You should try FreeBSD (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#31

Post by natch » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:24 PM UTC

I like FreeBSD a lot but I found OpenBSD to be even nicer. Mostly because the of the practice they have of including real examples of command usage in UNIX man pages. Sounds like a small reason, but it was quite a boon.

Caveat: This was a while ago. I don't know if FreeBSD has adopted the same practice.

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#32

Post by alimbada » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:26 PM UTC

> A really big difference is that FreeBSD is the kernel and userland together.

Can someone explain the significance of this as the author seems to keep glossing over it. What's does he mean by saying they are "together" and what is the advantage of it?

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#33

Post by eatonphil » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

corv wrote: post #30

eatonphil wrote: post #26

I recently switched my dev machine (laptop) from Ubuntu to FreeBSD because I wanted the experience. I wrote a post about it[0]. Basically, wifi and graphics were a PITA and I brute forced my way into getting them working. After getting past those two though, everything else just worked. The simplicity of the system compared to Debian/Ubuntu is just astounding. I haven't yet gotten into jails or bhyve, but those are t…

I've found that OpenBSD has incredibly complete support for many laptops, going so far as to support Thinkpads with touchscreens and digitizer pens out of the box. Overall I find FreeBSD's desktop to be more usable, even though OpenBSD has more streamlined configuration in some parts of the system.

I agree! For instance, my wifi card (Centrino 2230) is not supported on FreeBSD 10.2-STABLE but it has been available on OpenBSD for a little while. It is now supported in HEAD but won't be in STABLE until 11.0 next year.

I decided to go with FreeBSD because, from what I read, it seemed like it and 3rd-part packages are kept more up-to-date. As a server-side and front-end developer, this is somewhat more immediately important than "complete security".

Edit: Additionally, jails and bhyve are a big motivator to pick FreeBSD over OpenBSD, personally.

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#34

Post by protomyth » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

crb wrote: post #10

Does anyone have a source that FreeBSD are used at Google and Netflix today?

video from AsiaBSDCon 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sZZN8Szh14

interview with Scott Long of Netflix on BSD Now http://www.bsdnow.tv/episodes/2013_12_25-the_gift_of_giving

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#35

Post by bluedino » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

corv wrote: post #15

crb wrote: post #10

Does anyone have a source that FreeBSD are used at Google and Netflix today?

Also WhatsApp

And NetApp

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#36

Post by unluckier » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:29 PM UTC

myxlptlk wrote: post #17

As far as I know, FreeBSD is more secure than most of the out of the box Linux versions(not considering jails). Does anyone know an article that illustrates this?

I've heard the opposite. Although it's comparing to OpenBSD in this case, here's a good graphic that shows the exploit mitigations that FreeBSD provides by default: http://networkfilter.blogspot.com/2014/12/security-openbsd-v...

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#37

Post by therealmarv » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:29 PM UTC

I really wanted to try FreeBSD because of ZFS. Then I've seen benchmarks of ZFS between FreeBSD and ZFS on Linux on Ubuntu. Ubuntu was nearly double the speed in the benchmarks. I was sold to Ubuntu. Simple.

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#38

Post by corv » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC

mavhc wrote: post #13

obsurveyor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always read /usr/ports/UPDATING after upgrading your ports tree, before upgrading any ports. This usually has what's going to break and instructions about how to manage. It does seem like it's not updated as often these days though.

Is there an equivalent to Debian's Stable packages?

There are several tiers. Nowadays installing a release version of FreeBSD, packages will get updates quarterly with security updates in between as required. In effect the system is suited for production and very stable by default.

Other tiers include the stable and current branches which track development more closely.

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#39

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC

unluckier wrote: post #22

How's FreeBSD doing in the exploit mitigation department? Last I checked, they didn't even have ASLR. http://networkfilter.blogspot.com/2014/12/security-openbsd-v...

[deleted]

Re: You should try FreeBSD (2014)

#40

Post by wsterling » Fri, Nov 20, 2015, 4:32 PM UTC

alimbada wrote: post #32

> A really big difference is that FreeBSD is the kernel and userland together. Can someone explain the significance of this as the author seems to keep glossing over it. What's does he mean by saying they are "together" and what is the advantage of it?

The userland and kernel are developed together by the same group of people/project. So the design is consistent across the system. In Linux the kernel comes from Linus and the kernel development team. The userland usually comes from the GNU core utils team, the distro creator and several other places. This can cause disconnects between how various things in the system work, kernel patches to get a random features to work, etc.