FreeBSD or Linux from Windows

[johnjohn]

I would offer a couple pieces of advice.

First, if you are using proprietary programs like the Adobe or Microsoft Office suite, switch to open-source programs. Many open-source programs have versions that run on Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD. If you get used to the open-source programs first, than the transition to FreeBSD will be easier.

I got rid of the Adobe programs, and now use Inkscape instead of Illustrator, and GIMP instead of Photoshop. Scribus can replace InDesign. In some cases, they open-source versions do not have as many features, but the biggest problem is muscle memory. For example, I have 30 years experience with Adobe Photoshop, so I am really clumsy in GIMP. I can get the job done, but it will take me some time to get up to speed. I use LibreOffice instead of the Microsoft Office tools. In most cases, LibreOffice can seamlessly read and create files in the Microsoft formats. Instead of Draftsight, I switched to LibreCAD. I used to use MathType, a wonderful Windows-based tool for building mathematical equations graphically. I switched to using LaTeX, editing it with TexWorks. I discovered that it is not hard to quickly learn the part of LaTex you need for whatever branch of mathematics you are working with, and it is a lot faster than building equations graphically.

Once you get comfortable with these open-source programs, you can start the transition to FreeBSD.

BTW, you can get more comfortable with the command line by using the Windows Subsystem for Linux feature of Windows, which lets you run a Linux distro (I recommend OpenSUSE) under Windows. Some Linux commands do not work exactly like the FreeBSD commands with the same name, but they are usually close.

And if you do get comfortable with Unix tools (which are generally made to do a single thing, and you pipe them together), you an do all sorts of things you couldn't with proprietary programs. For example, my wife takes a lot of meds, so I have daily sheets to record what she took. I was making them in InDesign, using the data merge feature to add dates to the sheets. To do so, I had to make an Excel spreadsheet with each day of the year, and what day of the week it was. And whenever I made new sheets, I had to delete the rows I had already used from the spreadsheet. With a little command-line scripting, I set up a script that used the date command, enscript, and pdftk to take the date, turn it into a one-line PDF, and use it as an overlay to the sheet. Doing this in a loop lets me generate sheets for as many days as I need.

You need to get used to looking at man pages and to searching on the 'Net. Remember that Unix commands generally do one thing. You can break your project into steps and search the web for a FreeBSD tool that does that step, then read the man page for more details.

My second piece of advice is to read the FreeBSD forums, and don't be shy about asking a question if you don't already find an answer. My experience has been that even when I ask a question that has already been answered, the folks on the forums are generally pretty patient about educating me. Computer manufacturers work closely with Microsoft to make sure their computers work out of the box with Windows. FreeBSD does not have that close connection, so sometimes you run into some idiosyncrasies. For example, I have installed FreeBSD on several small, fanless computers. In some of these, the computer tells FreeBSD that it has a working UART, but it really doesn't so FreeBSD hangs on boot. You need to add a hint telling it to ignore the UART. This, and similar idiosyncrasies, are things you won't find in the documentation, but if you search the forum, somebody else has probably run into them.

Good luck in whichever route you take.

Hi Igrant,

I have hosen to take the FreeBSD route. I am addicted to this system. The only reason that i have not replaced Windows on this laptop is because i have a few more things to read about before i enter that door. I also need to move all of my files to an external harddrive. So i also need to learn how to automount external drives - I have already downloaded automount and i am finding tons of data in threads scattered about over the years at this forum. I managed to get my cdrom drives mounted today in virtualbox, again, thanks to some threads in the forum.

The FreeBSD forum is full of useful information. I haven't had a need to ask any questions yet because the forum often has data that is pertinent to my problem. Excellent community here <3

I am sorry that your wife has to have so many meds. I imagine that it is stressful for both of you. Sometimes life is not all rainbows and butterflies and that just stinks. I hope that your wife gets better someday. You are awesome for making the schedule work on FreeBSD. You are a fine husband and an outstanding member here at the forum.

I am not attached to anything Microsoft other than Windows but that is changing. I like to use photoimpact for images and i can use virtualbox or bhyve on FreeBSD to run Windows and use any Windows-only software (which is not a very big list). I don't have a problem activating my legally purchased copies of the system through the years (vlmcsd helps). I bought Windows 8.1pro a few years ago and Microsoft announced Windows 10 a month later, which made me mad. Then i remember Microsoft marketing that there will be no need for another version because Windows 10 will be continuously receive updates and upgrades. Years later they announce Windows 11, like what happened to the marketing gimmick? Anyway, i do not use office. My wife sometimes used in the past but i got her to move to Libreoffice many years ago.

I hated Gimp whenever i first used it. I found it to be strange because it functions so different from PhotoImpact and even Photoshop. I have become better at using it but i just use PhotoImpact and switch to Photoshop Elements or Gimp for things that PhotoImpact doesn't handle (like 48bit images).

I sometimes write php scripts whenever i cannot find any software solutions to a problem. I can always add MySQL to the mix for easy storage and retrieval of data. I'd like to learn more about using FreeBSD, then i want to learn how to code for FreeBSD. I have alot to read but make no mistake: i am reading everyday about this system. I like FreeBSD and i am keeping it. Suddenly Linux seems so Windows-like compared to this system. I have found my replacement for Windows and i couldn't be happier

 

[astyle]

Does this mean that ports of the recently disappeared packages should build ok? Like
graphics/evince or x11/plasma6-plasma? Because that's not what happens here. I see those projects in ports, but I can never build them, all of those 'recently disappeared' programs are unable to build, most because of

fatal error: '__string/constexrp_c_functions.h' file not found

I am only using pkg, never ports. Maybe now is the time to think about it.
EDIT: my ports are up to date, running FreeBSD-14.2-RELEASE-p3 with ${ABI}/latest repo.

Yeah, ports normally build OK.

I can build x11/plasma6-plasma no problem. I do get compilation errors along the way, because of the way I set the Makefile flags.

If you run into a build error like that, note which port that came from, and adjust the Makefile flags accordingly. There's a LOT more to troubleshooting your way past a port compilation error.

pkg repos are built from port snapshots anyway.

Don't mix ports and packages, there's only one condition where that's OK, but even that has pitfalls.

BTW, ports are NOT tied to an ABI. They are nothing more than Makefiles and patches. The Ports repo has no pre-compiled packages whatsoever. It's a git mirror where the Makefiles are maintained. That's because sometimes, those Makefiles and patches need updating, too, independently of any ABI.

 

[gentisle]

It seems like you think you have to move to Windows 11? Is someone pointing a double barrel 12 guage at your head? The lies M$ disseminate are incredible. Did you know you can still update XP (LegacyUpdate, it's only the patches/updates that were available when MS stopped doing updates for it, but you can still install and update it to that)? While Microsoft will stop creating patches for Win 10, you will still receive updates to its antivirus for quite some time (unless, they get really stupid and stop them earlier than previous versions). If you are behind a firewall, you're fine. Your router has a firewall, right? I run XP, 7 and 8.1 in VirtualBox guests. And a Win 11 guest on my Macbook. I know you said you're sick of MS.
Having said that, Linuxmint is my main system, and I run BSDs (Free and Open) as guests. I'm working on a FreeBSD host (that is installed on bare metal), but I'm slow to learn it and like most people, I don't have unlimited time to work on what I want to work on. Still, I press on to get there because I believe FreeBSD is better. If you are sick of MS, I doubt anyone here could blame you. So I would recommend Mint. Mint not only acts more like Windows, but they like to keep at least some of that crap Ubuntu puts in their system out of Mint.
But as stated so clearly above, you are going to have to buckle down and learn the terminal. Plenty of resources online. Also stated above, I also think you are confusing easy/speed. There are lots of things I do at the command line because it's faster than Windows GUI. I can be finished typing, and get the results of the command before all the clicking that is required to do some things in Windows. And some of the things MS has done in the last couple of versions of Windows makes it impossible to find anymore. Mint will give you a chance to learn the command line less painfully. The beauty of Mint (as well as many other distros) is that when you have a problem and search online for the answer, often you can simply cut and paste from the Internet to your terminal, and sometimes you have to edit the command to match your machine. This is an easy way to get into the console commands. Also, I would recommend Mint because while you *could* install GhostBSD or NomadBSD, you will find much more info on the net about Debian/Ubuntu/Mint than FreeBSD. Some here may disagree with that, and I haven't counted all the web pages; that's just my exerience. YMMV Another reason to wait to get into FreeBSD (or any BSD) is wifi. There's not that much support for wifi drivers. Many work at much slower speeds than a Windows/Mac laptop will go at. I just upgraded my laptop to wifi 7 with the Intel BE200, and it works great in Linuxmint. (Also works well in Arch). There is a post (I forget where I saw it--maybe here) that shows how to add a Linux guest via Bhyve to FreeBSD, and supposedly you can achieve speeds that your wifi card will allow in FreeBSD (instead of the slower performance that FreeBSD drivers give). But that will require a great deal of typing at the console. As stated above, the MacOS would be an option, and its console is very similar to FreeBSD. There's a lot of help available for Mint at its forum as well as linuxquestions.org.

 

[Espionage724]

Did you know you can still update XP (LegacyUpdate, it's only the patches/updates that were available when MS stopped doing updates for it, but you can still install and update it to that)?

Does Microsoft release security updates (or at least fixes for major stuff) for Windows XP still today 2025?

 

[astyle]

Does Microsoft release security updates (or at least fixes for major stuff) for Windows XP still today 2025?

Nope. Last update was in 2019.

Oh, and Internet Explorer was retired on June 15, 2022.

No more updates for either one, all extensions have expired, as well.

Something for gentisle to chew on.

 

[matt_k]

Thanks, Matt (if i may call you Matt, otherwise, sorry),

I am not complaining. I just wanted to mention it because i am not lazy and i read the Handbook. I worry that if i post a question, that someone will flame me for 'not' reading the Handbook. I didn't ask about it to avoid such a situation. I assume that there is a problem somewhere which will be addressed. I am in no hurry for a DE anyway. I am liking the Window Manager concept at this point in time I still need to focus on learning FreeBSD and forgetting my Windows habits/knowledge. I have alot to learn.

dclau Thanks! i have already installed xdgmenumaker but i need to read about it beforehand. I read the description from the repo. I appreciate your wisdom.

This entire shenaningans with DE not building made me finally try and switch to wayland, so far I'm using hyprland WM and everything seems to work. Hyprland is a tiling WM with good defaults and easily customizable, if you are playing around, you may want to check it out. I kinda struggled with copy-paste across windows, especially terminal middle click functionality, but it got somehow solved by installing the additional packages from the hypr ecosystem. I guess it was x11/xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland which enabled the communication across programs.

 

[lgrant]

For those new to FreeBSD desktops, I highly recommend Conky. If you have ever used the Parted Magic Linux-based rescue USB stick, Conky is what displays the statistics in the upper right corner. The configuration file used by Parted Magic is available online somewhere. (I don't remember where I got it, but if you want it and cannot find it, I can post it, or send it to you.)

 

[RypPn]

This entire shenaningans with DE not building made me finally try and switch to wayland

I went the other way and just spun up a vm of debian 12, 30 minutes later I was fully configured and able to monitor my work emails again from within xfce using evolution. Pretty gutted the ball got dropped with the latest quarterly, but it is what it is. Hopefully the breakage will get sorted soon.

 

[johnjohn]

matt I have yet to try Wayland. I just started looking at Linux Mint a few weeks ago and this is the first time that i have installed a Linux system since 2013 and regularly used Linux since 2003. I am far behind the pack with recent activity (and recent being since 2005) LOL. I think that Linux Mandrake was the sustem that i was using back in the day and i purchased Mandrake 6.x from a store. The box included a manual and respository discs. Sweet I will try Wayland at some point but i am more concerned with learning the FreeBSD way, id est, learn to swim before entering the deep end. Right now, my feet barely touch the bottom of the shallow waters

@lgrant vide my attachment of conky running in the background with the Parted Magic configuration file (downloaded from github user midfingr). Thank you for letting me know about Conky. Also I have added tmux to the equation...

gentisle I do not want to be irritated so let me put it to you this way: unless you own stock in MS (invested opinion), then stop trying to Market for this eveil empire. Espionage is a Federal Crime (felony), so how is Big Business exempt and able to force a user agreement in order to use the software? I have no interest in continuing with this company and their government sponsored garbage. The day that i buy and use another Windows machine after 10 will be the day that Windows Pro version means that i choose what is in my system from time of purchase. Id est, i get to build my own version (no ai, no home network, no telnet, no telephony, no agrrements to send data, etc etc). Maybe Windows 12 by the end of the year? Enough people drop the system and maybe we get back to "Personal" computing...

I have no idea who wants to "chat" with an AI app in the first place, but then i remember tinkering with XEmacs psychoanalyze back in the early 200s. LOL. I wonder if Psychoanalyze sparked the Chatgpt life?

Atleast i count on FreeBSD for barebones system. I like it and i use it everyday now since the day that i registered at this forum. I have to use Linux Mint to accomplish tasks that i cannot accomplish yet in FreeBSD but even Linux seems to be heading in the wrong direction. I suppose that i should learn how to code my own OS and system hardware in the future...

I also started building the Daemonball objects (layers in PhotoShop), which i will be able to export as an svg when i am finished. I will use svg code to add a radial gradient to the horn and other tasks not yet completed. vide my Daemonball screen capture

I hope that everyone has a nice day.

 

[astyle]

I have no idea who wants to "chat" with an AI app in the first place, but then i remember tinkering with XEmacs psychoanalyze back in the early 200s. LOL. I wonder if Psychoanalyze sparked the Chatgpt life?

Google came out with several 'virtual friend' apps that are nothing more than interaction with their AI implementation. Those apps have been heavily pushed in Google Marketplace for Android phones, and even advertised on TV in US.

Espionage is a Federal Crime (felony), so how is Big Business exempt and able to force a user agreement in order to use the software?

Google and Amazon already collect data on you in all kinds of ways. The details are barely visible to the rank-and-file users, but when collected, they do paint a rather accurate picture. It takes paying attention, connecting the dots, and deciding what you can live with. If you browse eff.org, you'll learn a lot of surprising and outrageous stuff about information collecting, how it works, and who's in control, to what extent, how and why.

 

[UJuwMLAx]

So could you recommend a good Window Manager? Also, how do we change Window Managers in FreeBSD? do we need to edit the ./xinitrc file?

I started using leftwm in FreeBSD. I like how keyboard-oriented and configurable it is. But it's not too easy to set up in FreeBSD. And most themes themes for it depend on Linux stuff, so my choices there were quite limited.

 

[bgavin]

OP,
I do not have a dog in this event.
Suitability to the task in hand is what drives me.

All of my heavy work is done on Windows 10: Cakewalk, Photoshop, ON1, VirtualDJ, Rawtherapee, Turbo Tax, Delphi and heavy VBA under Excel.
I was forced off of Windows 7 which I truly loved, but will no longer launch some of the above.
Nor will my Firefox browser update beyond ISR on Win7, meaning some web sites won't talk to my browser any more.

I have zero need for any 'Nix variant as my primary workstation.
I also have zero hate for Microsoft or any other vendor. They are what they are.

My big SuperMicro XEON with 16 cores, 128gb of ECC memory, nVidia 4060ti and SSDs does not meet the requirements for Windows 11.
Lucky me.

 

[Espionage724]

My big SuperMicro XEON with 16 cores, 128gb of ECC memory, nVidia 4060ti and SSDs does not meet the requirements for Windows 11.
Lucky me.

I have a 2010 non-UEFI laptop with ATI graphics running Windows 11 24H2 right now

 

[nxjoseph]

I have a 2010 non-UEFI laptop with ATI graphics running Windows 11 24H2 right now

They do likely mean the TPM requirement, so did you bypass it for it to work?

 

[Espionage724]

They do likely mean the TPM requirement, so did you bypass it for it to work?

Nah; IoT Enterprise 24H2 officially doesn't have a TPM 2.0 req https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...s=Windows11LTSC#optional-minimum-requirements

 

[UJuwMLAx]

I have particular reasons why no sane person should ever touch that crap:
1) The code of conduct from Coraline Ada Ehmke who is known for destroying open source projects and placing human values wrong.
His/Her CoC doesn't give that person the right to decide over other projects, just because the leader of the project decided to use that kind of CoC.

2) Politic driven development choices.
Well, Linus has his heights and downs, and yes, he is in some point to direct, and maybe he hurts some people with his directness, but he is also direct to himself.
However his actions, and to a very large degree politics driven, have shown that he just doesn't care about code quality.
If not, why did he remove kernel maintainers from the list ?
That action was just unnecessary, and leaves now some drivers in a bad state since the maintainers are no more.

Wow, having read this, I think I will stick with FreeBSD. Reading through this thread I got *this* close to install Linux Mint for all the praise it was getting here over Ubuntu.

You see, I've switched from Windows to FreeBSD about a year ago. I like it a lot, but I'm notsure if it is really with my time. Everything is sonew and different on FreeBSD, nothing works out of the box.

Dozens of hours spent in man pages, BSD handbook, Xorg config. Recently I spent four hours to set up my crappy Xerox printer and print a PDF. (never buy Xerox! My model just won't print a PDF with lpr. I have to convert it to PostScript and print that instead).

I mean yes, it is a learning experience and I kinda like it, but I'm a father of a family, taking care of my wife and our two little kids. My time at the computer is cut down to about five hours per week plus whatever I'm able to steal from my sleeping time. In this time I don't only want to learn FreeBSD, I want to do things like sharing photos and videos with my relatives, write collections of recipes, the family chronicle, write some software.

And that's the problem. I still have no audio output from my HDMI port, I have not set up auto-mounting of USB drives or SD cards, I have yet to figure out how I best transfer files from my phone to my Desktop (I guess I'll end up using scp in Termux to just copy the files to the desktop). You know, all these little things which in other people's favourite OSes just work out of the box take me days and weeks to set up on FreeBSD. And I have lost all hopes for ever using Signal or Telegram on the desktop. Without diving into bhyve and VMs. And there is seemingly no end to all of these "setting up my desktop" chores. So I don't really get too much of nice productive time on my FreeBSD. And it's making me sad. It's a bittersweet experience.

So that lead me to consider Ubuntu or Linux Mint. But this woke CoC policy in Linux kernel is simply a no-go for me. I cannot support that anymore now that I have read SDK Chan's post.

 

[nxjoseph]

I still have no audio output from my HDMI port

Did you set your hw.snd.default_unit default value to the corresponding one, in this case, HDMI as shown in /dev/sndstat. Or is it not supported at all?

% cat /dev/sndstat
Installed devices:
pcm0: <ATI R6xx (HDMI)> (play)
pcm1: <Realtek ALC887 (Rear Analog)> (play/rec) default
pcm2: <Realtek ALC887 (Front Analog)> (play/rec)
pcm3: <Realtek ALC887 (Internal Digital)> (play)
No devices installed from userspace.

I have not set up auto-mounting of USB drives or SD cards, I have yet to figure out how I best transfer files from my phone to my Desktop (I guess I'll end up using scp in Termux to just copy the files to the desktop).

I use net/syncthing to sync files between my phone and computer over LAN assuming both computer and phone connected to same network. I also can recommend devel/android-tools for file pull/push commands. MTP filesystem etc. did not work much well for me.

And I have lost all hopes for ever using Signal or Telegram on the desktop.

I have used net-im/telegram-desktop and net-im/signal-desktop both from FreeBSD repository as binary packages in the past, all packages can be missing due to some problem in building, dependencies etc. now I do have own my own package repository built using ports-mgmt/poudriere, so there is less chance that something is missing from my repository.

 

[blackhole]

FreeBSD adopted a similar CoC between roughly 2018 and 2020. They voted overwhelmingly to change it to an alternative. It was quite ludicrous as I recall and very reporting based.

These CoC things are often kneejerk reactions to some incident or event. Eventually, once it blows over they might get changed (quietly), once the "professionally offended" move onto their next target.

Linux and other corporate sponsored FOSS projects have a lot more non dev "staff" and are quite top heavy. So more opportunities for such people to introduce bureacracy, in order to increase their [self] importance within the organisation. Also, corporate backers often push these things as part of their "box ticking" in getting affiliated orgs to conform.

Tons of software in ports probably has similar CoCs - have you read them all for each and every project?

 

[astyle]

Wow, having read this, I think I will stick with FreeBSD. Reading through this thread I got *this* close to install Linux Mint for all the praise it was getting here over Ubuntu.

You see, I've switched from Windows to FreeBSD about a year ago. I like it a lot, but I'm notsure if it is really with my time. Everything is sonew and different on FreeBSD, nothing works out of the box.

Dozens of hours spent in man pages, BSD handbook, Xorg config. Recently I spent four hours to set up my crappy Xerox printer and print a PDF. (never buy Xerox! My model just won't print a PDF with lpr. I have to convert it to PostScript and print that instead).

I mean yes, it is a learning experience and I kinda like it, but I'm a father of a family, taking care of my wife and our two little kids. My time at the computer is cut down to about five hours per week plus whatever I'm able to steal from my sleeping time. In this time I don't only want to learn FreeBSD, I want to do things like sharing photos and videos with my relatives, write collections of recipes, the family chronicle, write some software.

And that's the problem. I still have no audio output from my HDMI port, I have not set up auto-mounting of USB drives or SD cards, I have yet to figure out how I best transfer files from my phone to my Desktop (I guess I'll end up using scp in Termux to just copy the files to the desktop). You know, all these little things which in other people's favourite OSes just work out of the box take me days and weeks to set up on FreeBSD. And I have lost all hopes for ever using Signal or Telegram on the desktop. Without diving into bhyve and VMs. And there is seemingly no end to all of these "setting up my desktop" chores. So I don't really get too much of nice productive time on my FreeBSD. And it's making me sad. It's a bittersweet experience.

So that lead me to consider Ubuntu or Linux Mint. But this woke CoC policy in Linux kernel is simply a no-go for me. I cannot support that anymore now that I have read SDK Chan's post.

Well, I do get the impression that you've been skipping some steps in early setup, and it's biting you later. Don't skip the early steps, do them completely, and get help here on the Forums about the errors if you get any.

For example, to have working Xorg, you do need to make sure that the GPU drivers load correctly. And that's kind of the very first thing to do on a new FreeBSD installation; everything else comes after that. That's because everything else depends on having a working GPU driver, even Xorg. Even HDMI.

(yeah, there's gonna be some command-line enthusiasts who disagree with me).

This thread is probably not the best place to ask for help with that. But I would encourage you to seek help on the Forums.

 

[kpedersen]

For example, to have working Xorg, you do need to make sure that the GPU drivers load correctly. And that's kind of the very first thing to do on a new FreeBSD installation; everything else comes after that. That's because everything else depends on having a working GPU driver, even Xorg. Even HDMI.

(yeah, there's gonna be some command-line enthusiasts who disagree with me).

This is definitely the right approach. The wrong approach would be to just install kde/gnome first and have no clue what sddm/gdm are doing when it doesn't work.

 

[fmc000]

I have a 2010 non-UEFI laptop with ATI graphics running Windows 11 24H2 right now

Same Acer Aspire by chance?

 

[cy@]

I have a 2010 non-UEFI laptop with ATI graphics running Windows 11 24H2 right now

Does it still receive monthly updates?

 

[Espionage724]

Same Acer Aspire by chance?

Nice; nah it's a Dell Precision M6500

Does it still receive monthly updates?

Yep; running latest 26100.3775 now and 24H2 CUs from MS update catalog and WU install no problem

 

[Professor_Fate]

If you need a GUI: Windows, MacOS, or ChromeOS.
If you absolutely positively need to have an open source GUI: Linux
If you need an open source server: FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD. These systems are too nice to be ruined with a GUI.

 

[astyle]

If you need a GUI: Windows, MacOS, or ChromeOS.
If you absolutely positively need to have an open source GUI: Linux
If you need an open source server: FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD. These systems are too nice to be ruined with a GUI.

GUI doesn't ruin FreeBSD... being usable as a server OS (to run Apache/MySQL/netmon) doesn't stop it from running the latest KDE Hell, Konsole has all the features I could possibly want from a terminal emulator, and I have access to all the server-related stuff I could possibly want or dream up.

On FreeBSD, you can have the best of both worlds: a GUI and all the useful server stuff!