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

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

#131

Post by GekkePrutser »

intothemild wrote: post #84
ajross wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It runs circles around the docker in everything except how much it was adapted by community. ...except? Meh. People who want to engage in this argument are generally trying to argue about jails vs. the collection of linux container technologies. That's not Docker. Docker won because of Dockerfiles. Docker isn't, at its core, an interesting container technology. Docker is a simple metaphor and programming environmen…

I love FreeBSD and i love Jails, but you're right. Docker won because of simplicity. Dockerfiles make it super simple. There is similar stuff for jails but you need a jails frontend that use it. A few years ago i wanted to build the Jailfile equivalent, call it Warden, and have Warden manage the jails. But honestly i doubt it would get traction outside a small community.

> Dockerfiles make it super simple. There is similar stuff for jails but you need a jails frontend that use it.

But docker is just a frontend for linux containers :) You're not comparing the right things here: Linux containers with a popular frontend and all the trimmings, to barebones FreeBSD jails.

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

#132

Post by toast0 »

sgarland wrote: post #113
_abox wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're just different. It's a different OS. I agree some things don't make sense but some things on Linux don't make sense either. It's just a long heritage of things that have organically grown. Consider 'dd' for example, with its 'if=xxx' whereas other tools would use the format '-if xxx'. But it's a different OS. Solaris tools were different from the GNU toolset. HP-UX' tools were very different (try compiling so…

> Consider 'dd' for example This is a fair point, and I suppose something I just have grown used to, similar to how I can type `tar xvzf` without any `-` at all, and it works. > MacOS' tools are also different. Tbf when I talk of using BSD tools, I'm talking about using MacOS tools - I don't have any BSD installations, I just recognize that MacOS includes mostly (?) BSD tools by default. I do in fact install coreutil…

> Tbf when I talk of using BSD tools, I'm talking about using MacOS tools - I don't have any BSD installations, I just recognize that MacOS includes mostly (?) BSD tools by default.

It's not inaccurate, but somewhat unfair to use MacOS tools and call them BSD tools. They are ports of BSD tools, but Apple rarely refreshes them from the original sources, so it's kind of a time capsule to 2000. If you dropped 2000 era Linux userland on someone today, there would be a lot of complaints and concerns. On some tools, command flags added in GNU coreutils do get added to FreeBSD, although I did not check your list of specifics.

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

#133

Post by SoftTalker »

ajross wrote: post #128
SoftTalker wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Simple" is subjective. Have you ever looked at what Docker puts in your iptables? I challenge you to understand what's happening with your networking after that. If you want containers, lxc command line and a bit of configuration for a bridge interface is all you really need.

> If you want containers, [...] is all you really need. And that is the attitude embraced by jails (to be clear: rather more cleanly and attractively than the expression of the same ideas in linux), and precisely why it lost. No one wants "containers". They want docker . They want to be handed something that looks no more threatening than a mid-80's build script and have it magically be it's own little world with all…

The voodoo is what bothers me. As the person responsible for the server, when things go wrong I will get blamed. In that situation, I at least want it to be my fault.

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

#134

Post by jen20 »

naikrovek wrote: post #120
jeffbee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the number of BSD CVEs just boils down to the fact that nobody cares about BSD. Since nobody cares about it, its performance is also very 20-years-ago and doesn't stand up to modern linux performance. You could expect database performance (e.g. postgresql) to be 2-4x higher on linux under a highly concurrent load. There are thousands of full-time professionals around the world focused on linux performance and t…

> the fact that nobody cares about BSD I am quite certain that you would be shocked if you learned how many people use it. I've worked at two companies where more than 95% of servers ran FreeBSD, and these are absolutely companies that you have heard of. 10s of thousands of servers at each when I worked at them, and likely 5x that amount, now. lots of people care about FreeBSD. they just aren't known for crapping on…

So who are these companies? I hear references to them constantly, but pretty much the only ones willing to stick their head above the parapet are Netflix (in a single use case) and a few storage/network vendors using proprietary forks.

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

#135

Post by _abox »

pxc wrote: post #79
znpy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Securelevels are not just this. FreeBSD has its own SELinux equivalent called Mandatory Access Control:

https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/mac/

It goes far beyond making files immutable. I haven't really done a deep dive to see if it's on par with SELinux but the description in this thread doesn't do it justice.

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

#136

Post by nmz »

stingraycharles wrote: post #90
stiray wrote: 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…

From a technological perspective, everything you say is true, and FreeBSD is better in so many regards. But, compatibility and community support is just a deal breaker. The jails vs docker argument is a good example: while technically better, Docker (or rather, cgroups and image distribution) have been standardised and have tremendous community adoption. FreeBSD cannot tap into any of this at all. Yes, jails might be…

Nobody ever adopts it because nobody wants to support it, ergo nobody ever adopts it and nothing ever improves. Gotta love this little cycle of mediocrity the software world has going on.

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

#137

Post by gabereiser »

>On FreeBSD you'll notice right away that you're dealing with a "complete operating system", a system that has been put together very well.

Ugh, this argument is long in the tooth. It’s not a complete operating system. It never will be, and neither will GNU/Linux. To be “complete” you need to support all the hardware. You can’t.

Also, a base install of FreeBSD is missing the port tree sources… so complete…

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

#138

Post by jen20 »

jsiepkes wrote: post #38
5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #13

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…

> ZFS has first-class support on Ubuntu and is compiled into the kernel. And Ubuntu is also the only distribution which has ZFS. Using ZFS on any other distribution (for example RHEL, Rocky Linux, etc.) is a pain. Every update is Russian roulette in which it can break. And everyone except Ubutunu thinks it's a violation of the CDDL. Keep in mind that Oracle is the copyright holder of ZFS. So you (and Ubuntu) are viol…

> Keep in mind that Oracle is the copyright holder of ZFS. So you (and Ubuntu) are violating Oracle's license terms.

If anything IS a problem here it is violating the terms of the GPL, not the CDDL.

So no, no one is violating Oracles licensing terms - and if they were, they’d have been sued in 2016 when this shipped. Do you really think ORACLE of all people is just holding back out the goodness of their hearts?

Complete FUD.

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

#139

Post by ahepp »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #122
stiray wrote: 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…

> jails... docker? Really? Jails are 15+ years old implementation, kernel supported, that stood test of time, actually being a security feature. It runs circles around the docker in everything except how much it was adapted by community. I never understood why people rather used an inferior solution like docker. Docker has Dockerfiles, layers, and trivial push/pull of images. Compared to those workflow improvements,…

I've had a decent time writing little "jailfiles" and a create/destroy script. It's certainly nowhere near as ergonomic as docker though.

But it seems like a very solvable problem.

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

#140

Post by gabereiser »

bxparks wrote: 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…

Yet… “On FreeBSD you'll notice right away that you're dealing with a "complete operating system", a system that has been put together very well.” It’s a complete operating system. /s

This is why FreeBSD loses in my view. The arrogance of claiming to be a complete system when basic stuff like wifi doesn’t work.

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