Everything is converging on Linux these days, and even the majority of the people who used to promote Solaris, DTrace and ZFS, have seemingly moved on, mostly to Linux, somewhat to FreeBSD, too, per Brendan Gregg:

Solaris to Linux Migration 2017 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15177118 - Sept 2017 (129 comments)

In the BSD land, things aren't that much better, either.

Netgate, the makers of pfSense, are now using Ubuntu for Netgate TNSR product.

iXsystems, the descendants of BSDi, have moved FreeNAS / TrueNAS from FreeBSD to Linux. They're basically d/b/a TrueNAS now, and it's all Linux now.

You used to need Solaris or illimos or FreeBSD for production-ready ZFS support, but now OpenZFS is provided exclusively for Linux and FreeBSD; note that Linux already comes first in the title; it would seem like it's only a matter of time before FreeBSD support may follow Solaris and illumos.

Joyent, the commercial shepherds of OpenSolaris descendants like SmartOS, were acquired by Samsung, but the entire Solaris part of the equation, including Triton DataCenter orchestration, were subsequently offloaded to mnx.io, a tiny cloud hosting provider based out of a small town in Michigan. (Frankly, without Triton, I don't even understand what remains of Joyent at Samsung? Just the physical servers with the third-party software? It's basically just a name for Samsung's data centre ops and their presumably-Linux-based Private Cloud?)

Apple used to use NetBSD for AirPort WiFi routers, but the whole router line has been discontinued. (I thought Apple actually already dropped NetBSD but couldn't find a source right now.)

Last not least, DJB used to run OpenBSD, then FreeBSD, but then switched to Ubuntu after possibly being annoyed that too many steps were required to make FreeBSD work as a desktop: http://cr.yp.to/unix/feedme.html (my fav is that in FreeBSD the audio doesn't work unless you recompile the kernel). I think he initially may have abandoned OpenBSD because it was crashing too often for undetermined causes: http://cr.yp.to/serverinfo.html.

FreeBSD is still used by Netflix OpenConnect Appliance, which is a huge win, but feels like too many eggs in a single basket:

Serving Netflix Video at 400Gb/s on FreeBSD [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28584738 - Sept 2021 (293 comments)

But that's about it. Linux has won.

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ubedan 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

"There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. ... Now, mostly dead is slightly alive. Now, all dead…well, with all dead, there’s usually only one thing that you can do."

I personally believe that illumos will survive for decades, and it very well could rise again for those users that want/need robust stability.

One particularly notable design win was Oxide Computer Company as their hypervisor. They published their reasoning for choosing illumos here:

https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P5Mk_IggE0&t=2556s

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jsiepkes 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Also Oxide just raised a $100 million series B with their illumos based product [1].

While I respect Brendan I think the arguments he makes are kinda weak. For example take OpenZFS. OpenZFS on Linux or FreeBSD isn't that great;

OpenZFS on Linux is only an option if you want to support the compatibility. As long as OpenZFS can't have (parts) inside the main Linux kernel source tree there is going to be breakage on updates. Which means manually testing and maintaining updates. Or you have to confine yourself to Ubuntu because they are of the opinion you can combine the CDDL and GPL. Don't think Ubuntu indemnifies you against an Oracle lawsuit though.

You could use FreeBSD as an alternative. FreeBSD is great, but lacks a lot of functionality. For example a good I/O scheduler is missing in FreeBSD. The FreeBSD I/O scheduler will basically just do what is most advantageous for it. If you have competing I/O workloads which you want to serve "fairly" there is no way to do that on FreeBSD. Basically the load which "pulls the hardest gets the most".

[1] https://oxide.computer/blog/our-100m-series-b

	▲	cnst a day ago \| parent [-]
		Our $100M Series B (oxide.computer) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44733817 - Jul 2025 (503 comments) This is really good for them, and I do hope they do succeed, but if it's a matter of an individual developer deciding on their optimal area of systems expertise, this is still putting too many eggs in a single basket. The reality is that even Oxide.Computer clients would still be running Linux on their machines. So, as an engineer, you're literally shooting yourself in the foot by NOT moving to Linux, when everyone else has. I think it's a standard sunk cost fallacy here. Some of us continue using BSD, but others switch to Linux and go work at Google, Meta, Amazon and even Oracle and Netflix, at 2x to 4x+ the income we get as BSD and Solaris devs.

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cnst 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P5Mk_IggE0&t=2556s

Great episode! The Dell PERC "parity issue" "you're the only customer having this issue" story is hilarious, reminds me of my own experience getting support over the years as a non-Windows user!

Sadly, today, "non-Windows" is simply being replaced with "non-Linux", so, if you run BSD or Illumos, it's still the same issues.

Oxide Computer is great, I really do hope they succeed, because it does seem like an uphill battle!

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scrlk 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sony still uses FreeBSD for PlayStation.

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hulitu 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Everything is converging on Linux these days

Linux is too bloated.

	▲	cnst a day ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, it's true, but it's simply impossible to find a paying job doing BSD or Solaris these days. I mean, even if you get a job at Oxide Computer, what do you do if you decide to move on because of your manager or whatnot? Literally all the sectors are Linux now, you'd think BSD would be huge in embedded because of licensing, yet it's still Linux. OpenWrt is Linux, Android is Linux, OpenIPC is Linux, not to mention the entire data-centre stacks being all Linux now.