Ask Slashdot: Workaday Software For BSD On the Desktop? 267
An anonymous reader writes So for a variety of reasons (some related to recent events, some ongoing for a while) I've kinda soured on Linux and have been looking at giving BSD a shot on the desktop. I've been a Gentoo user for many years and am reasonably comfortable diving into stuff, so I don't anticipate user friendliness being a show stopper. I suspect it's more likely something I currently do will have poor support in the BSD world. I have of course been doing some reading and will probably just give it a try at some point regardless, but I was curious what experience and advice other slashdot users could share. There's been many bold comments on slashdot about moving away from Linux, so I suspect I'm not the only one asking these questions. Use-case wise, my list of must haves is: Minecraft, and probably more dubiously, FTB; mplayer or equivalent (very much prefer mplayer as it's what I've used forever); VirtualBox or something equivalent; Firefox (like mplayer, it's just what I've always used, and while I would consider alternatives, that would definitely be a negative); Flash (I hate it, but browsing the web sans-flash is still a pain); OpenRA (this is the one I anticipate giving me the most trouble, but playing it is somewhat of an obsession).
Stuff that would be nice but I can live without: Full disk encryption; Openbox / XFCE (It's what I use now and would like to keep using, but I could probably switch to something else without too much grief); jackd/rakarrack or something equivalent (currently use my computer as a cheap guitar amp/effects stack); Qt (toolkit of choice for my own stuff). What's the most painless way to transition to BSD for this constellation of uses, and which variety of BSD would you suggest?
Stuff that would be nice but I can live without: Full disk encryption; Openbox / XFCE (It's what I use now and would like to keep using, but I could probably switch to something else without too much grief); jackd/rakarrack or something equivalent (currently use my computer as a cheap guitar amp/effects stack); Qt (toolkit of choice for my own stuff). What's the most painless way to transition to BSD for this constellation of uses, and which variety of BSD would you suggest?
You probably want PC-BSD (Score:5, Informative)
It's basically a respin of FreeBSD with some packages preinstalled and a nice desktop from the get-go. It includes Firefox and Flash in a default install, works as a VirtualBox guest and host, there's a Java implementation for your Minecraft fix, and there's good documentation.
You can also choose between several DEs and WMs, such as KDE, Cinnamon, FVWM, Xfce, and many others.
Re:You probably want PC-BSD (Score:5, Informative)
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While PC-BSD would work for a lot of people who want a desktop, it didn't work for me. There was simply too much cruft. I installed FreeBSD 10.1 and am much happier with it than I was with PC-BSD.
The problem with PC-BSD is not the system, but the add-ons installed-by-default things that I don't want, like the control panel, or the software centre. Now, I could have simply uninstalled those things but I wasn't sure what dependencies existed that might kill my install. With FreeBSD it is all terminal only, u
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He says he's a Gentoo user. He doesn't need "FreeBSD with some packages preinstalled", he just needs to know that they're there.
Any opinions about DragonFly BSD? (Score:2)
I'm looking for a small desktop BSD, something that runs Xorg and fits in a GB or less of disk, so I can run multiples of them as virtual machines. I need some kind of browser that can run YouTube, plus ssh, and otherwise I don't much care what it does, but small disk is good.
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I use PC-BSD, and here too, there seems to be just 1 integrated way of doing things. The other day, I needed to change the gateway address of my router, since a Netgear had replaced a Belkin, which was toast. I tried editing /etc/resolv.conf, but it wouldn't stay saved. Finally, from the PC-BSD control panel, I went to Network Configuration, and viola! It worked.
In PC-BSD 10.0, I did have a few hiccups: when I added users from the User Manager, it would initially not show up in the login menu, so I ha
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gateway in resolver configuration? (Score:2)
> The other day, I needed to change the gateway address of my router, since a Netgear had replaced a Belkin, which was toast. I tried editing /etc/resolv.conf
Setting the network gateway in the resolver config? Would that ever work in any version of any OS?
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Yes, that used to be the thing to do on most unix or unix-like operating systems.
FreeBSD (Score:5, Informative)
Just go with FreeBSD. It's the one with most broad hardware support and easiest to transition from Linux. The major desktop projects (KDE, XFCE, GNOME (probably not any more) try to have FreeBSD support as their priority. Less so for the other BSDs.
OpenBSD and NetBSD have their pluses, and excel in their respective areas. I think that after getting used to FreeBSD, you will have an easier time with OpenBSD on your firewall and NetBSD on your toaster :P
off chance (Score:4, Interesting)
On the off chance that someone in a position of authority over Linux development reads this, you people are cutting your own throats with lunacy such as systemd and networkmanager.
Like the original poster, I am starting to look for alternatives to Linux.
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Why am I not seeing anything about the Solaris clones like Illumos/OpenIndiana? I've had great fun playing with OpenIndiana. This from three years ago might help address the OP's questions http://viritxian.deviantart.co... [deviantart.com]
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Yikes, I don't know what happened in your past, but I hope someday you can come to terms with it.
Personally, as a programmer I've had to deal with various system and networking issues and am reasonably comfortable diving into that stuff, but I appreciate that being a sysadmin isn't just configuring switches and installing software, and if you threw me into that role I'd probably make a lovely mess of things.
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Coder: My program works fine on my box, it's your job as an admin to make sure production supports my code
Admin: I'm not enabling dynamic SQL and cmdexec calls on the DB nor punching holes in the firewall to support your custom networking code
This was a bit exaggerated, but for a system to be well designed, all aspects of the system must be taken into account from all view points. A great "programmer" can also think like a server admin, a network admin, a storage admin, a hacker, CPU, memory, har
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We like Unix because it works a HELL of a lot better than the alternatives. Linux gained a foothold because it was a cheap Unix that worked well. It was a re-implementation of a well understood and successful design.
Unix is the product of "real pros". It's managed by "real pros". These are people that are probably responsible for keeping you fed and keeping your lights on.
Destroying a successful design that's the workhorse of the industry is a dubious prospect at best.
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Do your own research first ... (Score:5, Interesting)
If most of your applications are open source, switching to BSD will be fairly straight forward on that front. That's particularly since you're coming from Gentoo (i.e. you'll probably have to compile a lot of the software that you want to run under BSD).
The biggest hurdles are going to be the sorts of things that a generic question cannot address. Is your hardware compatible with the version of BSD that you've selected? Unlike Linux, where everyone is using the same kernel and has almost the same access to kernel modules, different implementations of BSD use different kernels. As such, selecting an implementation depends as much on low level details as it does on the userspace. (While I've pointed out hardware compatibility, any feature that is found in the kernel needs consideration.)
Another consideration is whether you're comfortable with managing BSD systems. Unlike hardware support, this is difficult to assess objectively. Some people like the core OS being a unified system that you update all at once. Other people like the piecemeal approach of Linux. Keep in mind that the core OS could mean everything from the kernel, to development tools, to the X server. (It does vary a bit from implementation to implementation.)
You will also run into a bunch of stuff that you'll have to relearn, particularly if you're accustomed to working in the shell. Software packaging and installation is the first one you'll bump into, but BSD also has it's own set of utilities. Some of these utilities are quite similar to the GNU utilities, but the extended functionality is quite different.
If you want to switch to BSD, I suggest doing it on a secondary computer first. If you run into specific issues, ask specific questions. Odds are that those issues can be resolved, but it will take time to sort through all of them. BSD can be an immense pleasure to use, but it involves a lot more than which applications are and aren't available.
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I don't understand why you... (Score:2)
FreeBSD (Score:2, Informative)
FreeBSD is the fastest, easiest to use and most widely supported option you will find. You can run any program that you can run on Linux, you'll never have to worry about running out of RAM due to FreeBSD's advanced memory optimization algorithms, and installing software is a cinch. You have two ways to do everything, and you don't have to worry about being locked in to the vendor's way of using the software that's available to you, because FreeBSD gives you all the control you could want. Additionally Free
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OK. I don't know enough about FreeBSD and Dragonfly to get the joke. Can someone explain?
Speaking of what I know... (Score:3)
Both OpenBSD and NetBSD come with XFCE, OpenBox, Firefox, mplayer (or equivalent). NetBSD pkgsrc may be a bit closer to Gentoo than OpenBSD ports/packages, but both are excellent package systems. You may get more games with NetBSD, including Minecraft and others but I haven't checked, so don't quote me on this.
If you are used to Gentoo, picking one or the other should not be too difficult, but OpenBSD, while a bit picky when it comes to hardware, is also a bit easier to use: if a piece of harware is supported, it is supported. Period. NetBSD often requires compiling a specific kernel to add this or that peripheral. OpenBSD usually supports everything out of the box, as long as it is in its harware compatibility list. Plus, there is this schweet schweet security goodness, now with LibreSSL gooey core!
Here is a quick example: I have had a motherboard die on me. I just ripped off the main HDD out, put it into a slightly different machine, and OpenBSD just picked up the harware changes, reconfigured, checked the filesystems and worked without making a fuss. I have used OpenBSD for many years in a second-hand laptop, where everything was supported, and it was a pleasure to use as my main machine. The update procedure is quick and easy, and a new version of the OS comes out every 6 months like clockwork.
So there you go, hope this helps.
Take it from a big FreeBSD fan... (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't want to use BSD on the desktop.
I'm not saying you can't, all the usual stuff is in FreeBSD ports, there are distributions like PC-BSD that attempt to be good for desktops out of the box. If you really want to make it happen, you can. I've watched many Linux and FreeBSD folks spend countless hours making their desktops work.
Even going to a hard core sysadmin conference, you're going to see a sea of Mac's, some folks even using Windows, and a smattering of the hard core on Linux desktops. Why? To work with other people in their company or at other companies they need Skype, or WebEx to work. They need Excel to open the quotation for hardware, and flash player to view some mandatory training. They want resource browsing that just works so they can print to a printer in the office.
The reason BSD is great in the data center is lots of people use it for that. It's a network effect. You're standing on the shoulders of other folks. It's the same reason Windows and OS X dominate the user desktop market, the software you need just works on them, someone else has made it work. If I told you to replace all of your data center servers with Windows 8 boxes you'd probably laugh at me, and yet the opposite question does not provoke the same response!
So if you want to, try. It can be done, with much blood, sweat, and tears. You might find that fun, if so enjoy! You might work for a small enough company or even just yourself where you can mandate BSD, and LibreOffice and be happy. If so, you are extremely lucky. Otherwise as a long term, die hard, FreeBSD supporter I can tell you from 20+ years experience, you're going to just frustrate yourself.
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You don't want to use BSD on the desktop.
I'm not saying you can't, all the usual stuff is in FreeBSD ports, there are distributions like PC-BSD that attempt to be good for desktops out of the box. If you really want to make it happen, you can. I've watched many Linux and FreeBSD folks spend countless hours making their desktops work.
Even going to a hard core sysadmin conference, you're going to see a sea of Mac's, some folks even using Windows, and a smattering of the hard core on Linux desktops. Why? To work with other people in their company or at other companies they need Skype, or WebEx to work. They need Excel to open the quotation for hardware, and flash player to view some mandatory training. They want resource browsing that just works so they can print to a printer in the office.
The reason BSD is great in the data center is lots of people use it for that. It's a network effect. You're standing on the shoulders of other folks. It's the same reason Windows and OS X dominate the user desktop market, the software you need just works on them, someone else has made it work. If I told you to replace all of your data center servers with Windows 8 boxes you'd probably laugh at me, and yet the opposite question does not provoke the same response!
So if you want to, try. It can be done, with much blood, sweat, and tears. You might find that fun, if so enjoy! You might work for a small enough company or even just yourself where you can mandate BSD, and LibreOffice and be happy. If so, you are extremely lucky. Otherwise as a long term, die hard, FreeBSD supporter I can tell you from 20+ years experience, you're going to just frustrate yourself.
Which is why I run it from a VM in VMware Worksation under Windows 7. There is virtualbox too which is free. I also run turnkey Linux for certain needs where I fire up and appliance for php testing etc. I have a VM for Windows domain controllers and my router is a configured OpenBSD VM with only takes 64 megs of ram for my virtual network for access.
I do not think it is blaspheme at all to use a real desktop OS like Windows 7 or MacOSX or even Linux if you hate SystemD, but use a vm for your real work to co
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Ok, I'll bite. m:tier [companycheck.co.uk], a two-person company worth about 100,000 Pounds Sterling, that has been around for 6 years is your poster child? A company that has a single reference [mtier.org] on its web site for a, and I quote:
We have been using the M:Tier CompliantBSD complete Desktop and Office solution since 2008 to provide an extremely secure and stable environment for up to 350 users across diverse geographical locations.
And somehow you want us to believe this is evidence that BSD is competitive on the desktop with over a billion Windows installations [businessinsider.com], or 66 million Macs [techcrunch.com] in use?
I think you just proved my point. When everyone else has thought about what to run and made their decision, a billion chose Windows, 66 mill
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm just in a bad mood and being an asshole, but I can't quite wrap my head around this post. "Hi everyone, I'm a random anonymous person on the Internet. For reasons I won't explain, I've decided I don't like Linux, and I want to try BSD. My needs are that I really want to play 3 specific games and run Firefox." I'm not even seeing where he actually asks a question, but timothy wants to know how Mr. Anonymous can fix his undisclosed Linux problems by moving to BSD.
Well, let's see. First, since you're apparently just running games, who cares what OS you're using? Does your current OS play those games? If yes, keep it. If not, look to see what operating system supports those games, and choose one of those operating systems to try out. Firefox and some kind of view player? I don't think that'll be much of a problem. Somehow the issue of hardware support isn't raised.
You know what? Use PC-BSD. AFIAK, it's basically the only BSD distribution, aside from Mac OSX, that's specifically targeting desktop use. Or maybe, since you only need a web browser and a couple of games, you should use whatever OS runs those games and stop worrying about it.
Debian kFreeBSD (Score:3)
...is a Debian userland on top of the BSD kernel. It lets you use all the tools you're used to while also getting all the FreeBSD kernel goodness, like in-kernel ZFS, etc.
It's still a work in progress and not all packages are built for it, but it works really well and is very pleasant to use; plus you get dpkg and apt.
Of course, one possible downside is that you don't get the BSD userland, which has a flavour all of its own. Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing is purely a matter of personal taste.
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OSX (Score:3, Insightful)
| which variety of BSD would you suggest?
OSX
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OSX is a Mach microkernel with bits of BSD bolted on. It's not a pure BSD. Neither is it a UNIX. And it'll run on x86/64 (I run it almost daily on my AMD E350).
There's also an open source variant called "Darwin".
You can do anything you want with FreeBSD (Score:5, Informative)
I've been using BSD for a long time, both in OpenBSD and FreeBSD. FreeBSD is fantastic. I use mostly just plain Xorg and i3 window manager. With emacs, LaTeX and conkeror I can accomplish all that I need to do, and do it efficiently. However you can put as many bells and whistles on your installation as you want. True, you could do that with linux but there are some very important advantages with using FreeBSD:
1/ ZFS file system. This alone is worth switching to FreeBSD. If you don't know what it is, learn how to use it. What is extremely useful is doing "zfs send" of snapshots to another machine. Need more storage? Just add a disk to the pool. ZFS is very much production grade in FreeBSD 10.1.
2/ Jails. These are better than VirtualBox in my humble opinion, but they do have a learning curve. The advantage is putting each jail on a zfs filesystem where you can do snapshots of different stages of your application deployment and if something doesn't work you can simply rollback. Yes, I know you can do this with VMWare and the rest but jails allow me to access the filesystem directly in the command line and in general it is much more intuitive for my work habits. Note that you can also install jails of different flavors - for instance a debian jail where you can run everything just like it is on linux.
VirtualBox works just fine on FreeBSD, but I'll admit I haven't used it much.
3/ General simplicity of the system. Linux is fastly becoming as non-unix like as possible [though to be fair GNU is Not Unix]. Just a simple install of Ubuntu and you will see tons of processes running that you sometimes wonder what they are all up to. This may provide some utility for some people, but most people will never use those features. In FreeBSD I know exactly what each process is doing and it is very easy to turn off or enable as I desire. FreeBSD provides me control because I know the system, and the system is easier to know because it is much simpler and in my opinion more coherently designed.
4/ Much better documentation. FreeBSD (and BSD in general) has a good reputation for providing documentation. Almost everything you need is in the handbook. Also there is a lot of stability in the way things are done. Often in Linux the entire manner of doing things is changed from one version to another. Plus there are no monstrosities like NetworkManager which are opaque and not very well documented.
5/ More secure - a system is only as secure in as much as you know how it is working and what it is doing. In this case FreeBSD is more secure because I know more of what it is doing. With Ubuntu giving web searches every time you try to find a file on your machine, there is just asking for trouble.
6/ The system is more responsive. FreeBSD simple feels more 'alive' in the sense it is doing only what you want it to do. You don't have to wait for that useless application to stop doing what it is doing because it is not there. You don't need to wait for the indexing of the harddrive to give you back control of the system, as you decide when it should be done, etc. But I think even the UI elements are much smoother even on large desktops like KDE. The scrolling of windows for instance seems much more responsive than it is on linux, but that could be due to all sorts of factors.
As to your particular needs:
A/ Minecraft works just fine. http://minecraft.gamepedia.com... [gamepedia.com]
B/ I have no idea, but an acquaintance tells me it works. In the forums they mention FreeBSD so someone must be using it.
C/ Mplayer works just fine, but I've seen a lot of people use VLC.
D/ Firefox works extremely well, though I use Conkeror which is simply a different shell to the same browser.
E/ Flash works with a multiple of different options.
F/ No idea to be honest about OpenRA. If there is source code I'm sure you could get it to run. At the very worst there is a linux-emulation layer.
G/ All the major Desktop Environments are in
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Dive Into FreeBSD (Score:2)
There's also a binary packing system (pkg) but packages seem to randomly go missing there. A couple of weeks ago it was Xorg, until yesterday no Firefox. BTW can anyone explain the dynamics behind that?
The best way to get in is head first, install it on the least fancy PC you have. I'd strong
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Yeah, I can explain that.
The current setup replaces the repo each time - and if a package fails to build, all the dependent packages can go away.
I've had chrome disappear from my freebsd-head install (which i manage with pkg from the test repositories, so as to dogfood our own stuff) and it's generally been because it's been marked as having a security problem and the port wasn't built.
Just went through this a few days ago (Score:3, Informative)
1. ZFS cross platform worked beautifully. I have a multi-disk "ZFS on Linux - created" pool. I had no problems importing the pool with FreeBSD. And, as I switched back after running the pool under FreeBSD for a few days, I encountered no issues re-importing the pool under ZFS on Linux.
2. I have many KVM/qemu VMs. I'd love to run bhyve, but many VMs are Windows. It's not too hard to convert the images to boot up under VirtualBox. VirtualBox under FreeBSD works very well. For managing multiple VMs across several servers, I prefer virt-manager
3. While copying large vm images, I realized BSD's cp command doesn't support sparse files. One is left to use rsync. There is the linux/compat cp command which does support sparse, however this cp command crashed on me while copying large files.
4. Minecraft -- It worked great under FreeBSD -- just be sure to follow the directions to point to the correct Java runtime in your Minecraft profile.
5. I installed serveral other programs I use frequently (some binary installs from pkg and some source compiles): Chromium, Thunderbird, Blender, KDE, Gimp, Kdenlive, LibreOffice, OpenJDK , NVidia driver using a 3-headed display, VLC, MPV, HandBrake, FFMpeg, and others. All these worked fine. For the most part, my FreeBSD desktop was indistinguishable from my Linux desktop.
6. I set up several NFS4 exported mount points. No issues mounting these from multiple Linux hosts.
7. Webcam tested no issues. I had to install webcamd and follow the instructions.
8. Audio tested and worked well out of the box.
9. VNC server and clients worked fine.
Overall, I'm -- once again -- very impressed. Setup was fast ( even ports package compiles were very fast ). I'm familiar with FreeBSD, so that helps with the install time. Newcomers should always expect to put in extra time (As mentioned, PCBSD can help get you into a graphical environment quickly, so less of a learning curve). What would I miss if I switched over 100%??? I would miss KVM/virt-manager, native cp support of sparse files, native mkvmerge, and I'd love to get a native Eclipse IDE Luna port., and an intel 7260 Wifi driver. To be fair, I still need to give it more time. I might try again this weekend and coming week, since I'll have some free time. If you enjoy tinkering and learning the details of configuring your OS, FreeBSD is great. For a quick, get-it-up-and-working, PCBSD works very well.
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(I really should write the damned 7260 driver. Ugh.)
I didn't realise our cp didn't support sparse files. Would you mind filing a FreeBSD bug about it? We use Bugzilla now, it's not AS bad as GNATS.
Thanks!
-a
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With regards to Eclipse, I've always found its windowing toolkit to be less than satisfactory, and prone to crashes. I don't know whether or not it is even an option for you, but NetBeans (latest version) runs much better on FreeBSD in my experience. Maybe give it a try. At the very least NetBeans is a lot more functional out of the box than Eclipse.
Now if only JavaFX 2+ would work on FreeBSD I would be a happy man.
PC-BSD (Score:3)
Also due to "a variety of reasons", I've also been looking at BSD on the desktop. Co-incidentally, I was just trying out the new PC-BSD release in a VirtualBox VM as this article appeared. It gave me a nice KDE desktop and so far looks pretty slick. The other stuff there like the package manager and control panel is enough to give Ubuntu a run for its money. I'll be interested in seeing how good it is in practice after a few weeks of real use.
Over the last year I've been slowly moving my software away from Linux. It's now mostly on FreeBSD or in the late stages of porting to BSD (adding BSD-specific features e.g. ZFS support, jail support). The desktop is really the only thing I still keep a Debian system around for. My last system will be a GNU/kFreeBSD jail instance on a FreeBSD server. I'll do a bare metal PC-BSD install in a few days and give it a try. If it works nicely, I think my last Debian unstable system will be removed in the near future. I was trying out (since 10.0) the newcons console and radeonkms stuff; mostly worked fine, and now with the new Xorg, no different than with Linux (maybe better, even, due to missing the worst parts of the freedesktoppy crap).
Linux in general, and Debian in particular, have been the major focus of my life over the last 14-16 years. It's been quite sad to let it go after the amount I've invested into it personally, but with systemd becoming unavoidable in unstable, it's no longer a system I wish to use or develop for, and developing went from being a joy to quite unpleasant. The enthusiasm I had was killed by several years of systemd flamewars and the last sparks were extinguished by bad interactions with a certain number of gnome and systemd people. It was clear over 18 months back this was an inevitable outcome unless something dramatically changed (which hasn't happened), and that my needs, goals and wishes were almost diametrically opposed to the new world order. systemd is the straw which broke the proverbial camel's back. Over the last few months I've had a few bug reports for my software. All due to systemd changing how the system works fairly fundamentally, and yet every upstream is supposed to work around this. This is code which is pretty much just using POSIX features directly out of APUE (Stevens). The lack of care for backward compatibility is unbelievable for such a fundamental part of the system, and altering the behaviour of basic POSIX features even moreso.
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Trash me please (Score:2)
Can someone please fork Debian already? (Score:4, Informative)
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Damn straight.
Ian Jackson, if you choose to accept the mission ...
Someone has forked Debian already (Score:3)
I just encountered a link about refracta. It turns out to be absurdly easy to fork Debian, at least for now.
Refracta is rather close to Debian testing. Its home page
is http://www.ibiblio.org/refract... [ibiblio.org]
At http://forums.debian.net/viewt... [debian.net] it is described as
(for testing, without libsystemd0, it's pinned).
It even uses the Debian repositories!
Are there any other forks?
-- hendrik
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It is there (Score:2)
The answer to all your questions is "it is there". For any future questions of the same kind, go to http://www.freshports.org/ [freshports.org] and search for the package that you want.
Flash (Score:2)
Positives: YouTube works better in HTML5. Flash-based ads do not appear in uTorrent.
Negatives: There was some news site where the video wouldn't play, but it's a 50/50 chance whether that was due to Flash or Noscript. In any case, I'm used to those not working, a
What not to use (Score:2)
While I think that most of the posts to use FreeBSD or PC-BSD are spot on, I think I should cover what you shouldn't use in the BSD world due to your requirements.
My own os, MidnightBSD, does not have virtualbox. The nvidia binary drivers work from FreeBSD on it, but that won't be the case forever.
MirBSD wouldn't support at lot of the software you mentioned and doesn't have recent java support for minecraft.
OpenBSD might work, but you would have to check on a few packages.
NetBSD is probably your next best
Most painless way - two networked computers (Score:2)
There's plenty of stuff where there are linux binaries available but nothing for BSD - however so long as they are 32 bit there's an emulation layer that's pretty solid, even for flaky Adobe stuff or antivirus scanners written to be run on linux. I should g
Make sure you use nVidia gfx if you want 3D (Score:2)
With FreeBSD you've got to be a little bit more picky about the hardware. I can highly recommend using an nVidia video card. This will allow you to get full OpenGL acceleration (for Minecraft) and h264/vc1 acceleration in mplayer with libvdpau (makes sure to build the port manually, as that option is not selected by default). Flash is a little more finicky, as it uses the Linux emulation layer. Fortunately the internet is moving to html5 video which is well supported by Firefox/Chrome on FreeBSD. So youtube
I used to use FreeBSD and later PCBSD (Score:2)
Twelve years ago I grew tired of trying to make Linux work on a Desktop. I noticed that when I wanted to have some work done I ended up using Slackware. Slackware uses the BSD init type, instead of SVR4 most of Linux systems were using at that time (and that is now being replaced with an upstart or systemd). I also noticed FreeBSD discussion forums that had simple instructions *that worked* for configuring things like switching keyboard layouts in Xwindow.
So I have tried FreeBSD 4.something. It worked great
Re:Easiest way... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only problem with that is that Macs probably represent all of the anti-Unix nonsense he's trying to get away from by fleeing to one of the pure BSDs.
I also can't imagine a Gentoo user being satisfied with Mac hardware. Gentoo is kind of the polar opposite of the Apple mentality. The end user has limited control and is presented with limited questionable choices.
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OS X is Unix [opengroup.org]. FreeBSD, Linux and every other crappy "work-alike" you idiots are talking about, by contrast, aren't.
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OSX is XNU which is not UNIX.
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OSX is XNU which is not UNIX.
Does he really need to spell it out for you? He isn't saying that OS X is literally the UNIX developed by AT&T Bell labs but that OS X conforms to the Single UNIX Specification and meets the certification requirements of the Open Group which is the industry standards consortium that manages and publishes the UNIX specification.
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Unix is a trademark brand and certification. OSX is indeed a Unix(tm)
Re:Easiest way... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe if you only want clicky clicky ways of changing things. Otherwise there is still a full terminal and BASH installed, and you can update many many system settings through the CLI. I am using a terminal right now as a matter of fact.
Then there is the questionable applescript / automator scripts you can make. I say questionable because I don't know if they can change any deep system things, but automator at least can do some pretty neat tricks... I don't know if Linux has something comparable, other than shell scripts which I can still run in OS/X.
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The only problem with that is that Macs probably represent all of the anti-Unix nonsense he's trying to get away from by fleeing to one of the pure BSDs.
But fleeing from Linux to BSD doesn't solve the problem, that's just running away from it. If the major BSD distros decided to incorporate a systemd-like system then what?
Fork Linus? (Score:2)
But fleeing from Linux to BSD doesn't solve the problem, that's just running away from it. If the major BSD distros decided to incorporate a systemd-like system then what?
Then it will be time to fork Linus...
J/K
However, maybe someone should give the Linux POSIX APIs some loving - and implement a new improved non-systemd distro, and add good support for features/apps that were lost in the 'Great Systemd Landrush of 2014' (basically fork projects that decide only to support systemd - if they are something we gotta have on BSD and Linux).
The one thing I think we can depend upon is the Linux Kernel itself...everything else is questionable given limited resources; if you ca
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Maybe just maybe people just want a unix like OS and not care about learning commands.
Mac is great and Windows 7 is now a somewhat decent desktop OS which is quite shocking. I run www.turnkeylinux.com in VMware Workstation for web development. Do not have time to set stuff up and do not care. It is an appliance and just works.
My advice is to use a real desktop OS and keep the server stuff in vms. Virtualbox is free. Even if you are a Windows only dude these virtualizers can simulate a whole network with a d
Re:Easiest way... (Score:5, Informative)
a focus on usability and mass appeal over flexibility and choice.
Let's parse that, because there's a lot packed in that small fragment.
focus on usability, so your complaint is that a vendor is spending a lot of time and effort making the software easy to use? Huh?
mass appeal, it's somehow a negative if the best option available is something everyone likes? Or turned around, it can only be a good option if a lot of people hate it? Huh?
over flexibility and choice, in what? In software? On a Mac you can open up a terminal window and ./configure;make;make install pretty much any open source software I've ever seen. I think you'll be hard pressed to find any software that runs on FreeBSD that does not run on a Mac. Exactly how is a Mac limiting your choice of software? Perhaps you mean they only allow specific things in their App store? That's kind of like complaining that Ford limits your choice of tires by only selling Firestone in the service department. Maybe you mean in hardware? Except you can run any operating system you like on it. Plenty of people have installed Windows or even FreeBSD onto Apple hardware, it works just fine. You can throw out all of OS X if you want and still use the hardware. Now true, you can't do the opposite and run OS X on hardware of your choosing, so I'll give you that is a small limitation. But in the end what difference does that make.
You were drawn to linux to play. We've all gone through a phase where we tested 10 different window managers just to see what each could do. Linux, FreeBSD make that easy. It's fun. Other than a couple of guys at RedHat, I can't think of anyone who gets paid to do that though. Your job description probably doesn't include testing every software alternative in Linux.
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Agreed with most of what you say. There IS one area where Mac loses in flexibility, it's system programming. If you ever have to do anything with hardware or drivers etc, working on OS X is often like trying to run a marathon in a thick jungle.
I.e. yes you have all the freedom with your software in userspace, but touch any foundation layers and you are at mercy of apple.
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Indeed, I'm very much against the idea of owning a mac.
It actually kind of represents the extreme form of what is driving me away from Linux, a focus on usability and mass appeal over flexibility and choice.
Not much of a Linux expert, but enjoy playing with Slackware from time to time. It hasn't changed too much from an "usability" perspective and puts you in the drivers seat.
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OS X is no more heavily controlled than any Linux in the sense of putting what software you like on it. The only downside to it is that you have to buy your hardware from Apple.
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No. Apple is lame and restrictive.
If he uses a real BSD, he can install it on any hardware he likes.
If he uses "marketing-bullet-point-BSD", he can only install it on a small number of overpriced machines in strange novelty form factors.
HELL, he could try the real BSD of his choice in a VM right now without disturbing his Gentoo install and without spending any extra money.
If only trying "marketing-bullet-point-BSD" were so cheap and easy.
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Easiest way... if you have money to burn (Score:2)
Macs arn't exactly known for their low prices and frankly, while the OS, internal hardware and screens might be fantastic, the keyboards and mice are bloody appalling - a triumph of style over usability and then some. So you can add on the price of a proper keyboard and 3 button mouse (if you want full X app functionality) on top of the Mac itself if you're buying a desktop.
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You could get a new quad core i7 for two thirds that price.
And then install OSX [lifehacker.com] on it.
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wrong answer
1. has launchd which is systemd-ish and can be pain for custom daemons (plists for non-apple things don't always work)
2. has many, MANY extra processes running, for added bloat one doesn't need or want
3. can't even change system font size or face, very UNCUSTOMIZEABLE UI. Don't they even consider the sight-impaired?
Re:systemd (Score:5, Interesting)
It has been a fairly long slide.
I feel like at some point mass adoption became the big goal, and a lot of the things that really drew my to Linux in the first place have eroded away.
I always loved the variety of choices for just about everything and the general "if you don't like it, change it or make your own" mindset. The new thinking seems to be centered around agreeing on standards and rallying around a subset of options in order to make a more presentable solution to present to the masses. This is probably great for humanity and all, and even if we just end up with an open source version of Windows it's probably a good thing, but it's not what made me love Linux.
Systemd is just another step down that road.
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I always loved the variety of choices for just about everything and the general "if you don't like it, change it or make your own" mindset.
That still exists.
The new thinking seems to be centered around agreeing on standards and rallying around a subset of options in order to make a more presentable solution to present to the masses.
That's not to do with Linux though, and going to something like BSD isn't going to help. Many programs are ported between Linux and BSD so would it not be easier to port those programs to a non-systemd Linux system rather than to BSD? What happens when the major BSDs implement a systemd-like interface to be compatible with Linux systems?
Leveraging the free/open nature of the system to maintain choice is what is needed here, not running away from the problem to somewhere that will ultimatel
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I don't have any interest in gnome, however it is the best illustration of the problem.
Systemd is becoming a web of inter-dependent bits for which more and more stuff will depend on. Even at this early point in its adoption, running a non-systemd system, even when it isn't the default, involves way more effort than it should and excludes you from a list of packages that it shouldn't.
As systemd takes over more and more system functions, this is going to become more pronounced, until systemd and all it's non-
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But the only way for Linux to get out of its rut (and yes, unless you think it should stay as a 1% niche to only be accessibly by geeks and techheads it really is still stuck in a rut) it needs at least SOME standardization in important areas like a broken init system.
systemd will not magically make major vendors pre-install Linux on inexpensive PCs and laptops. Until that happens, we're stuck at 1%.
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Oh, come on, it's not just that. It's also PulseAudio, also from Poettering, and udev, from RedHat's Kay Sievers, and how glibc emphasizes performance over security, from (formerly) RedHat's Ulrich Drepper, and possibly some of the silliness around RedHat-funded KVM, and the NIH silliness around ZFS vs (Oracle) btrfs, and dtrace vs strace/ftrace/whatever, and the performance of NetFilter and its proposed replacement nftables vs BSD's pf...
systemd might be the straw that breaks the camel's back, but there a
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Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
mod parent up.
Wind back four years for acceptable desktop linux (Score:3)
Wow, add that to systemd and pulseaudio and it's almost looking like he's on the MS payroll to break stuff in linux. However, the reality is likely to be that he has a vision to change linux into something different to what it is now which of course is not going to be painless and seamless - hence the annoyance with pulseaudio during the first few years of development and the annoyance with NetworkManager until relatively recently. NetworkManager may have pissed me off
Is reading so difficult? (Score:2)
Why can't people read beyond the first sentence before writing a two paragraph reply?
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you're a bit out of date, Filevault 2 (introduced with Lion) encrypts the entire drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
David
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There is no support for Flash...
There is no need for Flash anymore.
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yes there is, plenty of admin web gui demand it, plenty of banks and other financial web gui demand it (retirement accounts)
flash might need to die but it'll writhe and groan for a few more years
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I would like to know what kind of administration you are doing through a 'flash web gui'? Isn't command line sufficient for admin work? Or am I missing the point in some (not so) subtle way?
Interestingly enough, as I wrote the above, the flash player in Chrome decided to die...heh.
Re: OpenBSD (Score:2)
I needed Flash to file my tax return last night. The bigger problem was viewing the calculated result, that needed Acrobat (all other PDF viewers show the content "this PDF musy be viewed in Adobe Reader 9 or later"), which you can't download anymore and my other laptop that should have a copy is out of action. That's when you need virtualisation of some kind ... (kvm/virt-manager in my case).
Re:OpenBSD (Score:5, Insightful)
So is there a point to using OpenBSD if you install flash? I'm not trolling, I'm curious and open to the fact that there is almost certainly something I haven't considered, but running OpenBSD and then installing flash feels like spending a million bucks on a safe, and then writing the combination code to open it on a sticky note attached to the backside of a painting hung on the wall next to the safe's door.
Remind me to ... (Score:2)
Remind me to change where I hide the passwor.... ummmm I mean redecorate my office.
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So is there a point to using OpenBSD if you install flash?
Is there a point to using any operating system, or any software at all, that lacks features you need? Flash is still sadly a major component of the web. Certainly not as major, and its importance is definitely fading, but it is still essential for using many sites at full-feature. less than 5 years ago flash-driven uploaders were all the rage. A lot of video sites have not transitioned to HTML5 video. Many games still require flash, and this "wor
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I'm honestly very interested in openBSD and it is obviously better to have fewer rather than more vulnerabilities. How would a person figure out which parts of openBSD go through the auditing they're famous for? I wouldn't want to be one of those people who installs openBSD and then believes myself invulnerable because of that fact alone -- that is just smug ignorance. So for example, the openBSD website advertises "Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!" How much worse
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also, Flash in non-default browser only (Score:2)
Also, you may find that you need Flash a few times per year. Most Flash is ads, splash pages, and other stuff that's not useful to me. What I do is install Flash in a browser that I rarely use. My daily surfing isn't exposed to Flash vulnerabilties, but those few times per year I want to use Flash I just open the Flash-enabled browser.
Security, but also YouTube (Score:2)
Yeah, there are some websites you might want to go to that still need Flash or some equally ugly support to get video to work. Right now I've been trying to get SliTaz Linux to let me watch YouTube as well as finding the right operating system and VMware settings to make the display resizeable, but I'm also trying out DragonFly BSD (still at the "installing Xorg" stage.)
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For me, the biggest issue is that most videos still require Flash.
Google is the biggest hypocrite here. One part of the company paid a lot of money to promote patent-free video on the Internet, but the YouTube team won't use it for music videos and prefers to use Flash even when HTML5 <video> is available. The Chrome team not only backpedaled on removing patent-encumbered <video>, but also partnered with Microsoft and Netflix to bring DRM into the HTML5 standard.
My practice is to use Google Chro
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Re:Gentoo is the BSD of the Linux World (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi, adrian@freebsd.org here. If you've had issues with suspend/resume and poor battery life then please drop us/me a line. That's something a group of us are slowly fixing.
-adrian
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