3 ms·

From about 2005 to 2012 i ran everything on FreeBSD, laptop, desktop and every server I had at two companies. Eventually I moved where I did not have CTO autho

From about 2005 to 2012 i ran everything on FreeBSD, laptop, desktop and every server I had at two companies. Eventually I moved where I did not have CTO authority (Beggars and choosers) and by 2015 I realised that I was spending more time configuring drivers and trying to get the display manger just right than actually delivering value. What I really wanted about 2010 was a company that sold a laptop pre installed with FreeBSD that just worked - kept the drivers and everything else Shipshape and Bristol fashion . I thought then I would happily pay a annual fee for it - I guess Tim Cook has that fee now.

dijit 6y ago
If we're sharing anecdotes: I was forced into using Windows for 1yr when I started at Ubisoft. (Visual Studio, MS office, Skype!! grumble). Eventually I got tired of doing all of my infrastructure development in a VM, so I wiped out my desktop OS and stuck FreeBSD on it (I was also on a tirade against systemd at the time). -- I was given a crappy PC to run windows/skype/office on. Overall, aside from how absolutely horrendously slow the browser was (and, it's even slower on OpenBSD which is what I stuck on my laptop)- it was significantly less 'breaky' than my windows machine was. Windows had crapped out a whole bunch of times; randomly stopping devices from working and needing a reboot to fix, the VM software(s) had completely wrecked the networking stack in the OS- it was really painful. But FreeBSD (once set up) made that desktop the most solid it had ever been.
- eatonphil 6y ago
  I ran FreeBSD on all my personal laptops from 2015-2018 and I didn't notice any difference in speeds on Chromium between personal and work laptops. All my personal laptops are Windows now (partially for some low-key gaming and partially ease of use). I thought I'd like using Hyper-V but it's a pain in the ass to configure static ips. So I do all my development in a Fedora VM on Linode... In writing this up I realize there's not really great reason to be using Windows after all. More and more important software is available in the browser (i.e. Figma finally made Sketch/macOS less of an issue, Google Docs is Google Docs). Maybe I'll switch back to FreeBSD.
  - dijit 6y ago
    I was using Firefox at the time, but it was noticeably slower than on linux or windows. > In writing this up I realize there's not really great reason to be using Windows after all. More and more important software is available in the browser (i.e. Figma finally made Sketch/macOS less of an issue, Google Docs is Google Docs). I'm also surprised by how "agnostic" you can be these days due to the ubiquity of web-apps. A chromebook is a legitimately usable thing for the majority of people it feels like.
- comex 6y ago
  D see t fcrxfx r
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  I think my question is - did Apple hoover up all the commercial demand for a managed FreeBSD desktop - or is the structural difference between BSD license and GPL what makes all the difference ? Reword it as - is Stallman right? Or Can I launch a FreeBSD laptop company and expect enough buyers?
hobby-coder-guy 6y ago
Bristol?

dijit 6y ago

If we're sharing anecdotes: I was forced into using Windows for 1yr when I started at Ubisoft. (Visual Studio, MS office, Skype!! grumble). Eventually I got tired of doing all of my infrastructure development in a VM, so I wiped out my desktop OS and stuck FreeBSD on it (I was also on a tirade against systemd at the time). -- I was given a crappy PC to run windows/skype/office on. Overall, aside from how absolutely horrendously slow the browser was (and, it's even slower on OpenBSD which is what I stuck on my laptop)- it was significantly less 'breaky' than my windows machine was. Windows had crapped out a whole bunch of times; randomly stopping devices from working and needing a reboot to fix, the VM software(s) had completely wrecked the networking stack in the OS- it was really painful. But FreeBSD (once set up) made that desktop the most solid it had ever been.

eatonphil 6y ago
I ran FreeBSD on all my personal laptops from 2015-2018 and I didn't notice any difference in speeds on Chromium between personal and work laptops. All my personal laptops are Windows now (partially for some low-key gaming and partially ease of use). I thought I'd like using Hyper-V but it's a pain in the ass to configure static ips. So I do all my development in a Fedora VM on Linode... In writing this up I realize there's not really great reason to be using Windows after all. More and more important software is available in the browser (i.e. Figma finally made Sketch/macOS less of an issue, Google Docs is Google Docs). Maybe I'll switch back to FreeBSD.
- dijit 6y ago
  I was using Firefox at the time, but it was noticeably slower than on linux or windows. > In writing this up I realize there's not really great reason to be using Windows after all. More and more important software is available in the browser (i.e. Figma finally made Sketch/macOS less of an issue, Google Docs is Google Docs). I'm also surprised by how "agnostic" you can be these days due to the ubiquity of web-apps. A chromebook is a legitimately usable thing for the majority of people it feels like.
comex 6y ago
D see t fcrxfx r
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I think my question is - did Apple hoover up all the commercial demand for a managed FreeBSD desktop - or is the structural difference between BSD license and GPL what makes all the difference ? Reword it as - is Stallman right? Or Can I launch a FreeBSD laptop company and expect enough buyers?

hobby-coder-guy 6y ago

Bristol?