I have read on a few sites that some people don't think that *BSD, specifically Freebsd makes a good desktop os. I was just wanting to get responses from the people who use it.

You mean Mac OS X users? They seem pretty happy with it.

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It's just that some people have said that freebsd makes a better server than it does as an os.

Well, if you want a *BSD system, made end-user friendly, get a Mac; it's BSD+Mach+GNU+Apple. If you want to build your own, that's possible too. There are very basic Linux distributions that are not suitable for desktop users. Heck, even Windows only comes with a handful of applications. It's not what's in the box, it's what's in your head that counts.

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So basically, if someone wants to use a * BSD OS, then that person just needs to take the time to set up the GUI(DE) and to install the wanted applications.

Yes. If you like one particular DE/WM and the DE/WM and required applications are available on *BSD, then chances are pretty good you can get a comparable setup on *BSD. I've run FreeBSD and OpenBSD as a desktop before, and while FreeBSD is certainly more "Linux-like" in terms of capabilities (binary nvidia driver, for instance, though OpenBSD has direct rendering for select GPU's), I've found that OpenBSD does everything I need of my desktop.

I have FreeBSD with Xfce set up on an old spare "frankencomputer" of mine (it's not a hackjob, just old ). I hardly ever touch it, though.

IMHO Linux works better as a desktop than *BSD, if only because of the sheer amount of time it takes to get Xorg and a DE/WM going on it if you're building from ports. Other than that, it's not terribly different; any other complaints I have about it are probably just due to me being a dumb@$$ when it comes to dealing with *BSD, so I won't comment on those here.

If you're building from portage/debian src packages/slackbuilds/whatever, it takes just as long. If you're installing from packages on *BSD's, it's likewise just as fast as a linux binary install.

Sure, you *can* build everything from source...but if you don't need custom compile options, why bother whether you're running Linux *or* BSD?

I am on the live beta ghostbsd DVD right now,I like to check out whats going on in the BSD world and I always have a BSD system around... its the same only different syntax.

Here is a screen shot...

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I never could figure out how the binary package system worked in FreeBSD…I'd seen it mentioned in documentation, but I don't think I ever bothered messing around with it enough to figure it out. Thanks for that, though. I had just about completely forgotten that *BSD (well, FreeBSD anyway) has binary packages available.

I had a bit of difficulty with FreeBSD in that regard. I found it worked *much* easier to just perform a minimal installation, then install everything I needed from ports. For whatever reason, that worked with far fewer hassles than the binary package route. Take it or leave it, that was my experience.

OpenBSD, OTOH, has never given me trouble like that. Sure, you have to be careful mixing binary packages and ports (if you install a dependency from ports, you might have a higher version number than the package was built against...that's common sense), but for the most part ports and packages are inter-changeable because ports on OpenBSD **build packages** and then install the resulting package.

Edit - another thing I like about OpenBSD is the FETCH_PACKAGES setting. If you're building ports, and a dependency doesn't need special compilation settings, the *package* is downloaded and installed to save the time of re-building the default configuration for that package. On a very large build that has tons of dependencies, like gnome/kde/firefox/etc..., that can literally save you hours of installation time.

Hey,

I used to love freeBSD, then i discovered Slackware. I've seen BSD running on heaps of severs, never skipped a beat. I think that least time i checked it was the 3rd mostly deployed server out there in cyberspace. It's also run perfectly on my laptop. For me, freeBSD is similar to Arch, that you can choose what you want to do with your system, a server, desktop, whatever. Although i dont use BSD anymore, if Slackware and Debian dissapeared tommrow, i'd go back to freeBSD.

Its not a distribution for newbies, you need to be fairly competent, however BSD's documentation is superb so that can help. Maybe run it in virtualbox to get a feel for it. Or grab dragonflyBSD or ghostBSD and give them a whirl.

Hope this helps

Call me spoiled, but a lack of BSD Guest Additions kinda ruins the experience for me. I think it would be really awesome if the good folks at Oracle (or maybe someone else? ) wrote a Guest Additions module set for the BSDs. I don't really see that happening anytime soon, though, seeing as how BSD has even less share than Linux (even Solaris/OpenIndiana?) on the desktop.

I suppose if you're not terribly picky, though, running it in VBox could be a decent idea…

EDIT:

Hmm, sounds a lot like how the ABS works on Arch…I might have another go at OpenBSD. I tried it once a while back, but I think it was way before I was totally competent even in the Linux arena, let alone BSD (I was just trying it for sh*ts and giggles ). AFAIR, OpenBSD packages its own (modified) version of Xorg in base, right? That should make getting a desktop set up a hell of a lot easier. I tend to be rather rigid about my desktop preferences: It's either Xfce or nothing (given the choice), and I keep my laptop, desktop , and the FreeBSD barebones machine pretty consistent look-and-feel-wise. If Xfce is available in the OpenBSD ports tree (honestly I don't see why it wouldn't be; Xfce is designed to be mostly cross-platform), then that'll be awesome.

Also: wow, I need to cut down on my emoticon usage; I'm almost coming off like some kind of spammer.

@linuxlover2

Depends what 'good desktop' means for them, I use it both for work and personal workstation/desktop: http://vermaden.deviantart.com/art/FreeBSD-190680188

You may also browse screenshots of other users desktops/workstations here:
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=8877
http://www.daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=529


You mean these?

http://wiki.freebsd.org/VirtualBox#I...FreeBSD_guests