Is NomadBSD already “tuned” for desktop use, rather than server use?
The reason I ask is that I’d like to experiment with tuning, BUT if NomadBSD is already tuned for the desktop, I don’t want to apply sysctl’s and the like and undo or mess up what is already done.
An additional thought along these lines is if NomadBSD is tuned for usb / sdd and removable media.
Ie, I’m currently using UFS rather than ZFS on any installations I do to usb/sdd’s since I’m running with small ram (4gb or less). Is there any downside to running ZFS in the typical NomadBSD environment with meager resources?
I’m pouring through Michael Lucas’ Absolute FreeBSD book by my side, so I’m more than willing to explore, but don’t want to shoot myself in the foot and turn NomadBSD into a server-tuned system if things like the NomadBSD kernel are already tuned for desktop.
So I just doublechecked /etc/sysctl.conf
and see that NomadBSD seems to be desktop oriented there.
Found some good tips at least up to FreeBSD 11 here for tuning, so I’m looking at those and investigating:
For example, I just added these to my /etc/sysctl.conf for video playback
kern.ipc.shmmax=67108864
kern.ipc.shmall=32768
As per the FreeBSD docs and the hint in the other tutorial:
A nifty tip for the Chromium browser (Would this help Firefox too?) kern.ipc.shm_allow_removed=1
(Normally I run Firefox and this option doesn’t seem to hurt or help it as far as I can tell - browser experts might know more…)
I’ve added them with a little amount of research, but quite frankly not convinced that they are beneficial, especially if these are not helpful with FreeBSD 12.2, or the upcoming 13
So stuff like this is something I’m going to enjoy researching for any possible benefit, or if they are of little benefit now. Need to upgrade my FBSD-fu to make sure I’m not fooling myself…
The ultimate issue is if tweaking knobs like these actually become detrimental or deprecated as FreeBSD progresses. Ie, what worked in 2005 might not be needed in 2021!
@Brian_Masinick
Thanks Brian! I’m not sure if you meant to point to a generic yahoo search, or the first hit which did specifically mention what this guy does to his desktop setups:
Interesting stuff which I’ll look into. These all definitely need research, since for example, this guy’s recommendations came from 2017, where values may no longer be the same or necessary with what NomadBSD uses in 1.4.
Ie, I’ll try not to just blindly copy stuff or make the knobs go to eleven!
I haven’t researched the changes that may have occurred to low level tools but I would be surprised if there has been much, if any, fundamental changes, particularly to anything that affects any API or ABI for that matter.
Such changes would also affect a lot of programs and utilities so I hope that any changes are limited to kernel tuning convenience and not to peripheral interfaces and programming interfaces. To me, at that point you are creating a completely different operating system.
