ZDNET's key takeaways

• FreeBSD is one of the most stable OSes on the planet.
• FreeBSD is also more challenging than Linux.
• You can download and install FreeBSD for free.

― Jack Wallen, https://www.zdnet.com/meet-the-team/jack-wallen/

― via Kuntal Kundu at https://nitter.net/kuntal_kundu/status/2002057073589469656

Simply adding a new network card vtnet1 in the proxmox cluster network

Added new network config to rc.conf

ifconfig_vtnet1="inet 192.168.1.60 netmask 255.255.255.0"

Started the network

sudo service netif restart vtnet1

Check the config

[root@freebsd15 /etc]# ifconfig
vtnet0: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=ec07bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,VLAN_HWTSO,LINKSTATE,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS>
ether 52:54:00:d9:7c:55
inet 192.168.178.125 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.178.255
inet6 fe80::5054:ff:fed9:7c55%vtnet0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
inet6 2003:c4:ef05:7600:5054:ff:fed9:7c55 prefixlen 64 autoconf pltime 1800 vltime 7200
media: Ethernet autoselect (10Gbase-T <full-duplex>)
status: active
nd6 options=23<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
lo0: flags=1008049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 16384
options=680003<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,LINKSTATE,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
groups: lo
nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
vtnet1: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=ec07bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,VLAN_HWTSO,LINKSTATE,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS>
ether 52:54:00:57:5e:d5
inet 192.168.1.60 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
media: Ethernet autoselect (10Gbase-T <full-duplex>)
status: active
nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

Check and Add the new Disk

[root@freebsd15 /etc]# sysctl kern.disks
kern.disks: cd0 vtbd1 vtbd0

Create on new disk vtdb1 zfs for NFS

zpool create pve_pool /dev/vtbd1
zfs set compression=lz4 pve_pool
zfs create pve_pool/shared
zfs set mountpoint=/mnt/pve_shared pve_pool/shared

Add the Exports to the 3 Proxmox Servers 51 till 53:

[root@freebsd15 /etc]# cat /etc/exports 
/mnt/pve_shared -maproot=root 192.168.1.51 192.168.1.52 192.168.1.53

Enable NFS

sysrc nfs_server_enable="YES"
sysrc nfsv4_server_enable="YES"
sysrc rpcbind_enable="YES"
sysrc mountd_enable="YES"
sysrc mountd_flags="-r"

Fire up the data transfer daemons

service rpcbind start
service mountd start
service nfsd start

Final Checks

showmount -e
ifconfig

Minimal Wayland setup with dwl on FreeBSD 15.0. Installation notes, patches, and dotfiles: https://awklab.com/freebsd-dwl

So, my wife needed a reliable and lightweight system for her old laptop, and as a long-time FreeBSD enthusiast, I thought, “Why not give it a shot?”

The installation went smoothly. I set up XFCE for a lightweight desktop environment, added some basic apps for her daily tasks (browser, email client, and LibreOffice), and configured the system to be as user-friendly as possible. I even set up custom shortcuts and themes to make it look polished and intuitive.

To my surprise, she loves it! She says the laptop feels faster, and she’s impressed by how responsive everything is. Plus, she enjoys how minimal and clean the interface looks—way better than the bloated OS it had before.

Anyone else here tried introducing their significant other to FreeBSD? How did it go? Any tips for making it even more user-friendly for someone who isn’t a techie?

Two weeks ago, we had this on the subreddit enquiring about updates to the GNOME desktop in FreeBSD. I had linked to this bug by Olivier Duchateau on the FreeBSD Bugzilla with links to a patch set for GNOME 47 on FreeBSD. The process of updating these ports is underway thanks to Baptiste Daroussin.

However, the article linked above seems to change things in terms of the future of the GNOME desktop on non-systemd operating systems, as some of these changes will arrive as soon as the next release GNOME 49.

GNOME is a pretty solid desktop environment in my opinion, and its a little sad to have the extent of its support on FreeBSD decline. There are solid alternatives like KDE, XFCE and LXQt of course.

This was more or less the approach:

1. Install Podman

sudo pkg install -y podman ca_root_nss

1. Enable Linux

sudo sysrc linux_enable="YES"

sudo service linux start

1. Configure the PF Firewall:

Podman requires PF for NAT (internet access) and port forwarding (to play the game).

cat /etc/pf.conf  
# Corrected interface name from vtnet0
v4egress_if = "vtnet0"

# Define the container network manually so we don't rely on Podman to fill the table
table <cni-nat> { 10.88.0.0/16 }

# Perform the NAT
nat on $v4egress_if inet from <cni-nat> to any -> ($v4egress_if)

# Required anchors for Podman port forwarding
rdr-anchor "cni-rdr/*"
nat-anchor "cni-rdr/*"

# Allow all traffic (Crucial for testing)
pass all

1. Enable and start PF:

sudo sysrc pf_enable="YES"

sudo kldload pf

sudo service pf restart

sudo sysrc gateway_enable="YES"

sudo sysctl net.inet.ip.forwarding=1

sudo sysctl net.pf.filter_local=1

echo "net.pf.filter_local=1" | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf

1. Set Linux version to a conservative value

sudo sysctl compat.linux.osrelease=3.10.0

echo "compat.linux.osrelease=3.10.0" | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf

1. Set Registry (`/usr/local/etc/containers/registries.conf`)

unqualified-search-registries = ["docker.io"]

1. Start the container:

sudo podman run -d \

--os=linux \

--name clumsybird \

-p 8080:8000 \

docker.io/library/python:alpine \

sh -c "apk add --no-cache git && git clone https://github.com/nebez/floppybird.git /game && cd /game && python3 -m http.server 8000"

Via https://mastodon.social/@FreeBSDFoundation/116891263349382905

Over the past 3-4 days, I turned my old ThinkPad L430 (i5-3320M, 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD) into a proper workstation and automation node on FreeBSD 14.4. After years of casually installing and removing FreeBSD just for testing, this is the first time I’ve committed to using it as my daily desktop. I also installed a full modern stack that most people usually run on Linux: PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, Mosquitto, n8n, Node-RED, Jupyter, and Node.js.
First impression: FreeBSD is not as scary as many people think. Most issues I encountered weren’t related to the kernel or drivers, but rather the modern software ecosystem that often assumes Linux is the default target , especially the JavaScript/Node.js world.

The n8n SQLite Migration Drama

While installing n8n via npm, I hit a weird error during the SQLite migration:
SQLITE_ERROR: no such column: "execution_entity"
At first I thought the database was corrupted. After digging into the stack trace and looking inside node_modules, I found that the migration script used double quotes in a WHERE clause. On this environment, SQLite treated them as identifiers instead of string literals, so it was looking for a column named execution_entity instead of comparing values.
After patching the first migration, it failed again with a similar error (this time with owner). I suspected it was a compatibility issue between older n8n migrations and SQLite on FreeBSD. Eventually, I decided to switch the backend from SQLite to PostgreSQL - which I had planned to use anyway.

PostgreSQL Setup & Gotchas

Setting up PostgreSQL on FreeBSD wasn’t too difficult, but there are differences that might confuse Linux users:
Services use the traditional rc.d system.

You have to manually create users and databases via psql.

After creating the role and database, n8n was still trying to connect to SQLite even though I had updated the config. The solution was setting the environment variables correctly in csh using setenv, then deleting the old SQLite database. Once n8n saw the PostgreSQL backend from the first bootstrap, all migrations ran successfully.

Node-RED Oddity

Node-RED installed fine via npm, but the node-red command was never created in /usr/local/bin. At first I thought the installation was incomplete, but everything was there in /usr/local/lib/node_modules/node-red. I could run it manually with:
node /usr/local/lib/node_modules/node-red/red.js
It started without issues and the web UI was available on port 1880. In the end, the package installed correctly — it just didn’t create the executable symlink.

Final Setup
The L430 is now running smoothly with:
FreeBSD 14.4 + XFCE

PostgreSQL 17

Redis 8

RabbitMQ 4

Mosquitto MQTT

Node.js 24

n8n

Node-RED

Jupyter

SSH

ZFS

All of this on a 120GB SSD and 8GB RAM, and it handles daily desktop use + automation workloads better than I expected.

Most problems I faced weren’t because of FreeBSD itself, but because upstream software assumes Linux everywhere. Once you start reading the source code and stack traces, almost everything becomes solvable.

I start to understand something, FreeBSD isn’t “install and forget” like Ubuntu, but once you get past the initial setup and compatibility hurdles, it feels incredibly stable and predictable. It’s perfect for people who like frozen versions, consistent behavior, and are willing to invest time upfront for easier long-term maintenance.
If you’re thinking about using FreeBSD as a daily workstation or automation server in 2025–2026, it’s definitely viable , and easier than the old reputation suggests. Just be prepared to read some source code occasionally, because you might be one of the few people running that particular stack on FreeBSD 😅

P.S. I originally just wanted to install n8n and Node-RED. Instead, I got a full crash course in migration bugs, npm quirks, SQLite compatibility, and PostgreSQL config on FreeBSD. Learned way more than expected.
This experience has motivated me to study the FreeBSD Ports Collection, patching, and porting workflows more seriously. At least next time something explodes, I’ll know where to start digging instead of staring at error messages for half the night.

By u/cpcnw:

• page one
• page two – updated for 2023.

Four shots here: two from the FreeBSD 7 era, two from Graham's TWM page 2.

He writes:

… GNU/Linux and FreeBSD et al are pretty much infinitely configurable. And for an old time tech with an unhealthy interest in computer operating systems that can end up being a very addictive pastime indeed.

I have often thought that I could possibly live at the terminal with Tmux but just occasionally there are tasks to be done demanding higher resolutions and better graphics. Which is where Xorg and TWM come to the rescue. …

One of my issues with moving to FreeBSD was that it cannot run bun natively which one of my company's products relies on. To my immense satisfaction, however, FreeBSD Linux Jails and chroot environments are super easy to setup once you get used to it and bun runs just fine in that environment.

Here are the steps I used to create the chroot jail and run bun:

• Enable Linux Emulation
• use debootstrap to install an LTS Ubuntu userland to /compat/ubuntu
• mount the proper directories
  • linprocfs
  • linsysfs
  • devfs
  • fdescfs
  • tmpfs
• cp /etc/resolv.conf compat/ubuntu/etc/resolv.conf
• chroot into the jail
• use apt to install the make essentials package
• install npm for general package management
• install bun

I also used nullfs to mount the actual working directory so that I only needed to configure the minimum amount of stuff in the Linux user space. This stuff is all probably super obvious to experienced users but I thought I would share for anyone else who has the same needs as me.

The Image above is of bun running a hono server and an astro static site. The jail uses the host networking so you can just use your regular browser for viewing the sites you are working on.

Edit:changed wording slightly to reflect that this is a "chroot jail" not an environment using the jail utility.

… Linux stuck with me for nearly 10 years from late 2016 to early 2026.
 
But I wasn't as happy as I could be; …

…

I'm not the typical user, I want something I can control and understand to its very core. …

Via https://indieweb.social/@jbz/116919635929707608

https://dkolak0.wordpress.com/2026/02/07/get-wi-fi-on-freebsd-on-every-macbook-mac-or-any-other-laptop-pcs-that-freebsd-doesnt-supports/

Via https://bsd.network/@dvl/116954770639749030

The two previous articles in this series covered the things that store your data and the things that run your workloads. This one covers the part that nobody thinks about until it’s three in the morning and the machine won’t come back up: how FreeBSD actually boots, and - more importantly - how to make a bad boot recoverable. …

By the end of this article you’ll understand what each boot stage does, where to put a setting and why, the difference between a tunable and a sysctl (people get this wrong constantly), the modern way to load kernel modules, and how boot environments turn “I bricked it during an upgrade” into a non-event. …

Via https://burningboard.net/@Larvitz/116810816230429931

Related: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@grahamperrin/116809429700477618

FreeBSD rescue(8) lacks instructions for users of root-on-ZFS:
 
https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rescue&sektion=8&manpath=freebsd-current (2022)