A long time (Arch) Linux user, I'd like to give *BSD a try. And do some light real-life usage testing to help compare with some of their GNU/Linux cousins. It's time before I forget about good old System V "BSD style" Init

I know there is no such thing as "best" OS, only well suited. The one I'm looking for:
- can be full CLI, as long as it ships Bash, a decent term, vim and Ranger (yeah, that so handy file manager)
- is actively maintained
- has some appropriate support (wiki, forum, irc with a tolerance for newbies)
- ext4 and a good support for external storage medium (think USB 3.0)
- a Live version (available or do-able via dd & Syslinux) would help, definitively
- suitable for a VPS for synchronization, node.js-based litle blog and media file server through

OpenBSD or any derivative (like Fuguita) has my preference as a SSH everyday user & big fan. But really this is from a blind pov, as my request shows it :}

I do not know if any come with bash, but if you really want it, it can be installed. The only one for which I know the default shell is OpenBSD. It uses ksh. Depends on what you define as a decent terminal emulator. vim and Ranger can be installed after installation.
That would be all the majors ones.
FreeBSD, PCBSD, GhostBSD have their own fora, plus the Daemon Forums for all BSDs. FAQ and mailing lists are standards. I know Netbsd also has IRC, but cannot say for the others because I have never looked into it.
Why ext4? Use the file system used by the OS. If ext4 is on external devices, that would not be a problem.
PCBSD might have one.

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I have a GhostBSD live 32bit and 64bit Live DVD.

But I am slowly moving on to DragonFly BSD which has no recent live iso in version 4.2 but has older live isos around version 2.8 or so.

From what I am reading. DragonFly is pretty cutting edge with its Hammer file system. Ships with a 4.2 kernel also which should be usb 3.0 capable.

FreeBSD defaults to sh. PCBSD defaults to csh (the only way I know that is that I have both of them running in VMs right now).

If you want to learn BSD, I would recommend FreeBSD. It starts with a bare-bones install, you learn by building it up, and the FreeBSD handbook is an impressive piece of work.

If you want to use BSD and learn it later bit by bit, PCBSD is a really nice piece of work. Their tailored implementation of Fluxbox is most impressive.

I believe all four BSDs: Free/Open/Net/Dragonfly only install a base system. I could easily be wrong, since I have never used Net and Dragonfly BSDs. (I do not include PC/Ghost/Destop/etc. BSDs, because they are FreeBSD configured with a GUI and applications.) OpenBSD only installs a base system and leaves it to each user to add what they want. Linux users who have done a "minimal" installation of Debian will recognise the procedure. The only difference is a basic X-windows set of packages are an optional part of the base system.

xterm is in the base system or ports tree of most, if not all, *BSDs and a variety of other terminal emulators are usually available in ports as are vim and bash. Never heard of ranger.

The four main *BSDs are actively maintained, but it probably depends on what you mean by "actively".

Forget wikis and irc. The only decent forums are the FreeBSD forums and daemonforums (this isn't bad, but this is a Linux focused forum). Newbies are 'tolerated' if they can show they've done some basic research and read the manual before asking a question. The primary medium of communication is still mailing lists.

And definitely forget about ext2/3/4 support. No *BSD is going to waste development time on that (there is read only support for ext2 in OpenBSD, FreeBSD and maybe others I believe). Use FAT for memory sticks for portability, etc. Not sure about USB 3.0 as I don't have the hardware - I'm sure FreeBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFly support it via the xhci(4) driver, but not sure about NetBSD.

For FreeBSD, NetBSD and DragonFly BSD you can install from a USB memory stick img file - for OpenBSD there is no support for this (I usually just plug the drive into a desktop with an optical drive, install from that and then put it back).
It's the same xhci(4) driver which was ported from FreeBSD 8.x.

Not sure of the relevance of the kernel version, it's the same version as the release version, so why would it not come with a kernel versioned at "4.2"?
csh(1) in FreeBSD is actually tcsh(1). I tend to use tcsh in FreeBSD and DragonFly.

It's never a good idea to change the root shell to something like bash which isn't part of the base system of any *BSD. It's easy to break your system and the shell will probably not be available when booting single user if e.g. /usr or /usr/local is mounted as a separate partition.

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Because I am a slow study and was not aware the xhci(4) driver was, or even available, on bsd earlier kernels. So playing it safe in my post.

Just more info. They include 200MB iso. files also in their download folder lists.
As well as older 2010 live releases. Looks as if they quit making live isos long ago.
I really suggest the OP read up first on their own on what is what.
I see a few mistaken assumptions with a linux mind set being the cause.

Like I said. I am a slow study and bone up first on what is going on before going on a trip.
I poke and hope a little here and there. But I try to be informed as much as possible.
Thanks for letting me know about the "xhci(4) driver" .

For clarification: This is no such thing as a/the "bsd" kernel. The *BSDs consist of a base system which includes a kernel. The kernels along with a lot of other software for the four major *BSDs have diverged hugely and are not the same nor compatible.

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Thank you for cutting my ignorance down a few bits guys. Much appreciated. Started to read on. Actualy there's bug on distrowatch, with '0verkill-0.16_2.txz' the single package listed of >24k funny Will come back here after some sleep.

First off and foremost this is my opinion... Don't treat BSD like GNU/Linux. It will be different so expect different tools. Most BSDs do not include Bash by default. Bash is a UNIX shell, but mainly it's a GNU/Linux shell. Some BSDs use csh by default. Others use the default bsd shell.

Don't expect Ext4 to get full support. At best, BSDs mainly support UFS1/2, HAMMER, ZFS, and a few other UNIX branded file systems, and have support for non-UNIX filesystems like NTFS and VFAT/FAT16/FAT32/ExFAT either as an addon or builtin. I think Ext4 has at best basic level read/write in BSD.

BSD also utilizes it's own bootloader, boot0. BSD has some support in Grub-2.02~beta2 but its minimal and requires chainloading and special scripting. I don't know if it has SysLinux/ExtLinux support.

BSD uses it's own init system, not system-v. It does have some addons like runit and OpenRC, but I've heard little on how well they work with BSD.

As far as support, all of them are well supported, are actively developed, and have active social sites for help.

My suggestions:

Get your feet wet with PC-BSD first to see how a complete installed system stacks up for you. After you learn how to use BSD, ease yourself into FreeBSD. It's more customizable but basically the same system. PC-BSD will boot to a Desktop Manager, but this can be disabled, but remember, you're learning.

Just remember to check the HCL first before you pick a BSD. FreeBSD/PC-BSD will probably have the most expansive support of hardware if you have any needs of media support.

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If you have further info to support the existence of read/write support for ext4 in any *BSD, please by all means present it. ext2 support is about as good as it gets and that's in NetBSD, DragonFly and FreeBSD and still only experimental. OpenBSD only had limited read only support for ext2 last time I checked.

From a recent install of NetBSD 6.1.5:
On FreeBSD you should get one reference to the man page for boot0cfg(8)

You are in fact applying FreeBSD'isms to all *BSD derived OS. Yet by your own admission you have zero experience with OpenBSD, NetBSD or DragonFly?

Again this perpetuates the myth that there is a universal 'BSD' init system. The init systems are basically the same, but they have diverged and differ fundamentally - for multiple reasons, but mainly because they no longer share the same code base and are worked on by different people.

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I currently use OpenBSD 5.7 -RELEASE and apply patches using a nifty utility released by M:Tier called openup.
Speaking for myself I prefer OpenBSD. OpenBSD very thoroughly audits the base system and it is very secure. The documentation provided by the OpenBSD team is second to none(The documentation provided by the Arch community is excellent- I'm also an Arch user).
I would say that OpenBSD and FreeBSD would be good places to start. The FreeBSD project has excellent documentation as well.
Have fun choosing.

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One advantage of lacking user fora is that the BSDs have had incentive to create detailed documentation. Unlike the Arch wiki which is, as far as I know*, a collection of guides written by users, the various BSD hand/guidebooks and FAQs are written by developers. The documentation is the primary source of information for managing the systems.


* If I am wrong, please feel free to correct me and send me scurrying back to my hole. Although my description of the Arch wiki is in no way an insult. It has a great deal of useful information.

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I use Free/PC-BSD mostly due to the fact that most of my hardware is supported in those systems and some only have support in Free/PC-BSD. I prefer to use, and recommend, a system that at least supports all of my hardware rather than some or with limited use. By all means, if someone can get full support in Net or OpenBSD, or Dragonfly, Ghost, etc. then use them.

However, as I recently shared in the Slackware section I frequent more, I had a massive hardware failure which required a lot of hardware being replaced, so currently I'm still reinstalling systems and I'm tracking the HCL strictly to make sure my new system even has support in anything other than GNU/Linux.

What you use is your business. I was referring to your blanket statements on "BSD", not suggesting you should use anything else.

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