Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FreeBSD Handbook / Introduction

docs.freebsd.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–48 of 48 posts

Re: FreeBSD Handbook / Introduction

#41

Post by tomc1985 »

citrin_ru wrote: post #29
tomc1985 wrote: post #27

I love FreeBSD, but the way it behaves with Home and End keys drives me nuts. Is there a way to set it to behave as Linux consistently, across all users, session, and jails?

What is the problem exactly? I use FreeBSD (and Linux) for years and not aware that Home/End behave differently in FreeBSD. Default FreeBSD shell was until recently tcsh and it is a bit quirky but in tcsh Home/End work by default. sh is another shell from FreeBSD base system - it is small and simple but even there Home/End work with `set -o emacs` in .shrc (it is in default .shrc, from /usr/share/skel/).

So Home and End don't go to the start and end of line, respectively, when I hit those connected via a remote terminal (using PuTTY).

Seems to be universal to the entire OS, as I get this behavior in bash, vim, and pretty much everything else. I applied some kind of hack to make it work correctly in bash on the host OS, but it doesn't work correctly in vim or other programs, or anything in any jailed OS.

They do seem to work fine at a local console though, so I'm wondering if its my term emulation settings in PuTTY.

Re: FreeBSD Handbook / Introduction

#42

Post by citrin_ru »

tomc1985 wrote: post #41
citrin_ru wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the problem exactly? I use FreeBSD (and Linux) for years and not aware that Home/End behave differently in FreeBSD. Default FreeBSD shell was until recently tcsh and it is a bit quirky but in tcsh Home/End work by default. sh is another shell from FreeBSD base system - it is small and simple but even there Home/End work with `set -o emacs` in .shrc (it is in default .shrc, from /usr/share/skel/).

So Home and End don't go to the start and end of line, respectively, when I hit those connected via a remote terminal (using PuTTY). Seems to be universal to the entire OS, as I get this behavior in bash, vim, and pretty much everything else. I applied some kind of hack to make it work correctly in bash on the host OS, but it doesn't work correctly in vim or other programs, or anything in any jailed OS. They do seem…

Yes, it likely related to how PuTTY emulates terminal or which TERM var it sends.

Re: FreeBSD Handbook / Introduction

#44

Post by johnwalkr »

istjohn wrote: post #34

I've yet to try a BSD, but FreeBSD's wholehearted embrace of the ZFS filesystem makes it very attractive to me. Now I have another reason to look at it.

ZFS just works so well. Especially on FreeBSD where the documentation is great. About 12 or more years ago, MacOS was rumored to change to ZFS as default filesystem. I was using FreeBSD too at the time, so I pre-emptively started using ZFS on my Mac. It worked well for a few years but for licensing reasons ZFS by default was canned and I haven’t used it since I replaced that laptop.

Re: FreeBSD Handbook / Introduction

#45

Post by johnwalkr »

istjohn wrote: post #34

I've yet to try a BSD, but FreeBSD's wholehearted embrace of the ZFS filesystem makes it very attractive to me. Now I have another reason to look at it.

ZFS just works so well. Especially on FreeBSD where the documentation is great. About 12 or more years ago, MacOS was rumored to change to ZFS as default filesystem. I was using FreeBSD too at the time, so I pre-emptively started using ZFS on my Mac. It worked well for a few years but for licensing reasons ZFS by default on MacOS was canned and I haven’t used it since I replaced that laptop.

Re: FreeBSD Handbook / Introduction

#46

Post by r3trohack3r »

benwills wrote: post #7
r3trohack3r wrote: post #5

The FreeBSD handbook, and FreeBSD’s bit-rot resistant documentation, are the primary reasons I use it as a daily driver. I migrated from Linux on the Laptop ~1.5 years ago and my day-to-day has been more calm ever since.

It seems that finding a FreeBSD-compatible laptop can be a bit of a process. I've been considering the same for the last couple years, but always end up hesitating once I get into researching it. Are you up for sharing which laptop you got? And do you have any advice on the process of choosing one? My needs are pretty basic (no gaming, etc): web browser, sublimetext, command line.

I use a Panasonic Toughbook.

It’s a bit of a beast - weighs several pounds - but I can use it in the swimming pool and rain.

Re: FreeBSD Handbook / Introduction

#47

Post by r3trohack3r »

nauticacom wrote: post #15
r3trohack3r wrote: post #5

The FreeBSD handbook, and FreeBSD’s bit-rot resistant documentation, are the primary reasons I use it as a daily driver. I migrated from Linux on the Laptop ~1.5 years ago and my day-to-day has been more calm ever since.

I've been thinking of throwing FreeBSD on an old Thinkpad and trying to use it normally. Right now I run Debian, with most of my work happening in Firefox or the shell. Is there anything you didn't even think about that ended up being a problem, or noticeably worse? Or the opposite, something you thought would be an issue but wasn't?

Honestly - I expected it to be harder than it was. I read the entire handbook cover to cover before doing an install. I think that was the trick. It’s just been smooth sailing.

I keep an R620 running Linux that I can ssh into if I need Docker - but I use it a lot less than I expected.

Re: FreeBSD Handbook / Introduction

#48

Post by SequentialDSG »

I installed FreeBSD on a box a few days ago. It was very frustrating. I didn’t know what I was doing and found myself with a lot of questions. It took a while for me to get comfortable. Now that I’ve been using it a few day, wow, let me say that it’s AMAZING. So, so fast and beautiful. I’m so glad I stuck with it.

Everything works so smoothly today. Of course, I had to do little things to get things to work well. For example, backspace wouldn’t work in Emacs out of the box. My keyboard didn’t work out of the box on X11. I had to add this to my .emacs file:

  (normal-erase-is-backspace-mode 1)
And I had to add this to my /etc/sysctl.conf:

  kern.evdev.rcpt_mask=6
Now that I’m here (using StumpWM, Emacs, and FreeBSD 13), I’m super happy I stuck with it. FreeBSD runs so well. The way the system is designed (installing packages, ZFS out of the box, the documentation (amazing man pages), the folder structure, minimal bloat, et cetera) is beautiful. Going forward, I’ll be using FreeBSD for my server(s). And I’m going to try to use it as much as I can as my daily driver.
Post reply on HN