Does anyone here run FreeBSD on the desktop? If so, can you explain why you prefer it to Linux?
FreeBSD has - can have - better ZFS support than Linux. Ubuntu comes close, but then you're on Ubuntu...
FreeBSD 13.2
51–60 of 108 posts
Re: FreeBSD 13.2
#52> The mergemaster(8) utility has been deprecated and will be removed in FreeBSD 14.0 This is a bit of a bummer, though. I did just try to use etcupdate for the 13.2-RELEASE upgrade and it hung forever trying to grep for something in /etc/default/devfs.rules, so I had to fall back on mergemaster again... Oh well, maybe a clean install when 14 is out and it'll behave better. Congrats on the release!
> I did just try to use etcupdate for the 13.2-RELEASE upgrade and it hung forever trying to grep for something in /etc/default/devfs.rules Would you be willing to submit a bug for the etcupdate issue? Or, just reply here with as much detail as you can recall about how you ran it?
Sure; i will flip back to old be again tonight if i have some time and give it another go.
Will file a bug if I can reproduce it.
Re: FreeBSD 13.2
#53I tried FreeBSD on ARM64. I couldn't get the browsers, like Firefox or Epiphany, to load without crashing. I'm not sure if it was something I was doing wrong or if the ARM ecosystem just isn't well supported yet. I was also running in a VM with QEMU. On the surface, FreeBSD sounds cool. I liked that I could boot directly to a console and then run the GUI only if I wanted to. Everything felt more modular. It reminded…
Same experience with Browsers. Only Surf never dies.
Re: FreeBSD 13.2
#54I tried FreeBSD on ARM64. I couldn't get the browsers, like Firefox or Epiphany, to load without crashing. I'm not sure if it was something I was doing wrong or if the ARM ecosystem just isn't well supported yet. I was also running in a VM with QEMU. On the surface, FreeBSD sounds cool. I liked that I could boot directly to a console and then run the GUI only if I wanted to. Everything felt more modular. It reminded…
Do you still have the core dumps and messages to stdout/stderr/dmesg?
Re: FreeBSD 13.2
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used Arch for a number of years before switching to a Mac when I went back to school. At some point I may go back to Linux or FreeBSD (I've used both!) but I'll never go back to rolling releases. The whole reason I switched to Mac was that I got tired of things breaking constantly due to the never-ending updates. And if you put things off then you end up getting a whole lot of breakage all at once. No, I would pref…
The only sane Linux setup for a workstation is an immutable distro like Silverblue/Kinoite, and an Arch Linux toolbox (or any distro you prefer). I will die on this hill, and whoever disagrees has never tried what honestly feels like the future. My Linux PC is as stable and reproducible as my iPhone. One day I will finish my Fedora Silverblue master guide that has been a draft for months... (No, sorry, NixOS ain't be…
[deleted]
Re: FreeBSD 13.2
#56Does anyone here run FreeBSD on the desktop? If so, can you explain why you prefer it to Linux?
A coherent userland (not without occasional warts, but without stuff being deliberately, maliciously ignored, broken or replaced to foster someone's agenda). ZFS as a first class citizen, without wondering if Oracle will show up and take the ball away. Jails, although that's not super relevant to the desktop experience. I won't mention systemd, although I truly dislike it (though I have no particular attachment to in…
That seems to be the one advantage separating kernel from user space has provided. At least in my experience, jails may break when the host OS gets updated and the jail isn’t upgraded in lock step. That means having 1+n upgrades for every minor version update.
Requiring a docker container to have a user space which matches the kernel kind of defeats the purpose.
Re: FreeBSD 13.2
#57From https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/cuda.84926/#post-564624
> That doesn't get us full CUDA support, but we can run OpenCL apps at least (with x11/nvidia-driver, x11/linux-nvidia-libs and the nv-sglrun script from emulators/libc6-shim). And NVENC if you bother to compile it.
Why would you want to limit yourself to the operating system that cannot train, say, a pytorch model on your nvidia GPU?
We had some success running inference on CPU, which works for as long as the model isn't that large. But that doesn't scale for larger models, where you also want to batch requests and run them all at once on GPU.
Re: FreeBSD 13.2
#58I tried FreeBSD on ARM64. I couldn't get the browsers, like Firefox or Epiphany, to load without crashing. I'm not sure if it was something I was doing wrong or if the ARM ecosystem just isn't well supported yet. I was also running in a VM with QEMU. On the surface, FreeBSD sounds cool. I liked that I could boot directly to a console and then run the GUI only if I wanted to. Everything felt more modular. It reminded…
Same experience with Browsers. Only Surf never dies.
Firefox on Sway with wayland enabled seems to lose the compositor connection almost instantly.
Re: FreeBSD 13.2
#59Does anyone here run FreeBSD on the desktop? If so, can you explain why you prefer it to Linux?
I don't run it right now (and won't anytime soon) as a desktop. Once I switched to using laptops exclusively, the driver story became too bad to work comfortably. But, I used FreeBSD on a desktop for 5 years, from 2005 to 2010. I really enjoyed using it. The reasons for that are what others already mentioned: simplicity, well-thought-out organization of the system vs. userland vs. 3rd party packages (man hier), excel…
Same, I used to run it a lot, but I went back to it recently and have not really managed to make it work. I'm using sway, and I have hit a whole bunch of issues:
* Have to use 14-CURRENT to support my RDNA2 graphics card at all. This was not simple.
* Systemd sucks, but on Linux when I start a sway session it co-ordinates all the xdg-desktop-portal-wlr / pipewire / pipewire-media-session (I think). There doesn't seem to be a freebsd equivalent for user level services. Although dbus / consolekit seems to be doing something, I don't understand why or how.
* Sound is just broken. My usb headset gives constant loud feedback, by bluetooth dongle spams the dmesg until it eventually gives up and my hda card seems to work in all the mixers but no sound is forthcoming.
* Firefox with wayland on just loses the compositor connection almost instantly. Alacratty seems fine though, as is xwayland.
* My webcam doesn't work, in firefox it's blank, in chrome the video is corrupted.
* I have no idea how to configure XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to get created a login with the right permissions etc on tmpfs. I could leave it on zfs of course but apparently that's problematic.
Re: FreeBSD 13.2
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not Linux: Linux feels clunky like a bunch of third party cogs all mashed together. Some with teeth missing some with too many. If it's not SystemMd taking over the whole startup of system services and needing its own DHCP server, it's then down to package manager's. Apt being replaced with snap, snap replaced by flat images. Its divided and with no formality. Someone will create some new thing, I'll get popular, get…
Linux adoption at scale was only possible because of getting in bed with corporate. By the way, FreeBSD also enjoys a bit of corporated love, with the difference that love only goes into one direction.
[deleted]