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FreeBSD 5.2 Review
JigSaw writes "OSNews published a review of FreeBSD 5.2. They found the OS very solid as a server but pretty lacking as a desktop. The author finds FreeBSD very fast overall, easy to configure and that it feels integrated and mature. On the other hand, it has limited modern hardware support, small annoyances at places and that not many binary packages are available and so compilations from ports may take long time."
Good point. I would argue that Windows is a good desktop though. It's easy for people to navigate, do all the basic things they want, install hardware easily, etc.
Now, Linux in the hands of someone experienced could be a far better desktop, but for the masses Windows is a good desktop. Also, Windows in the hands of an experienced user is also a good desktop. I haven't really encountered problems with Win2K Pro in quite awhile. The only times I do have problems are almost 99% the application's fault, not Windows.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
I was a first time Linux user who had been running Gentoo for around 3 months now.
I found user support to be fantastic, and had lots to go from using Google and accessing varying forums, but there was just stuff that I could never get to work.
Then I tried to upgrade to the 2.6 kernel.... and I gave up.
Popped in FreeBSD, installed, popped on my favorite graphic environment and apps that went with it. Using FreeBSD I had duplicated, in 2 hours, everything that took me a struggling 3 months to build with my linux distro. Going through the handbook was so easy I was shocked, and countless other sites (like freebsd diary) filled any gaps.
I know there are various Linux distros and what not, but I thought FreeBSD was supposed to be the more "advanced" OS of the two? And by advanced I mean "pain in the ass to install for an idiot long time Windows user with no *nix experience."
Now to completely discredit my experience above, why is every damn OSNews review getting posted these days? Why don't we save the reviews for the Gods of Arstechnica who understand it's not all about posting GNOME screenshots and throwing around the phrase "not ready for the desktop!!!" every other article.
-j
I had to use nt5 (win2k for those that read the propaganda) for a day to port a library I'd written to ActiveX for some ungrateful VB yuppies. A few reasons keep it from being even a tolerable desktop; I'm ignoring why it sucks as a development platform and server platform.
1. A busy window cannot be moved.
2. Viruses abound, and they are a bitch for an unexperienced user to remove.
3. Spyware apps abound, and they are a bitch for an unexperienced user to remove.
4. Problems are left unfixed. MSIE exploits are unpatchable even after months of MS being informed of them.
I know about spybot, antivirus software, and not trusting the a-holes at MS, but the average desktop user shouldn't have to deal with that crap.
The best desktop OS is Mac OS X. It's easy to use, comes with all needed hardware support, and is easy to configure. (I prefer Solaris and Linux to OSX. I'm not saying OSX is the best operating system, just that it's best for desktop use.)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
In 6+ years as a systems developer, very little approaches the way FreeBSD balances all considerations such as centralized development process, ported software, stability, and feature set.
.. but when it comes to running a server, its hard to argue with an OS that took well over 80 software platform upgrades (our own) without nary an OS crash.
;)
I like FreeBSD. Its never leading edge, its never trailing edge, it never supports the most hardware, it never does desktop best
Uptimes were 2+ years, 40 hits per second avg, and every freakin C bug I could throw at it.
FreeBSD is rock solid. ROCK solid. Oh, plus its dying.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Works For Me (tm)
;-)
Desktop performance is a lot better on 5.x. Things like flash and other (binary linux) plugins actually work. Do use SCHED_ULE. It helps. Mplayer does it all, media plugins largely work. many of these issues are really external from FreeBSD but its nice to see things come together. Yes, you may have to fiddle a bit.
But it can be used on the desktop and it can work very well there. Like I said, things are starting to come together. Sometimes it looks like merely cosmetics from the Linux side I guess but as desktop apps get more mature so does their portability. Or at least easier to fix in ports. More hands and brains also help. There's clearly an influx into the BSD users realm.
So yes, there is a viable *BSD desktop other than Apple's (perhaps even 3 or 4). A true *NIX head or someone willing to read some docs can have a pretty complete desktop on top of a *BSD. I get GL animated snapshots from camera/tv card snapshots in my xscreensaver. Does windows have that?
The hardware support available in modern Linux distributions make it a very good candidate for desktop workstations. But the ability to tweak certain kernel settings to suit it to a desktop workstation (like the CK release of patches) make it an even BETTER choice for a desktop.
That said I would rather have a cohesive, well thought out OS for a server. I don't want the server to change ever. I want to have easy to read documentation when I need it in a pinch and actually have documentation that relates to the OS environment I'm in!
BSDs are far more cohesive than any Linux distro I have ever used and don't feel like a bunch of utilities slapped on top of a kernel. Man pages make sense, documentation is everywhere, and the bastard runs really freaking fast too.
On the other hand, my few adventures with *BSD on the desktop always had me banging my head in frustration.
The choice is obvious: If it supports your hardware, *BSD for the server. Linux is still the best choice for the desktop.
I think it would be a good idea, so Linux folks could at least try it. Googled for it but didn't succed.
Help fight continental drift.
I've been using FreeBSD as a server since 1999, and as a desktop for only 6 months or so. I would have to agree that FreeBSD is not as good a desktop system as it is a server. But there are a couple reasons for that.
"Linux" Application - KDE, MPlayer, Mozilla, XMMS, etc etc are more geared towards running on Linux. The developers are on Linux as are most of the userbase. When one of the Linux geared projects is ported to FreeBSD, there are usually many patches that need to be applied to make it run better. However, Samba (last I tried it), Apache, MySQL, PHP... all compile without a hitch.
Driver support. I can't use either of my web cams with FreeBSD, because there are just no drivers available. The people developing FreeBSD don't have the time to keep up with the latest wacky devices. If something is standard compliant (like my Nikon 995), it will just WORK. My nVidia (mostly because I use nVidia's binary drivers) crashes once a week, and I can't get out of X without locking my system up. However, I can use just about any RAID card in my server.
I mostly use FreeBSD as a desktop because it's the same system that my servers run. I keep my CVS repository on this machine, and I keep FreeBSD's source tree on this box, NFS from the servers and update when they need it. It makes my life easier from an administrative point of view, but it's definitely not geared towards being a Windows 9?xp? killer.
What about MEEPT?!?!
Yeah, I wouldn't go to OSNews looking for informed advice. You would think a site called "OSNews" would be about schedulers, memory managers, network stacks, etc... but it is actually about screenshots, shiny buttons, and other fluff.
If the only critera you have is how things look and don't have any motivation to dig deeper, it is pretty hard to evaluate the importaint stuff.
Once upon a time, I was a happy FreeBSD user who submitted a trivial port update to gnats. I waited three months. I waited six months. I waited nine months. When it was finally committed, a newer version of the software package then my update had since been released.
Shortly after, I switched to Gentoo, which is usually very prompt in getting the newest software into unstable portage. I can't say I've never looked back, but even hearing the bureaucracy has since improved, I don't feel like giving up my USE flags in favor of "WANT_KITCHEN_SINK=1" again.
I like the BSD design philosophies better and didn't really notice the lack of drivers everyone complains about, so if Gentoo/BSD matures to the point of usability soon, I'll be first in line to try it.
I would have to majorly disagree on your opinion of the learning curve. FreeBSD has a substantually smaller learning curve than Linux, for someone who wants to tinker with the system. It is much easier to figure out how everything works, where everything goes, and how to use all the system commands.
What most Linux distributions tend to do, isn't to ease the learning curve, but to circumvent it. They provide tons of nice and pretty user-friendly utilities (that work a lot of the time, but not all the time) to do anything. But if you want to go in and manually set things up, it is MUCH harder than in FreeBSD. The only Linux distro that comes close to the clean feeling of a FreeBSD install is Slackware. But Slackware is bare-bones and featureless, while FreeBSD is quite the opposite.
FreeBSD aims to make the easist and most useable system for people who know what they're doing. Most Linux distros try to make some user-friendly setup that doesn't cut it for newbies, and gets in the way of more experienced folk.
It really comes down to the average member of their respective user communities. Just listen to round-the-room introductions at a LUG and a BUG if you want to hear. Most BSD users are looking for a UNIX, many being sysadmins by trade (and generally aren't afraid of other 'nixes either). Most Linux users are looking for an "alternative" to something else.
(I know this isn't across the board, as I first installed Linux because I was looking for a PC-based UNIX and didn't know of anything else, though I did discover and move to FreeBSD a few years later)