Re:Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?
by byuu on Saturday November 22, 2014 @02:13PM
(#8646353)
> Your post is self-contradicting. You tell people not to use PC-BSD if they "want to know how stuff works". You then complain that to get a desktop working on plain old FreeBSD... you have to actually configure it... and know how it works.
Actually ... you're absolutely right. Sorry about that.
I guess a better way of putting it is that Debian is the upstream, and FreeBSD is the upstream, and that's what I was comparing. I'd personally feel a bit uneasy using PC-BSD, like I do with Ubuntu. But that's my hang up. It is a trade-off though. Things like the consolekit.pkla file I'd rather have done for me (there's only one way it should ever be done), things like font rendering I'm happy to know how to do myself now (in case I want to tweak things.)
But yes, for anyone looking to try FreeBSD on the desktop, definitely look into PC-BSD, as it may solve a lot of the complexities I discussed.
Re:Ask HN: Can we talk about FreeBSD vs. Linux?
by tokenrove on Saturday November 22, 2014 @05:17PM
(#8646849)
I found it a particularly helpful comparison (since I've recently tried using FreeBSD after a long lapse, and considered trying PC-BSD), but I can see how you might find it deceptive. Debian is really effortless when you know what you're doing, but you still need to know a lot more to use it effectively than you do with Ubuntu.
"I just apt-get install xfce and I'm done" isn't learning how anything works.
If you want a ready-made desktop, use PC-BSD. If you want to learn to install a desktop from scratch, use vanilla FreeBSD. However, don't claim you want to know how it works, then whine when you have to gasp actually configure it to work.