Comment by yung_steezy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yung_steezy | Hacker News Reader

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I would recommend FreeBSD if you were going to try one of them. The BSD experience a bit like using linux was like 15 years ago. Online DRM for sites like Netflix will not work for example. Specifically in the case of FreeBSD the filesystem is well curated and cohesive, if you feel a file ought to be in a certain location it is usually there. Additionally the manpages and docs are a joy to read.

I'm less familiar with OpenBSD but it is similar in terms of prioritising being a cohesive operating system and docs. Some design choices the team have made for reasons such as security make the system feel sluggish by modern standards, even compared to other BSDs. You might get a lot of mileage out of it if you enjoy old school C programming and reading the source code for coreutils libraries.

>prioritising being a cohesive operating system and docs

This is one of the areas where OpenBSD really shines. Their documentation is really good. FreeBSD is also quite good, but I've been consistently impressed with OpenBSD's docs since 2.5.

Linux distros can't reach the same level of quality due to being less cohesive at the base, though they do make up for it with quantity. You can search for most Linux issues and find an answer.

Arch was the most BSD-ish when I tried it a few years back

This is usually said about Slackware. (It uses the BSD style init system.)

I got FreeBSD running on a Raspberry PI. It isn't too hard to install and get up and running. I primarily use FreeBSD on the Pi for ARM assembly programming. All BSDs are great for devs.

ooc why didn't you try NetBSD? Isn't running on every little device kinda their wheelhouse?

I did try NetBSD first on the Pi but the install wasn't working for me. Getting FreeBSD up and running on the Raspberry Pi was a lot less painful. If I really want to kick around NetBSD I can run an instance of it in GNU Boxes on one of my Linux boxes.

I find this angle quite interesting. Once a system clears that bar of "it works pretty well and does what I need" stuff like documentation and a well ordered experience is what's matters. Not what's under the hood in terms of code.

This speaks to the need for non-coders taking part in open-source projects.

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