LibertyBSD

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aloniv

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I am trying out LibertyBSD 6.1 in QEMU (AQEMU).

I had to enable unverified packages in the installation ISO (I selected 32 bit) and had to select sets from CD (otherwise I couldn't get it to work). After setup I set LibertyBSD repos using:

export PKG_PATH=”https://ftp.libertybsd.net/pub/LibertyBSD/$(uname -r)/packages/$(arch -s)/”

Then I copied this file into some directory after pkg_add complained it was missing using ftp (the LibertyBSD counterpart of wget)

ftp https://ftp.libertybsd.net/pub/LibertyBSD/6.1/packages/openbsd-61-pkg.pub

Then I could install packages - I installed nano, xfce and xfce-extras but it complained about a missing package (xfce notify or something similar).

Xfce runs but very slowly (after putting in .xinitrc "exec startxfce4" and running startx) (I allocated 1GB RAM but it's still slow even though it's using KVM). Also, I had trouble controlling the mouse (even after changing the mouse settings in the Xfce menus).

freemedia
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Joined: 09/14/2018

i didnt even know there was an iso. i guess i will check out that ftp directory.

qemu is just one more reason i like lighter window managers. oh i like xfce, i loved lxde when it was gtk2-based, lxde-qt is alright. but even though its not the #1 for everybody i have never found one i like more than icewm.

nice mix of no bother and familar controls-- even after ive tried all sorts of other things (i liked kde 3.5.) and modest resource requirements.

aloniv

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Joined: 01/11/2011

OpenBSD (on which LibertyBSD is based) does not provide in their ports (which LibertyBSD de-blobs) many popular desktop environments - MATE only became available recently and is not available in version 6.1. I picked Xfce simply because I was familiar with it as I briefly used it in the past - had LXDE or something else been available I would have picked that instead.

freemedia
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Joined: 09/14/2018

thats understandable. i dont know what window managers are available in libertybsd, im not surprised that (being a work in progress, and not even based on the main work that much of this software tends to be compiled with) the selection is smaller. its actually great that xfce is available, though i still dont prefer it for running in qemu.

total side point-- i was actually a fan (nearly a proponent) of gnome 2 for xp replacements, so i appreciate what mate is trying to do. but im curious (especially with the migration from gtk2 to gtk3) whether xfce remains lighter (subjective user experience, or ram/cpu usage) than mate. seems like that could go in favour of either choice.

dont worry, i noticed when you said mate isnt available in 6.1. that means it is available for something more recent... 6.2? im just as interested in libertybsd itself as the rest of this. my email to rms about libertybsd was... nearly a month ago to the day.

aloniv

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dont worry, i noticed when you said mate isnt available in 6.1. that means it is available for something more recent... 6.2?

It's probably there yes - it's definitely in the recent version of OpenBSD which is 6.3 as you can find online videos covering MATE's installation. Version 6.1 is in fact no longer supported by OpenBSD as releases are only supported for a year so hopefully a new version of LibertyBSD will be released soon.

freemedia
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Joined: 09/14/2018

what would you say is the best way to contact or interact with the libertybsd community (preferably without chat.)

there was a forum (down, when last checked) and a contact email (down also, i emailed it) and the most recent update i know of was to a script on github 3 months ago. which is still recent enough to give me hope.

im quite interested in following the project, assuming it is active. for context, my own distro is presently based on void linux (partially chosen for its kernel and partially to demonstrate that it is still active.)

aloniv

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what would you say is the best way to contact or interact with the libertybsd community (preferably without chat.)

No idea, sorry.

I thought it would be a cool experiment to test out LibertyBSD - to figure out how to install it, to see what is available in their repositories (called ports) after setting them up and to try and remember how to use QEMU so for me the fact that it isn't up to date doesn't matter that much (the desktop environment installation commands are not the main thing I'm testing so any reasonable desktop is adequate). Of course if I actually intended to switch to it as my main OS then the points you've raised (lack of updates and contact methods) would bother me much more.

freemedia
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Joined: 09/14/2018

oh yeah, i play around with distros with zero support all the time. sometimes i have to look something up, but to me most of it (the entire gnu/linux ecosystem... which this actually exists outside of, technically) is one giant distro.

https://ftp.libertybsd.net/pub/LibertyBSD/6.1/i386/

i would hesitate to call anything from bsd a "distro" so the next word i go to is "flavour." when i say "distro" in person and remember im talking to someone who doesnt know what that is, i say "its like the make and model of a car." you could just say "brand" and be almost correct. people make far too much of distros, imo.

im not saying i would make heads or tails of gentoo, but there is an iso for some or most of the significant versions/flavours of it.

i do wish the lead developer of libertybsd would talk to the public somewhere. first the void lead then this? what the heck? as always, i hope this is nothing. people abandon distros all the time, i wish they wouldnt abandon the coolest ones though.

aloniv

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I finally realized why the disc image I was using was slow - it's because 32 bit images are not supported by QEMU/KVM. The 64 bit image is snappy. It seems to contain the non-free unrar package (part of xfce-extras) - where/to whom should this be reported?