My main desktop is Debian Stable. A few years ago I tried FreeBSD, but its desktop didn't work properly.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to try it again for an amd64 server and a Raspberry Pi (model 1), headless, without desktop.
The ports collection for the amd64 is extensive. Undoubtedly it is not is not as wide as Debian. FreeBSD had a binary port for Zig, which Debian doesn't have in any of its versions. The FreeBSD ports seem quite fresh, too.
The letdown for me is that the binary ports for the Pi 1 (which will also include the Pi 0) on FreeBSD was much more restricted compared to amd64. I don't want to get involved in compiling from source. I did try compiling Zig, and there seemed to be a problem with the version on llvm involved.
This means that for the Pi 1 I'm going back to Raspberry Pi OS.
FreeBSD vs Linux: they each have their pros and cons. A lot of the technical arguments on either side tend to be overblown. You pays your money and you takes your choice. But if you held a gun to my head and said I could only choose one, I'd choose Linux.
I'd say, though, that if you like Slackware, then you'll probably like FreeBSD more.
> I'd say, though, that if you like Slackware, then you'll probably like FreeBSD more
Hehe, someone saying this exact thing to me was what made look into BSD for the first time, and whoever said it to me was correct.
On the desktop/laptop, I prefer GNU/Linux, because the hardware support etc. is just much better. My home server runs FreeBSD, though, and it hasn't given me any trouble in almost seven years (other than a µSD card dying, but I don't think the OS is to blame here).
A couple of weeks ago I decided to try it again for an amd64 server and a Raspberry Pi (model 1), headless, without desktop.
The ports collection for the amd64 is extensive. Undoubtedly it is not is not as wide as Debian. FreeBSD had a binary port for Zig, which Debian doesn't have in any of its versions. The FreeBSD ports seem quite fresh, too.
The letdown for me is that the binary ports for the Pi 1 (which will also include the Pi 0) on FreeBSD was much more restricted compared to amd64. I don't want to get involved in compiling from source. I did try compiling Zig, and there seemed to be a problem with the version on llvm involved.
This means that for the Pi 1 I'm going back to Raspberry Pi OS.
FreeBSD vs Linux: they each have their pros and cons. A lot of the technical arguments on either side tend to be overblown. You pays your money and you takes your choice. But if you held a gun to my head and said I could only choose one, I'd choose Linux.
I'd say, though, that if you like Slackware, then you'll probably like FreeBSD more.