Getting rid of kernel fixing (dividing by zero), kernel versions, unbelievable bugs on every step, poor disk setting (file system), poor security (shell shock, remember?)? Ok, I tell you something. I switched from linux(thx for 15 great years anyway!) to BSD in about 2 hours with no mercy and I’m happy 😀
Which BSD „distribution“ to choose?
Why PC-BSD? Among GhostBSD it‘ s simply another „out-of-the-box“ BSD. I have no problems to admit that I’m newbie in BSD world. Complete rookie. I tried OpenBSD, FreeBSD, GhostBSD, DragonflyBSD, NetBSD. Blinking cursor is nothing I’m looking for, I wouldn’t use HAMMER file system at all with my modest needs. Ok, so deciding between GhostBSD and PC-BSD was won by huge repositories and overall better controlling.
File systems
One of the main requirement for operating system is extra_quality_file_system. I was using XFS for ages. Fast, stable, reliable.
Many years I was envying file system of Solaris. ZFS was simply king. So many features, including encryption, dynamic striping, deduplication and more were like a dream. Few years ago I realized that BSDs are commonly using ZFS. From that moment it was just a question of time. There are dozens of great sources about ZFS, I can recommend at least one perfect presentation there.
Pros
* All my hardware inside laptop was detected properly (including Intel + nVidia graphics card = Optimus), external sound card.
* GUI (Mate in my case) is working extremely quickly, smoothly, no errors.
* AppCafe looks great, one click solution, including application jailing! 🙂
* VirtualBox working out of box (I have never such luck even with linux distributions!!!)
* SMPlayer playback is smooth, using all intel acceleration it can get.
* Connecting NTFS disk is no problem.
* Incredible CPU utilization (never seen this before in linux world)
Cons
* Flash plugin looks like installed (in default) and definitely is not working out-of-the-box – at least for playing YouTube videos (crashing very fast)
* Update Manager looks annoying and is really slow
* As I’m still rookie, CPU on 100% in few moments makes me confused
* System boot time is incredibly long. Nevermind – that’s really nothing.
* Second update completely buried my Windows partition in GRUB configuration 😀 How rude! Fixed by adding few lines in Boot Manager:
* Embedded video in Facebook is not playing sound (thx Futik)
Ugly GUI?
I don’t think so 😉 Classical MATE. You can install in basic image almost 10 window managers.
As my IT world is strictly based on virtualization (database servers), I’m completely satisfied. I can handle music, movies, reading pdf/anything what Ocular can handle, I can indeed browse comfortly (Firefox 33.1), IMing – Pidgin (almighty!), using ftp, torrents, etc…
To be continued.
-a-