Mastodawn

So far #NomadBSD has been the easiest #BSD install that I have done so far. Nomad is based on #FreeBSD and appears to use their repos. For the most part everything seems to be working just fine. The only issue I have at the moment is getting #wifi to work; not a biggie since I have it wired.

Just… Josh

3d ago

Alright team, I am going to give #BSD another try. What is the best version of BSD that I can install on an Alder Lake #N100 Intel CPU?

I have a mini pc that is collecting dust at the moment and I gots the BSD itch.

Edit: Thanks for all the suggestions. I am trying out #NomadBSD which is based on #FreeBSD. Supposedly it is fairly new user friendly. The documentation is easy to follow.

If this goes belly up, I will try the other big three. At this time I don’t want to go through with manually setting up a desktop environment.

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R.L. Dane

🍵

4d ago

@DrInterpreter @trashheap @AnachronistJohn @jns

There's always VMs. :)

You can also try #NomadBSD, a live & persistent boot USB based on #FreeBSD.

You ever get ~150 GBP burning a hole in your pocket, these make great BSD machines:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=thinkpad+x260

Thinkpad X260 for sale | eBay

Find great deals on eBay for Thinkpad X260. Shop with confidence.

passthejoe Mar 13

#Octopkg is a footgun in #NomadBSD. So is pkg.

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passthejoe Mar 13

Unfortunately, #NomadBSD seems like a dead project. No release in 2025, or so far in 2026. The last commit in GitHub was 6 months ago, but with no release for a year and 8 months, it's definitely not active.

passthejoe Mar 12

I'm in #NomadBSD for the first time in a few years, and it's 1000% better than I remember it. So many things are working well, and it has a beautiful desktop design. The laptop I'm using is kind of old, and I didn't initially use a newer, larger (and presumably faster) USB drive. But still it's doing great.

I'm not sure how they arrived at this combo of KDE and Xfce, but it's pretty nice.

Pro tip: The first time I put the image on the USB drive, I used Nautilus to expand the lzma file and GNOME's Impression to make the USB drive. Didn't work -- the BIOS didn't see it. The second time I used the lzma command line utility (as recommended by the project) to get the img, then I used Fedora Media Writer to create the bootable drive. That worked.

With a bit of a faster USB drive, this could absolutely work.

https://nomadbsd.org/

NomadBSD

NomadBSD is a persistent live system for USB flash drives, based on FreeBSD. Together with automatic hardware detection and setup...

NomadBSD

WuMing2 Feb 25

Trying #NomadBSD / #FreeBSD on #MacBookAir. Works nicely.

I couldn't get MidnightBSD working, either. #NomadBSD is pretty dope, though.

Just plain old #FreeBSD is totally daily-driveable, if you're willing to rely on the handbook for instructions on setting up wifi and X/Wayland.

Lett Osprey

🍉

Dec 26

With #Windows10 support ending, the "try #linux" wave got a boost, but to install linux is a tad intimidating for many, and while trying "live USB" is a simple way to test stuff, it is limited. You reboot, all your changes are gone.

The one alternative that would seem to be a great one in this setting, a "live" usb, but... writable...

This seemed quite common before, in the days of "portable applications" installed on a USB drive and "plug in and run", having "portable linux" was easy to set up and get going. This does not seem to be the case anymore.

A tad sad, since it would be a great way to get people "over", keeping old content on the PC. Changing BIOS settings to boot USB first is a lot easier and less risk than the entire installation process.

The "MX Linux" distribution seem to have kept this, and presents a simple way to set up persistence from the live USB stick.

#NomadBSD (not Linux, but an easy to use BSD alternative) seems great.

For Ubuntu, use "mkusb" .

https://itsfoss.gitlab.io/post/how-to-create-persistent-live-usb-using-mkusb-on-ubuntu/

How To Create Persistent Live USB Using Mkusb On Ubuntu

Create a persistent Live USB on Ubuntu Pop_OS Mint Elementary OS with Mkusb. Keep your changes and software across reboots

IT'S FOSS

Ludovic :Firefox: :FreeBSD:Dec 14

NomadBSD fails on my new work laptop https://forum.nomadbsd.org/t/install-fails-on-boot/2601 ideas welcome

#runbsd #nomadbsd

Install fails on boot

I’m trying to create a key to use NomadBSD on my new work laptop, a lenovo Carbon x1 12th Gen. It fails on boot with [drm ERROR : fw_domain_wait_ack_set] gt: timed out waiting for forcewake ack request. drmn0: [drm 0xffffffff83430074s] 0xfffffe0160df8718Vdrmn0: [drm] mslice mask all zero! panic: vm_fault_lookup: fault on nonfault entry, addr: 0xfffffe0161d6c000 I took a picture. Does this rings a bell to anyone? Are there UFI/Bios settings I should change to to fix? Anything I should tes...

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