FreeBSD: How Can We Make It More Attractive to New Users?

> Currently, FreeBSD lags behind in key areas such as [...] laptop-specific functionalities like suspend/resume

Many years ago I migrated to FreeBSD and absolutely loved it. I was forced to migrate back to Linux once I started a job and ended up staying with Linux to this day.

A few months back I decided to give FreeBSD another shot. The one thing that was an immediate deal breaker was being unable to suspend/resume on my desktop computer. For my workflow, that's an unnecessary waste of power / energy.

Just wanted to share this testimonial to outline the importance of suspend/resume for non-laptop hardware. Almost every time I see this discussion, it's focused on laptops.

By the way, I'm extremely excited about this initiative to make FreeBSD more attractive to non-server users in general (not only new ones). That will surely be a huge benefit to the entire community. If I can't run FreeBSD on my machine, I won't runt it on my servers.

FreeBSD already has a lot going for it:

- Native (and modern) ZFS, you don't have to worry about a kernel update breaking your filesystem as with ZFS on Linux

- Containerization in the form of Jails

- A high quality type-2 hypervisor

I personally think the effort of getting better desktop support is a lost cause, it really shines on the server and should really double down in that area with improvements to things like CPU microcode updates (I really like the way SmartOS handles those) maybe pull in some things from OpenBSD like unveil and pledge (FreeBSD has Capsicum but it's not as good IMHO.) Perhaps also some kind of smartmon-like tool integrated into base.

They also need to fix the long standing issues with ports vanishing. It's that issue where you update all your packages and some port you once used has some dependency that prevented it from building and now you're stuck without that essential port until it gets fixed. I don't know how to fix this but Linux does not have this problem but I've been bitten by it on FreeBSD a couple of times and it hurts.

I'm a Linux user who has never used BSD. I'm not attached to Linux specifically, but it's still hard to imagine switching. It just feels like whatever motivations might exist to switch are at the wrong layer.

It's easy to imagine trying a new flavor of ice cream, but switching to BSD is more like trying a new brand of spoon.

These days I'm a Linux user mostly because it's the best place to use nix. So along those lines if BSD wants new users then I think it should start by attracting the kind of user who is going to do something noteworthy with it. Be the foundation for an attraction, don't try to be the attraction.

I'm not sure what that'll be specifically, but it's probably currently the ambition of someone who is a die hard BSD user who needs help bringing BSD with them to someplace cool and not the casual preference of somebody looking for a place to write hello world.

I can’t use FreeBSD for work anymore.

* Docker is important, I don’t want ‘experimental’ support that breaks all the time. I need it to just work.

* Headsets need to work. Bluetooth never works and my USB headset just screeches every boot because it seems to open the mic and play it back through the speakers.

* Wayland support is iffy at best. Screen sharing just doesn’t work.

* webcams are supported by webcamd which is maintained by one guy who unfortunately died suddenly a couple of years back.

You have to clearly and honestly answer "Why BSD and not Linux?" Does anyone here have a concise answer that could apply to many?

The 2nd question is what do folks get with Linux which they don't get with BSD? For me choosing Linux is somewhat off the beaten path, choosing BSD is like vacationing on Mars. There's going to be very little/sparse support living there.

I specifically choose an OS/distro that's well used/tested. That used to be Ubuntu but I don't trust Canonical leadership, so now it's Debian (or at least Debian repository-based). I don't have such a choice with BSD (unless it's a Mac).

Ironically, these were the kinds of issues keeping Mac/Windows folks from Linux 15-20 years ago. The difference now is that Linux is the incumbent. Users were willing to suck it up—not so much anymore.

There were clear reasons why people wanted an alternative, general-purpose operating system back then, but now that Linux completely owns the niche, what are the reasons to use FreeBSD?

As a user since around 4.10, I'd argue that it's easier to use, has a better community, and has better documentation. However, these points have to contend with the enormous market share and proliferation of GNU/Linux, which makes problem solving on the platform just as easy, if we're being honest (especially with AI-driven tools that can resolve many day-to-day needs).

I can connect to wifi on my old Thinkpad running Haiku. There's no reason FreeBSD shouldn't have full support for wifi out of the box. Even OpenBSD has better wifi support. After many years, reasons start to look like excuses. Make it work.

But at the end of the day, if I work a long time at it I can get FreeBSD to do everything Linux can do. But that's kind of the problem. New users are casual users. What does FreeBSD offer that Linux, MacOS and Windows don't that isn't related to running services on big hardware?

FreeBSD just ends up being like another distro people hop to occasionally, find it doesn't support all their hardware or the software they're used to, and they hop to something else.

To me, the BSDs are zen gardens to Linux's Kowloon chaos. I use both, lovingly.

A lot of what I build and manage I expect to touch maybe once a release. Even between LTSes, that can require a lot of catch up on Linux. With the BSDs, knowledge and practices are generally transferable, even decades later.

As for your front end, my advice is to use whatever shiny sparks your joy. Local (desktop) resources are a solved problem on every platform, hence why I still use an inexpensive 4GB Chromebook. If I need to serve any particular desktop environment from a remote host, that's trivial. Why would I try to limit myself?

- something simple like ufw where you can get a good, safe base set of firewall rules without having to be an expert. Or at least a clear set of pf rules people can use for web servers etc, like the default/base rules for ufw.

- Docker support. I understand why people don't like it, but it's just a reality now that people need to use.

Lifetime Linux user here (desktop and server) - FreeBSD has always been off my radar because I never had a real reason to care about it. Why should someone like me consider it over the cornucopia of perfectly good Linux distros out there?

Marketing 101 - “define your audience”

OpenBSD gets this right, they have clearly defined their global audience as being the “secure OS”.

Note: they have not defined their audience as “BSD”. It’s just the “secure OS”.

——-

FreeBSD problem is they haven’t defined their audience.

People use FreeBSD because “it’s the performant BSD”.

But that then begs the question, “why use BSD”?

They need to define their audience.

No list of features will do that for you.

Another angle to look at this is ravynOS, a desktop OS that could attract people interested in MacOS. The project is based on FreeBSD and has lots of customization to provide a familiar desktop experience. While the main site hasn't been updated for a while, the GitHub has a release from this year.

https://ravynos.com/

https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos

Have a live CD with a DE (Xfce, KDE etc.) and an install option like every single Linux distro? Closest thing in the BSD world is GhostBSD

Docker, Proton, and with the exception of creating a password it should be possible to do a full install by doing nothing but pressing enter throughout the entire install process.

Speaking on that, the install process is weird when trying to add a user. It always fails because the group does not exist (it should probably create the group at this time).

What kind of new users do you want to go after? Are you targeting the demographic of users who are tired of windows and microsoft's shenanigans and who are looking towards switching to Linux, for example?

I’ve been using FreeBSD occasionally for about 20 years. I like FreeBSD; it’s a no-nonsense operating system with excellent documentation and high-quality source code.

There is a question that affects all of the BSDs: what does it mean to be a non-Linux Unix in the 2020s? 20 years ago, there were many commercial Unixes that were in use, such as Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and IRIX. POSIX was the main interface that the Unix world, commercial and open source, had in common. The BSDs benefitted in this ecosystem by being able to run software that kept portability in mind, since there were so many Unixes to support.

20 years later, commercial Unix seems to be largely dead, and Linux has become the dominant Unix-like OS. I get the sense that some software developers are less concerned about compatibility across Linux, *BSD, and macOS and are instead singly targeting Linux. This leads to software with many “Linuxisms.”

Should there be an updated POSIX to tackle new technologies, or should the BSD world recognize that Linux has become the standard and thus focus on implementing interfaces to technology from the Linux world?

I love the BSDs, but I’m concerned that the FOSS ecosystem is increasingly ignoring them.

On a related note, the BSDs are respected by its users for its conservative, deliberate approaches to new technologies. There is a tendency in the Linux ecosystem for solutions to be pushed before they are fully formed, and there is also a tendency to prioritize features over adherence to the Unix philosophy. I see pushback from the BSDs when it comes to Linux containers, systemd, and Wayland. However, if Linux technologies become the standard by application developers, then the BSD world will either be forced to write compatibility layers or will have to do without those applications.

For me, integrate an init system that allows for proper dependency management between services. Also, one that keeps track of all processes spawned by a service, allowing me to shut down a service, even if it isn't a well-behaved one with a single daemon process.

That's more or less the only thing stopping me from using FreeBSD (on servers).

First job is define what new users you want.

The name, logo, aesthetic and general priorities of freeBSD are essentially unchanged from its era and clientele from that era: 90s nerds

Decide where you want to go, and who to

Seems like there's quite the uptick in posts about the various types of BSDs out there. I wonder why that is. Cool group of OSes though, they feel pretty well engineered.

Personally I still often find myself wanting to use something that makes running OCI/Docker containers for mostly-contained workloads as easy as possible.

Better Wifi and the ability to control AMD-GPU Fans, makes not sense that i can play Eldenring on FreeBSD for 2 minutes, then full crash because of GPU overheat ;)

GPU's are getting more important every day, not just for workstations but servers too (LLM's for example)

i think their market should focus on enterprise offers. Like the author mentioned, flush out the features of their hypervisor. Additionally some built in quality of life setup and native features (web dashboard? feature parity with vended solutions)for operating any infrastructure services like DHCP, file server, directory services, etc. This would compel orgs that need a “set and forget” system for this stuff. This isn’t anything new for FreeBSD — and in many cases they are really close, but it’s the clincher.

As a regular Linux/OSX/Windows user, here are the three (3) questions that I would need answered before switching:

1) In a world with Kali Linux, Arch, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc... what does FreeBSD give me that I don't already have?

2) In a world with OSX as a commercial Unix, what does FreeBSD give me that I don't already have?

3) In a world where virtually every desktop computer is Windows, what does FreeBSD give me that I don't already have?

If FreeBSD can't supply a good answer to those three questions, it's already lost.

How about FreeBSD focus on paid high quality apps?

Linux has already cornered the market of freeloaders who never want to pay for anything and programmers who have to compile and configure and terminal-hack even the most basic functionality, because developers don't want to polish their apps to be easy to use for the benefit of freeloaders.

The greatest strength of MacOS is that you can buy the highest quality app that exists for anything that you can do with a computer, for a rather cheap price usually. If you need a feature you can talk to the developer, and they're usually happy to implement a feature since their customers are paying them for their effort.

Hell, if you can make a FreeBSD desktop environment of sufficient high quality, you can even charge for that (just as OS X used to be paid), and let the other stuff remain free. Let the open source folks stay in the Linux swamp and move on with FreeBSD to something better.

Maybe settle on a few hardware devices on the list of most popular sold hardware and give them the attention to make sure that FreeBSD 100% works on those. Then the users can have a list of devices that they can purchase if they want to use FreeBSD, instead of trying to shoehorn it onto their current device.

My 2 cents: I started to use Linux in the 90s , having only experience with DOS/Windows. What helped me a lot at the time was Midnight Commander:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Commander

then I stopped to use it being proficient with Linux command line interface. At some point, I had to start working with AIX, it has something similar but more powerful , SMIY/SMITTY:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Management_Interface_Tool

that also has an explain function that permits you to see the command line it is about to use to execute your instructions. That explain functionality has very high educational value and could facilitate the initiation ritual for people already Unix-like initiated. So should be nice to have a similar tool of FreeBSD , if not already present ( if it's present, please tell me in the comments because I would like to evaluate a FreeBSD based laptop ).

Make intel wifi working (currently even 802.11n is not supported)

I used to use FreeBSD, but went to Alpine Linux because jails were too hard/much work to setup and configure (especially the network). Basically all I really want is docker compose.

As a developer it’s support for more programming languages and tooling. As well as rallying behind semi modern hardware like the Framework laptop.

I’d love to be able to put FreeBSD on a Framework and have the WiFi work right off the bat.Then be able to download Dart and Flutter, and build directly on FreeBSD.

As it stands, I can make it work with my thinkpad and if I want to program in C/C++ In Emacs and Vim things work just fine, but most people want more than that in this day. and age.

I wish someone made a whole graphical OS like Windows with its own base windowing API ala the Win32 instead of depending os DEs.

Want to install a font? There must be a GUI in the system for that and that means the system needs its own GUI toolkit instead of deferring to GTK or Qt.

Right now Linux isn't an alternative to Windows. It's GNU/Linux/Systemd/GTK/GNOME. Why not put all of these five different things into a single DesktopBSD package like Windows?

FreeBSD lacks three things before it’s a contender on the desktop/laptop:

- WiFi speeds competing with Linux/MacOS/Windows

- Bluetooth support that doesn’t suck

- suspend/resume

We can talk gaming later. I use FreeBSD as my primary OS despite these major flaws. I consider other things in my computer system more important. FreeBSD has the best package manager for both sources and pre compiled binaries.

Thanks to virtualisation, I can at least get fast WiFi. Still holding out for the other missing features.

I'm not even really sure what BSD is, I know my opnsense firewall runs it and I've always associated BSD with security related appliances.

If I was going to use BSD over Linux and Windows, it would need to be even easier to use than Linux with better hardware support.

What's the best resource to get started with FreeBSD for someone who's never used any BSDs?

I want to experiment with FreeBSD on a spare Raspberry Pi for now.

> FreeBSD: How Can We Make It More Attractive to New Users?

The slices system and requirement for a primary partition was a hard deterent. I need to check how it plays with GPT and UEFI. Also giving some hints about some minimum partition size and inode settings with UFS will be nice. I don't care about wifi or bluetooth or suspend, and i like the old init system.

How can we make Plan9 more attractive to new users?

FreeBSD should work on Apple Silicon. OpenBSD already works on Apple Silicon. Asahi already works on Apple Silicon. It's been awhile already.

Given no one has done it, I assume it's hard, but why can't there be a translation layer for Linux drivers to work on BSD?

I'm not convinced it is a realistic goal to attract more new desktop users, given that what would get /me/ to consider moving is if FreeBSD offered a better UX than the big 2, Linux and macOS. As it is, it doesn't: performance is less, feature set is less, software availability is less; and as a result, developer enthusiasm to fix any of these is less. Libraries and workflows are already tuned to work on either x86_64 Linux or ARM64 macOS. Second system effect will always get you, especially when you're the fourth system! We've already seen this play out with OS/2, a technically superior system at that point in time which lost the long race and only bought itself some life support with Windows compatibility, ATM install base, and general corporate torpor. Your product must win on its merits, but those merits have to be ones that appeal to buyers, not you-the-product's-developer.

Where I find FreeBSD especially suited, and what I think FreeBSD should lean into is making its platform THE attractive embedded/specialist/RTOS(?) option for companies building products they don't necessarily want to open source. Go do what Linux did to Solaris and Irix, and put VxWorks and QNX out of business. The BSD license and the current 'fair source' trend (responding to the friction between Stallmanesque Open Source and capitalism) seems to me a synergistic pairing. Get funding from companies to maintain the base so they don't have to, and charge them handily for integration consultancy. Use that to bootstrap achieving parity with Linux, and then perhaps more folks will climb on the bandwagon.

Whatever it is it needs to run Docker... it should do that. Jails are cool and bhyve is neat, but the world has chosen docker and cgroups and I got sick of not being able to join the party. I've since replaced my FreeBSD install with Proxmox on Debian (with docker in a privileged container) and never looked back.

I read "can we migrate to more attractive, new users", b/c I was thinking of neckbeards. Petition to target femboys in coding socks instead! Who is with me?

Drop in support for docker would be a big one.

Simple, don't integrate systemd...

get it to send blue messages to iphones

is the user base shrinking or why should we?

IMO pulsating, vivid stability is more important than growth.

Holy shit this page layout is hilarious on a desktop-sized browser, the text is crammed into a tiny box that takes up 1/3 of the horizontal and vertical space and has its own tiny little scrollbar. I feel like it is 2003 and I am looking at a Livejournal that was meticulously designed to perfectly frame everything on its author's 800x480 screen, except for the lack of rococo details placed around the little text window.

1. Change the logo from a demon to something else. (no matter if it is a play on the word "deamon", it is repulsive to many of the 2.4 billion Christians that can be potential users of FreeBSD)

2. Make an officially supported windows-like desktop environment.

3. Explain what is the purpose of FreeBSD and how does it help us solve our problems.