Two Weeks of FreeBSD – Current Impressions | Hacker News Reader

Two Weeks of FreeBSD – Current Impressions

blog.eatonphil.com

4 pointseatonphil7 comments

I love FreeBSD as a server, and I too have forced into a desktop before... but probably should not have.

If you want FreeBSD + desktop, try out PC-BSD (http://www.pcbsd.org/)

One reason I decided against going with PC-BSD is because apparently the package management system is a mess. I cannot remember the exact location I read that, but this thread might be a start [0]. Overall, I just got the impression that it isn't worth it.

[0] https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/does-a-gui-package-manage...

That's odd. Dead simple package management is one of PC-BSD's biggest wins. That thread seems to be about running PC-BSD's package managers on vanilla FreeBSD, which… yeah, I don't know if that's going to work very well. It doesn't quite apply to running PC-BSD itself.

Did you find Cooltrainer's page about FreeBSD desktops? [1] It may have come in handy during your exploration.

1: https://cooltrainer.org/a-freebsd-desktop-howto/

To clarify, I think there was mention that PC-BSD had a tendency to be behind the FreeBSD ports releases because it required the extra wrapping. But I am totally hazy on this so I guess I should just defer.

I did stumble upon Cooltrainer, yes. But I think ultimately I did not find it useful other than just nice reading material.

One of the "problems" is that there a ten ways to configure every setup and no one has the same setup. Sticking with the manpages and official guide were ultimately the most helpful things to me personally.

> To clarify, I think there was mention that PC-BSD had a tendency to be behind the FreeBSD ports releases because it required the extra wrapping.

Okay, that's true - if the maintainer doesn't put in the work or there's no maintainer in the first place, the work won't get done. I find that's true with no matter what ports/package manager you choose to use, though, and at any rate, at least back when I experimented with PC-BSD, nothing's stopping you from ignoring PC-BSD's package manager altogether and just using the vanilla FreeBSD ones.

Well, I still think you should give PC-BSD a try some day, though I totally understand if you want to take a break from tinkering and use whatever's currently working for you for a while. We've all been there. :)

I guess I'll have to give it a go then! Probably in VirtualBox though. I am loathe to repeat this process.

Also, any reason you'd recommend this over GhostBSD? I don't really know the difference. They seem to be offering similar things.

Back when I first tried PC-BSD, I don't think GhostBSD existed yet. I've tried it once or twice since then, though. GhostBSD is definitely more lightweight and simple in what it provides (no graphical package manager, for example), whereas PC-BSD is more kitchen sink; I guess whichever one works for you depends on what you're looking for.

By all means, feel free to give both a try.

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