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Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

unixsheikh.com

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Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#71

I use FreeBSD on servers instead of Linux for one reason: ZFS. It's really that much better than anything that is currently available on Linux. BTRFS is not even close. Yes I know it's available on Ubuntu but everything else about Ubuntu is just so messy.

but you can use ZFS on linux?

Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#72
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or pick an operating system where you don't need to read the handbook to get working WiFi.

I'm on Linux and have to get a rtw8852 driver from some random-ish gitHub repo to get WiFi in a recent Lenovo. Does this mean WiFI is only for Win/Mac?

Does it mean rtw8852 is supported on *BSD?

Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#73

Let me pick and choose a few points since replying to everything will necessitate a similar 40-page post. FreeBSD has great engineering and release management practices When someone gets an idea and develops something new, it first gets peer technical reviews The recent WireGuard debacle left a bad taste about this. As it actually turns out, sometimes there is zero technical review for very important patches and a fe…

> Most services on my machines are heavily locked down and isolated from each other since systemd makes this very easy Do you have a guide handy? A quick Google search only showed generic nonsense. I'll appreciate a recipe-like pointer. Been curious about this for a while.

> Keep in mind that Oracle is the copyright holder of ZFS. So you (and Ubuntu) are violating Oracle's license terms. Would be realy interesting to see what happens if Oracle decides to sue an Ubuntu user. Would Ubuntu step in to help?

There is nothing in the CDDL that prevent a user to use ZFS with a kernel under GPL license and no leverage for Oracle to sue the end user for this. The end user is not distributing the software. Ubuntu or possibly an hosting provider or a company incorporating ubuntu in its product does.

Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#74
post #18

There are virtualization options in FreeBSD, but I can't use FreeBSD in absence of mature OCI compatible container support, without going though hoops on bhyve. In present day, it matters a lot with a good amount of time being spent on docker/ kubernetes.

This is the same for me. ZFS native boot environments and such is a killer feature that I am envious of. Also proton gaming seems to be best supported on Linux from what I can tell.

ZFSBootMenu provides boot environments for Linux. The now defunct Project Trident, formerly PC-BSD and then TrueOS, had a gui installer that sets you up with

- ZFS on root install of essentially void Linux

- rEFInd with a kernel sufficient just to boot into

- ZFSBootMenu which lets you boot into a prior boot environment

- ZFS native encryption of /home per user directory set up to unlock when you log in via PAM and zfscrypt

- An update script that automatically creates a boot environment prior to updating

- A mediocre choice of display manager and their own customer desktop environment that was neither in my opinion terrible nor interesting. Trivially replaceable with a different DE and lightdm.

Trident is alas gone but all the pieces remain and work fine.

https://zfsbootmenu.org/

https://web.archive.org/web/20211223122028/https://project-t...

Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#75
post #62

I am using freebsd since version 8 for all my server needs (was using linux, but got repelled by its chaos which I dont care about on my laptop, but it pisses me off on server). Some more points: - bhyve, developed by netapp, they ditched all old technologies support and it works faster on my i5 server than kvm on my i7 laptop. Snapshoting using ZFS is not a feature to discard either. - FIBs, absolute miracle routing…

> it works faster on my i5 server than kvm on my i7 laptop.

What benchmark and what processors exactly?

Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#76
post #20

I have tried learning FreeBSD occasionally, mostly for nostalgia because I learned Unix on BSD 4.3 (or 4.4?) on MicroVaxes many years ago. But I get stuck on some very basic things: - My wifi card doesn't work. The installer recognizes it, but the driver doesn't work. - The console terminal defaults to 80x25, I don't know how to resize it. - I can't figure out how to start X Windows. - If I run it in a VM (e.g. Virtu…

If you're interested in trying out BSD on the desktop vs in a server or through some other BSD-based appliance distro (projects like OPNsense or TrueNAS Core which build on BSD but are mostly intended to be used from a Web GUI) you could take a look at GhostBSD [0]. It's a vastly more polished and desktop focused project that takes off many of the sharp edges of a plain vanilla FreeBSD install. Of course, "more polished" for BSD is still going to be a ways behind Linux these days. There just isn't the same level of hardware support, eyeballs and companies working on it. But it's not 00s era either, it's a pleasant functional experience. If one wants to test the waters a bit in an easier way it's an option worth considering. Ars did a decent little initial experience run through [1] a few years back (though since it is under active development a lot has changed since then) you could check out if interested. As demoed there it's very viable in a light VM so one doesn't even need to dedicate any hardware for a first try. That review also lists some of the other more GUI focused BSD distributions left out there.

Anyway, there are some options to ease into it more. I find some of the ancient FreeBSD-isms a bit grating on occasion but overall I'm glad it's part of the mix.

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0: https://ghostbsd.org/

1: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/not-actually-linux-d...

Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#77
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or pick an operating system where you don't need to read the handbook to get working WiFi.

I'm on Linux and have to get a rtw8852 driver from some random-ish gitHub repo to get WiFi in a recent Lenovo. Does this mean WiFI is only for Win/Mac?

RTW8852 based wifi, sure. You can get Linux preinstalled, and with full support from some places. I highly recommend doing that if you're going to run Linux. They'll not have that chip though. They'll have one that works.

Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#78
post #58
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desktop Linux is pretty comfortable and intuitive, actually. There's no challenge involved.

A guy I know (relatively skilled) spent a whole week setting up Linux on his laptop the other day. So I don't think it's always as predictable as to say there's never a challenge involved in 2022.

Not sure what do you want to prove with that anecdotal point. I've seen coworkers spend a month or 2 with both their new and old mac or windows laptops because they weren't seeing the end of migrating their stuff from one computer to another and setting up their dev environment.

Some people are just bad at this.

Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#79
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FreeBSD has the concept of a 'security level'. You can increase it at runtime, which disables more functionality, but you can't decrease it without a reboot. At security level 1, the immutable and append only attributes on files can't be removed, so even chattr -i would be useless.

Linux has SELinux, which is enabled by default in RHEL and derivatives. You could literally hand out root shell to people, and they wouldn’t be able to make much mess out of it. There are SELinux policies to prevent disabling selinux too, of course. You probably wouldn’t even need chattr.

SELinux is way more complex than security levels sounds here.

Re: Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)

#80
post #58
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desktop Linux is pretty comfortable and intuitive, actually. There's no challenge involved.

A guy I know (relatively skilled) spent a whole week setting up Linux on his laptop the other day. So I don't think it's always as predictable as to say there's never a challenge involved in 2022.

He should try putting OSX on the hardware. Wouldn't even start to work.

Clearly OSX is not ready for the desktop yet.

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