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?
