Setting up a home desktop system with FreeBSD
Different Desk
© Lead Image © ageevphoto, 123RF.com
FreeBSD is steady and stable – will it work as a desktop system?
Linux might be the go-to system for free and open source software users (especially the readers of this magazine), but it isn't the only game in town. The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) family of operating systems is older than Linux, and a loyal following of users prefer the stability and security of BSD over Linux. Some of the busiest websites in the world run on BSD, and BSD is also used extensively in embedded systems and other industrial applications.
How does BSD work as an ordinary end-user desktop system? We decided to find out. The aim of this project is to build a desktop system for home or business with FreeBSD, the most popular BSD variant.
The Other FOSS System
The BSD distributions (such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and GhostBSD) are a family of related operating systems. The original BSD project began at the University of California Berkeley in the late 1970s, with development led by future Sun Microsystems cofounder Bill Joy. The project was originally a variant of Unix, but the developers later took out any proprietary Unix elements, making BSD a fully free and open source system.
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