Introduce yourself, tell us who you are and why you chose FreeBSD

[bsduck]

Then I could just as well have written it the other way round:

Ports aren't going to suddenly get dependencies on base system packages. That's not the point of PkgBase, and would go against the well-established separation between base system and third-party software, which is a common denominator of all BSDs.

 

[astyle]

Currently when doing a freebsd-update it is expected that packages won't need to change.

Exactly who expects something like that? FreeBSD devs sure don't, and will point out that it's advisable to reinstall all the packages. I even highlighted that on my profile post that I made on Nov. 2, 2024...

 

[kpedersen]

Exactly who expects something like that? FreeBSD devs sure don't,

Not yet, but it is fairly common in the Linux world and there is (too much of) a tendancy to follow suit.

Then I could just as well have written it the other way round:
Ports aren't going to suddenly get dependencies on base system packages.

Ports already have a dependence on base system packages. Of course they do. zlib(1) again is a good simple example. If this starts changing a lot, every port compiled against it will then need to be recompiled.

 

[bsduck]

Ports already have a dependence on base system packages.

I may be wrong (then please someone correct me), but to my knowledge, when creating a FreeBSD port, you never declare as a dependency a piece of software that's part of the base system. Of course programs from ports need base system components to run, but you don't need to declare dependencies on them because it is assumed that if a system is running a given FreeBSD release, these components will be there and at a known version. As far as I know, this isn't going to change anytime soon.

Of course with PkgBase you can remove a base system package if you want, just like you can rm or edit any component of the base system, but then you must know what you're doing and the ports framework isn't going to handle for you the issues it may cause.

Also, PkgBase isn't turning RELEASE into a rolling release, so just like now you'll still have only patches, not new features or newer software versions introduced by updates to a given release. It will however make running STABLE and CURRENT as a rolling release much easier, without the need to rebuild the system from source to keep it up to date.

That being said... could a moderator please move the messages about PkgBase out of this thread? Sorry for starting this conversation out of place.

 

[kpedersen]

I may be wrong (then please someone correct me), but to my knowledge, when creating a FreeBSD port, you never declare as a dependency a piece of software that's part of the base system.

You are correct. But think about what happens if the zlib version gets bumped and is now ABI incompatible. Will things still work with the ports / packages?

No. Whether you have stated an explicit or implicit dependency is irrelevant. You *do* have a dependency regardless. You will need to update everything together.

Base needs to be very stable to support the software stacks above it (ports). PkgBase doesn't necessarily mean "unstable" but as mentioned in my posts above, I suspect stability will suffer in those ways I mentioned. The evidence for this is looking at other projects with a fast updating "base" (or lack of base).

As for rolling release, that is unstable by nature. I hope that these forums don't get too flooded with questions about riced systems. In my opinion, if someone has removed a base package, they are no longer running FreeBSD and their question should be treated no differently as it is GhostBSD. Unlike Linux, the monolithic nature of FreeBSD's community might not cope so well with this.

That being said... could a moderator please move the messages about PkgBase out of this thread? Sorry for starting this conversation out of place.

I think there is a thread about PkgBase somewhere. Perhaps our sub-convo can be dumped in there. I agree, new users certainly don't want to read our prattle (our apologies, mods)

 

[RacerBG]

Hello, there!

It was a long journey up to this point but I finally made it in to the BSD land with FreeBSD 14.2!

TLDR: Linux user since 2013, full time since 2023, my hardware is finally fully supported so I made the switch with my laptop today, my main PC is to follow suite soon.

Probably as many people in this forum I had started my journey with Linux (Linux Mint 14 in my case) long before even knowing that FreeBSD was a thing. This decision was thanks to the Metro interface introduction in Windows 8 and 8.1 which I avoided like the plague. My main PC back then was still on Windows 7 SP1 and remained with it for the next 10 years until I had installed Debian 12 Bookworm back in December 2023. Meanwhile with this laptop (Acer ASPIRE 5738Z) I had gone through many Linux distributions but in short my path was Linux Mint -> Debian -> Arch Linux -> Debian.

Some sort of rant...

I had my reasons to return to Debian and I'm most familiar with it but some things in Linux just "never change"... A good example is the constant (r)evolution and reinvention of perfectly working software: first it was systemd, then wayland, then pipewire, flatpak, snap, appimages and things are constantly changing. Together with this we have deprecations, also a lot of the old hardware is just being axed - the x64 v3 optimizations which are becoming the norm for example. The problem is they are (will be) used by default by most of the distributions and the old v1 and v2 architectures will be dropped just like x86. I don't have x64 v3 hardware and I don't see a reason why I should throw away my working hardware just because this is the standard nowadays. Not to mention that with every major Debian version my laptop was getting slower probably because the kernel is getting bloated by the day with more and more drivers and code.

End of the rant...

Enough is enough and I had created a bootable USB with FreeBSD 14.2. To be fair I had tried FreeBSD back when PCBSD 10 was a thing but my Wi-FI driver was sort of missing and my "trip" to the BSD land was cut short. Nowadays it was a different experience. Combining that with my own experience from the Linux years it was actually a walk in the park to install this OS and turn it in to a complete desktop. Everything on the base system is organized so well that I don't need to do Google searches when I'm searching for something and the manuals are probably the best I have ever seen on any OS (plus the Handbook). I do not have experience with the other BSD's, to be fair, so my opinion may be biased. FreeBSD is simple by default and it's getting harder once you decide to tweak and learn what every "knob" does to the OS but thanks to the single user mode I haven't managed to create irreversible damage yet.

Once Plasma 6 is the default version in the ports and probably when FreeBSD 14.3 is released I will switch my main PC to it as well. Meanwhile my laptop is quite happy with LXQT 2.1. To whoever maintains the ports - THANK YOU! And thanks to everyone involved in this project, FreeBSD seems like a safe paradise compared to the storms which are happening in Windows and Linux.

I have nothing against Linux, it served me well for more than 10 years but it's just not for me anymore.

Sorry for my English and thanks for reading!

Regards,
Georgi

 

[HayPhil]

Hello all,

I had some Linux experience from the mid-90s until around 2005, and started last year again testing linux and freeBSD for the daily use…

I am currently using freeBSD (14.2-RELEASE) on a notebook and a 14 STABLE on a desktop.
I had some troubles with “not so smooth” upgrades, but I am actually very happy with the system.

Thanks to all peolple posting here, I learned and found a lot of help!

Thanks,
Philippe

 

[graue.Ritter]

Hello,

I'm a systems administrator/programmer (now mostly as a hobby).

Linux "refugee" (Arch Linux): first installed FreeBSD when main server needed rebuild in late January 2023. Main workstation followed suit mid August 2023.

Decided to give FreeBSD a try as I rather liked some ZFS features (error correction, integrating volume management with file system - simpler storage addition/removal/rearrangement than separate LVM and ext4) and ZFS at the time was not as tightly integrated into Linux, and wanted to try a different operating system philosophy.

For occasions when Linux is required, e.g. for determining if issue software or hardware related, my preferred Linux distribution is Arch Linux because it can achieve relatively clean minimal installs.

graue