Could Someone Give me Advice on Configuring NomadBSD for Daily Use and Enhanced Performance?

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Hello there,

I have started using NomadBSD, and I am impressed by its portability and user friendly interface. I am considering making it my primary operating system for daily use but wanted to reach out for some advice and insights before fully committing. I have a few questions and would appreciate any guidance or recommendations from those who have more experience with this distribution.

Are there any specific tweaks or settings that you recommend to enhance performance on NomadBSD? I am using it on a mid-range laptop with 8GB of RAM and a solid state driv; and I am looking to maximize efficiency for tasks like web browsing; programming; and occasional multimedia editing.

What essential software packages do you suggest for someone using NomadBSD daily? I am particularly interested in lightweight applications that align well with the philosophy of BSD; ensuring stability and security.

How do you handle system updates and general maintenance on NomadBSD? Is there a preferred method or tool for keeping the system up to date without risking the stability of the OS?

Given that NomadBSD is designed for portability; what are the best practices for backing up and restoring system configurations and data? Are there any tools or scripts specifically suited for NomadBSD that you would recommend?

Also, I have gone through this post; https://forum.nomadbsd.org/t/should-we-be-concerned-minitab/ which definitely helped men out a lot.

I am excited to learn more from the community and hear about your experiences using NomadBSD in a daily use scenario. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help and assistance.

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Hi @roberrttt, and welcome to NomadBSD community.

Most RAM consumed by Firefox, Thunderbird, and also LibreOffice. For everyday use, you can install lightweight Qutebrowser (or the more common Otter-browser). Without uninstalling Firefox — which your bank and other monopolies can require sometimes. Both of these alternative browsers work smoothly for me. Instead of LibreOffice suite you can use much smaller Abiword, Gnumeric, and so on.

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I also forgot GIMP — instead of which I use GraphicsMagick every day and occasionally mtpaint.

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Also maybe use the UFS version instead of the ZFS version, as this will use less ram. But yes Adding RAM could be a good idea.

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A mid-range laptop should do the job and 8GB RAM is enough for most of daily tasks. The window manager of NomadBSD is Openbox and needs less resources than the heavy GNOME or KDE desktop environments.
I use LibreOffice and the current Firefox 130. For dimming the brightness of the laptop display I installed “gammy”. For editing my photos I start the very powerful GIMP.
If you are missing an app you can install every FreeBSD package. My NomadBSD runs very stable and I don’t miss a thing.

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Unfortunately, NomadBSD doesn’t have Openbox anymore.
It now uses the XFCE desktop environment. It’s not as big as GNOME or KDE, but it’s bigger than Openbox (which is just a window manager).

NomadBSD 132R is the last version supporting Openbox. It’s not available anymore from the main website/mirrors, but I saved a downloadable image here: Where to download 132R and 131R - #6 by gmacar

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