Episode 23 Show Notes
Moss – Welcome to Distrohopper’s Digest, Episode 23, recorded on June 9th, 2021. This episode, we are taking on FreeBSD 13-Release and Manjaro XFCE. We are happy to receive suggestions of distros you’d like us to try.
MONTHLY FOIBLES
…wherein we discuss what we did this month…
Moss – I’ve been trying to get by, and it has gotten difficult enough to do that I’ve resigned from mintCast. I have been recording Full Circle Weekly News for over a month now, and this podcast and that one shouldn’t be too much for me to do. My mother’s estate is nearly settled, now that her house is pending sale. I spent as many days as I could as a substitute teacher in the local schools, but the school term has ended. So I have time on my hands, at least until school starts up again on August 4th. And I finally got physical therapy reordered for my still-damaged shoulder.
Dale – I started working on some software that will become the subject of an upcoming article on It’s Moss. I attended the LinuxLugCast podcast on the 7th of May. It was pretty fun to hang out with some fellow Linux users.
I had an eye exam and confirmed the suspicion that my eyes’ close-up vision has changed, so I will be getting what they call blended lenses, also referred to as Bifocals. I needed to submit my receipts to my company’s HR department; I will speak more on this in the Beautiful Failures section. Let’s just say after spending over 2 hours trying to get Linux to work with my printer’s document scanner. I needed to use my Windows 10 VM. That meant I had to wait another hour for Windows to update, as I haven’t used it for a year or so. Once updated, I scanned my receipts and emailed them.
Tony – Like Dale, I recently had my 2 yearly eye check, I had not been driving as I feared that my eyes had deteriorated so I was no longer legal with my current prescription. The Optician reassured me despite a slight change I was well within the legal requirement for driving, but I am still getting blurring of my left eye due to a developing cataract which makes driving a little difficult at times, so I’m limiting my driving to my local area and only when I have to.
Linux-wise, a couple of episodes ago of mintCast they were discussing what constitutes a Distro, and as a result we all ended up looking at Swift Linux which, among other flavors, has the Hannah Montana and Taylor Swift spins. All their spins are based on MX Linux which I reviewed back in October 2019. As far as I can see the only difference between the spins is a different wallpaper, but they may add something to MX, although all the repositories are MX ones and there is nothing to say on their website about any additions or changes other than the name.
Like Moss, life and other commitments are taking over as we come out of lockdown here in the UK, although some restrictions are still in place we can now travel within and have holidays in the UK. This has limited my ability to be a full reviewer for the show, so I’m mainly involved in the post production side of things on this podcast these days, but I am still on mintCast.
NB- It is also possible to travel abroad, but with there only being a few destinations you can go without having to isolate for 10 days on return, this is not an attractive option. Plus there is the additional cost of testing going out and on return.
UPDATES (Where we discuss what we have learned about distros we’ve already reviewed)
Moss – Bodhi 6 is finally Final! I’m so excited that I’ve been using this distro since pre-release Alpha and had it continuously installed and updated since Beta. It’s even more beautiful, has a few new tricks up its sleeve. I was hoping to review it, but I seem to have gotten myself added to the distro’s team and that could constitute a conflict of interest. Primary changes include a GIF default wallpaper, Thunar file manager, Mint Updater, and lots of work on Moksha. There is a 32-bit version still in the works, and a version featuring the full E24 desktop.
OpenMandriva has worked out the kinks in their Rolling release, numbered 4.5 Nickel. The best way to get it is to install 4.1, go to the Forum, and follow the instructions you find there, which state you are upgrading from 4.1 Rock to 4.2 Rolling. I made the mistake of attempting to upgrade from 4.2 Rock instead of 4.1, and it caused some interesting issues, but they have all been ironed out and I have a fully functioning Rolling release of OpenMandriva on my Zia800 Workstation. I have been unable to install OM4 on my Kudu, however.
Dale – Well, most of them have been quiet. Bluestar Linux had a new release but had no details listed. Garuda replaced the Plasma edition I reviewed in Episode 19 with one called Dr460nized. I don’t speak leet speak but I have heard it called Dragonized. One of my favorite distros, Solus, released Budgie 10.5.3 with support for the Gnome 40 stack among various other bug fixes. They have updated their Gnome edition to Gnome 40. Their Plasma edition was updated to 5.21.4 with KDE Framework 5.81.0. They also started an account with Open Collective, another community funding site like Patreon. So if you ever wanted to donate to Solus, here is your chance.
BEAUTIFUL FAILURES – What we tried, and failed, to install or run this month
Moss:
I managed to get SolydK installed. I had to go back to the July release and then update both it and the repos, as they had moved to a new server. Then when I got it just about working right, my Workspaces were ghosting behind the rest of the Panel. They worked sometimes if I squinted just right. The distro does look nicer in blues, but Plasma is still not my friend. I moved along.
I remembered that I had done pretty well with the community edition of Manjaro Cinnamon a year ago, and Dylan suggested it had been a while since we reviewed Manjaro. So I installed Manjaro Cinnamon… and booted to a black screen. I tried Manjaro MATE, being a MATE fan, and couldn’t even boot. I gave up and tried Manjaro XFCE, and that will constitute my review later this episode.
I learned about Bliss OS on Monday and just couldn’t help myself. Bliss OS is something like Gallium OS and chromium OS. It installed on the Inspiron and claims to have written GRUB, but did not boot. Repeated attempts failed. Then attempts to install other OSes failed. Finally I just put Mint 20.1 Mate on it and all is good.
Dale:
As I mentioned in my activities last month, my failure is courtesy of HP’s Linux Imaging and Printing Software, and to a lesser extent CUPS itself. My HP LaserJet 100 Color MFP m175 is supported in version 3.11.7. The current version is 3.21.4 and Pop!_OS had 3.20.3. Oddly HP claims this printer only has USB support, despite the fact that the printer came with USB, WiFi and Ethernet support as default options. Even so, all the features the printer had were supported.
In all the distros I have used, CUPS was installed. CUPS would see my printer and install it via the network. I tried using SANE with CUPS a few years ago and gave up (SANE is the document scanning package). So I created a Windows 10 VM and installed the HP Imaging Software from the Microsoft Store. I am a pragmatist and just wanted to get the task done.
I had tried HPLIP last fall when Manjaro broke CUPS, preventing me from printing. HPLIP didn’t recognize Manjaro as a distro and it never saw my printer on the network.
Fast forward to last month. I noticed that SANE with CUPS still doesn’t see my printer’s document scanner. After some searching I remembered trying HPLIP. I searched and didn’t see it in the Pop Shop (Pop!_OS’s app store), so I installed it with APT, sudo apt install hplip. I also installed hplip-gui for desktop GUI support. Just like with Manjaro before, HPLIP didn’t recognize Pop!_OS as a distro. This is doubly strange considering it is based on Ubuntu and uses the Ubuntu repos in addition to Pop!_OS ones.
The setup asked if it was a local connection or network; I chose network. It then proceeded to scan my network and the resulting screen showed my printer properly identified. The next screen asked if I wanted to do a test print and adjust printer options. I tried to do a test print and it failed with an obscure error. I opened CUPS in Firefox and it saw the new printer entry. I couldn’t print from there either but I could from the one CUPS installed.
Well, I tried modifying the entry CUPS created to see if I could use it with HPLIP. HPLIP complained that the driver wasn’t created by HP and instructed me to delete it and use its setup application. To add insult to injury, I also couldn’t print using CUPS anymore, or from Pop!_OS. So I deleted all the printers, uninstalled the HPLIP package, and rebooted. Upon reboot my printer was redetected and I was able to print.
I am puzzled. HP claims my printer is only supported via USB but their software detected it on my network. When I get home next month, I am going to connect my Pangolin laptop to my printer via USB and try it again.
Distro Reviews
Moss:
DISTRO NAME: Manjaro XFCE 2021.01
INTRO:
I had a bit of trouble finding a version that would install on the Dell Inspiron 7353, but finally went with XFCE. This has been a good experience, and it’s an easy entry into Archland.
MY HARDWARE:
My Dell features a 6th Gen i5 and Intel graphics, 8 Gb RAM, and a 128 Gb SSD.
INSTALLATION EASE AND ISSUES:
The distro uses a renamed Calamares installer, with an extra section allowing more flexibility in swap partitions or files. As is usual with Calamares, it seems nothing can go wrong. Answer a few questions, wait the usual length of time, and you have an installed distro.
POST INSTALLATION HARDWARE FACTS & ISSUES:
This is the first time I’ve tried Manjaro as a sole boot. I had no issues other than ones I will talk about later in this review.
EASE OF USE:
You have to learn how to use pamac or pacman and access the AUR for some programs and apps. This is a learning curve for many users. But in the end, you will find everything you use, and if you do regular updates, it will be the latest version. Like all Arch distros, you need to keep it updated. I got all my games installed, although the latest version of KMines has a bug in the score saving feature.
MEMORY AND DISK USE:
At rest, neofetch reports 587 MiB of RAM in use. The disk usage is 9.0 Mb. Everything runs smoothly and as expected.
EASE OF FINDING HELP:
This is not my first rodeo with Manjaro or similar Arch distros, so I haven’t needed any help. Most help a new user would need would be to get it installed and running; after you learn sudo pacman -Syu and how to use package managers, you probably don’t need much help unless you leave the system alone a long time without updating it. But the Arch Wiki is always there and there are lots of users should you need to talk to somebody. But should you YUM? There seems to be a difference of opinion on using the YUM package management, which has not been updated recently.
PLAYS NICE WITH OTHERS:
With effort it can. The distro is known to only boot from its own partition, although it will kindly allow other distros to boot from its boot partition. If you want another distro controlling GRUB, you will need to do sudo grub-update to get GRUB back and then use your BIOS key to boot to Manjaro (F12 on Dell, F7 on System76, Esc, F1 or F2 on other systems).
STABILITY:
I haven’t experienced any stability issues. Arch has a reputation of updating poorly if you let the updates go for too long, but I never do.
SIMILAR DISTROS TO CHECK OUT:
Endeavour OS
Mint XFCE
RATINGS:
Ease of Installation new user 9/10
experienced user 10/10
Hardware Issues 7/10
Ease of Finding Help (Community, Web) 8/10
Ease of Use 9/10
Plays Nice With Others 5/10
Stability 8/10
Overall Rating 8/10
FINAL COMMENTS:
This distro does everything I need it to do, with all the packages I need and regular updates. It is usually near the bleeding edge in terms of what packages it uses, and is preferred by many gamers as well as being fully usable on the Pinebook Pro and Pinephone. If you want a less-steep learning curve, stick with Mint, but if you can take the intro work, this is every bit as good a distro as you can find. I have one friend who complains it’s too easy and hand-holding; he uses Endeavour OS.
Dale:
DISTRO NAME: FreeBSD 13-Release
INTRO:
Since FreeBSD 13 was released recently, it was good timing for a review. Let me start out with the development process naming convention:
The -Current is the development version which creates the -Stable version.
The -Stable version is what becomes the -Release version.
The -Release as the name implies is the released version.
They have been releasing a new version about every 18 to 24 months. This is subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances. From version 11 on, they have been adjusting the dates.
FreeBSD 1.0 was released in November of 1993. It was based on 4.3BSD Net Release 2 (Net/2) and 386BSD. FreeBSD 2.0 was released in November of 1994 based on 4.4BSD-Lite Release 1 and 2 (Lite 1 and 2). More on these later. FreeBSDs’ roots date back to Research Unix from the early 70’s. Which was created by Bell Labs, an R & D division of AT&T.
I want to share some history on FreeBSD and BSD. Keep in mind this is highly abbreviated since there is a lot of history. Also note that due to the 50 or so years of history. There were conflicting dates for some events. So I don’t have dates for everything because it was debatable which date to use.
BSD was named after the University of California Berkeley; the full name is Berkeley Software Distribution. A group at Berkeley called the Computer Systems Research Group, CSRG for short, created BSD in 1974. Unix was licensed and was very expensive if you were not affiliated with a University. In the late 80’s they wanted to begin removing the AT&T code. By July of ‘91 CSRG released an open source version of BSD free of AT&T source code and called it 4.3BSD Net/2.
Two Berkeley alumni William and Lynne Jolitz over a period of 3 years ported 4.3BSD to the Intel 80386 CPU which required them to write code replacing the removed AT&T code themselves. The ported code was called BSD386. They completed the project sometime in ‘89, though ‘91 is listed as a date in some places. BSD386 had a big following since it was one of the first Unix-like OSes that could run on an Intel 386 CPU.
There is some controversy over why FreeBSD was created. The easiest way to explain it centers around development disagreements over BSD386. A group of BSD386 users branched the code and continued development, naming it FreeBSD.
Other members of CSRG created a company called Berkeley Software Design Inc in 1991. Their port of BSD to the Intel 80386 used the Net/2 source code created by CSRG, and they named it BSD/386. It was eventually renamed BSD/OS once the 486 and Pentium CPUS were released. They decided to license their code, with the intent to offer licenses that were less expensive compared to AT&T.
In 1993, two developers of FreeBSD, Jordan Hubbard and David Greenman, contacted Walnut Creek CDROM about distributing FreeBSD. Walnut Creek was well known for distributing software via CDROM disks either by mail or their ftp server, and they eventually hired Jordan and David to continue their work on FreeBSD as well as to operate the company’s servers. I personally bought many CDs from them and used their ftp server quite a bit back then. They had a large selection of free and open source software.
If you ever wondered why iXsystems, the creators of FreeNAS (which is now called TrueNAS) centered their business around FreeBSD, here is a short, incomplete history.
In 2000 BSDi merged with Walnut Creek, which had already acquired Telenet Systems Solutions, a company which made servers. A year later they sold Walnut Creek to Wind River Systems, a software company. Wind River then spun off what was Walnut Creek into “FreeBSD Mall”. BSDi renamed themselves to iXsystems, and continues to sell servers and storage systems. In 2002, a web hosting company called Off My Server acquired iXsystems. They donated hardware to various BSD projects and renamed themselves to iXsystems in 2005. In 2006 they acquired PC-BSD and in 2007 they reacquired FreeBSD Mall.
Enough history, let’s look at the distro.
MY HARDWARE:
The laptop I used is my Lenovo ThinkPad T460 which is my retired daily driver. It has a Intel Dual Core i5-6200U 2.8 GHz CPU, 14″ display using Intel HD Graphics 520, 16 GB of RAM and a 500 GB SSD.
INSTALLATION EASE AND ISSUES:
Oddly for me, I didn’t use dd to write my USB stick, but instead selected Popsicle. Popsicle is the USB image writer that Pop!_OS uses by default. It is very simple to use. I downloaded the DVD ISO which includes the current package archive. There are other ISOs available containing everything or minimal which requires an internet connection for installation. They also support 64bit and 32bit Intel/AMD, ARM, PowerPC and RISC CPUs.
Once the download was done, it was time to boot the FreeBSD installer. I did notice a long delay during bootup. It stopped on rtsx0: Controller timeout for CMD55 a few times then changed to CMD1 a couple more times. After waiting several minutes it continued to boot. I went to search for this message, and one of the search results was exactly my message, on the bugs.freebsd.org website where you can report any issues in FreeBSD. I found out it was the SD card reader on my T460. The laptop came with a MicroSD-to-SD adapter card. Nothing was plugged into the MicroSD Adapters’ slot but the card itself was plugged into the slot on the laptop. The issue is that the driver identified the card reader but didn’t know how to respond to not having a MicroSD card inserted. The solution was to remove the adapter card. Sure enough, upon reboot the boot process flew by stopping at the FreeBSD Installer. I did read through the comment thread. One of the people that responded said they submitted a patch to fix the driver. This post was from a month or so ago, so hopefully after install and an update the driver will be updated.
After booting up, I was at the Welcome screen, where it will do a 10-second countdown before automatically loading the installer. I pressed enter to stop the countdown. From this menu I had various boot options, like special kernel or video console settings. The latter is for connecting via a serial port from another computer.
I noticed that they are still using the Ncurses-style screen, similar to other distros I have reviewed and used like Debian and Void Linux. If you are a new listener, this is a terminal-based graphical keyboard interactive interface. You navigate using the arrow keys and the enter key.
Given the choices of Install, Shell or Live CD I chose Install. The shell option is for doing any pre-installation activities. I don’t know what to do here but you have the option. Just in case you try the shell option, you type exit to return to the previous screen. If you try the Live CD option, do not be surprised when you drop to a shell login screen. FreeBSD does not install a GUI by default. To login type root for the user and press Enter. There is no password. From there you are in a terminal session. You can look around the filesystem via cd and ls commands that are similar to ones in Linux. If you want to reboot the computer, just type reboot and press enter.
There were the common questions that every installation asks of you. like your keyboard settings and hostname, which is the name of your computer. I saw the choice of optional system components to install, like the ports tree and source tree. Ports are the source code for software you can compile on your own if you wish. The source tree is the kernel source files enabling you to compile your own custom kernel. I left it at the default which doesn’t install those. In the partitioning section, I was shown the choice of Auto ZFS, Auto UFS, Manual or Shell. Manual allows customized partition options, Auto is the guided mode for using the ZFS or UFS filesystems, UFS is the standard filesystem similar to Ext4 in Linux, and ZFS is a filesystem that can do filesystem snapshots and software raid options. The default is ZFS. I noticed that, if you place the cursor over the options, a description will be shown at the bottom left of the screen. At least 8 GB of RAM is recommended for using ZFS. I chose the Auto ZFS. Even in Auto mode you are still able to make some decisions, like changing the drive pool name, swap size, encrypting swap, encrypt disks among others. Just for fun, I chose Swimming for my pool name. Yes, that is a dad joke, and yes, I am old enough to make dad jokes. After making my selections I pressed enter to continue.
The following screen has the ZFS settings. Since I only had one drive in my laptop, the only viable option was stripe. If you had more than one. You have the other options of Mirror, Mirror and stripping, single-, double-, or triple-redundant RAID. You can relate these to RAID Levels 1, 10, 5 and 6.
Finally I was able to select which drive to install on. I moved the cursor to the drive and pressed the spacebar, then the Enter key to continue. As you have heard, there is a lot of keyboard input. If you don’t like to use the keyboard, you are either very annoyed or have quit before now. I confirmed which disk I wanted to use — pretty simple considering I only have one disk.
I want to point out that, if you are used to Linux, you will notice that the drives are not named sda1, sda2, etc.; instead FreeBSD uses ada0 for the first SSD and your USB stick will be listed as da0.
Now that my drive was selected, I could choose the password for the root user. After that I was able to configure my network interface. There was a question about my current country, the default was the USA. There are 14 available channels depending on the country. It then scanned for my access point and I entered my passphrase. I was given the option of using DHCP or Static. Additionally there is the option of IPV4, IPV6 and DNS settings.
The clock settings were next, and they were pretty much the same as other Linux distros. You choose if you want to use UTC or your local time settings. If you previously had Linux on the computer, it will most likely already be using UTC. If you were using Windows, it will be using your local time.
I chose to load the default services. There were also security hardening options; you can leave these unselected unless you know what they are and can read about it later in the Handbook.
Oddly, next was creating my user — usually that is done just before or after you create the root user. After all of that I applied my settings and the installation was finished. Whew! You are able to make some changes to your previous selections. After exiting the installer, I rebooted the laptop.
POST INSTALLATION HARDWARE FACTS & ISSUES:
After a couple updates the past few weeks, the problem with detecting the empty MicroSD card adapter is still happening. Leaving it ejected allows the laptop to boot up without delay. Otherwise I didn’t have any issues.
EASE OF USE:
I booted to the login shell. Since FreeBSD doesn’t have a pre-configured Xserver, Window Manager or Desktop Environment, I logged in as root, as the defaults in FreeBSD do not allow a regular user to use su. Once I added my user to the Wheel group, I was allowed to use su. The next thing I did was install pkg, which is the package manager. It is not installed by default because FreeBSD has two ways of installing software. One option is Ports, they are the source files that you can download, edit and compile; the other option is to use Pkg to install precompiled packages, just like apt would do in Linux. You can use both if you want. I typed pkg and it was installed. Pkg uses a syntax similar to what is used by apt. Using pkg install <package name> will update the package database and install with one command. From there I installed Joe, which is my favorite text editor. The Vi editor is installed by default, I am not a fan.
Another thing I did was edit the .cshrc file for both root and my user. .cshrc is the config file for the C Shell, and I needed to edit it so that I could change the default editor from Vi to Joe. Any programs in the terminal that need to open an editor will follow this directive. I can tolerate Vi for quick edits, but I often need to do quite a bit of editing. I also installed sudo and configured it.
Before going any further I wanted to see if there were any updates. I typed freebsd-update fetch. There were no updates, but if any had been found, I would then have needed to type freebsd-update install. You also use this command to upgrade to new releases. I also ran pkg upgrade to check for package updates. I wasn’t expecting any this soon after this version was released. I logged out of the root account and logged in as my user. Sudo and SU were used for any root level requirements. If there was a lot of editing I would just use SU to save me from having to type my password so often with Sudo. Oh, one thing I want to point out: the handbook assumes you are the root user, so if you are not signed in as root, you will need to use su or add sudo in front of all the commands that need root privileges.
I decided that I would install Xorg with Xfce 4.16; Wayland is available but isn’t officially supported yet. I used the FreeBSD Handbook on their website. I installed all the required packages for Xorg, Xfce, LightDM and the Intel Graphics Driver, using instructions found in Chapter 5, The X Window System. Then edited the required config files. I tried using the default display manager, XDM, but I had some issues not being able to reboot or shutdown from Xfce. I had to open a terminal and type the commands. So that is why I ended up using LightDM, which is a nice GTK Display Manager that is usually used with GTK based Desktop Environments or Window Managers. I also chose it because it has fewer dependencies as compared to the Gnome Display Manager (GDM). All that was left was to add some additional packages for Xfce, like the PulseAudio applet, Network monitor, wpa_supplicant gui, etc.
Once I was using Xfce, everything worked pretty much the same as it does on Linux, the only difference being you don’t receive notifications when there are new updates. I just opened a terminal and typed in the commands, which is pretty much what I do in Linux.
The Linuxulator was one feature I wanted to check out, but the amount of configuration was more than I wanted to do. Linuxulator is an emulation layer to allow Linux binaries to run on FreeBSD. The steps needed to configure this started out fine, just load some services, edit some config files and mount some directories. Then it got a little time consuming. You need to mark the Linux binary with a program so FreeBSD knows it is a Linux executable. Then you need to put all the dependencies in the directories you mounted, which are used to re-create the necessary Linux file system directories that some programs need. I checked a couple on my computer and some programs had dozens of dependencies, and I wasn’t about to copy all of that, especially when there is no real guarantee that it will work. Linuxulator is a work in progress, and they have a website which shows what works and what doesn’t.
I was able to browse my Samba shares and access the files. Samba works the same as it does in Linux.
The versions of the packages are pretty much the same on Linux, but in some cases were newer, dependending on the distribution. Pop!_OS 20.04 comes with Firefox 89 and so does FreeBSD 13. LibreOffice is at version 6.4.7.2 on Pop!_OS 20.04 but is at 7.1.3.2 on FreeBSD 13.
MEMORY AND DISK USE:
FreeBSD used just 605 MiB RAM and less than 4 GB of space on the SSD upon login.
EASE OF FINDING HELP:
The FreeBSD Handbook and FAQ were very helpful. This takes you step by step from installation to post install configuration. They even have a chapter explaining basic commands and functionality. If you need more help, their forums are a great place to ask questions. However, I do want to caution that the members expect that you have read through the Handbook and FAQ before asking any questions. They are friendly and helpful from what I saw in my browsing. I also found some independent blogs quite helpful, just make sure they are referring to FreeBSD 10 or newer. A lot of changes happened in version 10.
PLAYS NICE WITH OTHERS:
I didn’t try it but read that it is possible. I personally think that, unless you need both for development reasons, you are going to either run Linux or FreeBSD, as both are completely usable choices once configured.
STABILITY:
FreeBSD is just as stable as Debian. It is used by many companies like Netflix, Cisco, Juniper, The Weather Channel, etc. It is often used in embedded devices like in-car multimedia, game consoles like the Sony Playstation and industrial control systems. OSes based on FreeBSD are currently being used on Mars and I think SpaceX uses it in addition to Linux. FreeBSD in some
cases uses the same open source projects that Linux uses. Though there are some changes for compatibility.
SIMILAR DISTROS TO CHECK OUT:
Midnight BSD
Ghost BSD
RATINGS:
Ease of Installation new user 3/10
experienced user 7/10
Hardware Issues 9/10
Ease of Finding Help (Community, Web) 10/10
Ease of Use 8/10
Plays Nice With Others NA
Stability 10/10
Overall Rating 8/10
FINAL COMMENTS
I want to make a brief mention of the rating. Even though mathematically it is 8, this distro is by no means something a typical new user would install. It is not impossible, but you really need to have the desire to do this. So, moving along to my final comments.
Other than using some different commands in the terminal, slightly different directory structure, and system configuration, FreeBSD functions almost as if you were using Linux. If you are not used to starting from a clean install with only the terminal available, there is quite a bit of installation and configuration to be done before you have a working system. It is similar to the amount of effort needed after you install Arch or Void Linux. The benefit is that you end up with a customized installation that has exactly what you want and nothing that you don’t. After going through the process of configuring everything. You really begin to appreciate all the effort the maintainers do to provide a functioning OS for all of us to use.
This is obviously not for everyone. If you have tried Arch, Void or Gentoo, then you are probably going to like the experience of installing FreeBSD. In my opinion it is no harder to install than installing Void and much easier than installing Arch.
NEW RELEASES SINCE LAST EPISODE:
from 05/04-06/09
GParted Live 1.3.0-1
DragonFly BSD 6.0.0
Guix System 1.3.0
Bodhi Linux 6.0.0 64-bit
Parted Magic 2021_05_12
NomadBSD 130R-20210508
ExTiX 21.5
T2 SDE 21.5
GeckoLinux 999.210517.0
NetBSD 9.2
Robolinux 12.05
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4
Lakka 3.0
OSGeoLive 14.0
antiX 19.4
AV Linux 2021.05.22
Bluestar 5.12.6
Univention 5.0-0
AlmaLinux OS 8.4
Oracle 8.4
VzLinux 8.3
KDE neon 20210527
Nitrux 2021.05.28
Raspberry Pi OS 2021-05-28
ALT 9.1 “Simply”
4MLinux 36.1
MakuluLinux Core 2021-05-28
JingOS 0.9 (ARM and x86_64)
Clonezilla 2.7.2-38
Tails 4.19
Kali 2021.2
OviOS 3.11
openSUSE 15.3
NixOS 21.05
Septor 2021.3
Arch Linux 2021.06.01
Rescuezilla 2.2
CentOS 8.4.2105
Lakka 3.1
openmamba 20210605
Live Raizo 12.21.06.06
CloudReady 89.4.44
PakOS 2021-05-22
GeckoLinux 153.210608
Salient 21.06
MakuluLinux 2021-06-07
Venom 2.1
Manjaro 21.0.6
Mabox 21.06
Absolute 20210608
FuguIta 6.9-20210609
Redcore 2101
