I'm obsessed with FreeBSD. It scratches the philosophical, aesthetic and utilitarian itch that Linux couldn't ever satisfy.

Also, with everyone and their mate learning about Linux and migrating to Linux-based distros in droves – it's no longer trendy to say you daily-drive Linux, so naturally I needed to find something niche and esoteric enough to continue to distance myself from the madding crowds.

I first started using BSD operating systems seriously around this time last year, buying Absolute FreeBSD by Michael Lucas to accompany me on my quest. I used both FreeBSD and OpenBSD on a Lenovo ThinkPad X380 Yoga for the better part of a year before giving the machine away to my Pap. I now exclusively use FreeBSD on my SBC fleet of Raspberry Pis and RPi clones. When I inevitably SuzyQ my Chromebook, I'll most likely run FreeBSD or OpenBSD on that too.

Other than that, I toyed around with FreeBSD (and even MidnightBSD for a while) on virtual machines back in 2019, when I was still at university on the trust Dell Inspiron 15 something-or-other that saw me through till graduation.

I love how meticulously everything about this operating system is documented, with care and precision. As a result, it is incredibly easy to install and maintain: As long as you commit to the tried and true method of RTFM.

The FreeBSD mailing list is also incredible and hundreds of experts are never far from reach: They may begrudge having to answer basic questions for the umpteenth time, but I feel like they'd never take it out on you – unlike another community I know.

FreeBSD 14.3 running on my Raspberry Pi 3B+ with the MATE desktop environment

I don't mean to sound disparaging to Linux fans. Or maybe I do. Anecdotally, I always noticed a tonne of egoism within different Linux communities: A kind of misplaced sense of superiority. Maybe I'm a hypocrite because one of the reasons why I switched to FreeBSD was because it made me look trendy and different.

In all seriousness, there are plenty of reasons why you'd pick a Linux distro over a BSD OS, just as there are reasons you'd pick ChromeOS, macOS or Windows over a Linux distro.

I'm aware ChromeOS is based upon Gentoo Linux, but it's so proprietary and so optimised for Chromebook hardware, it's not really like a standard Linux distro anymore. So I personally don't count it as one. Even if it is. Technically it is, but philosophically it really isn't. It's hardly redistributable. I mean Google is bound to the GPL and publishes the changes it makes to the kernel but... It isn't like you can grab an open-source copy of fully-fledged ChromeOS and recompile it to run on your toaster, is it?

Don't say ChromeOs Flex, either. You know what I mean.

Speaking of Gentoo, I found FreeBSD as well as OpenBSD and MidnightBSD all easier to install than Linux distros like Gentoo or Arch. Another plus is that BSDs are generally more stable and being server-focused means they are dependable, performative and secure. They're all binary compatible with eachother, too so while it can be fiddly recompiling packages from one BSD to another – it is completely possible.

Perfect for serious users, as well as script-kiddies like me.

Some of the commands are different between BSDs, the software they ship with is a bit different and there are also some other quirks, like how the filesystem is organised, but it doesn't take long to adapt to these changes.

Take for example the command pkg_add instead of pkg install, or syspatch -c instead of freebsd-update. FreeBSD doesn't ship with sudo, and OpenBSD ships with doas instead of sudo.

The driver support for the kind of devices I have run these operating systems on has always been good enough for me, but I understand the setbacks if you're, say, a hardcore gamer, or require mainstream apps like Adobe Creative Cloud to undertake your work. I have it easy, as someone who predominantly works with plaintext and the rest of their computer experience consists of web-browsing, instant messaging, light gaming and tinkering with code.

Minecraft works on FreeBSD, as well as the PSP emulator ppsspp and the PS1 emulator duckstation, so as far as gaming is concerned I'm more or less completely covered.

I mentioned the philosophy of BSD earlier and I think that actually may contribute to the fact there's less snobbery in the BSD community. Hear me out for a moment. The BSD licence is one of the more permissive software licences out there, with minimal stipulations. You can redistribute BSD code for commercial purposes if you wish. You don't have to credit original code authors. You don't have to share-alike. It is, for all intents and purposes, a BaSeD licence. In contrast, the GPL is such a pick-me girl.

The GPL is like:

“h-hey! (≧◡≦) if you u-use my code… y-you have to give m-me cwedit (⁄ ⁄>⁄ ▽ ⁄<⁄ ⁄).. b-baka!! and don’t you dare wock it away!! if y-you change anything, y-you have t-to s-share it too!! i-i’m not doing this fow a-attention ow anything! ☆⌒ヽ(“､^)chu i-i just want evewyone to have fweedom!! ugh… just… j-j-just weave the wicense on and give me cwedit, okay? ☆*:・ﾟ p-pwease…”

BSD is like a cool uncle with frosted tips, a bowling shirt and wraparound shades: “Hey kid, do what the fuck you want with it. But if it breaks I don't wanna hear about it.”

Yes, I was invoking Guy Fieri.

No, I am not sorry. ___ Tags:

#freebsd #bsd #os #linux #kernel #operatingsystem #unix #unixlike #pickme #gpl #computer #tech #technology