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I've been thinking of throwing FreeBSD on an old Thinkpad and trying to use it normally. Right now I run Debian, with most of my work happening in Firefox or the shell.

Is there anything you didn't even think about that ended up being a problem, or noticeably worse? Or the opposite, something you thought would be an issue but wasn't?

discuss

andrewzah|4 years ago

FreeBSD runs pretty nice on thinkpads. I've thrown it (and OpenBSD) on my x201s and x220s. There are a few pain points:

* getting used to the BSD version of utilities. make frequently breaks for me, and last time I used gmake there were still issues.

* random software isn't packaged or just doesn't run/build on *BSDs well.

* lack of support for games. these days, steam games run rather well on linux as long as they don't require anticheats.

* no docker. this is what keeps me on linux, I use it every day for work and I have a server at home running software through docker containers.

For me, OpenBSD is the goto.. for servers. I still stick with debian or arch for my daily drivers.

GekkePrutser|4 years ago

Most gmake works well but sometimes you have to change the include and lib paths. FreeBSD is just a bit different in that respect bit it's a good thing IMO. It's very consistent

dddddaviddddd|4 years ago

WiFi is currently limited to 802.11n on all chipsets. Work to support 802.11ac (and more wireless cards) is ongoing and looks to me like it could be ready in 2022. Also, options for videoconferencing programs (Zoom, Skype) are poor, you're effectively limited to browser-based versions, which don't perform well with an iGPU at least.

GekkePrutser|4 years ago

Jitsi works fine though at least in Firefox!

I don't want zoom anywhere near my FreeBSD box after what they did with that backdoor on macOS. And refused to remove it until apple blacklisted them.

r3trohack3r|4 years ago

Honestly - I expected it to be harder than it was. I read the entire handbook cover to cover before doing an install. I think that was the trick. It’s just been smooth sailing.

I keep an R620 running Linux that I can ssh into if I need Docker - but I use it a lot less than I expected.