https://i-bsd.com/posts/ Recent content in iBSD Post Archive on iBSD | Proving That BSD Is A Great Alternative To Linux Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/bhyve-web-development/ Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/bhyve-web-development/ I’ve been using FreeBSD as my daily driver for over 10 years. In fact, I’ve been continuously running the same OS on the same drive non-stop. Never once removed FreeBSD or reinstalled it. I just install major and minor updates when they become available. Even when I did a complete hardware upgrade and replaced the entire system, I kept my FreeBSD drive as is. Needless to say, I’m loyal to FreeBSD. https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-enable-display-manager/ Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-enable-display-manager/ Need to enable a display manager in FreeBSD? Popular display managers in FreeBSD include: SLiM LightDM GDM(3) XDM SDDM Enabling one of these display managers means that a graphical login screen will open up automatically when you start your computer, instead of running startx in a terminal. Obviously, this assumes that your graphic card drivers are set up correctly. In FreeBSD, display managers are typically enabled by adding an entry to /etc/rc. https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-daemons/ Sat, 26 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-daemons/ Want to know how to enable a daemon in FreeBSD? In FreeBSD, daemons (which are background services) are typically managed using the rc.d scripting framework. To enable a daemon, you usually need to set an appropriate variable in /etc/rc.conf. Here’s a general process: 1. Find the daemon’s startup script Daemons have startup scripts located in /usr/local/etc/rc.d/ (for software installed from ports or packages) or in /etc/rc.d/ (for base system software). https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-disk-space/ Wed, 23 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-disk-space/ Need to know how much free disk space you have? FreeBSD has several utilities to check disk space and partition usage. In this guide, I’ll run through some of the most commonly used tools to achieve this. Different methods for checking your free disk space on FreeBSD df - Disk Filesystem df is a Unix command used to display the amount of disk space used and available on filesystems. Usage: https://i-bsd.com/write-access-to-repository-not-granted/ Thu, 17 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/write-access-to-repository-not-granted/ When working with Git repositories, especially on GitHub, you might come across the error message: write access to repository not granted. I’ll walk you through the common causes of this error and how to get rid of it using the command line and the GitHub GUI. The ‘write access to repository’ error Possible causes: Not having collaborator access: If the repository belongs to someone else or an organization, you might not have been given write access. https://i-bsd.com/venv-permission-denied/ Sat, 24 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/venv-permission-denied/ Python virtual environments are great for isolating pip packages for different Python versions. See the Python docs on how to create a virtual environment – or venv. I just want to point out that there’s a simple mistake people make when activating a Python virtual environment (after creation). If you try to execute the activate binary, you’ll get this message: <venv>/bin/activate: cannot execute - Permission denied The reason you’re seeing this message is that it needs to be sourced, not executed. https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-users/ Sat, 04 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-users/ So you want to add a new user in FreeBSD or edit an existing user? Here’s a quick guide on the different ways to do this. Adding new users 1. adduser This is your go-to in FreeBSD for adding a new user. Couldn’t be simpler. Type in sudo adduser. Follow the prompts to set the user information. One of the prompts will ask if you want to invite the user to any groups. https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-find-files/ Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-find-files/ If you’re looking for a file (or directory) in FreeBSD or OpenBSD, there are 3 commands you should know about: find whereis locate 1. find find can be used to find a file or directory. You use it like so: # File find / -type f -name "file name" # Directory find / -type d -name "directory name" You can change the / to any folder you want to start searching in. https://i-bsd.com/zfs-list-snapshots/ Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/zfs-list-snapshots/ You used to be able to run zfs list and it would show you all the ZFS snapshots by default. This doesn’t work anymore (FreeBSD 13 onward). The type isn’t assumed anymore. As per the manpage , you need to stipulate the type by typing zfs list -t snapshot. Alternatively, use zfs list -t all to show everything, including filesystems, snapshots, volumes and bookmarks. If you want to shorten the command to make it a bit quicker (as it used to be), set up a simple shell alias in your . https://i-bsd.com/openbsd-first-steps/ Wed, 26 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/openbsd-first-steps/ This is my own step-by-step process after a fresh OpenBSD install on my laptop. I use my X1 Carbon Gen 6 for OpenBSD and it’s my daily driver for work (web dev and content marketing). Everyone’s use case is different, but you might find this helpful. I won’t cover the install process itself, but I will add one necessary, pre-install step: 1. Obtain firmware Let’s say you’ve just downloaded and installed an OpenBSD image to a USB in preparation for an install. https://i-bsd.com/openbsd-shutdown/ Mon, 17 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/openbsd-shutdown/ How do you shutdown/turn off OpenBSD correctly? I’ll assume you’re logged into OpenBSD with an open terminal (either bare metal install or VirtualBox). You have two (or possibly three) options for shutting down OpenBSD: halt This is your standard shutdown command: # As root halt -p # As user doas halt -p The halt command will “halt” the system. The -p flag tells it to “power down” as well. On older versions of OpenBSD, you may need to add this line to /etc/sysctl. https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-vm-bhyve-linux/ Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-vm-bhyve-linux/ Want to run Ubuntu or another Linux distro virtualized in FreeBSD? What if I told you that VirtualBox isn’t needed for this? This quick guide will run you through the necessary steps to quickly setup bhyve using vm-bhyve. FreeBSD: vm-bhyve steps for installing Ubuntu Installation steps Here are the installation steps I used in order: 1. doas pkg install vm-bhyve (optional: grub2-bhyve) 2. kldload if_bridge if_tap nmdm vmm 3. doas sysrc vm_enable="YES" 4. https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-where-is-xorg-conf/ Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-where-is-xorg-conf/ Looking for xorg.conf in FreeBSD? Not sure where to find it or how to generate a new configuration file? Location of xorg.conf in FreeBSD You can find it here (by default): /etc/X11/xorg.conf You may also find it here: /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf What if there is no xorg.conf file? First option you have is to manually created it: sudo touch /etc/X11/xorg.conf You’ll have to fill in the details by hand this way. Another option is to use the Xorg -configure option: https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-which-shell-am-i-using/ Sun, 20 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-which-shell-am-i-using/ Need to know which you’re using in FreeBSD? It’s very easy to find out. FreeBSD: Which shell am I using? If you want to find out which shell you are currently using, you have a few options. 1. chsh Just type in chsh. You’ll get a text editor (likely vim) pop up with some lines of info about your user and default shell that looks like this: #Changing user information for donovan. https://i-bsd.com/chmod-operation-not-permitted/ Sat, 19 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/chmod-operation-not-permitted/ Why is chmod showing the error: Operation not permitted? You may be seeing messages like this when trying to change the permissions of a directory or file: chmod: directory: Operation not permitted There are basically two main possibilities here: 1. You’re not doing it as root user Let’s say you just typed as a non-root user: chmod -R 777 /directory/ If that directory doesn’t belong to your user (i.e. isn’t in /home/user/), then you will get the Operation not permitted error. https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-whats-my-ip/ Fri, 18 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-whats-my-ip/ Need to know your IP address in FreeBSD? It’s very easy to find out. FreeBSD: What’s my IP? Assuming your network interface is em0, to find out your IP address in FreeBSD just use this command: ifconfig (see man page ) Look under em0 (or whatever interface you’re using) and you’ll see your network IP address. How do I get my IP address and nothing else in FreeBSD? Let’s say you only want to output your IP address and no other information (e. https://i-bsd.com/openbsd-gatsby/ Sun, 12 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/openbsd-gatsby/ If you’ve been following me for a while (since I started the iBSD channel ), you’ll remember that I started messing around with Jekyll after 10 years of Wordpress , fell in love with it, then used it to build the first iBSD site. Well, static site generators have become a massive rabbit hole since then. It’s become an obsession. 😊 I moved on to Hugo, then Gridsome, GatsbyJS, and then NextJS. https://i-bsd.com/contribute/ Fri, 13 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/contribute/ First off, I have to apologize to my subs and readers for iBSD’s silence the past few months. I’ve been on an extended holiday away from my home office and have had to prioritize projects with the minimal amount of focused work time I’ve had. iBSD had to go on the back-burner for a while. Right now, I’m putting in extra time to clear my list so I can (soon) focus again on my BSD content. https://i-bsd.com/inkscape-optimized-svg/ Sun, 11 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/inkscape-optimized-svg/ You’ve probably noticed the shiny custom logo in the top left of this site. Well, I used Inkscape to design that. But you can’t just save an Inkscape SVG file to your website and use it as a regular image or logo. It has to be optimized for the web. How to save an optimized SVG in Inkscape on FreeBSD (for logos and so on) I’m not going to cover Inkscape basics here (I’ll assume you’ve already finished your design). https://i-bsd.com/bsdbox/ Tue, 06 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/bsdbox/ After 2 hectic months of travel, I’m finally set up in Australia for a while. I wanted to do some on the road screencasting for iBSD but as it turned out, there was no way I could find the time for it. I only brought my X1 Carbon 6th with me this time. As much as I love using my ThinkPad, I really couldn’t wait to get a powerful BSD desktop build done so I can get back to work on it (and do some more screencasting). https://i-bsd.com/drm-console/ Sat, 20 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/drm-console/ I recently reinstalled FreeBSD on my X1 Carbon 6th. Since I’ll be doing a lot of traveling overseas soon and needed a few vital programs that aren’t available on OpenBSD, it had to be done. I decided this time to document various stages of my setup for people who asked. So this post will cover a simple step and one of the first things I do. Since the X1 Carbon has a resolution of 2560x1440, the console is almost impossible to work on. https://i-bsd.com/poudriere-guide/ Sat, 27 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/poudriere-guide/ Poudriere is by far my favorite FreeBSD tool and one I use almost daily for stable, customized package management. Here’s the step-by-step guide I made (for myself) to set it up. People asked for this so I’m posting it (plus it’s a great reference for me in case I forget!). Let me know if I’ve missed anything. The nginx part is optional but I’ll leave that in here. 1. Install poudriere (obviously) and nginx (if you want to) doas pkg install poudriere nginx https://i-bsd.com/hugo-vs-jekyll/ Fri, 08 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/hugo-vs-jekyll/ If you can handle the incessant coughing (sorry - I had major allergies living in California!), this one is for the Hugo guys. A lot of people recommended (Go) Hugo as a better alternative to Jekyll after my last video so I decided this past week to jump into it and compare the two. Here are the things I like about Hugo: Speed of build time. Asset pipelines in the template. https://i-bsd.com/openbsd-gaming/ Sat, 02 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/openbsd-gaming/ I think I’ve made it fairly clear in the past that I don’t see OpenBSD or FreeBSD as ideal gaming platforms (yet). What these operating systems do well, they do exceptionally well. Gaming - and in particular things like Steam - are another matter. That being said, I think there’s been a growing interest in getting these platforms to work well for gamers and surprisingly, there’s a community of OpenBSD guys who are dedicated to gaming (check out this subreddit ). https://i-bsd.com/newsite/ Fri, 18 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/newsite/ I started my iBSD YouTube channel early last year and it’s quickly grown in popularity. There seems to be a lot of interest in FreeBSD and OpenBSD. One of the primary reasons for starting my screencasts was that every time I’d go to find some kind of video tutorial, it would be horrendously out of date, poor quality or just plain non-existent. Linux content abounds but BSD desperately needs more fandom. https://i-bsd.com/coreutils/ Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/coreutils/ Today I want to add another point to my earlier video titled Linux is a mess . I feel like my previous video didn’t do the topic justice and there was a lot more I could have talked about. In this video, I briefly touch on some differences (and similarities) between core utilities (coreutils) on Linux and other POSIX compliant operating systems like the BSD’s, Solaris, MacOS and so on. https://i-bsd.com/gameofthrones/ Thu, 03 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/gameofthrones/ Here’s a fun little side project I’ve been working on with Awesome Window Manager to get myself pumped for GoT Season 8. A FreeBSD GoT-based WM with 9 themed houses as individual workspaces. Still a work-in-progress. awesomewm here . API docs . Good starting place for newbies. Lain for additional layouts here . https://i-bsd.com/rpinetbsd/ Fri, 30 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/rpinetbsd/ Building myself a NetBSD box on Raspberry Pi (3 B+) to host a Smashing dash. Netbsd/evbarm . ebijun’s image . Smashing Parts used to build (affiliate links): RPi (~$38) Casing kit . (~$16) High res 10" testing monitor . (~$140) ebijun’s image works great but his image and changelog are a mess and tailored for Japanese environment so need a clean up to get a minimal, English install. Also needed to make changes to config. https://i-bsd.com/biosfix/ Wed, 24 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/biosfix/ Found the simple solution to the problem that’s been bugging me for months now. As I mentioned in a previous video, OpenBSD was running abysmally slow after a shutdown (or sleep). Turns out it’s a Thunderbolt issue. Thunderbolt BIOS Assist is disabled by default. Enable it. Problem solved. (but unsure on its affect on battery life) https://i-bsd.com/latex/ Sun, 21 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/latex/ LaTeX is not just for math and science geeks. Recently switched all of our content creation workflow over and I’ve been amazed at its versatility and consistency. Total game-changer and has saved us a tonne of hours and headaches. On FreeBSD, I just installed the texlive-full package to get everything working. https://i-bsd.com/xyz/ Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/xyz/ Just responding to a lot of comments I’ve had lately from people looking for pointless arguments over nothing. “I like bsd” ≠ “I hate Linux” “I use FreeBSD because…” ≠ “Linux can’t do…” https://i-bsd.com/flashbios/ Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/flashbios/ ThinkPads let you customize the BIOS logo when flashing BIOS updates. Here’s how to make it look pretty (I’ve used an OpenBSD puffy). https://i-bsd.com/vnc/ Thu, 20 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/vnc/ Setting up desktop sharing using vnc: pkg_add (or pkg install) x11vnc FreeBSD: pkg install tigervnc OpenBSD: pkg_add ssvnc Heed security warnings. Create x11vnc password, use ssh tunneling, etc. if on an open network. For window managers with mod/windows key, fullscreen seems to work but windowed does not (I think). https://i-bsd.com/x1c6bios/ Wed, 12 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/x1c6bios/ New BIOS update for the ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th which adds Linux sleep state support. Sleep seems to work great on OpenBSD as I demonstrate here (but needs to be tested for battery consumption overnight). Get the X1 Carbon 6th here . (aff. link) See my other video on this laptop here . https://i-bsd.com/dwm/ Thu, 06 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/dwm/ In response to questions about my preferred window manager and ricing, here’s what I currently use: dwm . RICE def. verb /rīs/ to make a desktop environment or window manager visually attractive Can you teach me how to rice i3? https://i-bsd.com/openbsdslow/ Sat, 01 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/openbsdslow/ I have an issue with OpenBSD on my X1 Carbon 6th gen that I want to ask the developers for advice on. It’s a tricky problem to explain in the forums so I decided to just video it instead. OpenBSD runs terribly after a shutdown . But after a reboot, it runs amazingly fast. Why is this happening? I recorded the experience to show you what’s happening. UPDATE: I found the solution to this problem. https://i-bsd.com/linuxmess/ Sat, 18 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/linuxmess/ UPDATE: Make sure to watch the follow-up video to this here . I realize my definition of ‘userland’ is way too oversimplified here but I wanted to demonstrate one of the biggest reasons why I left Linux: it’s a total mess. Forgot to mention that Linux is technically ‘just a kernel’. All other applications are sourced elsewhere and packaged. FreeBSD on the other hand is a complete OS with its own base applications. https://i-bsd.com/steam/ Fri, 10 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/steam/ I thought I’d take time out to play a game on FreeBSD while lecturing you about not playing games on FreeBSD. :) Actually, FreeBSD is great for retro gaming and a few others. But the question keeps getting asked: “How well does Steam work on FreeBSD?” Answer: it doesn’t. Not yet anyway. SteamOnBSD is a project that looked promising but runs a very unsafe script with root privileges so I wouldn’t advise it). https://i-bsd.com/poudriere/ Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/poudriere/ Another reason why I use and love FreeBSD: poudriere (French for ‘powder keg’). I should have also mentioned in the video that you can access your poudriere repository over a network too so that one server can serve these customized packages to others. See the handbook chapter on poudriere here . Another very similar option is synth (which I haven’t used). See here . https://i-bsd.com/newsboat/ Sat, 07 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/newsboat/ newsboat is one of my favorite programs in BSD/Linux. It’s more than just a blog RSS reader. It can handle podcasts, YouTube channels and Reddit subreddits as well so it works wonders as a ‘front page to the Internet’ - limit your browser time and keep everything in one place. https://i-bsd.com/doas/ Sat, 07 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/doas/ One of my favorite tools straight out of the OpenBSD community: doas. Makes me wonder why anyone’s still using sudo! So simple to set up on FreeBSD: pkg install doas vim /usr/local/etc/doas.conf I add: permit nopass keepenv :wheel Done. Make sure your user is a member of the :wheel group obviously. https://i-bsd.com/blogging/ Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/blogging/ UPDATE: I now use and highly recommend Jekyll. After over a decade of broken plugins and security holes with Wordpress, I’ve switched over to static site coding. Thought I’d give a glimpse into my blogging workflow and why I prefer to use FreeBSD to get things done. Starting with my distraction-free writing in Markdown (vim), conversion to html, uploading to the Wordpress server and using wp-cli to turn it into a post. https://i-bsd.com/x1c6/ Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/x1c6/ Tested out the X1 Carbon 6th gen Thinkpad with OpenBSD 6.3 after running FreeBSD 11.2 on it. Here are my thoughts after comparing the two. Just a rant. No benchmarks or anything - just purely based off using it for a few days. Overall, OpenBSD is way better in terms of out-of-the-box compatibility but FreeBSD performs way better on this laptop in my opinion. UPDATE: OpenBSD now runs amazingly well on this laptop and is my daily driver. https://i-bsd.com/cava/ Fri, 22 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/cava/ Need your advice - I’m having some issues with cava and the fifo visualizer in ncmpcpp on FreeBSD. What’s the best solution here? I must be missing something. UPDATE: I ‘kinda’ got cava working by adding this to ~/.config/cava/config: method = pulse source = oss_output.dsp4.monitor https://i-bsd.com/drm-next-kmod/ Mon, 18 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/drm-next-kmod/ This will quickly explain how I optimized my Intel HD on my X1 Carbon 6th gen ThinkPad for FreeBSD using the drm-next-kmod port. Also how to set the DPI settings for X (i3wm specifically). I forgot to mention I added this line to my i3wm startup: xrandr --dpi 220 Laptop screen now looks [almost] as good as a Mac. :) Smooth and crisp + high performance. No screen tearing (only when I attempt to record a screencast while compositing is turned on). https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-wireless-8265/ Sat, 09 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/freebsd-wireless-8265/ How to quickly fix the sound from the headphone jack and microphones in FreeBSD with the X1 Carbon 6th gen (same process applies to many other laptop models). It’s just a matter of finding the appropriate nid and correcting their as numbers. I also forgot to mention that I changed the seq numbers too which you can see in my /boot/device.hints file. In summary: Press ‘6’ at boot time. Turn verbose booting on. https://i-bsd.com/best-laptop/ Wed, 30 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/best-laptop/ I bought an X1 Carbon 6th Generation laptop (highest specs) from Lenovo because I wanted to put a BSD operating system on it. Started with FreeBSD and now settled on OpenBSD. UPDATE: I just received the Generation 10 with highest specs. It’s now my FreeBSD daily driver but has a much poorer battery life compared to my Gen 6. I would recommend sticking with a new Gen 9 or refurb ( NewEgg , Amazon ) for now if you care about battery life. https://i-bsd.com/pkg/ Wed, 04 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://i-bsd.com/pkg/ Some Linux distros have great package management (e.g. Debian). But it was the Arch package management that ultimately convinced me to leave Linux and move to FreeBSD permanently. I was tired of the unpredictability and instability upgrading packages (especially when combining the main repo with user repo packages). Inevitably things start breaking. FreeBSD isn’t perfect but it’s definitely rock solid 99% of the time. Even when something doesn’t go right, it’s usually super straightforward to diagnose and fix.