# BSD

*Not to be confused with BDSM.*

BSD (Berkeley software distribution) was initially (70s to 90s) a specially modified and improved version of the proprietary Unix operating system that was prepared by hackers at the Berkeley university, which later on came to be liberated from the proprietary Unix (by having the proprietary parts rewritten as free) and ended up spawning several forks, most notably the **three major BSDs** that we know today (all written in C with monolithic kernel): **FreeBSD**, **NetBSD** and **OpenBSD**, which (being Unix-like systems) present the most well known **alternative to GNU/Linux**. In general the acronym *BSD* can either be interpreted as the single original BSD system or the whole family of its surviving descendants -- unless noted otherwise, we'll presume the latter and furthermore will use the term *BSD* as if it stood for "one of the three major BSD systems". For an introduction, a high altitude overview of the differences against GNU/Linux might look like this: BSDs use **permissive licenses** (in contrast to the preferred copyleft licenses of GNU/Linux), they remain closer to the original Unix (i.e. stay more minimalist, conscious of the Unix philosophy etc.), choose somewhat different philosophies (e.g. avoiding the "distro wild west" model), they've been used more commonly for servers rather than desktops (despite being perfectly usable in both) and well, they're less mainstream, which on one side manifests by lack of drivers for some hardware, fewer packages etc., but on the other hand this also means less bloat, less corporate pressure, avoiding influx of retards, cancerous communities etc. As of 2020s **BSD is better than GNU/Linux** and you should be using it. The mascot of BSD systems is Beastie the daemon.

It must be noted that BSDs are NOT a "cheap alternative" to GNU/Linux, the original system (1978) predates both GNU (1983) and Linux (1991) and bears various achievements and guarantees high quality in some specific areas: for example BSDs are known to have excellent documentation (check out for example NetBSD's [comprehensive guide](https://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/)), well written code and OpenBSD is widely regarded as the "most secure" operating system in existence. These days there is truly something liberating and magical in hopping from GNU/Linux to a BSD, you see a system stripped of the bullshit you came to accept with GNU and suddenly begin to feel the joy of computing returning again, it's like traveling back in time. But let's not be prematurely optimistic, it's only rational to expect that BSD will eventually meet the same fate as GNU/Linux in the future.

The situation until around 2015 had been that Windows was the retard OS and GNU/Linux the comfy neckbeard system used by the smart, but during the following decade Windows finally turned absolutely unusable even for retards and everything poured over to GNU/Linux, including women, grandmas, corporations, "gaming" and everything else, so it became the "new Windows" now. The status of the comfy escapist operating system has now been passed on to the BSD. BSDs are still, at least mostly, relatively unknown to normies and written and used by straight white men.

Now let us continue by recounting a few more peculiarities of BSDs and additional distinctions from GNU/Linux, as this will arguably be the friendliest kind of introduction assuming a typical reader here. Like previously mentioned, each BSD should be considered a whole operating system project, NOT merely a "BSD distribution" -- what this means is that despite the initial shared historical code base, each BSD project is now on its own, with full control and delivers a complete system, not just an assembly of third party bricks. Each project maintains its own kernel, userland, package management, ports and other stuff. Unlike in the GNU/Linux world where any child can change a wallpaper and call it a new distro, BSDs don't pop up like mushrooms in a forest. Traditional Unix utilities in BSDs follow the POSIX standard and behave in familiar ways, but they are distinct from GNU utils pimped with non-standard extensions and bloat -- BSD utils have been written independently from GNU utils, they have different license, different man pages and traditionally stick to more simplicity; at times they may not even behave the same, for example in how they format their output. BSDs also choose different default shells (sh, ksh, tcsh, ...), so all in all your GNU/Linux scripts may not work on a BSD unless you took care to write them portably. Of course you can change everything and make it almost indistinguishable from your GNU/Linux distro, but it'll take some work, any also why would you do that? Then of course there is no systemd (awesome!), so tough luck if you ever relied on that piece of crap. What about **package management**? In BSDs third party software is naturally called a "port" and there are port trees for your given BSD, along with simple CLI tools (e.g. `pkg_add`, `pkg_info`, ...) for managing packages that work very similarly to whatever you may be used to; NetBSD for instance uses *pkgsrc*, a system of source packages that recursively compiles everything you install (a very elegant but sometimes slow way), but it's also possible to use *pkgin* that works the same, just with binary packages. As for **GUI**: BSDs usually default to command line and let you install whatever you want on top, often offering some simple window managers for start. **Updates** of the core systems happen by the standard periodic releases, i.e. no rolling releases for you Arch fans.

**How libre are BSDs?** Very much, but generally not 100% (legally speaking; in terms of practical freedom BSDs are far ahead of GNU/Linux) -- while OpenBSD for example actively works towards keeping binary blobs out of the kernel itself, sometimes binary drivers are needed for some hardware and other BSDs will be even more pragmatic. The userland/packages/ports are likewise not necessarily required to be fully free (like it is, at least formally, required in Debian for example). As an example OpenBSD contains shareware Doom and Sauerbraten in its ports tree. Generally the policies seem to only demand legality. However it's also the case that non-free packages are typically marked as such so that if someone wishes to exclude anything proprietary, he can do so. From LRS viewpoint this is possibly the most reasonable approach: no censorship, just classification and freedom for the user to do whatever he wants, even if what he wants is bad.

With the general stuff covered let's now take a look at all the three major BSD systems of today:

- **FreeBSD**: The most "normie" BSD, comparable to a "Ubuntu" of the BSD world, which is still much better than the real Ubuntu. It's a universal sort of OS and appears to be the most popular one among the big three. The name is good as it contains the word "free".
- **NetBSD**: In some ways could be viewed as something in between FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and that also seems to follow in overall popularity. NetBSD aims primarily for nice code, good design and portability, i.e. in theory something most closely aligned with LRS. Its motto is "Of course it runs NetBSD" and indeed has been ported to great many devices, which is awesome. Here and there the project seems a little more bloated and/or pragmatic than OpenBSD, but it's still very recommended.
- **OpenBSD**: Promises mainly strong security, and on this it seems to deliver -- the consensus in security circles has always regarded OpenBSD as the most secure system ever (the claim is backed by the often advertised fact that there have allegedly only ever appeared "two remote holes" in the default installation). Now yes, security amounts to a shitty goal from our perspective, but it shows that naturally security demands minimalism and indeed, the resulting system turns out to be excellent. It is a joy to use, in a sense "just works" because you're not forced to fight any bullshit, all is as you expect and should you choose to turn off the security measures on the system, you can. Even the system installer is very simple, just a command line (not even TUI!) where you can probably install the system just by pressing the return key. The name sucks a little for containing the word "open". Still this is the recommended BSD now. OpenBSD's mascot is a pufferfish named Puffy and each release comes with a new song.

{ I have tried and now also been regularly using OpenBSD and NetBSD and my experience with both is very positive. Overall I had a slightly easier time with OpenBSD where everything somehow worked, while I saw some difficulties with NetBSD, but nothing major really, I am enjoying both very much. ~drummyfish }

**Other BSD systems** include *DragonFly BSD* (forked from FreeBSD), *HyperbolaBSD* (a sort of hybrid between OpenBSD and Hyperbola GNU/Linux), *GhostBSD* (desktop focused system), *MidnightBSD* (likewise a desktop one), *NomadBSD* (meant to be installed on a USB stick), *MirOS BSD* and others. It's also worthy of noting that proprietary BSDs exist as well, which was allowed by the permissive license. Perhaps the best known example is Apple's harmful proprietary MacOS derived from FreeBSD. The fact that BSD allows proprietary derivatives is what GNU fags criticize the most about BSD, but we say that FreeBSD did nothing wrong, only Apple did.

## See Also

- based
- GNU/Linux
- Unix
- plan9
- DuskOS