FreeBSD or Linux from Windows

The idea that FreeBSD is a server OS only, has probably been cultivated by those who are either too attached to their current desktop OS experience, or have had little success in configuring a desktop. If you like iproduct/windows comfort zone, then you're free to enjoy it - that doesn't mean others can't fulfil their needs with X.org and a wm/desktop on FreeBSD. The Windows desktop UI is awful and has been all downhill since Windows 8. People use it because for the most part they have little choice. Microsoft have been hacking it up for the last 10 years replacing the control panel and other configuration applets with the "designed on powerpoint" elenents of the "settings" UI.

Saying that, FreeBSD and Linux probably aren't desktop OS suitable for the masses, but that doesn't mean they aren't desktop OS of a sort. Depends on individual requirements.
 
UJuwMLAx said:
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.
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I don't honestly know whether people are ignorant, or just closing their eyes on important aspects.
Seeing which path linux pursuits, I would question whether it is good at all to get involved.
3 Months ago, I was using void-linux, despite hating all that crap which occurs in linux ecosystem, because void is very close to FreeBSD in terms of philosophy, etc, and FreeBSD was out of question due to having internet issues.
Luckily enough I have solved the internet problem, and with a MSI mainboard, except my iGPU everything else is supported on FreeBSD.

UJuwMLAx said:
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.
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Actually internet, and audio should work out of the box, but the other parts need tinkering.
Linux mint for example abstracts many steps, but the problem is, if something is preconfigured for you, is it configured to your liking ?
If you configure something yourself, you are going to do it once, and then stick with that configuration.
I agree, configuration takes time, but from my experience it is really worth it.
Afterall you are building something to your liking, and with default configurations it is rarely possible to satisfy everyones needs.

blackhole said:
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.
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Was it the greek feministic CoC FreeBSD changed ? :-/

blackhole said:
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.
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Well, Linux is the core which communicates with your hardware/software, and having bureaucracy in something important as the core is an absolute no go, no matter how easy software X or Y can be used with it.

blackhole said:
Tons of software in ports probably has similar CoCs - have you read them all for each and every project?
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Probably, but it is still software you can dispose or replace.
 
blackhole said:
The idea that FreeBSD is a server OS only, has probably been cultivated by those who are either too attached to their current desktop OS experience, or have had little success in configuring a desktop.
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FreeBSD without ports is actually a server OS since it includes internet/server related tools on a large scale, I believe.
Ports are community driven, and the community attempts to make FreeBSD much more than a server OS.
 
Coc: I do not know much about this subject, as i have only used Windows since 98se LOL. I have read about it and this Caroline individual yesterday. Although i do think that online bullying is something that shouldn't happen and certain matters such as religion, political parties, gender, pride stuff etc. should not be a part of our online communities. However, some guy getting annoyed by another guy in the kernel project should not be banned for telling him to 'get the f out with this shat'. I disagree that the message exchange warrants a ban and actually Linus Torvalds violates this said CoC by allowing private messages to be public knowledge - it is attempt to publicly shame and humiliate the involved individual. Wow! what a sensitive subject on all sides. But i do not see harm in most of the CoC wording. I suppose that it becomes a matter of how it is being used and if it is being used to bully and control people, then it should not be supported. I leave it at that and i do not think that my opinion should persuade anyone in one direction or another. To each his own...

FreeBSD desktop: I don't care what anyone thinks about FreeBSD as a desktop/Laptop system. If i like it and i want to use it, then mind yo biness. :-) I like FreeBSD. The system is unbelievably stable and well designed. I have no interest in using Apple products/services whatsoever. However, Apple does employ some brilliant programmers for sure and the fact that Apple bases its systems on FreeBSD (somewhat) just shows that they have brains. FreeBSD is a beast of a system, albeit barebones and difficult for users of sparkly shiny eyecandy systems like Windows and Mac. Linux is starting to look like Windows and Mac these days.

I finally have some questions but i will try to answer them myself. Otherwise i will post in a different thread because it is appropriate to do so.

To the person with the sdcard problem: have you looked at the device info, so that you can mount it? the forum has a few threads dealing with sdcard matters which should help or post an sdcard problem thread. Once you get a FreeBSD system setup to your liking - and working properly - then you should be able to function normally like using any other system that you mentioned. FreeBSD requires a little more work at times but it is not so bad... you end up with a better system than the ones that we have been discussing.

I finally added a wallpaper (jwm background). I also changed the settings to be red, like the FreeBSD logo. Red is my favorite color. attached a jpeg screen capture of my new jwm environment. I created that Sylvester using PhotoImpact and the spline tool. I think that i scanned Sylvester from a video game manual, then used the spline tol to recreate it as objects (layers) if anyone is wondering.
 

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SDK Chan said:
FreeBSD without ports is actually a server OS since it includes internet/server related tools on a large scale, I believe.
Ports are community driven, and the community attempts to make FreeBSD much more than a server OS.
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The base system also contains the KMS/DRM display driver stack ported from Linux. This suggests that the desktop stuff isn't wholly "community driven".

A "server" usually needs to serve something, some of the most common examples being e.g. a web server or a database server. These are in ports, rather than base.

And yes I believe the earlier CoC was based on that one.
 
tingo said:
So you are trying to say that the community for FreeBSD (the os) and ports are different and / or distinct?
Whatever gave you that idea?
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I am not exactly saying that the community for the FreeBSD base OS and ports is completely distinct.
What I want to say is that not every port committer equals a FreeBSD OS developer.
 
blackhole said:
The base system also contains the KMS/DRM display driver stack ported from Linux. This suggests that the desktop stuff isn't wholly "community driven".

A "server" usually needs to serve something, some of the most common examples being e.g. a web server or a database server. These are in ports, rather than base.

And yes I believe the earlier CoC was based on that one.
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Include Xserver ;)
 
kpedersen said:
Some of the most technical Windows guys I know use Windows Server as their primary workstation OS. It comes with way less bullsh*t.
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I upgraded to PHP 8.4.6 some days ago in a few minutes by downloading a zip and extracting the folder. FreeBSD and Fedora are at 8.4.5. (I see 8.4.6 on FreshPorts but package timestamps are 8.4.5?)

While I could build a newer PHP or just leave it 8.4.5 (it works fine to be fair), a GUI zip having the latest from the devs themselves is pretty convenient :p
 
kpedersen said:
Some of the most technical Windows guys I know use Windows Server as their primary workstation OS. It comes with way less bullsh*t
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Yes, but it costs you a lot of $$$$$$.......
Some OS are free as in the word free, and some are $ hungry.

Aminavy said:
Include Xserver ;)
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Why do I need to install Xserver seperately from ports then ?

kpedersen said:
Consumer Windows only "serves" Microsoft these days.
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What do you mean ?
Windows is the only way to play all PC games to 100%. with mods, texture packs, etc.
😅
Wine is well, like it is, it works or not.
I would tinker with wine more on FreeBSD, but right now, switch emulation is my priority, if I would get the Makefile for Torzu right... 😅 😂🤣
 
kpedersen said:
Games running on Windows is the "bait". Extraction of your data, exposure to adverts and general control is what "serves" Microsoft :).
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In generally yes, I would agree, but you also have tools for well, blocking microsoft IPs, and so on. :D
I hate it, but without VPN and custom Windows blocking tools, it would be a nightmare.
 
kpedersen said:
Games running on Windows is the "bait". Extraction of your data, exposure to adverts and general control is what "serves" Microsoft :).
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I kind of wish everyone wasn't into running stuff within Proton or other Wine wrappers. Microsoft's control on Windows just turns into Valve's or another Wine wrapper's control through a large box with harder debugging.

Like, people pull in Flatpak + runtime dependencies, Steam (running through Flatpak), 1GB+ Proton (or drop in 3rd-party Proton-GE) to run a 100MB game, where I manage it through basic Wine. I'd sooner run Windows before maintaining the rest of that :p
 
I once installed yuzu-emu through flatpak, and never again.
I got all kinds of permission errors, and the worst, I couldn't delete flatpaks generated sandbox directory anymore 😂
 
Espionage724 said:
I kind of wish everyone wasn't into running stuff within Proton or other Wine wrappers. Microsoft's control on Windows just turns into Valve's or another Wine wrapper's control through a large box with harder debugging.

Like, people pull in Flatpak + runtime dependencies, Steam (running through Flatpak), 1GB+ Proton (or drop in 3rd-party Proton-GE) to run a 100MB game, where I manage it through basic Wine. I'd sooner run Windows before maintaining the rest of that :p
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I do like using Mizuma. It's a good way to play games for me using gog, steam, epic. I haven't had much success with linux-steam-utils. It likes to lock up for some reason. I'm using an RTX 4060. But Mizuma works nicely.
 
LibreQuest said:
I do like using Mizuma. It's a good way to play games for me using gog, steam, epic. I haven't had much success with linux-steam-utils. It likes to lock up for some reason. I'm using an RTX 4060. But Mizuma works nicely.
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Does it work with NieR Replicant or NieR Automata ?
I don't care about other games anymore, but these two have to work....
If not, welcome bhyve, if RDNA 3.5 GPUs were supported...
 
LibreQuest said:
I've not heard of those. You could test and post your results.
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Well, can you please create a tutorial or something, because I tried freesbie, wine, wine-devel, wine-proton and the wine-32 shell script counterparts, but I always get a ABI error.
wine-i386 is no more, and WoW64-bit just doesn't work yet.
 
SDK Chan said:
Well, can you please create a tutorial or something, because I tried freesbie, wine, wine-devel, wine-proton and the wine-32 shell script counterparts, but I always get a ABI error.
wine-i386 is no more, and WoW64-bit just doesn't work yet.
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Start a thread on this topic please. Your unique setup may have issues that do not effect other systems.
 
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