5 ms·

I can't think of any reason why would one use BSD on desktop or anywhere really. BSD flavours were popular 10-20 years ago for licensing reasons. Think like Ju

by betaby 4y ago

I can't think of any reason why would one use BSD on desktop or anywhere really. BSD flavours were popular 10-20 years ago for licensing reasons. Think like Junos 9 (FreeBSD), FTOS (NetBSD). Now the world largely moved to Linux.

remexre 4y ago
I run FreeBSD for networking purposes -- I still find PF much more comprehensible and reviewable than nftables.
- betaby 4y ago
  Well yes. Also PF offers way less functionality than nftables + tc. So no surprise it's easier to use/understand.
  - anecdotal1 4y ago
    I'll take dummynet over tc any day
jim-jim-jim 4y ago
OpenBSD is the most hassle free personal computing experience I can think of. My (now outdated, maybe) experiences with Linux involved: 1. Installing a user-friendly distro and scraping layer after layer of cruft off it until it finally performed acceptably. 2. Installing a cool minimalist distro and spending hours pasting commands from a wiki to build a brittle rice rocket OS that would explode if I sneezed at it. I was shocked by how little configuration OpenBSD required in comparison. I always assumed it was some Gentoo tier wank given its elitist reputation. All the defaults were sensible. I just installed my favorite packages and went about life. The same isn't true for FreeBSD of course.
- __turbobrew__ 4y ago
  I could never figure out high dpi in openbsd and eventually gave up. For headless installs openbsd works great for me.
  - LeFantome 4y ago
    Headless desktops?
    - shmde 4y ago
      Desktops without screens and monitors. /s
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  That brittleness aspect of minimal Linux setups is one of the reasons why when using Linux I just go with a full fat DE. It’s distracting and unproductive when it feels like your desktop setup is built upon glass stilts as a result of being so duct-taped together.
  - alyandon 4y ago
    Yeah - generally speaking these days if I'm setting up a "desktop" running Linux it 99% likely going to be Kubuntu (with snapd purged and Firefox installed from the Mozilla Team PPA).
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  > OpenBSD is the most hassle free personal computing experience I can think of if this statement were true, wouldn’t less people use Mac OS X and instead use OpenBSD? Mac OS X is hassle free you buy the laptop, you open it, it works
  - GianFabien 4y ago
    Apple Macs only work as soon as you unbox them because Apple controls both the hardware and software. If you go an buy some random laptop, then installing Linux or Free/Net/Open-BSD yields unpredictable results. The only reason that Linux works in more cases than the BSDs is due to the far greater number of device drivers. Here's an idea for the AI experts, give a Linux device driver to your AI and ask it to produce a compatible, bug free BSD driver.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Unfortunely not even pre-installed GNU/Linux is headache free, e.g. my experience with Asus 1215B.
      - doubled112 4y ago
        Not even Windows is headache free. I have an Asus where the NVMe causes a BSOD every third startup or so. Passes all the hardware diag I’ve done. No crashes for years using various Linux distros. I lucked out this time. They (my wife and I bought two) were purchased in a panic when we had covid because we realized we did not have enough computers for the kids to do online school.
    - musicale 4y ago
      > Apple Macs only work as soon as you unbox them because Apple controls both the hardware and software Yeah, there's something to be said for hardware-software co-design. I think Alan Kay said something like "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."
lockhouse 4y ago
Linux is often the best tool for the job, but the BSDs have their place. FreeBSD is a very good server OS. It supports ZFS and Dtrace right out of the box. Also it supports both binary packages via pkg and source based packages via the ports system. It also feels lighter on resources than typical Linux distros which is nice for older systems. OpenBSD is an excellent router OS thanks to PF. It is more powerful than Linux for this purpose. Also the security track record for the default install is pretty much unrivaled. NetBSD runs on a lot of obscure hardware that Linux doesn't support. It is the best tool for the job for reviving old otherwise unusable hardware. pkgsrc is also a very cool package management system that is not only supported on every architecture that NetBSD supports, but several other operating systems like Linux, macOS, and Solaris/OpenSolaris/Illumos/etc.
- Affric 4y ago
  My all time Theo (OpenBSD maintainer) interaction, in response to why OpenBSD wasn't affected by TLBleed: >We didn't chase the fad of using every Intel cpu feature.[1] The dedication to security is unparalleled. [1]https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=152600018515730&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=152600018515730&w=2
- pjmlp 4y ago
  UNIX is a good headless server OS, that is about it.
  - happymellon 4y ago
    Pretty sure Mac users would disagree.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Only those that buy macs instead of paying GNU/Linux OEMs, and then complain macOS isn't Linux. "Why We Have to Make UNIX Invisible." https://www.usenix.org/blog/vault-steve-jobs-keynotes-1987-usenix-atc https://www.usenix.org/blog/vault-steve-jobs-keynotes-1987-u... "They said a Unix weenie was code for software engineers who hated what we were doing to Unix (the operating system we licensed)—putting a graphical user interface on it to dumb it down for grandmothers. They heckled Steve about his efforts to destroy it. His nightmare would be to speak to a crowd of them." https://web.archive.org/web/20180628214613/https://www.cake.co/conversations/rZXhqtP/that-time-i-had-steve-jobs-keynote-at-unix-expo https://web.archive.org/web/20180628214613/https://www.cake....
hulitu 4y ago
Linux has become incredibly bloated. The kernel is bloated, the freedesktop (instead of just X) is bloated, etc
- rahen 4y ago
  I use NetBSD to keep my sanity, but unfortunately, because of the sheer weight of the Linux userland, its resource inefficiency is slowly creeping into even NetBSD and OpenBSD.
  - d-s 4y ago
    Could you give some example? Not attacking, I'm just curious.
    - rahen 4y ago
      Examples of feature creep? Sure. Rust is a good example. Anytime we deprecate a functioning C program with a Rust one, or add a Rust dependency somewhere, we also deprecate older hardware which can't cope with it, and make those machines useless. Let's not even mention Electron, at least it won't work on NetBSD and OpenBSD, which prevents a lot of bloat. Most Linux folks won't care about resource usage because they purposefully use powerful machines with gigs of memory, which hides inefficiencies. NetBSD does the opposite, they purposefully test and develop the system on small, constrained hardware, whether new (ARM SBCs) or old (VAX stations, 486s and alike). But we can't fork the whole userland, so when Linux moves to large, bloated layers, it compromises a lot of efforts to keep the userland tight and fit.

by betaby 4y ago

remexre 4y ago

I run FreeBSD for networking purposes -- I still find PF much more comprehensible and reviewable than nftables.

betaby 4y ago
Well yes. Also PF offers way less functionality than nftables + tc. So no surprise it's easier to use/understand.
- anecdotal1 4y ago
  I'll take dummynet over tc any day

jim-jim-jim 4y ago

OpenBSD is the most hassle free personal computing experience I can think of. My (now outdated, maybe) experiences with Linux involved: 1. Installing a user-friendly distro and scraping layer after layer of cruft off it until it finally performed acceptably. 2. Installing a cool minimalist distro and spending hours pasting commands from a wiki to build a brittle rice rocket OS that would explode if I sneezed at it. I was shocked by how little configuration OpenBSD required in comparison. I always assumed it was some Gentoo tier wank given its elitist reputation. All the defaults were sensible. I just installed my favorite packages and went about life. The same isn't true for FreeBSD of course.

__turbobrew__ 4y ago
I could never figure out high dpi in openbsd and eventually gave up. For headless installs openbsd works great for me.
- LeFantome 4y ago
  Headless desktops?
  - shmde 4y ago
    Desktops without screens and monitors. /s
kitsunesoba 4y ago
That brittleness aspect of minimal Linux setups is one of the reasons why when using Linux I just go with a full fat DE. It’s distracting and unproductive when it feels like your desktop setup is built upon glass stilts as a result of being so duct-taped together.
- alyandon 4y ago
  Yeah - generally speaking these days if I'm setting up a "desktop" running Linux it 99% likely going to be Kubuntu (with snapd purged and Firefox installed from the Mozilla Team PPA).
MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> OpenBSD is the most hassle free personal computing experience I can think of if this statement were true, wouldn’t less people use Mac OS X and instead use OpenBSD? Mac OS X is hassle free you buy the laptop, you open it, it works
- GianFabien 4y ago
  Apple Macs only work as soon as you unbox them because Apple controls both the hardware and software. If you go an buy some random laptop, then installing Linux or Free/Net/Open-BSD yields unpredictable results. The only reason that Linux works in more cases than the BSDs is due to the far greater number of device drivers. Here's an idea for the AI experts, give a Linux device driver to your AI and ask it to produce a compatible, bug free BSD driver.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Unfortunely not even pre-installed GNU/Linux is headache free, e.g. my experience with Asus 1215B.
    - doubled112 4y ago
      Not even Windows is headache free. I have an Asus where the NVMe causes a BSOD every third startup or so. Passes all the hardware diag I’ve done. No crashes for years using various Linux distros. I lucked out this time. They (my wife and I bought two) were purchased in a panic when we had covid because we realized we did not have enough computers for the kids to do online school.
  - musicale 4y ago
    > Apple Macs only work as soon as you unbox them because Apple controls both the hardware and software Yeah, there's something to be said for hardware-software co-design. I think Alan Kay said something like "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."

lockhouse 4y ago

Linux is often the best tool for the job, but the BSDs have their place. FreeBSD is a very good server OS. It supports ZFS and Dtrace right out of the box. Also it supports both binary packages via pkg and source based packages via the ports system. It also feels lighter on resources than typical Linux distros which is nice for older systems. OpenBSD is an excellent router OS thanks to PF. It is more powerful than Linux for this purpose. Also the security track record for the default install is pretty much unrivaled. NetBSD runs on a lot of obscure hardware that Linux doesn't support. It is the best tool for the job for reviving old otherwise unusable hardware. pkgsrc is also a very cool package management system that is not only supported on every architecture that NetBSD supports, but several other operating systems like Linux, macOS, and Solaris/OpenSolaris/Illumos/etc.

Affric 4y ago
My all time Theo (OpenBSD maintainer) interaction, in response to why OpenBSD wasn't affected by TLBleed: >We didn't chase the fad of using every Intel cpu feature.[1] The dedication to security is unparalleled. [1]https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=152600018515730&w=2 https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=152600018515730&w=2
pjmlp 4y ago
UNIX is a good headless server OS, that is about it.
- happymellon 4y ago
  Pretty sure Mac users would disagree.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Only those that buy macs instead of paying GNU/Linux OEMs, and then complain macOS isn't Linux. "Why We Have to Make UNIX Invisible." https://www.usenix.org/blog/vault-steve-jobs-keynotes-1987-usenix-atc https://www.usenix.org/blog/vault-steve-jobs-keynotes-1987-u... "They said a Unix weenie was code for software engineers who hated what we were doing to Unix (the operating system we licensed)—putting a graphical user interface on it to dumb it down for grandmothers. They heckled Steve about his efforts to destroy it. His nightmare would be to speak to a crowd of them." https://web.archive.org/web/20180628214613/https://www.cake.co/conversations/rZXhqtP/that-time-i-had-steve-jobs-keynote-at-unix-expo https://web.archive.org/web/20180628214613/https://www.cake....

hulitu 4y ago

Linux has become incredibly bloated. The kernel is bloated, the freedesktop (instead of just X) is bloated, etc

rahen 4y ago
I use NetBSD to keep my sanity, but unfortunately, because of the sheer weight of the Linux userland, its resource inefficiency is slowly creeping into even NetBSD and OpenBSD.
- d-s 4y ago
  Could you give some example? Not attacking, I'm just curious.
  - rahen 4y ago
    Examples of feature creep? Sure. Rust is a good example. Anytime we deprecate a functioning C program with a Rust one, or add a Rust dependency somewhere, we also deprecate older hardware which can't cope with it, and make those machines useless. Let's not even mention Electron, at least it won't work on NetBSD and OpenBSD, which prevents a lot of bloat. Most Linux folks won't care about resource usage because they purposefully use powerful machines with gigs of memory, which hides inefficiencies. NetBSD does the opposite, they purposefully test and develop the system on small, constrained hardware, whether new (ARM SBCs) or old (VAX stations, 486s and alike). But we can't fork the whole userland, so when Linux moves to large, bloated layers, it compromises a lot of efforts to keep the userland tight and fit.