Computers Your unusual computers and OSes

[Second Summer]

Tell us about your unusual computers or OSes!

I'm posting this from FreeBSD (13.0-RELEASE) running on a Raspberry Pi 400. I had to buy a USB wifi adapter as the onboard wifi chip on the RPi 400 isn't (yet) supported by FreeBSD.

 

[Lou]

Tell us about your unusual computers or OSes!

I'm posting this from FreeBSD (13.0-RELEASE) running on a Raspberry Pi 400. I had to buy a USB wifi adapter as the onboard wifi chip on the RPi 400 isn't (yet) supported by FreeBSD.

I think you should have saved that for last. No one is going to be able to beat a Raspberry Pie.

I may have something sort of unusual. When I was in college the Apple // came out. One of my teachers brought one into our lab and showed us how it worked. although it took all night to do an afternoon's worth of work, it could be left unattended and we could all go off and do other things. Sort of like a crock pot. I immediately saw the value of it.

Years later my office got a smart terminal for some of our work. and I got some training and time on it. I think it was an HP.

A few years later I went back to college and got a part time job with a little company that sold word processing equipment and provided training to secretaries. I was the training staff. We used a program called Word Star. The best thing about the job was that I had a machine available to me after hours - to type my papers.

I also remember seeing my first Mac. I couldn't figure out how to work it. but after a 5 minute tutorial I had it figured out. the one I had was the original Mac. it had a 400k internal drive. Someone added an 800k external when the system software went over 400. I used the internal drive for my data. I think that first year I used MacWrite.

Since then I have been a Mac guy.

 

[PTree15]

I have nothing particularly unusual, but here's my computer history (what I can remember of it ):
At work, we started with VDTs and big floppy discs and then moved on to Macs for most of my jobs. My first personal computer was an IBM 286 that I bought through my mother at her company, which was selling them to employees because the company was upgrading its system. I had a few HP desktops, but when I moved on to laptops, I started with Toshiba, Dell, then Toshiba again. I always wanted Macs because I loved (and still do love) working on them, so I finally got a MacBook Pro about four years ago. I have a 27-inch HP monitor when I need a big screen for graphic-heavy projects, but I mostly work off my 13-inch screen. I love the portability of the smaller laptop. I'm actually thinking of getting a new MacBook dedicated to work only. The one I have now is getting full with a lot of work stuff, and I'd rather keep all of that separate from personal stuff. I could get an external drive, I suppose, but I also wonder when this Mac will crap out, as they inevitably do. So having a backup would be good.

 

[IC_]

I think the most unusual and interesting thing I have is an older Thinkpad laptop that runs Libreboot, a fully open-source BIOS replacement that removes any non-free software components. The OS it's running is Parabola GNU/Linux-libre, also a 100% open-source free software distribution, and the Wifi also doesn't work there because the wireless card in the laptop would have required a proprietary driver. The wireless card is a much older one with slower speeds anyway, so you'd probably still want to use a cable. I wouldn't use this as an everyday laptop because of its age and battery issues, but I think it's pretty surprising and interesting that you can still have a very usable computer and operating system without using any software that isn't open-source.

 

[Chryssie]

Presently I have pretty much standard stuff. My desktop is plain old Windows 10. I do have an older laptop with Ubuntu Linux installed but I rarely turn it on. Back in the 90's and early 2000's, I built my own computers but I have been lazy for the last several years. Years ago (again the 90's) the ex and I ran OS2 on our desktops. It was an awesome OS made by IBM but got pushed into oblivion by Microsoft. We then switched to exclusively using Linux for many years until wanting to do gaming. I got into computers really late when I got a job teaching computer skills to preschoolers back before everyone had a personal computer in their homes. I got hooked on the technology and have been rather "geeky" ever since though not so much anymore.

 

[Emma JC]

there are so many computers and servers lying around our home that I couldn't begin to tell what they all are, I do know that some of them are Raspberry Pis.... wish I could have a real raspberry pie lying around

Emma JC
Find your vegan soulmate or just a friend. www.spiritualmatchmaking.com

 

[Second Summer]

Years ago (again the 90's) the ex and I ran OS2 on our desktops. It was an awesome OS made by IBM but got pushed into oblivion by Microsoft.

I was never an OS/2 user, but I'm curious about operating systems and came across a Wikipedia article about its current implementation called ArcaOS the other day: ArcaOS - Wikipedia

It says it's still a 32bit OS.

 

[Second Summer]

Bump!

It's been a year since my last post, and I have since upgraded the Pi from FreeBSD 13.0 to 13.1. I have also found a way to make it run faster than it does by default, and even overclock it somewhat. So, instead of running at the default FreeBSD CPU clock speed for this machine of 600MHz, or the advertised speed of 1.8GHz, it's now running at about 2.1GHz! This also means it's a lot more usable than it was. I think if only the FreeBSD wifi driver could be improved to support all the modern "modes" (I know they're working on it), then maybe I could use this computer on a daily basis, certainly for my own projects.

 

[xilex]

Interesting discussion. I've never heard about some things mentioned here. I thought most people prefer using MacBook today

 

[g0rph]

Interesting discussion. I've never heard about some things mentioned here. I thought most people prefer using MacBook today

Operating system market share...Jan 2023 to Jan 2024

Android	41.61%
Windows	29.02%
iOS	18.18%
OS X	6.41%
Unknown	2.21%
Linux	1.51%

Personally, I use Windows 11 for work (development). Sometimes Linux.

I have a Raspberry Pi with some Linux distro on it as a media server.

I have a Windows 10 PC at home and a Dell XPS 17" Windows 11 laptop.

I use a Samsung phone (android). Oh and a Xiaomi tablet (android).


I avoid Apple.

 

[deadknight]

Passionate Linux user here, most of my boxes are running Debian (on occasions, OpenSuSE Tumbleweed if I'm too lazy to think).

I don't even want to have anything Apple-produced in my nearest environment. And I don't need Windoze either.

Have an interest in BSD-s and on multiple occasions managed to make FreeBSD work. Too bad that a BSD is not - and will never be - the same as a Linux distro, they seem to be more demanding when it comes to good hardware. You might make an ancient Dell laptop work under Debian, but the very same laptop might boot into an amazing and graceful kernel panic on FreeBSD. Or DragonFly BSD, for that matter. (Have seen people make DragonFly work on ancient ThinkPad's, so I'm planning to get one of these archaeological pieces, because DragonFly rocks.)

 

[Second Summer]

Passionate Linux user here, most of my boxes are running Debian (on occasions, OpenSuSE Tumbleweed if I'm too lazy to think).

I don't even want to have anything Apple-produced in my nearest environment. And I don't need Windoze either.

Have an interest in BSD-s and on multiple occasions managed to make FreeBSD work. Too bad that a BSD is not - and will never be - the same as a Linux distro, they seem to be more demanding when it comes to good hardware. You might make an ancient Dell laptop work under Debian, but the very same laptop might boot into an amazing and graceful kernel panic on FreeBSD. Or DragonFly BSD, for that matter. (Have seen people make DragonFly work on ancient ThinkPad's, so I'm planning to get one of these archaeological pieces, because DragonFly rocks.)

Hello, new friend!

I like the Debian concept, and I have used it for a server OS in the past. Lots of distros are based on Debian, and I can see why. I believe Debian has a great community and organisation around it, which is probably a big part of its recipe for success.

We use RHEL at work, though, so at least in the past I have been using more Red Hat-related distros.

But in more recent times I have fallen in love with FreeBSD! I enjoy its slower, more careful rate of change for user interfaces, its strong Unix history, its community (even though it's not perfect ...), its separation of base system from ports & packages, its documentation, the ability to very easily compile your own kernel/base system and ports with whatever options you prefer. I still have lots and lots to learn about it, which is great!

I have been able to successfully install it on my Dell laptops, both newer and slightly older ones. I'm also using it on a VPS, and I will hopefully also soon be running this forum on FreeBSD.

However, on a laptop, just installing it is one thing, it is quite another thing to make it work as well as e.g. Fedora Linux, which is my main laptop OS.

For example, on my Dell laptop, FreeBSD fails to suspend & resume. I believe this is unfortunately quite common. It also doesn't do power management as well, as it tends to run at a higher temperature which triggers the fan.

But if you can just find a laptop that does support these features well on FreeBSD, then that would be my ideal. I understand that Thinkpads tend to work quite well. The same is also true for Framework laptops, although it takes a while for FreeBSD support to catch up when new models are released, so it's best to avoid whichever is the most recent generation.

 

[missbeckman]

I am a boring one, have my MacBook Air for almost five years now and not going to change it in the nearest future. Works perfectly fine. I read almost all articles about Apple products on MacGasm and now am sure that i will make a right choice when i need to purchase a new device. I am also quite familiar with all the common issues and how to troubleshoot them easily.

 

[Second Summer]

I am a boring one, have my MacBook Air for almost five years now and not going to change it in the nearest future. Works perfectly fine

MacOS is a Unix-like OS, just like Linux and the BSDs. Just open your terminal app, and you can experience the wonderfulness of a Unix shell right there

 

[Andy_T]

My "normal" PC is a boring Windows 11 machine as well, but I think I still have - somewhere at home - a Cambridge Z88 that I bought around 1988 to take notes at my university lectures. That was one of the first usable portable computers (1 kg only) thought up by Sir Clive Sinclair, but it did not get very popular, as it was rather limited. Anybody who knows Sinclair will be familiar with horrible rubber keys.

I basically used it as a word processor and then transferred my notes to my Macintosh using an RS-232 cable.
Later, I also got a Palm Pilot and a Windows CE machine, but the first micro computer I found really usable was the iPad.

Cambridge Z88 - Wikipedia

 

[deadknight]

Hello, new friend!

I like the Debian concept, and I have used it for a server OS in the past. Lots of distros are based on Debian, and I can see why. I believe Debian has a great community and organisation around it, which is probably a big part of its recipe for success.

We use RHEL at work, though, so at least in the past I have been using more Red Hat-related distros.

But in more recent times I have fallen in love with FreeBSD! I enjoy its slower, more careful rate of change for user interfaces, its strong Unix history, its community (even though it's not perfect ...), its separation of base system from ports & packages, its documentation, the ability to very easily compile your own kernel/base system and ports with whatever options you prefer. I still have lots and lots to learn about it, which is great!

I have been able to successfully install it on my Dell laptops, both newer and slightly older ones. I'm also using it on a VPS, and I will hopefully also soon be running this forum on FreeBSD.

However, on a laptop, just installing it is one thing, it is quite another thing to make it work as well as e.g. Fedora Linux, which is my main laptop OS.

For example, on my Dell laptop, FreeBSD fails to suspend & resume. I believe this is unfortunately quite common. It also doesn't do power management as well, as it tends to run at a higher temperature which triggers the fan.

But if you can just find a laptop that does support these features well on FreeBSD, then that would be my ideal. I understand that Thinkpads tend to work quite well. The same is also true for Framework laptops, although it takes a while for FreeBSD support to catch up when new models are released, so it's best to avoid whichever is the most recent generation.

You're very much welcome.

It's very good to see you like the Debian concept! This system is so universal - yes, it can be ideal for servers when configured for that purpose, but it also excels as a desktop.
Yes, these beginner-friendly and easy-to-manage distro's like Ubuntu and Mint are Debian forks. Also the "notorious" Kali Linux for extremely advanced users.

Red Hat is something I have never tried. What are your experiences on it?

Yeah the reasons you mention are the very things that made me fall in love with FreeBSD! Especially the strong original Berkeley UNIX history. It felt a bit strange that updates come out at a slower rate, but that's okay. FreeBSD jails are also a very smart thing (DragonFly has something similar too). And as you're saying, the documentation is wonderful. Building ports, oh my.
Even advanced FreeBSD users say they have much to learn - someone said they've been using it continuously for 3 years but still consider themselves to be on a newbie level.

Exactly. Installing FreeBSD is one thing, but making it work is another. The power management is something I had problems with, on an elderly Amilo laptop.

Well, this is what I am planning to do - finding an appropriate laptop to function as a FreeBSD/DragonFly playground.
Oh yes, this is also something I've experienced - it takes some time until the driver to a certain hardware is available for FreeBSD. I remember some Radeon graphic cards weren't supported.