(Notes on two of the major BSD operating systems.)
With Linux distributions becoming increasingly bloated and dropping support for older hardware, while alternate operating systems like HaikuOS are only getting there, members of the BSD family ought to be considered as a possible alternative. But while there are fewer of them, the differences are still meaningful.
This page is an attempt to compare NetBSD and FreeBSD back to back, after a recent test of both. I've tried NetBSD several times before, in fact, but things change. It applies to NetBSD 9.3 and FreeBSD 13.2, both stable production versions as of this writing.
NetBSD
Pros:
- very lightweight, can install and run on truly ancient machines;
- ships with X11 included and will set it up correctly at install time;
- huge number of (binary) packages, second only to Debian.
Cons:
- must remember to set up
pkginat install time; pkginhas a weird interval of several minutes when it hangs on every run.
Also there's a hardcoded password requirement. (Hey, I'm the sysadmin here!) On the plus side, NetBSD runs fine in Qemu, including VMWare graphics.
FreeBSD
Pros:
- lighter than most Linux distributions (comparable to Void Linux);
- the
pkgpackage manager is installed by default and works quickly; - overall friendlier setup tools, during and after install.
Cons:
- X11 (or Wayland) must be installed and configured manually;
- disk space and RAM use swell up quickly as more stuff is added.
FreeBSD has conveniences such as a mouse driver for the console, and a graphical console, but I couldn't get either of them to work in Qemu no matter what. X11 also sticks to VESA mode even with the VMWare driver installed, and handles the display oddly.
Otherwise, both have ample documentation, possibly more up to date in FreeBSD. The latter also seems less conservative in some ways, such as available apps.