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GhostBSD is an Unix derivative operating system based off TrueOS. It is meant to be an easy segway into BSD via graphical installer. This operating system is a pre-configured desktop with common software. The end user can use it for coding, internet surfing, and other daily computer tasks. In the simplest of terms, it is a free and open operating system for any computer user. When I installed GhostBSD I had difficulty getting my wireless card to work. I reached out on Telegram to ask for help. The lead developer Eric Turgeon answered my questions and helped me fix my wireless connection. Eric graciously agreed to a quick interview.
What is your background? How did you get started in this field? Any suggestions to others that want to follow your path? I did not finish high school, which mean I have no CS degree or software engineering degree. I am a self-taught programmer. I was hoping to study in computer science at the university, but the irony is that I did quit school after realizing that I was 15 year in school and still had 2 years of French grammar course to complete and it was the only thing keeping me from going to college or university.
On my journey of becoming a hacker/cracker searching for more information and new tools to hack/crack, I did find 'How To Become A Hacker' from Eric Steven Raymond. Eric's essay was coming at the right time because my life was starting to change, I became a Christian, and continuing the path of a hacker/cracker was no longer an option for me. I started to be more interested in Open Source, and I discovered I was able to learn computer science by myself. I recommend to everyone to read 'How To Become A Hacker' at http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html by Eric Steven Raymond. For people to follow my path, they need to be curious and ready to pass time to read, implement what they learn and start a project that would force them to learn what they need to get things done. Yeah, that sums it for me, because everything I know today is due to the fact that at one point I needed it for GhostBSD, FreeBSD or work.
What lead you to BSD? Why not another operating system platform? When I did read 'How To Become A Hacker' a couple of times, BSD and BSD UNIX was mentioned, and BSD Unix was sticking in my head because of UNIX. In the essay, it stated 'You can find BSD UNIX help and resources at www.bsd.org.' from there FreeBSD was looking promising. I did download FreeBSD, but with the lack of a GUI I was not able to do much so it did turn me off at first, with more search I did find PC-BSD and installed PC-BSD 1.4, but I was a Gnome2 guy, and at that time PC-BSD was KDE only. I did like Ubuntu a lot, and I thought why is there no project like Ubuntu in the BSD world, so that was about that time that the idea GhostBSD started. Since only FreeBSD supported native Nvidia drivers, I started there.
Today with FreeBSD, GhostBSD, TrueOS, and FreeNAS, it feels like home. It is hard to imagine to go back to GNU/Linux, and I would say that for me it is appealing to know that BSD is a replacement of Unix and that BSD is derivated from BSD Unix. Also, the BSD license makes much more sense for me compared to GPL.
Whom do you see as a common user of BSD? I see mainly BSD for servers, but for people that have the right hardware, it can work great for laptop and desktop use. I would say it is probably for people that want a system developed at a safe pace and is not happy with what is happening with other systems. There is also some user that use BSD without knowing it by using iPhone, Mac OSX, PS3, PS4, Netflix, WhatsApp, and so on.
Linux is being consumed by corporate investment, IBM and Redhat for example. Do you think BSD can get a larger foothold of Linux users due to the corporation consumption model in Linux? FreeBSD is used, by iXsystems for FreeNAS, TrueNAS, TrueCommand, TrueOS. FreeNAS is, in my opinion, the best Open Source Network Attached Storage software out there, it also makes TrueNAS the best commercial solution for companies that need a massive amount of storage and the customers supports is excellent. Apple iPhone and MAC OSX are BSD systems. Sony did use FreeBSD for PS3 OS and PS4 OS. Netflix is using FreeBSD for its Open Connect Appliance. There is a lot of other companies using FreeBSD there is a list at https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/freebsd. So FreeBSD as already a foothold and it foothold continue to grow. Has a FreeBSD ports committer, the GhostBSD project leader, founder, and developer and an iXsystems employee, I see FreeBSD gaining more territory every day. I do not talk about the other BSD's, because I don't know much about them.
What are the best resources for a new BSD user? For FreeBSD the handbook is excellent, I would say any documentation that a project provides should be good. Absolute FreeBSD, 3rd Edition: The Complete Guide to FreeBSD, FreeBSD Mastery: Jails, FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS are great books also. Editing configuration files is daunting for new users. Do you see this issue preventing new user adoption? Yes and no, Yes for users that never use a system at the administration level, but for users that have used Linux to the same level BSD no.
You created GhostBSD. How difficult was it to develop the platform? Created is a big word let I have put lots of codes together that I did not understand together and call it GhostBSD, at first. After that, I had to take the time to learn how it works and why it was working. The 2 first release did not contain much code from me, and it was FreeSBIE and code from a guy that did a Gnome live cd with FreeSBIE. I had no experience with programming and did know anything about FreeBSD. So yeah that difficult, but I slowly started to understand FreeBSD and was able to have help at the start to guide me and learned C and Python along the way.
Where do you see GhostBSD in the next 5 years? 10 years? I would like to have GhostBSD with all the missing bits and tools to make it just work without any effort of the user and to make it OEM ready. My long term vision would be to write a GTK DE that works flawlessly with FreeBSD.
When GhostBSD migrated to TrueOS was it difficult? No, because it is still FreeBSD, but with OpenRC and with base systems package. From the outside, it looked difficult, but it was reasonably easy. What happened there was a lot of old issues that needed to be fixed, adding all the changes, rolling our packages and system packages, it was a lot to do for one release. I had many people helping on the GhostBSD Telegram group with testing, with code, and moral support. My manager Joe who rewrite all the code to build GhostBSD, Ken from the Trident Project was very useful also when I had problems. Participating in the TrueOS meeting also helped a lot because I am aware of everything related to TrueOS development. I would say that TrueOS, GhostBSD and Project Trident are working collectively to the greater good of desktop on FreeBSD.
What is the most common use for GhostBSD? What hardware do you recommend for a simple install? GhostBSD is commonly used for laptop and desktop. It is also great for a workstation with five disks on ZFS RAIDZ3. For me, it is my daily driver for work, and it is the OS I write all the code for all the project I am involved in. I even play games on GhostBSD, Xonotic is my favorite game.
My main desktop is a GIGABYTE X470 AORUS Ultra Gaming with Ryzen 2700X, 64G of ram and Nvidia 1050TI, so it is running fairly good on new desktop hardware, I would say for a desktop watch for a compatible network card with FreeBSD, and the rest should work great. For laptops, most Lenovo ThinkPad laptops are working great. For most people, the problem will be the WiFi, not all Broadcom, Qualcomm is supported, so that is to watch. There is some user that have swap their laptop WiFi cards to be able to use GhostBSD. Eric, thank you for everything you do with GhostBSD. Your support on Telegram is flawless. Also, I appreciate the chance to speak with you. Congrats on betting out TrueOS for popularity. GhostBSD is a great operating system.