FreeBSD or Linux from Windows

[SDK Chan]

I find it incredibly strange and disheartening that they don't hang out here, on FreeBSD's own forum.

Strangely enough it is not FreeBSDs forum in the sense of the OS, but it is a forum of the FreeBSD foundation which acts as a sponsor.
I remember saying one developer over the whole Russia, and Russian dilemma which happened in linux that neither the politics, and also not the FreeBSD foundation rules the project, but the people who respects their CoC being of all genders, colors, etc...

 

[johnjohn]

maybe I am doing something wrong with poudriere.

i scanned the thread and saw this post along the way. I am new to FreeBSD and i haven't investigated ports just yet. I searched the web for a description of poudriere and i decided to add it to my ports. 2.5 hours later (SpongeBob), i had to crash VirtualBox because it was 3am and i had to go to bed - remember that i am testing FreeBSD in VirtualBox on my cheap ASUS laptop and i can only allot it 1.758 of my 4GB of RAM. I think that this is mostly Python stuff 0.0 whatever happened to C/CPP coders? gcc make build compile and enjoy. I think that i will skip the ports stuff. git and poudriere (i know, powder keg) explode a clean FreeBSD and it is a very large kA-bOOm.

kpedersen @!# why on earth would anyone want to take a Windows take-out and turn it into a Windows buffet for espionage? Please folks, do not use a Windows Server as a desktop system. Believe me, they can turn things off or on at will and privacy dinner is served...

I have played with FreeBSD for a week now. I think that my foggy future is becoming clearer: install FreeBSD and keep it bare bones. Install only what is necessary to rub VirtualBox or Bhyve. Install operating systems into said emulators like apps in an appstore. Thus, whenever i want a flashy desktop GUI, i can launch my emulator and play. I can maintain copies of multiple systems for multiple purposes. I can designate one of these VMs as an internet browsing system and use a shared folder for saving downloads. In the end, i get to enjoy all of the benefits of a clean, stable, reliable system while still being able to enjoy the things that FreeBSD has yet to support. A perfect plan but sometimes, plans do not work out the way that we envision them. I will try it out and hopefully, it is an end all to my Windows woes...

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[astyle]

I searched the web for a description of poudriere and i decided to add it to my ports.

That is a bit too much for someone new to FreeBSD. Poudriere is basically a way to reproduce the entire production infrastructure of FreeBSD. It is fantastic for automating a lot of the chores, but to make use of it, one has to have a good handle on how stuff is organized, how the data moves, how to resolve errors...

Just one week of playing with FreeBSD is not enough. If you can't even get a functional Xorg desktop/WM or play with ports and the FreeBSD-specific Makefile knobs to figure out what you like, then Poudriere is not gonna be of any use.

remember that i am testing FreeBSD in VirtualBox on my cheap ASUS laptop and i can only allot it 1.758 of my 4GB of RAM.

First time you mention this in this thread. There's nothing to remember. Just know this: FreeBSD does offer lightweight desktops for this kind of hardware, but do stay away from resource-heavy software like Firefox and KDE. You're lucky VirtualBox can launch at all on your 4 GB RAM laptop. If you want to do the cool stuff like Poudriere, you do need much beefier specs for your metal.

Just a little story from my personal experience: My current laptop is a Lenovo Thinbook 14 G4, with a Ryzen 7 5825U. It came with 16 GB RAM, but I upgraded to 40 GB. 16 GB RAM (plus a good processor) is normally adequate for on-metal compilation, but completely inadequate if you want to play with virtualization of other OSes at the same time on the same hardware. I discovered that the hard way, BTW - my previous attempt to get FreeBSD on a laptop was also an Asus laptop - one that has 16 GB of RAM and a Ryzen 9 6900HS. On that one, the built-in keyboard was somehow problematic, and that is still not resolved. Point of my story - you do need beefier metal if you want to do do cool stuff.

Otherwise, it would be more practical to see how to replicate existing functionality of your laptop using components available on FreeBSD. These Forums have lots of people who do exactly that, and they even play a game of friendly one-upmanship of who can achieve the most lightweight, nicest-looking desktop that still offers enough functionality to leave Windows behind.

 

[kpedersen]

kpedersen @!# why on earth would anyone want to take a Windows take-out and turn it into a Windows buffet for espionage? Please folks, do not use a Windows Server as a desktop system. Believe me, they can turn things off or on at will and privacy dinner is served...

Just like any proprietary / commercial OS, you need to isolate it behind a i.e SOCKS proxy.

Basically, if the inbuilt Windows update works, then you are doing the security wrong.