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NetBSD 9.0 Coming Soon With 64-bit ARM, Updated ZFS, Hardware-Accelerated Virtualization

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  • #11
    k1e0x also PkgSrc which works on many OS can be used alongside FreeBSD ports.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by k1e0x View Post
      I use FreeBSD as a personal workstation. Why? What makes it good? It's fast, boot environments, it's simple to customize, ZFS backup is very simple, ports give you flexibility on how you want your packages built. (I'm bad and mix ports and packages but only a few and I lock them.) The only thing that is really close to it is Gentoo, but Gentoo can be a real headache ripping out all the garbage Linux stuff you don't need / want. What do you lose? Not much really. Games and some things like Gnome lag behind. Most of the software I use / want is up to date in ports and current. The graphics drivers are plenty up to date for me.

      I do game a little but not on my workstation.. I just use steam on my mac.. easy. In the past I've had a windows system I used just for games, I didn't even browse the web on it.
      Luckily I don't use Gnome. Games are the only thing I'd lose...and probably not even those if I had a 2nd GPU for my system and could set up a VM with GPU passthrough. But outside of some of my older OOO templates I'm still using LibreOffice for, I've migrated my entire GUI workflow over to Plasma and KDE Applications so, as long as the KDE/Plasma environment is new enough, any OS will work for me outside of my games.

      I'm down to PulseEffects, Geeqie, GIMP, LibreOffice, and Firefox as my remaining GTK applications. PulseEffects and Firefox don't really have good QT alternatives.

      I've used Ubuntu and Gentoo on the same hardware, Linux seems to be slightly slower (it's doing a lot more useless stuff I don't need it to), and setting it up to my liking is much more complicated.. also has annoying bugs some times. Ubuntu seems to be fragile with it's networking and it's pretty easy to get it in a state where it's not sure if it's online or not. It's too smart for it's own good and trying to "help" me too much. No idea why it needs to check if it's online or not.. like it's scared of sending me a dns error.
      I feel the same way about Ubuntu...which is odd considering that I'm now a Manjaro user. But Ubuntu goes above and beyond holding one's hand to the point to where it can be hard to fix when an issue arises.

      One of the other things about Linux and Ubuntu is a lot of packages I use aren't in the repos.. and you have to go 3rd party or source. Very annoying.. This isn't the case with ports. Everything I want is in ports. It's mostly typical shit too.. I install all the same stuff on macOS right from .dmg's.. it's not "exsotic git hub" stuff. (usually) I find this bizarre because FreeBSD is supposed to have less manpower than Linux but 3rd party repos are so common on Linux maybe nobody cares to do the work there.. I'd prefer to have one trusted repo for everything tho. FreeBSD is really good for software diversity and you don't need to use snap, appimage, flatpack or anything else.
      A lot of my non-repo stuff comes from git*, like vkBasalt, and damn near all of it is in the AUR. Not gonna lie, the AUR is what keeps me on the Arch/Pacman ecosystem. PKGBUILDS are so convenient. I don't want to learn or use snaps or flats or anything else. That crap reminds me of Windows and having to use 3rd party repositories like Chocolatetey to keep my crap updated.

      What are the differences between the various BSDs? Why would someone pick one over the others?

      Like, I know that DragonFly has Hammer2, but that's about it. That's why I assume, since I'm more of a desktop user and into ZFS, that FreeBSD would be the better choice.

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      • #13
        Originally posted by skeevy420 View Post

        Luckily I don't use Gnome. Games are the only thing I'd lose...and probably not even those if I had a 2nd GPU for my system and could set up a VM with GPU passthrough. But outside of some of my older OOO templates I'm still using LibreOffice for, I've migrated my entire GUI workflow over to Plasma and KDE Applications so, as long as the KDE/Plasma environment is new enough, any OS will work for me outside of my games.

        I'm down to PulseEffects, Geeqie, GIMP, LibreOffice, and Firefox as my remaining GTK applications. PulseEffects and Firefox don't really have good QT alternatives.


        I feel the same way about Ubuntu...which is odd considering that I'm now a Manjaro user. But Ubuntu goes above and beyond holding one's hand to the point to where it can be hard to fix when an issue arises.


        A lot of my non-repo stuff comes from git*, like vkBasalt, and damn near all of it is in the AUR. Not gonna lie, the AUR is what keeps me on the Arch/Pacman ecosystem. PKGBUILDS are so convenient. I don't want to learn or use snaps or flats or anything else. That crap reminds me of Windows and having to use 3rd party repositories like Chocolatetey to keep my crap updated.

        What are the differences between the various BSDs? Why would someone pick one over the others?

        Like, I know that DragonFly has Hammer2, but that's about it. That's why I assume, since I'm more of a desktop user and into ZFS, that FreeBSD would be the better choice.
        Well.. lets see if I can answer everything. Plasma runs very well on FreeBSD. Gnome runs well too but they have to backport out systemd so it is more complicated. Lots of other desktops too. (I think there is even a port for CDE if you want to go full 1999 Solaris)

        LibreOffice and The GIMP work fine, even gimp source plugins like beautify or instagram filters. There is a package for PulseEffects 4.6.8, I've never used it tho. I have used pulse audio and it does work the configuration is a little different tho as the underlying system is different.

        non-repo stuff is pretty easy. FreeBSD includes the base compiler and headers to build the system but gcc and other bits are in pkg/ports. Occasionally you run needing GNU's version of date or make or other userland stuff.. they are usually prefixed with a g. gdate, gmake etc. so sometimes you have to modify scripts to use the GNU's binaries.

        If you like Portage from Gentoo, or the AUR you might like ports. It's a little different.. but it inspired the former. It takes some time to understand it but it's very flexible. Basically it's just a source tree and a lot of make files. There are management tools for ports such as portmaster or portupgrade to help. A note here.. You shouldn't mix ports and pkg. Pkg by default has new packages out quarterly (tho you can set it to daily) Ports only has one tree for all versions of FreeBSD (since it's source build) FreeBSD packages are built from ports itself using the defaults values in ports. - They aren't highly smart or aware of each other so the general rule is use one or the other (but a lot of ppl will build 2 or 3 things from ports and then just lock the generated pkg so pkg doesn't change it. pkg lock/unlock name)

        I've never used DragonFly, It was forked from FreeBSD 4 by a rockstar genius developer that couldn't get along.. and I have respect for it and I think it's good, but it sees less development. Tho it's mostly in line and up to date with FreeBSD.

        One version you might look into is GhostBSD, They were using TrueOS for a while that has a significant amount of changes to FreeBSD but I believe they went back to Vanilla in the last release. There is also a instant desktop script that just installs all the packages and configures them for you. https://www.freebsdnews.com/2019/08/...iaan-de-groot/

        Going manually isn't too hard, but there are a few changes you'll want to make. FreeBSD ships configured as a server so some changes in memory limits and number of files open is needed aside from just packages installed. For the most part.. just pkg install gnome/kde5 works. but to get a more solid experience you want to set some of the tuneables.

        Sorry for thread hijack, NetBSD is cool too!
        Last edited by k1e0x; 04 February 2020, 07:57 PM.

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        • #14
          Wow. Thanks for the reply. Didn't expect anyone to go that in-depth so it's much appreciated.

          Originally posted by k1e0x View Post
          Well.. lets see if I can answer everything. Plasma runs very well on FreeBSD. Gnome runs well too but they have to backport out systemd so it is more complicated. Lots of other desktops too. (I think there is even a port for CDE if you want to go full 1999 Solaris)

          LibreOffice and The GIMP work fine, even gimp source plugins like beautify or instagram filters. There is a package for PulseEffects 4.6.8, I've never used it tho. I have used pulse audio and it does work the configuration is a little different tho as the underlying system is different.
          Didn't expect a comment on those specific programs. I was just listing my list few bits before my desktop is GTK free...and GIMP is only there because I haven't learned Krita's interface making GIMP an easier go-to image editor. I'm glad that what you said about desktops is pretty much exactly what I assumed based on random Phoronix comments.

          non-repo stuff is pretty easy. FreeBSD includes the base compiler and headers to build the system but gcc and other bits are in pkg/ports. Occasionally you run needing GNU's version of date or make or other userland stuff.. they are usually prefixed with a g. gdate, gmake etc. so sometimes you have to modify scripts to use the GNU's binaries.

          If you like Portage from Gentoo, or the AUR you might like ports. It's a little different.. but it inspired the former. It takes some time to understand it but it's very flexible. Basically it's just a source tree and a lot of make files. There are management tools for ports such as portmaster or portupgrade to help. A note here.. You shouldn't mix ports and pkg. Pkg by default has new packages out quarterly (tho you can set it to daily) Ports only has one tree for all versions of FreeBSD (since it's source build) FreeBSD packages are built from ports itself using the defaults values in ports. - They aren't highly smart or aware of each other so the general rule is use one or the other (but a lot of ppl will build 2 or 3 things from ports and then just lock the generated pkg so pkg doesn't change it. pkg lock/unlock name)
          I did some quick browse-overs of some of the port files and, you're right, they're similar enough to PKGBUILDS and ebuilds that it'll be like transitioning from roller skates to roller blades for someone such as myself.

          I've never used DragonFly, It was forked from FreeBSD 4 by a rockstar genius developer that couldn't get along.. and I have respect for it and I think it's good, but it sees less development. Tho it's mostly in line and up to date with FreeBSD.
          Me neither. I happened to have read that backstory and I've seen the name in the news a lot in regards to their HAMMER2 file system. All those neat and advanced file systems peak my interests. Just haven't really look that much into HAMMER/HAMMER2 since they seem to be a DragonFly-only thing.

          One version you might look into is GhostBSD, They were using TrueOS for a while that has a significant amount of changes to FreeBSD but I believe they went back to Vanilla in the last release. There is also a instant desktop script that just installs all the packages and configures them for you. https://www.freebsdnews.com/2019/08/...iaan-de-groot/

          Going manually isn't too hard, but there are a few changes you'll want to make. FreeBSD ships configured as a server so some changes in memory limits and number of files open is needed aside from just packages installed. For the most part.. just pkg install gnome/kde5 works. but to get a more solid experience you want to set some of the tuneables.

          Sorry for thread hijack, NetBSD is cool too!
          Outside of them using Mate (and XFCE), GhostBSD isn't a bad choice. Ran them Live a little over a year ago and their Mate desktop was top notch. Ran them Live a few months later when I bought an RX 580 and it didn't work since my GPU didn't have drivers. By default back then it tried to use radeon and that had some wonky output. Me forcing AMDGPU led to no display at all. Based on the news I've read lately, my 580 should work on *BSD now.

          I'm just more of a Plasma person and, well, I'm also a believer that it is better to learn a new OS by doing the manual install and manual configuring. Like, installing and using Manjaro and Ubuntu isn't the same as learning the system and tools via an Arch or Debian Minimal install.

          I'm kind of surprised that there aren't any Plasma based BSD distributions outside of FuryBSD...or that they're Plasma edition is barely two months old.

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          • #15
            Originally posted by skeevy420 View Post
            Wow. Thanks for the reply. Didn't expect anyone to go that in-depth so it's much appreciated.



            Didn't expect a comment on those specific programs. I was just listing my list few bits before my desktop is GTK free...and GIMP is only there because I haven't learned Krita's interface making GIMP an easier go-to image editor. I'm glad that what you said about desktops is pretty much exactly what I assumed based on random Phoronix comments.



            I did some quick browse-overs of some of the port files and, you're right, they're similar enough to PKGBUILDS and ebuilds that it'll be like transitioning from roller skates to roller blades for someone such as myself.



            Me neither. I happened to have read that backstory and I've seen the name in the news a lot in regards to their HAMMER2 file system. All those neat and advanced file systems peak my interests. Just haven't really look that much into HAMMER/HAMMER2 since they seem to be a DragonFly-only thing.



            Outside of them using Mate (and XFCE), GhostBSD isn't a bad choice. Ran them Live a little over a year ago and their Mate desktop was top notch. Ran them Live a few months later when I bought an RX 580 and it didn't work since my GPU didn't have drivers. By default back then it tried to use radeon and that had some wonky output. Me forcing AMDGPU led to no display at all. Based on the news I've read lately, my 580 should work on *BSD now.

            I'm just more of a Plasma person and, well, I'm also a believer that it is better to learn a new OS by doing the manual install and manual configuring. Like, installing and using Manjaro and Ubuntu isn't the same as learning the system and tools via an Arch or Debian Minimal install.

            I'm kind of surprised that there aren't any Plasma based BSD distributions outside of FuryBSD...or that they're Plasma edition is barely two months old.
            "Distros" are kind of not the same on FreeBSD as.. there are fewer changes.. mostly it's just things installed in /usr/local and some tweaks in /etc and you have a "distro". You can just do it yourself if you know what to install and settings to make. You should look into the instant desktop script.. there was also.. https://cooltrainer.org/a-freebsd-desktop-howto/ Little dated but lots of good info on there.

            I have a RX 580 and it works pretty well. You need to use the amdgpu driver from ports/pkg tho. (it's called drm-kmod) And I believe... I had to do something with boot time, maybe a Efi bug, I forget now. Nvidia does run better and that is what I use.. but the 580 does work fine it's just as good as the 1060 I have once you solve some of it's quirks.

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            • #16
              Michael, I hope that sometime you may be able to include NetBSD, and perhaps OpenBSD, in your select benchmarks -- at least the basic ones (i.e., OS & compute-intensive application tests rather than "gaming"). It would also be great to see more *BSDs tested on a larger variety of modern platforms, like AMD64, ARM64, POWER9, and even SPARC-V variants. Granted, some of these combinations are far from ready for benchmarking -- but when the time comes (hopefully within a few years), I am hoping to read some interesting articles on this site

              I would also be excited to see performance numbers for various hypervisors: bhyve, NVMM, Xen, VirtualBox... Truly, it is a complex topic, but I am certain your Phoronix Test Suite can help automate the process to some degree, thus making the task more manageable; one can start with tests using same guest OS as the host, and expand from there.
              Last edited by uid0; 06 February 2020, 05:30 AM. Reason: fix misprints

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              • #17
                Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
                This also assumes Linux is sitting on its ass for the many years needed to BSDs to do this and catch up. I don't see this in the future.
                They only need to keep in step with some more used LTS distro. Atm it's CentOS7, about to be Centos8. Linux does spend lots of time re-inventing itself and going into thousand directions at once (read: flailing aimlessly like a drowning swimmer), it's not going anywhere in particular in a hurry..
                NetBSD used to follow SUSE, not sure if it's still the case.

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