FreeBSD is working on a graphical installer. Finally.
The first hurdle to overcome when testing a new Operating System is to get it installed. What is more, the first impression new users gather from an Operating System is its installation process. The state of the art for Operating System installers nowadays definitely involves a graphical process. This is the case for mainstream systems but also for other UNIX systems comparable to FreeBSD: RedHat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, Debian GNU/Linux, or even Devuan GNU+Linux Regardless of the technical level of the actual user, this is how the platform will be compared in the public eye.
[…]Instead, with knowledge of the current bsdinstall(8) and bsdconfig(8) utilities, I envisioned a BSD-licensed replacement for Xdialog(1). Just like when invoking bsdconfig with the -X switch for graphical mode, it could be dropped in instead of bsddialog(1) and allow graphical installation – while sharing the infrastructure of the current installer. To avoid confusion with the current implementation of Xdialog from the x11/xdialog port, I have named its replacement gbsddialog(1). It also has to be said that Xdialog is quite obsolete (latest release in 2006) and this shows visually too.
Pierre Pronchery in the FreeBSD status report
I can’t believe it’s taken FreeBSD this long to both consider and build a graphical installer. Currently being enveloped in the world of OpenBSD, there’s clearly so much the BSD world has to offer to desktop users such as myself, but at the same time, there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that the various BSDs can address to make the experience just that little bit more pleasant. They obviously don’t have to – not every project is aiming at desktop use – but it just makes onboarding so much nicer.
The next step – perhaps in 2037 – would be to offer a desktop-oriented installation image, with a default desktop environment and settings optimised for desktop use. Right now, a lot of fiddling and optimisation for this use case is left to the user, and for newcomers such as myself this means a lot of reading, making sense of contradictory advice and suggestions, wading through endless, often outdated, online guides, and so on. Now, I don’t particularly mind doing this, but I’m sure it’s chasing people away who could end up making meaningful contributions.
Meanwhile, after trying out FreeBSD for a while a few weeks ago but it not being a good fit for me, I’m now exploring and using OpenBSD and it’s been a great experience. Although unlikely, I hope OpenBSD, too, can perhaps consider making some minor affordances to desktop users – because as I’ve learnt, OpenBSD feels right at home on a desktop, more so than I ever expected.
I know I am not representative of the broad userbase, but honestly the text installers never bothered me. As long as it is clear and works well, I couldn’t care less about a graphical installer. I do however like the boot media that lets you preview the operating system experience before installing. I am pro-LiveCD/install media.
Even though it’s text-mode, the FreeBSD installer can be operated by the mouse at least. I’ve always liked the console mouse support on FreeBSD.
Yes exactly. The barrier to running the BSDs on the desktop isn’t getting the system installed and booting. It’s the fundamental things like a working graphical environment, working sound, plug-n-play mounting of USB devices, and WiFI drivers and related GUI utilities for getting connected.
I think that GhostBSD has made a good effort to at least recognize those fundamentals, but still there are too many fundamental limitations with the BSD ecosystem for it to work as a practical daily-driver OS for an average open-minded desktop user like myself.
Sound: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.1R/ (wait, watch, test) …
Same for me.
Related note, the current graphical based BIOses (at least ASUS) are very hard to understand, which is the oposite of a text based ThinkPad BIOS.
Such an effort distraction.
It’s almost like the results of the most recent community survey strongly suggested that there should be some attention to installation. Oh, wait …
Graham Perrin,
I’m curious to hear what the community asked for, do you have a source you can link to?
I didn’t have trouble using the text installer. And if they really want it to be a GUI, why not port Calamares? Why reinvent the wheel?
What’s truly needed instead is to manually configure X11 after installation. I found no option to install X, configure it, and a DE during installation. That’s the part that needs automation.
s/manually configure / automatically configure during installation
>> Why reinvent the wheel?
100% agree. Port what’s already out there.
A text-based installer should not be such a big deal either way, as long as it sets up things properly. I remember Slackware Linux from 20 years ago (my first Linux distro, I went “all-in”, my first Debian install was such a refreshing experience! And compare *that* to modern installers…).
That being said, Unix and all the BSDs are on life-support. Were it not for Apple and macOS (imagine that…) they would already be dead in the water.
Even TrueNAS has moved to Linux. That’s the way of the Dodo laid out for the Berkeley System Distributions. And Plan9.
In 10 years BSD will be among the hobby/enthusiast niche, with maybe some enterprise holdouts.
It’s sad, but eventually there will be only 3 OSs, even from a tech savvy perspective. And Unix won’t be among those.
The next release of FreeBSD-based TrueNAS CORE is scheduled.
Much has been written about the shift to Linux, some of it is wildly misinformed, I’m in the privileged position of seeing how the noise is affecting interest in two FreeBSD communities (no loss of interest).
Some would like a GUI installer, others dont. Depends on who one is. I think it is a great idea, that said, the best sollution would be to give a choice between a textmode based and graphics based installer. That way one have the options, and is the best way forward. We saw it with Linux as well, back when GUI installers were introduced. Everyone complained, almost nobody does today. We saw it with Windows as well, though isolated to a few. You know, back in the Win311/Win95-testrelease era. I clearly remembered people in my circle complaining about the Win95 installer being too flashy, during the Win95 April testrelease periode.
To recap in short…. If they include both textmode and graphicsmode installers, then nobody can complain.
brostenen,
Some people may prefer a graphical installer and what you are saying is perfectly rational, but…
1) I imagine the set of users who are seriously considering using FreeBSD but then decide against it over the lack of a graphical installer is extremely small.
2) Given the limited resources, I do question why this should have been given priority.
Ultimately I respect the project’s right to make it’s own choices, but it wouldn’t have been my first choice.
I don’t know about other installers that might work, but significant chunks of Calamares is licensed under the GPL, and FreeBSD has done a ton of effort to replace GPL code with more permissively-licensed software
There’s discussion of a graphics-related utility in Mastodon. Join me there, if you like.
it seems to me like an attempt from a dying operating system to attract attention of potential new users.
I love freebsd, I really do, it has been my favorite OS for many years, but it’s not where the cool things get developped anymore, most of the project are targeting linux only and don’t bother about the legacy Unix systems.
Dying again? Maybe you’re not in on the old in joke about predictions of certain death. You’re either in, or out, or shaking it all about. OK, cokey?
This is all fine. Good news. However, none of the OS’s mentioned, are in any way Unix. They are Unix-Like, not Unix.
As far as I understand the Berkeley System Distribution *IS* Unix. Not a vendor-locked version, a free one. Unix is dying, basically, because of laws and contracts. GPLv3 is the way to go if you wanna survive, even v2 right about now seems like a holdout from the past.
No community -> no contributors -> dead OS (unless you’re M$ or Apple).
It is sad to see. Unix is basically the one and only OS, and it’s been kept alive through the BSDs. And Apple (my God!).
Other projects such as Plan9 or Haiku or ReactOS will never fly. We’re stuck with Win/mac/Lin for the most foreseeable future.
Unix is two things these days. AT&T Unix, as that is the original. But since BSD had all code redone at Berkeley, it is not AT&T anymore. It is essentially it’s own seperate OS.
However. There is another type of Unix. And it does not recuire to be AT&T code based. You can have your own OS certified to be Unix, by the Unix consortium. And as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Dragonfly and all the other BSD’s, are not Unix certified, then they are not Unix. Hence, they are Unix-Like. As they mostly are used like a Unix system.
That all said. There are one single BSD based OS, that are Unix certified, hence a real Unix system. That OS is MacOS. It has been a real Unix OS since MaxOSX 10.5 Leopard. Or rather since october of 2007. Mac’s are in other words, the only Unix workstations that one can buy today.
Wow. I had no idea. I only thought Apple was contributing with some code…
I wish I still had that old Silicon Graphics O2, just for nostalgia… Though IRIX and CDE sucked, big time. I ended up installing Debian anyway, but still it was terribly slow compared to laptops of that time (15 years ago, more or less?).
It is probably the Darwin portion you are thinking about. It is an open source project by Apple, and what they are building the MacOS upon. Though MacOS is Unix cerified, Darwin is not. Did some digging around, and the correct certification for MacOS are as far as I can find, something named version 3 (SUSv3).
I also found this page, with a list of certified Unix products.
https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/
What about Solaris and its descendants?
They are build on AT&T Unix SVR4, not BSD. Today they are an discontinued operating system.
No, FreeBSD is UNIX-like.
See, for example https://freebsdfoundation.org/freebsd-project/what-is-freebsd/ (and expect changes to that page in due course).
This should help:
https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2022/06/19/is-freebsd-a-real-unix/
I remember PC-BSD project in mid-2000’s. It was a variant of Free-BSD. It had a graphical installer back then.
Yup. A deriative of FreeBSD, but not FreeBSD release. Exactly like on Linux, were you can have some versions with text based installer, and then someone comes along and makes a driative with a GUI installer.
It would be nice if they kept the text based, for those who wish to continue using it. We had this talk when GUI based installers on Linux began to be a thing. Back some 20 to 26 years or something. I really dont care if a installer is one or the other, as I can use both. After all, it is just a one-time-use piece of software. When I think about it more deep, we had the same kind of approach to the OS it self. People thought that Dos had no need for GUI (Win-3.11 days) and people bashed down on MacOS, Workbench and Atari TOS. Because reasons and “real men dont use mouse” talking points.
GhostBSD and NomadBSD have GUI/graphical installers since years.
The effort here is to literally ‘display’ the FreeBSD installer in GUI way – a translation from Ncurses bsddialog(8) to GUI gbsddialog(8).
Hope that helps.