vermaden

Mostly yes.

ThinkPad T14 for example:

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2023/05/14/freebsd-13-2-on-th...

More laptop models:

- https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops

Being on you place I would try GhostBSD or NomadBSD - DistroWatch just made a nice review:

- https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20231127#ghostbsd

Regards.

The 'Enterprise Working Group' is also working on better support from Nvidia - also for CUDA:

- https://wiki.freebsd.org/EnterpriseWorkingGroup

From what I have seen on Twitter - the CUDA works in Linux Binary Compatibility layer on FreeBSD currently.

FreeBSD.

Yes. Why?

LOL?

What kind of bullshit is this?

Just install FreeBSD/Linux/Illumos there and everything works.

I would also add that most people forget that you can also run just a single application inside a #FreeBSD #Jail - example instructions shown below.

- https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F9iXsrpWYAA84bK?format=png&name=...

> Docker has broad cross-platform compatibility, allowing you to run containers on various operating systems.

They forgot to mention that Docker is cross-platform as long as the various operating systems are just different Linux distros :)

I use SumatraPDF daily but an older version 2.5.2 - before the 'larger' rework.

Works very well under WINE on FreeBSD and does not have display issues with taskbars etc.

That is very good news :)

If this [1] is stagnant then I do not know what is not ...

[1] https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/log/

On the contrary the FreeBSD project offers stable 'LTS' release for 5 years each.

What I mean by that is each 'major' version with stable API/ABI has a life span of about 5 years - like 5 years of 12.x version, 5 years of 13.x version, etc.

... and all that with having about only 1/10 of the Linux people count (rough estimate).

Just another alias ...

    # WAS
    alias ls='exa ...'

    # IS
    alias exa='eza ...'
    alias ls='exa ...'

Pity ... RISC-V is so much better perspective ... and free.

Other useful things about ZFS:

- get to know the difference between zpool-attach(8) and zpool-replace(8).

- this one will tell you where your space is used:

    # zfs list -t all -o space
    NAME                      AVAIL   USED  USEDSNAP  USEDDS  USEDREFRESERV  USEDCHILD
    (...)

- ZFS Boot Environments is the best feature to protect your OS before major changes/upgrades

--- this may be useful for a start: https://is.gd/BECTL

- this command will tell you all history about ZFS pool config and its changes:

    # zpool history poolname
    History for 'poolname':
    2023-06-20.14:03:08 zpool create poolname ada0p1
    2023-06-20.14:03:08 zpool set autotrim=on poolname
    2023-06-20.14:03:08 zfs set atime=off poolname
    2023-06-20.14:03:08 zfs set compression=zstd poolname
    2023-06-20.14:03:08 zfs set recordsize=1m poolname
    (...)

- the guide misses one important info:

  --- you can create 3-way mirror - requires 3 disks and 2 may fail - still no data lost

  --- you can create 4-way mirror - requires 4 disks and 3 may fail - still no data lost

  --- you can create N-way mirror - requires N disks and N-1 may fail - still no data lost

  (useful when data is most important and you do not have that many slots/disks)

Thank You!

A lot have happened for these 15-20 years:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36972903

... and that can give You another reason 'why':

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/

... but if you are happy where You are - then stay where You are.

I moved to FreeBSD because I was not happy on Linux.

Regards, vermaden

I tried it and the Serial console was greyed out - I could not select it.

Probably when I would force that upon the FreeBSD loader(8) maybe it will work - but there are other issues.

The Network Type 6 is not supported - so I was not able to create a NAT.

I could start a VM without any networks - but that would render then unusable for me.

I will try again in the future when the libvirt(8) driver for Bhyve is better implemented and more complete.

Regards, vermaden

From what I checked the iohyve puts disk images as ZFS zvol volumes like:

- /dev/zvol/zroot/iohyve/VMNAME/disk0

So the migration would be:

- create your new VM with disk of the same size

- check your new VM disk place at 'vm-bhyve':

    # vm info VM | grep system-path 
    system-path: /vm/VM/disk0.img

- copy contents of 'iohyve' disk into VM disk

    # dd bs=1m if=/dev/zvol/zroot/iohyve/VMNAME/disk0 of=/vm/VM/disk0.img

- start your new VM

This should work.

Same with libvirt/virt-manager - just copy your VM image from /var/lib/libvirt/images/ dir and it should work the same.

Hope that helps.

Hope that helps.

Thank You - I will check that out.

If it will work out I will update the article and maybe even probably add another dedicated virt-manager/libvirt Bhyve article.

Regards, vermaden

There You go:

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/

Both BTRFS and XFS write support is supported by 'sysutils/fusefs-lkl' on FreeBSD. No need to port anything.

ZFS is superior to BTRFS - first of all its safe and secure - I do not know how many more years wil ltake BTRFS to finally properly fix their RAID5/RAID6 implementations to not loose data .... and that also gives warning for general usage in any other way.

In which way iptables/nftables is better when IPFW or PF?

The only feature that KVM has against BHYVE is live migration ...

Can BTRFS snapshots on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (btrfs+snapper) provide same functionality as ZFS Boot Environments?

Nope.

Cite from System Recovery and Snapshot Management with Snapper for OpenSUSE Linux.

● Limitations

A complete system rollback, restoring the complete system to the identical state as it was in when a snapshot was taken, is not possible.

With ZFS Boot Environments you are bulletproof.

With btrfs+snapper you are crossing fingers if it will work the way you need.

Not the same thing.

Which Linux distribution provides this out of the box in its installer like FreeBSD does? ... along with optional LUKS encryption as FreeBSD offers optional GELI encryption.

I will wait ...

About that 'lesson...'

sendmail(8)

- still in FreeBSD 13.x base but no longer in FreeBSD 14.x base (removed)

- FreeBSD 14.x will use dma(8) from DragonflyBSD instead

ntpd(8)

- its in FreeBSD base system so ntpd(8) bugs translate to FreeBSD bugs

- they can change that to chronyd(8) so they will have chronyd(8) bugs instead

openssl(8)

- same as with ntpd(8)

- not a lot of software is ready to move to libressl(8) - HardenedBSD (security oriented fork of FreeBSD) moved to libressl(8) some time ago but they went back because patching 'all the world software was taking too much time'.

portsnap(8)

- is now deprecated - gitup(8) or git(8) can be used to update FreeBSD Ports tree

A lot of complaints are not that FreeBSD is insecure - but that some things are not enabled by default - this is not a security hole.

Anyone can enable SWAP encryption (in installer) or enable basic firewall config (after install). Not everyone needs that.

FreeBSD is like a framework with available options - you enable/use what you like and thats it.

For example why FreeBSD would dump TCP Wrappers features when it works properly? A lot of people rely on that (older configs/automations/...)

FreeBSD does not dump older features 'just like that' because now they are not fancy.

FreeBSD is not OpenBSD.

OpenBSD tries to enable each possible security mechanism by default - yet they still have security holes sometimes (like all software).

Not to mention that a lot of important stuff does not work on OpenBSD. WINE? Nvidia drivers? Bluetooth? Netflix? Virtualization of Windows or Linux? Any secure filesystem with checksums like ZFS? Running Linux binaries?

Yes you can be secure when almost nothing is available - but I believe that is not the right path.

I respect OpenBSD attitude and path - but I could not use it daily as it does not have features I need and use daily.

Hope that helps.

Yes ... and the future is bright.

I have been using FreeBSD for almost two decades now (and still use it) both privately and professionally. I stared at 'dark' 5.x times with problematic SMP implementation and DragonflyBSD split.

These back then in 2004-2005 were the 'dark times' for FreeBSD.

Since then all things improved or been reworked.

Besides ZFS inclusion many great things happened in FreeBSD that are not available anywhere else like:

- GEOM Storage Framework

- Jails with VNET or Netgraph networking

- Bhyve virtualization/hypervisor written from scratch and ported to macOS and Illumos

- new LUA based loader(8) with support for ZFS Boot Environments - beadm(8)/bectl(8)

- TLS in kernel (Netflix)

- imported DTrace for better troubleshooting and looking for performance improvements

- Capsicum sandboxing Security framework

- 33000+ available packages in pkg(8) repository

- support for new/latest GPUs

- boot speed improved from 28 to 8 seconds: https://youtu.be/10XRCiBtyhA

- import of pf(8) OpenBSD firewall

- ported to ARM64 and POWER64 architectures

- move from M:N to 1:1 threading model in SMP

- new bsdinstall(8) installer and bsdconfig(8) companion

- sendmail(8) removed for dma(8) from DragonflyBSD

- ... and I definitely do not remember tons of other stuff (almost two decades)

Not to mention BSD license that gives you ABSOLUTE freedom and not just a glimpse of it.

Some of these features I described here:

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/09/07/quare-freebsd/

Regards.

There are many ... but they are rather older games.

I still play them from time to time.

I will list them here in no particular order:

- Sensible World of Soccer

- Baldurs Gate I & II

- Heroes of Might and Magic III

- Colin McRae Rally 2.0

- Governor of Poker

- Counter Strike 1.6 and GO

- Fallout 1 and 2

From the games above the Sensible World of Soccer holds kinda my 'personal' record as this is the only game that I have played non-stop for 28 hours with breaks only for eating and toilet.

I described how to setup them on FreeBSD here if anyone is interested:

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/10/14/oldschool-gaming-o...

Regards, vermaden

I also would prefer that this split would not had place and that DragonflyBSD would never start ... but yet it happened ... so what?

Recently (as a seasoned FreeBSD user/sysadmin) I tried DragonflyBSD to check how it went ... and it lacks a LOT of things that FreeBSD has - like for example the GEOM framework.

On FreeBSD its quite easy to list block devices like:

    FreeBSD # geom disk list

... but on DragonflyBSD its not possible as there is no GEOM ... so the only thing you can do is to:

    DFBSD # camcontrol devlist
 

... but its far from usable and its very limited.

On FreeBSD I was able to write lsblk(8) Linux replacement ... I would not be able to do that on DragonflyBSD.

Yes - its a pity that such a talented person such as Matt Dillon left FreeBSD project - but DragonflyBSD is not a better replacement also ...

Regards, vermaden

Thanks.

Thank You.

I use plain FreeBSD daily since almost two decades.

After trying all available FreeBSD based Desktop Distros my conclusion is that GhostBSD is the best of them. Most complete and works out of the box.

I also liked NomadBSD and helloSystem. MidnightBSD also seems to work.