Non OS X Alternatives to OS X Yosemite

[grahamperrin]

In a topic about leaving Apple, I mentioned a switch from OS X to TrueOS Desktop.

TrueOS used to be called PCBSD …

Not quite –

• TrueOS has been around for years
  
• there's not yet an official announcement about the forthcoming change of name for PC-BSD
  
• PC-BSD is the released and supported system, and support will continue for some time after a press release about TrueOS Desktop

– I should probably describe this as a period of transition, with alpha/beta testing of TrueOS Desktop, and please note that the TrueOS web site is work in progress.

… What kind of limits do you face with choice of applications? …

Loosely speaking: much of what's in FreshPorts can be found through AppCafe. If a port is in FreshPorts but not in AppCafe, it's usually easy to perform a command-line installation.

On the rare occasions when I require Microsoft Office: I use a Windows-based computer in a nearby office.

Once (probably on a Mac) I watched something with Amazon Video that required Microsoft Silverlight. If Amazon Video becomes a habit, I'll use Pipelight – and of all the things that I tested with PC-BSD, Pipelight was probably the most difficult to install.

Additional reading:

• application binary interface (ABI)
• Linux® emulation in FreeBSD – about the so called Linuxulator
  
• FreeBSD Handbook Chapter 10. Linux® Binary Compatibility – not really emulation, it is an ABI implementation.

 

[Huntn]

In a topic about leaving Apple, I mentioned a switch from OS X to TrueOS Desktop.



Not quite –

• TrueOS has been around for years
  
• there's not yet an official announcement about the forthcoming change of name for PC-BSD
  
• PC-BSD is the released and supported system, and support will continue for some time after a press release about TrueOS Desktop

– I should probably describe this as a period of transition, with alpha/beta testing of TrueOS Desktop, and please note that the TrueOS web site is work in progress.



Loosely speaking: much of what's in FreshPorts can be found through AppCafe. If a port is in FreshPorts but not in AppCafe, it's usually easy to perform a command-line installation.

On the rare occasions when I require Microsoft Office: I use a Windows-based computer in a nearby office.

Once (probably on a Mac) I watched something with Amazon Video that required Microsoft Silverlight. If Amazon Video becomes a habit, I'll use Pipelight – and of all the things that I tested with PC-BSD, Pipelight was probably the most difficult to install.

Additional reading:

• application binary interface (ABI)
• Linux® emulation in FreeBSD – about the so called Linuxulator
  
• FreeBSD Handbook Chapter 10. Linux® Binary Compatibility – not really emulation, it is an ABI implementation.

Does not sound like it's for me. I'm MacOS for everyday productivity and a slave to Windows for gaming.

 

[lowendlinux]

In a topic about leaving Apple, I mentioned a switch from OS X to TrueOS Desktop.



Not quite –

• TrueOS has been around for years
  
• there's not yet an official announcement about the forthcoming change of name for PC-BSD
  
• PC-BSD is the released and supported system, and support will continue for some time after a press release about TrueOS Desktop

– I should probably describe this as a period of transition, with alpha/beta testing of TrueOS Desktop, and please note that the TrueOS web site is work in progress.



Loosely speaking: much of what's in FreshPorts can be found through AppCafe. If a port is in FreshPorts but not in AppCafe, it's usually easy to perform a command-line installation.

On the rare occasions when I require Microsoft Office: I use a Windows-based computer in a nearby office.

Once (probably on a Mac) I watched something with Amazon Video that required Microsoft Silverlight. If Amazon Video becomes a habit, I'll use Pipelight – and of all the things that I tested with PC-BSD, Pipelight was probably the most difficult to install.

Additional reading:

• application binary interface (ABI)
• Linux® emulation in FreeBSD – about the so called Linuxulator
  
• FreeBSD Handbook Chapter 10. Linux® Binary Compatibility – not really emulation, it is an ABI implementation.

I'm installing it on a spare HD on my laptop to give it a try

 

[grahamperrin]

Letting go of Mac-specific applications can be surprisingly cathartic.

A few days ago I stumbled across one of the things that I missed: a dictionary application.

​

Then this evening, Celestia. No mention of BSD at the downloads page but it's in the repository for my system, it installs in seconds, and it's as entertaining on a FreeBSD-based system as it was when I first encountered it on a Mac.

The only thing that I really missed, for a year or so, was TextExpander. I missed it not because I used loads of macros; I missed it because I used one macro, which I changed daily, very frequently. Since I changed my workflow there's a different way of achieving a similar end result and I haven't thought of TextExpander in months.

 

[grahamperrin]

A FreeBSD-oriented roundup

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/23290200 shows a release of Lumina desktop environment on a release candidate of FreeBSD 11.0 on a 15" early 2009 MacBookPro8,2. All ZFS, encrypted.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/23323159 shows MATE desktop environment in recently released GhostBSD 10.3 on a 15" MacBook Pro with Retina display. All ZFS.

After the next pre-release installers for TrueOS are distributed, I'll experiment with nondestructive installation of TrueOS Desktop over GhostBSD. That's like, 12 over 10.3. I have a uneducated hunch that this combination will allow a GNOME-based DE (such as MATE) to run on a version of FreeBSD-CURRENT that might otherwise not run the DE.

I posted shots of KDE Plasma 4 a few times in the past, most were on PC-BSD. The three shots at https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/21550215 are from July 2015.

The shots below – of KDE on TrueOS Desktop 2016-08-31 – are intended to reassure people that KDE can be perfectly usable on bleeding edge FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT. Please note, this is not an encouragement for the general public to alpha/beta test TrueOS Desktop without understanding what might be involved. Emphasising the ease of use that's traditionally associated with PC-BSD, I do treat TrueOS Desktop as alpha at this point in time … with confidence that it will improve soon enough. The pace of collaborative development seems to be very pleasantly accelerated and this afternoon's technical comment by Joe Maloney (Lead Systems Architect on the project team) more than answers my question about stability at future points in time.

 

[997440]

....The shots below – of KDE on TrueOS Desktop 2016-08-31...

Were you doing something intensive during shot #3 to cause the readings as shown in System Monitor?

 

[grahamperrin]

I wondered what that was.

The extensive high CPU activity – part of which is visible in shot 2 – ceased after I quit from Celestia; note the drop in activity in the graph in shot 3.

For fun

I also tried an installation (with Lumina, not KDE) to a 4 GB flash drive, never imagining that it would fit.

A surprise:

• the operating system and desktop environment fit in a 1.7 G partition
• alongside that, the standard 100 M partition for EFI/UEFI boot
• plus an automated 2.0 G for swap, which was probably unused

– ran on a MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Postscripts

The boot device was a five-year-old Kingston DataTraveler G2 that's slightly prone to errors, so the system did not perform well. Still, the experiment was a useful reminder (to me) of what's probably a flaw in the Apple hardware and/or firmware:

1. the Mac failed to stop in response to a press and hold on the power button ; and
   
2. it no longer started.

The non-starting problem was disconcerting, but didn't last too long. A few hours.

 

[997440]

I wondered what that was, the extensive high CPU activity (part of which visible in shot 2) ceased after I quit from Celestia; note the drop in activity in the graph in shot 3.....

I visited the Celestia forum.
1) Definitely looks that it can be a workout for any system without the proper care.
2) It's a cool program. : -) Thanks.

On topic -- Good thread. I've never run BSD. Did get a taste of Mint and Debian MATE as guests in Windows. They're close to being all I need in an OS. Close.

 

[grahamperrin]

From a topic about Mac Mini:

… Apple's Director of Unix Engineering (or what his title was) and co-founder of the FreeBSD project, Jordan K Hubbard left Apple after 12-ish years and is now heading at iX-systems, creating next-generation GUIs for server- client- and storage administration (FreeNAS/TrueNAS/TrueOS etc.pp.). …

Thanks, I vaguely recognised the name but I had not realised the link with Apple. From http://blog.pcbsd.org/2013/06/jordan-hubbard-leaves-apple-to-become-cto-at-ixsystems/ (2013-06-26):

… press release…

While it concentrates on FreeNAS, this is also very good news for PC-BSD, and ultimately, FreeBSD. …

From a few weeks after that PR: Apple’s Operating System Guru Goes Back to His Roots | WIRED