6 ms·

Anyone here use FreeBSD on the desktop? If so, what window manager and login manager do you use? Does Zoom work? I tried using Freebase a year or two ago and fo

Anyone here use FreeBSD on the desktop? If so, what window manager and login manager do you use? Does Zoom work? I tried using Freebase a year or two ago and found it a bit painful, so I switched back to Fedora...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
o33 6y ago
I'm using FreeBSD on my laptop with i3 wm and no login manager. Zoom's sound doesn't work.
- gautamcgoel 6y ago
  Do you use startx to fire up i3?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    I do. Pretty normal/simple, IIRC
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  Some questions... 1) I use Zoom on Linux, and usually there's no sound until I go to the Zoom sound settings, press the "test sound" button, and then Output sound gets enabled. I have to do it for every meeting. Have you tried that? 2) Are you using Pulseaudio?
  - jryb 6y ago
    With xubuntu 18.04 and 20.04 I’ve always had sound right away in zoom. So there’s definitely some way to avoid that bug on linux.
cperciva 6y ago
I'm using KDE and sddm. Last I heard, Zoom works for video but not sound.
adrian_b 6y ago
I normally use FreeBSD on servers, so I have little experience with desktops. Nevertheless, a couple of years ago I have used FreeBSD also as a desktop for some time. I have used XFCE, installed by compiling from sources, from FreeBSD ports, because that is what I use on Linux and I did not notice any problems. The desktop experience depends a lot on what hardware you have, because of possible compatibility issues. With an AMD Radeon GPU, I had some problems, I do not remember which. On the other hand, after installing an NVIDIA card and the NVIDIA FreeBSD driver, all worked perfectly. My camera was a Logitech, I think a C920, and that worked OK, both video and audio on FreeBSD.
ctas 6y ago
I'm also using FreeBSD 12.2 Stable with KDE and SDDM. The initial setup is pretty straightforward, but I agree that every now and then I it can get really annoying. Today I tried to install VirtualBox 6 and realised that it installed v5, even though v6 is already more than a year old. Even the ports included v5.
nix23 6y ago
FreeBSD and i3...and i don't touch Zoom, but my D810 works very well as a webcam ;)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
drewg123 6y ago
My desktop is a Threadripper 2990WX running FreeBSD-current with Nvidia graphics. Its pretty usable as a desktop. I recently switched from KDE/Plasma5 to LXDE, mostly to avoid rolling-release related churn. Eg, I don't want my UI to change everytime I update firefox. I tried and failed to use it for Google Meet quite a while ago. The problem I had was something to do with the AMD USB chipset. I need to try it again. What doesn't work natively is anything with DRM. There are workarounds, like running Linux chrome in a linux jail (think WSL), or running spotifyd for Spotify.
- MacsHeadroom 6y ago
  How much trouble is getting Nvidia to work on a BSD? I'm considering switching but I have a similarly high-end set up and it would be a shame to let that hardware go to waste.
  - magic_quotes 6y ago
    Nvidia is completely boring and predictable.
    - bromonkey 6y ago
      Which is exactly what you want for a reliable compute box.
  - adrian_b 6y ago
    NVIDIA provides drivers for FreeBSD, like they do for Linux. The NVIDIA drivers work fine for graphics applications. Nevertheless NVIDIA CUDA is available only for Linux, so NVIDIA GPU compute applications do not work directly, but maybe only using the Linux compatibility layer (I have not tried that).
  - drewg123 6y ago
    Its far less work than AMD or Intel drivers which depend on a massive Linux KPI shim layer. The nvidia drivers are a binary blob surrounded by a FreeBSD src-based shim layer. If you're running a -release branch, you just install the nvida driver pkg and you're done. If you run -current like I do (with no KBI guarantees) you re-build the nvidia port every time you update your OS. All in all, the nvidia drivers "just work" and are very boring. I'll pay a premium for boring.
dddddaviddddd 6y ago
I also use FreeBSD with i3. However, I dual-boot to Windows to use Zoom. Here's my write-up about videoconferencing options on FreeBSD: https://www.davidschlachter.com/misc/freebsd-videoconferencing https://www.davidschlachter.com/misc/freebsd-videoconferenci... You can use Zoom in a browser and it works OK.
macksd 6y ago
There used to be PC-BSD and DesktopBSD that were out-of-the-box desktop distributions of FreeBSD. I used them on my laptop through college and loved them - I feel like the end of those projects has left a bit of a hole in the community.
- macksd 6y ago
  I am mistaken: 2 or 3 of the projects named here have recent updates and they look good. I might have to play with these this week: https://www.truenas.com/trueos-discontinuation/ https://www.truenas.com/trueos-discontinuation/
vermaden 6y ago
Yep, even documented it: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/ https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

o33 6y ago

I'm using FreeBSD on my laptop with i3 wm and no login manager. Zoom's sound doesn't work.

gautamcgoel 6y ago
Do you use startx to fire up i3?
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  I do. Pretty normal/simple, IIRC
29athrowaway 6y ago
Some questions... 1) I use Zoom on Linux, and usually there's no sound until I go to the Zoom sound settings, press the "test sound" button, and then Output sound gets enabled. I have to do it for every meeting. Have you tried that? 2) Are you using Pulseaudio?
- jryb 6y ago
  With xubuntu 18.04 and 20.04 I’ve always had sound right away in zoom. So there’s definitely some way to avoid that bug on linux.

cperciva 6y ago

I'm using KDE and sddm. Last I heard, Zoom works for video but not sound.

adrian_b 6y ago

I normally use FreeBSD on servers, so I have little experience with desktops. Nevertheless, a couple of years ago I have used FreeBSD also as a desktop for some time. I have used XFCE, installed by compiling from sources, from FreeBSD ports, because that is what I use on Linux and I did not notice any problems. The desktop experience depends a lot on what hardware you have, because of possible compatibility issues. With an AMD Radeon GPU, I had some problems, I do not remember which. On the other hand, after installing an NVIDIA card and the NVIDIA FreeBSD driver, all worked perfectly. My camera was a Logitech, I think a C920, and that worked OK, both video and audio on FreeBSD.

ctas 6y ago

I'm also using FreeBSD 12.2 Stable with KDE and SDDM. The initial setup is pretty straightforward, but I agree that every now and then I it can get really annoying. Today I tried to install VirtualBox 6 and realised that it installed v5, even though v6 is already more than a year old. Even the ports included v5.

nix23 6y ago

FreeBSD and i3...and i don't touch Zoom, but my D810 works very well as a webcam ;)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

drewg123 6y ago

My desktop is a Threadripper 2990WX running FreeBSD-current with Nvidia graphics. Its pretty usable as a desktop. I recently switched from KDE/Plasma5 to LXDE, mostly to avoid rolling-release related churn. Eg, I don't want my UI to change everytime I update firefox. I tried and failed to use it for Google Meet quite a while ago. The problem I had was something to do with the AMD USB chipset. I need to try it again. What doesn't work natively is anything with DRM. There are workarounds, like running Linux chrome in a linux jail (think WSL), or running spotifyd for Spotify.

MacsHeadroom 6y ago
How much trouble is getting Nvidia to work on a BSD? I'm considering switching but I have a similarly high-end set up and it would be a shame to let that hardware go to waste.
- magic_quotes 6y ago
  Nvidia is completely boring and predictable.
  - bromonkey 6y ago
    Which is exactly what you want for a reliable compute box.
- adrian_b 6y ago
  NVIDIA provides drivers for FreeBSD, like they do for Linux. The NVIDIA drivers work fine for graphics applications. Nevertheless NVIDIA CUDA is available only for Linux, so NVIDIA GPU compute applications do not work directly, but maybe only using the Linux compatibility layer (I have not tried that).
- drewg123 6y ago
  Its far less work than AMD or Intel drivers which depend on a massive Linux KPI shim layer. The nvidia drivers are a binary blob surrounded by a FreeBSD src-based shim layer. If you're running a -release branch, you just install the nvida driver pkg and you're done. If you run -current like I do (with no KBI guarantees) you re-build the nvidia port every time you update your OS. All in all, the nvidia drivers "just work" and are very boring. I'll pay a premium for boring.

dddddaviddddd 6y ago

I also use FreeBSD with i3. However, I dual-boot to Windows to use Zoom. Here's my write-up about videoconferencing options on FreeBSD: https://www.davidschlachter.com/misc/freebsd-videoconferencing https://www.davidschlachter.com/misc/freebsd-videoconferenci... You can use Zoom in a browser and it works OK.

macksd 6y ago

There used to be PC-BSD and DesktopBSD that were out-of-the-box desktop distributions of FreeBSD. I used them on my laptop through college and loved them - I feel like the end of those projects has left a bit of a hole in the community.

macksd 6y ago
I am mistaken: 2 or 3 of the projects named here have recent updates and they look good. I might have to play with these this week: https://www.truenas.com/trueos-discontinuation/ https://www.truenas.com/trueos-discontinuation/

vermaden 6y ago

Yep, even documented it: https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/ https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/