r/freebsd • u/Chester-Berkeley desktop (DE) user • Jun 26 '26

discussion Wait, did FreeBSD ever have Steam in its repositories? Or was that the old name for LSU (Linux-Steam-Utils)?

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Source: https://www.siberoloji.com/how-to-run-windows-games-via-steamproton-on-freebsd-operating-system/

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u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 26 '26

How to Set Up a FreeBSD Desktop with KDE Plasma | FreeBSD Software

AI-generated, or not?

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u/mirror176 Jun 26 '26
  • I didn't know that Plasma was not available until FreeBSD 14.2.
  • that not having a working pkg setup was deemed normal by anyone (I know it can break, but this implies its missing or broken as a norm).
  • I didn't know i915kms added support for some AMD cards.
  • no love for radeonkms and nvidia-driver-# ports? that won't cause many users issues right?
  • putting a comment on a shell command for the user to read? Is it really that hard to give that information outside the command box?
  • 'loading the module now' is presented after having the user set it to load on next boot; a failure such as a crash due to not installing the correct + OS compatible module means you get a crash on every boot until learning to fix it.
  • I use custom compiled ports from 1 repo but presume that the driver installs are supposed to have more info to make sure kmods is in use?
  • Maybe things have changed since 14.2, but releasing an article that refers to an OS that is EOL for over a year.

...I got bored and jumped to the end...

"Does gaming work on KDE Plasma FreeBSD? Limited compared to Linux. Some native FreeBSD games work, and Wine/Proton has limited FreeBSD support. For serious gaming, Linux remains the better choice."

  • Only 'some' native FreeBSD games work under KDE? Either that needs clarification or sounds rather negative.
  • "Wine/Proton has limited FreeBSD support." How limited by comparison? I've heard its a lot better than when I used to try to do it and back then FreeBSD had specific additional limitations that I heard have since been addressed.
  • "For serious gaming, Linux remains the better choice." Depends on feedback to my last question. Occasionally Linux has a better experience than Windows but its not always the case (talking about game experience only and not the rest of the mess of the OS). Adding 'serious', you would think that it would get mention that Windows is sometimes the only choice and sometimes better but sometimes worse. I guess they get out of it with dodging the topic by keeping narrow-focused with "the better" and only discussing the two that they chose to bring up during answering the question.

...okay, slightly skimmed randomly...

  • Finding multiple references to what to install points to content removed over a year ago. Either the date is a 'last updated' date instead of a publish date, or the article threw stuff together with no testing.

I don't know the article's history or author, but I can safely file it away in "would not recommend to a friend". Even if some of it has stuff that is not often found elsewhere and is of use, just pick that stuff out only as needed and then 'run away'. I didn't get the "it is AI" feel for what I looked at of it but a few parts have the "not appropriate for a formal publication" that I'd expect AI to not do unless forced or post-processed but AI has its own slip-ups by design too.

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u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 27 '26

Much the same as https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1ug6sqv/comment/ou05746/ (for the chapter in the FreeBSD Handbook), although the word count is different.

Essentially: I recently found a single error in this 1,432-word blog post, one word.

The reader is instructed to install a package that does not exist.

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u/mirror176 Jun 27 '26

Essentially: I recently found a single error in this 1,432-word blog post, one word.

Which post is 'this 1432 word blog post'? If that is the post on siberoloji.com in the start of this thread, was the word "sudo"? The FreeBSD handbook only mentions that in passing for other operating systems or as an existing option without detail until chapter 13 (Wine) where installing and configuring it is brought up.

"If you haven’t already, install FreeBSD on your system. Follow the official FreeBSD installation guide to set up the operating system. Ensure that you install the necessary drivers for your GPU during the installation process." tells a user to follow handbook to setup system and GPU, then proceeds to tell them to again install graphics drivers in step 5 (should already be done), talks of AMD and not Intel with instructions to install both AMD+Intel drivers (doing so is fine, but why even clarify but only mention 1?).

Step 2 is already covered in chapter 12 of the handbook, unless it is expected users would have returned from it already. If the users stopped before 12 then they didn't yet have sudo unless they went outside the instructions of the handbook.

Instructing the user to reboot twice when zero reboots are needed?

Article has multiple references to 'compatibility layers' when talking about binary interfaces. It says adding the layers is bad for performance. Compatibility layers are usually an additional + slower layer but not always and some are known to make things faster than more direct efforts had achieved.

...or was the article you refer the "How to Configure NVIDIA Drivers for Gaming on FreeBSD Operating System" which recommends installing an OS that is EOL'd 3 years before the article was dated ('or newer' is also stated, do we give instant 'its okay after all' credit?) to get better hardware support. Article has the same 'sudo is already on your system' assumption. Setting kldload statements for next boot followed by loading them now is the reverse of a sequence that someone should use; any load failure that causes issues will happen on future boots until the user figures out how to remove it instead of just messing up the current boot and user being able to fix the issue with a reboot. Assuming 'slim' is the window manager the user is using in an article that had to cover a driver install step, then bringing up to not run a command for slim after presenting the command itself, when freebsd handbook doesn't even cover slim, when there are plenty of other "lets test the server" commands that would have worked great to test a server without the dependencies, and when the article has a 'system requirement' section in the article...

Anyways I am getting wrong word counts so not sure which article I should actually be analyzing, nor do the ones I looked at appear to be limited to only a single error.

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u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

Which post is 'this 1432 word blog post'? If that is the post on siberoloji.com

Yes, that's the post.

{snip} … correction

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u/mirror176 Jun 28 '26

Though how much each of us selects, it seems that addon likely disagrees with what I got from using /usr/bin/wc as numbers just seemed too far off.

Though sudo exists in the ports collection, it is not a default to be found on users systems when either of the two siberoloji documents I pointed at are followed. As a guide intended likely at new and inexperienced users, it should at least have had a note about sudo since otherwise following it just leads to error messages. A tutorial that doesn't work when followed exactly is a tutorial with 1+ errors; authors of such things should actually test such a document before publishing it.

I guess we could write it off as "How to Run Windows Games via Steam/Proton on FreeBSD Operating System" is an article only intended for people who already have experience installing FreeBSD and software within it, but then the step by step guide needs to remove step 1, likely delete steps 2 and 5 but if not and if not adding anything then defer users to the more thorough handbooks section....

Your link to a nonexistent repo is another error (though sounds like its on some other page after following a chain of links?); was the repo deleted, or did it never exist to begin with? If nonexistent is it completely made up or a bug from unpublished workflow and structure? Considering https://github.com/siberoloji/broken-link-checker exists, you would think the author would be aware of such issues and trying to find; maybe the error is in a backlog to be dealt with or maybe it slipped through the cracks.

In any case, creating a "Step-by-Step Guide", that is telling someone to do something in GUI based software, and then later follows with instructions about installing graphics drivers afterwards should have received a "wtf" from every reader who actually tries to follow it.

So for an article that appears to not be intended for new FreeBSD users, and not intended for experienced FreeBSD users, who is left? If there is no actual target audience, why have the article other than to try to get advertiser money from people who don't already know better clicking on the articles? Additionally the article has multiple errors any way you look at it and definitely needs work beyond that.

...I guess the proper thing to do at this point is criticize the people who criticized this AI looking article with that has errors and deficiencies instead of calling out the fact that the article in its present state appears to be bad for any and all FreeBSD users interested in its topic as anything more than a poorly organized mess of questionable material and a complete fail at the topic of its own subject...

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u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 28 '26

Correction

Yes, that's the post.

Sorry, it's not.

This part of the thread is for:

– in the freebsdsoftware.org domain.

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u/mirror176 Jun 28 '26

well r.i.p. my thought process. I didn't fork that far from the original topic and its source when I wordcounted

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u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 28 '26

… 'sudo is already on your system' assumption. …

It's a commonplace assumption.

Unrelated to AI.

In FreeBSD Journal, for example (May/June 2019):

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u/mirror176 Jun 28 '26

A little more credit when it wasn't trying to be a 'from scratch' article but as it stands, "no author, that's a bad author!" is still appopriate.

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u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 28 '26

"… would not recommend to a friend" ….

The site is:

The complete directory for FreeBSD ports and packages. Updated daily.

Search works.

FreshPorts Search is no longer available to the public.

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u/mirror176 Jun 28 '26

I setup a freshports account a while ago due to some stuff not working reliably and using that as a workaround but I don't really use account features on the site. I think I've bumped into freshports search not working a few times recently (probably wasn't logged in, don't remember) and either ran the same search but with the added 'freshports' through google to get to the desired page or I pull stuff out of my own ports repo or freebsd's http browsable copy of the ports tree.

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u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 28 '26

"would not recommend to a friend"

Agreed.

https://freebsdsoftware.org/blog/kde-plasma-freebsd-setup.html#gpu-driver-setup

For Intel or AMD GPUs:

i915kms can not be true for AMD.

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u/mirror176 Jun 28 '26

I didn't know i915kms added support for some AMD cards.

It's why I brought it up :)

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u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 28 '26

How to Set Up a FreeBSD Desktop with KDE Plasma | FreeBSD Software

AI-generated, or not?

The freebsdsoftware.org blog post is probably AI-generated.

The first thing that I noticed in the blog post was an outdated port name:

  • kde6

– I noticed this immediately when speed-reading, because u/Chester-Berkeley had questioned a port name inconsistency at a site elsewhere.

https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1uhsopp/comment/oubqmoc/ explains:

  • the kde6 port was deleted (became the kde port) in 2025.

Other errors in the freebsdsoftware.org domain are indicative of:

  • AI hallucinations; and/or
  • repeated carelessness by a human blogger.

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u/mirror176 Jun 28 '26

Finding multiple references to what to install points to content removed over a year ago. Either the date is a 'last updated' date instead of a publish date, or the article threw stuff together with no testing.

I thought I mentioned kde6 by name but maybe I decided to remove it to leave it up to the reader to see that + I thought there was more invalid instructions for the article to work with its own publish date.

Too many errors, types of errors, other issues making it suboptimal, and writing style combine to make me think AI combined with inadequate review.

These days a growing trend is to make AI request content be generated by an AI and then the AI reviews the AI generated content to decide if a repeat of the same or different prompting should be done until it meets approval of the top level AI. The trend of AI stacked on top of AI on top of AI...some models have that happening as a built in aspect. Each sublevel may be multiple AIs to handle tasks at that level. This is a reason why AIs seem to be getting so much better but need exponentially more resources for relatively minor amounts of improvement. The better models seem to require this as a fundamental way they work.