Live data from Hacker News

FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

lists.freebsd.org

31–40 of 54 posts

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#31

I'd LOVE for BSD to be a good alternative for daily use to Linux. But it's simply not. There's more and more stuff that is Linux only nowadays (wayland, gnome, several drivers, power management, wifi, Steam and proton... to name a few, very important ones)

I'm kinda glad it isn't, that would be more fragmentation and BSD has a very different philosophy.

Probably best to not try to make BSD into modern Linux which is basically FreeWindows. I wouldn't want to use a BSD that BSD people like any more than they'd want to switch to Linux, it seems they are different for a reason.

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#32

I'd LOVE for BSD to be a good alternative for daily use to Linux. But it's simply not. There's more and more stuff that is Linux only nowadays (wayland, gnome, several drivers, power management, wifi, Steam and proton... to name a few, very important ones)

FWIW Steam, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and Dota 2 all worked great for me on FreeBSD. The other things you listed are issues/have their own problems. No Docker is the showstopper for me.

https://www.freshports.org/games/linux-steam-utils/

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#33

I'd LOVE for BSD to be a good alternative for daily use to Linux. But it's simply not. There's more and more stuff that is Linux only nowadays (wayland, gnome, several drivers, power management, wifi, Steam and proton... to name a few, very important ones)

Yeah the best thing about BSD is that it hasn't had a bajillion different idea people come in and implement the same thing a billion different ways. Would prefer it stayed that way.

Desktop BSD works. It's a pain to set up but you can get there.

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#34

I'd LOVE for BSD to be a good alternative for daily use to Linux. But it's simply not. There's more and more stuff that is Linux only nowadays (wayland, gnome, several drivers, power management, wifi, Steam and proton... to name a few, very important ones)

Why do you want to run a BSD?

I am not particularly interested in the above, except power management and wifi. I am trying GhostBSD as an alternative specifically because I am not interested in Gnome, Wayland, or Steam. I don't hate them, just don't care. I may go simpler and just use CTWM and cobble together a desktop environment.

I am genuinely curious what running these things on a BSD gets you that you can't get with Linux. Using a mainstream distro (like Debian or Fedora) gets you this without hassle.

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#35

I'd LOVE for BSD to be a good alternative for daily use to Linux. But it's simply not. There's more and more stuff that is Linux only nowadays (wayland, gnome, several drivers, power management, wifi, Steam and proton... to name a few, very important ones)

This entirely depends on your use case. For many gamers, Windows PCs can't be replaced by a Mac, let alone Linux. Hopefully Proton/Wine will bridge that gap and maybe even be ported to FreeBSD.

There are lots of servers running Linux that could very well be switched to FreeBSD, and lots more that are locked into Linux due to the state of hardware drivers or the containers they're running.

If all you're doing on Linux is browsing the web and opening terminals, you could probably switch to FreeBSD without too much disruption.

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#36
post #32

I'd LOVE for BSD to be a good alternative for daily use to Linux. But it's simply not. There's more and more stuff that is Linux only nowadays (wayland, gnome, several drivers, power management, wifi, Steam and proton... to name a few, very important ones)

FWIW Steam, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and Dota 2 all worked great for me on FreeBSD. The other things you listed are issues/have their own problems. No Docker is the showstopper for me. https://www.freshports.org/games/linux-steam-utils/

No proton though

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#37

I'd LOVE for BSD to be a good alternative for daily use to Linux. But it's simply not. There's more and more stuff that is Linux only nowadays (wayland, gnome, several drivers, power management, wifi, Steam and proton... to name a few, very important ones)

If only the problem was just for desktop environments. Last week I decided to get into Jails and threw FreeBSD on my home lab server: an HP DL380 G7, which is enterprise level hardware from around 2011.

Even with powerd and speedstep support enabled, the fans were spinning close to full speed at idle. It sounded like an airplane taking off. I searched around and found that maybe I needed to get specific software from HP that was behind a paywall. So I gave up.

Instead I installed Alpine Linux (so tiny) on the server and its never been quieter; With zero extra config. I ended up playing with LXD instead of Jails.

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#38
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW Steam, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and Dota 2 all worked great for me on FreeBSD. The other things you listed are issues/have their own problems. No Docker is the showstopper for me. https://www.freshports.org/games/linux-steam-utils/

No proton though

This?

https://www.freshports.org/emulators/wine-proton/

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#39
post #35

I'd LOVE for BSD to be a good alternative for daily use to Linux. But it's simply not. There's more and more stuff that is Linux only nowadays (wayland, gnome, several drivers, power management, wifi, Steam and proton... to name a few, very important ones)

This entirely depends on your use case. For many gamers, Windows PCs can't be replaced by a Mac, let alone Linux. Hopefully Proton/Wine will bridge that gap and maybe even be ported to FreeBSD. There are lots of servers running Linux that could very well be switched to FreeBSD, and lots more that are locked into Linux due to the state of hardware drivers or the containers they're running. If all you're doing on Linux…

if your wifi and bluetooth are supported, battery life is a factor too, as well as sleep.

Re: FreeBSD 13.1 Beta 1

#40

I'd LOVE for BSD to be a good alternative for daily use to Linux. But it's simply not. There's more and more stuff that is Linux only nowadays (wayland, gnome, several drivers, power management, wifi, Steam and proton... to name a few, very important ones)

Been using FreeBSD as my primary workstation since 2006, with a secondary Linux box for games. I’ve found FreeBSD to be a very viable and reliable alternative, but of course that depends on your personal needs.
Post reply on HN