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NetBSD General Other questions regarding NetBSD which do not fit in any of the categories below. |
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NetBSD into your personal computer ?
Hello everyone,
I am a GNU/Linux user (Arch Linux) who start to use more and more NetBSD on my desktop. I am quite new with UNIX-like systems so I have many troubles making some softwares work (especially because I am not good with sources). My question is pretty simple : Can NetBSD really be used for a totally desktop usage (Go on the web, play some games (very few), listen to music or watch movie, chat with some friends (even with Mumble, why not) etc...) BSD is more designed for servers but can they be used everyday as the primary computer for everything ? I met a strange problem with the sound : it can only play one software at a time when FreeBSD can play anything... But they are both using OSS so I didn't really understand why. pkgsrc is full of many softwares. Anyone who want to use NetBSD could easily be able to install ANYTHING (in my case, it helps a lot) so this is an amazing project and judging by the huge amount of different packages, you can get a multimedia machine so my question is not about the presence of enough packages for a multimedia machine but more about if NetBSD can be used as it. |
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No, I only use OSS. PulseAudio is installed (because of dependencies) but not set at all and i3 isn't a WM who need PA so I am sure it is not used at all.
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(I have no experience with NetBSD, but I doubt it is less useful than the others.) |
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I imagine that "it depends" ... on what you want to do, must do, etc. It works for me, but my usage case is different from yours, e.g,, I don't want it for gaming or Mumble. (Not saying it can't, or can, Mumble, I just don't know.) Try it and see if anything critical to you is missing or unworkable.
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I've been using NetBSD 7 RC3 pretty happily on my workstation, everything is supported. Sound works fine and I use the Xfce desktop with firefox, flash and pretty much anything needed for normal desktop usage.
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I know this is a NetBSD thread but the OP seems to be curious about BSD in a general way WRT desktop use...
Grab the latest PC-BSD install disc image and try it out in LiveDVD form (running off the disc w/o installing it to your hard drive). PC-BSD is FreeBSD-based. Assuming it likes your hardware that may be all the convincing needed. |
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But, at least in amd64, video and audio players from binary packages come without pulseaudio support enabled by default. So you'll have to install from pkgsrc, as a separate package (xine-pulse, gst-plugins-pulse and so on) or through the options when compiling from pkgsrc (vlc, mpv, mplayer? I am not sure) |
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In fact I am interested the most in NetBSD more than any other BSD OS.
I'm sure anything can work pretty well, OK I'm not yet as good as other users so then I can not build Mumble but I am sure I am the problem For now everything I need is here and perfectly functional thanks to maintainers from pkgsrc, I can't dream better. In fact, I will be convinced NetBSD can be used for a desktop as soon as I will be able to do everything I do on GNU/Linux (except for native gaming but I don't really care about it, NetHack, DosBox and eventually Wine as soon as it is possible will be really enough for me) I can listen to the music, I can watch movies, I can go on Internet, I am able to do a lot of little basics command on NetBSD (mostly the same on GNU/Linux) etc... I am sure that NetBSD can be totally used as desktop... It only depends on the user and his capabilities (I know a French user who is 100 % OpenBSD, even for desktop so it is possible) |
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Maybe you should contact its maintainer. |
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ARM support
I used FreeBSD pretty exlusively for about ten years. Recently, I've switched to NetBSD. There are a few reasons. NetBSD is ahead of FreeBSD when it comes to the ARM architecture. AFAIK, the only ARM architecture on which FreeBSD supports HDMI at this point is the Beagle board. So, I have an ARM tablet (Odroid) that I run NetBSD on. Then, when I run NetBSD on my Desktop i386, I have matching systems (in most ways - such as UI, etc). This is convenient. I run the i3 tiling window manager on both, and that's a good match for tablets.
Another nice thing about NetBSD is that Xorg is packaged in the ISO and installed by default by the installer. FreeBSD always required an extra step (well, it was not an extra step in the earlier days, but it is now). All in all, pkgsrc + pkgin is about on par with FreeBSD's ports and new pkg system, but that is a recent thing for FreeBSD. I think pulse audio is a little tricky to set up on NetBSD. It's so tied into the Linux theme of things. I use port audio on NetBSD, and it works with my apps - with no extra tweaking needed - pretty much out of the box. |
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I NEED to know HOW you did to use Port Audio, make a tutorial or anything, I want to give a try !
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