3 ms·

I recently switched my dev machine (laptop) from Ubuntu to FreeBSD because I wanted the experience. I wrote a post about it[0]. Basically, wifi and graphics wer

I recently switched my dev machine (laptop) from Ubuntu to FreeBSD because I wanted the experience. I wrote a post about it[0]. Basically, wifi and graphics were a PITA and I brute forced my way into getting them working. After getting past those two though, everything else just worked. The simplicity of the system compared to Debian/Ubuntu is just astounding. I haven't yet gotten into jails or bhyve, but those are the next two things I'm very excited to work toward. [0] http://blog.eatonphil.com/2015-11-18/two-weeks-of-freebsd---current-impressions http://blog.eatonphil.com/2015-11-18/two-weeks-of-freebsd---...

corv 11y ago
I've found that OpenBSD has incredibly complete support for many laptops, going so far as to support Thinkpads with touchscreens and digitizer pens out of the box. Overall I find FreeBSD's desktop to be more usable, even though OpenBSD has more streamlined configuration in some parts of the system.
- eatonphil 11y ago
  I agree! For instance, my wifi card (Centrino 2230) is not supported on FreeBSD 10.2-STABLE but it has been available on OpenBSD for a little while. It is now supported in HEAD but won't be in STABLE until 11.0 next year. I decided to go with FreeBSD because, from what I read, it seemed like it and 3rd-part packages are kept more up-to-date. As a server-side and front-end developer, this is somewhat more immediately important than "complete security". Edit: Additionally, jails and bhyve are a big motivator to pick FreeBSD over OpenBSD, personally.
  - floatboth 11y ago
    Don't be afraid to run -CURRENT on a laptop! Or even the graphics team's testing branch, which already has Haswell accelerated graphics support: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-base-graphics/tree/drm-i915-update-38 https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-base-graphics/tree/drm-i9... About 3rd party packages: FreeBSD ports are always current, binary packages are available as quarterly and current. With OpenBSD, it's all frozen on release, and you basically have to run -CURRENT to get recent packages. The OpenBSD team is working on a hypervisor too: http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20151101223132 http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20151101223132 ZFS + jails + DTrace though… :-)
    - eatonphil 11y ago
      Man, I definitely am scared to! I haven't quite figured out the environment though. It was such a relief just to get graphics working in the first place. I don't I have the time to put up with volatile nightly builds. But as I said, I have no clue how volatile CURRENT is. But with your suggestion, I'll have to read. I thought I heard something about OpenBSD wanting a native bhyve replacement. But vmm sounds awesome! Thanks for pointing that out!

corv 11y ago

I've found that OpenBSD has incredibly complete support for many laptops, going so far as to support Thinkpads with touchscreens and digitizer pens out of the box. Overall I find FreeBSD's desktop to be more usable, even though OpenBSD has more streamlined configuration in some parts of the system.

eatonphil 11y ago
I agree! For instance, my wifi card (Centrino 2230) is not supported on FreeBSD 10.2-STABLE but it has been available on OpenBSD for a little while. It is now supported in HEAD but won't be in STABLE until 11.0 next year. I decided to go with FreeBSD because, from what I read, it seemed like it and 3rd-part packages are kept more up-to-date. As a server-side and front-end developer, this is somewhat more immediately important than "complete security". Edit: Additionally, jails and bhyve are a big motivator to pick FreeBSD over OpenBSD, personally.
- floatboth 11y ago
  Don't be afraid to run -CURRENT on a laptop! Or even the graphics team's testing branch, which already has Haswell accelerated graphics support: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-base-graphics/tree/drm-i915-update-38 https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-base-graphics/tree/drm-i9... About 3rd party packages: FreeBSD ports are always current, binary packages are available as quarterly and current. With OpenBSD, it's all frozen on release, and you basically have to run -CURRENT to get recent packages. The OpenBSD team is working on a hypervisor too: http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20151101223132 http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20151101223132 ZFS + jails + DTrace though… :-)
  - eatonphil 11y ago
    Man, I definitely am scared to! I haven't quite figured out the environment though. It was such a relief just to get graphics working in the first place. I don't I have the time to put up with volatile nightly builds. But as I said, I have no clue how volatile CURRENT is. But with your suggestion, I'll have to read. I thought I heard something about OpenBSD wanting a native bhyve replacement. But vmm sounds awesome! Thanks for pointing that out!