Moving to FreeBSD from Linux

https://kuon.ch/post/2026-07-02-moving-freebsd/

by speckx • 14 days ago

71 20 14 days ago

While working with networking stuff, I deployed OpenBSD and FreeBSD machines for routing, security and email serving. I was always in awe that I could just do stuff easily. You want to do something at boot time? There is a script that gets run at boot time; put whatever you want in it.

Linux has this too, it's called Devuan. 90% of the reasons you'd want to move from Linux to BSD can be addressed by getting rid of everything associated with FreeDesktop.org.

ksk23• 14 days ago

Or use systemd, like a sane person.

BSDobelix• 14 days ago

like a sane person.

But not for long, that's the whole point of not using systemd.

kasabali• 14 days ago

You must accept the cold hard truth that you can't get rid of freedesktop.org unless you move to MacOS os Windows. Even *bsd s are infected with it the moment you want to do anything desktop-y with them.

oalae5niMiel7qu2• 9 days ago

I've gotten rid of it even on Linux. You're right in that the full-featured desktop environments all do it the FreeDesktop way as far as I know. Even old-school XDM demands that D-Bus and seatd exist, which it didn't in the pre-Systemd days.

intsunny• 13 days ago

Linux has this too, it's called Devuan. 90% of the reasons you'd want to move from Linux to BSD can be addressed by getting rid of everything associated with FreeDesktop.org.

Ironically even FreeBSD core members have spoken about adopting some of what systemd does: https://papers.freebsd.org/2018/bsdcan/rice-the_tragedy_of_s...

sitzkrieg• 13 days ago

while systemd is indeed a turd, linux userspace sucks compared to bsd.

ThePowerOfFuet• 14 days ago

I hope you're prepared to build Electron apps from source, because they are absolutely not reliably available from the ports tree.

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=270565

wolvoleo2• 12 days ago

That's also a licensing issue with the likes of obsidian.

HackerThemAll2• 14 days ago

As much as I love FreeBSD, it has its rough edges when it comes to daily use. And an upgrade, while much smoother than it used to be in the "make buildkernel; make buildworld" times, is still lacking and can break the system.

The saddest is that FreeBSD is massively underfunded. They still manage to do great stuff, make massive improvements. If the big corporations like Apple, who made billions on FreeBSD, could just return a couple millions in donations to the FreeBSD Foundation on a yearly basis, which for them would be less than a rounding error, the OS would be in a vastly different place now. But their corporate greed knows no bounds.

pjmlp2• 13 days ago

Or you know, that games console vendor.

TheSeeker11• 13 days ago

Not to mention Netflix!

cookiengineer• 13 days ago

Apple made me realize that I should choose AGPL as a license for my own projects, because I don't agree with the implied contract values of X11/MIT or BSD licenses anymore.

The latter licenses I choose now only for things I absolutely don't care about and won't spend any time on. Things that I care about I license under AGPL. If someone wants it fixed by paying development time, great, then just offer it dual-licensed AGPL/EULA.

ferfumarma• 11 days ago

Kudos to you. It's wild how poorly hacker culture has learned this lesson.

HackerThemAll2• 13 days ago

NetBSD tragedy is even more saddening. They struggle to raise $50k despite their system be great and solid to the point that it was used by NASA, Apple (terminal commands), BlackBerry and Playstations.

They just treat MIT-licensed software like a public road which "somebody" is going to upkeep, but there's nobody except tireless open source developers who do that, especially in case of NetBSD.

I just dream of times when signing half a million check is not an issue for a company that is worth trillions. It's way less than every single one of them spend annually on t-shirts for their employees.

efficax• 13 days ago

Use whatever you like, but I'd love an elaboration on "The macOS I know and love dying". I haven't loved some of the UX design decisions in the recent macOS releases, but it doesn't feel that different than it did 10 years ago, to me, and Apple silicon remains best in class.

OhSoHumble• 13 days ago

I use Linux and MacOS. I did just remove Windows because I didn't want to migrate to W11.

Honestly, MacOS is great. I don't really understand the hate for it... and Apple hardware is genuinely a cut above the rest. I actually think it's really a pity that Apple is so big that it's able to vertically integrate so many areas of laptop development that OEMs struggle to compete.

wolvoleo2• 12 days ago

Personally I moved off it because I couldn't take apple's decisions anymore. Opinionated software only works if you don't have any opinions yourself or if those happen to align with the developer's.

In the case of macOS they did at first in the tiger age but got more and more skewed as they made macOS more of a fancy iOS.

I also can't deal with the new keyboards. Too little travel. Even after they moved off the butterfly adventure back to scissor keys. They're still not good enough for me.

Moving to FreeBSD from Linux

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