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Comment by elagost | Hacker News Reader

"user-installed packages totally separate" from the system is more or less how the BSDs work. OpenBSD provides user packages via pkg_add and pkg_delete, and the system updates with syspatch/sysupgrade. FreeBSD uses pkg update/pkg upgrade for user-installed packages, and freebsd-update for system updates. Maybe you'd like those systems better.

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Yeah, I'm thinking about trialing FreeBSD for both that and having better man pages (Linux's are so incredibly bad). OpenBSD seems even nicer but I also like having, you know, software and drivers that Just Work™, which already seems like it might be a problem on FreeBSD. I haven't enjoyed using desktop Linux since like 2008 (it is not a coincidence that this is about when Poettering started to influence major distros with his NIH-motivated bloatware) and have puttered along on macOS for the last decade or so—a change is probably due, I'm just not sure there exists what I want, really. We'll see. I'm rocking Void now and it's... fine, I guess. Kinda.

> OpenBSD seems even nicer but I also like having, you know, software and drivers that Just Work™, which already seems like it might be a problem on FreeBSD.

It obviously depends on what you're using, but don't discount it without glancing at driver support: I've had it running quite nicely on a handful of laptops – typically older Thinkpads and Dells – and the "just work" factor of the overall OS is through the roof.

Have you noticed any problems with cpu throttling or hibernation? This is what I'm most afraid about switching to openbsd on my laptop (Dell precision).

Just works on my Thinkpad x220. You should, however, look for a dmesg output referencing your system and see if anyone has reported bugs. Power management is universally evil ;-)

Undeadly.org

DRM update committed

Contributed by Paul 'WEiRD' de Weerd on 2020-06-08 from the faster pixels dept.

Jonathan Gray (jsg@) has just committed an update to the DRM code to the tree. This update brings support for newer AMD and Intel graphics parts.

[1] https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20200608075708

Other than tradition, I don't see why a package manager for a GNU/Linux system couldn't operate in a similar fashion.

BSD still requires root to install packages, though.

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