Can I use FreeBSD as a desktop system?

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 20 Jul 2017 06:41:36 +0200, David Gruhk wrote:
> On 17.07.18Tue 23:32, SOUL_OF_ROOT 55 wrote:
> > Can I use FreeBSD as a desktop system?
> 
> 
> There are 2 problems with FreeBSD.
> 
> 
> 1. We are without boot/mfsroot since FreeBSD 9,
> so you can not start the installer from Grub.
> This is problematic, if you can not use CD, FDD, PXE, USB booting.
> You can start the NetBSD, OpenBSD and Linux installer from Grub.

For a common desktop installation today, this shouldn't be a problem.
Modern (and not-so-modern) desktop systems boot from USB and optical
media just fine, so supplying the installer should be easy.




> In this case you can use dd:
> dd if=installed_in_other_PC of=not_boot_media_capable_PC
> I am in this situation now, I hope the dd
> or maybe dump-restore method will work!!!

The recommended method for a system transfer is to initialize the
disks as needed, then use dump | restore. But other methods also
can work, but it depends on many factors.



> 2. We have not LVM (deprecated, not recommended) with UFS,
> only with ZFS, but ZFS has too big memory claim.
> I don't dare use ZFS with 512MB-1GB (neither 4GB) RAM with a few
> 100 GB HDD space.

With UFS, you can use gstripe and gmirror for LVM; I don't know
if "vinum" is still supported...



> FreeBSD has a big advantage compared with NetBSD and OpenBSD:
> 3 month long supporting binary packages,
> where you get only security and bug fix (quarterly branch).

FreeBSD is also a great "never touch a running system" kind of
system. In case you don't want (or can't) update, things installed
once usually keep running well for a very long time, as long as
your requirements don't change. I still have systems running the
old versions FreeBSD 4, 5, and 8, for internal purposes. :-)



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...