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hpr4388 :: BSD Overview

norrist describes how you can be a real hacker and run BSD

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Hosted by norrist on Wednesday, 2025-05-28 is flagged as Clean and is released under a CC-BY-SA license.
bsd, freebsd, openbsd, netbsd. 5.

Listen in ogg, opus, or mp3 format. Play now:

Duration: 00:42:56
Download the transcription and subtitles.

general.

Intro

  • How I know BSD
  • Very minimal NetBSD usage
  • I'm am leaving out Dragonfly BSD
  • Previous episodes
  • Several by Claudio Miranda and others - check the tags page.
  • hpr3799 :: My home router history
  • hpr3187 :: Ansible for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
  • hpr3168 :: FreeBSD Jails and iocage
  • hpr2181 :: Install OpenBSD from Linux using Grub


History and Overview

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Berkeley_Software_Distribution The history of the Berkeley Software Distribution began in the 1970s when University of California, Berkeley received a copy of Unix. Professors and students at the university began adding software to the operating system and released it as BSD to select universities.


Comparisons to Linux

  • Not better or worse, just different.
  • BSD is a direct descendant of the original UNIX
  • Not distributions - Separate projects with separate code bases.
  • Permissive vs Copyleft
  • One Project vs Kernel + User land
  • Most Open Source software is available on BSD
  • ports and packages
  • Network Devices and DISKS will have different naming conventions. BE CAREFUL


Distinctives

FreeBSD

  • Probably most widely used
  • Base OS Commercial products
  • Tightly integrated with ZFS
  • Jails
  • OS for Firewall appliances - PFSense and Opensense

OpenBSD

  • Focus on Code Correctness and Security
  • Often First to develop new security methodologies - ASLR and Kernel relinking at boot
  • Home of OpenSSH, ...
  • Base includes Xorg and a minimal Window Manager
  • The Best docs - man pages

NetBSD

  • Supports the most platforms
  • pkgsrc can be used on any UNIX like.


How I use BSD

Home Router

  • Recently migrated from FreeBSD to OpenBSD
  • Better support for the cheap 2.5G network adapters in Ali express firewalls

Workstations

  • OpenBSD Dual boot laptop - missing some nice features - Vscode and BT audio
  • OpenBSD for Banking

NAS

  • FreeBSD
  • Was physical by migrated to Proxmox VM with direct attached drives
  • Jails for some apps
  • ZFS pools for storage


My recommendations

  • Router
  • OpenBSD - Any BSD will work
  • Opensense - similar experience to managing DD-WRT
  • Thinkpads - OpenBSD
  • Other laptops / PC - FreeBSD desktop focus derivative. ghost or midnight
  • Servers/NAS FreeBSD
  • ZFS
  • Jails
  • BSD is worth trying
  • Dual booting is supported but can be tricky if unfamiliar.

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Comments

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Comment #1 posted on 2025-05-29 19:00:55 by Dave Morriss

Thanks for this

I have never used any modern BSD variants, though at my work I used various BSD versions like SunOS, HP-UX and Ultrix. I had a MIPS DECstation running Ultrix on my desk for many years (as part of a network called DECAthena).

I'm tempted to install one of the BSDs on a spare machine, just to see what it's like now!

Comment #2 posted on 2025-05-31 01:15:25 by Jim DeVore

Thank you!

I have run many Linux distributions as daily drivers, but I'm interested in learning more for bespoke appliances. Loved this episode -- I have long wondered what BSD was all about.

Comment #3 posted on 2025-05-31 12:28:59 by Paulj

Thanks!

Thank you very much for this show. I am BSD curious, and currently have FreeBSD installed on a Thinkpad X270, but haven't done much with it. I have Proxmox on a server, and have TrueNas Scale installed in a VM with disk passthrough for the data drives. It's OK, but complex, and I really have an urge to set up a server with BSD, and provide all of the NAS services and VM services (Jails, I guess) running any services I want to use.
I also have a Wyse 5750 mini tower with Guix Linux installed, but again not being used. I might use this as a test bed to learn about the details of server setup, then reconfigure the main server.
Thanks for the comprehensive overview and show notes. Now I have some homework!

Comment #4 posted on 2025-06-02 13:38:16 by Henrik Hemrin

Learned more about BSD.

It was interesting to learn some about BSD and notes to be aware of if trying BSD and entering from Linux background. I can think of at least two reasons why I today use Linux as my daily driver, both work related: First of all that I for several years had a SUN UNIX work station as my daily driver at work, and secondly when I was on UNIX a work mate at coffe break talked about Linux, it was at the time when Linux was something very new.
BSD is on my thoughts to try one day, as an ordinary driver or eventually as a NAS driver, we'll see if it happens. Furthermore I also think of that I was on macOS for some years, still have it, and macOS is to my knowledge based on BSD. This show gave me more knowledge of BSD, thanks.

Comment #5 posted on 2025-06-02 17:43:02 by norrist

Additional info for OpenBSD Router

https://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/example1.html

After installing OpenBSD on a machine with 2 network adapters, you can follow the FAQ page for setting up a home router

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