NomadBSD | An Amazing OS For USB Drives

okay welcome to another video so it's been a long while now since i've checked out anything bsd like on the channel so i thought what we could do today is take a look at the latest version of nomad bsd now it's been even longer still since i've checked out nomad bsd and since then there's been many changes and new versions released so i'm quite excited to check things out now nomad bsd is of course an operating system intended to be run from a usb device so today i'm going to be installing onto an external ssd to help speed things up a bit so some of the main changes in this release are the base system has been upgraded to freebsd 13.0 which means this is the first time i'm going to be checking anything else based on the new 13.0 release the partition alignment has been changed to 1m to improve the write speed on flash devices a bug where glx is disabled has been fixed and drivers for vmware have been added now on the download page of known bsd's website they do give you some simple instructions on how to get the image written to a usb device and have different instructions for different operating systems and we're going to be doing it on linux so we need to use these commands to get the image on our usb so the device i'm going to be using for my installation is a dev sdb and you want to make sure using the right device when you're writing the image otherwise you might overwrite something quite important so what we're going to do is go over to a document i've got ready with the commands that we need and i'm going to change the sdx to sdb and all we need to do now is make sure that we're extracting the right thing to create the image from so in the downloads folder that we are currently in we'll do an ls and as you can see right here this is what we want to turn into an image so if we just copy this over ctrl c and then go back into our document right here and then change this to this bad boy and now we're going to do the same here but this time we're going to remove the lzma and just have the dot image as the final part like so now all we need to do is copy over these commands to start doing the process of writing the image to a usb so first up this command here is going to take that and then create a dot image file from it so we're just going to copy that over like so and hit enter okay that command is now finished and as you can see we now have just a one dot image file and now what we want to do is dd that dot image to a usb device so if we go back into our file manager and go to properties we can see that the file size for the dot image is 4.7 gb which means any usb drive that you're copying it onto needs to be of minimum of 5 gb in size and now we're going to write the image to the usb using dd and you will need sudo for this so like i mentioned beforehand make sure you've got the right device so for me it's sdb and make sure you've got the right file name for the image itself so we're going to type in our password and now that's going to start writing that image to our usb device okay that's now complete and the image is now on our usb drive now as i'm using an external ssd is a very quick process but it might take you a little bit longer if you're using like a standard usb stick so we're going to do now is reboot and boot off of our external ssd and begin the initial setup of nomad bsd so i've just poured off of my external ssd and now we have some initial nomad bst setup to do and then we can start checking out the desktop so the first step we need to choose our language or locale so for me it's going to be english united kingdom which is right about there and next so welcome to the nomad bsd setup wizard before you can use nomad bsd there are some things that need to be set up the setup will only write to the usb flash drive it is currently running from it will not change your system and that's what's really cool about nomad bsc you can kind of just have a spare usb device that it lives on and then every time you might need it just plug it in and you are good to go so let's press next so for the default keyboard layout it's already selected english uk for me and i'm just going to go to this box below and test it out to make sure i do need to make any changes and it's all working as it should and go to the next step so we can add additional keyboard layouts i'm not too concerned about that so i'm going to skip this part for now and now we're going to select our time zone which for me is europe london and next we're now going to do our password for the user and root and the user account is a nomad and for the administrator account root is going to be using the same password so let's type it all in and then we are good to go with the next step next so i'm going to skip encryption for now but if you don't want to do it you can go ahead with this step to set up encryption as well next okay choose your default application so this is something i really did remember quite enjoying from the first time i checked out is that you can actually choose the shell you're going to use by default it uses fish which i'm not super familiar with and i'm more happy to use bash we're going to leave it on bash now for the editor we could use the easy editor the vim or vi i'm going to stick with vim and now for the gui editor i'm going to leave it on leaf pad but you can also get gvm and then again vim once more and now just below that we've got the file manager so the default is funeral or you can go for pc man fm funerals are a little bit more full feature than pc man fm so i'm going to leave it on the phone or file manager and next so we've got a little summary here before we commit to make those changes so let's press commit now so we're now going to pause the video and we'll come back once this is finished right so the nomad bsd setup has finished so we can press finish now to reboot and start checking out our desktop okay so here we are on nomad bsd desktop and i do actually quite like the out of the box look and feel that you get with nomad bsd it's quite clean very simple just single panel at the top and a dock at the bottom and i do believe if i remember correctly the dock you are using is plank and it does have icon zoom enabled out of the box the theme it's using by default is transparent and it doesn't appear to have any other additionals apart from what's standard when you install the plank package so what i'll probably do at some point is also install a theme perhaps the shade theme because i think that will match quite nicely with our top panel now on our top panel at the very left we have our application launcher where you can go for all of your application categories as well as go to your different desktops reconfigure log out and then update your menu and you can access the same menu anywhere on your desktop with a right click now at the very right side of our panel we have our date and time and then clicking that will open up your calendar selection and then just to the left of that we have our current connection so i'm using ethernet we then have a little volume icon and clicking that is going to open up what's called the dsb mixer where we can go through all of our sound outputs and play around with things like so and then last but not least clicking this will then open up your connected devices using the dsmb client the dsp dspmb client and there we can see all of the drives are currently attached to this computer okay so i think what i want to do to start off with is see if there's any updates that we need to grab and we're going to do it the gui way so using this package right here called octo pkg this should be able to go through and update any packages that we need to get so first of all if we press this button right here or using control d we can update the repository so as you can see synchronizing databases updating freebsd repository catalog all repositories are up to date and the command has finished okay and that's pretty much the same thing as if you used to go into a terminal now i do believe we do have pseudo privileges so if we type in sudo pkg update that should do pretty much the same thing as what's just happened there so as you can see all repositories are up to date now let's close that off now just beneath here we can see the number six so i do believe that's the amount of packages that we can update so if you hover over it as you can see there there are six updates available so if you go ahead and press install that should then open up something else there we go so the following eight packages need to be retrieved the total download size is 217 mb and that's going to be updating things like firefox which is using the esr package so the extended support release i do believe that stands for we'll check that out in just a moment liberal office version is 7.1.2.2 underscore 4 but that's now going to be getting updated to a newer version and thunderbird is also getting updated so let's go ahead and confirm that update and i'll pause the video and come back once that's finished okay so our package updates have complete and as you can see there we have a little command finish okay now what we're going to try out is installing a new package again using the gui so if we go up to the search bar here you can see it's currently searching for install programs or packages but if we click this button right here we can then install new packages so let's test out with something small for example h dot so we do that and then we should have the option there to go ahead and install htop so what can we do we can go straight into info or install so pressing install and i do believe there'll be an apply button that we need to click in just a moment which means you can do batch installations let's also test out one more package let's go for ranger which is another sort of terminal based file manager so what have we got here is this the range that i think it is let's go on to info so file manager with a vi key bindings let's go ahead and install that so again we're going to go ahead and press install and now pressing this apply button that will batch ahead go ahead and install works packages or instead of using that button we can press ctrl and m and there we go so the following two packages need to be retrieved which are htop and ranger with a total download size of 434 kb so very small indeed so pressing yes and it's now going to go ahead and run the update as well as installing those packages and as you can see they have both now been installed and as you can see at the top right has also gone ahead and updated the open box menu automatically for you so now if we go back into our sakura terminal and now let's test out that those packages have been installed without any issues at all so there we go with h top and we can see that we are using currently 2.36 gb in h top of ram and we do not have anything like a swap partition or anything like so now let's see if we've got ranger all working so let's clear that for a second and type ranger and there we go so we now have the terminal based file manager of ranger and i do believe we also have one pre-installed which is midnight commander or mc but we're just about to go ahead and check out the default packages right now so using the application launcher in the top left of our panel we can go through the categories and see what we've got installed out of the box and if i remember quite rightfully it does actually come installed with quite a lot which makes it very good just to keep on your usb for when you might need it so under application we have hp ui scan in audio we have dsp mixer in audio and video we have asunder cd ripper audacity cantata dead beef mpv media player simple screen recorder vlc media player for all of your video files and xf burn now in development we have genie we have the qt5 linguists and assistants and in graphics we have which is very nice to see installed out of the box let's just open it up and see what version of we are currently using and we've got quite a nice recent version of there at version 2.10.24 let's keep it moving so is it anything else in graphics we have the gt cam digital camera browser so that'll be for you like cameras connected to your device so you can view them on your computer view noir and xsan for example scanning now a network again quite a lot of choices here so you have filezilla so if you use like sftp or ftp to manage any of your websites etc you can go ahead and do that in filezilla firefox is your web browser and we know we've got a newer more up-to-date version now since we run the update and it does have the ad blocker you block origin installed out of the box now if we go to help and about once more we can see that is indeed the extended support release and now that we're updated we're using version 78.10.1 esr let's close that one off like so okay what else have we got in internet or network we then have hex chat we have the ipfw gui the linux browser installer gui what does this do then let's open this up it's going to ask you for your pseudo password right what have we got here let's have a look so this program installs the and capable linux version of google chrome the brave or the valde browser they allow you to use web services like netflix prime video or spotify that's very cool actually because something about bsc is that you can't natively watch videos on netflix or things like that so that's going to be using like the linux version of those browsers to let you actually view those sorts of websites which i think is a very cool idea so i think what we'll do we'll um we'll go ahead and install brave and see how that works very cool idea though so let's press install so it's now going to go ahead and run through everything it needs to do so i'll pause the video here and come back once it's finished so i think this is going to take a fair bit of time so while that's going on we're also going to check out some of the other applications installed out of the box let's minimize that for now and keep it moving so as well as the linux browser installer and network we also have the pigeon internet messenger which is a multi-protocol chat client for all of your different services in one window very handy your desktop email client is thunderbird and for torrance it's going to be using transmission qt now for office we have the full liberal office suite as well as qpdf view and while we're here let's open up writer and see that it's got the newer version that we've just installed and that has different dictionary support enabled out of the box for auto spell checking so we're now in version 7. 1.3 i do believe it was and there we go 1.3.2 and it's also got the dictionary all ready to go which is quite handy as well so as you can see that automatic spell checking is working nicely and out of the box on nomad bsd and that's not the same for every single operating system that i've checked out there are some linux distros that have liberal office pre-installed but not the dictionary that's needed for auto special checks or work so it's good to see that all up and running okay let's keep it moving so that was everything in office now in settings we have ar and r for your monitor settings auto start settings if we open up andr for example as well here's where you can set your resolution etc or if you have more than one device display connected let's keep moving so that is in settings we have auto start settings we have customized look and feel let's open this up and see the theming that we are currently using so in here we are currently using the rally theme and if we go on to the icon theme it's using the paperless icon theme which is a very nice icon pack as well okay let's close that off and then keep moving so as well as all of that in settings we also have display manager settings display settings so we have a separate package here for display settings okay interesting i've never actually seen this before but we can see that we're running at full resolution with 60hz so that's all good so we can keep moving now what else do we have we then have our file manager settings so i do believe this should be for funeral it does appear to be so we can set all of the sort of options there that we want to do for funeral but we won't worry about that just now and let's see what else we've got we're going to have our mouse mouse and touchpad configuration open box configuration manager for the window manager panel manager so i do believe we're using the tint 2 panel which has your panel at the top and you have all of these additional themes that you can sort of customize and get it looking just how you want let's close that one off and what else have we got we then have plank preferences so as well as pressing control and right click to get into your plank preferences you can do that here as well very handy and what else do we have in our settings we then have qt5 settings and then a program here to set the background image and there are some ready to go pre-installed out of the box so it should be very simple just clicking it and then pressing set wallpaper and then choosing the mode so we can set it to fill max tile scale or center let's test it out with that one there we go and now let's go back to the default and leave that running so the brave browser has now finished installing as well which is very cool we'll check that out in just a moment let's just set that back to its default and we'll finish up with the rest of the applications now that we're on that and then we'll get to the brave browser and see how that all works i'm quite intrigued actually about that so i think that's everything in settings now in system we have the user accounts bulk rename the dsb batmon the dsb mc file manager for pc man fm interesting so choosing the file manager in the beginning doesn't just sort of install just the one that lets you set which one you want to have as your sort of default file manager so here we can see we're in the home folder and pc man fm and if we go into about we can see we're using version 1.3.1 okay very cool let's keep going so back into system we then have fish htop that we installed ourselves manage user accounts midnight commander so that's another terminal based file manager so you can open it in there or in any terminal window just type in mc and that will open up your sort of two pane file manager right from inside your terminal yes what else do we have we then have the nomad bsd handbook the nomad bsd installer so i think what this does if i remember correctly is it will install your current system onto a hard drive let's have a look so this program will install your nomad bsd with its current configuration onto a hard disk so that's very cool so what we could do is if we wanted to sort of copy this whole system onto an internal drive or any other drive connected we can then set that up like so and here we can also set the desired swap partition in fact i might actually check this out towards the end of the video because i don't think i've ever actually used that so let's close that off for now and keep moving so let's see what else we've got we didn't have octo package which is what we use to update and install new packages printer configuration ranger we installed ourselves and here we have the funeral file manager and again we go to help and about and we can see that we're using version 4.16.6 so very nice let's close that one off oh i've just missed it there we go all right what else do we have in system so i think that's everything and of course the tint 2 panel now in utility we have compton for our screen compositor calculator gvm a gx kb the hp device manager keepassxc we have covanta manager as well so we can use that to theme some sort of like qt applications etc so let's just see what it's currently using so let's go to change to the active theme it's currently using kv adapter okay what else do we have we then have leafpad which is the gui text editor we chose in the beginning pick on planck run command sakura screenshot and what screenshot tool are we using i'm not too sure what screenshot tool that is actually you'll be reader i won't worry about that for now but there we go we can use that to create screenshots of either the whole screen active window or to select a region and let's see if it's tied to our print screen key on our desktop it is indeed perfect what else have we got so i think that's pretty much everything there and of course we have vim and the x archiver for uh managing archives and all of that good stuff now under desktops this is where we can have different desktops so we currently have just the one desktop and then going into that will then let you sort of jump to those sort of application windows and we can also add a new desktop and get to a clean desktop and start populating that with new applications so we can press that to go there and we are now on that desktop and it does have a keyboard shortcut of control alt left and right so very handy now i think that's pretty much everything that i want to check out there for now and of course if we wanted to log out or restart or shut down we press this button here and then we get all of the options so log out reboot shutdown suspend as well as timer now what i want to do is check out the brave stuff and see how that's all worked right so installation of brave has finished let's press ok so in here we can also upgrade browsers so that's going to go ahead and upgrade anything we need to do d install or quit so now that we've done that how do we actually get into that and check out is in network brave browser there we go and in brackets we've got linux are very cool so it integrates with your sort of default application launcher very handy we won't set it as the default for now but we'll go straight into it and there we go no waiting around nice and fluid and it's now installed the linux version of the brave web browser which will enable you to use web browser web applications like netflix spotify etc okay i'm very impressed for that actually very cool to have installed out of the box so with all of the stuff that it comes with and the things that you can do it's kind of like your swiss army knife of usb operating systems to have at your disposal whenever you might need it so i think what we should go ahead and do is test out the installing to another hard disk so i'm just going to pause the video boot into my desktop and just clear a disk and we'll see how that works as well okay so i've just cleared a drive so we can go through the nomad bsd installation wizard and install it onto an eternal hard drive and make sure that's all working but so far i'm really enjoying my sort of revisited look at nomad bsd so the drive i'm going to use is the drevo x1 ssd file system-wise i'm going to leave it on ufs but we could also choose zfs and i'm going to leave the desired size of the swap partition at 2gb so here we can set a username so let's go ahead and just say tyler doesn't ask us for a password or anything like that so this installation script will adopt nomad's complete account only the username changes okay so it's going to use the same password very interesting and we can also set the auto login user okay so i think that's everything let's press next and then we get a summary before we commit let's press commit now so last chance to quit the installation i like that it gives you many options before you actually commit in case you're not quite sure what you're doing so let's press install and there we go so i'll pause the video here and then come back once that's finished okay that has finished it didn't take too long whatsoever so we're gonna do now is press finish and then do a reboot and see if we can boot into that hard disk and make sure everything is the same and we'll start wrapping things up there right so we've just booted up off of the internal drive and everything is looking exactly how it should be so what we're going to do is go into our home folder and make sure the change of the username has worked so there we go the username is tyler as opposed to nomad and now we're going to go into our application launcher and make sure all of the applications that we did install so htop ranger and then the brave web browser or where they should be and there we go so there is the brave and in utility let's see if we've got everything that we should have we do indeed and now in system there as well with h-top and ranger that is really quite impressive before i wrap things up i do want to do a quick screen tearing test to see if we've got any tearing out of the box or whether it's all set up and good to go with video playback so in these lines if you see any breaks it means that we do have screen tearing and there's something we might have to do to get rid of it so let's full screen it and just keep an eye out for any shifts in these lines but from what i can see it's completely tear-free let's just skip in a little bit more nope that's absolutely perfect okay i'm really quite impressed with this right i think that's where i'm going to wrap it up there but that's been my refreshed look of nomad bst and as you can see i've changed the wallpaper to one of the others included i installed a new theme for the plank dock at the bottom there and all in all i actually looks very nice with a minimal effort and i've just been really impressed with this so i really quite enjoyed it the first time i checked it out but it's just got better and better i like the fact that you can do the sort of linux browsers to get around the whole netflix issue on bsd and then also being able to install it onto a hard disk so an exact copy of your system is very cool indeed and if there is any sort of operating system that belongs on your usb drive i think it should be this one it's something you can keep in a draw if you've got any problems with your system we need to get into it and see what's going on or of course just keep it into your rucksack or your bag and always have an operating system with you ready to go i'll leave a link to this in the description below thank you for watching if you've enjoyed this video please subscribe and if you've really enjoyed it you can consider supporting me on patreon join the discord there's a link in the description below i'll see you on the next one bye bye

Channel: Tyler's Tech

Views: 16,199

Rating: 4.9811616 out of 5

Keywords: NomadBSD, NomadBSD review, usb operating system, best operating system for usb, NomadBSD usb os, NomadBSD is amazing, Amazing operating system, NomadBSD 130R-20210508 review, NomadBSD 130R-20210508, NomadBSD FreeBSD 13.0, FreeBSD 13.0, USB operating system, nomad, nomadbsd, nomad bsd, nomadbsd os, usb nomadbsd, nomadbsd iso, nomadbsd review, nomadbsd install, install nomadbsd, nomadbsd installation, nomadbsd usb flash drive, full featured usb os, NomadBSD installation, freebsd

Id: UxDscVR25-o

Length: 24min 35sec (1475 seconds)

Published: Mon May 17 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Aeze2eith]

Wifi support on an old HP ProBook 4540s? No? Thank you.

[u/Royaourt]

It looks like a very fine OS.