I recently installed FreeBSD on a Dell Latitude D610 laptop (2005) and it worked directly with the default configuration.

How to install FreeBSD with a USB stick:

# copy the memstick image to the USB stick
dd if=FreeBSD-13.2-RC3-i386-memstick.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M conv=sync
# boot on USB and setup partitions...
# install GUI
pkg install xorg
pw groupmod video -m guestuser || pw groupmod wheel -m guestuser
pkg install git
# install and start xfce
pkg install xfce
echo "exec /usr/local/bin/startxfce4 --with-ck-launch" > ~/.xinitrc
startx

After boot, the system takes 200MB and when XFCE is started, it take around 400MB.

I changed the sshd configuration to allow root login with keys.

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
PermitRootLogin prohibit-password

service sshd restart

Libc in FreeBSD is a bit different compare to glibc:

  • glibc supports user define type specifiers for printf format strings
  • libgen.h has to be explicitly included for the basename function

Hashtag: #freebsd