Anybody ever try BSD on your PC?

[benali72]

Anybody here ever try BSD on their personal computer? 

I downloaded PC-BSD the other day, which is supposed to be the most user-friendly for desktops. Unfortunately it won't even boot on my computer, it stops during the boot process without an error message.

Just wondering if anyone has any good words for BSD that will prompt me to put in the effort to figure this out.

Thanks.

[The Gorn]

BSD is not Linux, and it probably isn't very cutting edge with hardware compatibility. It's a sort of fork of Unix, AFAIK.

The main reason to use BSD as I have gathered is security and stability, which are supposedly superior to Linux.

[benali72]

Thanks G0ddard. As far as I can tell I ran into a boot bug and so have passed on the product.

[lorb]

I look at BSD as a connoisseur product.  It's meant for servers, not desktops, they "port" the Linux desktop through some sort of emulator.  I would imagine that the code is nice and clean to look at, but that the conventions for doing things also make utmost sense and are old-school.

Sort of like the Slackware argument.  I loved Slackware as a server, but people overwhelmingly shoot it down because Ubuntu is practically the official desktop and apt-get and Synaptic are so easy to use that it just doesn't make sense not to be completely lazy.  hehe.

I installed NetBSD once, "greenscreen" command-line, no desktop.  It's nice if you want to be Unix old-school like.  Ubuntu is practically like using Windows these days, but now you have free SW and it's easy, different experience one would be looking for, Ubuntu and BSD.  As a server admin, it's probably nice to feel more in control and customize.

[The Gorn]

+++Lorb. It's for servers.

[Peter Gibbons]

I have installed FreeBSD countless times starting from version 2.1.5. Didn't have any problems with the basic stuff.

However getting sound cards and  other 'desktop' peripherals to work had been a challenge.

Why use BSD?

For me this was a matter of principle - I am not fan of the GPL.

(Now I feel a bit of hypocrite for using Linux.)

In the early years of the Internet FreeBSD was more stable and high performance. That's why Yahoo and Pair use it. Now almost all test that Phoronics have done show performance advantage for Linux.

If security is very high on your list - OpenBSD is a very good choice.

Other than that ... FreeBSD is just the rebel's choice.

Linux was co opted by the corporations.

[DarkHumour]

I tried OpenBSD in VMWare and couldn't get the gui to work properly.  Maybe it wasn't supposed to? Made me feel kind of stupid so I didn't do much else.

It just seemed bland and supposedly is the most pedantic operating system.

DarkHumour

[Peter Gibbons]

I run exclusively OpenBSD for 6 months in 1997.

It worked perfectly fine however it didn't have any eye candy features.

I never tried installing OpenBSD or FreeBSD in a virtual environment like VMware.

[The Gorn]

On the desktop what is exactly the big deal about choosing a BSD variant over Linux? You don't need much security on the desktop  in terms of server access from the internet - your desktop is probably firewalled. And you probably lose the desktop GUI tools or they become much more primitive.

If it comes down to GPL vs BSD license terms that's just ideological silliness. You aren't going to hack or modify Linux so why does it even matter?

Any more, I see the OS as a sheer commodity. One is open source with communist chains (the stupid GPL), one is completely open source with no restrictions. But as a user the license simply does not affect me.

Or does it?

[Peter Gibbons]

If it comes down to GPL vs BSD license terms that's just ideological silliness. You aren't going to hack or modify Linux so why does it even matter?

Since  I was a 'BSD fanboy' - to use your terminology - it obviously mattered to me.
Back then Linux didn't have much eye candy features either so I didn't miss anything.

Any more, I see the OS as a sheer commodity. One is open source with communist chains (the stupid GPL), one is completely open source with no restrictions. But as a user the license simply does not affect me.

Generally the consumers do not care about licensing but companies should.
There was that long drawn lawsuit by SCO that could have caused issues for companies using Linux.

Even today some companies may have second thoughts about the GPL:

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/03/googles-android-faces-serious-linux.html

I think Apple made smarter choice by picking up stuff from FreeBSD.

[The Gorn]

I'm not dumping contempt on your choice nor ridiculing it (at least I hope not!)

I just meant, for your own personal use, what does it really matter? The OS is (IMO) a platform for running applications and services. It's literally plumbing.

I can see a personal preference that is based on functional reasons.

For instance, I have come to enjoy working with Debian branches because the arrangement of the configuration items for things like setting up the Apache server is based on a directory and soft-links to config file chunks that specify individual servers. Most services are configured in like manner in the Debian variants - not with monolithic, large configuration files.  I find it an exceptionally easy method to use from the command line or from a shell GUI like "mc" (Midnight Commander, available on all Linuxes.) Any other way of configuring servers like Apache usually requires a control panel front end like webmin.

Aside from that, I would personally use whatever was easiest to get going on the target platform.

It sounds from reading the article that the leet, pampered brainiacs at Google really screwed the pooch on Android IP.

No normal sized software company in their right mind would blend different licensing modes so cavalierly.  For most embedded product usage, the dividing lines between "FOSS/tainting your IP", "FOSS/no effect on IP", and closed source are respected quite strictly.

I suppose that because it's Google they figure they can simply overpower or buy out any complainants.

[lorb]

If I wanted to dig into OS code, or modify it, I would rather do that with BSD.  There is the license, but there is also the notion that the kernel may be smaller, not trying to support every device as if it were Windows, not every fancy latest GUI technology, and most importantly conventions and code which don't change as much.

If it's just an OS with abstract plumbing, then use Linux.  People who want control go for BSD, or Gentoo, but BSD there are more standardized ways of doing things than with Gentoo is my perception.  If I am an admin, I would want lock-down control so can rebuild a similar server quickly, but I know Ubuntu Server is big and you virtually have to answer the question "Well, why didn't you just use Ubuntu Server then?" if there are any problems.

[Peter Gibbons]

I'm not dumping contempt on your choice nor ridiculing it.

As I mentioned - I don't feel strongly enough these days about this - so I am using Ubuntu.

It's much better choice for desktop use.

However I learned a lot about UNIX during my FreeBSD days. It was fun compiling my own kernel and tuning my system. It's amazing how well the OS did multitask on 386slc (IBM 386SX clone) system with 8Mb of memory.

I wish I had stuck with it digging deeper instead of getting distracted by OS/2 and other proprietary tech ...

Maybe I could have really jumped on the Web development bandwagon very early on ...

[The Gorn]

As is usually the case with the personages involved, this discussion has increased my understanding. 

[dinotech]

I think Apple made smarter choice by picking up stuff from FreeBSD.

If you want FreeBSD, get a Mac.  You have the best of both worlds on a machine that will hardly give you any problems, and you can easily go to the command line if you want granular control.

Has anyone here used a Mac for the BSD inside a command line?