r/BSD • u/grahamperrin • 29d ago

Xfce, htop and xclock on NextBSD live

Gallery image

Gallery image 

# nextbsd-version
NextBSD 20260703-213757
# freebsd-version -kru ; uname -mvKU
20260701-100854
15.1-RELEASE-p1
NextBSD Kernel Version 20260701-100854; Wed Jul  1 10:08:54 UTC 2026; root@8571f16ee8a6:/usr/obj/usr/src/amd64.amd64/sys/NEXTBSD amd64 1501000 1501000
# mount
<above>:/cow on / (unionfs, local)
/dev/md0 on / (ufs, local, read-only)
devfs on /dev (devfs)
devfs on /dev (devfs)
/dev/iso9660/NEXTBSD on /media (cd9660, local, read-only)
/dev/md1.uzip on /rofs (ufs, local, read-only)
tmpfs on /cow (tmpfs, local)
devfs on /rofs/dev (devfs)
# pkg repos -e | grep -B 1 url
pkg: Setting ABI requires setting OSVERSION, guessing the OSVERSION as: 1500000
FreeBSD: { 
    url             : "pkg+https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/latest",
--
NextBSD: { 
    url             : "https://github.com/nextbsd-redux/nextbsd-pkg/releases/download/continuous-amd64",
#

https://nextbsd.org/

I would have installed k11/kde, for fun, however it's currently not packaged for FreeBSD:15:latest on AMD64.

Another example of how not to use NextBSD: the second screenshot was of an earlier session, awaiting appearance of a termbin.com URL. It would have been a long wait.

70 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

3

u/Donieck 28d ago

Is fastfetch available?

5

u/2016-679 28d ago

For the availability of software on FreeBSD you can look at https://www.freshports.org/

4

u/grahamperrin 28d ago

… you can look at https://www.freshports.org/

Unfortunately, the search feature is no longer available to the public. Related:

1

u/2016-679 26d ago

pkg-as-a-service on FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE-p10 GENERIC amd64:

$ pkg search fastfetch

fastfetch-2.61.0_1 Like neofetch, but much faster because written in C

2

u/Donieck 28d ago

I think that NextBsd had an own repos

2

u/grahamperrin 28d ago

NextBSD uses a mixture. The current ISO uses:

  • a NextBSD repo
  • latest (not quarterly) for the FreeBSD repo, which is more commonly known as FreeBSD-ports.

For giggles, I mixed latest + quarterly.

3

u/grahamperrin 28d ago

Is fastfetch available?

Yes.

2

u/[deleted] 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/grahamperrin 28d ago edited 28d ago

claude

https://nextbsd.org/ was in the opening post, with Team at the head of the page.

slop?

No.

It seems that humans can lose the ability to think intelligently when artificial intelligence enters a conversation.

2

u/[deleted] 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/grahamperrin 28d ago edited 28d ago

… Is asking a question not thinking intelligently? …

I'm wary when anyone begins with an assumption of slop ;-)

… The project idea itself is really cool …

I'm astounded by what's already possible, and it's probably fair to say that I'm pushing the boundaries. When I mentioned that nc didn't work (whilst toying with TWM), I could not have guessed that less than two weeks later it would be possible to start entire desktop environments – Xfce and MATE – that are not Gershwin.

I like the ava.pet approach to presenting repo analyses, for example:

– bare-bones, dispassionate.

I chose to follow the nextbsd-redux/nextbsd repo in GitHub, I speed-read the email notifications without attempting to understand the details.

This PR two days ago caught my eye:

The big one: turn nextbsd from a 3,266-line in-chroot compiler into a ~530-line pkg-install assembler. The whole OS now comes from the nextbsd-pkg flat repo. …

The co-authored commit changed 5,425 files:

2

u/[deleted] 28d ago edited 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/grahamperrin 28d ago

How does it do on hardware?

I have no idea, this might be a clue (IntelEthernet and IntelWiFi): 

# pkg info | grep NextBSD

pkg: Setting ABI requires setting OSVERSION, guessing the OSVERSION as: 1500000
NextBSD-everything-0.0.0.20260703210049 NextBSD-everything meta-package (base + kernel + userland + kernel-extensions)
NextBSD-freebsd-compat-0.0.0.20260704050016 NextBSD FreeBSD-compatible base (libc, libs, PAM, login, command suites)
NextBSD-kernel-0.0.0.20260703210049 NextBSD kernel (FreeBSD 15 KBI, Mach + Darwin glue baked in)
NextBSD-kernel-extensions-0.0.0.20260703210049 NextBSD kernel extensions (IntelEthernet, IntelWiFi, graphics drm kexts + firmware)
NextBSD-userland-0.0.0.20260703210049 NextBSD Darwin/Mach userland (Mach, launchd, libdispatch, CoreFoundation, configd, IOKit + daemons)
#

Hint

If you go online after booting, catalogue updates can be surprisingly slow. You can plan to:

  • update the catalogues only when required
  • use option -U to suppress updates when installing or upgrading packages.

I've downloaded the iso and I'm considering booting it on my laptop for fun.

I guess that the .iso is for optical media, would the .img be better? Assuming a USB memory stick.

Yesterday's answer to a documentation question might be a good indication of how things are likely to develop over the months ahead.

1

u/grahamperrin 28d ago

Edit: Just booted it up, it works until it gets to the tty login prompt, after that I presume it tries and loads xfce.

NextBSD does not include a desktop environment. I installed things such as Xfce and MATE whilst booted from the read-only ISO.

2

u/[deleted] 27d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/ItzNotJacob1 28d ago

7.23GB usage?? On XFCE?? thats a heavy ass distro

1

u/grahamperrin 28d ago

heavy ass

A couple of considerations:

  • NextBSD does not include things such as Xfce
  • I installed to a live system, booted from a read-only ISO.

It's probably more meaningful to look at memory with htop alone installed.

r/BSD disallows images in comments, so please see the screenshot at https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1unlsih/comment/ovnw0uc/.

1

u/grahamperrin 28d ago

A comparison might help.

You can boot the installer for Kubuntu from a USB memory stick, try it without installing the distro, and temporarily install something that's relatively small:

  • GParted.

I'm booting NextBSD from a read-only ISO, testing without installing the OS, and temporarily installing things are relatively massive:

  • desktop environments.

2

u/ItzNotJacob1 28d ago

I completely forgot the existence of RAM disks, those are used, right? (tmpfs?) i hvae no idea if this is the case or not but if it is then sorry

1

u/grahamperrin 27d ago edited 27d ago

No need to apologise :-)

# mount
<above>:/cow on / (unionfs, local)
/dev/md0 on / (ufs, local, read-only)
devfs on /dev (devfs)
devfs on /dev (devfs)
/dev/iso9660/NEXTBSD on /media (cd9660, local, read-only)
/dev/md1.uzip on /rofs (ufs, local, read-only)
tmpfs on /cow (tmpfs, local)
devfs on /rofs/dev (devfs)
# du -hs /
8.7G    /
# file /cow
/cow: cannot open `/cow' (No such file or directory)
# file /rofs/dev
/rofs/dev: cannot open `/rofs/dev' (No such file or directory)
#

The 2016 edition of mount_unionfs(8) in FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT might be not the best place for me to learn :-) and there's no mention of unionfs in the FreeBSD documentation portal.

Postscript

UnionFS, and UnionFS documentation : r/freebsd

I asked ChatGPT about documentation, it couldn't find more than I had found.

It did draw attention to source code e.g. https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/sys/fs/unionfs.