FuryBSD

Just came across a new FreeBSD based initiative aimed at desktop, FuryBSD.

FuryBSD is a brand new, open source FreeBSD desktop. FuryBSD pays homage to desktop BSD projects of the past like PC-BSD and TrueOS with its graphical interface and adds additional tools like a live, hybrid USB / DVD image. FuryBSD is completely free to use and distributed under the BSD license.

ludensen

It looked nice as long as it lasted...
unfortunately now deprecated :-(
Where to look now..? I'll have to roll my own compilation of wm and accessories

ludensen

Robonuggie on Youtube is calling ArisbluBSD the "spiritual continuation" of FuryBSD.
I'm not sure I'll agree on that... ....yet

here is the link: https://arisblu.com/

Jay

ludensen check GhostBSD and HelloSystem Live ISO :)

pfr

ludensen Robonuggie on Youtube

love watching robonuggie, always quality content, even if it is usually just FreeBSD content.

Is there any specific reason you are trying to install FuryBSD/GhostBSD over FreeBSD? Are you looking for a live CD or just something a little more user friendly to install?

EDIT & pretty-big TANGENT:
I love this quote from their website:

"It honestly feels like the distributions of today only exist because someone wanted to look cool in front of their friends. We say no more. Building an OS should be done for passion, not flexing, like almost all other distros do."

My friends wouldn't have the faintest idea what a Distro is let alone a BSD. It sounds like the devs of this OS spend a bit to much time on reddit (guilty of that myself). But flexing? 🤣

I once has a shell alias that went something like:

alias flex="neofetch | lolcat && uname -sr | figlet -f slant | lolcat && ./ascii_rocket_launch.sh && figlet -f small ...START COUNTDOWN! && scrot -cd 10"

This was back in 20012 when I used Arch and felt the need to Flex 😉 Back then it was on DeviantArt (shudder). Essentially, it is the user who is flexing, not the distro.

Flexing aside, they don't give much info on their website. What DE does it ship with? Are there different variants ie. Gnome/KDE/XFCE etc? And no screenshots? I suppose that might be considered fle..... Showing off.

ludensen

Before FuryBSD I attempted to install GhostBSD, but got some strange issues I couldn't resolve on the fly.
Then I read something about having to reinstall GhostBSD every major release as you can't upgrade from an earlier release and decided to try FuryBSD. How does GhostBSD do major release (upgrades)?

Wasn't aware of HelloSystem - and I have never owned any but edible apples, but I'm just a "mere mortal", so I might give it a try... ;-)

ludensen

pfr
As many others I have a (long) list of projects. I don't need to make my desktop/laptop-install one of them.
Some time ago I started using PC-BSD and followed the ride - but now I'm homeless 😐

pfr Is there any specific reason you are trying to install FuryBSD/GhostBSD over FreeBSD? Are you looking for a live CD or just something a little more user friendly to install?

I'm looking for something user-friendly to install - it's okay with the usual shoehorn'ing to make it fit the hardware.
I'm not keen on a too big departure from vanilla FreeBSD, but it was nice with OpenRC and powerd++ on my laptop.

It's hard for me to estimate the time-consumption of installing my choice of WM with working wifi, suspend, trackpoint, graphics and so on...
Can you give a rough time-estimate and maybe point at some good articles - have Vermaden made some?

pfr My friends wouldn't have the faintest idea what a Distro is let alone a BSD. It sounds like the devs of this OS spend a bit to much time on reddit (guilty of that myself). But flexing?

As I wrote, they haven't convinced me...
...and I have seen that kind of attitude on the web, but not in "BSD-land", but I'll give them a fair chance when they have something.

pfr I suppose that might be considered fle..... Showing off.

🤣

My nerdiness is spread over too many topics to "flex" in most of them including BSD

So my 2 questions:
GhostBSD: Is it possible to upgrade from one major release to the next -or do you have to reinstall every time?

Installing WM on FreeBSD: Can someone give a rough time-estimate and maybe point me to some good articles?

ludensen have Vermaden made some?

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/

https://freebsd.kde.org/

pfr

ludensen I have a (long) list of projects. I don't need to make my desktop/laptop-install one of them.

Yep, I hear ya!

ludensen Can you give a rough time-estimate and maybe point at some good articles

Sorry, I haven't actually install FreeBSD myself so I could not tell you (although I installed GhostBSD in a VM once and it was a pretty smooth process). But from what I've seen on robonuggie's yt he has guides for most things. Of course, it will still always take linger than using an installer and if somehing goes wrong and it's not covered in the yt guide, well then you'll be at it for hours. I totally hear you on wanting a swift and easy install. I think installers are getting much better at giving the user more choice in terms of what they want included or not included in the install. I'd give Arislu a go and see what you think. At the end of the day, you will need to spend some time installing and configureing, thats just part of a fresh install of any OS. If you do, let us know how you go and post some screenshots.

ludensen So my 2 questions:

Sorry I cant help, I'm just here for the banter 😉

Jay

ludensen as far as i know GhostBSD allows upgrade without reinstall everything

ludensen

pin https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/

Thank you, after doing some research, it turns out I read the only thread @vermaden posted in on this forum 😃 I thought he(?) might also have made some content on this forum. I like his blog and learn many things from it!
Sorry for thread-hijacking!!! -not my most polite entry on a forum... 😅

pfr I think installers are getting much better at giving the user more choice in terms of what they want included or not included in the install.

Yes, agree and using a Scandinavian language with special characters - that's the first test of an installer/distribution, if it configures both CLI and WM with the right keyboard (surprisingly, there's still distributions that haven't discovered/tested international charactersets..!? ) and then comes the rest... what needs additional configuration..?

Jay as far as i know GhostBSD allows upgrade without reinstall everything

Thank you, good to know! Then I might give it a new spin and use its community if I again encounter a problem during installation...
...But I would like something "closer" to vanilla FreeBSD!

To everyone:
Have a great black Friday tomorrow👍 (I'll try to make it a buy nothing day...😇[fingers crossed])

hsw

pin https://vermaden.wordpress.com/freebsd-desktop/

I used this vbery good resource to initially build my desktop, but have now swiched to Xmonad as my wm

ludensen I thought he(?) might also have made some content on this forum

Indeed he did. But, these are archived, see https://archive.unitedbsd.com/

ludensen Sorry for thread-hijacking!!!

No problem, thread hijacking happens.

ludensen ...using a Scandinavian language...

Vilket språk ;)

ludensen

pin Vilket språk

dansk
My first EuroBSDCon was Stockholm 2015 👍

bsduck I can help you with this if you feel motivated.

Thank you, my gut feeling is that's the way I'm going to choose, when I carve out some time for it.

chrisfromgreece I have tried all of them but they were unable to correctly detect and use my amd graphics card and in some cases neither nvidia gpu. Wifi on nomadbsd or furybsd was unusable for some reason where my wifi adapter is 10000% compatible with freebsd

In FuryBSD you were supposed to configure graphics and WiFi on the live-system, not during install and it was then carried over to your install.
That was a new approach for me! But it worked and detected my HW without any problems.

20-100 BSD operating systems are clearly for the adventurous and no "easy" installer can help about this - although I agree with you their installers deserve improvements.

I'm not sure I agree on the first point. Compared to what?
Compared to "linux", BSD's have a clear system/structure where to put (system)files, there is extensive documentation and friendly forums (with no/less snark than many linux forums 😉).
In my opinion BSD's are valid alternatives to most linux distributions and the "BSD's are for the adventurous" is a misconception we have to fight!
The "easy" installer is needed for new users, so they can try BSD and learn to appreciate the system, its stability and our community. -and I do agree about the energy 🤞

20-100 running one's own post-install script ends up being easier, faster, and simplifies later migrations.

Do you care to share? 🙂

Oh, and I succeeded in not buying anything on black Friday - didn't spot any real offers

bsduck

Building a FreeBSD desktop from scratch is not too complicated. You can easily get a system similar to the FuryBSD default install in less than 1h from the moment you boot the FreeBSD installer. I can help you with this if you feel motivated.

chrisfromgreece

I don't know but these kind of projects like furybsd,nomadbsd,ghostbsd etc they have not the easy installation procedure that lets say ubuntu or manjaro have. I have tried all of them but they were unable to correctly detect and use my amd graphics card and in some cases neither nvidia gpu. Wifi on nomadbsd or furybsd was unusable for some reason where my wifi adapter is 10000% compatible with freebsd and detected and configured correctly on the freebsd installer. So there are many configurations that you have to make anyway and remove some configurations that has been done by these projects. FreeBSD installation is very slow with a 50MBPS connection i'm lucky if i get 1MBPS speed also it has delays between pkg downloading, add the time you need to configure those configuration files and we reached two hours of installation at least.

20-100

BSD operating systems are clearly for the adventurous and no "easy" installer can help about this - although I agree with you their installers deserve improvements. ;) However, over the past year, I've felt a new energy rising in all BSD communities, very good surprises have started to happen and more are to be expected. :)

Also, with a bit of experience, you'll find out the additional layers of FuryBSD or GhostBSD have little value, running one's own post-install script ends up being easier, faster, and simplifies later migrations.

For your download speed issue, have you tried different mirrors? What you can also try is to create a local mirror: you leave your computer on as long as needed until it has downloaded everything you need (subsequent downloads will only retrieve new files). Then, you just need to supply the URL of your local mirror when installing. With a fast internet connection (or a local mirror), installing any BSD (base system) is a matter of minutes. If you're interested in trying this option, I can share my mirror scripts with you.

For your hardware support issue, your mileage will vary depending on the BSD you use and you'll have to accept compromises.

bsduck

However, over the past year, I've felt a new energy rising in all BSD communities, very good surprises have started to happen and more are to be expected.

I have the same feeling. Good times are coming in the BSD world 🙂

Also, with a bit of experience, you'll find out the additional layers of FuryBSD or GhostBSD have little value

I agree about FuryBSD but I think GhostBSD has some more added value. I don't like its choices much (like MATE desktop and OpenRC init) but it's still an interesting product.

20-100

ludensen Compared to "linux", BSD's have a clear system/structure where to put (system)files, there is extensive documentation and friendly forums (with no/less snark than many linux forums 😉).

Definitely!

ludensen In my opinion BSD's are valid alternatives to most linux distributions and the "BSD's are for the adventurous" is a misconception we have to fight!

If you've been into BSD for ages, you've got used to many things that are felt at least as annoyances (e.g. hardware support issues on all BSD, disk partitioning with OpenBSD and to a lesser extent NetBSD), at most as no go (e.g. the way FreeBSD handles packages) to any newcomer used to Linux.

When you listen to people around you, you realize that only someone already used to some Unix-like OS could have an interest in BSD (or Linux). A vast majority of people around me don't want anything else than Windows, even other developers. Most people have no specific interest in computers for themselves, they have one because in 2020 they have to, and they are frightened by the idea of using something they've never heard about among their comfy herd. Be sure that more than 80% of computer owners on this planet fit into this category.

That said, an "OS for the adventurous" is a blessing to someone loving adventure. ;)

20-100

ludensen Do you care to share?

This is what I use for myself: http://defert.com/postin/

chrisfromgreece

ludensen I think i have perfected the freebsd installation , freebsd feels very snappy in every task it can replace linux of course if you have no need for games or proprietary apps or apps it doesnt' have. It has a nice collection of packages so most of the users won't feel they missing much except they like games of course.
I tried the linux-steam-utils but wasn't able to run any game god knows what linux packages or services they need