Hello based people of lemmy,
I have recently started trying out BSDs as an alternative to Linux and found out that Spotify isn’t supported. Before you say try it in a browser this doesn’t work as spotify has DRM that doesn’t work on BSD OSes.
Now is there a way to stream music similar to Spotify? I know there is a downloader program available.
Furthermore do you know what self-hosted options are available? I already have a basic *arr stack and am always up for convoluted server and Linux hijinks.
Yep, installed my first Linus Distro in primary school at about 11 yo. Now I am 23.
In all seriousness while I think FreeBSD and GhostBSD are very cool, and have some interesting server applications they do have some annoying limitations. It’s not really their fault either, it sucks being the 4th most common platform/kernel/whatever. The FreeBSD people seem less uptight about working with proprietary software as it’s not the same kind of Open Source Linux is because it’s not copyleft. So you can use their code wherever even in closed source products. They include things like Nvidia drivers straight in their repos.
As for what makes them different/interesting: Linux is very capable but also kind of over engineered, confusing, and somewhat jank. BSDs are generally more simple. You would think this makes them less capable but aside from software support they often have more useful features. BSDs had Jails before Containers where supported properly on Linux.
BSD is almost what Linux is to Windows: faster, more stable, less annoying, and with a fraction of the users, hardware and software support. It’s also a bit more complex to do certain things out of the box - though GhostBSD does give you a GUI and decent installer.
Also BTRFS on Linux feels like this:
Child: “Can we have ZFS?”
Mother: “We have ZFS at home.”
ZFS at home: BTRFS
Like it’s good that it exists, a lot better than other OSes had for a while, but it just doesn’t compare to the stability and performance of the original. There are some areas where it’s a bit more flexible and that can be useful, but generally it’s just not as good. Pretty much Linux, then Apple, then Microsoft all tried copying ZFS, only worse. Heck it actually came from Sun Microsystems, then got Open Sourced allowing the FreeBSD people among others to port it to their system. Linux now has BCacheFS which might be even better but it’s too early to tell.
Sorry for the long response. Thought I would explain some stuff while I am here.
No worries, 'twas a very interesting read!
Glad you enjoyed. I would give one of the BSDs a go. NomadBSD is a good option to try out as it’s designed as a persistent live system that runs from a USB drive. Let me know if you have any questions, though I am far from an expert on this yet.