Yesterday, it was a #FreeBSDday.

I finally took one of my old laptops and a spare SSD, and I tried to install #FreeBSD on it... However, things were not so smooth. My first attempt with the #ThinkPad X200 was not successful, the #FreeBSD installer hung several times during boot. However, when I changed X200 to X230i, the installation went very smoothly.

I remember that a year and a half ago, I followed @dwarmstrong and his #30DaysOfFreeBSD. It was inspirational to read about his journey, and I wanted to do sometimes somethnig similar - just test the new system and familiarize with it. Maybe now it is the right time to do it ;-)

#30DaysOfFreeBSD Challenge: The End of a Journey  

I completed the #30DayOfFreeBSD challenge, albeit a little late, and learned a lot in the process.

This challenge allowed me to take a deep dive into the world of FreeBSD and improve my system administration skills. This adventure, full of new information, added technical richness to me.

Thank you FreeBSD community! 🙌🏽

#FreeBSD

Day 30-30

When I decided to install #FreeBSD and stick with it for 30 days, I was motivated by simple curiosity and a question: After years of using Linux, what _was_ this entire parallel *nix universe of BSDs?

FBSD has proven educational and a real treat to use and to continue using.

I've come to appreciate the history of Unix and how these wonderful tools came about, and the community that keeps it going. Thanks to many of YOU for your comments and encouragement.

Onward!

#30DaysOfFreeBSD

After performing a few installs of FreeBSD, these are my personal notes of steps taken and choices made. A distilled, short and sweet version of Chapter 2 in the FreeBSD Handbook.

Hardware used is a Thinkpad T480s with 24GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and Intel integrated ethernet/wireless/gpu. Architecture is 'amd64'.

There is always more than one way to do it. This is mine. 🙂

https://www.dwarmstrong.org/freebsd-install/

#30DaysOfFreeBSD #FreeBSD

Day 28-30

Moving over to the Thinkpad T480s running FreeBSD 14.0, I have weird behaviour on the touchpad under Wayland + Sway where a 3-finger tap emulates a middle click correctly, but duplicates the action ... 3-finger tap on a link opens multiple tabs, trying to paste makes multiple copies.

Touchpad works as expected under X11.

Fortunately touchpad has dedicated left/middle/right click buttons which _do_ work OK. Will dig into this a bit more later.

#30DaysOfFreeBSD #FreeBSD

Day 27-30

Default font size in the vconsole is pretty small for my eyes on a 1920x1080 laptop display.

Here is a nice selection of terminus fonts of different sizes, converted for use in the FreeBSD console:
https://github.com/LionyxML/freebsd-terminus/tree/master

Download fonts and copy into /usr/share/vt/fonts.

Try the different sizes ...

# vidcontrol -f ter-u24

Make permanent by adding to /etc/rc.conf ...

allscreens_flags="-f ter-u24"

#30DaysOfFreeBSD #FreeBSD

Day 25-30

Installed FreeBSD 14.0 on a Thinkpad T480s. Using lessons learned so far on my test Thinkpad X230, I'm going to make this into my main laptop/desktop.

#30DaysOfFreeBSD #FreeBSD

Day 24-30

Along with setting up Sway as my FreeBSD desktop, I've setup these desktop tools:

* Terminal: foot
* Status bar: waybar
* Dynamic menu: rofi-wayland
* Notifications: mako
* Screenshots: grimshot
* Lockscreen: swaylock
* Theme: nordic-theme
* Icons: papirus-icon-theme
* Fonts: firacode, ubuntu-font

#30DaysOfFreeBSD #FreeBSD #Sway

#30DaysOfFreeBSD Week 4 🗓️

Just delved into #DTrace today! DTrace is an event-based performance analysis, system monitoring and troubleshooting tool.

Check out this great video for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E06GVdH-LX0

#FreeBSD

Day 23-30

(Re-)discovering the Sway compositor on FreeBSD. I had used it briefly on Linux. Dusting off and tweaking some of my old config files. I like it!

Sway quickly gets you 90% towards a usable desktop. Its that 10% where you're replacing all your X11 tools and crafting your own desktop just the way you like it that takes some experimenting.

#30DaysOfFreeBSD #FreeBSD #sway