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Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

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Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#41

Post by silentbicycle »

alec wrote: post #14

I used FreeBSD and OpenBSD for a while, and what drove me back to GNU/Linux was package management. OpenBSD was OK at it even if it had a limited selection, but I never had much luck with FreeBSD ports. Having a nice, stable base system wasn't very useful when ports were always being updated to the latest version; if I wanted a security fix, I had to take all the feature changes and new bugs, too. I tried a bunch of…

While I'm not as up on FreeBSD, OpenBSD's package management has really improved over a year or so ago - I run snapshots on my desktop, updating the whole shebang every week or two, and "sudo pkg_add -ui -F update -F updatedepends" just updates everything* via binary packages. It updates as smoothly as Debian.

Also, in 7 years, I've never had package updates break things on OpenBSD (aside from config file formats changing or postgres database transfers, with warnings at update). That happened to me a couple times with Debian (around woody).

* except for my ports that haven't made it upstream yet.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#42

Post by sigil »

silentbicycle wrote: post #36

I've been using OpenBSD for several years (since 3.4...wow, that's almost seven years), as my primary OS. I had been running Debian for 2~3 years, and Red Hat (briefly, ick) before that. A lot has been covered already, but: 1. The BSDs feel significantly more cohesive to me. Other people have mentioned this, but it deserves greater emphasis. The config files, man pages, etc. are quite a bit more consistent, and my fi…

> 5. I really like source / ports-tree-based packaging ... Some Linux distros (Arch and Gentoo) have similar packaging systems, now.

FreeBSD user here. I've always been curious about the ports-tree-based packaging systems found in these Linux distros. Is anyone familiar enough with both to offer a comparison?

Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#43

Post by njharman »

cperciva wrote: post #12

(Speaking as a FreeBSDer here -- I'll let NetBSD and OpenBSD folks cover those, since I don't follow them closely enough to offer accurate comments.) 1. We don't let licenses get in the way of making good technical decisions. This means that, for example, we had no problem with importing DTrace and ZFS. 2. We have more of an emphasis on doing things right. This often means that it takes longer before we acquire new f…

I'm not trying to be argumentative, trollish, etc. But, really none of those are very compelling and a couple are negatives. I can see 3,4,5 being important if I developed software that is directly affected by any of that. 1 is a political argument and one that I stand on other side of the fence on. 2 just sounds like it takes longer for stuff to be released. 3 meh. 4,5 extra meh. Recompiling is so trivial that not having to recompile is a non-feature. 6. I never groked ports I might not hate it if someone explained it to me. OTOH rpm and apt made sense from reading docs.

My point is, isn't there anything else? Cause if that's it, I totally understand the respective "market share" FreeBSD and Linux have.

btw I've used OpenBSD for public facing firewalls way long ago cause it's security emphasis was a huge feature over Linux.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#44

Post by silentbicycle »

sigil wrote: post #42
silentbicycle wrote: post #36

I've been using OpenBSD for several years (since 3.4...wow, that's almost seven years), as my primary OS. I had been running Debian for 2~3 years, and Red Hat (briefly, ick) before that. A lot has been covered already, but: 1. The BSDs feel significantly more cohesive to me. Other people have mentioned this, but it deserves greater emphasis. The config files, man pages, etc. are quite a bit more consistent, and my fi…

> 5. I really like source / ports-tree-based packaging ... Some Linux distros (Arch and Gentoo) have similar packaging systems, now. FreeBSD user here. I've always been curious about the ports-tree-based packaging systems found in these Linux distros. Is anyone familiar enough with both to offer a comparison?

While I've done very little with Gentoo, Arch's packaging seemed to me like running OpenBSD's ports tree from cvs, but without the option of an updated-every-six-months super-stable milestone release. It's inherently a "bleeding-edge" distro, which is not necessarily true for OpenBSD. (I run OpenBSD from snapshots/source and update a few times a month, but I also maintain some ports.)

I've only experimented with Arch, though, and I'd also like to hear from others who know both well.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#45

Post by jrockway »

avar wrote: post #38
SageRaven wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used FreeBSD for servers and my personal workstation for quite a few years. I love FreeBSD, and the thought of having to support a Linux variant is not a pleasant one. Not that I have a bone to pick with Linux, since I thought it was an excellent OS for the 10 or so years I used it before trying FreeBSD. But once I tried, and became accustomed to, FreeBSD, there was simply no turning back. However, I take issue…

Yeah point #1 is odd. GNU/Linux doesn't let licenses get in the way of technical decisions. DTrace and ZFS aren't in Linux because Sun explicitly designed their licensed to be GPL-incompatible. Where that isn't the case nobody is seeking to replace code due to license reasons. E.g. you don't see Linux people trying to replace X11 or Sendmail because of their licenses. But the BSD systems are actively trying to phase…

Exactly. I always read BSD discussions and think "what a bunch of licensing fanbois". I guess since the OS and the license have the same name...

Anyway, here's why I support Linux and the GPL: the WRT54G. Linksys would have never released the source code for the router's kernel without being forced to. But when they did it, an amazing thing happened, third-party developers made their product one of the most popular wireless routers ever. With open source, everyone benefited -- users got better products, hackers had fun, an d Linksys made more money.

If Linux was BSD-licensed, the WRT54G would be a long-forgotten relic of the past.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#46

Post by cperciva »

njharman wrote: post #43
cperciva wrote: post #12

(Speaking as a FreeBSDer here -- I'll let NetBSD and OpenBSD folks cover those, since I don't follow them closely enough to offer accurate comments.) 1. We don't let licenses get in the way of making good technical decisions. This means that, for example, we had no problem with importing DTrace and ZFS. 2. We have more of an emphasis on doing things right. This often means that it takes longer before we acquire new f…

I'm not trying to be argumentative, trollish, etc. But, really none of those are very compelling and a couple are negatives. I can see 3,4,5 being important if I developed software that is directly affected by any of that. 1 is a political argument and one that I stand on other side of the fence on. 2 just sounds like it takes longer for stuff to be released. 3 meh. 4,5 extra meh. Recompiling is so trivial that not h…

But, really none of those are very compelling and a couple are negatives

For you, that might be entirely true. We're not fanatics; we have no trouble accepting that for some people FreeBSD isn't the best OS for every task. There are FreeBSD developers who are perfectly happy using Linux, OS X, OpenSolaris, and even Windows on a daily basis.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#47

Post by sigil »

I've been using FreeBSD and Linux side by side for about 10 years. FreeBSD appeals strongly to the developer side of me: a typical install puts the complete kernel source code in /usr/src, includes a compiler and other build tools, section 3 man pages, and Makefiles for 20,000+ software packages (the ports system). On Debian-based systems at least, these are things I have to ask for later, and there always seems to be a bit more struggle involved in any given developer setup...it's almost like there's a velvet rope separating users from developers.

Maybe other developer-centric Linux distros have caught up in certain ways; I'm actually quite interested in hearing more about them. With FreeBSD though, the low barrier to development has always been there, and when you dig deeper, you'll start to feel like part of a great tradition.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#48

Post by Andys »

Andys wrote: post #7

They have a different development model which is not as Linus-centric. The user-land and kernel ship together as a more tightly integrated package. In terms of performance, I found that the linux kernel is often optimised for bandwidth at the expense of latency. eg#1, When the system is under heavy memory pressure, Linux tends to grind to a halt and start killing processes randomly, where FreeBSD responds more gracef…

ps. I should add that I really don't use BSD much anymore. The reason is that ease of administration and wider driver support is more important to me than purity of development, and neatness of the user-land.

For that reason I'm using Ubuntu Server for many roles now.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#49

Post by nalbyuites »

silentbicycle wrote: post #44
sigil wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5. I really like source / ports-tree-based packaging ... Some Linux distros (Arch and Gentoo) have similar packaging systems, now. FreeBSD user here. I've always been curious about the ports-tree-based packaging systems found in these Linux distros. Is anyone familiar enough with both to offer a comparison?

While I've done very little with Gentoo, Arch's packaging seemed to me like running OpenBSD's ports tree from cvs, but without the option of an updated-every-six-months super-stable milestone release. It's inherently a "bleeding-edge" distro, which is not necessarily true for OpenBSD. (I run OpenBSD from snapshots/source and update a few times a month, but I also maintain some ports.) I've only experimented with Arch…

I have been an Arch user for about 6 months now. jumped the ship from Gentoo. Since I like to stay bleeding-edge, on Gentoo that meant often-broken packages that took a lot of time to fix. Arch has been very smooth till now, despite my using a lot of AUR packages.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a Linux guy. Tell me about all those BSDs

#50

Post by sigil »

alec wrote: post #14

I used FreeBSD and OpenBSD for a while, and what drove me back to GNU/Linux was package management. OpenBSD was OK at it even if it had a limited selection, but I never had much luck with FreeBSD ports. Having a nice, stable base system wasn't very useful when ports were always being updated to the latest version; if I wanted a security fix, I had to take all the feature changes and new bugs, too. I tried a bunch of…

Binary package management in FreeBSD isn't well-advertised, but it's definitely there:

  # portupgrade -rvP --batch foo-1.2.3
This will upgrade installed package foo and anything that depends on it using binary packages from the mirror site, falling back on a build from source.

Installing a new binary package:

  # portupgrade -vNP bar/baz
If you're using portaudit to stay on top of vulnerabilities (it's part of the default install these days), here's a nice way to upgrade everything:

  # portaudit -a | sed -ne 's/^Affected package: //p' | sort -u | \
     xargs portupgrade -rvP --batch
I'm like you, for some vulnerabilities I don't want to upgrade a ton of stuff. FreeBSD is perfect for this though, you can just pop into the port directory, "make extract," apply the patch, and "make reinstall." You can avoid full rebuilds by always passing "-W" to portupgrade whenever you install / upgrade stuff.
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