FreeBSD 10.1 Release Now Available

[TeamBlackFox]

Congrats on the FreeBSD team on a new major release. I remember using PC-BSD back in the day and it was a great but have gravitated towards Linux due to better support for gaming and computer hardware.

Does anyone know if the Linux Steam client and games on it can run on FreeBSD with it's CentOS 6 Linux emulation environment?

Yes it should be able to assuming you pull all the necessary libs from a GNU/Linux install (use led to find them) and put them under the /compat paths.

AJSB, all of the BSDs do not use systemd, but rc (run-command) init, a simplified version of sysvinit, and they do not require PulseAudio, the version that works on FreeBSD is pretty old and brain damaged LST I checked so not worth installing. I recommend you give it a try, and you can PM me if you need any help getting started. I'll be happy to help.

[AJSB]

Yes it should be able to assuming you pull all the necessary libs from a GNU/Linux install (use led to find them) and put them under the /compat paths.

AJSB, all of the BSDs do not use systemd, but rc (run-command) init, a simplified version of sysvinit, and they do not require PulseAudio, the version that works on FreeBSD is pretty old and brain damaged LST I checked so not worth installing. I recommend you give it a try, and you can PM me if you need any help getting started. I'll be happy to help.

Thanks for your (and others BTW) replies, i'm glad that that BSD kinda dropped PA...there is hope after all

I have some more questions...reading some reviews seems PC-BSD is a kinda polished version of FreeBSD that is more Desktop-oriented than FreeBSD or i got it wrong ?

Is the "Linux compatibility layer" in the repos of both PC-BSD and FreeBSD ?

I heard that layer is only for 32bit Linux programs/games, taking in account that PC-BSD is now only 64bit, how that is affecting that layer ? it still can be used ?

I also heard that NVIDIA blob is well supported in BSD but there isn't Catalyst blob for BSD, so, if using AMD i/dGPU, what are the alternatives in BSD ? Radeon ?

TIA,
AJSB

[TeamBlackFox]

There is support for some AMD/ATi GPUs, see this page: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics Beyond that you'll have unaccelerated X for the newer GPUs. If you're a coder, or can provide any help to the team responsible for graphics, it would be appreciated.

PC-BSD is a distro of FreeBSD designed to offer a better desktop experience. Think of it as the Ubuntu in terms of setup, and FreeBSD is similar to setup as Arch Linux ( You start out with a minimal console system ) But PC-BSD won't offer anything that a well-configured FreeBSD setup will do. PC-BSD only adds, and doesn't take away from FreeBSD.

Linuxulator will work even on 64-bit CPUs, but will only run 32-bit code. 64-bit support is coming, as I hear from my friend who works for iXSystems.

Read the FreeBSD Handbook: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook , and also visit #freebsd on FreeNode if you have any questions. I'm on there sometimes, as Kazuo_Kuroi.

[AJSB]

There is support for some AMD/ATi GPUs, see this page: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics Beyond that you'll have unaccelerated X for the newer GPUs. If you're a coder, or can provide any help to the team responsible for graphics, it would be appreciated.

PC-BSD is a distro of FreeBSD designed to offer a better desktop experience. Think of it as the Ubuntu in terms of setup, and FreeBSD is similar to setup as Arch Linux ( You start out with a minimal console system ) But PC-BSD won't offer anything that a well-configured FreeBSD setup will do. PC-BSD only adds, and doesn't take away from FreeBSD.

Linuxulator will work even on 64-bit CPUs, but will only run 32-bit code. 64-bit support is coming, as I hear from my friend who works for iXSystems.

Read the FreeBSD Handbook: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook , and also visit #freebsd on FreeNode if you have any questions. I'm on there sometimes, as Kazuo_Kuroi.

Thanks again for all info, downloading PC-BSD 10.1 RELEASE (NOT the RC2...i have to download directly the ISO because there is no torrent yet) as we speak to make a test drive tomorrow

[nslay]

That's a problem FreeBSD itself should fix. Stables means stable but BSD devs decide to make things confusing and name their development branch stable and their stable branch release. I don't why this is the case but that's one of the reasons why no one uses BSD. Also, why the hell do they have two or more development branches (current, X-stable)? Their project is a mess.

I know you're a troll and all, but I'll answer that for everyone else's benefit.

There are three branches: RELEASE, STABLE and CURRENT.

CURRENT is a branch for cutting edge development for the next major version of FreeBSD (in this case 11.x)
STABLE is a branch for well tested features from CURRENT that will eventually find their way into the next minor version of FreeBSD (e.g. 10.2).
RELEASE is a branch/tag of STABLE where the source code does not change except for errata and security advisory fixes.

[septianix]

Thanks for your (and others BTW) replies, i'm glad that that BSD kinda dropped PA...there is hope after all

FreeBSD never really adopted it. A few third party applications seem to require PA so it's available in the ports tree. But for normal usage, FreeBSD audio works
quite seamlessly without the need for ?sound servers? and what not.

I have some more questions...reading some reviews seems PC-BSD is a kinda polished version of FreeBSD that is more Desktop-oriented than FreeBSD or i got it wrong ?

Yup, PC-BSD is basically FreeBSD packaged with a number of pre-configured desktops for ease of installation.

Is the "Linux compatibility layer" in the repos of both PC-BSD and FreeBSD ?

I heard that layer is only for 32bit Linux programs/games, taking in account that PC-BSD is now only 64bit, how that is affecting that layer ? it still can be used ?

The Linux compatibility layer works with both FreeBSD x86 and amd64.

I also heard that NVIDIA blob is well supported in BSD but there isn't Catalyst blob for BSD, so, if using AMD i/dGPU, what are the alternatives in BSD ? Radeon ?

The radeon kms driver is now included in FreeBSD. You should check if your card is supported here: http://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics

[MoonMoon]

Does anyone know if the Linux Steam client and games on it can run on FreeBSD with it's CentOS 6 Linux emulation environment?

The glibc of CentOS 6 is too old for Steam, you will have to wait for a newer version of the emulation layer.

[wizard69]

Seriously Michael, hire some more moderators! I'll work for free, I've moderated sites in the past and know my way around the forum system here, I can EASILY get this place cleaned out. And I'll allow some red vs blue type debating that goes on here, but I will not allow trolling or hamster wheel arguments. Don't know why you don't seem to care about the lack of moderation and blatant disregard and lack of respect a lot of people here have... I've tried to be nice, I've tried to be sarcastic and I have tried to contribute facts and not opinions to the conversations, but it just isn't enough for people on here.

Probably because moderation often does more harm than good and frankly is a bit un-American. Look at it this way you don't have to read any post from anybody. You don't even need to read this thread.

As for the BSD hater, he has made himself look like an idiot and a loser. Self destruction can be a useful way to diminish a problem personality.

[drSeehas]

... you don't have to read any post from anybody. ...

This is very easy to do: Just put endman et al. on your ignore list and you are done. Enjoy your life.