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1 • AI everywhere (by Rossano on 2025-09-22 00:46:47 GMT from Italy)
Fedora and Fedora Rawhide will introduce AI in 2025. We are in big trouble: AI everywhere.
2 • BSD Family (by Redy Basuki on 2025-09-22 01:32:20 GMT from Indonesia)
If BSD has completed like Linux, I would love to use it daily. I've tried some backdays and really need so much time to setting up, and the main problem is hardware support, and cannot use it for daily use. I don't know for nowadays, haven't tried it again.
3 • AI (by Bobbie Sellers on 2025-09-22 03:01:06 GMT from United States)
The problem may not be with individual distributions but with widely used
tools like Thunderbird and Firefox. There should be a clear and easy
way to turn AI off and presumably on again for those who feel the
need.
Oh and PCLinuxOS now has 2 versions using KCE'a Plasma 6
<https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/iso/>
both the full release and the Darkstar are at version 2025.09.
New users or those who have been away for some time
are advised to get the multilingual installation document at
the same URL.
bliss- Dell Precision 7730- PCLOS 2025.09- Linux 6.12.48-pclos1- KDE Plasma 6.4.5
4 • Why is it named NetBSD? (by InvisibleInk on 2025-09-22 03:18:45 GMT from United States)
Why is it named NetBSD, if WiFi support is so abysmal?
5 • NetBSD - custom kernel to load firmware and pkgsrc build for intel video firmwar (by shep on 2025-09-22 03:39:21 GMT from United States)
Currently setting up NetBSD 10.1 and had wsfb graphics.
Cannot link to Google AI results but use:
"NetBSD install intel video firmware" as search terms.
Seems you have to build a custom kernel that will load firmware, build the firmware in pkgsrc (not availble as a package) and enable firmware loading in rc.conf.
6 • NetBSD review (plus more) (by lobster on 2025-09-22 03:54:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Outstanding review and good plan.
I found it very useful.
Having tried numerous BSD and always found them too slow/different to expectations. Also regularly and frequently tried and really liked some some of the potential candidates such as Haiku and ReactOS, with largely the same results. The warnings which were not suitable for my time will be heeded. ;-)
BSD is not for me. )-:
I have tried and used some pretty weird OS, including ones to run from single 3.5 floppies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QNX
...or by mad people (can not remember name - it was truly unique but command line mostly and for one persons usage.) Wot a trip into the mind of a crazy paranoid genius
Nowdays I must have a base of usability. Immediately. Too forgetful and 'grumpy old git' to faff and flounder for days. So Bravo Jesse.
See you on Mastodon sometime. Thumbs up from me and the distro hopping frat party...Not that I have ever been to one [...lobster rambles off into suset...]
7 • NetBSD review (by 0323pin on 2025-09-22 05:02:42 GMT from Sweden)
Thanks for reviewing NetBSD, I'm glad you found the answers to some of your issues along the way, though not all.
Disclaimer: I run NetBSD current (development branch) with rolling source packages (required to do pkgsrc development) on my laptop which, I can connect to WiFi basically anywhere.
I appreciate there are limitations when it comes to WiFi and a new stack will hopefully land soon.
Also, I appreciate there are holes in the documentation and that some of it is outdated but, we have limited resources and cannot cover everything. To me, updating packages is priority. Unfortunately, I don't have more time to give.
Just a note, that you can use QEMU to run a desktop, you need to use nvmm. If you try running QEMU on Linux with kvm disabled, you will have a similar experience to what you describe in your review.
8 • BSD Family (by borgio3 on 2025-09-22 07:20:25 GMT from Italy)
In this very moment i'am on GhostBSD, that i use since 2023, alternating with LMDE.
I do with Ghost all that i do with LMDE.
9 • GhostBSD (by Tim on 2025-09-22 08:29:21 GMT from Australia)
I've been happily running GhostBSD on a desktop and laptop for about 3 years now and haven't looked back.
It runs wine just fine (but not Codeweavers Crossover). I use wine to run two programs which have native Linux versions (BeyondCompare & MasterPDF). freeBSD and therefore GhostBSD can run LInux programs, but not all. I have the LInux version of Vivaldi running.
With the laptop, the keyboard backlight is not available but everything else works. I thought the CD drive wasn't working but VLC ran a DVD without problems yesterday.
It's all very stable but if an update does go wrong there are ZFS backup environments to roll back to.
The desktop uses ZFS mirror RAID so that provides extra backup.
10 • Alternative OS to try (by betwixt on 2025-09-22 09:18:56 GMT from United Kingdom)
If you want to try a really different multi-tasking OS that can run some Linux programs but isn't Linux based, take a look at MinuetOs (https://menuetos.net/). It shows what an individual but ingenious software author can do when they get really creative. It has good graphics, networking, web browsing, text editing, games and is entirely written from scratch in assembly language. It is a bit quirky but an amazing achievement.
11 • Poll (by dragonmouth on 2025-09-22 10:55:33 GMT from United States)
I was thinking of trying NetBSD but after reading Jesse's experience, I will pass on NetBSD and try another BSD.
12 • SysLinuxOS 13 not found anywhere (by Martins on 2025-09-22 11:10:21 GMT from Portugal)
SysLinuxOS 13 announced here but not found on the distro web site nor in the SourceForge web site.
13 • NetBSD (by Jesse on 2025-09-22 12:36:14 GMT from Canada)
@4: "Why is it named NetBSD, if WiFi support is so abysmal?"
i suspect you're joking, but NetBSD existed before most people had ever heard of wifi. I thin it's named this because it was developed from people around the Internet.
@7: "Just a note, that you can use QEMU to run a desktop, you need to use nvmm. "
I did use nvmm which is why I linked to its documentation in the review. Performance was still poor.
14 • Alternative OSs (by Josh Smith on 2025-09-22 12:42:48 GMT from Australia)
The only alternative OS -- to Linux, macOS and Windows, that is -- that I've tried on my actual hardware (i.e. not in a VM) was FreeBSD. I don't regret it from a learning perspective -- as I did learn a lot from the experience -- but it was not a pleasant experience. I experienced similar issues with wifi drivers. It taught me that Linux, macOS and Windows are the only operating systems suitable for physical PC hardware.
15 • NetBSD and wifi (by bones on 2025-09-22 12:50:41 GMT from United States)
I run NetBSD on two laptops: a ThinkPad T61 and a Panasonic CF-MX5 Let's Note. Wifi works great on both. Granted, both use Intel wifi chips, which enjoy wide support in both Linux and BSD. Having recently left using Linux in favor of BSD, I have found NetBSD to be incredibly simple, stable, and clean, a very well designed OS.
16 • NetBSD (by Keith S on 2025-09-22 13:06:23 GMT from United States)
Jesse, I was surprised that you don't know anyone else who has an Ethernet cable in their laptop bag lol. It's like carrying a keychain can opener or a pocket knife. You never know when you might need it.
I tried NetBSD years ago on a desktop but had a really hard time getting it to work so I abandoned it. As a huge OpenBSD fan, it was very disappointing. Their documentation was atrocious compared to OpenBSD. (But then, everyone else's documentation is horrible compared to OpenBSD.)
Even as a fan, though, I can admit when there are serious problems. Sadly, OpenBSD recently failed me on my 10-year-old HP. A few boot cycles after installation, Fvwm wouldn't launch because X/xenocara wouldn't start. I needed that old machine to do certain tasks immediately, so I put antiX on it and it worked flawlessly.
I haven't had time to troubleshoot it, and actually just put Windows 10 back on that particular machine because of a new problem with GPS hardware that has arisen for me and that I haven't been able to solve using wine or Play on Linux.
My newer laptop has been running MX Linux for four years now without trouble. It has been very reliable except for a few hiccups when I switched to MX 23. I agree with @6 lobster above, as much as I enjoy fussing with OSes, these days I have much less patience for going down the rabbit hole when something doesn't present an fix quickly.
17 • BSD hardware support (by Beepbox on 2025-09-22 13:34:11 GMT from France)
@14 Sadly, hardware support in BSDs hasn't changed much in 20 years since I've tried to install FreeBSD on a computer (old IBM with Pentium II, no WiFi of course) from few CDs I bought in a book shop, where nothing has worked correctly, from the monitor to the Ethernet card.
I recall that booting a live CD with Ubuntu 5.x and KDE 3.x was a bliss compared to this.
There is some efforts to get better hardware support by taking the Linux code, and recently FreeBSD team has done some progress to get a better laptop support, and even get KDE 6 running on Wayland, but BSD are mostly ran on servers.
18 • QA section (AI in distros) (by anamezon on 2025-09-22 14:02:54 GMT from Finland)
maybe it's time to add a AI-related dropdown option on the Search webpage of Distrowatch ... people looking for a AI-free distro to hop on will be very grateful to have this selection criterion
19 • NetBSD (by John on 2025-09-22 15:07:29 GMT from Canada)
I think the review is fair and accurate. Interesting about IPv6, I got luck with that :)
I use NetBSD is on a spare Laptop without any issues. Mainly I use it to test things I develop and keep my head in alternatives. Doing that I have found a few issues that Linux and even in rare cases, OpenBSD even missed.
But I think the review points out a big issue, NetBSD has a very small team and I am amazed that it can get as much done as they can. To me NetBSD is a fun, lite system to use, plus once working the way you want, you get a nice sense of accomplishment :)
Curious why you had issues with pkgsrc, I have found it to be amazing and I wish may other systems would move to it. But yes, on first NetBSD install I think a tweek is needed to get it working on first try. I needed add something like this to root's ~/.shrc (using sh as a root shell) and login as root to install binary packages.
ARCH=`uname -m`
PKG_PATH="https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages"
PKG_PATH="$PKG_PATH/NetBSD/$ARCH/10.0_2025Q2/All/"
export ARCH PATH PKG_PATH
Once you have pkgin installed, remove the settings.
To me, NetBSD is closest to the old proprietary UN*X that existed years ago, plus it is not anal about Licenses as other OSs are. IIRC, you can set pkgsrc to install only items under specific license(s).
20 • NetBSD (by Jesse on 2025-09-22 15:10:49 GMT from Canada)
@19: "Curious why you had issues with pkgsrc, "
I'm curious why you think I had issues with pkgsrc. I didn't mention trying to use it in the review. I did use pkg_add and pkgin, which are different tools. As I mentioned in the review, the problem was the package manager trying to use IPv6 and timing out since I wasn't on an IPv6 connection.
21 • NetBSD (by John on 2025-09-22 15:20:44 GMT from Canada)
@20
I thought I saw somewhere you had another issue with getting pkgin installed, I must have see that elsewhere since I did not see that in the review. It had something to do with using pkg_add.
22 • NetBSD (by Jesse on 2025-09-22 15:23:05 GMT from Canada)
@21: "I thought I saw somewhere you had another issue with getting pkgin installed"
Yes, I did. As I said in my previous comment, both pkgin and pkg_add didn't work properly at first due to the IPv6 issue. Neither of those tools are related to pkgsrc, which is the ports tool you referenced in comment 19.
23 • NetBSD and desktop environments (by juanbobo on 2025-09-22 15:35:29 GMT from United States)
I don't think many people are aware that on NetBSD (and FreeBSD, for that matter), you can do the basic installation, and then download and run a package called 'desktop-installer' which will then allow you to choose which DE you'd like to install, along with all the drivers, codecs, etc. that are commonly associated with desktop usage. This is a great way to get a fully functional BSD desktop quickly.
24 • OpenBSD? (by keithpeter on 2025-09-22 16:22:27 GMT from United Kingdom)
OpenBSD amd64 on a Thinkpad X250 has proved to be usable for me up to the 'day 2' level in the article. Perhaps Day 2+ as I use Octave as a really powerful graphical calculator, do some TeX and do a bit of sound editing with Audacity. Yes there is a performance hit, especially anything that needs you to copy large numbers of small files between internal and external disks. 8Gb Ram and a SATA SSD with xfce desktop gives me what I perceive as a very useable system.
Syspatch for base system upgrades, pkg_add -u for package upgrades, and boot off the new install.img for each new version (e.g. OBSD 7.6 -> 7.7). There is very good quality documentation but it is FAQ and man pages, so not task based.
25 • NetBSD (by Dan on 2025-09-22 17:31:36 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the review. I've always wondered about it, and have talked in passing over the past couple of years to people who use it regularly, but it always seemed a little daunting. The fact that it basically took you 3 or 4 days to get it all squared away kind of tells me what I need to know - that it's probably more than I want to get into. I've used Unix, linux, etc. for about 25 years; I can hold my own but I'm not an expert, just a good user. But in my early 50's, I'm not desirous of spending but so much time and effort into learning a new OS, going through difficult setups, tolerating things that aren't working, etc. like I used to be. There's too many good options now, and basically, if somebody doesn't make a pre-configured environment (i.e., live installable image) that I can test drive, I'm not going to mess with it. Maybe I'm just getting lazy, or maybe I've gotten wiser, or both. But anyway, I really hope somebody one day does that with OpenBSD and NetBSD, I really do. I'll be one of the first in line to try it out.
26 • BSD (by 3229 on 2025-09-22 18:47:14 GMT from United States)
Thank you , Jesse for you quite extensive review.
I too was nosing around for a different OS to run inside my Gnome Boxes last week
I have to say upfront, that even though i can hack my way around Linux to some degree,
i know very little about BSD or Solaris. With that in mind I took them for a spin.
Openbsd - for some reason my keyboard went kaput after the install
Netbsd was operational, I did note the resolution for my HDMI was quite limited, so I could not get the desired real estate needed. This was the same for the other BSD's
I played with Open Indiana, the Live version operates, But son of a gun - when I did the install, it kept rebooting into the Live version, not the installed version.
Maybe that was because I was In Gnome- boxes.
I did note that BSD / Solaris did not have UFW or PSAD available..... Maybe they don't consider them worth while,
In any case, it appears that the Linux Community is far greater than the BSD / Solaris
which gives greater support for Nvidia, different fire walls, etc.
I find the updates in SID, beneficial, especially when the bad guys exploit anything they can.
And yes, For me, Linux appears to work well for me.
27 • AI in distros (by Federico on 2025-09-22 20:26:39 GMT from Italy)
@18
"Maybe it's time to add a AI-related dropdown option on the Search webpage of Distrowatch ... people looking for a AI-free distro to hop on will be very grateful to have this selection criterion."
Absolutely yes.
28 • Alternative OS to try (by Pumpino on 2025-09-22 22:56:21 GMT from Australia)
@10: Another OS that could be considered is ChromeOS. It's technically based on linux and can run Debian in a container. I think of ChromeOS as the desktop environment (as opposed to KDE and XFCE), with my linux apps added to the shelf. When I click on Brave, Thunar or LibreOffice, they launch, just as though they were running in a linux distro. The downside is that the first time a linux app is launched after booting, it takes around six seconds for the linux container to start. However, after that, it's instant.
I wanted an ARM chip in my laptop for improved battery life, and Windows laptops with the Snapdragon chips apparently don't have good linux support at present. Getting the Lenovo 14 Chromebook Plus gives me 20+ hours of battery life and I get to use all of my linux apps. You don't have to use Google services like Chrome, Docs, Gmail, etc, if you don't want to.
29 • @16, Ethernet and can openers (by Wally on 2025-09-23 03:01:57 GMT from Australia)
"I was surprised that you don't know anyone else who has an Ethernet cable in their laptop bag lol. It's like carrying a key chain can opener or a pocket knife. You never know when you might need it." I know this was not directed at me, but I just find it amusing. I have an Ethernet cable somewhere, but I'd have to go rummaging in old storage bins, and I'm on a desktop. My old laptop quit a while ago and I haven't bothered to fix it. I buy my canned stuff with pull-tabs, so no need for a key chain can opener. I'll admit to being neglectful about a pocket knife. I grew up on NYC's lower east side in the 1960s, so I did carry a switchblade back then.
30 • @13 (by 0323pin on 2025-09-23 04:31:45 GMT from Sweden)
"I did use nvmm which is why I linked to its documentation in the review. Performance was still poor."
In this case, I'm sorry it has come to that point. I remember using it to stream Netflix on QEMU with a rather minimal Linux distro running Xfce.
nvmm developer jumped on another train and the tool has probably degraded. I no longer use virtualisation.
31 • GhostBSD again (by Tim on 2025-09-23 06:35:42 GMT from Australia)
GhostBSD generally 'just installs', just like most Linux distros. Only odd thing about the install is that it has to load the live preview into memory to install it (minimum 4gb required for that).
32 • FreeBSD (by Whattteva on 2025-09-23 11:16:39 GMT from United States)
While this OS isn't as esoteric as others you've mentioned. I have been running it on my server machine for the last decade or so. The combination of native ZFS support, pf, VNET jails, and just the overall simplicity of it makes me prefer it over any Linux distros.
33 • BSD Package Mirror...and other ramblings (by Lisa on 2025-09-23 11:17:41 GMT from Australia)
Thanks for this review. On OpenBSD at least, when setting up your package mirror, you don't have to stuff around with exporting a PGK_PATH; you can just put the mirror's URL into /etc/installurl, and you're ready to go.
The unity of OpenBSD, and clarity of its documentation, is a breath of fresh air, after the bloat of mainstream Linux distros.
I went with Open rather than Net a few years ago, because despite Net's goal of portability, Open was more reliable on my old PowerPC Macs.
I first got into BSD when Linux Format did a big write-up on FreeBSD in March 2006, and included Free, Net, and Open on their DVD. But LXF is so modern nowadays, they've dropped the DVD (but not the price...!)
Lastly, @29, I too buy tins with pull-rings, but I open them with a tin opener, regardless...!
34 • NetBSD use (by GTC on 2025-09-23 12:51:08 GMT from Uruguay)
I run it but not on my machines. Basically, I have an account on SDF.org so when I connect to its pubnix servers, it's netBSD underneath. I don't know if it counts as running it, but I used almost every day. Just console, tmux and text based software. No gui, and the software available is curated by SDF admins. So everything mostly works.
35 • Excellent NetBSD review (by NosyCat on 2025-09-23 13:02:33 GMT from Romania)
So that's why pkgin was freezing for several minutes on every single run before completing!
36 • If there's AI in the kernel itself... (by HAL 9000 on 2025-09-23 16:02:22 GMT from United States)
...it won't matter what distro you're using. All linux boxes will be running AI code. Sounds like it's just a matter of time:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ai-is-creeping-into-the-linux-kernel-and-official-policy-is-needed-asap/
37 • BSDs (by Robert on 2025-09-23 16:49:00 GMT from United States)
It's been quite a while since I've given any BSD a chance, but I have tried several. So while I don't have any impressions recent enough to matter now, here's my experience anyway.
Most recently was PC-BSD (based on FreeBSD, since renamed TrueOS and then discontinued). I daily drove it for around 6 months in the early 2010's. It was decently usable without too much work, but there were quite a few papercuts. You often hear "Running FreeBSD is like running Linux from 5 years ago" and I'd say that the feeling was pretty accurate. Everything worked, it was just a little bit harder.
Late 2000's I was doing a lot of experimentation with different distros and OS's. During this time I tried base FreeBSD, Dragonfly BSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. I did not dive deeply into any of them, and especially did not give a lot of time to NetBSD. All of them had some obvious selling point from the point of view of a desktop user, but not NetBSD. Sure, it's been ported to 30-50 CPU architectures or whatever instead of 10-20. So what? The only one that matters to me is x86(-64).
Anyway, that adage of "BSD is a few years behind Linux" really hurt them at this point in time. For one, getting an X session. By this point X autoconfiguration was common on Linux, but it was not working on BSDs. Even having had experience crafting xorg.conf files, this was still hard due to different device names and things like that. I did get an X session working on FreeBSD and maybe Dragonfly, but not NetBSD and I don't think OpenBSD either.
Also this predated the BSDs having any sort of binary package management. Everything was compiled from source using ports or pkgsrc. Ports worked pretty well, pkgsrc did not. But either way I was coming off a year or two of running LFS day to day and I very much wanted to get away from having to compile stuff regularly.
I don't remember a lot about the shell experiences for the most part. I do remember FreeBSD gave you tcsh (no install-time option), which was awful and very difficult to work with until I got bash installed. OpenBSD gave you ksh, which wasn't as full-featured or easy to use as bash but at least had the familiar Bourne-compatible syntax and I could work with it well enough. I want to say Dragonfly and NetBSD also gave you csh, but I can't say for sure.
I think out of my non-Linux OS experiences I'd have to say PC-BSD was the best, followed by OpenSolaris. Neither are relevant today.
38 • @4 Good one! xD + Why use server BSDs for desktop? (by BSDcurious on 2025-09-23 20:17:25 GMT from The Netherlands)
It's called NetBSD because it was originally created with servers in mind, which are still its priority even though its scope has expanded a lot since then and it can be used for desktops, mobile devices and all sorts of things.
My question is rather: Why do people want to use FreeBSD, or even less suitably NetBSD, as a desktop OS in the first place?
There are BSDs that are made specifically with desktop-use in mind, e.g. GhostBSD, MidnightBSD and NomadBSD. DragonFlyBSD also looks well-suited for desktop-use nowadays, though I've never used it myself so what do I know. And if you care more about security than ease of use, then OpenBSD and HardenedBSD are the obvious choices, regardless of being "server first".
So why do people want to use FreeBSD, and even more bizarrely NetBSD, on their desktops, never mind on mobile? Is it just tinkerers who enjoy the challenge and want to prove it can be done? Or are there valid reasons someone might want to do so?
39 • AI in Distros (by Bruce5 on 2025-09-23 21:53:01 GMT from United States)
@18, "Maybe it's time to add a AI-related dropdown option on the Search webpage of Distrowatch ... people looking for a AI-free distro to hop on will be very grateful to have this selection criterion."
@27, "Absolutely yes."
I would agree with this.
With the caveat that the qualifier for A.I. in the distro be that it is actually in the installed OS on your computer hardware.
Don't include/flag the distro if the AI is only used on their web support site, and not in the actual installed OS code.
40 • NetBSD (by wow. on 2025-09-23 23:49:25 GMT from Brazil)
I don't get as far as much surprised by some things.People are seriously expecting that NetBSD will behave like some form of linux desktop distro?
NetBSD works as a desktop OS. it is fast (those who say otherwise i am sure are using machines that may even be dual-socket), it is actually sane, it is memory lean, and it is made to be easy to switch to some other hardware without cost.
It is unix. why there should be complex installers, automounting and all horrid design decisions that linux has? what someone using netbsd wants is an actual desktop that is serious. like in the 2000s. clean, actually designed under computer science principles, elegant code and shipped configs.
And plus, it has a massive port collection in comparison to the cleanliness and the non VMS-isms linux distros people with money to place in new machines imported into the desktop unix-like world. Are you in the third-world? be happy! netbsd can allow you to use your i386 4gb ram machine or to underclock your 10 year old skylake box. You won't be forced to pay the new device tax!
41 • Why Linu and Not NetBSD (by Slappy McGee on 2025-09-24 01:05:36 GMT from United States)
@40 I'm afraid not much of what you say there is interesting to the user looking to Linux.. after Windows. Whether it was the beginning of the perceived issues with Windows, or the evolved issues with Windows, most come to Linux just wanting to see a familiar desktop that works, and games, and browses the insane internet.
Honestly that's about it. Of course there is a spectrum of sorts of users who, in varying degrees, do lean toward somewhat more of a techy headspace after a while. But let's be honest, we're here, most of us, because our first exposure to computing was Windows (probably 95 or 98, depending upon how old you are).
People will always chime in expressing their particular exception to that.. but most Linux explorers who want to get away from Windows, or perhaps iOS, are fine with what the Linux kernel does and what it stands for. AI coming? Now that's interesting.
42 • @40 • NetBSD, @41 Linux (by Tasio on 2025-09-24 08:03:54 GMT from Philippines)
@40, "Are you in the third-world? be happy! netbsd can allow you to use your i386 4gb ram machine or to underclock your 10 year old skylake box. You won't be forced to pay the new device tax!" Really? I am in the so-called third world and I haven't seen an i386 in ages, anymore than I see cars from the 80s and 90s being driven by people trying to avoid paying the new car tax. And even in antediluvian times, I didn't see many i386 machines that could handle 4GB of RAM. I also don't think under-clocking Skylake chips is something routinely done by users, third world or not. I'd go on, but I'll just leave it to:
@41, Good one!
43 • NetBSD (by John on 2025-09-24 14:44:57 GMT from Canada)
@40 does has a point, he did exaggerate, but he is right.
I have a Thinkpad T61 with 2G of memory, gotten from a relative when I found out it was sitting in a close for multiple years.
So, I put NetBSD on it and for my workflow I notice little speed difference when using my W541 w/Linux. But I hardly ever watch videos and rarely stream music. In the T61, no streaming at all.
I can even use Firefox128 on the T61, it uses about 900M. I avoid opening up tabs, but it works fine. I would not use Linux in this machine mainly because Linux is moving away from 32bit, plus it uses more ram than NetBSD. OpenBSD i386, the only browser option are dillo and links.
So, if you have a machine that Linux is getting heavy for and you cannot afford buying new, NetBSD is a great option. As noted, the only issue to work through is hardware. FWIW, older Thinkpads is a good bet to put NetBSD on. Plus you avoid polluting by throwing out an old Laptop.
44 • Installing NomadBSD (by Chris Whelan on 2025-09-24 15:07:35 GMT from United Kingdom)
@Jesse
Although NomadBSD is intended primarily to be used as a live USB OS, it actually works well installed too. The NomadBSD 'HandBooklet' has a section describing a HDD install.
It's the only BSD that I would ever consider doing anything with, other that trying it out.
45 • NetBSD (by DaveT on 2025-09-24 15:09:01 GMT from United Kingdom)
I used NetBSD for a couple of years. I used pkgsrc because I liked watching stuff compile... Sad I know!
I would be running it on my 2006 Intel iMac but there is an error in the Apple 32bit boot code that means the audio chip is mis-identified so no audio! Same problem on OpenBSD, it got fixed on linux about 2 decades ago so I have to run Devuan on it!
My daily driver is a laptop running OpenBSD, Devuan linux for the music composition etc stuff that OpenBSD can't do.
46 • Why are there many distros based FreeBSD, but none based on OpenBSD (by picamanic on 2025-09-24 16:06:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
As an interested outsider, I was wondering why so many distros are based on FreeBSD, but none on OpenBSD, despite the latter being described as the most secure BSD?
47 • Net BSD (by rhtoras on 2025-09-24 21:48:34 GMT from Greece)
I like this review but i'd like more details on some things. Why you chose XFCE Jesse or what are these components used for sound their alternatives and so on.
My experience with netbsd on a custom ryzen pc was not that good but on a HP elitedesk (intel 6th gen) mini pc was great. That's weird since NetBSD is advertised as an os suited for various systems and BSD in general works best with amd hardware. Anyways on this particular pc Net BSD worked starting ctwm and then i could add a desktop environment. My experience was ok with XFCE or Mate i don't remember which one was working best though. The whole installation including pkgin was quite boring i have to say but worked ok. Proper unix and i think i could use it daily drive. I then switched to OPEN BSD because i felt like it was the proper BSD. I want my os being light, slim and fast and Net BSD was not faster, lighter or slimer compared to openbsd. Of course nonsystemD linux is the fastest thing available, the slimest and lighter than a leaf trying to fall from a tree.
It's also nice to see in the comments (not only here) people switching between Void Linux, Devuan and OpenBSD. I like this way of thinking. I used the same route.
@46 There used to be some OpenBSD based systems i.e Liberty BSD or OliveBSD but nowdays only Fugulta exists. I suspect people trust only the official .iso and it's dev's and there is a reason behind this. BTW Fugulta works just fine but it's a oneman project if i am not mistaken.
As for @Jesse you could show us Midnight BSD or DragonflyBSD. ;)
48 • @, 43 • NetBSD (by Tasio on 2025-09-25 08:27:12 GMT from Philippines)
@43, "@40 does has a point, he did exaggerate, but he is right." Aww! Come on! Comparing an i386 to a Thinkpad T61 with a Core 2 Duo is a bit of a stretch. I can probably find some of those at a used PC shop, or online.The T61 came with Widows Vista, which was somewhat of a pig compared to XP, is 64-bit capable and RAM is expandable to 8GB. There are people out there running Windows 8 and 10 on T61s. Why not Linux? Check YouTube for videos.
49 • @38 - Why use server BSDs for desktop? (by bsduck on 2025-09-25 15:26:26 GMT from Switzerland)
@38
>There are BSDs that are made specifically with desktop-use in mind, e.g. GhostBSD, MidnightBSD and NomadBSD. DragonFlyBSD also looks well-suited for desktop-use nowadays, though I've never used it myself so what do I know. And if you care more about security than ease of use, then OpenBSD and HardenedBSD are the obvious choices, regardless of being "server first".
As a FreeBSD user I need to clarify a few things:
GhostBSD and NomadBSD are just custom builds of FreeBSD, they aren't better-suited for desktop use than plain FreeBSD, it's just a matter of convenience. You can compare this with Arch Linux and its derivatives, some people like the pre-built Manjaro, EndeavourOS, etc. while others prefer to build their own desktop according to their personal preferences.
MidnightBSD is a one-man fork of FreeBSD that doesn't bring much added value of its own and doesn't work nearly as well as the original. It's more of a hobby project than of a useful product for end users.
DragonFly is currently the least suitable BSD for desktop use. Hardware compatibility is lacking and really out of date, for example Intel and AMD GPUs are only supported up to 2019 models and Nvidia GPUs aren't supported at all. And it doesn't have any particular feature that would make it more suitable for desktop use than the other BSDs; on the contrary, its selling points are mostly relevant for high-performance servers or computer clusters.
I don't like GhostBSD, and I'm not interested in hardened systems that push security to a maximum at the expense of features, performance and convenience, so the obvious choices for me are FreeBSD and NetBSD. Both aren't "server BSDs" by the way, they're general purpose operating systems, just like Linux. They're base systems on top of which you can build whatever you want.
50 • Linux, BSD (by WayneMykel on 2025-09-25 15:44:10 GMT from United States)
@26 What you are seeing is many years of hard work. The badgering of various hardware communities developers for even the tiniest of tidbits providing information for drivers and a lot of folks that believed in the Linux microsystem all over the world putting together an OS for everyone.. Proprietary products are not important there are a world of variants to try. How about developing in alternative languages.
I have been using Linux since 1997 thereabouts. Those were the times in Linux history when patience was required while user level of competence had to grow. So many changes improving the OS interactions that it almost makes the SystemD discussions almost mute by comparison.
That said, it shoudl be possible for the BSD's to take advantage of the compatibility that Linux has spearheaded.
Cheers
51 • Alternative OS as NetBSD? (by Mark J. Kropf on 2025-09-25 17:14:43 GMT from United States)
Is there any reason that GhostBSD is not part of the choice here, given that NomadBSD and NetBSD are mentioned. Is it not relevant to the review?
Could the GhostBSD with MATE be used for the purpose of a non-Linux system, even if it has been seen as more a Linux-capable system than its peers? It remains BSD in its general function even as it has been given the more simple set up to simulate Linux.
52 • You are forcing your hand. (by wow on 2025-09-25 18:12:50 GMT from Brazil)
#42 Let me start up with some facts you are, for some reason, ignoring:
The linux kernel has a massive amount of implemented code that is not necessarily removed from its performance impacts on anything which scales below 8 cores as much as you might believe. The scheduler is not focused on such kinds of scaling, and the actual optimizations never actually existed at all in mobile. Most of the phone ARM SoCs that ran them ran old kernels and only flagships historically ship with cutting-edge kernels. Modifications were made ad-hoc to suit the necessities. And these chips themselves are not at all slow. If you ever used linux in a core 2 duo with 2gb of ram (which i am supposing penryn), you would know that, from even around 2019, a distribution such as antix was already necessary to have the least adequate performance, and the use of a window manager. I did. And others did. But it was already a suboptimal performance.
Costs of the hardware you are saying to be extremely cheap are not as cheap as you imply (amd64), are not of wide availability at these prices, and i doubt that the pricing of the lowest end machines in the philippines are lower than in here, given that the economy is unfortunately not as strong. And the machines that are generally found that are amd64 have lower ram, ranging around 2g. The distribution of the cheapest affordable machines is generally split between i386 and amd64 machines. You also ignore the fact that, in 2g of ram, what matters is not strictly the amount of ram used by software, but the capabilities of the operating system to adequately share these resources and to actually be able to use swap space and the general speed of a SATA port to extend memory. This is something linux lacks some levels of capabilities and attempts to compensate by zram. CPUs of the period and before were not as good as today with compression.
BSD does not only scales better on such CPUs, but can better utilize of these slower ram chips, slower buses, slower GPUs. Even FreeBSD which is a linux chaser today can do it. Even OpenBSD that has many security decisions that slow old machines. But NetBSD is uniquely able to do this better (and those who know are the ones who run such machines) at much older machines than a core 2 duo. We are talking about netburst, pentium III-era machines, that still support browsers that are not compiled with SSE or SSE2. I understand most people who can afford newer machines, many gigabytes of ram, are completely satisfied, and that some believe very lightweight distros still do it well. But the times are shifting and the linux kernel is becoming more complex, the userspace is becoming more complex and heavier with or without SystemD. But some people believe with all faith that even wayland is actually a protocol and its compositors based on the protocol that can perform in earlier than 2008 machines very well under most desktop environments, or even that these desktop environments are actually designed without the high-end machines in mind. So i don't get, as i said, much surprised. But i get surprised at how some simply translate their reality to the reality of the ones who are forced to rely on extremely limited budgets in comparison to someone who can get anything above a six gen intel and a newer graphics card.
53 • general purpose BSD (by rhtoras on 2025-09-25 20:24:22 GMT from Greece)
@49 If Net BSD is considered a general purpose operating system then why Open BSD isn't considered one ? OK i can see what are your concerns but it works just fine and has the tools to bring a quite good desktop experience with a little tinkering.
54 • BSD's to consider (by Slappy McGee on 2025-09-26 01:32:02 GMT from United States)
Lots of discussion about BSD, Net being the one highlighted atm.
It would be irresponsible of me to not come in with a bit of a whisper of GhostBSD. It's pointed out up there in an earlier post that yes you must run the live environment to install. Perhaps the dev(s) at Ghost will change that with an update/upgrade at some point, but I do not see it as a negative at all.
GhostBSD is ready to be considered along with any Linux distro if what you want is a "just works" desktop with configuration tools etc very familiar to Linux users.
Not to mention no systemD.
55 • @52 • BSD-Linux much ado about very little (by Tasio on 2025-09-26 03:14:53 GMT from Philippines)
@52, "Let me start up with some facts you are, for some reason, ignoring:" And on and on and on. None or little of which would be of any interest to a user who just wants to turn his PC on, browse the internet, maybe do some writing, emailing, etc. Heck, I'm retired from running a PC shop, and all I want these days is a computer that is easy to set up and use. I may upgrade RAM and storage, and opt for a bigger monitor, but I couldn't care a fig about most anything you mention.
Prices: Since ThinkPads were mentioned I looked some up. I can get a 64-bit capable ThinkPad delivered to my home for under the equivalent of 45USD, or a Core i5 5th gen with 8GB RAM and Windows 10 Installed for around 80USD. If that's too much, maybe you can't afford the electricity to run it. The motorcycle courier who would deliver it to me would probably be carrying a smartphone that costs more than that, and so would the cashiers at the local stores. Which by the way, is what most people, rich or poor, use these days: smartphones, not PCs unless they are needed at school or at work, or if they are gamers, coders, or some kind of geeks playing with old hardware. My wife has a large tablet for watching movies, and a phone for everything else. Her laptop sat unused for for years, and somehow decided to crap out anyway. I'm not bothering with it. I'll donate it to a local shop. Cheaper and less effort to order a used and usable one capable of running 64-bit Linux, should I need one. As it is, I use a desktop at home and carry a phone when out. No laptop.
56 • Always prepared (by Keith S on 2025-09-26 04:31:53 GMT from United States)
@29, I completely understand! I was digging through one of my old laptop bags that I now use mostly for storage of shiny discs that have installation software for various OSes burned onto them when I came across a short phone cord neatly folded and held with a clean wire tie that looks as if it has never been undone. I'm sure I put it in there many years ago in case I ever needed a dialup connection, though I haven't had the hardware bits to make one work for decades. Also, fwiw, if anyone needs a copy of aptosid from around 2008, I have it available.
57 • General purpose BSDs (by bsduck on 2025-09-26 12:53:18 GMT from Switzerland)
@53 I didn't pretend otherwise, OpenBSD also is a general purpose operating system. I just don't enjoy using it because of its focus on security at the expense of performance and features. My comment was meant to counter the common idea among Linux users that BSDs are by nature server operating systems, while they're just as versatile as Linux.
58 • MX Linux question (by Pierre Johnston on 2025-09-26 15:45:01 GMT from United States)
From the main distrowatch main page this week:
The MX Linux team has announce the availability of the initial beta release of MX Linux 25. The project's upcoming major update, now based on Debian 13, is available in both "systemd" and "SysV" variants (for the Xfce and Fluxbox editions) and "systemd" only for the KDE Plasma flavour.
I just started using MX Linux os at the first of the year using SysV. In the above statement, does this mean they are doing away with SysV in the KDE flavor?
I don't even download a distro to check it out if it has systemd as the init. Sorry, that's just the way I am. I've tried learning Xfce and it's just too much for me and my learning disability (brain injury a year ago) for right now...and Fluxbox is 'way' out there.
As for BSD, seems like I can handle NetBSD. I have run FreeBSD before and enjoyed it. I might give NetBSD a try soon.
But I really do need an answer to the Mx Linux question.
Thank you
59 • @58: alt MX DEs (by picamanic on 2025-09-26 18:04:37 GMT from United Kingdom)
Yes, but you have to install MX with one of the available DEs like XFCE, open a terminal emulator window and install [eg] Mate or Cinnamon with APT or Aptitude package managers, but they are GNOME derivatives. There is no way to install KDE on MX without systemd [that I can see].
60 • @58 distros with KDE but not systemd (by picamanic on 2025-09-26 19:57:34 GMT from United Kingdom)
@58: if you are not set on MX, then Devuan or Void linux are distros without systemd that have KDE in their repos: if you are interested, I can say more.
61 • FreeBSD for server and desktop and gaming with GPU passthrough (by Jonathan Vasquez (fearedbliss) on 2025-09-27 01:16:07 GMT from United States)
I switched from Gentoo to FreeBSD for my server back in 2018, and switched away from Linux to FreeBSD completely back in 2022 (although there are some devices still running Linux in some way like my Android phone and some of my gameboy devices (Anbernic devices), and it's been a great experience. I used to be one of the OpenZFS Maintainers in Gentoo and was one of the first to get Linux installed on OpenZFS as root in a mainstream distro - specifically Gentoo, although people have done it before, I just made it much more easy to do so). FreeBSD having OpenZFS directly in the base system has been amazing and I was able to stop doing all of my previous work because of it. As the years went by I expanded my FreeBSD knowledge and started learning and using other technologies like jails, pf, poudriere, and bhyve. Everything about FreeBSD felt holistic, well thought out, and just mad logical sense. Things are not usually too complicated to do, once you understand more fundamental concepts about machines, networking, etc. I feel like my UNIX knowledge is building on top of each other, rather than becoming obsolete. The changes in FreeBSD don't also tend to be based on emotional reasons so there is a nice predictability of things and we follow the principle of least astonishment. So when you upgrade, you should experience what you expect you should be experiencing, this helps not make weird unintuitive changes.
Lastly, I've recently been able to get GPU passthrough working on FreeBSD through bhyve for a Windows 10 VM for gaming purposes. This has been a very good experience after I learned a lot, and I've documented it all for others to try and enjoy. Things will only get better from here and the VM has now become my primary way to play PC games. I only play Offline Single Player games, so it's been a really good experience for that. You can play multiplayer though, I just don't want Windows to have Internet in any capacity. It's my Wintendo lol (like old school SNES, N64, PS1, Gameboy), they never had Internet and are still fun to play even 25+ years later.
You can check out the blog post at my link, and I've also uploaded two videos on YouTube about it.
Number of Comments: 61
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