OpenBSD: My thoughts on using it
Raspberry Pi 5: My list of 16 different Operating Systems
Note: These two aren’t my top picks, they’re featured up top here because they have their own pages. The rest of the links here will take you right to website of the project being described.
The Fedora Project started in 2003 as a continuation of the Red Hat Linux project. Fedora is the upstream source for Red Hat Enterprise Linux as-well as Cent OS Stream. New versions of Fedora are released every 6 months, each release is supported for at least 13 months.
If you want a fresh experience, with new and fresh packages then Fedora is a great option. At the moment of writing this I’m running version 40 with the 6.8.9 Linux Kernel. Updates are quite frequent, and the dnf package management tool is great. If you prefer a stable, more static system which updates less frequently then I’d recommend Debian instead.
Debian has been around for a while, starting up way back in 1993. It is among the oldest Linux Distributions still in active development, second only to Slackware. Debian is a community run project, unlike Fedora. Debian’s repository offers more than 50,000 packages. It is one of fewer and fewer distributions to still support the 32 bit Intel architecture, meaning it can be installed easily on any x86 PC made in the last 25+ years. APT, the Advanced Packaging Tool makes searching for and installing software on Debian incredibly easy. Even for users whom are new to Linux.
Releases in the form of a new stable branch are released about every two years, and receive official support for three years. Incremental point releases are made available every few months. Even after EOL (end of life), a release receives an additional two years of security updates.
If you want a rock-solid stable Linux experience, and you’re okay not having the very latest packages then Debian may be perfect for you. With 5 years in total of security updates per release, you don’t need to worry about major upgrades breaking anything. Between the long term support period and the vast landscape of available packages, Debian makes an excellent server operating system. If you want a stable system which “just works”, honestly it is a great choice to run on for workstations as well.
Also released in 1993, FreeBSD is a descendant of the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). BSD, originally named Berkeley Unix was based on the source code of the original Bell Labs Unix. FreeBSD is a complete operating system, comprised of kernel, drivers, user-land, and documentation. This differs from Linux in that Linux is only a kernel, with drivers. Combined with GNU utilities, you get GNU/Linux — people now just call it “Linux”.
FreeBSD is the most popular open source BSD operating system, and code from FreeBSD can be found in macOS, iOS, TrueNAS and in the operating systems which run on both the PlayStation 4 / 5 and Nintendo Switch.
While some use it on the desktop, myself included, FreeBSD really shines in the server space. The advanced OpenZFS filesystem and robust TCP/IP stack make an incredibly strong platform for high demand environments. Check out: Serving Netflix Video at 400Gb/s on FreeBSD
So, starting with Jessie, Debian switched to the systemd init and service manager. A lot of people were not happy about it, and as a result Debian was forked. Devuan is just Debian, but they make offer you a choice of using sysvinit, OpenRC or runit. Default desktop environment is XFCE instead of GNOME, so that’s a plus in my book as well. For most people, I’d recommend just using regular Debian. Devuan is a nice option in certain cases though, and since it is an absolute nightmare trying to change a normal Debian install from systemd to literally anything else, I can totally see why people felt the need to have a fork.
My Operating Systems Journey
Like many among us, I was once a Windows user. Hell, between you and me? I may have even liked Windows. For a while. I liked Windows 2000 and XP quite a bit, they get out of the users’ way and let them get real work done. They weren’t bloated, even XP pre SP2 is completely usable on anything better than the slowest Pentium II. NT 4 was also great, and I used that quite a bit as a kid in school. XP was king of the hill, for a long time. Too long. My first taste of it was in 2002, and coming from Windows 95 I absolutely loved it. The family PC had an Athlon XP /w 256 MB DDR RAM; that was bought with XP and of course ran it quite well. My personal laptop at the time was a ThinkPad 390E. My 390E had been upgraded to 128MB RAM, and rocked a Pentium II @ 333 MHz. That old ThinkPad actually ran XP extremely well. Bear in mind, of course, this was a computer which was only a few years older than XP. The 390E came out in 1999. Tech was evolving MUCH more rapidly during this time though, and moor’s law held truer than ever.
In 2003 I was given a set of Red Hat Linux 9 installation CDs. Computers were my thing, naturally I had to check it out. I wasn’t ready to give up my stable XP experience on my laptop as a complete Linux newbie, and instead played around with the OS on various older PCs I had. I liked it, certain things sort of amazed me. The sheer volume of software included across those three CDs was mind blowing to me at that time; I’d never seen anything like it. My experience until that point was: Install windows. It comes with wordpad, calc, solitaire, etc. So that’s one, whole CD. Install MS Office; that’s another, whole, CD. A game? It’s own CD. So in a three disc set having literally dozens of applications was kind of amazing. Full office software suite, web browser, email client, irc client, complete software development environment, media players, games. What about themes? How about multiple desktop environments. Both KDE and GNOME at this point time, looked & felt TOP notch, in my opinion. One thing stuck out even more so to me though. Xscreensaver. It was beautiful. Hundreds of incredible screensavers, many of which had impressive 3D / OpenGL graphics. I still remember the moment I realized that the Linux install I had done had SO MANY awesome screensavers. Mind blown. Remember, at this time I didn’t have broadband — just dial-up. Becoming more interested in Linux, I wanted to run Fedora Core. I still remember going over to my uncle’s house, and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world that he had not only broadband, but 802.11b wifi. And it was in that way, I obtained Fedora Core 3, 4, 5 and 6, between 2003 and 2006 roughly. Took several pages in my software binder. Four CDs per page in the binder, but each release took 4 – 6 discs.
I ran XP into the early days of Windows 8.1. During the Windows 7 days, XP was still quite well supported or even dominant for the most part. Windows 7 was good, but I really only used it at work. 8.1 with classic shell was good for me, better than many would probably think. After the start of what is now known to be the typical M$ experience, I was all set. For those who don’t know, I’m talking about bullshit like: Ads in Start menu, One day you boot up your PC and now all of the sudden it’s running Windows 10 (and did this without asking, or after you said “No”). Forcing updates which could compromise stability, downloads which waste bandwidth, and a non-optional upgrade to a whole new OS version is completely unacceptable. It shows that Microsoft has absolutely no respect for their users. These harmful behaviors were carried out at the cost of many users sanity and productivity more importantly.
If the user can’t be trusted to install their own updates, so they can plan accordingly for bugs / downtime, I’m all set. I’ll use something else gladly.
Prior to all this, I had stopped using Linux in a “here and there” casual capacity when Gnome 3 came out. It was awful, and ruined Linux for me. I can still vividly remember tossing together some parts I had into a system to use in my workshop. I figure, lets give Linux a try, it’ll be perfect for this kind of casual use — web browsing, playing MP3s. Bog standard Pentium 4 3 GHz, 1 GB RAM… I booted up into Fedora Live (circa 2011). Literal slideshow. I was beyond disappointed.
Three years later I started using Lubuntu, and was satisfied enough with it to use it full time for the next six years or so. This was when Lubuntu used the lightweight X11 desktop environment; LXDE. Around 2019 they switched to LXQT, which I’m not quite so much a fan of. I went to Ubuntu Mate and Xubuntu for a while, and then realized that regular Debian was better in every conceivable way.
Today I use Fedora and FreeBSD on the desktop, Debian and FreeBSD on servers. I still don’t like modern Gnome, though it has gotten immensely better than it was back when it first came out. I use MATE or LXDE 99% of the time I’m in a GUI. They’re both lightweight and solid. MATE has more creature comforts, and offers me a more productive layout. Out of the box it has a fair bit more included than LXDE. That said, LXDE is great for low end hardware or laptops with lower screen resolutions. And, if you like bare bones and building it yourself, LXDE is a great option because it doesn’t come with any fluff you don’t need. Because most distributions package LXDE with Openbox as the window manager, it is a great way to get Openbox up and running with a regular taskbar / familiar desktop layout.
You can read more about desktop environments and window managers over on the Packages page. See some of my favorite BSD/Linux/Mac wallpapers.
FreeBSD 15.0: Notable Improvements for Desktop and Laptop Users
