| ▲ | knowknow 5 hours ago |
| It seems FreeBSD is becoming more talked about in enthusiast communities simply because Linux is a lot more mainstream now and there’s a joy in contrarianism rather than any real changes with either of the two operating systems. |
|
| ▲ | travisgriggs 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| My interest has been piqued of late. I've been a Linux enthusiast since the late 90's. I don't think it's a sense of contrarianism that motivates my interest anew. As I've aged, what I've come to value most in software stacks is composability. I do not know if [Free]BSD restores that, but Linux feels like it has grown more complicated and less composable. I'm using this term loosely, but I'm mostly thinking of how one reasons and cognates about the way the system work in this instance. I want to work in a world where each tool on the OS's bench has a single straightforward man page, not swiss army knives where the authors/maintainers just kept throwing more "it can do this too" in to attract community. |
|
| ▲ | IgorPartola 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I can’t speak for whole communities but my interest in FreeBSD has been renewed over the past couple of years. It has been a very solid OS for a long time and the tight integration between the kernel and core userland has meant that it is sometimes more performant than some popular Linux distros. But its UX has not always been amazing. Seems like lately they have really improved that. Plus ZFS and root on ZFS in particular is very nice. I would actually be interested in running it in some production environments but it seems like that is pitted against the common deploy scenarios that involve Docker and while there is work on bringing runc to FreeBSD it is alpha stage at best currently. Still, if you just want an ssh server, a file server, a mail server, it is a great OS with sane defaults and a predictable upgrade schedule. |
| |
| ▲ | arthurfirst 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Docker did work. AFAIK the APIs are there. Someone needs to grab the bull by the horns. Jails and BHYVE vms are excellent -- but I use Docker every day and if I could use BSD as my docker host I would. Good thing my docker servers are all built with terraform so I do not have to touch. | | |
|
|
| ▲ | groundzeros2015 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think it’s a joy of having a system built by a small community for fun and not debates between large corporate interests. |
|
| ▲ | movedx 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I feel like you may never have used it. Would that be true? |
|
| ▲ | BrouteMinou 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The desire to be different is strong with some people. |
| |
| ▲ | shevy-java 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's fine. The thing is: I am different with Linux too. So I don't quite understand that FreeBSD focus. From the BSDs, I think only OpenBSD has a really unique selling point with its focus on security. People ask "why pick FreeBSD rather than Linux" and most will not find compelling arguments in favour of FreeBSD there. | | |
| ▲ | sellmesoap 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Out of the box ZFS is a big selling point for me. Jails are just lovely. The rc system is very easy to reason with. I've had systems that were only stable on freebsd that would crash using windows or various Linux. | | |
| ▲ | arthurfirst 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | ZFS is amazing and while there are many would be clones there is only one ZFS. I used (and pushed) it everywhere I could and first encountered on Solaris before FBSD. Even had it on my Mac workstation almost 18 years ago (unsupported) -- aside I will never forgive that asshole Larry Ellison for killing OpenSolaris. NEVER. Systemd is the worst PoS every written. RCs are effective and elegant. Systemd is reason enough to avoid Linux but I still hold my nose and use it because I have to. | | | |
| ▲ | sbseitz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Debian and Ubuntu support it out of the box. DKMS works for other distros. Same core ZFS code BSD uses. Hope this helps educate you. |
| |
| ▲ | movedx 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I once upgraded a FreeBSD system from 8 to 12 with a single command. I don’t recall having to reboot — might have needed to. Can you give that shot for me on Linux? Could you spin up a Ubuntu 14 VM and do a full system update to 24.04 without problems? Let me know how you go. I once needed help with a userland utility and the handbook answered the question directly. More impressive was the conversation I had with a kernel developer, who also maintains the userland tools — not because they choose too but because the architecture dictates that the whole system is maintained as a whole. Can you say the same for Linux? You literally cannot. Only Arch and RedHat (if you can get passed the paywall) have anything that comes close to the FreeBSD Handbook. FreeBSD has a lot going for it. It just sits there and works forever. Linux can do the same, if you maintain it. You barely need to maintain a FreeBSD system outside of updating packages. Most people who use containers a lot won’t find a home in FreeBSD, and that’s fine. I hope containers never come to the BSD family. Most public images are gross and massive security concerns. But then, most people who use FreeBSD know you don’t need containers to run multiple software stacks on the same OS, regardless of needing multiple runtimes or library versions. This is a lost art because today you just go “docker compose up” and walk away because everything is taken care of for you… right? Guys? Everything is secure now, right? | | |
| ▲ | AdieuToLogic 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I once upgraded a FreeBSD system from 8 to 12 with a single command. The command you most likely used is freebsd-update[0]. There are other ways to update FreeBSD versions, but this is a well documented and commonly used one. > I don’t recall having to reboot — might have needed to. Updating across major versions requires a reboot. Nothing wrong with that, just clarifying is all. > Most people who use containers a lot won’t find a home in FreeBSD, and that’s fine. I hope containers never come to the BSD family. Strictly speaking, Linux containers are not needed in FreeBSD as jails provide similar functionality (better IMHO, but I am very biased towards FreeBSD). My preferred way to manage jails is with ezjail[1] FWIW. > But then, most people who use FreeBSD know you don’t need containers to run multiple software stacks on the same OS, regardless of needing multiple runtimes or library versions. I completely agree! 0 - https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/cutting-edge/ 1 - https://erdgeist.org/arts/software/ezjail/ | |
| ▲ | sellmesoap 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I haven't tried, but I heard podman runs on freebsd :D | | |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | xmcp123 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Linux is not fucking mainstream If anything is mainstream, it’s BSD, because OS X is BSD. |
| |
| ▲ | bigyabai 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | OS X is XNU. BSD code is in the kernel and BSD tooling is in the userland, but the kernel isn't BSD in license or architecture. | |
| ▲ | lern_too_spel 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Linux is the most-user kernel on consumer devices (Android) and servers by a very wide margin. |
|
