back to article FreeBSD 14.2 wants to woo Docker fans, but still struggles with Wi-Fi

FreeBSD 14.2, the latest point release of the most widely used of the BSDs, brings some new features to tempt Docker fans. FreeBSD 14.2-RELEASE appeared on Tuesday. This is the latest minor release of version 14, which means it's time to start thinking about upgrading from 14.1. That appeared last June and it's due to reach …

  1. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

    'Upgrades are so safe they're almost boring'

    You have *got* to be kidding me. So far I've found FreeBSD upgrades to be somewhat of a pain, and FreeBSD has ongoing issues where you install a new package, it breaks something else, and then you have to do an update of everything, cross your fingers, and hope. At that point you wonder why you're not using Windows instead. Upgrades are also quite slow, even on reasonably recent hardware.

    I persevere because I'd like FreeBSD to succeed, but given the increasing polarisation of operating systems you're still hit over the head repeatedly with the fact this is Not Linux or Not Windows. Last weekend it was even worse, a project to install new firmware on smart plugs is not only Linux specific, it's *Ubuntu* specific ('needs Network Manager and Docker, not tested on anything else'). Mint appeared to be close enough. Ubuntu didn't boot or possibly was grindingly slow (Mint was glacial to install) on the old Athlon system I tried, apparently the Windowsisation of Linux continues. Not using a particularly modern system? Prepare to experience pain.

    On the other hand for the most part OpenBSD really is fire and forget. Run sysupgrade. Go to make a cup of tea. Come back. Done. Provided you're sticking to functionality in base it's pretty straightforward. (OK, technically I did run into an issue a few releases back with an old system with only IDE support and an unusual partition layout, but that's a rarely used system).

    No surprise about Wi-fi. I gave up on that under OpenBSD and others, it's one area where it really needs the manufacturer writing the drivers. Stopped trying to create my own access point or failover to a 4G dongle, an moved to a standalone access point and 4G router (running Microtik's RouterOS in the latter case)

    1. sedregj Bronze badge
      Windows

      Re: 'Upgrades are so safe they're almost boring'

      Chill mate. *BSD is important.

      I'm not sure that a weird firmware shennanigans journey involving IoT gear is worth worrying about. Document what happened and move on. That's the enterprise way and you might not be too surprised how often Windows sysadmins have to do that too.

      It took me a good month or so to get a couple of HP laptops to upgrade their BIOSs when running Linux, yet my desktop (HPE) does it via Discovery without prompting.

      IT is hard. Its not personal - all OS's, platforms, etc are a bit wank and will fail to inspire at some point but it is the mark of the consultant as to how they respond to adversity. Do you whine on el Reg or do you dive into the rabbit hole for a few hours?

      1. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

        Re: 'Upgrades are so safe they're almost boring'

        Time to post the 'why not both?' meme.

        Yeah, I know BSD is important. I use it. I donate to it. I'm persevering with it. This post is from a fanless Wyse 5070 box running FreeBSD 14.1.

        Doesn't mean I'm not too keen on an overly rosy view of things. I will grant FreeBSD *is* improving slowly. Bhyve, although a tad bleeding edge and lacking functionality, makes hosting Linux and Windows VMs for tasks that FreeBSD can't yet manage possible.

      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: 'Upgrades are so safe they're almost boring'

        Chill mate. *BSD is important

        Indeed. The two non-Windows VMs [1] I have left (one of the three VMs is a Windows DC that's going to disappear at some point) are both FreeBSD. No namby-pamby GUIs installed either :-)

        Upgrading the first one to 4.2 now - all going swimmingly. And, if not, I'll revert to a previous snapshot of it and try again.

        [1] Nextcloud and Gitlab. Gitlab is going away soon (I don't use it so my relative is going to migrate his stuff elsewhere..). Nextcloud is staying although I might migrate it over to my RPI 5..

        1. Graham Perrin

          GitLab going away

          For clarity: do you mean that you'll cease to use GitLab?

          I rarely follow the news, and https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=GitLab&cat=news (at a glance) I don't see an ending.

    2. Graham Perrin
      FAIL

      Re: 'Upgrades are so safe they're almost boring'

      > a new package,

      Can you be specific?

      > cross your fingers, and hope.

      Absolutely not.

      Outputs from pkg commands are normally quite specific.

      If you prefer options such as --quiet (to not know) or -y (to proceed without regard to specifics), then that's carelessness, not finger-related.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Very sad to hear about Michael J Karels passing away. Along with the first edition of "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment" by Stevens, the 4.3 BSD design and implementation book was what convinced me I could make a career out of computer programming. Those books and a handful of other (Stevens' equally brilliant books on network programming and the X Window System series from O'Reilly) demystified the world of Unix.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Same here.

      As I sit in my office finishing up for the day, I look over to my bookshelf and see those volumes right there along with a very dogeared first edition of 'Engineering Mathematics' and Laplace Transforms' by K A Stroud. The latter two saved my bacon more than once while a student.

      The first device driver I ever wrote was for BSD 6.2 (on a Vax 11/730)

  3. Zolko Silver badge

    Live image

    Dear Liam,

    you don't mention whether there is a live image for FreeBSD to try out, as it exists for Linux, and I didn't find anything on the FreeBSD web page. I did find "NomadBSD" which seems to be a live USB image, but it doesn't seem to be meant for installing.

    Is there a fundamental reason that *BSD doesn't provide live installer images ? Do you know of a link to try out ?

    1. Liam Proven (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Live image

      > you don't mention whether there is a live image for FreeBSD to try out

      Ahaha!

      Well, kind of. Yes and no.

      The amd64 DVD ISO -- which is called DVD1 for reasons that are obscure to me, since as far as I know, there is no DVD2 -- *is* a live medium.

      *But* the thing is that while it does offer you the option to boot into a live environment, for FreeBSD, that means a text-only live console environment.

      So, yes, there is a live image, but it is probably not what you want! :-) / :-(

      I have tried NomadBSD. It fell in a heap which is the reason I have not written about it.

      If you want a live _graphical desktop_ I think GhostBSD is your best bet:

      https://www.ghostbsd.org/

      I have reviewed, it a year ago. I liked it.

      https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/07/ghostbsd_23_10/

      1. Bill Gray
        Thumb Up

        Re: Live image

        Agreed on GhostBSD. I commented on it favorably a year ago. I'm not a BSD guru by any faint stretch of the imagination. But I've installed it to two machines (previous version on one, current version on the other), and it Just Worked. (Not using WiFi or anything very exotic in the way of hardware, no attempt to dual boot. Your mileage may vary, and probably will at least somewhere.)

        1. Zolko Silver badge

          Re: Live image

          Thanks Liam and Bill, I will try that

        2. Graham Perrin
          Childcatcher

          GhostBSD

          > … it Just Worked. … Your mileage may vary, and probably will at least somewhere.)

          The recent failure outlined at https://old.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1gsixxi/hp_elitebook_650_g10_i5_first_impressions/lykf0fo/ is extraordinary.

          Very different mileage, from yours, with an HP EliteBook 650 G10, i5. I'll follow up in the proper place.

      2. Graham Perrin
        Boffin

        NomadBSD

        > … fell in a heap which is the reason I have not written about it. …

        For me, NomadBSD recently succeeded (to run, post-configuration) where GhostBSD failed (non-installable (stalled at the loader screen)), so I'll assume a hardware-specific quirk in your case.

        You're warmly invited to kick the ball around in /r/NomadBSD, with a little technical detail. As if you have nothing better to do with your time before or after Christmas. Whenever; the offer's there.

  4. Wombat9272

    "During installation, an interesting new feature is the ability to automatically download and install any necessary firmware, such as for network adapters."

    So no LAN and only WiFi how am I supposed to 'download' these firmwares.... lol

    1. Liam Proven (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      > So no LAN and only WiFi how am I supposed to 'download' these firmwares.... lol

      A USB Ethernet or wifi adaptor? I have a couple. They're cheap and handy.

      1. Graham Perrin
      2. BigSneakyDuck

        USB tethering on your smartphone

        Anyone who has a smartphone with either WiFi access or a data contact, and has a USB cable that can link their phone to their computer, can create USB ethernet that way. Just plug the phone in and select "USB tethering" on the phone menu. I sometimes used it for a speed boost on Windows on a laptop whose ancient WiFi chip gave me far slower speeds than my phone. But for FreeBSD it's even more useful.

        The FreeBSD Handbook claims you need to manually load the appropriate driver into the kernel before you can tether, which suggests you need to be at the command line. This seems to be years out of date however - since FreeBSD 12, devmatch has dynamically loaded drivers when hardware is recognised. So even while in the install stage, I've been able to plug my phone in, select USB tethering, and the USB ethernet just appears as ue0 in the network configuration menu! Worth a try if you're having WiFi woes.

        https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1dprdrx/is_freebsd_handbook_section_on_usb_tethering/

    2. jrtc27

      14.2’s install media has the firmware for various WiFi chips installed to it too in case you need them.

  5. okapia

    linuxulator containers

    I'm puzzled that you say podman can't be used for running Linux containers on FreeBSD because via the linuxulator that's working fine for me. There may be things that don't work but for the one very simple use case I have, it works fine.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: linuxulator containers

      Fair point - we've added that caveat.

      C.

    2. -bat.

      Re: linuxulator containers

      Yup, it "just works" for me too... e.g.

      # podman run --rm --os=linux -ti docker.io/drwetter/testssl.sh https://www.theregister.com/

      Which runs the testssl application, in a container, on my BSD machine. It's really nice!

      Or try simply running a base Alpine image

      # podman run --rm --os=linux -ti docker.io/alpine cat /etc/os-release

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