I spent a lot of time 25 years ago learning to love BSD in general, but FreeBSD in particular. I tried to make DragonflyBSD my desktop OS for a time. It’s sad how little love BSD gets nowadays…especially given how much of modern iOS / macOS owes BSD (for BSD subsystem that’s on top of the Mach kernel).

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wkat4242 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I use it every day as my desktop OS. Vanilla FreeBSD even, not dragonfly.

I like it because it's so stable. They don't have this Linux thing where they have to change everything around to incorporate the latest fad, and there's also not so many big tech companies constantly messing with the code. Linux has too much corporate influence for me. I don't want Huawei or Amazon to be messing with the code I run all the time. The grassroots nature of Linux is kinda gone and the suits have taken over, just like with the internet itself.

I also love how the OS is stable but the apps are rolling. This really helps to be on the latest KDE etc. And the documentation is excellent. ZFS on root as a first class citizen too.

There's a small team of maintainers working hard to keep everything going in this age of increasing linuxisms. But so far they've been doing a great job.

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inatreecrown2 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I just started using FreeBSD as my desktop OS on an old x230. I was surprised to find that for my use case, wine works faster and is more stable than on linux or Mac. Now I will install it on my desktop pc next.

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elcritch 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I really wish I could run FreeBSD on Apple silicon. The shared *BSD base seems fitting.

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doublerabbit 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I bought my iPhone out right in cash and we should have outright full access to the hardware. Not just the screen.

	▲	vpShane 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Agreed. Our hardware, our software, our choice.

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wkat4242 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Apple isn't really BSD. The mach kernel is very different. There's some shared heritage dating back to nextstep but it's very deep. And some userland. But that's really all.

	▲	yjftsjthsd-h 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> There's some shared heritage dating back to nextstep but it's very deep. And some userland. The userland is pretty important. To most Debian users, Debian GNU/FreeBSD would feel more familiar than Alpine/Linux (with busybox and no GNU coreutils).
	▲	elcritch 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Sure it's very distinct but the vibe still feels more *BSD due to that early userland. That shared heritage runs deep. I'd also say it also feels more like Solaris/Illumos. Linux has just always had a very different vibe to it.

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clanky 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Is this the fluffypony of Monero fame? If so, I got into FreeBSD a bit after hearing you praise it on crypto podcasts back in 2017/18. Surprised your handle was still available on HN!