problem with FreeBSD is Wi-Fi support, as I can’t hibernate mg computer (Wi-Fi won’t get up after resume) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 17:35 It seems so, but vide https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/126fvkz/comment/jeari2c/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 17:38 Are you able to hibernate this machine and get wifi back up after resume? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 17:39 I am also trying to use FreeBSD only! But the problems with hardware support make it difficult. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 17:41 I had problems with intel gpu (https://d-s.sh/2023/fixing-resume-on- thinkpad-x1-extreme-g2-on-freebsd/) and wifi (https://d-s.sh/2023/freebsd-on-modern-intel-wifi-cards-and-resume/). As of now, I still can't resume my laptop and have wifi up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ImageJPEG · 2023-03-30 18:14 I have the gpu drivers installed but I’m also running X. When I press the power button, literally nothing happens - the power LED still slowly fades in and out. I have some kind of well supported (I think) Intel WiFi chipset as well - iwm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-03-30 18:17 Have you tried the full procedure from https://wiki.freebsd.org/SuspendResume ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CoolTheCold · 2023-03-30 18:35 Not using fingerprint reader while having one sounds strange to me and gives me a hint that what I find comfortable and normal may be totally untrue for others. /observation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kevans91 · 2023-03-30 19:16 I note that rc6 is coming along soon with a suspend/resume (x86) fix of some sort, with a similar symptom (sleeps fine, doesn't wake up). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2023-03-30 19:16 > I guess the 100 or so people using FreeBSD as a desktop OS Ahem. > Let the downvotes begin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2023-03-30 19:20 > … 13.2 RC5 … refuses to wake up :/. [Please test suspend/resume on 13.2-RC[56]! : freebsd](https://old.red dit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1268sb3/please_test_suspendresume_on_132rc5 6/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2023-03-30 19:21 [Please test suspend/resume on 13.2-RC[56]! : freebsd](https://old.red dit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1268sb3/please_test_suspendresume_on_132rc5 6/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ReplacementFit560 · 2023-03-30 19:51 Try GhostBSD or MidnightBSD or NomadBSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ImageJPEG · 2023-03-30 19:52 Well it's something that FreeBSD doesn't like on resume. If debug.acpi.suspend\_bounce is set to 1, it'll recover. If I enable the debug acpi beep, it'll beep for about half a second when suspend\_bounce is enabled. It does come back up too. However, when debug.acpi.suspend\_bounce is set back to 0 while the debug beep is still turned on and put it into S3 mode, it'll go to sleep but once the power button is pressed, it just gives one long beep that doesn't stop. If I disable my i915kms drivers from being loaded (but loaded the acpi\_ibm module) and it still has similar behavior, however, the beep lasts for about 5 seconds then it appears to restart as I see my BIOS splash screen. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lenzo1337 · 2023-03-30 21:12 I think freebsd on desktop is fine, With LeftWM or xfce and it's pretty lightweight. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AccurateVictory · 2023-03-30 21:24 He is right. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- teskilatimahsusa87 · 2023-03-31 00:02 Does freebsd have it's own BSD licensed desktop environments or GPL environments like gnome, xfce only? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INJECT_JACK_DANIELS · 2023-03-31 00:19 Wait FreeBSD has discord? I swear it wasn't a thing when I checked. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- itsdajackeeet · 2023-03-31 01:54 I’ve tried it 3 times and there’s always something missing. Printer support is the biggie for me. I don’t mind messing with my FreeBSD servers to get things working properly and I am quite happy not having to deal with systemd on a server but when it comes to my everyday day pc I just want shit to work. I want my camera to be easily recognizable and accessible, I want to turn my network printer on and have it recognized and a driver easily installed. Don’t get me wrong, I think KDE runs very well, better in fact than in Ubuntu but I want it to work with minimal fuss. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- elpikachar · 2023-03-31 02:13 Well I never hibernate it for a few reasons, one why copy everything to ram… I mean I can I’m only 3gb of 64gib of ram anyways. I had to manually set wlan0, so I can reset it… easily ---------------------------------------------------------------------- elpikachar · 2023-03-31 02:14 Nah that’s for “work” discord has been better than slack ---------------------------------------------------------------------- tanishaj · 2023-03-31 04:02 Nevermind WiFi, what about all the resources going to Wayland and Linux DRM for GPU drivers? Is that all for machine learning or are people hoping to game on FreeBSD? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INJECT_JACK_DANIELS · 2023-03-31 04:08 Oh no I meant the desktop app on your toolbar. It wasn't a thing when I checked. Did someone port it recently? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ImageJPEG · 2023-03-31 04:38 I would to note that I’m running FreeBSD as a consumer OS on a 2012 Mac Mini, some 8th gen Intel Dell desktop, and a Lenovo laptop. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- elpikachar · 2023-03-31 05:07 Oh yeah one second here’s the link… https://github.com/z-ffqq/Discord- BSD got it from git ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IanArcad · 2023-03-31 05:08 Honestly, there is nothing useful or insightful in this post except for the discussion it generates, and that could have more easily come from a simple "what do y'all think of FreeBSD on the desktop" QOTD. FreeBSD is strong in server-side ops, much stronger than Linux, Windows, or Mac. If that's what you use it for, fantastic, and you don't owe anyone an explanation as to why you don't use it as a daily desktop. And if the entire X11 tree were nuked in ports, FreeBSD would live on until the end of the Internet, powering some fraction of the 8m new servers deployed every year, cementing its place as one of the top five OSs of all time. IMO there are three things holding desktop FreeBSD back. The first is installation - as I've often said generally you have to know how to use FreeBSD in order to install it, and that goes double for X and the DEs since there are too many variables and options. My understanding is that the foundation is working on an installer that will provide at least one desktop environment, so that will address this issue. The second is hardware support, which the poster mentions, but is dead wrong in thinking that just because more people use the OS that hardware support will spontaneously appear. Drivers have to be ported, and the manufacturers have no incentive to do it, so that work falls to the FreeBSD developers, and they fully admit that they were a little late to the party and are trying to catch up. So progress will be made here too and more people will have the option. The third is more of a strategic problem and its common in tech when you have a compatible alternative. If a FreeBSD desktop and a Linux desktop look and function exactly the same then why should I pick FreeBSD over Linux? In tech, compatible alternatives always face an uphill battle, look at Sybase vs Oracle or AMD vs Intel. The alternative basically counts on the leader to stumble and fall and then is at the right place and right time. So will Linux stumble and fall? Well personally I think Linux has some serious and maybe unsolvable problems in terms of dependency management and overall stability - you have held packages and such - so maybe, but OTOH most people tend to develop fixes and workarounds for what they know and works for them rather than moving on to something else that they are unfamiliar with. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RandomXUsr · 2023-03-31 05:41 Strangely folks won't use it if it doesn't improve. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- INJECT_JACK_DANIELS · 2023-03-31 06:17 Oh nice thank you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- livrem · 2023-03-31 06:21 I am switching to FreeBSD this year. I installed it on an older PC to try it out, waiting for the right time later this year when I can reinstall my main desktop (that is needed for other things right now, so I have to wait). From my experience so far it works great. I want to get back to the command-line and sensible text-files for configuration and UNIX way of working. I made a list of every important application I use in Linux and was happy to find every single one in the Ports and they work fine as well. So far not any reason to not use FreeBSD as my primary desktop OS. Maybe I will discover something eventually, but I am pretty sure everything important is in place at least, and much of the rest can probably be done in virtual Linux machines. Systemd and all the other things piled on in Linux to try to make old Windows-users happy is scaring me away. I saw someone express it in a way like in the past Linux was for those that wanted a free UNIX, but now it is for those that want a free Windows. If there is ever a time when BSD can grow it is now when old Linux users like me are waking up to that the system they are using is increasingly becoming the system they wanted to get away from. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- elpikachar · 2023-03-31 06:22 There is also a Discord group as well, you can google it, just found them after this exchange ---------------------------------------------------------------------- elpikachar · 2023-03-31 06:41 Oh I’m sorry while you said that launched FreeBSD on another laptop of mine… going to get the dev tower (Linux) tomorrow I think… ---------------------------------------------------------------------- elpikachar · 2023-03-31 06:42 KDE and audio has been an issue, but to be honest, 95% of the time I don’t really care about audio. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CJIsABusta · 2023-03-31 10:27 I don't understand all this "*BSD are server OSs" and "*BSD are not for the desktop". I've been running FreeBSD and OpenBSD on desktops since 2014 and they serve their purpose perfectly fine as development boxes, university laptop and even most other desktop tasks. Sure it's not going to be your gaming PC but neither is Mac. Linux can somewhat make a gaming machine with a lot of effort. Free/OpenBSD can make a great desktop if you set them up to be that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NoiseSolitaire · 2023-03-31 20:43 This whole ~~article~~ post is weird. It's not like the developers don't know about FreeBSD problems; they know what HW they have support for, and what they lack. As a user though, I'm unlikely to install it on a device (e.g. my laptop) when I know it lacks support for a device I need to work (the WiFi). Yes, a big part of problem is getting support for all of the variety of HW present in human-facing devices that just isn't there in servers. But, that's not even the whole story, as there is some pretty popular software (e.g. Steam) that is a nightmare to get working under FreeBSD, if you can at all. It's a classic chicken-and-egg problem. I think the egg (HW & SW support) will need to come first, though I'm also pretty sure there's little impetus to make it happen. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- laffer1 · 2023-03-31 21:00 Both plus accelerated desktop environments. Not everyone uses freebsd for the same thing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- laffer1 · 2023-03-31 21:10 Lumina was created for pc-bsd originally and is available. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- rfreidel · 2023-04-01 05:43 >For steam there are two solutions, I tested [linuxulator-steam- utils](https://github.com/shkhln/linuxulator-steam-utils), it worked but not for newer games. Then there's [Suyimazu](https://codeberg.org/Alexander88207/Suyimazu), it's an interesting project, I downloaded several new game titles from steam and they played well. > >My main focus was to play the Witcher 3 that I had on a USB drive, I tried it with both of those, it wouldn't work. > >Then I really knew I needed a better wine/proton install so I tried [freesbie](https://github.com/thindil/wine-freesbie). Using wine- staging-7.21.1 & wine-proton-7.0.36, then setting up wine with DXVK, etc. > >I got The [Witcher](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kas9o8EaVGw) running. It plays better on FreeBSD than it did under archlinux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Playful_Gap_7878 · 2023-04-01 14:44 It wouldn't be reddit without a weekly bitch-fest like this. It's tiring and boring to see this posted for years and years as if any serious user cared. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IanArcad · 2023-04-01 14:50 I agree, and its also hard to take seriously folks who complain about open source but have never volunteered or contributed anything useful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2023-04-01 16:10 > FreeBSD has discord? I use **Chimeracord**, . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alexnoyle · 2023-04-01 19:34 I think you can get something like that in the Solaris distros. I agree with the need for it on BSD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Leinad_ix · 2023-04-01 20:28 Sorry to be harsh, but you are great example of typical FreeBSD user: [https://d-s.sh/2023/the-oses-i-use-most- often/](https://d-s.sh/2023/the-oses-i-use-most-often/) Primary computer macOS, which has some FreeBSD command line tools and some parts of the kernel copied code from FreeBSD, but thats all. They have custom filesystem, custom drivers, custom libraries, custom desktop environment, ... Playstation 4 to play games, where while this is almost full real FreeBSD, they give (almost?) nothing from the improvements back. Fully working AMD graphics? On FreeBSD you need Linux drivers, no work from Sony given back. And real FreeBSD? It is almost last on your list. ​ On Linux people thinks very different way. I have Linux working laptop for my programming work. I have Linux desktop at home for watching movies, browsing internet, downloading photos from my phone, writing documents... And I play games on my Linux machine, both native and Proton. My phone is Samsung, where lives Android, which have real full Linux kernel and both companies, Google and Samsung activelly giving theirs work back - improving Linux memory management, improving KVM, creating f2fs filesystem, providing implementation of Windows extFS filesystem and more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Leinad_ix · 2023-04-01 20:37 One more contrast. Valve creating its own handheld console. All the kernel, Mesa, KDE and Proton improvements are going back to desktop Linux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bx8675309 · 2023-04-02 00:34 I'd rather FreeBSD didn't become the next bid desktop. Just like I'd rather not have a crowd when I go out to eat, at my favorite restaurant, with my family nowadays. I just installed 13.1 on my Lenovo T430 and am typing this through Firefox running through xfce, and it works great. Wifi worked out of the box on setup. I run it cause DMR and Ken's spirit is here, and they were gods of a the previous era, and I use it because it's an amazing OS that is stable and has a mature and stable file system (ZFS). I'd love FreeBSD to continue making headway in the server space. If it remains how it is great, let's just hope the RESTRICT bill doesn't outlaw it :-) that would make me sad. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- vdubster007 · 2023-04-02 09:50 I recently came home to FreeBSD and installed it on my laptop. It has been relatively painless experience so far. I needed to go to 13.2 release candidates as 13.1 had an issue booting but otherwise things have been fairly straight forward to set up. - integrated graphics work - WireGuard vpn works - i3 window manager - qutebrowser - kitty terminal All working. The one gap I’m trying to solve is to get 1Password on FreeBSD. I was using vaultwarden for a while but it was hosted in my OpenSuse MicroOS K3S cluster which I decommissioned. I’m mostly in the Apple ecosystem and 1Password is nice for ssh key management, etc. I missed the intuitive design, simplicity, logic behind FreeBSD. Linux was just to chaotic for me with every district being just different enough to remove any hope of consistency. I tried OpenSuse, Arch, Debian, Alpine, etc. FreeBSD just feels right and it’s working so far in my laptop. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Brotten · 2023-04-02 22:26 Like the BSD licence. Like it or not, GPL is a working tool for getting people to stick to Linux, since the first usage of Linux often already incurs a compliance cost and from that point switching tracks is more expensive than just contributing to Linux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Snoo-98535 · 2023-04-04 13:11 OpenBSD I find tend to has better hardware support but less software available depending on what your looking for. 7.3 is even adding RX 7900 XTX support and the new Ryzen 7000 iGPU support FreeBSD is way behind. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2023-06-11 07:26 /u/msapka hi, there's a redirect from the originally given URL, I'm curious: * was there a redirect from `d-s.sh` at the time of your post? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-06-11 09:26 Yes. I have changed domains recently ---------------------------------------------------------------------- grahamperrin · 2023-06-11 11:31 Thanks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- msapka · 2023-06-11 12:08 Eh, sorry. Wrong At the moment of original post there was no redirect yet. Not there is a I moved domains :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- soundmodel · 2023-06-28 15:17 Yes. But it's a bit hard to be an early adopter because you will have the least support. While aiming for more support. I think BSD is far superior to Linux as an OS because it's designed as an OS and not a hobby project. But Linux just has more stuff already. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Zestyclose-Low-6403 · 2023-08-31 21:09 >If you want to make FreeBSD a better place, go build a Proxmox for bhyve. This 1000% if the toolbox isn't useful we're not going to use it... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- kx885 · 2023-10-10 12:05 I'd love to use it as a desktop, but I have trouble getting past that step. I've done numerous tutorials online (including the ones on the FreeBSD page) and they just don't work. I follow directions, type what is indicated and then look at the cavalcade of error messages that ensue. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AttitudeElectronic68 · 2023-11-29 21:33 Most tutorials on Linux don't work either. Pick something and stick with it. I mainly use GhostBSD, it's FreeBSD+MATE or FreeBSD+XFCE, and most software just works. For good tutorials see [https://vermaden.wordpress.com/](https://vermaden.wordpress.com/)