 Visitor Reviews |
NomadBSD
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Reader supplied reviews for NomadBSD
Average rating
7.8 from 39 review(s)
Version: 141r
Rating: 6
Date: 2025-06-06
Votes: 0
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Well, overall system is quite good but... developers still didn't fix the issue with turning off monitor in screensaver mode. When NomadBSD blanks screen after some time of user's inactivity user cannot back to the desktop by typing keys or moving the mouse. The screen stays blank and you cannot do anything about it. You can only reset the machine and boot up system again. The same bug was in previous versions of NomadBSD. So be warned.
It would be great if system is compatible with more network hardware and graphic adapters hardware.
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Version: 141r
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-05-18
Votes: 10
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I was so impressed with this, that I went ahead and installed it. I haven't had any issues with wifi, the package manager works wonderfully (with a nice collection of packages to choose from), and the layout is very well thought out and looks fantastic. If you're interested in BSD, and you haven't given this a look, I can definitely say that it's worth flashing to a USB and giving it a test drive to see if it jibes with your normal work flow. The NomadBSD team did a lot of work on this, and it definitely shows. Run it as a live USB with persistence, or install it on metal like me. Either way, I think you'll be as impressed as I am. Good Stuff.
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Version: 141r
Rating: 2
Date: 2025-01-20
Votes: 1
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This Operating System lacks of basic wireless network drivers, what is absolutely unacceptable in 2025. I was able to connect to internet, using external wired adapter, but the connection dropped, once I tried running pkg update or open the browser. Installed version of Network Manager is very limited - I could not find graphical network configuration application.
The issues are typical for FreeBSD and all of it's derivatives. FreeBSD is a great Server OS, but as a desktop OS it is still in rudimentary state.
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Version: 140r
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-04-12
Votes: 27
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it is the fastest system for freecad,
I have tested many operating systems with FreeCAD. nomad bsd (installed on the hard drive) is the fastest. I'm totally thrilled. I hope the system will last for a long time.
Here is the installation of FreeCAD as shown below
pkt install freecad
very easy
I've been working with Unix-like systems since the 80s. In my opinion, nomadbsd is the most powerful today. it doesn't slow down the hardware. Nvidia cards also run very well. e.g. gtx 770
Many, many thanks to the developers of nomadbsd
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Version: 140r
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-02-27
Votes: 34
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I just take my usb stick with NomadBSD and it's working at many old and new laptops.
Very simple installation (in comparsion with others BSD).
Some packages onboard (editors, browser, file manager etc)
Simple languages config.
Very nice look.
Most of my hardware devices working without some jumps and magicians, with minimum console using or without it.
It's like FreeBSD with desktop for newbies, and I like it.
Very goog for non-profy users to start learning BSD and for peoples, who afraid console now.
Thanks for authors of NomadBSD.
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Version: 140r
Rating: 1
Date: 2023-12-29
Votes: 0
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NomadBSD is a theoretically great idea that does not work in practice.
It's a nice system, and the OpenBox interface is a billion times better than the badly cludged Linux DE on FreeBSD offerings by others. This is probably because OpenBox is not really a 'desktop environment' per se, but an interface that runs well atop a server, which is essentially what FreeBSD is.
The idea of a live FreeBSD is brilliant, and NomadBSD fundamentally works as a live system. Settings can be customised on the fly, and the live system can be installed to a real hard drive, keeping ones personal settings.
But it's not possible to tell whether it's a real full install or simply a clone of the live USB version with the continued option to edit personal settings.
For a start, the install to a hard drive is unusually fast, under 10 minutes, the same as decompressing the disk.img and writing it to a USB pendrive: literally erasing the drive, writing a bootable file system and copying the live OS to the drive.
But then, it is impossible to update or upgrade the system, or add software, which suggests that it is no more than a static FreeBSD with a very nice GUI. The OctoPkg application is essentially useless, because it can do nothing more than read the package lists. Even running 'sudo freebsd-update fetch' in the terminal does nothing more. It's not even possible to add the Linux compatible repositories, in spite of what the NomadBSD handbook instructs.
So NomadBSD is not really what it claims to be.
It lacks the genuine persistence of a live (Linux) system in which software can actually be added and removed, and it lacks even the capabilities of a genuine frugal install that can do the same (e.g. Puppy, EasyOS, or Slax), so it is not truly a 'live' system.
I hope that this project continues, but thus far, it only proves that FreeBSD is a server system, not a genuine live system in the Linux sense.
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Version: 132r
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-11-23
Votes: 30
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I'm impressed: it works perfectly on a Dell Latitude, out of the box. Fast and light (the window manager is Openbox). Excellent OS to try out FreeBSD without any configurations/adjustments, especially in order to check the drivers before installing the whole OS permanently.
Tests on other machines:
Lenovo Yoga: everything works except for the WiFi chipset (missing BSD driver)
Unknown Chinese laptop: everything works except for the WiFi chipset (missing BSD driver)
Considering that FreeBSD (just like other BSDs) was born for servers and not desktops, the result on these laptops is impressive.
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Version: 131r
Rating: 2
Date: 2023-09-08
Votes: 0
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With high hopes, tried installing in a 2012 AMD four core Gateway machine and it got stuck in a "root mount waiting for: CAM" loop and finally booted 15 minutes later. It did this with EVERY boot. The file the forum suggested editing to correct that was empty. Suspend may have worked but there was nothing I could do to get it to resume other than power off and reboot. The desktop is nicely organized, it found the wifi card, seemed to adjust the graphics well, Firefox worked ok but too slow to play videos that were fine on Linux. Sorry to be a downer here. Have been a Debian Linux user for a decade, always on the lookout for something simplified but this just didn't work. Tried it on a 2013 Dell Intel machine with only somewhat better results. Maybe a good work in progress but not ready for prime time just yet.
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Version: 131r
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-26
Votes: 24
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Nomad-BSD is an amazingly easy way to try FreeBSD. My upload and download speeds have greatly improved over any Linux systems I have used in the past, and I have tried many versions. Since this recent installation, it is my daily driver. All of the installed programs operate without a single flaw, and those programs appear to load and start faster on Nomad-BSD than on any Linux system I used in the past.
Google-Chrome, a Linux version running on Nomad-BSD, starts faster than on Linux. Even LibreOffice runs smoother and faster on Nomad-BSD. All of the regular applications from KDE, Gnome, Mate, and XFCE run flawlessly in Nomad-BSD.
Nomad-BSD automatically installed my HP printer and my videocam as it installed the operating system on my 22-year-old Dell-Studio i-7 desktop. It is obvious that many improvements have been made to the latest installation software. Even though Nomad-BSD will operate on a USB card, I strongly recommend installing to your hard-drive if you want the true speed of Nomad-BSD.
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Version: 131r
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-04-04
Votes: 7
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If you have an older video card, watch out. The first thing you need to do is edit /etc/rc.conf. Change kld_list="radeonkms" and reboot your system. All the error messages go away, and your video card works properly. My i-7 literally flies and everything works as it should. Once that is done, install it. You will be amazed at how fast your system runs. By the way, don't install any programs until you put Nomad onto your hard drive. Why, because it works slowly on a stick. Since installing it onto my hard drive, downloading and uploading has also improved. This is FreeBSD at its best, in my opinion. Sadly, I spent hours attempting to get FreeBSD 13.1 to run on my Dell Studio XPS 8100. This unit was built in 2009, and FreeBSD no longer supports their original video drivers. Instead, FreeBSD uses a video driver, Cuse for BSD. That driver causes the video cards to run faster than designed, and the cards stop working because of over-heating. After setting this up, I won't be returning to Linux anytime in the near future. My distro hopping days are over. I am willing to bet that GhostBSD, NomadBSD, and many other BSD have seen numerous complaints since updating to FreeBSD 13.1's official release, and this single issue of the video card driver is responsible for causing all the error messages.
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Version: 131r
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-06
Votes: 3
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Very polished system and uses very little resources. Runs fast and was easy to install. The install does everythig for you. All of the peripherals were recognized and they worked perfectly out of the box. The system is very stable and i have not had any issues with it. The openbox window manager looks very nice and professional. Everything is easy to make it look the way you want. It is easy for those who want to transition to BSD and not have to worry about things not working. Recommend to anyone.
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Version: 131r
Rating: 7
Date: 2023-01-27
Votes: 2
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TL;DR This is the only "what"BSD that interested me because it features persistence on external USB disk. I tried it once, before the Dec-2022 update but it was less usable than it is now. Either way, it cannot recognize the touchpad of my 10-year-old budget HP laptop.
It takes a fairly long time to start, like any Linux with KDE Plasma maybe except EndeavourOS or Q4OS LOL. After it asked me for specific settings such as keyboard layout, it asked me to reboot. I did so, in single-user mode but it went right into the desktop without asking me for the password. Is that normal?
It seems to behave like Linux system equipped with a window manager. Right-button mouse click on panel to close a program won't be to everyone's taste. Recalling a new panel "theme" with "Tint2", to change its settings is very slow. For one of them I only wanted to change its position, because both the panel and "Plank" were at the bottom.
It consistently runs hot on the left-hand side of my 10-year-old laptop. I have a lot of trouble getting any Linux installation to be alike.
It comes with some programs such as Geany (better than the editor proposed in the initial setup) and VLC (which is garbage in any distro), but no office suite. It's because the file system "image" is already 4GB uncompressed. Web browser is Firefox (with "UBlock Origin" preinstalled!) but probably a different one could be installed. This OS also comes with the "older" release of Thunar (ie. no split view and customizable keystroke shortcuts). To view PDF files there's Qpdfview which absurdly, is located in the AUR in Arch Linux world. I did the full-system update with OctoPkg. It took a long time to finish. Before that the OctoPkg was on the dock on the bottom of the screen, but it took itself off. It seems it is set to display packages already installed on the system, and I have to open web browser to "FreeBSD ports" site or whatever to discover what else could be installed.
The DSBMC doesn't seem to find all the partitions of my computer, in particular of an internal hard disk when the system is booted via external USB. It came up with ESP, the C: drive of Windows and other NTFS partitions but missed one of the "ext4" partitions (32-bit Slackware) probably because the latter doesn't have an EFI entry. (I was unable to boot this system itself via UEFI which is interesting.) The app to mount partitions doesn't recall disk or partition labels which could put off somebody not confident working with an Unix-like OS.
I wish I could disable the stupid animations which are for small children. The Handbook is pretty good, might be too brief, could be read offline but unfortunately some information such as that for DSBMC and for using Linux programs causes an online visit. I should spend weeks with this system to be able to give more useful information that would satisfy an "expert". This was for NomadBSD for 64-bit and "ZFS".
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Version: 131r
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-12-16
Votes: 3
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I am surprised that there aren't yet any reviews of the latest release.
OVERVIEW. As I post this, I am using the latest NomadBSD 131R, on a small Lenovo 300e. Everything works -- which says a lot for NomadBSD 131R. I have tried many systems which almost work, but not quite.
DETAIL. NomadBSD 131R is based on FreeBSD. Being BSD, it is a little unfamiliar to me, but a short handbook tells me (almost) all I need to know. NomadBSD 131R looks beautiful, it works reliably, it offers persistence on USB, it is easily customizable, and it is obviously carefully thought out. It works something like Linux LXQt, although it includes a dock. Its various components are more tightly integrated than Linux.
SOFTWARE. Being based on FreeBSD, NomadBSD 131R is well supplied with software. One might wish to keep to hand the FreeBSD Foundation's "Installing Software on FreeBSD" for basic instructions. Compared with Linux, installation of new packages is slow, however, and if NomadBSD 131R skips a beat (I am in Africa) one has to start all over again.
FAULTS. NomadBSD 131R exhibits just a little buggish behavior. For instance, screen brightness sometimes jumps back to default, a package may refuse to install until one has a clean system, or an app may at first pop up as a mere icon. But these are small hitches, which are of no real consequence.
ALL IN ALL. I was impressed with NomadBSD before. I had read that it worked beautifully for others -- but for my own system, it wasn't quite ready. Now it is ready.
Review by Thomas O. Scarborough.
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Version: 1.2
Rating: 7
Date: 2022-12-06
Votes: 0
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Now BSD has been made simple and effortless. The installation cannot be simplified any more than NomadBSD. Live mode with persistent is simply unexpected surprise.It works beautiful and all that. I am running NomadBSD onn on my 10 year old desktop pc with 4GB of DDR2 RAM. But Firefox browser does not allow me to open Google account and the Thunar file manager does not connect to main system hard drives and not even shown in the File manager. I doubt whether NomadBSD distro is secure to do online banking etc and I find no way to install Firewall on it. NomadBSD required very little efforts to install and automatic configuration did the rest of installation.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-10-07
Votes: 2
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NomadBSD is a very attractive operating system that deserves to go a long way.
It makes using FreeBSD more accessible & user friendly.
The GUI is beautiful; one of the best interpretations of Openbox, ever. Where most Openbox-faced distros have multiple menus going all over the place, NomadBSD is very clean & tidy & usable.
Even the website is neat and tidy.
And the manual is precise & concise.
The nearest Linux comparison is Slax; & it would not be unfair to say that NomadBSD is something of a BSD parallel to Slax, albeit that NomadBSD comes as a much more complete & equipped (& 6X bigger) distro, that is designed to be installed to hard drive.
But that, alas, is where it ends.
Mobile broadband is not something that works well on FreeBSD, & I was not willing to risk wrecking my Huawei E3372h modem on the off-chance that it may. With Slax, the workaround is simple: don't disconnect before rebooting; there is no damage limitation risk.
On top of that, NomadBSD cannot read LUKS-encrypted drives, but that's another FreeBSD problem.
Apart from these 2 contra-points NomadBSD is a great system, & I would make it my main distro if they were sorted upstream.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-14
Votes: 5
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Greetings, just want to tell you that NomadBSD, is a great tool, which makes my work a lot easier. I am so happy I started to use it. I was checking out many Linux distros, but NomadBSD, has really make me feel that this is the OS for any one looking for a very good and solid OS. I recommend it to any one looking a solid and full of utilities to do all your daily work.
I am able to do all my office work and my personal needs with this OS. I can play music, type my letters/memos and keep track of all my income and expenses with Libre Office.
You should give it a try, you'll be glad you did.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-07-01
Votes: 3
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Just a fantastic OS with a friendly community. (forum.nomadbsd.org)
It has good (as far as BSD's goes) hardware support and a nice out of the box experience assuming you like the Openbox experience.
It has a nice and simple installer if you want to install it on your internal drive. It setup takes you through the process of encrypting the drive if you that is something you want. It also has a guided setup for using a Linux browser.
If you want to try out a BSD experience this is a excellent choice.
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Version: 1.4
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-03-11
Votes: 4
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NomadBSD is designed to run as a persistent USB live distro. It ships with a compressed file nomadbsd.x.y.z.img.lzma which is decompressed, then the img file is burnt to a bootable USB. Upon its first run it asks about language, locale, keyboard, user(s), and then it reboots into GUI. It comes packaged with Firefox, Thunderbird, Thunar, LibreOffice, GIMP, Audacity etc. The GUI presents with a dock, and a menu on the top-left, or with a right-click anywhere on the screen. I tried it on a 10 years old laptop (Intel Core i3, 4GB RAM) from a USB and it worked smoothly with no issues. It detected the Wi-Fi, screen-resolution, and sound card. It comes with access to other software. The instructions on how to creat a bootable USB on the website are clear.
It seems to be suitable as a nomad operating system, or a rescue operating system. It fares comparable to Knoppix in its capabilities as a live USB. The difference is that NomadBSD creates a partition on the USB where any changes are saved, so in w ay it is a proper nomad.
On another older notebook, it did not go well, as it did not recognise the hardware, which jumbled the USB, so I had to re-install it.
Othewise, NomadBSD has a straight forward GUI based mini-installation process, comes bundled with a decent up-to-date software. I'd highly recommend it.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-02-08
Votes: 3
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I have a specific need to run a persistent live system on one of my machines, and I tried a number of distros for this purpose. It is quite easy, of course, to make a persistent USB from any Debian or Ubuntu-based distro using Rufus, which can embed a persistence file in the iso. Of these, Linux Mint works exceptionally well, like everything else about Mint. Kali also works quite well, but I had difficulties with MX Linux and Slax.
Anyway, in the end, I decided to use NomadBSD and I have quite enjoyed the experience. It is fast and stable, and the default Openbox desktop is great. There is useful selection of default packages, which are all fairly current, and a wide range available in the repositories. However, for someone with no Linux or BSD experience, Mint would still be a better option; my 80-year-old mom would have no problem using it once I booted it onto her machine for the first time. NomadBSD still requires some tweaking that, while it's no problem for us, might frustrate a new Windows convert.
Nevertheless, NomadBSD has 2 big advantages over Mint and the other Linux live USBs made with Rufus. First, after allocating a certain amount of the USB for persistence for a Linux Distro, space on the device will inevitably be wasted. As NomadBSD is entirely an img file, and thus all persistent, no space is wasted. Also, on a Linux USB, the available space will decrease as one uses the internet, and will be recovered after the history is cleared. This means that a USB with plenty of space can become filled if one ignores this, and it can mess up the device when it is upgraded. On the img file of NomadBSD, no space is used up through internet use, same a normal computer hard drive. I don't know the technical reason for this.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-12-26
Votes: 0
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I quit Windows because it was terribly slow, but I think NomadBSD outperforms Windows. It's horribly slow, it doesn't recognize my wifi on any of my 3 computers: a 2013 imac, a 2015 Hp, and a 2021 HP laptop. Also, it takes about an hour to install the OS on a USB. Bad experiment, folks ...
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-09-12
Votes: 2
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UNBELIVABLE as a newbye it took to me 4 days configuring FreeBSD
in half an our with NomadBSD installed on hard disk i'm watching netflix
I'm not kidding i'm running NomadBSD on 15 years pld HPCompaq 6910p
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-09-08
Votes: 2
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I am working on replacing my Macs with an OS that isn't so intrusive in how they think I should use their computer.
This is not the first time I have used NomadBSD, but the first time as a daily driver. The other times saw issues, but it was also on older Mac hardware. I have been using this as my daily driver for a couple of days now. So far I am please. It has run without issue on three various workstations. 1 wired and 2 wireless and they all worked just fine.
It has been fun to see this OS evolve over the years to a very usable alternative. There is always room for improvement, but well on its way. Keep up the great work!!
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-07-30
Votes: 0
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The interface is nice looking. I was so surprised to see that all three of my laptops wifi works in NomadBSD. Kudos to them for making it work with hardware. I'm not crazy about the D.E. because I like KDE best, but still it works from a USB drive or installation. I recommend it.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-06-28
Votes: 23
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Honestly, I can't believe this is really FreeBSD.
The Install: detected my fairly recent (2020) hardware and automatically provided drivers for the GPU, then booted up into a graphical install. After a reboot, it put me into a GUI that was nice looking and easy to use for someone experienced with Linux. No scary manual installation of Xorg that ends up failing, no struggling to install the correct driver and edit the correct .conf file. If you have ever wanted to explore FreeBSD but couldn't manage to get hardware to work, this is definitely for you.
Daily Usage of about a week: Full of features, fast, no crashing or other issues. Lots of GUI settings to edit things. However, I will say it still has some growing to do. For example, there is a great feature that will allow you to install a Linux version of Chrome - but you can't log into a Google account because it's marked as insecure.
Overall, I recommend giving it a try for those new to BSD systems or who don't want to spend time fighting FreeBSD to get it working well on a desktop. This is essentially what Ubuntu was for Linux, and if it doesn't die off I bet it will gain some traction.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-06-01
Votes: 5
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Just downloaded this latest version and set up on a USB3 thumb drive. All went smoothly. This version is definitely an improvement over V1.3, which had previously tried. That worked OK on a very old laptop but wouldn't run on this one, where it is working nicely.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-05-18
Votes: 0
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I couldn't get it to start on any of my machines (Acer Aspire 5280 and a machine with a SuperMicro X8DT6 and on-board VGA card), only in Virtualbox, which makes it useless for me.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-05-16
Votes: 4
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Disclaimer- I am not a gamer or well versed in multimedia pyrotechnics!!
NomadBSD on a USB stick (legacy boot) has just worked out of the box, so I went all in to upgrade to this version that uses an intimidating ID protocol.
In OpenSuSE, did a "dd" command to get the .img file on to a clean, FAT32 formatted 16 gig stick. Default parameters went smoothly.
NomadBSD is "persistent". Just run it like a dual-boot hard drive of yesteryear. Tweak as you go along, knowing the adjustments will be there when you reboot the stick. If security is important, check out the file encryption when making initial settings in case you lose your stick.
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Version: 1.4
Rating: 5
Date: 2021-05-14
Votes: 0
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Good
BUT would be amazing without pulseaudio
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-05-13
Votes: 3
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NomadBSD is the only BSD that I can easily use on the laptop/desktop.
I really like the look and feel of the pre-installed software, I recommend it!
The only downside is that "sometimes" the system is slightly slow, but it should be noted that I am using it through a USB flash drive.
Congratulations to the NomadBSD team!
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-05-13
Votes: 0
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First of all I liked to thank them for their much lot of work they put into this project. Developing an OS like this is also always a Martyrdom. :wink:
I am little bit confused about the new versioning scheme. So is this a ready to use release or is it a testing release? And in my opinion the version names are to long an complicated.
So i try it to install it on different Computers and i have to say, that the booting don’t work well in many cases.
So in detail:
HP Probook 6550b Intel core M520 Graphics: intel processor:
The booting interuped after the third line bios diskxxx and rebooted from hard disk
HP Laptop 17 ak0xxx Amd A9-9420 Graphics: Radeon R5:
The booting failed by this lines -
ugen05 HPgenericWebcam at usb0
very often repeating of the line Root mount waiting for cam
and then mounting from ufs/dev/label/nmadroot failed with error2
Then something should be done manually but I am too dumb for it.
HP Laptop 17-by0xxxx Intelceleron N4000 graphics: UHD 600:
NomadBSD 1,4 is actually running very fine on this Laptop
Its booting until the first three or four green lines ( too fast to read it ) then interrupted and rebooted from hard disk.
Fujitsu Lifebook E 70 Intel core I5 M520 Graphics: intel core processor:
its worked fine and quick.
Dell Optiplex 7010 intelcore i3-3240 Graphics Intelxenon E3-1200
its worked fine and quick
if its working, then its really working quick for a 2.0 USB Stick.
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Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-05-13
Votes: 1
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I downloaded the img file from Germany (fast server) extracted with 7-zip and used Rufus to write a 32Gb USB 3.0 Sandisk stick. This took awhile.
Inserted said stick into my Thinkpad L460 and hit F12 to choose Nomad to boot.
On the first try I hit 1 - Multiuser and after some intial boot messages it crashed and rebooted.
Next time I just waited for the automated boot to do its thing and this time it went without any hassle.
Chose language, keyboard and root/user name password etc and it rebooted again without
any problems to the desktop.
I could connect to my wifi and use the Linux Browser Installer to install the Vivaldi browser. This took some time, but once installed it worked well.
Tried out all the software, which worked well too and I think the desktop was usable.
This is the first BSD that I have succeeded booting and working on any of my laptops.
So congrats to the Nomad team!
Will it replace my Solus 4.2 Plasma ed. installation?
No. Maybe?
I will certainly keep my USB stick and try it some more and see if I can tweak the desktop to my liking, try out some more software and see if I can get a RAW image workflow going.
Using a UNIX distribution is definitely a bit more intriguing and unique than all the Linux distributions that are flooding the internet.
Thank you.
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Version: 1.4
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-04-27
Votes: 8
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after years on windows, Linux and OsX i decided to check a BSD.
NomadBSD is perferct
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Version: 1.4
Rating: 3
Date: 2021-04-20
Votes: 0
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Not good for me. My Steinberg ur-22 sound card did not work. l did not find the internet connection and it did not see the other 3 hdd/ssd (nt partitions).
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Version: 1.4
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-03-24
Votes: 8
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I actually replaced my Windows and Linux Mint with NomadBSD (hdd installation). Its been working great! Just gotta read the documentation to get my gamepad working. OS looks amazing and is fast and responsive, took literally few clicks to install it and everything worked from get go, no issues with bluetooth/wifi/peripheral/sound drivers.
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Version: 1.4
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-03-17
Votes: 2
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I have the 32-bit version running as a desktop system for a couple of weeks now and like someone said earlier: the more I use it, the more I've come to like it. I'm running it on a not so young Dell Vostro 430, Intel i5 quadcore (3.2 Ghz) and 4 Gb RAM and it works like a charm with Geforce 310 and a Belkin USB stick to connect wireless. I run a clean desktop: Openbox without Plank.
NomadBSD just does what it has to and I am happy using it as my daily driver for now.
I must say that besides GhostBSD this is the only "bsd" flavor that I have managed to get working (with that I mean boot, install, GUI and internet connection up). All the others failed on different machines for a number of reasons, so I am quite pleased to finally have a Berkeley Distro running :-)
It is a nice, clean system and it does change from Windows10 or Linux distro's. I find it fast and I really like the selection of resident software. I use Asunder, VLC, Audacity, Leafpad, Geany, Libre Office, GIMP and Firefox. I mainly do editing work and I have to login to some admin pages in facebook and wordpress. Meanwhile I try getting used to the unconventional Sakura terminal emulator and the fish shell. Couldn't get the highly acclaimed Linux Browser Installer working though but I manage to get my preferred apps working. The package (pkg) installer works perfectly by the way. Once you get over the initial command line scare, this is a very comfortable system. Anyway, I still learn things every single day and I think I will not get bored soon with this system.
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Version: 1.4
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-03-10
Votes: 3
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I have tried out a great many operating systems.
People typically think of Windows, macOS, and Linux. Recently I tried out NomadBSD, on a lightweight Acer Aspire 3. NomadBSD was so very good -- functional, beautiful -- that it seems a pity that it failed.
First, it failed to recognise my touchpad -- however, it automatically switched to a mouse. This is an improvement over earlier versions -- but I needed the touchpad. Then I sought to install the alternative browser. NomadBSD crashed -- in fact, self-destructed -- with the message 'Help!' And that was the end of it.
If NomadBSD overcomes such things in the next release, it will surely be one of the most attractive operating systems around. On other computers, it already works just fine.
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Version: 1.4-RC1
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-02-27
Votes: 8
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The more I live on NomadBSD, the more I love it. So far, I have improved my upload and download speeds, have my desktop running Mate, improved my sound levels and quality of sound, and my system runs faster than any Linux flavor I have ever used. Would you believe that my entire operating system and workstation use only 9.2 Gigs of my hard drive? The 9.2 Gigs includes Libre-Office, all sorts of graphic programs, web-browsers, file managers, etc. NomadBSD is the easiest and fastest way to install and use FreeBSD. All of the adjustments I have made to my operating system were done following FreeBSD's published instructions.
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Version: 1.4-RC1
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-02-18
Votes: 8
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Tried Nomad after years of numerous Linux distros, and seriously impressed by this thoroughly well developed live OS.
It runs smoothly from a cheap but decent usb3 stick tested on an old Dell desktop and laptop.
The openbox desktop theming looks great, launches apps quickly and memory usage amazingly low.
The system has persistence which requires no setup as simply installs from an unzipped .img.
Result is a solid FreeBSD based, password protected (with disk encryption option) live OS that acts like a normal hdd installation!
Hardware detection ok – used a Ralink 2870 wlan on both machines, no issues with sound/video, only limited touchpad functionality on laptop. No problems accessing Windows drives / external media.
Lots of useful software out of the box, and has the OctoPkg gui package manager which is similar to Synaptic. The installed Firefox ESR updated to 78.7.1 & performs really well on my machines.
Obviously there are limitations with BSD systems depending on your needs/hardware, but overall I’m loving Nomad as a brilliant simple to use alternative to Linux greats like Puppy, Easy and MX/Antix.
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Version: 1.4-RC1
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-02-01
Votes: 3
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Unfortunately, I still can't see my linux reiserfs drives, and again, I installed fusefs-lkl.
Other than that, and not being an Openbox fan, I could handle having this as an OS on my computer. It will be snappy if installed on an SSD (I have it on a flashdrive using USB3, but my USB slots on the machine are getting to the point that sometimes they don't read that a drive was plugged in to it, or the transfer of files to and from are slower than molasses in January...I fear it's probably my MOBO, I *positive* it's not the NomadBSD).
If the dev's can get this to finally see reiserfs systems, I'll be on this distro like white on rice!
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Latest Reviews
Project: NomadBSD
Version: 141r
Rating: 6
Date: 2025-06-06
Votes: 0
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Well, overall system is quite good but... developers still didn't fix the issue with turning off monitor in screensaver mode. When NomadBSD blanks screen after some time of user's inactivity user cannot back to the desktop by typing keys or moving the mouse. The screen stays blank and you cannot do anything about it. You can only reset the machine and boot up system again. The same bug was in previous versions of NomadBSD. So be warned.
It would be great if system is compatible with more network hardware and graphic adapters hardware.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 141r
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-05-18
Votes: 10
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I was so impressed with this, that I went ahead and installed it. I haven't had any issues with wifi, the package manager works wonderfully (with a nice collection of packages to choose from), and the layout is very well thought out and looks fantastic. If you're interested in BSD, and you haven't given this a look, I can definitely say that it's worth flashing to a USB and giving it a test drive to see if it jibes with your normal work flow. The NomadBSD team did a lot of work on this, and it definitely shows. Run it as a live USB with persistence, or install it on metal like me. Either way, I think you'll be as impressed as I am. Good Stuff.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 141r
Rating: 2
Date: 2025-01-20
Votes: 1
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This Operating System lacks of basic wireless network drivers, what is absolutely unacceptable in 2025. I was able to connect to internet, using external wired adapter, but the connection dropped, once I tried running pkg update or open the browser. Installed version of Network Manager is very limited - I could not find graphical network configuration application.
The issues are typical for FreeBSD and all of it's derivatives. FreeBSD is a great Server OS, but as a desktop OS it is still in rudimentary state.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 140r
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-04-12
Votes: 27
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it is the fastest system for freecad,
I have tested many operating systems with FreeCAD. nomad bsd (installed on the hard drive) is the fastest. I'm totally thrilled. I hope the system will last for a long time.
Here is the installation of FreeCAD as shown below
pkt install freecad
very easy
I've been working with Unix-like systems since the 80s. In my opinion, nomadbsd is the most powerful today. it doesn't slow down the hardware. Nvidia cards also run very well. e.g. gtx 770
Many, many thanks to the developers of nomadbsd
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 140r
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-02-27
Votes: 34
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I just take my usb stick with NomadBSD and it's working at many old and new laptops.
Very simple installation (in comparsion with others BSD).
Some packages onboard (editors, browser, file manager etc)
Simple languages config.
Very nice look.
Most of my hardware devices working without some jumps and magicians, with minimum console using or without it.
It's like FreeBSD with desktop for newbies, and I like it.
Very goog for non-profy users to start learning BSD and for peoples, who afraid console now.
Thanks for authors of NomadBSD.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 140r
Rating: 1
Date: 2023-12-29
Votes: 0
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NomadBSD is a theoretically great idea that does not work in practice.
It's a nice system, and the OpenBox interface is a billion times better than the badly cludged Linux DE on FreeBSD offerings by others. This is probably because OpenBox is not really a 'desktop environment' per se, but an interface that runs well atop a server, which is essentially what FreeBSD is.
The idea of a live FreeBSD is brilliant, and NomadBSD fundamentally works as a live system. Settings can be customised on the fly, and the live system can be installed to a real hard drive, keeping ones personal settings.
But it's not possible to tell whether it's a real full install or simply a clone of the live USB version with the continued option to edit personal settings.
For a start, the install to a hard drive is unusually fast, under 10 minutes, the same as decompressing the disk.img and writing it to a USB pendrive: literally erasing the drive, writing a bootable file system and copying the live OS to the drive.
But then, it is impossible to update or upgrade the system, or add software, which suggests that it is no more than a static FreeBSD with a very nice GUI. The OctoPkg application is essentially useless, because it can do nothing more than read the package lists. Even running 'sudo freebsd-update fetch' in the terminal does nothing more. It's not even possible to add the Linux compatible repositories, in spite of what the NomadBSD handbook instructs.
So NomadBSD is not really what it claims to be.
It lacks the genuine persistence of a live (Linux) system in which software can actually be added and removed, and it lacks even the capabilities of a genuine frugal install that can do the same (e.g. Puppy, EasyOS, or Slax), so it is not truly a 'live' system.
I hope that this project continues, but thus far, it only proves that FreeBSD is a server system, not a genuine live system in the Linux sense.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 132r
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-11-23
Votes: 30
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I'm impressed: it works perfectly on a Dell Latitude, out of the box. Fast and light (the window manager is Openbox). Excellent OS to try out FreeBSD without any configurations/adjustments, especially in order to check the drivers before installing the whole OS permanently.
Tests on other machines:
Lenovo Yoga: everything works except for the WiFi chipset (missing BSD driver)
Unknown Chinese laptop: everything works except for the WiFi chipset (missing BSD driver)
Considering that FreeBSD (just like other BSDs) was born for servers and not desktops, the result on these laptops is impressive.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 131r
Rating: 2
Date: 2023-09-08
Votes: 0
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With high hopes, tried installing in a 2012 AMD four core Gateway machine and it got stuck in a "root mount waiting for: CAM" loop and finally booted 15 minutes later. It did this with EVERY boot. The file the forum suggested editing to correct that was empty. Suspend may have worked but there was nothing I could do to get it to resume other than power off and reboot. The desktop is nicely organized, it found the wifi card, seemed to adjust the graphics well, Firefox worked ok but too slow to play videos that were fine on Linux. Sorry to be a downer here. Have been a Debian Linux user for a decade, always on the lookout for something simplified but this just didn't work. Tried it on a 2013 Dell Intel machine with only somewhat better results. Maybe a good work in progress but not ready for prime time just yet.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 131r
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-26
Votes: 24
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Nomad-BSD is an amazingly easy way to try FreeBSD. My upload and download speeds have greatly improved over any Linux systems I have used in the past, and I have tried many versions. Since this recent installation, it is my daily driver. All of the installed programs operate without a single flaw, and those programs appear to load and start faster on Nomad-BSD than on any Linux system I used in the past.
Google-Chrome, a Linux version running on Nomad-BSD, starts faster than on Linux. Even LibreOffice runs smoother and faster on Nomad-BSD. All of the regular applications from KDE, Gnome, Mate, and XFCE run flawlessly in Nomad-BSD.
Nomad-BSD automatically installed my HP printer and my videocam as it installed the operating system on my 22-year-old Dell-Studio i-7 desktop. It is obvious that many improvements have been made to the latest installation software. Even though Nomad-BSD will operate on a USB card, I strongly recommend installing to your hard-drive if you want the true speed of Nomad-BSD.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 131r
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-04-04
Votes: 7
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If you have an older video card, watch out. The first thing you need to do is edit /etc/rc.conf. Change kld_list="radeonkms" and reboot your system. All the error messages go away, and your video card works properly. My i-7 literally flies and everything works as it should. Once that is done, install it. You will be amazed at how fast your system runs. By the way, don't install any programs until you put Nomad onto your hard drive. Why, because it works slowly on a stick. Since installing it onto my hard drive, downloading and uploading has also improved. This is FreeBSD at its best, in my opinion. Sadly, I spent hours attempting to get FreeBSD 13.1 to run on my Dell Studio XPS 8100. This unit was built in 2009, and FreeBSD no longer supports their original video drivers. Instead, FreeBSD uses a video driver, Cuse for BSD. That driver causes the video cards to run faster than designed, and the cards stop working because of over-heating. After setting this up, I won't be returning to Linux anytime in the near future. My distro hopping days are over. I am willing to bet that GhostBSD, NomadBSD, and many other BSD have seen numerous complaints since updating to FreeBSD 13.1's official release, and this single issue of the video card driver is responsible for causing all the error messages.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 131r
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-02-06
Votes: 3
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Very polished system and uses very little resources. Runs fast and was easy to install. The install does everythig for you. All of the peripherals were recognized and they worked perfectly out of the box. The system is very stable and i have not had any issues with it. The openbox window manager looks very nice and professional. Everything is easy to make it look the way you want. It is easy for those who want to transition to BSD and not have to worry about things not working. Recommend to anyone.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 131r
Rating: 7
Date: 2023-01-27
Votes: 2
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TL;DR This is the only "what"BSD that interested me because it features persistence on external USB disk. I tried it once, before the Dec-2022 update but it was less usable than it is now. Either way, it cannot recognize the touchpad of my 10-year-old budget HP laptop.
It takes a fairly long time to start, like any Linux with KDE Plasma maybe except EndeavourOS or Q4OS LOL. After it asked me for specific settings such as keyboard layout, it asked me to reboot. I did so, in single-user mode but it went right into the desktop without asking me for the password. Is that normal?
It seems to behave like Linux system equipped with a window manager. Right-button mouse click on panel to close a program won't be to everyone's taste. Recalling a new panel "theme" with "Tint2", to change its settings is very slow. For one of them I only wanted to change its position, because both the panel and "Plank" were at the bottom.
It consistently runs hot on the left-hand side of my 10-year-old laptop. I have a lot of trouble getting any Linux installation to be alike.
It comes with some programs such as Geany (better than the editor proposed in the initial setup) and VLC (which is garbage in any distro), but no office suite. It's because the file system "image" is already 4GB uncompressed. Web browser is Firefox (with "UBlock Origin" preinstalled!) but probably a different one could be installed. This OS also comes with the "older" release of Thunar (ie. no split view and customizable keystroke shortcuts). To view PDF files there's Qpdfview which absurdly, is located in the AUR in Arch Linux world. I did the full-system update with OctoPkg. It took a long time to finish. Before that the OctoPkg was on the dock on the bottom of the screen, but it took itself off. It seems it is set to display packages already installed on the system, and I have to open web browser to "FreeBSD ports" site or whatever to discover what else could be installed.
The DSBMC doesn't seem to find all the partitions of my computer, in particular of an internal hard disk when the system is booted via external USB. It came up with ESP, the C: drive of Windows and other NTFS partitions but missed one of the "ext4" partitions (32-bit Slackware) probably because the latter doesn't have an EFI entry. (I was unable to boot this system itself via UEFI which is interesting.) The app to mount partitions doesn't recall disk or partition labels which could put off somebody not confident working with an Unix-like OS.
I wish I could disable the stupid animations which are for small children. The Handbook is pretty good, might be too brief, could be read offline but unfortunately some information such as that for DSBMC and for using Linux programs causes an online visit. I should spend weeks with this system to be able to give more useful information that would satisfy an "expert". This was for NomadBSD for 64-bit and "ZFS".
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 131r
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-12-16
Votes: 3
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I am surprised that there aren't yet any reviews of the latest release.
OVERVIEW. As I post this, I am using the latest NomadBSD 131R, on a small Lenovo 300e. Everything works -- which says a lot for NomadBSD 131R. I have tried many systems which almost work, but not quite.
DETAIL. NomadBSD 131R is based on FreeBSD. Being BSD, it is a little unfamiliar to me, but a short handbook tells me (almost) all I need to know. NomadBSD 131R looks beautiful, it works reliably, it offers persistence on USB, it is easily customizable, and it is obviously carefully thought out. It works something like Linux LXQt, although it includes a dock. Its various components are more tightly integrated than Linux.
SOFTWARE. Being based on FreeBSD, NomadBSD 131R is well supplied with software. One might wish to keep to hand the FreeBSD Foundation's "Installing Software on FreeBSD" for basic instructions. Compared with Linux, installation of new packages is slow, however, and if NomadBSD 131R skips a beat (I am in Africa) one has to start all over again.
FAULTS. NomadBSD 131R exhibits just a little buggish behavior. For instance, screen brightness sometimes jumps back to default, a package may refuse to install until one has a clean system, or an app may at first pop up as a mere icon. But these are small hitches, which are of no real consequence.
ALL IN ALL. I was impressed with NomadBSD before. I had read that it worked beautifully for others -- but for my own system, it wasn't quite ready. Now it is ready.
Review by Thomas O. Scarborough.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.2
Rating: 7
Date: 2022-12-06
Votes: 0
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Now BSD has been made simple and effortless. The installation cannot be simplified any more than NomadBSD. Live mode with persistent is simply unexpected surprise.It works beautiful and all that. I am running NomadBSD onn on my 10 year old desktop pc with 4GB of DDR2 RAM. But Firefox browser does not allow me to open Google account and the Thunar file manager does not connect to main system hard drives and not even shown in the File manager. I doubt whether NomadBSD distro is secure to do online banking etc and I find no way to install Firewall on it. NomadBSD required very little efforts to install and automatic configuration did the rest of installation.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-10-07
Votes: 2
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NomadBSD is a very attractive operating system that deserves to go a long way.
It makes using FreeBSD more accessible & user friendly.
The GUI is beautiful; one of the best interpretations of Openbox, ever. Where most Openbox-faced distros have multiple menus going all over the place, NomadBSD is very clean & tidy & usable.
Even the website is neat and tidy.
And the manual is precise & concise.
The nearest Linux comparison is Slax; & it would not be unfair to say that NomadBSD is something of a BSD parallel to Slax, albeit that NomadBSD comes as a much more complete & equipped (& 6X bigger) distro, that is designed to be installed to hard drive.
But that, alas, is where it ends.
Mobile broadband is not something that works well on FreeBSD, & I was not willing to risk wrecking my Huawei E3372h modem on the off-chance that it may. With Slax, the workaround is simple: don't disconnect before rebooting; there is no damage limitation risk.
On top of that, NomadBSD cannot read LUKS-encrypted drives, but that's another FreeBSD problem.
Apart from these 2 contra-points NomadBSD is a great system, & I would make it my main distro if they were sorted upstream.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-14
Votes: 5
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Greetings, just want to tell you that NomadBSD, is a great tool, which makes my work a lot easier. I am so happy I started to use it. I was checking out many Linux distros, but NomadBSD, has really make me feel that this is the OS for any one looking for a very good and solid OS. I recommend it to any one looking a solid and full of utilities to do all your daily work.
I am able to do all my office work and my personal needs with this OS. I can play music, type my letters/memos and keep track of all my income and expenses with Libre Office.
You should give it a try, you'll be glad you did.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-07-01
Votes: 3
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Just a fantastic OS with a friendly community. (forum.nomadbsd.org)
It has good (as far as BSD's goes) hardware support and a nice out of the box experience assuming you like the Openbox experience.
It has a nice and simple installer if you want to install it on your internal drive. It setup takes you through the process of encrypting the drive if you that is something you want. It also has a guided setup for using a Linux browser.
If you want to try out a BSD experience this is a excellent choice.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-03-11
Votes: 4
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NomadBSD is designed to run as a persistent USB live distro. It ships with a compressed file nomadbsd.x.y.z.img.lzma which is decompressed, then the img file is burnt to a bootable USB. Upon its first run it asks about language, locale, keyboard, user(s), and then it reboots into GUI. It comes packaged with Firefox, Thunderbird, Thunar, LibreOffice, GIMP, Audacity etc. The GUI presents with a dock, and a menu on the top-left, or with a right-click anywhere on the screen. I tried it on a 10 years old laptop (Intel Core i3, 4GB RAM) from a USB and it worked smoothly with no issues. It detected the Wi-Fi, screen-resolution, and sound card. It comes with access to other software. The instructions on how to creat a bootable USB on the website are clear.
It seems to be suitable as a nomad operating system, or a rescue operating system. It fares comparable to Knoppix in its capabilities as a live USB. The difference is that NomadBSD creates a partition on the USB where any changes are saved, so in w ay it is a proper nomad.
On another older notebook, it did not go well, as it did not recognise the hardware, which jumbled the USB, so I had to re-install it.
Othewise, NomadBSD has a straight forward GUI based mini-installation process, comes bundled with a decent up-to-date software. I'd highly recommend it.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-02-08
Votes: 3
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I have a specific need to run a persistent live system on one of my machines, and I tried a number of distros for this purpose. It is quite easy, of course, to make a persistent USB from any Debian or Ubuntu-based distro using Rufus, which can embed a persistence file in the iso. Of these, Linux Mint works exceptionally well, like everything else about Mint. Kali also works quite well, but I had difficulties with MX Linux and Slax.
Anyway, in the end, I decided to use NomadBSD and I have quite enjoyed the experience. It is fast and stable, and the default Openbox desktop is great. There is useful selection of default packages, which are all fairly current, and a wide range available in the repositories. However, for someone with no Linux or BSD experience, Mint would still be a better option; my 80-year-old mom would have no problem using it once I booted it onto her machine for the first time. NomadBSD still requires some tweaking that, while it's no problem for us, might frustrate a new Windows convert.
Nevertheless, NomadBSD has 2 big advantages over Mint and the other Linux live USBs made with Rufus. First, after allocating a certain amount of the USB for persistence for a Linux Distro, space on the device will inevitably be wasted. As NomadBSD is entirely an img file, and thus all persistent, no space is wasted. Also, on a Linux USB, the available space will decrease as one uses the internet, and will be recovered after the history is cleared. This means that a USB with plenty of space can become filled if one ignores this, and it can mess up the device when it is upgraded. On the img file of NomadBSD, no space is used up through internet use, same a normal computer hard drive. I don't know the technical reason for this.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-12-26
Votes: 0
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I quit Windows because it was terribly slow, but I think NomadBSD outperforms Windows. It's horribly slow, it doesn't recognize my wifi on any of my 3 computers: a 2013 imac, a 2015 Hp, and a 2021 HP laptop. Also, it takes about an hour to install the OS on a USB. Bad experiment, folks ...
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-09-12
Votes: 2
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UNBELIVABLE as a newbye it took to me 4 days configuring FreeBSD
in half an our with NomadBSD installed on hard disk i'm watching netflix
I'm not kidding i'm running NomadBSD on 15 years pld HPCompaq 6910p
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-09-08
Votes: 2
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I am working on replacing my Macs with an OS that isn't so intrusive in how they think I should use their computer.
This is not the first time I have used NomadBSD, but the first time as a daily driver. The other times saw issues, but it was also on older Mac hardware. I have been using this as my daily driver for a couple of days now. So far I am please. It has run without issue on three various workstations. 1 wired and 2 wireless and they all worked just fine.
It has been fun to see this OS evolve over the years to a very usable alternative. There is always room for improvement, but well on its way. Keep up the great work!!
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-07-30
Votes: 0
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The interface is nice looking. I was so surprised to see that all three of my laptops wifi works in NomadBSD. Kudos to them for making it work with hardware. I'm not crazy about the D.E. because I like KDE best, but still it works from a USB drive or installation. I recommend it.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-06-28
Votes: 23
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Honestly, I can't believe this is really FreeBSD.
The Install: detected my fairly recent (2020) hardware and automatically provided drivers for the GPU, then booted up into a graphical install. After a reboot, it put me into a GUI that was nice looking and easy to use for someone experienced with Linux. No scary manual installation of Xorg that ends up failing, no struggling to install the correct driver and edit the correct .conf file. If you have ever wanted to explore FreeBSD but couldn't manage to get hardware to work, this is definitely for you.
Daily Usage of about a week: Full of features, fast, no crashing or other issues. Lots of GUI settings to edit things. However, I will say it still has some growing to do. For example, there is a great feature that will allow you to install a Linux version of Chrome - but you can't log into a Google account because it's marked as insecure.
Overall, I recommend giving it a try for those new to BSD systems or who don't want to spend time fighting FreeBSD to get it working well on a desktop. This is essentially what Ubuntu was for Linux, and if it doesn't die off I bet it will gain some traction.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-06-01
Votes: 5
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Just downloaded this latest version and set up on a USB3 thumb drive. All went smoothly. This version is definitely an improvement over V1.3, which had previously tried. That worked OK on a very old laptop but wouldn't run on this one, where it is working nicely.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-05-18
Votes: 0
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I couldn't get it to start on any of my machines (Acer Aspire 5280 and a machine with a SuperMicro X8DT6 and on-board VGA card), only in Virtualbox, which makes it useless for me.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-05-16
Votes: 4
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Disclaimer- I am not a gamer or well versed in multimedia pyrotechnics!!
NomadBSD on a USB stick (legacy boot) has just worked out of the box, so I went all in to upgrade to this version that uses an intimidating ID protocol.
In OpenSuSE, did a "dd" command to get the .img file on to a clean, FAT32 formatted 16 gig stick. Default parameters went smoothly.
NomadBSD is "persistent". Just run it like a dual-boot hard drive of yesteryear. Tweak as you go along, knowing the adjustments will be there when you reboot the stick. If security is important, check out the file encryption when making initial settings in case you lose your stick.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4
Rating: 5
Date: 2021-05-14
Votes: 0
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Good
BUT would be amazing without pulseaudio
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-05-13
Votes: 1
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I downloaded the img file from Germany (fast server) extracted with 7-zip and used Rufus to write a 32Gb USB 3.0 Sandisk stick. This took awhile.
Inserted said stick into my Thinkpad L460 and hit F12 to choose Nomad to boot.
On the first try I hit 1 - Multiuser and after some intial boot messages it crashed and rebooted.
Next time I just waited for the automated boot to do its thing and this time it went without any hassle.
Chose language, keyboard and root/user name password etc and it rebooted again without
any problems to the desktop.
I could connect to my wifi and use the Linux Browser Installer to install the Vivaldi browser. This took some time, but once installed it worked well.
Tried out all the software, which worked well too and I think the desktop was usable.
This is the first BSD that I have succeeded booting and working on any of my laptops.
So congrats to the Nomad team!
Will it replace my Solus 4.2 Plasma ed. installation?
No. Maybe?
I will certainly keep my USB stick and try it some more and see if I can tweak the desktop to my liking, try out some more software and see if I can get a RAW image workflow going.
Using a UNIX distribution is definitely a bit more intriguing and unique than all the Linux distributions that are flooding the internet.
Thank you.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-05-13
Votes: 0
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First of all I liked to thank them for their much lot of work they put into this project. Developing an OS like this is also always a Martyrdom. :wink:
I am little bit confused about the new versioning scheme. So is this a ready to use release or is it a testing release? And in my opinion the version names are to long an complicated.
So i try it to install it on different Computers and i have to say, that the booting don’t work well in many cases.
So in detail:
HP Probook 6550b Intel core M520 Graphics: intel processor:
The booting interuped after the third line bios diskxxx and rebooted from hard disk
HP Laptop 17 ak0xxx Amd A9-9420 Graphics: Radeon R5:
The booting failed by this lines -
ugen05 HPgenericWebcam at usb0
very often repeating of the line Root mount waiting for cam
and then mounting from ufs/dev/label/nmadroot failed with error2
Then something should be done manually but I am too dumb for it.
HP Laptop 17-by0xxxx Intelceleron N4000 graphics: UHD 600:
NomadBSD 1,4 is actually running very fine on this Laptop
Its booting until the first three or four green lines ( too fast to read it ) then interrupted and rebooted from hard disk.
Fujitsu Lifebook E 70 Intel core I5 M520 Graphics: intel core processor:
its worked fine and quick.
Dell Optiplex 7010 intelcore i3-3240 Graphics Intelxenon E3-1200
its worked fine and quick
if its working, then its really working quick for a 2.0 USB Stick.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 130r-20210508
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-05-13
Votes: 3
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NomadBSD is the only BSD that I can easily use on the laptop/desktop.
I really like the look and feel of the pre-installed software, I recommend it!
The only downside is that "sometimes" the system is slightly slow, but it should be noted that I am using it through a USB flash drive.
Congratulations to the NomadBSD team!
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-04-27
Votes: 8
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after years on windows, Linux and OsX i decided to check a BSD.
NomadBSD is perferct
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4
Rating: 3
Date: 2021-04-20
Votes: 0
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Not good for me. My Steinberg ur-22 sound card did not work. l did not find the internet connection and it did not see the other 3 hdd/ssd (nt partitions).
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-03-24
Votes: 8
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I actually replaced my Windows and Linux Mint with NomadBSD (hdd installation). Its been working great! Just gotta read the documentation to get my gamepad working. OS looks amazing and is fast and responsive, took literally few clicks to install it and everything worked from get go, no issues with bluetooth/wifi/peripheral/sound drivers.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-03-17
Votes: 2
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I have the 32-bit version running as a desktop system for a couple of weeks now and like someone said earlier: the more I use it, the more I've come to like it. I'm running it on a not so young Dell Vostro 430, Intel i5 quadcore (3.2 Ghz) and 4 Gb RAM and it works like a charm with Geforce 310 and a Belkin USB stick to connect wireless. I run a clean desktop: Openbox without Plank.
NomadBSD just does what it has to and I am happy using it as my daily driver for now.
I must say that besides GhostBSD this is the only "bsd" flavor that I have managed to get working (with that I mean boot, install, GUI and internet connection up). All the others failed on different machines for a number of reasons, so I am quite pleased to finally have a Berkeley Distro running :-)
It is a nice, clean system and it does change from Windows10 or Linux distro's. I find it fast and I really like the selection of resident software. I use Asunder, VLC, Audacity, Leafpad, Geany, Libre Office, GIMP and Firefox. I mainly do editing work and I have to login to some admin pages in facebook and wordpress. Meanwhile I try getting used to the unconventional Sakura terminal emulator and the fish shell. Couldn't get the highly acclaimed Linux Browser Installer working though but I manage to get my preferred apps working. The package (pkg) installer works perfectly by the way. Once you get over the initial command line scare, this is a very comfortable system. Anyway, I still learn things every single day and I think I will not get bored soon with this system.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-03-10
Votes: 3
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I have tried out a great many operating systems.
People typically think of Windows, macOS, and Linux. Recently I tried out NomadBSD, on a lightweight Acer Aspire 3. NomadBSD was so very good -- functional, beautiful -- that it seems a pity that it failed.
First, it failed to recognise my touchpad -- however, it automatically switched to a mouse. This is an improvement over earlier versions -- but I needed the touchpad. Then I sought to install the alternative browser. NomadBSD crashed -- in fact, self-destructed -- with the message 'Help!' And that was the end of it.
If NomadBSD overcomes such things in the next release, it will surely be one of the most attractive operating systems around. On other computers, it already works just fine.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4-RC1
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-02-27
Votes: 8
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The more I live on NomadBSD, the more I love it. So far, I have improved my upload and download speeds, have my desktop running Mate, improved my sound levels and quality of sound, and my system runs faster than any Linux flavor I have ever used. Would you believe that my entire operating system and workstation use only 9.2 Gigs of my hard drive? The 9.2 Gigs includes Libre-Office, all sorts of graphic programs, web-browsers, file managers, etc. NomadBSD is the easiest and fastest way to install and use FreeBSD. All of the adjustments I have made to my operating system were done following FreeBSD's published instructions.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4-RC1
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-02-18
Votes: 8
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Tried Nomad after years of numerous Linux distros, and seriously impressed by this thoroughly well developed live OS.
It runs smoothly from a cheap but decent usb3 stick tested on an old Dell desktop and laptop.
The openbox desktop theming looks great, launches apps quickly and memory usage amazingly low.
The system has persistence which requires no setup as simply installs from an unzipped .img.
Result is a solid FreeBSD based, password protected (with disk encryption option) live OS that acts like a normal hdd installation!
Hardware detection ok – used a Ralink 2870 wlan on both machines, no issues with sound/video, only limited touchpad functionality on laptop. No problems accessing Windows drives / external media.
Lots of useful software out of the box, and has the OctoPkg gui package manager which is similar to Synaptic. The installed Firefox ESR updated to 78.7.1 & performs really well on my machines.
Obviously there are limitations with BSD systems depending on your needs/hardware, but overall I’m loving Nomad as a brilliant simple to use alternative to Linux greats like Puppy, Easy and MX/Antix.
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Project: NomadBSD
Version: 1.4-RC1
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-02-01
Votes: 3
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Unfortunately, I still can't see my linux reiserfs drives, and again, I installed fusefs-lkl.
Other than that, and not being an Openbox fan, I could handle having this as an OS on my computer. It will be snappy if installed on an SSD (I have it on a flashdrive using USB3, but my USB slots on the machine are getting to the point that sometimes they don't read that a drive was plugged in to it, or the transfer of files to and from are slower than molasses in January...I fear it's probably my MOBO, I *positive* it's not the NomadBSD).
If the dev's can get this to finally see reiserfs systems, I'll be on this distro like white on rice!
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