Uncovering the Truth about FreeBSD in 2023 - You'll Be Surprised!

[@astralnut6313]

I have a Free BSD system and love it. I'm an old nerd so UNIX is a love I never lost.

[@GaryHTech]

kindred spirit by the sounds of it :)

[@Inquiringmind0]

I've been using FreeBSD for 10 years. It is my daily driver. Two years ago I built a new desktop (ASUS B660M Intel motherboard, Nvidia GTX 1650, Intel Core i7) put it into an nmedia case (the one that looks like a home stereo system) with a cool looking LCD (using LCDProc to show a big clock). I'm using Fluxbox as my desktop environment. I use it primarily as a media center PC. It's connected to a 55" LG OLED TV and 30' screen HD projector, Logitech wireless K360 keyboard and MX Anywhere mouse. It is perfect. It can do everything and anything I want. I use the opensource versions of all the programs I used to use on windows (ex. Double Commander instead of Total Commander, Audacious instead of Winamp, SMplayer instead of MPC). For programs that only work on windows I uses Wine (ex. IrfranView), and in the rare instance where I need to use a windows machine, I have Win10 inside VirtualBox. I love it. I could never go back to Windows, or anything else for that matter. Long live FreeBSD!

[@sixdroid]

you are using a pc with i7 and gtx 1650 as a media center?

[@Inquiringmind0]

@@sixdroid Yes. I also have GTA IV that I play sometimes, the 1650 is useful for that.

[@gregquk]

I have been using FreeBSD since version 1.0 (~1993) [trivia - which had to be quickly replaced with a new version due to licensing violation issues], which by the way came out on a CD. Great to see someone that is as passionate about the OS as I am. Keep it up!! Thumbs up!! My latest project is to get a 4G LTE router implemented on FreeBSD using a Raspberry PI 4 and a 4G & PoE Hats. Currently compiling (porting) OpenWRT to FreeBSD v14.0 (current). Greg Salisbury, UK. p.s. Just realised FreeBSD in its current form is 30!!

[@godnyx117]

What is the state of FreeBSD 14? It shows "delayed" in the page. Do you know anything better?

[@olivermarti9854]

I switched to FreeBSD on my Thinkpad X220 i5 8GB (my main machine still runs Linux). After over 10 years of Debian/Ubuntu/Arch/Antix I can say that the Hardware-Support of FreeBSD (at least for those x-series thinkpads), the package mgmt system (and ports) aswell as the overall notification procedure in the shell is imho way better than on Linux. Mostly I use that machine for *roff(grap,pic), awk, other unix apps, LaTeX. On newer versions of Arch and *buntu (not on Debian 12) I somehow had to install an old ghostscriptfix (shoutout to the friendly Puppy Linux Forum (an excellent OS btw and always on my keychain) after every update. No such experiments in FreeBSD. Everything just works :-)

[@MaxmillaBarroso]

Hi Oliver, i have a LenovoThinkpad t430u with freebsd but i can´t manage some things to work. Bluetooth, SDCard reader, and the biometric reader, did you got everything working?

[@AndreasKandschur]

I tried Ghost BSD, but had WiFi issues on my notebook. So I switched back to Linux. I hope that BSD will become as easy someday, even for beginners.

[@nadtz]

Been using FreeBSD since 3.x or so and I still love it. Also use Treunas core and opnsense which are FreeBSD based. That said I also use Linux and Windows (though 10 will probably be the last windows I run at home) and they all have their place. Where I can definitely love running fbsd though.

[@stellarorbit1341]

I want to love FreeBSD but I can't run it on my hardware, so I have a love for OpenBSD since it runs on my hardware really easily. Unix like operating systems are awesome.

[@facistmonk]

for God's sake, nowadays, why people use damn high volume background music while talking, it was so calming listening you as you talked.

[@improbus8508]

Saw your video, but was NOT surprised. :-) FreeBSD rocks. I've tinkered with it since v1.0, and used in in production since v.2.2.x, and I am using it still, today.

[@mattk6343]

Thank you for taking the time to make this video, Gary!

[@proxymoxylinks]

I am a n00b to the world of BSDs. My goto is OpenBSD but I also like FreeBSD, keep the good content coming mate :)

[@GaryHTech]

Welcome and thanks for watching :)

[@esra_erimez]

My dad started tinkering with 386BSD when Bill Jolitz published it in Dr. Dobbs magazine since he used Sun OS at work. We're pretty much a Linux household now.

[@jozsefk9]

Gentoo?

[@yafz]

The mention of Dr. Dobb's Journal brings so many memories!

[@AmirZaimMohdZaini]

3 years ago, I tried running FreeBSD on my PC (not virtualbox) for a first time and it was quite happy yet frustrating at same time due to being difficult to set up graphics properly and also having difficulties in setting up wireless internet connection which is forced me to bought the USB WiFi travel router. Today, I'd fired up the old PC with freshly installed FreeBSD 13 and saw a lot of improvements including proper USB internet tethering support just by running a few command lines without entering some text files and also ditching the need to create Xorg config justt to get GPU running on desktop environments. However, it's still lagged behind Linux in the terms of AI-based applications eg. Pytorch which is unavailable for FreeBSD and among other things. Somehow, I felt that running FreeBSD on my old system is just much more fluid compared to running on Linux even with older systems.

[@markmake2252]

I wish I could use FreeBSD on my MacBookPro 10.1 I managed to install it but the external monitor does not work. It's connected with HDMI and apparently the nvidia driver does not behave very well with it. And I've got no other option

[@uilleachan]

The realisation that I won't have the kind of cash I have access to atm, when I retire, has inspired me too look at low cost solutions that'll run on older hardware. Some Linux distro or other is where I'll likely settle but I have to plug my education gap, to be self reliant and this is where I've found freebsd comes in handy. It is concise well documented with focused development. Okay it's server first with desktop a distant second, but that makes it a good place to push me on. Issues? Sure I have lots but their resolution keeps me out the pub and has gone some way to rekindling the sense of adventure I enjoyed back in the 80's & early 90's, before using a computer for work sucked all the joy out of it I'll never be a power user, or run my own server farm, but thanks to the online documentation, folk like your good self and the rest of the bsdTuber posse, with one foot in the terminal & the other on a desktop, I get by and enjoy doing so. So still relevant for me in 2023.....

[@stoneab]

Gary, I’m migrating a work laptop to FreeBSD. I created a FreeBSD 13.2 bootable disk. I then booted it up on the laptop and watched it go through all of the system. I then went to the “Live CD” and logged in as root. I checked the logs and it seems it found almost everything except the fingerprint reader. Do you have a way to contact you to consult? I’d like to migrate it quickly. Thanks.

[@DarkH3lmet]

6:40, Sony Playstation 3, 4 and 5 are using FreeBSD

[@mmshasan]

@@DarkH3lmet Netflix as well

[@ThusharaRavindra]

I am 100 % bsd . its a religion. thank you for all those who help, code, make vedios, write these thing make it happen.😍

[@tao4124]

I use FreeBSD, with i3. I love it! I also save all my configs.

[@blackneos940]

Heya. I'm running OpenBSD. I wanna' learn about Network Security. I also boot Kali Linux on the same Laptop. BSD: Based Software Distribution.

[@GrazHero]

ACPI sleep has been completely broken on my laptop running arch Linux for the last five months. It’s a kernel issue that’s been reported as a critical priority bug, but nobody upstream is fixing it. I think it’s time for me to leave Linux behind.

[@RobertJohnson-lb3qz]

Just out of curiosity, what computer do you have this sleep issue?

[@GrazHero]

@@RobertJohnson-lb3qz thinkpad t430. It seems to have been partially fixed last month, but not completely. Any combination of connecting and external monitor and sleeping still freezes Xorg.

[@RobertJohnson-lb3qz]

Interesting... The t430 is an old solid platform... This is a head scratcher...

[@RobertJohnson-lb3qz]

@@GrazHero You may be right, time to check out *BSD. I’m thinking about it...

[@Proditae]

Thank you honey, pretty informative. I'll look more into it. A big cheer & hug from Argentina, South America!

[@Felix-ve9hs]

In times where algorithms and artificial intelligence are finding their way into everything more and more, I'm increasingly glad how "old and boring" FreeBSD is. It just does what it's told, and that's it. No DNS sinkholing or disabling telemetry and spyware needed, and almost no bloatware (I'm looking at you, sendmail) present.

[@manuell3505]

Slapping sendmail is still common protocol. I used to kick /etc/motd too but it got less irritating.

[@franky_lion54]

I‘ve installed Ghost BSD and i‘m surprised how good it Works.Great to see

[@CirkusBolgen]

The beeps around 2:20 are too loud

[@cameronribeiro9660]

Could you do a video on how to make freebsd full screen in virtualbox? Love bsd because it's fast, simple, and never crashes. But I do need full screen.

[@ByteMeCompletely]

FreeBSD 14.1 won't open x11 on my brand new GMKtek K8 with 780M graphics. rtw88 WiFi driver would associate on 14.1-release, but won't on 14.1-stable. I have NEVER had audio out of HDMI on my Intel i3,i7 systems. None of these issues appear with Mint or Neon.

[@manishbhoola]

I've been using ubuntu and limuc for like 15 to 20 years since the early days of redhat power tools then ubuntu then debian and fedora. Always heard of the bsd clan, attempted bare metal early days ...never worked so didn't go there... Why try to fix linux it it ain't broken , righr ? I use kvm / qemu for my virtualization and for some reason had to try to install the solaris 5.10 x86 binary on my home laptop Huge waves of nostalgia kicked in as I felt like 15 years ago, how things were not all that automatic. Getting curious and while at it , I causally went over to freebsd and downloaded the qcow2 image (yeah yeah not bare metal yet). Chipping through the various ways to install and setup packages got me very interested. A youtube and I find this video. Definitely interested in going retro to something calmer and less crowded / dynamic.. Thank you for the content and the long read of my comment ! You've got a new subscriber along with freebsd ! ❤🎉 And yeah I am a half century old geeky fart !

[@ICE-qe2jv]

Keep them coming! I'm growing to like your videos. I would love you talk about how to set up FreeBSD on a server next.

[@partypooper2591]

Hey, Gary, thanks for sharing this video! You _did_ ramble a bit, but that's ok. I currently have 2 FreeBSD 13.2 systems. One is a HP Atom netbook and the other is a whitebox with a Sempron CPU. I encourage people to give me their old systems, so I can put a better OS on them and give them more useful life. Though truthfully, I don't do much with them :) I'm mainly a Linux user, with 2 Proxmox machine and a Slackware laptop. Like you, I prefer the command line, and I love shell scripting. I've used a LOT of different operating systems over the years and I always wanted to have my own UNIX system at home. I don't use FreeBSD as much as you but I appreciate the need for it to exist. Like a lot of people, I feel Linux has become too bloated over the years, so FreeBSD is a welcome alternative. FreeBSD "feels" very similar to Slackware, so I am very comfortable with it. I hope to learn more about FreeBSD in the future. Thanks for your encouragement about this OS!

[@markgreen2170]

when i was in college, ut austin, mid 90s, i heard the comment, "two things came out of berkely: bsd and lsd, it's not a coincidence" lol ...i'll queue freebsd for a vm install:)

[@RobertoRubio-z3m]

Great video. Thanks!

[@classicrockonly]

I can't believe I have been using FreeBSD for almost 6 years now. It has hummed along reliably on 2 servers I rely heavily on...added a 3rd one last year and 1 more to come. I couldn't imagine using any other OS for these tasks

[@ngtube9]

Thanks Gary! I like FreeBSD since more than 20 years. I know there are still some unhandy things, but it runs and runs. And I also see problems in Ubuntu, Apple and Windows, which did not appear in FreeBSD. I don't want that *BSD in general would overtake all that stuff, but it would be great if there would be a reasonable percentage of users everywhere in the world... See Haiku (OS) - they use (some) FreeBSD drivers. See Chimera Linux - they will take the FreeBSD userland instead of the GNU one - which is quite bloated. Beside of *BSD: this are also nice projects... *BSD will stay alive and show that there is a place for them! Cheers, Norbert

[@bishnuprasadgautam8716]

FreeBSD is an awesome OS. I love it and I use it to train my students to learn OS and networks fundamentals. Using it to rebuild it as routers, switch, firewall and other hosts.

[@qcnsllcqcnsupport7616]

I use FreeBsd also. I think it's really great 👍🏼. Thankyou for all the great videos.

[@manuell3505]

Have you already tried a m.2 ssd in a USB 3.2 case? I bought a cheap one with a 256GB disk but is says "device not configured" with everything I try. Dmesg at pluggin in the device: " attempt to query device size failed: ILLEGAL REQUEST, Invalid field in CDB" My hardware bootmenu does show the device as boot-option...

[@SeniorMoe]

Hi Gray, I am working in the field of networks and sometimes do simple servers. I wanted to install FreeBSD in my laptop but it does not support the hardware, I read a book by Michael Lucas explaining how to configure and how to use it and I was thinking if I can modify the kernel to be compatible with my machine - the part that is not in The book. The writing device's modules manually is hard but it's possible and I don't know where to start. If you were me, what would you do if you only had one device?

[@suchen6845]

Is zoom work in freebsd?

[@tvmcrusher]

The subtitles for the entire video display in the first second, I was reading it under the incorrect assumption that it was an easter egg.

[@haystackdmilith]

Yes, you're correct. Microsoft pushed to the FreeBSD :) Thanks for such content. Thanks for making FreeBSD more popular :)

[@DV-ml4fm]

If linux wasn't created, i would definitely use any BSD. but linux just works better for me than bsd.

[@GaryHTech]

As I always say, use what works for you 😜

[@DV-ml4fm]

@GaryH Tech one think for sure is any bsd is better than windows.

[@DV-ml4fm]

@@darkcggaming I'm not a gamer. And to each his own.

[@samdeur]

Do users like you that use FreeBSD donate ? Are donations big? I want to know before I invest time in to moving from fedora

[@disketteguy]

I really like FreeBSD, but the only problem that occurred to me is that, Java performance is really bad. Even Java on a Linux Jail Emulator thing has a better performance than native, mad!

[@psimoes78]

I'm not old but I love that old look

[@seanpaul7069]

I like how FreeBSD still kept some of its original roots. I try it from time to time but I don't think hardware compatibility as good as Linux. otherwise it's fantastic OS for servers.

[@ByteMeCompletely]

Linux routes sound from the audio driver to the video driver causing sound to come out of the HDMI cable. FreeBSD can't. This affects ALL i3, i5, i7, i9 systems. FreeBSD can't even support x11 on my GMKtec K8 with Radeon 780M graphics. Linux Mint does.

[@kalman_]

Very helpful, thanks a lot.

[@marcs8325]

In 1999 I have used FreeBSD 3.3 and loved it. But (lack of) hardware compatibility drove me to Linux.

[@nichtgestalt]

damn, that intro looks pretty cool!:)

[@GaryHTech]

Thanks, I think... Lol

[@kevinnewton8945]

After chasing my tail from updates of other distributions, I like freeBSD because it doesn't seem to have all of the trivial and frivolous updates. It's more of an appliance type OS that is a workhorse.

[@Aoitori365]

I once tried it then i got annoyed that it was not Linux

[@bertnijhof5413]

I use FreeBSD 13.2 on my backup server based on a 32-bits Pentium 4 HT :) I also run FreeBSD on Virtualbox. I love their implementation of OpenZFS, Ubuntu should have coped their ZFS booting from FreeBSD, since they f**ked it up and made it far to complex with a lot of useless automation, which I hated. That useless complexity is, why ZFS booting died in Ubuntu! Will I move to FreeBSD, not really, with respect to user friendliness it is more than 10 years behind modern Linux distros Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.

[@t99t99]

why you on windows

[@The_Temple]

Yes, it is.

[@farhan00]

These are the standard reasons that everyone repeats... Linux has the equivalent or the same of all of these, including ZFS

[@MC_DesmondSparrs]

Ive tried FreeBSD on a desktop but i had a lot issues with nvidia and screen tearing, i like BSD but as a desktop user I kinda have to stick to Linux . Maybe i will find use of FreeBSD at some point. a cohesive OS with a real team making it is really appealing to me, because Linux is a lot of ppls work taken here and there. I love Linux and unix-like OS's tho!

[@tylerdean980]

Once Wayland is a first class citizen on BSD you can kiss the tearing goodbye

[@jcameron2937]

ghost bsd user here

[@holgerj.440]

The reason I stopped using FreeBSD or OpenBSD like 15 years ago was their weird handling of file systems or partitioning in particular. I never understood the concept of slices, why *BSD forced me to it, or why there's no detectable representation of slices outside a booted system (like partitions). I would have liked to share some files between dual boots or something. But *BSD did not understand this concept. How do you backup an image? "Image", what a weird concept, right? Perhaps with Ansible now it would be safe enough to use reproduceably. I don't know. I probably won't try. My Debian works just fine.

[@CrestedJeans]

So no one's gonna talk about how he was using windows?

[@GaryHTech]

My reasons for using windows are on record, thanks for watching :)

[@CrestedJeans]

@@GaryHTech Ah thanks

[@m19mesoto]

Austin Powers of the FreeBSD..! 3>

[@HiphonePro]

Has anyone ever told you, your the spiting image of Austin Powers? Seriously ! You should do a skit... YEA!!! BABY!!

[@ygjt76v0-----]

I realy like freebsd but using linux because compability and just have 1 device

[@Dead_moroz_z]

FreeBSD это конечно хорошо, но не всегда и не везде, элементарно я не смогу использовать дискретную видеокарту в полную силу, так как драйверов нет, а следовательно не смогу эффективно работать с нейронными сетями. Многих замечательных вещей просто не существует для BSD систем.

[@gdotone1]

take a look at freebsd scheduler. why is it slower than linux's scheduler? why are both really bad a video, and audio production.

[@unboxinger_]

I remember using Ghost BSD, a Free BSD distribution, I honestly loved it but the problem is that I didn't know how to install GIMP and other programs that I use every day. I currently use Linux. Good videos 😎

[@sativagirl1885]

git the src

[@Reichstaubenminister]

Never noticed that pineal gland on your arm before, hehe.

[@GaryHTech]

Not sure I understand what you mean

[@Reichstaubenminister]

@@GaryHTech If you look at a cross-section of the human brain and put the Eye of Horus next to it, there is almost no doubt that it symbolizes the pineal gland.

[@GaryHTech]

Oh right I see

[@-Engineering01-]

Thanks but i'll pass. Os X or Ubuntu is ok for software developers.

[@NetBSDToaster-u8e]

It is unstable since version 5.

[@GaryHTech]

In what way is it unstable?

[@NetBSDToaster-u8e]

It crashes 😆@@GaryHTech

[@GaryHTech]

@@NetBSDToaster-u8e what does?

[@NetBSDToaster-u8e]

It's just my subjective impression. I used it on production servers at the time (version 4 was awesome!). But from 5 on it was just a desaster and it didn't change since then. FreeBSD is going down IMO. However, I have a VPS with OpenBSD and is rock-stable. I also use Open and -NetBSD on Desktops. So, just my 5 cents! @@GaryHTech

[@007Knightjp]

I'm currently using FreeBSD. Absolutely love it over Linux. Honestly, don't see a need to change. However I prefer macOS and once I've saved enough to get a decent mac, I will get it. Till then, I'll be happy with FreeBSD and KDE. Honestly, the best open-source combo IMO

[@nirajpatil3359]

how is battery backup on BSD on laptop

[@007Knightjp]

@@nirajpatil3359 I don't use a laptop. I have a Desktop system. I have tried BSD on an old Thinkpad and it was pretty good. Mileage may vary based on the age of the machine and its battery.

[@lopwidth7343]

Nice windows 11 box :D

[@computernerd8157]

I Avoid BSD. The system ran my laptop hot. Linux does not do that so I will stick with that. Another thing I would use is Windows but only for gamming and programming. I do not see Windows as a personal computer since Windows 10.

[@joaopauloalbq]

He uses BSD using macOS 🤣🤣🤣

[@e8root]

OSX or now its called Mac OS has very little to do with FreeBSD. This is a myth propagated by some uninformed BSD users. Apple took NeXTSTEP OS which only had typical Unix tools from BSD and maybe some kernel parts. Not even FreeBSD but 4.3BSD-Tahoe so commercial BSD which had different source code for those tools and kernel itself. Darwin kernel which OSX uses is heavily modified Mach kernel so hybrid kernel whereas FreeBSD and other BSDs use monolithic kernel which by design doesn't contain single line of source code from Unix. So yeah, OSX, Mac OS, itp have very little to do with FreeBSD.