whatcha think about freebsd?

[OlegL]

A few months ago, I switched from linux to freebsd, and I find it pretty cool. Some people say that freebsd is not good for desktop use, but it allows me to do what I want it to do, which is playing BD rips.

[Cabalo]

The only contact I had so far with a freebsd based distro was with the too specific freeNAS. Isn't MacOS based on BSD ?

[Expeto]

but it allows me to do what I want it to do, which is playing BD rips.

i think almost any operation system is capable of doing that.

I think, in general BSD is a little better than linux. The problem of bsd is alot of things are "Not supported".

[OlegL]

Cabalo, yes, I think that MacOS is based on the freebsd kernel, but I am not sure about it.
Expeto, recently they added the libbluray library to the ports collection, which means I can simply compile mplayer with the blu-ray support enabled, and then I can watch regular BDs (that's what I usually download; I don't often download encodes). Of course, it was easy to compile that library for freebsd even before they added it to the ports collection, but in case you wanna install freebsd on a new drive, it's easier just to compile everything you want from the ports collection. FreeBSD is definitely easier to use than linux.

[zot]

If it supports all your hardware and software that you plan to run, then consider yourself lucky. BSD might be a good fit for a single-purpose box like a media center PC, but I think it could easily turn into a major project getting it working as a 'standard' desktop computer - and potentially a real nightmare unless you have the necessary coding skills to make everything work.

That was my main complaint about using Linux, and I'm sure BSD would be much worse. Maybe one solution might be to select all hardware based on whether drivers are already available. Then there's also the issue of websites that don't work properly -- which can even be a problem using Windows browsers. Of course having a multi-boot or 2nd PC easily solves that problem.

[mjmacky]

BSD might be a good fit for a single-purpose box like a media center PC, but I think it could easily turn into a major project getting it working as a 'standard' desktop computer...

...Of course having a multi-boot

So you can run XBMC on it?

Multi-boot solves the "main desktop" issue in any situation.

[OlegL]

I have windows 7 and freebsd installed on my comp, so it's multi-bootable. I like freebsd because it's easier to use than linux and when you compile something from freebsd ports, there is almost a zero chance that you will have a compiler error. But you will be more likely to experience compiler errors when compiling something from gentoo's portage. Also, it's a lot easier to configure freebsd kernel than linux kernel. And, as far as I remember, you don't have to re-compile freebsd kernel if you upgrade your nvidia driver, but I am not sure 'cause the last time I did it was a long time ago.