I have recently started trying out BSDs as an alternative to Linux and found out that Spotify isn't supported. Before you say try it in a browser this doesn't work as spotify has DRM that doesn't work on BSD OSes.
Now is there a way to stream music similar to Spotify? I know there is a downloader program available.
Furthermore do you know what self-hosted options are available? I already have a basic *arr stack and am always up for convoluted server and Linux hijinks.
"BSDs" are not a monolith. You should actually specify what the hell it is you are talking about. Spotify runs just fine under the Linux ABI on FreeBSD.
Hi, I am currently on GhostBSD but that could change so I didn't want to be too specific in the post. I have tried installing spotify the way you suggest and it just crashes before I can get to a login screen. Do you think there is a way to make it work?
I do not use GhostBSD and am not familiar with it. It can be done on vanilla FreeBSD, you need to bootstrap an Ubuntu base system which is somewhat involved since there is not a package for it. Google is your friend.
Honestly I haven't found them to do anything daft yet. From my understanding FreeBSD is a pain to configure for desktop usage as it's designed more for servers. Tell me if I am wrong.
Yes, you are wrong. FreeBSD is a general purpose operating system. You install what you need and configure what you need. GhostBSD and its ilk are for weenies.
Okay I will probably move to FreeBSD proper eventually. I am still new to this though and likely to break things. I don't want to have to go through a whole process every time I mess up to get a usable working system until I actually know what I am doing.
Linux on laptops, and certain other servers (TV headend/DVR, APCO P25 SDRtrunk host), and video transfer workstation. FreeBSD on any other servers, routers, and workstations, including my home automation controller (I maintain a fork of Home Assistant for FreeBSD).
Those steps are outdated. I specifically had to lookup spotify's directions for installing on Ubuntu as the public key has changed I think. It's also just sort of freezes, it doesn't close or anything. There is a message about the GPU drivers I don't really understand and probably can't fix as that's a kernel issue.
Spotify is just an electron app. You can disable any GPU access just like you can with chrome via a flag.
My point is, unless spotify is trying to call a heretofore unimplemented syscall, it can be made to run. The linuxulator is basically as good as native.
Yeah tbh I made a mess of the Linux environment. I am gonna reinstall and see what happens. There are other potentially GPU related things going on on this system though so IDK. Like I could disable it for that one application but that wouldn't fix the other issues if that makes sense.
The Linuxulator is cool but I kind of don't trust it. Maybe I will try Linux containers.
My advice is to ditch GhostBSD, you are basically putting yourself further into the corner than you already are by trying to use FreeBSD on the desktop.
Linux binaries run just by a syscall shim. There's not much to trust or distrust. If all the syscalls are implemented and mapped to native FreeBSD syscalls, the thing works. Otherwise, it doesn't.
Oh I am sure the kernel support is great. I am more having issues working with chroots directly. I am much more at home managing docker and lxc which are more isolated. I just broke something trying to remove a couple chroots while stuff was still mounted - I think I nuked /home. You don't really have that issue with docker containers or lxc, it's a simple command to remove.
More isolated in which way? You should probably read up on how all this stuff is actually implemented, it will clarify your understanding of what is going on rather than just throwing commands at the wall and seeing what sticks.