Speaking of using BSD as a general purpose operating system:
NomadBSD is a persistent live system for USB flash drives, based on FreeBSD. Together with automatic hardware detection and setup, it is configured to be used as a desktop system that works out of the box, but can also be used for data recovery, for educational purposes, or to test FreeBSD’s hardware compatibility.
This seems like quite the polished and minimalist – yet full-featured – FreeBSD distribution to test out your hardware.
Hmm. Might have to give that a try on my laptop. Sounds intriguing…
I just tried this and.. whelp! it’s the fist time *ever* I’ve gotten a “desktop” BSD to work properly on my PCs with zero effort on my part…
Actually, until NomadBSD, I’ve never successfully gotten a “desktop” FreeBSD to work on any PC even with maximum effort. Even back in the PC-BSD days.
Good job, NomadBSD peoples!
I certainly give it a try, for no other reason than curiosity.
I realise appraisals can be highly subjective, because some look at the GUI and think clean and basic means fast, capable and efficient, while others look at the very same GUI and think it is rudimentary, incapable and unsophisticated.
But I can’t help it, because on the surface my perception regarding the complexity of the GUI has an effect on my confidence that a system can handle the features I want as a desktop.