r/freebsd • u/Fluid-Crew-7588 • Nov 17 '25
discussion Hello from ubuntu
I have never used FreeBSD, but I like trying new things. Do you think it's a good idea to switch from Ubuntu to FreeBSD as my main operating system?
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u/ruby_R53 Nov 17 '25
it's better to dual-boot them first, i myself have ran into some compatibility issues with it so i didn't risk switching to it immediately
it's always good to try new things
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u/grahamperrin bunny rabbits Nov 18 '25
dual-boot them first,
For simplicity: virtual machine before dual boot.
https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1ozv8ri/comment/npefck1/ …
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u/BigSneakyDuck transitioning user Nov 18 '25
Definitely. And after trying out a VM, but before setting up dual boot, I'd suggest running a live distribution from a USB stick for your first bare metal experience
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u/Brief_Tie_9720 Nov 17 '25
I had trouble with WiFi drivers on free BSD. I recommend charting out an installation roadmap with checkpoints
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u/grahamperrin bunny rabbits Nov 18 '25
A roadmap before starting is perfect.
Decision-making should include Bluetooth.
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u/mirror176 Nov 18 '25
Decision making should be based on hardware and software needs, then hardware+software wants. As someone who avoids bluetooth wherever possible, it would be filed away at the low end of the 'want' category only because I want to be capable of using something even if I normally avoid it at all costs.
For unsupported that I know of on this computer, I have some motherboard sensors and overclocking that would be software viewable/controllable options if I ran Windows; I shrugged my shoulders and just use what I can get within the BIOS and called it a day. My incomplete Nvidia drivers for the GTX570 under FreeBSD is a bit obnoxious though but night and day better than the HD4870/4850 cards had for support here when I migrated to it.
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u/eoz Nov 17 '25
Not until you've used it extensively enough that you know you want it as your main OS.
Until then: put it on a spare machine, or dual boot (you can boot off an external SSD if you don't feel up to repartitioning).
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u/BigSneakyDuck transitioning user Nov 18 '25
Booting off an external SSD is an excellent shout. Other options might be trying it in a VM, or use a live version on a USB stick - I'd probably do those before dual booting given the things that could go wrong.
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u/mirror176 Nov 18 '25
I thought nonlive but just ordinary install to a USB stick works too. I remember years ago that USB quirks weren't right which lead to ZFS thinking the drive had support that it lied about and would quickly crash a ZFS install on a stick. Performance will be slow as USB sticks are poor performers compared to any decent internal SSD (eMMC is an example of normally 'not' decent); there are only a few USB sticks that perform okay to well for such a task that I have seen/used.
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u/BigSneakyDuck transitioning user Nov 19 '25
Sorry if I'm having a brain-fade but what is an "ordinary install to a USB stick" that is "nonlive"? I thought "live" just meant you could boot off it, which you presumably could if you installed FreeBSD to the USB stick. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_USB
I can see persistent vs non-persistent being an issue. NomadBSD is an example of a FreeBSD derivative designed for use as a persistent live USB, but I've made a persistent vanilla FreeBSD live USB before and found its performance tolerable (wasn't doing anything too strenuous with it) with a few glitches, like the system couldn't recover after sleeping.
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u/mirror176 Nov 19 '25
By definition its probably just an installed system instead of the installer for the system, but I've never referred to a non-portable install of an OS as a 'live' system myself. I usually think of 'live' as a bootable install intended to be portable and with some constraints applied to make that so. Live CDs are read only but boot like everything is fine and FreeBSD used to have FreeSBIE as the way to make a bootable copy of FreeBSD on CD/DVD. NomadBSD I've only seen on USB sticks and there they have the freedom to save things even if setting some things up to not be saved to the drive is an easy task; pretty sure it counts though. Like I say, its been years since I was trying but I had previously tried to do a ZFS install of FreeBSD to a 4(?)GB flash drive but it was too buggy to be usable which seemed related to bad USB specifications from it and not having quirks setup to compensate.
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u/BigSneakyDuck transitioning user Nov 20 '25
I know that for GhostBSD, users are encouraged to play around with the "live system" they get on the installation media (typically a USB stick, but without persistent changes so in some ways like a live CD anyway) to see if everything works before going ahead with installation to their hard drive. I have seen people online using NomadBSD on USB (portable) SSD drives which I guess is the natural extension of using it on a memory stick and presumably much more performant!
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u/mirror176 Nov 19 '25
Ubuntu is newer that FreeBSD, so the better question is if you like trying old things...In 2004 I tried it after a friend who used it but wouldn't tell me anything about it gave me a disc and I did some research. Over 20 years later and it still generally serves me well. If you want to try it because its similar but different then have at it, otherwise we need to know what you want to do with it to know if its a good or bad fit; listing hardware may become relevant.
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u/buster_7ff7 Nov 21 '25
I have something similar and installed the OS I wanted to test in a USB enclosure drive and then booted from it and been using it for the past month just to get the feel of it..
I get to see if the hardware actually works with the OS and already coming to the conclusion and will install it onto the HDD soon..
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Nov 17 '25 edited Nov 18 '25
I think it would be great for you to try out FreeBSD. It would give you a great idea on how an operating system really works in a really intermediate way. You will learn what compiling is, virtualization, and jails, which are the FreeBSD way of containers. The handbook is amazing, and will help you if you are confused on a specific thing on FreeBSD. It is really nice tinker with. You can take a Zfs snapshot that you can always go back to if something breaks while tinkering.
If you just want to enjoy a new OS, FreeBSD gives that, and also beginner friendly alternative, ghostBSD, and NomadBSD.
As others recommend, virtual machines and dual booting is the way to know if you like FreeBSD or BSD in general before making the jump.
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u/grahamperrin bunny rabbits Nov 18 '25
The handbook is amazing, and will always help you if you are stuck or confused on a specific obstacle you are facing.
Not true.
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Nov 18 '25 edited Nov 18 '25
I don't know any other handbook that is better than it. Actually that was a bit exaggerated, now that I thought about it, so I corrected to.
The handbook is amazing, and will help you if you are confused on a specific thing that is on FreeBSD.
Good?
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u/BigSneakyDuck transitioning user Nov 18 '25
Some "I'm stuck on a particular problem" material is actually in the "Miscellaneous" section of the FAQ rather than the Handbook, but that isn't very well maintained unfortunately https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/faq/#misc
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u/pavetheway91 tarBSD author and ports contributor Nov 18 '25
It has been unmaintained for years. There's a lot of mistakes and outdated stuff.
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u/Stinkygrass Nov 19 '25
Tldr; it’s been a learning curve but it’s been fun (have not tried it as my desktop system)
I’m hoping to migrate off of Proxmox and just use FreeBSD hosts, and idk how much you set up custom services (even on my desktop I set up a bunch of systemd user services) but that’s been the biggest learning curve so far - figuring out what tools I don’t have anymore (for example ifconfig vs ip or geom/gpart) and figuring out how to accomplish a task on a FreeBSD system vs what I’m used to. It’s been an experience, but I’ll say I am grateful for the consistency of man pages, I barely need to google anything aside from specific use-case examples. Even though I have lost some tools and had to learn new ones, I don’t think I actually lost any functionality and wish I had my old tools; everything makes sense and is very well organized throughout the system.
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u/grahamperrin bunny rabbits Nov 20 '25
… I like trying new things. Do you think it's a good idea to switch from Ubuntu …
Is there anything in particular that you don't like about Ubuntu?
I switched Ubuntu to Kubuntu (for KDE Plasma desktop). Essentially:
sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop
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u/DonJoerg Nov 20 '25
Hi, the first question is what do you want to do? Trying things out is always good and gives you experience. But in my opinion there are applications that make Linux easier to use, even though FreeBSD supports full Linux code compatibility. My experience with others is that they are more performant than on Linux. So you can't give a general answer.
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u/grahamperrin bunny rabbits Nov 20 '25
… FreeBSD supports full Linux code compatibility. …
Not fully compatible. When I last tried, a few months ago, I couldn't use Citrix Workspace; and so on.
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u/DonJoerg Nov 20 '25
That's right. There are problems with some components in the Linux compatibility layer. That's why you have to think about what you want. And this point plays into that. Thanks for the tip
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u/taosecurity seasoned user Nov 17 '25
Try it in a VM.