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BSD vs. Linux (2005)

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Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#31

Post by anexprogrammer »

nixos wrote: post #30
anexprogrammer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZFS only needs GBs if you need deduplication. 99% don't, almost everyone is better off with compression. 1GB is the min for ZFS though it can run in a little less.

Too much. I've got a 700-800 MB system. It's unfortunate, as I'd love to have a versioned FS

Well, if you're willing to tune settings there's an example on the FreeBSD wiki of someone with a laptop "running nicely" with 768M and their settings.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSTuningGuide

I've no idea what compromises that'll bring you, or how it would react to you pointing it at a multi TB space.

Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#32

Post by joseluisq »

Actually I try FreeBSD as Web Server in a single core VPS (development purposes) and I'm happy with performance and stuff. But my default workstation is Linux in this case Fedora 24 (a RH based) with Gnome 3.x

Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#33

Post by Sylos »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #3

> It's been my impression that the BSD communit{y,ies}, in general, understand Linux far better than the Linux communit{y,ies} understand BSD. Ok fair enough, but the same can be said about manual v automatic transmissions, static versus interpreted languages, etc. When something is harder to use then you're forced to think about it more and understand it better.

I also think, it's somewhat of a fallacy. Most BSD users have come into touch with Linux at some point, whereas the reverse happens not nearly as often (in relative terms), and that's mainly because Linux is simply more popular.

Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#34

Post by _qc3o »

vivin wrote: post #28
dkarapetyan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the layout is coherent at all. Ubuntu layout is much more coherent. If I need nginx configuration I look in /etc/nginx. Following the same pattern if I need mysql configuration I look in /etc/mysql. If I need to figure out the actual daemon configuration for each I look in /etc/init. It's all very nice and tidy. Actual binaries go in /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin or /bin. That's pretty much all I need to k…

FreeBSD is quite coherent. Anything not part of the base system goes into /usr/local. If you're having trouble understanding the layout of the filesystem, you only have to man hier: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?hier(7)

But I thought BSDs where more monolithic and coherent systems. How is drawing a distinction between base system and non-base system make that true? If anything Linux embodies that philosophy much better. There is no ad-hoc and arbitrary decision between what is part of the base system and what is not. The system as whole is coherently laid out without drawing any base/user distinctions. Daemons are daemons, binaries are binaries, tools are tools, configuration is configuration and they all go in predictable places to become part of the overall system.

Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#35

Post by cperciva »

nixos wrote: post #27
cperciva wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm inclined to agree that there probably aren't any great reasons why you would benefit from FreeBSD rather than Debian, but just to correct one misconception: I don't have GBs of free memory for ZFS In the early days of ZFS it required many GB of memory -- it was developed for Solaris, and designed for servers with lots of memory. But it has improved dramatically since it first came to FreeBSD, and people run it wi…

How much RAM is required these days?

There are definitely people running ZFS on systems with less than 1GB of RAM. I'm not sure if anyone is running ZFS on a system with less than 512 MB of RAM.

(FWIW, at one point the amount of address space was far more important than the amount of RAM -- amd64 systems with 1 GB of RAM would run better than i386 systems with 2 GB. I'm not sure if this is still the case.)

Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#36

Post by corv »

nixos wrote: post #12

I know Linux (Debian) quite well and would like an excuse to try learning FreeBSD, but I just can't find any serious use-cases where FreeBSD would be of any advantage. I run a small site on a VPS, so: 1. I don't have GBs of free memory for ZFS 2. I don't have GB of RAM, CPU and HD space to build everything from ports, and most importantly, no need. Except for an Application Firewall for nginx, what does ports have ov…

Linux is fine for ordinary computing and many specialized tasks but some areas are better served by BSDs.

If you require the integrity guarantees offered by ZFS and still want the efficient resource allocation of containers you will not get around FreeBSD or a Solaris based distribution.

If you need a system that is secure by default you will not get around OpenBSD.

If you need the portability of Linux coupled with a license that lets you freely redistribute in order to sell an appliance you will be hard pressed to get around NetBSD.

By the way, ZFS will run fine on small VPS since the RAM cache can be turned off. You still get instant snapshots and rollbacks, efficient replication and integrity guarantees.

Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#37

Post by rossy »

vivin wrote: post #5

I was a long-time FreeBSD user. Started using it in college and continued for a long time. I started using Linux because I had bought myself a new laptop and BSD didn't recognize the wifi card. I continued using FreeBSD at home for a few more years on my webserver before ultimately moving to dreamhost (I just didn't have the time to keep maintaining my own server). I like using Linux, but I still miss the predictabil…

> anything I install from source sits in /usr/local

To be fair, this is the norm on Linux too. I have never used BSD as a desktop operating system, but everything I've installed from source also sits in /usr/local. It's the default install directory for most Linux build scripts and I feel dirty if I add anything directly to /usr that the package manager isn't aware of.

Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#38

Post by dkarapetyan »

merlincorey wrote: post #25
dkarapetyan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the layout is coherent at all. Ubuntu layout is much more coherent. If I need nginx configuration I look in /etc/nginx. Following the same pattern if I need mysql configuration I look in /etc/mysql. If I need to figure out the actual daemon configuration for each I look in /etc/init. It's all very nice and tidy. Actual binaries go in /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin or /bin. That's pretty much all I need to k…

It isn't actually as nice and tidy as it would seem because you do not have a direct separation between system configuration and application configuration. It's a small, subtle detail that for many is less important today than it once was; however, if I have two FreeBSD systems of mostly equal versions and I want to migrate applications and/or users from one to the other, I know ALL I have to do is copy from /usr/loc…

I don't want that separation in a consistent and coherent system. User vs base is artificial. What I care about is the end result the overall system accomplishes and base vs non-base doesn't really factor into that. What does it matter to me if nginx is part of the base system or not? I need a web server. Arbitrarily choosing apache/httpd vs nginx to include as part of the base system is incidental complexity where I stand from.

Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#39

Post by vivin »

_qc3o wrote: post #34
vivin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeBSD is quite coherent. Anything not part of the base system goes into /usr/local. If you're having trouble understanding the layout of the filesystem, you only have to man hier: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?hier(7)

But I thought BSDs where more monolithic and coherent systems. How is drawing a distinction between base system and non-base system make that true? If anything Linux embodies that philosophy much better. There is no ad-hoc and arbitrary decision between what is part of the base system and what is not. The system as whole is coherently laid out without drawing any base/user distinctions. Daemons are daemons, binaries…

Have you read the article? It isn't an ad-hoc distinction. You get the base system with a FreeBSD install. It includes the kernel and everything else that makes it a "FreeBSD system". This is stuff maintained by the BSD team. Everything else is an add-on.

If you blew away /usr/local, you would be left with a pristine (mostly) BSD install.

An analogy is a base windows install and all the associated tools and drivers. Anything else you install on your own is an add-on.

This distinction is hardly arbitrary.

Edit

Seems to me you have a hard time understanding what a "base system" means. This is what the article is trying to explain, and it seems to have gone completely over your head; I can't help with that.

Re: BSD vs. Linux (2005)

#40

Post by _qc3o »

vivin wrote: post #39
_qc3o wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I thought BSDs where more monolithic and coherent systems. How is drawing a distinction between base system and non-base system make that true? If anything Linux embodies that philosophy much better. There is no ad-hoc and arbitrary decision between what is part of the base system and what is not. The system as whole is coherently laid out without drawing any base/user distinctions. Daemons are daemons, binaries…

Have you read the article? It isn't an ad-hoc distinction. You get the base system with a FreeBSD install. It includes the kernel and everything else that makes it a "FreeBSD system". This is stuff maintained by the BSD team. Everything else is an add-on. If you blew away /usr/local, you would be left with a pristine (mostly) BSD install. An analogy is a base windows install and all the associated tools and drivers.…

I read the article. The distinction is indeed arbitrary. How much do you need for a base system really? Do you need more than the kernel, network drivers, and the filesystem? Last time I checked FreeBSD came with way more than those things. So someone, somewhere decided to include a whole bunch of other things as part of the base whereas they could just as easily be addon packages. I think FreeBSD includes various compilers and perl by default. Why's that? How is a compiler an essential part of a system? There are no apriori reasons to make certain "addons" part of the base system and others not. Linux does not draw this distinction and reaps the benefits of a more coherent system.

The equivalent of "base system" in linux land is called a distribution and rightfully so. There is nothing basic about a distribution. It is an arbitrary set of choices made by the distribution maintainers and it is sold/advertised as such.

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