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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BSD_operating_systems

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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