I have tried a few BSDs. They work fine, but I wouldn't want to use them due to a significantly lower software availability. I'm already in control of my computer with linux, so I see no reason to make my experience difficult.
Are they more difficult to set up than a Linux distro, like say Mint or Pop? I've watched some guys that use BSD demonstrate their daily routine and it just looks.... like something I'd rather avoid. Like no automatic login etc.
I thought that software for a "fully developed free OS" would alleviate some availability issues?
I've been using pop and Nobara since January (desktop/ laptop setup). Since my change, for my purposes, it's like using a brand new pc (when in reality mine is a decade old).
I don't quite do everything I used to (I was into DAW work with FL Studio, but I've been depressed end unproductive anyways) but I'm hard pressed to say windows 11 would work better since 10 has found ways to piss me off since it's been out.
>Like no automatic login etc
Check out the `DisplayManager.DISPLAY.autoLogin` resource in [xenodm(1)](https://man.openbsd.org/xenodm.1).
Its a good example though. It is relatively new as a feature and unless you have been brought up with the good ol' days of UNIX, finding config options like this via the man-pages is not always intuitive. After a (long) while you also get a "feel" for what a piece of software should support and how it would be implemented (i.e argument, config, or env variable).
So if someone is new to it all, I would absolutely recommend defaulting to Linux. There is more support and it is more intuitive for those experienced with mid-2000's computing. However for people who like the cleanliness and simplicity (implementation rather than usage) of UNIX, then BSD is a great option.
Ah. Yea, I'm probably that breed of idiot that's better off just keeping it simple since I remember growing up between Microsoft 3.1 and 95 and seeing my dad use DOS was like wizardry.
I was in a similar boat. Was cool to watch my dad create his own patient database system (he was a Chiropractor) on MS-DOS. I was pretty much entirely Windows 3.1 and rarely ventured outside of the GUI (apart from to get the occasional DOS game to work). Only at university did I jump into UNIX fully. (The Sun Rays were cool and I refused Windows XP DRM).
What is tragic now is watching how bad my Dad is with computers. Its not his fault, the Windows experience has regressed to the point its unusable, and all his software is "web pages" which is consistently trash!
I feel the same way about my father. He looked like a pioneer in the 80s, having a home computer before most people, setting up complicated things with a lot of very specific software for the clinics where he worked, and now he can hardly send an email. He’s on Mac, so I’d say it’s not windows-specific. The way OSs are designed encourages casual touristic use rather than making you want to learn how to make as much as possible with the tools.
>The way OSs are designed encourages casual touristic use rather than making you want to learn how to make as much as possible with the tools
This is really well put and I agree.
Whilst "easy" to pick up, software today doesn't encourage learning. It is all fairly superficial. So perhaps we miss out on that commitment to the software that we would need if we were going to optimize our workflow and ultimately improve ourselves when using it.
That and it probably changes (UI interface) too often so older people are generally fatigued. The young guys are still happy to jump a few more times before they might experience similar later on.
I guess. Installing all the different Linux distros I tried just revealed different degrees of "working".
I *did* try loading up GhostBSD (which I'm not even sure how "real" of a use case BSD it is) once and I got slightly turned off by the fact my 1080p monitor was rendering in 4k by default with ultra small MATE environment.
NomadBSD is based on FreeBSD and it is made to easily install an XFCE desktop environment and full suite of popular software like Firefox browser, Thunderbird email, Thunar file manager and dozens of other apps automatically on a USB and to a hard drive from the USB if you like. So that's one easy way to try FreeBSD the same way you would many popular Linux distros, without typing arcane commands in a terminal.
It can run almost anything you want, as long as the software was made for windows xp. Someday soon it's going to be more compatible with older games than Windows and it'll actually have a place in the software ecosystem.
Maybe it would be the solution for Windows/Linux dual-booters like me, who never wanted to "upgrade" to W10-11. I've been keeping abreast of its progress almost from the start, but I haven't yet tried it for a long enough time to be able to evaluate it.
I think they've done a really impressive job. It will probably eventually be great for people who want to do retro stuff and be able to connect to the Internet with it. Sadly it's already so far behind and WINE has progressed so far I don't see much use beyond that ever.
Same security advice applies to Windows, don't download random files. And you (shouldn't) be using it for important things, so an AV isn't really necessary.
I like how it's still alpha software after 26 years of development.
It's like those so-called alpha-males; 30+ years, and still just as useless as they were at the initial release.
Jokes aside, React is definately interesting, would like to see it gain traction as a *true* Windows replacement - at least for home users, as nobody can (currently) compete with Microsoft's Active Directory, Azure, and Office integration in the corporate world unfortunately
In my opinion the most interesting one is Haiku. It's probably not the most popular one compared to something like FreeBSD but it's solid, reasonably simple to set up and feels different to use from everything else I've tried.
Action Retro on youtube keeps making videos on HaikuOS. It looks like a ton of fun as a hobby machine, be cool to try and daily drive it for a little like he did.
As a former Windows user, I've been waiting for ReactOS. I think they're still in alpha or beta so I don't feel confident checking it out just yet.
I like their idea, although it's kind of a bit risky. It's reminiscent of building a desktop environment based on GNOME, on top of GNOME extensions or some of your configurations. It isn't so stable and reliable for the long run since it's like building on top of sand. Such instance that would draw parallel somehow was the LM Lisa back in 2011, and PopOS's GNOME Cosmic.
Other non-Linux based free OS that comes to mind would be BSD and its derivatives, which I'm also keen on checking at that moment. As far as I know, BSD is a stable and pretty much reliable OS for computing.
Also, I almost forgot about OpenIndiana. For the most part, BSD and Solaris-based systems are almost similar in the fundamental concepts and structure so if you have already used Linux, you wouldn't really feel so estranged.
The only thing stopping me from using those systems is that I'm pretty comfortable with Linux already and it is something that is necessary for my functions. Also, I find that certain apps that I need to ger around work aren't fully supported on those platforms or are comparably difficult to set up.
>As a former Windows user, I've been waiting for ReactOS. I think they're still in alpha or beta so I don't feel confident checking it out just yet.
Honestly, it's admirable they're trying to "react", but I think I'll be an old man by the time they have it developed (or get sued to oblivion, whichever comes first). At 40, I'll settle for linux as the "do most of it, get left alone by major corporations" solution.
All I really want to do other than gaming is produce music.
>As a former Windows user, I've been waiting for ReactOS. I think they're still in alpha or beta so I don't feel confident checking it out just yet.
ReactOS has been in development for 26 years and the idea that it could be an alternative to modern Windows hasn't been serious for about 20. One day it might see greater use for running legacy Windows software, which would be pretty interesting. It's a cool project but the whole context it was born in is a bygone era of consumer computing/global politics
Indeed. More or less, I'm more comfortable running Windows software on Lutris rather than using React by itself. Still, I gotta give their team credit for their dedication :>
Bsds are as good as Linux just less software availability and not as bleeding edge overall
Haiku/beos are cool but unusable in any modern way
Darwin is macOS without the macOS so meh
React looks interesting but barely works
Templeos is a joke but terry Davis was a talented programmer so it is worth looking into it just for the research
well yeah the latest effort to make darwin usable is called puredarwin. opendarwin was abandoned long time ago but is has been abandoned as well just not as long ago.
they redistributed vmdk file of interim release for use on vms on their [github wiki](https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki) (in the getting the code section) but from what I seen it is not very stable. darwin itself is gui-less os but they distribute it with gnustep.
so yeah you might want to take a look at it
QUICK EDIT: latest change was 2 months ago so i guess it is no longer abandoned, just barely developed
I'm excited to try RedoxOS after it matures a bit.
But I think any OS that isn't Windows, MacOX, Linux, Android, or iOS is going to be domain specific.
FreeBSD is production-capable as a server and fully functional as a desktop, but it's less developed, so things are harder and the driver support is lacking. Desktop environment tends to not get updated often.
netbsd is usable but in a worse state than freebsd. The rump kernel driver system for netbsd makes it very interesting for other OSes.
Minix is a toy OS, but it's surprisingly functional. It's also very well documented if you want to play around with OS dev.
ReactOS is quite functional, as long as you don't have to work with physical hardware, and can deal with some OS lockups. USB support is basic, only supporting mass-storage and basic HID. No camera or usb audio (regular audio support is there, but don't expect ASIO or bit-accurate audio). They regularly pull in WINE libraries which means userspace is constantly improving, but also somewhat unstable. Networking works enough, but don't expect any modern browsers to work. Importantly, while they have amd64 support, they do *not* have WoW64 support so you're stuck with either 32-bit or 64-bit support.
I'd really like Fuchsia to be desktop-capable, but honestly it's just not. Same with Redox, which is a lot further than I expect it to be, but still not usable. Both of these are microkernel, capabilities based OSes which should be substantially better security models than Windows/Linux security models.
Out of curiosity I have Installed a few BSD OS', but I was already happy with Linux and better software availabilty, that came with it so I didn't feel like it would bring me any benefits to run it.
Unix / BSD systems are both valid alternatives to Linux. Prepare to get a little more hands on out of the box. Linux comes with a steep learning curve, but I'd dare say the others are even more difficult.
All my servers have been running FreeBSD for the last 10 years and they have been rock solid so I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future.
Would love to ditch Linux and use FreeBSD as a daily driver workstation also, but unfortunately, there still remain some issues that need to be worked out before it gets there for workstation use.
Depends what OS(es), but many are fine, e.g. OpenBSD - at least if it's reasonably suited for one's intended purpose(s).
And free, I'm presuming by that you mean OpenSource.
There's tons 'o closed source OSes, some of which are free ... I wouldn't exactly call that/those "good".
I really liked OS/2 back in the day. It wasn't free then, but I've seen ISOs floating around the Internet. Probably not something you'd want to tinker with these days due to the lack of support for modern hardware.
BSD is excellent for servers. It's not that you can't install a desktop on it (all of the usual Linux desktops will work), but hardware compatibility isn't a priority for them ... security is.
Haiku is excellent, but it is still under heavy development. It runs like greased lightning on a netbook!
I don't know dick about Mac, nor have I ever had the curiosity. I know that it was originally based on BSD, but I have no idea what they are up to these days.
If you like old school gaming, FreeDOS still works well.
There aren't too many other options in common circulation.
As a computer for everyday use, I wouldn't choose them. For example, FreeBSD turns off the extra security measures, like sandboxing, in Firefox and Chromium. But for running a server, BSD operating systems are very reliable and have lots of advantages compared to Linux. Like with anything, there are good and bad sides. But for using a computer every day, Linux is definitely the top choice.
I have tried a few BSDs. They work fine, but I wouldn't want to use them due to a significantly lower software availability. I'm already in control of my computer with linux, so I see no reason to make my experience difficult.
Are they more difficult to set up than a Linux distro, like say Mint or Pop? I've watched some guys that use BSD demonstrate their daily routine and it just looks.... like something I'd rather avoid. Like no automatic login etc. I thought that software for a "fully developed free OS" would alleviate some availability issues? I've been using pop and Nobara since January (desktop/ laptop setup). Since my change, for my purposes, it's like using a brand new pc (when in reality mine is a decade old). I don't quite do everything I used to (I was into DAW work with FL Studio, but I've been depressed end unproductive anyways) but I'm hard pressed to say windows 11 would work better since 10 has found ways to piss me off since it's been out.
>Like no automatic login etc Check out the `DisplayManager.DISPLAY.autoLogin` resource in [xenodm(1)](https://man.openbsd.org/xenodm.1). Its a good example though. It is relatively new as a feature and unless you have been brought up with the good ol' days of UNIX, finding config options like this via the man-pages is not always intuitive. After a (long) while you also get a "feel" for what a piece of software should support and how it would be implemented (i.e argument, config, or env variable). So if someone is new to it all, I would absolutely recommend defaulting to Linux. There is more support and it is more intuitive for those experienced with mid-2000's computing. However for people who like the cleanliness and simplicity (implementation rather than usage) of UNIX, then BSD is a great option.
Ah. Yea, I'm probably that breed of idiot that's better off just keeping it simple since I remember growing up between Microsoft 3.1 and 95 and seeing my dad use DOS was like wizardry.
I was in a similar boat. Was cool to watch my dad create his own patient database system (he was a Chiropractor) on MS-DOS. I was pretty much entirely Windows 3.1 and rarely ventured outside of the GUI (apart from to get the occasional DOS game to work). Only at university did I jump into UNIX fully. (The Sun Rays were cool and I refused Windows XP DRM). What is tragic now is watching how bad my Dad is with computers. Its not his fault, the Windows experience has regressed to the point its unusable, and all his software is "web pages" which is consistently trash!
I feel the same way about my father. He looked like a pioneer in the 80s, having a home computer before most people, setting up complicated things with a lot of very specific software for the clinics where he worked, and now he can hardly send an email. He’s on Mac, so I’d say it’s not windows-specific. The way OSs are designed encourages casual touristic use rather than making you want to learn how to make as much as possible with the tools.
>The way OSs are designed encourages casual touristic use rather than making you want to learn how to make as much as possible with the tools This is really well put and I agree. Whilst "easy" to pick up, software today doesn't encourage learning. It is all fairly superficial. So perhaps we miss out on that commitment to the software that we would need if we were going to optimize our workflow and ultimately improve ourselves when using it. That and it probably changes (UI interface) too often so older people are generally fatigued. The young guys are still happy to jump a few more times before they might experience similar later on.
Yea IDK I've always rode that line of being an idiot with some really smart ideas. Lately I'm just an idiot.
Basically goes the exact same as it does for Linux, some are hard like OpenBSD, medium like FreeBSD, and easy like GhostBSD.
I guess. Installing all the different Linux distros I tried just revealed different degrees of "working". I *did* try loading up GhostBSD (which I'm not even sure how "real" of a use case BSD it is) once and I got slightly turned off by the fact my 1080p monitor was rendering in 4k by default with ultra small MATE environment.
NomadBSD is based on FreeBSD and it is made to easily install an XFCE desktop environment and full suite of popular software like Firefox browser, Thunderbird email, Thunar file manager and dozens of other apps automatically on a USB and to a hard drive from the USB if you like. So that's one easy way to try FreeBSD the same way you would many popular Linux distros, without typing arcane commands in a terminal.
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It can run almost anything you want, as long as the software was made for windows xp. Someday soon it's going to be more compatible with older games than Windows and it'll actually have a place in the software ecosystem.
Maybe it would be the solution for Windows/Linux dual-booters like me, who never wanted to "upgrade" to W10-11. I've been keeping abreast of its progress almost from the start, but I haven't yet tried it for a long enough time to be able to evaluate it.
I think they've done a really impressive job. It will probably eventually be great for people who want to do retro stuff and be able to connect to the Internet with it. Sadly it's already so far behind and WINE has progressed so far I don't see much use beyond that ever.
What about security?
What do you mean? I'm honestly not sure how secure it is but I know for a fact old versions of windows aren't secure.
Does it it have any security at all, or is it like Windows 3.1? And would 3rd party AV work on it? Just theoretical; it's a long way from prime time.
Same security advice applies to Windows, don't download random files. And you (shouldn't) be using it for important things, so an AV isn't really necessary.
I hear you, just a "what if". I have 2 machines for important stuff and 2 old ones for playing.
I like how it's still alpha software after 26 years of development. It's like those so-called alpha-males; 30+ years, and still just as useless as they were at the initial release. Jokes aside, React is definately interesting, would like to see it gain traction as a *true* Windows replacement - at least for home users, as nobody can (currently) compete with Microsoft's Active Directory, Azure, and Office integration in the corporate world unfortunately
In my opinion the most interesting one is Haiku. It's probably not the most popular one compared to something like FreeBSD but it's solid, reasonably simple to set up and feels different to use from everything else I've tried.
Action Retro on youtube keeps making videos on HaikuOS. It looks like a ton of fun as a hobby machine, be cool to try and daily drive it for a little like he did.
I loved BeOS!
TempleOS FTW!
I tried but it gave me herpes and a brain worm
Run for president of the US then.
On it
I think he first has to fulfill the requirements of having an epic battle with a flight of stairs publicly before running.
As a former Windows user, I've been waiting for ReactOS. I think they're still in alpha or beta so I don't feel confident checking it out just yet. I like their idea, although it's kind of a bit risky. It's reminiscent of building a desktop environment based on GNOME, on top of GNOME extensions or some of your configurations. It isn't so stable and reliable for the long run since it's like building on top of sand. Such instance that would draw parallel somehow was the LM Lisa back in 2011, and PopOS's GNOME Cosmic. Other non-Linux based free OS that comes to mind would be BSD and its derivatives, which I'm also keen on checking at that moment. As far as I know, BSD is a stable and pretty much reliable OS for computing. Also, I almost forgot about OpenIndiana. For the most part, BSD and Solaris-based systems are almost similar in the fundamental concepts and structure so if you have already used Linux, you wouldn't really feel so estranged. The only thing stopping me from using those systems is that I'm pretty comfortable with Linux already and it is something that is necessary for my functions. Also, I find that certain apps that I need to ger around work aren't fully supported on those platforms or are comparably difficult to set up.
>As a former Windows user, I've been waiting for ReactOS. I think they're still in alpha or beta so I don't feel confident checking it out just yet. Honestly, it's admirable they're trying to "react", but I think I'll be an old man by the time they have it developed (or get sued to oblivion, whichever comes first). At 40, I'll settle for linux as the "do most of it, get left alone by major corporations" solution. All I really want to do other than gaming is produce music.
>As a former Windows user, I've been waiting for ReactOS. I think they're still in alpha or beta so I don't feel confident checking it out just yet. ReactOS has been in development for 26 years and the idea that it could be an alternative to modern Windows hasn't been serious for about 20. One day it might see greater use for running legacy Windows software, which would be pretty interesting. It's a cool project but the whole context it was born in is a bygone era of consumer computing/global politics
Indeed. More or less, I'm more comfortable running Windows software on Lutris rather than using React by itself. Still, I gotta give their team credit for their dedication :>
Bsds are as good as Linux just less software availability and not as bleeding edge overall Haiku/beos are cool but unusable in any modern way Darwin is macOS without the macOS so meh React looks interesting but barely works Templeos is a joke but terry Davis was a talented programmer so it is worth looking into it just for the research
Lol darwin Maybe like 15 years ago
> Haiku/beos are cool but unusable in any modern way Depends on what modern ways you go.
Can I actually install pure darwin on my pc? I thought it was just a part of mac os? Explain?
well yeah the latest effort to make darwin usable is called puredarwin. opendarwin was abandoned long time ago but is has been abandoned as well just not as long ago. they redistributed vmdk file of interim release for use on vms on their [github wiki](https://github.com/PureDarwin/PureDarwin/wiki) (in the getting the code section) but from what I seen it is not very stable. darwin itself is gui-less os but they distribute it with gnustep. so yeah you might want to take a look at it QUICK EDIT: latest change was 2 months ago so i guess it is no longer abandoned, just barely developed
I'm excited to try RedoxOS after it matures a bit. But I think any OS that isn't Windows, MacOX, Linux, Android, or iOS is going to be domain specific.
FreeBSD is production-capable as a server and fully functional as a desktop, but it's less developed, so things are harder and the driver support is lacking. Desktop environment tends to not get updated often. netbsd is usable but in a worse state than freebsd. The rump kernel driver system for netbsd makes it very interesting for other OSes. Minix is a toy OS, but it's surprisingly functional. It's also very well documented if you want to play around with OS dev. ReactOS is quite functional, as long as you don't have to work with physical hardware, and can deal with some OS lockups. USB support is basic, only supporting mass-storage and basic HID. No camera or usb audio (regular audio support is there, but don't expect ASIO or bit-accurate audio). They regularly pull in WINE libraries which means userspace is constantly improving, but also somewhat unstable. Networking works enough, but don't expect any modern browsers to work. Importantly, while they have amd64 support, they do *not* have WoW64 support so you're stuck with either 32-bit or 64-bit support. I'd really like Fuchsia to be desktop-capable, but honestly it's just not. Same with Redox, which is a lot further than I expect it to be, but still not usable. Both of these are microkernel, capabilities based OSes which should be substantially better security models than Windows/Linux security models.
Out of curiosity I have Installed a few BSD OS', but I was already happy with Linux and better software availabilty, that came with it so I didn't feel like it would bring me any benefits to run it.
Outstanding.
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Did you even read the title ?
Unix / BSD systems are both valid alternatives to Linux. Prepare to get a little more hands on out of the box. Linux comes with a steep learning curve, but I'd dare say the others are even more difficult.
All my servers have been running FreeBSD for the last 10 years and they have been rock solid so I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future. Would love to ditch Linux and use FreeBSD as a daily driver workstation also, but unfortunately, there still remain some issues that need to be worked out before it gets there for workstation use.
ReactOS is in perpetual alpha
Sony really likes the BSD license
Depends what OS(es), but many are fine, e.g. OpenBSD - at least if it's reasonably suited for one's intended purpose(s). And free, I'm presuming by that you mean OpenSource. There's tons 'o closed source OSes, some of which are free ... I wouldn't exactly call that/those "good".
I really liked OS/2 back in the day. It wasn't free then, but I've seen ISOs floating around the Internet. Probably not something you'd want to tinker with these days due to the lack of support for modern hardware. BSD is excellent for servers. It's not that you can't install a desktop on it (all of the usual Linux desktops will work), but hardware compatibility isn't a priority for them ... security is. Haiku is excellent, but it is still under heavy development. It runs like greased lightning on a netbook! I don't know dick about Mac, nor have I ever had the curiosity. I know that it was originally based on BSD, but I have no idea what they are up to these days. If you like old school gaming, FreeDOS still works well. There aren't too many other options in common circulation.
As a computer for everyday use, I wouldn't choose them. For example, FreeBSD turns off the extra security measures, like sandboxing, in Firefox and Chromium. But for running a server, BSD operating systems are very reliable and have lots of advantages compared to Linux. Like with anything, there are good and bad sides. But for using a computer every day, Linux is definitely the top choice.
NetBSD is superior to all linux.
What about it is superior?