Previously, I was inspired to spark this discussion, when FreeBSD was mentioned as a valid alternative to Linux.
What would you say about using a BSD flavour instead of Linux?
Further inspiration can be drawn from the following very recent Quora question.
Well one big hurdle (for me) is filesystem incompatability
The BSDs use zfs or ufs or… but not ext3/ext4
so file sharing with Linux is complicated
There is an in between choice… Void Linux is very much like BSD in all but its kernel.
I think there is a case for sorting out which BSD would be most suitable for a home desktop.
I used FreeBSD as a home desktop for years, but it has gone into the corporate world like RHEL and is no longer homeuser friendly.
Perhaps GhostBSD or NetBSD would be the best homedesktop choice today. It needs looking into.
I left FreeBSD because it had driver issues and poor printer support.
I dont know if that still applies today
“let the market decide”? I kinda hate lassez faire capitalism - but in this case - I agree - “let the market decide” if the BSD’s are up to the task…
Apple use BSD… Juniper use BSD… NetApp uses BSD… there are many more…
More than 10 years ago, there was a project to run Debian on the FreeBSD kernel (thus making it NOT Linux) - but it doesn’t seem to have survived…
Let the market decide…
I’m VERY far from convinced there’s any chance of ANY of the BSD’s as they exist in the wild (outside of the ecosystems of proprietary vendors) having ANY success in the desktop market…
I use BSD everyday - my NAS solution, for the last 12-14 years has been FreeNAS… I’ve used m0n0wall and pFsense, at home and in “enterprise” environments… BSD excels in those roles… the desktop? I’ve tried a few of them - they so rough around the edges, they’re probably at least a decade away being ready for “prime time”…
15 years ago - I thought there was no future for GNU/Linux on the desktop - but was ALWAYS a UNIX and Linux in the data centre zealot and advocate…
I now see a solid realistic future for GNU/Linux as desktop solution - discussing BSD as a possibility is a pipe dream and so niche as to be all but irrelevant… there’s also the matter that BSD doesn’t quite fall under the GNU license, I’m no lawyer, but people like Stallman aren’t crazy about projects like BSD…
Wasn’t the major reason licensing opportunities? It could’ve ran Linux, if the license would be more friendly to people who want $10,000 dollar for a $2,500 computer, wrapped in a silver/white PC case to make it look more fancy and worth the $10,000 bucks.
Jobs’ team at NeXt were using some BSD variant when Apple brought him “back into the fold”… I think it’s basically that… Running BSD stuff on NeXt’s MACH kernel… or something like that…
Yes agree about market
What attracts about BSD is not the kernel, but package and ports system. We hear every day about issues with Ubuntu package management. You have recently had some issues yourself. If that trend continues, people are going to look elsewhere, and the market will shift.